Howdy! Winter Solstice and a new chapter for some reading delight in the dark of night.
Okay I don't know where that came from...

Anywayyyy, I couldn't help but notice.. that my previous chapter made me lose a fav and follow.
Now of course, there's nothing wrong with this, but..but..but.. I would really very extremely much appreciate those who decide to quit on this story to either leave me a review or pm me about what made you lose interest!

Because as much as I love good reviews (don't we all?) it's the negatives that really help me see how the writing comes across to others.

I know you can't (and I don't intend to) please everyone, but I can only see my writing from my own narrow tunnel vision of read, reread, reread again and thus no longer see the stuff that makes it potentially bad.

I may not even agree with why someone decides the story's not for them, it can be very personal after all, but it's still good to know!
It doesn't have to be a lengthy detailed review, it could just be that you find the story progresses too slowly, or the protagonist annoys you for w.e. reason or I dunno.. but please don't be afraid to critisize! I respect other's opinions and it can potentially help me see things I would otherwise completely overlook.

So, without further ado, chapter 11! And as we all know, I Yu Yu Hakusho own do NOT.. . ehm?

Food definitely helped. Though she dragged herself out of bed a lot sooner than her new nurses would've liked.
She had to admit that, after so long of being drilled by different teachers, it was nice to be so fussed over. But she'd be damned if she faltered now that she'd finally made it into the team, they needed her to be strong and she needed to prove that she deserved to be here.

She'd wondered why Hiei hadn't shown up to drag her off to train in the morning, but then again, he probably already knew that she'd been too floored to do anything. And he did still have training of his own to do.

Sure enough, once she made it to the training grounds, she was greeted by a massive brawl in progress. She practically sweatdropped at the sight of several bodies pummeling each other into the dust.

"Good afternoon."

She turned to see Shishi standing next to her, wind casually playing with his violet locks as he stared out over the scene before them as if he was viewing the most breathtaking of sunsets. She shifted uncomfortably.

"Yeah, hi."

He slowly turned his pink eyes towards her, and looked her over from head to foot. His perusal made her feel like a slouch, she hadn't bothered bathing and was wearing a loose pair of shorts and a tank top with her hair in a messed up ponytail. She didn't figure it made sense to bother with her appearance around here, but this guy had a way of making her feel seriously underdressed.

"I see you've been quite thoroughly drained of energy."

She nodded, still a little uncomfortable under his ever staring gaze.

"Yeah, it's quite tough keeping pace with a teacher that's so much stronger than you are."

Shishi shrugged. "It's the best way to improve, though I'd be happy to share some meditative techniques if you wish."

She smiled. "Thanks, but, I think I have my hands full at the moment."

When he suddenly reached a hand out towards her she took an instinctive step back, but he smiled in an overly charming kind of way as he tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you."

Despite his words, he took a step towards her, making her look up in question. She turned to look at the fighting again when she heard Yusuke yell loudly. "You wanna repeat that to my face you big lug!"

She snickered, only to turn back to her awkward situation with Shishi when he took another casual step closer. What the hell was his deal?

She nearly sighed in relief when the arrival of Hiei made Shishi halt in his tracks. The fire apparition was once again shirtless and covered in dust and sweat. He'd definitely taken the time to train while she was lying about in a pile of jelly limbs.

He looked her over with his usual harsh and unreadable expression, completely ignoring Shishi.

"You're up sooner than I thought." The tone of his voice didn't give anything away as to whether that was a good or bad thing, but she was kind of getting used to Hiei's stand offish attitude. He turned around. "Let's go then." With that he vanished, making her groan when she figured he wanted her to follow. She'd barely had enough energy to drag herself down here in the first place.

She turned an apologetic smile to Shishi before taking a deep breath and jogging after him. In her current state, a jog really was all that she could manage.

Due to her lack in energy, they focussed on her learning to connect to another's essence for the next two days. To her utter enjoyment she improved quite rapidly. And, though she had the feeling Hiei didn't feel overly comfortably with it, she loved trying to connect to him. She couldn't read his mind or anything, she supposed that was a Jagan only speciality, but being able to feel and surround herself with his warmth in such a way felt, reassuring somehow.

