ok! finally! everything is explained in this chapter and the stroy can finally progress into the future!

Facing Your Inner Demons

Ch 10: Kelly's Story

"About two weeks ago, on a Saturday, my family was out and I was the only one home," Kelly began. "It was like, a little after one in the afternoon, I guess. I was in the kitchen when I heard the front door open in the living room. I thought my brother might be home so I didn't go check.

"Next thing I knew I was on the ground fighting for consciousness. My head throbbed with pain. Inoji knelt down and I finally got a good look at him. I remember thinkin' I had gone mental and then everything went black.

"I woke up in more pain than I had ever been in. Everything hurt," Kelly closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself.

"I was in Inoji's lab. There were a bunch of other demons there, looking over charts and computers. When one of 'em noticed I was awake, they called Inoji. He came and I'll never forget the creep smile on his face. He was so happy with what I had become," she opened her eyes again.

"Of course, I didn't understand what had happened to me. I only knew that I was in so much pain. Inoji told me it was because my body was still 'transforming' or somethin'. My body was gettin' stronger and becoming more demon-like I guess you could say.

"The pain left after about one and a half days. When I could finally focus without the pain getting' in the way, Inoji brought me a mirror. I had the weird markings all over me, my teeth were all vampire-like, and my hair had these purple streaks in it," Kelly motioned to herself and her hair.

"Inoji told me of demons and the spirit world, the three kings, and the tournament. Inoji apparently had high hopes for me. He said somethin' 'bout me havin' the capability to reach the level of a lower S-class demon, maybe higher but it was unlikely."

"How strong are you now?" Hiei surprised her by asking.

"In the last training session I had with Inoji, he told me that I was at least in B-class. He said a little bit more training and I would be a lower A-class. The ability to progress quickly was a small quirk that Inoji had given me," she told him with no emotion in her voice.

Hiei nodded but said nothing. Kelly took this as a signal to continue.

"Inoji then explained what he had done to me. I understood most of it, but didn't see how any of it was possible. He said that he had injected me with demon genes. He said that he was able to make it so that the genes were injected directly into my cells and into the DNA. When the cells duplicated, they contained demon genes. It was like a chain reaction, ya know? Start with one cell and soon all of 'em were part demon, kinda like Spiderman. I guess that the only part of me that is completely human would be my brain."

"Why just the brain?" Yusuke asked.

"Because brain cells do not divide," Kurama told him. "The demon DNA would never have reached the DNA of her brain cells to begin with, let alone divide into more brain cells."

Kelly nodded. "Right, so Inoji would have had ta inject every single cell in my brain with demon genes. Which is almost impossible."

Yusuke nodded showing that he understood, for the most part at least.

Kelly continued, "Inoji had taken the genes from many types of demons, so I actually have lots of different demon types within me. That's why my markings are all outta wack. There's so many demons genes, hence so many markings. I can also control just about every element, though each element is limited to a certain point because of that wide range of control. I can only do so much with a certain amount of demon genes."

As if to emphasize this point, Kelly held out her hand and focused her energy. A fireball appeared in her hand. It glowed red and orange but was quickly replace by a ball of water taken from a cup on the table near her. The water was in turn frozen into another ball. Kelly let it drop into her hand and then threw it up into the air. She held out her hand and a gust of wind blew the frozen water back into the cup it had come out of. She left her hand held out and suddenly it was surrounded with electric sparks. Kelly let the sparks turn brighter until suddenly they stopped.

"And then of course my demon energy," Kelly said. She held her hand out again, palm up and focused a ball of green energy there. "And my spirit energy…" The ball of energy turned blue. "And finally, my half-demon energy…" The ball turned a bright silver color.

Kelly's face screwed up in concentration as she struggled to keep the energy in her hand. The ball sparkled, the energy flowing from her hand too freely. She lost control and the energy exploded in her hand.

"Shit!" Kelly yelled. She pulled her hand to her chest where she cradled it. She pulled it back to examine it. There was a black scorch mark on her palm and it stung terribly.

Damn it Kel. You should be able to control this by now," Kelly muttered to herself.

"Here, let me see it," Kurama said gently, holding one of his hands out. Kelly hesitated but then gave her hand to him as he examined it.

Still holding her hand, Kurama reached into a fold in his strange shirt and pulled out a small bottle filled with some type of ointment. He took the cap off, poured some of the ointment onto Kelly's wound and rubbed it in.

