Kaze's got more brain issues that need to be tended to.
Disclaimer: I still don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or, really, any character except Kiara and Kaze.
The days passed slowly with Kaze finally waking up and feeling better than she had in a long time and Hiei finally getting over his slight anemia from Kaze feeding off him. Kaze of course didn't remember any of it and couldn't understand why Hiei continued to treat her coldly. Hiei, though, was just embarrassed that he'd told her so much of his inner thoughts when he was caught off guard.
Finally the first day of the tournament arrived and Kaze led the way to the arena. They were one of the first fights, which annoyed the group quite a lot, but they shrugged it off, realizing that as long as they didn't lose there would only be four fights before the final deciding fight with the owner of the tournament. "So we won't be giving too much away to the next groups since we only have four important fights," Kaze said, trying to be optimistic.
"But if we can hide our abilities until our last fight that'd be best," Kiara grumbled, her mood turning sour quickly.
"What are you so negative about?" Kaze asked, frowning at Kiara, bumping into someone in her moment of distraction. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, bowing quickly to the man.
He smiled, and waved it off. "Don't worry about it," he said, walking off with his friend. Kiara stopped and turned back to the man, who had gray, spiked hair and a headband over one eye. He wore a blue mask over most of his face, the smile on his face only noticed by a slight crease in the fabric. He slouched along with his friend, a younger man who had brown hair tied up in a ponytail and a scar over the bridge of his nose, a headband like his companion over his forehead.
"I just feel like today is going to go really badly," Kiara mumbled, waving slightly when the younger man turned to see them, looking extremely surprised at their presence, before running to catch up with Kaze. Kaze held her head, another headache forming.
The six of them made it to the ground floor of the arena and took their place on their side of the stage. "Those are the ones we're fighting," Yusuke said, looking over at the demons pacing on the other side of the stage. The stage itself was white and circular, made of stone separated into diamonds.
"I recognize that one up front," Kurama said, looking at one with blue skin and pointed ears. "He controls with paint, I think."
"I don't think I want that one," Kaze states, also watching the demons. "I'd like the large one."
The largest one had a huge ax and dark green skin. He had scars over his body and a snarl on his face with one tooth hanging out. "Aw, I was gonna say I wanted that one," Kiara whined.
A commentator came out and described the rules. Each person had to fight until one was knocked out for ten seconds, dead, or out of the ring for ten seconds. The fighters would be decided on computer randomization. She turned everyone's attention to the screen and the first picture began scrolling through the people on the demon's side, landing on the large, snarling one. He complied by jumping into the ring, leaving a hole in the stage where he landed. "I want to go," Kaze mumbled at the screen as it scrolled through their pictures. She let out a huff of frustration when the picture landed on Kiara, who let out a happy sound and climbed to the stage, tugging her mini-skirt down so she didn't flash anyone.
The fight began and the big guy ran at Kiara, who side-stepped him, tripping the demon and sending him crashing to the ground. "He's kind of lame, can I get someone else?" Kiara asked the commentator as the demon struggled to stand. The demon heard her and jumped up, swinging his ax around. Kiara saw him half a second before the ax hit her and the commentator ducked. Kiara disappeared from in front of the commentator and she made the assumption that the ax had hit Kiara and began looking around frantically, trying to find her. Kiara stood up on the end of the demon's ax, drawing attention to herself, and ran along the ax to the demon, kicking him in the head and sending him crashing out of the ring.
The commentator began counting and Kiara curtseyed in response to the yells of anger from the demon's fans. The demon jumped back into the ring and swung the ax down at Kiara, who stepped half a step to the side, the ax crashing down next to her. "You're too slow," Kiara told the demon politely, grabbing the end of the ax, adding a small amount of energy to her hand, and lifting the ax and throwing it and its owner out of the ring again. This went on for a few more minutes until Kiara got tired of it and poured energy into her foot, stomping the ground and creating a small earthquake that unsettled the demon's footing before running at him, bending down, and sending a kick into his stomach, sending him not only out of the ring, but through the top of the arena and outside it.
"What part of 'don't show them what we can do' did you forget?" Kaze hissed, grinning at Kiara as she joined them after the commentator declared her the winner.
"The 'don't'," Kiara replied, grinning back. "I forgot how good it felt to fight someone."
The next picture that pulled up was the blue-skinned demon with the paints, followed immediately after by Kaze. "Oh, great," Kaze grumbled. "I don't want to fight an artist."
"He'll be dangerous," Kurama warned, unsurprised when Kaze waved off his warning and walked up the stairs to face off with the demon.
The commentator started the fight and the demon, swiped his paintbrushes at Kaze. Paint landed in a pattern on her neck and she frowned. "I don't feel any different," Kaze warned him before starting towards him. She took two steps before she sunk waist deep into the ground. "What the-!" Kaze shouted, struggling in the ground and ignoring the surprised look on the demon's face. "What did you do to me?!"
"I just took away your chakra," the demon said slowly, as if unsure.
"What the hell does that mean?" Kaze shouted at him, before realizing she couldn't summon any magic. "My magic! Ugh, when I get you… But that doesn't explain why I sunk into the ground!"
"Kaze, take off your jacket!" Kiara yelled, realizing what had happened. She could feel the glare from Kaze through the stage as she sunk down further, but knew she'd followed her advice when Kaze's jacket flew out of the hole and landed outside the ring, sinking into the ground on its own.