She soon learned however, that, unless the individual she wanted to connect to specifically allowed it, she had no chance of doing so by simply trying to feel around them with her subconscious. So whenever she tried to casually 'test' her prowess at it during meal times or any other time outside of training, all she ever received was a burning glare from her teacher.

His attitude really grew on her though, and she never felt hurt by it. If anything it only made her want to spend more time with him, trying to draw out new reactions. Which usually ended up in another glare or him simply vanishing and leaving her to whatever she was doing. Maybe it was because she knew his story and knew that, despite his attitude, he'd never really dropped out on those he cared about. Or maybe she kind of agreed with Yusuke who'd mentioned during the Sensui thing that Hiei was 'so full of crap'. Either way, she was never scared of approaching him, like she suppossed he wanted her to be.

When training turned back to her energy use, she worked her hardest and managed to drain herself nearly everytime because she refused to call it quits. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was reprimanding herself for pushing so hard just to impress a guy, but she stubbornly ignored that little voice of reason.

Everytime she recovered, her energy appeared stronger and she lasted longer before it comepletely depleted. Trusting her instincts enough to shield only the part of her body that was about to be attacked took much more work however, and by the time Hiei deemed her ready to start training with the others, another month had passed. This left them only one more month to get her to settle into 'team spirit mode' and learn how to work together with each of them individually.

She'd decided to properly bathe that morning in a nearby lake she'd come across at the beginning of her stay. Feeling utterly refreshed from the cool water and happy to wear clean clothes again she combed her fingers through her wet hair as she made her way over to the training grounds. She even hummed slightly, wondering excitedly who she'd been teamed up with and who they'd be training against.

She smiled and waved when she noticed Kurama, who gently inclined his head in greeting.

"You're in an awfully good mood today."

Grinning broadly she tied up her clumsily combed hair. "Yep, I'm finally going to start the real deal today."

They fell into step together while walking to the ravines where they trained. Kurama meanwhile smiling at her enthusiasm while she eyed him suspiciously. "Do you know who's going to be up against who?"

Kurama shook his head. "I'm afraid not, when we train in teams we go through a selection, as they'll do during the tournament as well. Meaning it will be random every time."

Her face fell at that information. "So.. I may not even get to fight today?"

He chuckled lightly at her crestfallen reaction. "I'm sure we're all very curious to see what you can do. We'll probably stick to selecting only your partner randomly to be able to give you a chance at proper training."

She nodded, her smile firmly back in place.

Once they reached the grounds however, her smile wavered and she looked on curiously as she noticed Hiei and Mukuro sitting close to one another at the forest's edge. They appeared to be deep in conversation and suddenly her weeks of training with him felt hollow in comparison. She realized they'd never truly 'talked' together of anything, only trained with the occassional 'command' thrown in.

She shook her head, what did she care anyway? She was here to fight damn it.

Resolutely setting her shoulders, she followed Kurama to the edge of the cliffs where most were already waiting. Yusuke was holding two kinds of boxes with what appeared to be small pieces of paper inside. She looked at them curiously just as he yelled over to a slow to arrive Suzuka and Rinku. "Come on guys, we haven't got all day, let's get this party started!"

She noticed Keiko roll her eyes at Yusuke's eagerness while sitting down with the twins and Yukina on a spread out kind of picnic blanket. She smiled at Rei when she caught her eye and gave her a thumbs up, which kind of made Rei feel like she was in kindergarten and about to go for her first ever test.

Yusuke cleared his throat. "Okay guys, same as usual. We draw lots from this one for our opponents and this one." He held up the opposite box. "For the home team. Though today we'll draw one lot only since our new rookie here needs to train." He grinned at her before setting down the boxes on a raised rocky surface.

He cracked his knuckles thoroughly just as Hiei and Mukuro joined them at a casual walk. She couldn't help but look up at them while Yusuke's hand disappeared into one of the boxes and her heart froze when she saw the gem hanging around Mukuro's neck. She quickly looked away, trying to ignore the desolate feelings flooding through her. She took another quick peek before returning her eyes to the team selection. That was definitely a hiruseki stone and she was willing to bet it wasn't Yukina's.

She could slap herself, why was she reacting like this? Hiei never showed her the slightest indication that he was interested in her, she had no claim on him nor did she even want to. Did she? She groaned inwardly, remembering the effects Kurama's herb had had on her, then how much she'd enjoyed spending time with him over these past few weeks and now this. This obvious reaction of hurt and, dare she say, jealousy.