"It always explodes," Kelly said sheepishly as Kurama worked on her wound. Inoji said it was because my demon energy counter acted with my spirit energy. It doesn't do that for natural half-demons because the demon energy is natural. My spirit energy isn't well used to my demon energy, I guess you could say. My body and control acts as a medium and when that control is gone, the two energies explode."

"There," Kurama said, releasing her hand. "That will ease the pain and make it heal faster."

Kelly thanked him and pulled her hand pack. The pain had subsided slightly already.

"That was an interesting display of power," Mukuro said.

"Yeah it was!" Yusuke agreed loudly. "I never thought it was possible for someone to be able to control so many elements."

"It's not, actually," Kelly told him. "The only reason it is possible for me is because that was the way I was made. Inoji wanted me to be able to do this. I was… created… to be used as a weapon."

"I thought he made you to, you know, just brag that he did," Kuwabara said.

Kelly shook her head. "No, he was actually hired to make a half-demon. At least, this time he was. I know that in the past he had tried and failed, just because he wanted to. But this time someone paid him to make me. He used the other doctors and then killed them when I was complete." That caught everyone's attention.

Koenma finally spoke up. "Hired? By who? And why?"

"I only know that the demon's name is Lon." Kelly paused to see if anyone recognized the name. Nobody said anything so she continued. "He hired Inoji to create a half-demon and then train said half-demon until the next tournament arrived, which is next year or somethin' like that. I was supposed to be strong enough to win I guess and when I did I would be king but follow whatever Lon told me to do. So I guess he's not very strong, but very rich. But then again, that doesn't really make sense to me…"

"Why not?" Botan asked.

"Because, if I was strong enough to beat all those demons in the tournament, then couldn't I just kill him?" Kelly pointed out.

"You're right, that doesn't make sense…" Koenma agreed. He shook his head then said, "Well, we'll try to figure that out later. You should finish with your story."

"Oh… right… lovely," she said sarcastically. She took a deep breath once more to prepare herself.

"Well, after I was informed and all, Inoji decided to begin training. For the first half of the day I would train trying to control my powers. What I just showed you was about how far I had gotten. I can use them as attacks, but I figured this wasn't the place to show you.

"About halfway through the first week though I discovered that I could concentrate my energy into a solid form and create weapons."

Once again, Kelly paused to demonstrate. She held out both hands, concentrated her demon energy and formed two sabers, one in each hand. If it weren't for the green color, one would have thought they were real. Kelly released the energy and the weapon disappeared.

"Also, as Hiei saw in my mind, I can emanate music from my body. This is the only one of my abilities that is not an attack and the only one that is caused by my spirit energy. It was something that was greatly affected by my human life and brought out by my training with Inoji. Remember, he chose me because I had unnaturally high spirit energy for a human, as I'm sure Yusuke and Kuwabara do, though mine is not nearly as powerful, nor will it ever be."

Kelly laughed quietly. "That's a lot of power isn't it? It's actually kind of ridiculous, but that's the way Inoji intended it to be I think. His plan kinda backfired though. With so many powers, I will never be strong enough to control them all, never strong enough to compete with any of you."

"Anyway, the second part of the day was physical training. I was brought into the basement of the palace… mansion… thingy… where there was a huge maze. Inoji made me run through it. If I made a wrong turn, I had to fight a demon he had sent in. I didn't win a lot when I first started, but I got better. Eventually I never lost and it was only when I got out of the maze did I have trouble.

"Inoji… always waited… for me at the end," Kelly said in a low voice. She looked at the ground and continued, "He would attack me and I never stood a chance. He always won, and when he did, he… he…" but she couldn't finish.

"She took a deep breath and said, "He never got all the way though. I would eventually find the strength to throw up a barrier, the one you guys broke through. Which is impossible by the way. I don't know how you did it." She continued to look at the ground.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. She didn't look up but she knew the hand belonged to Botan.

"I broke the barrier," said Kuwabara quietly.

Kelly finally looked up and blinked. "How?"

Kuwabara held out his right hand and suddenly a sword made of his energy seemed to sprout from his hand.

"With this," Kuwabara said to Kelly. "It has the power to break through any barrier and even dimensions. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah actually…" Kelly said, smiling at him. "I didn't think that it was possible to break my barriers. It's the one power I had completely mastered, the one power I made perfect. Mainly because I had to…" she trailed off, lost in thought.