"And your belt!" Another voice yelled out as Kaze still sunk into the ground when she tried to pull herself out, though not as much as before. Kaze did as this voice said also without question, pulling off her wrist and ankle bands also until she could stand without sinking.
"That was strange," Kaze mumbled, the demon nodding in agreement, still surprised that Kaze had sunk into the ground. She shrugged and started towards the demon, surprised again when she was immediately in front of him, but kicked him in the side, sending him flying into the side of the seats around the arena with what she'd thought was a fairly light kick.
"How did you do that!" The demon shouted, pulling himself out of the rubble and climbing back onto the stage. "You shouldn't have any energy to add to your limbs!"
"I don't know what you're talking about, idiot," Kaze sighed, punching the demon when he came at her again.
The demon spat a tooth out onto the ground and stood up. "Very well, let's try this," the demon grumbled, pulling a sword handle out of his bag. Kaze, upon instinct, ran her hand into the ground and yanked up the top of one of the large diamond stones, holding it in front of her like a shield as the demon swiped the sword in her direction. Kaze heard the sound of metal hitting stone and her stone shield was cut in half. She stared at the demon in surprise, holding only a block of stone about five feet long and a foot wide and deep. The demon grinned and raised the sword handle again.
"What will you do now? You can't fly, and my invisible sword can cut through anything and everything on this stage," the demon asked.
"I can still jump and duck," Kaze told him, backing away while holding her stone.
"Not fast enough!" The demon laughed, swinging the sword handle at Kaze's head height first before swinging it down near her legs immediately after. Kaze felt the sword mass coming towards her head and dropped down to the ground, smug for a moment about dodging it until she felt it moving towards her again and realizing that she wasn't in a position to dodge again.
"Watch out!" Kiara shouted, also able to sense the direction of the sword even from her place outside the stage. Kaze planted her hand on the ground and was lifting herself up, ready to lose her arm rather than her life. The sword moved closer and Kaze wasn't out of the way yet when wings burst from her back and raised her high in the sky.
"Oh great, her wings are back," Kurama said, worried that Kaze would faint in the middle of her battle.
Kaze saw her wings and had a moment of panic before she realized she was confusing her opponent. She took the chance to throw the block she had in her hand at him, hitting him directly on the head. Instead of the brick stopping at his head like Kaze had thought it would, it busted right through his head, instantly killing the demon. The announcer was staring in shock at Kaze as she floated back to the ground.
"Can you start counting?" Kaze asked, waving her hand towards the demon with his head exploded all over the ground.
"I don't think that will be necessary," the demon stuttered, waving for someone to pick the demon up off the ground. "Kaze wins!" Kaze bowed in mockery and walked off the stage, her wings slipping into her back and quickly disappearing. She went and picked up her jacket to move it closer, carrying her jacket separate from the other weighted clothes so she wouldn't sink into the ground again.
"Are you feeling okay?" Kiara asked as Kaze set her weights down and sat on the ground. Yusuke was called up to fight the next demon, a scrawny one with yellow skin and black hair.
"I'm fine, I think," Kaze said, nodding. "I've gotten over the fact that I have wings and that I'm much stronger than I used to think I-" Without warning, Kaze fainted away in the middle of her sentence.
"I keep hoping she'll stay awake after finding something out about herself," Kiara sighed, sitting next to Kaze as she slept.
The next few fights passed while Kaze slept with Yusuke and Kurama both winning their fights without issue and propelling the group to the second round. The group was sent back to the hotel room to rest up for their next fight the next day and Kiara dragged Kaze onto her back and struggled out of the arena.
"Here, let me help," a man said, pulling Kaze onto his back with ease and walking with the group.
"Um, who are you?" Hiei asked unhappily, looking the white haired man up and down as they walked. "And why are you helping us?"
"This is Kaze's old teacher," Kiara introduced the man. "Kakashi-sensei, this rude thing here is Hiei. Over here is Kurama, Kuwabara, and Yusuke."
"Watch the word 'old'," Kakashi laughed, his eye crinkling as he smiled. "It seems she's still unable to remember herself," he continued, turning to indicate Kaze on his back.
"She's remembering more often," Kiara began. "But that also means she's fainting more often."
"Are you any closer to finding a way to get her memories back?" Another man asked with long, soft brown hair and gentle brown eyes. He was shorter than Kakashi by only a bit and had a scar across his nose.
"Iruka-sensei," Kiara said in surprise. The man smiled and waved at her. "K-kind of. We've found that a book here will be able to help us get back hoooo…. How did you guys get here?" She suddenly asked, realizing the two men were not in their right dimension.
"We got an invitation to a tournament," Kakashi answered.
"It was a little strange and very specific," Iruka continued. "The invitation said to bring some people to a building just outside the village. We walked through the door and found ourselves here with some people waiting for us."
"We got signed up for this tournament and they gave us the rules," Kakashi added, following Kiara up to their room. "We have a fight this afternoon to determine if we'll continue."
"When is your next fight scheduled?" Iruka asked Kiara kindly as Kakashi lay Kaze down on the couch.
"Tomorrow we get to be back in the rink," Kiara replied. "Thank you for carrying her for me. The weights are just too much for me."
"I understand," Kakashi said, nodding. "Well, we should get going and let the others know we've seen you so they aren't surprised if we end up going up against you later." The two men waved goodbye and Kiara shut the door after them, sighing.
"Are those two together?" Kuwabara asked suddenly from his seat.
"I wouldn't be surprised if they were," Kiara replied, shrugging. The group sat around, waiting for Kaze to wake up before convincing her to eat, ignoring her questions about her fight.