Oh, my, god, she could cry for all the good it'd do her. She didn't need to complicate her situation any further by falling for one of her team mates.

"Yo! Earth to midget, can we get started please?!"

She blinked as she looked up into Yusuke's impatient face. "I'm sorry we bore you squirt but there's work to do."

She smiled awkwardly, biting her lip when she realized she'd lost focus and hadn't heard who the teams were going to be.

"Sorry, I'm ready."

Yusuke nodded. "Good, let's go then. We're training for anything, so no such thing as a ring or a ten second count around here. If you wanna quit just yell 'give' but it does mean you leave your team mate hangin'."

He glowered to Kuwabara for a moment who appeared to be very interested in some bird flying overhead just then.

"Besides that, we're all friends here, so try not to kill anyone." He winked at her before stepping up and shoving her over to the cliff's edge.

She turned her head to look at him. "Ehm, who's my team mate?"

Yusuke gave her an exasperated look. "You're with Kurama, facing off against Touya and Rinku."

She swallowed nervously and Yusuke gave her a reassuring pat on the back. Though it could be seen as more of a slap since the force of it nearly made her fall over. "Don't worry squirt, Kurama's not gonna let things get out of hand. You'll do fine."

With that he pushed her over the edge and she yelled as she plummeted down to the ground, only barely scraping herself together to create her flexible shield in time and bounce awkwardly before landing on the ground next to Rinku, who looked her over with renewed interest.

He held out his hand and pulled her up, looking up at her a little strangely. "You know, I kinda hoped I wouldn't be the smallest anymore, what with you joining us."

She smiled apologetically at him and shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint. If it helps, I don't think size matters."

He grinned happily just as she heard Yusuke burst out laughing above them, only then realizing her comment could be taken several ways. She glared up at him before taking her place next to Kurama.

"Okay so, Hiei taught me to connect to my team mate through his essence." She smiled awkwardly. "But then, you knew that."

Kurama nodded reassuringly. "Ready when you are."

Ignoring the nerves that started to rear their nasty head, she focussed out her energy and tried to feel out Kurama, who quite openly invited her in. Connecting to him was easier than she'd thought and she smiled when she felt the tranquility that was his essence.

"Good, now do you think you can shield me from that vantage point up there?" Kurama indicated a spire some ways from where they stood and she nodded. "I think so."

Without warning he picked her up and jumped over several rocks before elegantly landing on top of the spire. "I'd like you to stay out of harm's way for now, just to see if you can indeed keep shielding me with two attackers."

She nodded excitedly before he jumped back down. Squeezing her hands into fists in determination, she kept her focus on Kurama, she would do her damnedest to make him invincible in this fight.

Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply, slowly letting the breath escape through her mouth as Yusuke started yelling over the wind. "Ready?! GO!"

Relaxing, she allowed her instincts to take over, her corporeal form practically becoming numb as her mind remained entwined with Kurama's. And like an infrared display, she saw and felt the presence of each fighter, feeling their attacks before they came and shielding every one of them with the smallest amount of energy required to keep from draining herself.

Exhilaration soon took over when she realized it was working better than she'd hoped and Kurama's opponents started fighting more ferociously in their annoyance at not being able to land a single hit.

She could hear rocks exploding and tree trunks cracking, but she refused to open her eyes for fear of losing focus.

Even Touya's shards of winter were no match this time, for she shielded every individual bullet just like Hiei had taught her to.

The combination of their attacks being rendered useless and Kurama's ample knowledge of his opponents, decided the match within the hour and when Yusuke declared Kurama and Rei the winner she opened her eyes and cheered in excitement. "YES!"

Kurama gave her an encouraging smile as he stopped by to pick her up and carried her back upto the cliff edge where their spectators were waiting. "Very well done. I must say I didn't expect you to be quite so good just yet."

She smiled broadly at the compliment. "Neither did I! Their attacks didn't exhaust my energy nearly as much as I thought they would."

He gave her a knowing smile before explaining. "Hiei trained you well, and your own energy has increased greatly this past month. But in connecting to me you also managed to intertwine some of my own energy into yours, which caused for some interesting effects."