Her thought were interrupted after a moment by Yusuke. "So that silver energy that exploded on your hand, how did you learn to control that?"

Kelly looked at him and cocked her head. "Control it? She asked. "I can't control it. Like you said, it exploded in my hand!"

Yusuke shrugged and said, "That's not my point. You were able to use it. How?"

Kelly sat and thought. She wanted to ask why it mattered. Yusuke could probably use the energy as well, though it might have been a different color. After all, he was a half-demon too. What was the big deal? However, she figured that she should just answer the question.

"Yeah, I'm able to use it. It's harder to control than my spirit energy or my demon energy because of the reasons I gave earlier, but I'm gettin' there," she answered. "Why? Wha' 's wrong?" she asked, making 'what is' sound like one word melded together without it being the contraction. There was no 't' in the word she used.

"Nothing's wrong. The detective is just jealous that an onna like you who has had your powers for only two weeks is already able to harness powers of a hanyou," Hiei remarked with a smirk on his face.

This brought laughs from everyone but Yusuke and Kelly, the former of which scowled and yelled, "Listen shrimp. You keep talkin' like that and I'll give you a repeat of our last fight!"

"Hn. Our last fight was a draw, remember?" Hiei responded. He then turned his attention to Kelly who looked confused and hurt at the same time.

"An onna like me, huh?" Kelly said with a sad smile on her face. "Am I that pathetic?"

A small flicker of emotion flitted across Hiei's face, but he was his same stoic self within seconds.

"Oh. No, Kelly he didn't mean that, did you Hiei?" Botan said, looking back and forth from Kelly to Hiei.

Kelly didn't wait to find out if Hiei would respond. "It doesn't matter. Its fine," she assured Botan who still looked at Kelly with a worried face.

Mukuro turned to Hiei and said, "Hiei that was hardly necessary."

Hiei shot an angered look and then looked back at Kelly. She seemed fine, but Hiei could see in her eyes that she was upset. He didn't understand why though. She shouldn't have taken what he said so literally. Was she afraid of being rejected by them?

Kelly looked over to Yusuke and asked again, "So what's wrong with me being able to use my half-demon power?"

Yusuke shrugged and responded, "Nothing's wrong. In Hiei's own way, he was right. I was kinda surprised that someone who only had two weeks of training could already use their half-demon power."

"Oh… okay I guess," Kelly said with a confused look on her face. "Anyway, I guess that basically sums everything up, right? For your report, I mean." She said to Koenma who had been quiet for most of Kelly's story.

Koenma nodded. "Yes, that's everything I need. Thank you," he said as he stood up. "Now about your returning home, I'm afraid you're going to have to wait a little bit. We need to somehow explain where you've been. Your parents reported you missing of course, so you cannot just pop up out of nowhere. We will also need to assign you with a bodyguard."

"A bodyguard? That sucks," Kelly said. "Can't I just beat up any demons that come after me on my own?"

"Wait, why would demons go after her?" Botan asked.

"Cuz, like I said, I was made this way for a reason. Lon wanted me and now he's lost me. He'll be after me," Kelly answered her.

Kurama and Hiei stole a glance at each other then quickly turned away.

-Well, at least we're dealing with a smart onna.- Hiei said telepathically to Kurama.

-Yes. It does help that she is fully aware of all the dangers that surround her.- Kurama thought in return.

Kelly turned back to Koenma with a pleading look in her eyes. Koenma shook his head.

"I'm sorry Kelly, but you need a bodyguard," he told her.

"Crappers," Kelly said with a sigh.

Yusuke chuckled and said, "You say some weird things."

Kelly smiled at him. "Yeah but at least I'm not so weird that I can have the nickname slick," she said, pointing to his hair. "Seriously, like Danny Zuko much?"

ha ha you know, like Danny Zuko from Grease? Kuwabara and Yusuke's hair always reminded me of them so i put that in there

o yeah... Kelly's silver hanyou energy is the same as Yusuke's gold one... the one he used in his fight against Yomi. They (meaning the main characters) first thought it was Sensui's sacre energy but it wasn't. In fact they never told you what it was... so i made it his hanyou energy and made Kelly's silver energy the same thing only not nearly as strong

please remember that Kelly will never be as strong as the others... like never it was the price she and Inoji payed for having all those powers that she does she may make it to S-class but it will be a lower S-class, nothing like Yusuke and the others