She frowned. "Really? How?"

Kurama shrugged. "Who knows, but it seems you're very adept at joining with another on a subconscious level. The shields you formed around me weren't your signature pink colouring either. They seemed a combination of the both of us." He thought for a moment. "I suppose that is why their attacks didn't overly exhaust you this time."

She grinned, just as Yusuke came over to pull her into a headlock again. "Well done squirt! We'll make you into an asset yet."

She craned her neck awkwardly to smirk up at him.

"You up for another round?"

They kept training her for nearly the whole day, by the end of which, she was exhausted, but she'd never had so much fun in her life.
After her second match once again being with Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara tried all kinds of tricks to rig the match up system so they could have a go with her. Though in Kuwabara's case, she'd been forced to fight as well, since he couldn't take on two S classes on his own even with her shields, which led to the both of them having received several decent bruises.

"We just gotta work on you being able to shield two people at once! But hey, even if we don't get there before the tournament, you're already a real good team member." She smiled gratefully at Kuwabara, who was bleeding profusely from his nose while reassuring her.

They walked back together in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Not wanting to let her mind dwell on the Hiei and Mukuro thing again she broke their companionable silence after a few moments. "So.. I heard you entered the Makai tournament last time?"

Kuwabara grinned a lopsided grin, misshapen by his slowly swelling face. "Yeah.. entering again next year too."

"Heh, really? Why would you want to rule over all of demon world?"

Kuwabara shrugged. "I think it might be good you know.. mellow them out towards humans a bit. They might wanna eat us less if they knew us better." He scratched the back of his head. "Though even I gotta admit I didn't think I'd actually win or nothin'."

His easy going grin made her smile back at him, before she casually asked. "So, who'd you lose to?"

Kuwabara laughed. "The shrimp beat me somethin' good, I think he was honestly tryin' to rip me a new one." He seemed to think for a while before he noticed her questioning gaze. "Oh this was while Yukina was still pregnant." He pulled a face that clearly showed he didn't like remembering this particular period so much. "I'm afraid he wasn't very happy with the news.. Though I gotta admit." He looked up at their surroundings again. "If I'd a known the shrimp was Yukina's long lost brother, I mighta thought twice about entering the darned tournament." He muttered a bit under his breath as he continued. "I still think he bribed the committee to make sure he'd get a crack at me."

Rei laughed. "Well at least he didn't kill you."

Kuwabara beamed, his eyes taking on a dreamy quality. "No, my dear sweet lovely Yukina would've frozen him solid if he'd tried!"

Rei just shook her head at his enthusiasm when speaking of his girl, but she was grateful for the distraction as he started telling her about how they'd met and how he'd finally convinced her he loved her.

By the time they entered their glorified camp he was telling stories about the twins and how, when they were newborns, he'd walked around with a constant cold due to all the temperature changes in their environment.

She could tell by his enthusiasm that he really loved his family more than anything, making some of his abundant happiness rub off on her and leaving a warm smile on her face.

When he noticed them, Yusuke waved them over. "Come on squirt! Dinner's on us tonight. Keiko got us some ingredients from human world to make a killer ramen."

Relieved to hear she'd finally be eating some recognizable food, Rei happily jogged over and smelled at the cooking pots. "Ohhh, that smells wonderful!" She jumped slightly when Jack suddenly landed on her shoulder and sniffed the food as well.

"Tsk, I'd rather have fresh meat."

Rei rolled her eyes, but smiled at her little friend nonetheless. "You always eat raw meat. Maybe you should broaden your horizons." He gave her a look as though she'd just told him he was wearing a dolly dress, making her laugh.

Her laugh died abruptly though when she heard a laugh from across the fire that she'd never heard before. Sure enough her eyes landed on Hiei, once again conversing with Mukuro, who seemed to be smiling a little secretive smile while Hiei was actually laughing whole heartedly at something she'd said.

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, Rei turned from the scene and looked at the others who appeared to be playing some kind of card game. Jack looked her over curiously and then started sniffing her neck, making her recoil. "Hey! What the hell are you doing?"

He lazily let himself lie over her shoulder like a dead weight, his paws and tail dangling down as he gave her a look that said she was in serious trouble. "Do we have an eansy weansy crush on a certain fire demon?"

She glared at him, before looking around if anyone had overheard. Luckily, everyone was too busy and he hadn't spoken too loud. Quickly making her way to a more private area she plucked him off her shoulder and set him down on top of a barrel. "First off, that's none of your business and secondly, why the hell were you sniffing me to find that out?"

He quirked a lazy brow at her. "So you're not denying it?"

She sighed and dragged a hand through her hair. "I don't know! Those two together makes me uncomfortable.. and I guess.. a little envious.. so yeah maybe I do have feelings for him, but so what?! It doesn't change anything. We're here on business, that's it. Strictly business."

He yawned quite deliberately at her lengthy attempt at reasoning away her feelings. "Well, with that attitude you're never going to conquer a fire elemental anyway, so I guess it's for the best."

She frowned at him, but decided it was probably better not to ask him what he meant. Crossing her arms she glared down at him. "Why were you sniffing me?"

Her eyes turned round in horror when he confirmed her suspicions. "Being interested in someone has an effect on your scent witch, it's an animalistic thing, your body's trying to attract him with your smell."

She clasped her hands in front of her mouth. "Oh. My. God. No way, no way, no way. You mean everyone's going to know?"

He rolled his eyes at her anxiety. "Relax, I only know the difference because we've been hanging out for nearly a year already, I know your regular scent as well as my own by now."

He hopped back down onto the ground and started back towards the others.

"Let me know if you change your mind about getting in his pants witch! I know how to entice a creature born of fire after all." He winked at her, narrowly avoiding a swipe she made for him and laughing as he darted off.

It was late, and she knew she should be sleeping and gathering her strength for another training day. But instead she lay there staring out the window, looking at the multi coloured stars that lay strewn on the blackest sky she'd ever seen. Jack was snoring loudly, occassionally making twitchy movements with one of his paws.

He had kind of made her feel like she was taking the wrong approach, trying to stuff her feelings in a corner and continuing to focus on what she was actually here for. Somewhere in the back of her mind that tiny voice seemed to be agreeing with him.

She sighed and rolled over onto her side, squeezing her eyes shut and willing sleep to come.
Then she remembered her first thoughts when she'd discovered she was dead.. "I only ever focussed on my fighting and the subsequent tournaments I wanted to win..." She mumbled it to herself, rolling back over to lie flat on her back and stare up at the ceiling.

It was true she'd never really done anything to actually enjoy life.. sure she enjoyed fighting and participating in tournaments, but she'd never really lived. And it had been her first regret upon realizing she would no longer get a chance to.

But now.. she did have a chance to. She grumbled in annoyance and kicked at the sheets. Though of course it'd be her rotten luck to fall for someone who was undoubtedly taken and if he wasn't, why the hell would he ever become interested in her?

She lifted up her arms and slapped both hands to her cheeks. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself!"

Jack grumbled a little in his sleep at the noise she made, making her eyes swerve in his direction. Her face set in newfound determination. The damned dragon was right, so what if he wasn't interested? Life's too short not to take any chances, she'd be damned if she died again and realized she still had regrets. This time, she was going to make the most of it! And if that meant finding a way into Hiei's frozen heart then by damned she'd work her hardest to do it!

She frowned slightly at herself. But how? She couldn't very well walk up to him and ask to be his girl, they weren't in primary school for goodness sake and he'd probably think she was on some drug or other.

Then there was the problem of Mukuro, she couldn't deny those two were awfully close, but considering their shared history and somewhat similar pasts it wasn't very surprising.

The fact that he'd given his Hiruseki stone to her made her uneasy though, it could just be a symbol of deep respect and trust, but it could also be more than that. If her mother had shed a tear when giving birth to her and it had solidified into a gemstone which would have been her only link to her heritage for her entire life... it'd be a damned precious object wouldn't it? Who better to give that to than the one you intended to spend your life with?

She groaned and smacked her pillow into a more comfortable shape before huffing and lying down again. First, she needed to find out how serious those two were. If they were an item, she'd back off, move on and if she survived this madness in the Makai, maybe she'd meet a nice human guy at some point in her life. But, if they were not together that way, well, she had no experience at seducing men, she would definitely need pointers on how to seduce a demon.

Finally able to relax after having come to a decision, she soon managed to fall into a much needed, restless, slumber.