A/N: Umm… So… I'm still alive, if you're asking...

If you are still with me, thank you so much. I know it's been a LONG time since the last time I updated.

So here is the new chapter. For those who had waited patiently, thank you so much, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam SEED/Destiny

Chapter 13

As Cagalli finished tidying up her room, she sat on her bed. Thinking about what had happened this week.

Only her group knew about the fact that she was related to Kira's family. People were warming up to her again. She started to feel like normal people. Even with the tense situation between her and Meer. That dark haired girl just couldn't realize the obvious thing. She tried to seduce Athrun everyday and made him had to hide from her. She even asked him to go with her while Cagalli was practically glued to him. And after her 'girl talk' with Lacus and Miri, what she felt toward her was a thing called jealousy.

It wasn't a pleasant feeling at all, Cagalli though. She never felt this kind of feeling. She never had anything to be jealous of. She only knew sadness and loneliness. And these days, Cagalli felt like she had forgotten those feeling already. She only felt happiness with Athrun now, and surrounded by people who mostly loves her.

When she was thinking if there was any way to wake Meer from her own delusion, Cagalli heard someone knocked on her door.

"Have you forgotten our date?" Kira stepped into her room. Cagalli then remembered their conversation that day. She suddenly felt nervous about this. She didn't know what to expect from their 'date'. Kira had said that they would be training her power. But what kind of training was it? Would she be able to do this? She didn't know anything about her power, not at all. How could she handle it?

"Hey, you look so nervous," Kira said as he noticed the troubled look on Cagalli's face. "I've been through it before, so I knew your feeling. But there is nothing to worry about. You're a guardian. You will learn quickly. Trust me." He walked to her bed and reached out his hand to her.

Cagalli took it slowly. She noticed her hand was trembling slightly, and took a deep breath to calm herself.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Kira assured her and pulled her with him. "We'll go to the woods for a while," he said as he passed his mother.

"Be easy on her, dear," Via said, "And come home before dinner."

"Will do," He replied as she walked out of the house with Cagalli. Before she got out of the house, Cagalli caught a glimpse of Meer glaring at her from the stairs where she was standing.

Cagalli was looking at her surroundings. It was just the same with the woods near her house, because it was part of it, though this was right behind Kira's house and far from that park. But if she wandered a bit, she could go to her house from here.

"People wouldn't come here. They are still a bit afraid with that story of witch from the woods. Now," Kira stretched his hands dramatically, as if preparing for a battle with some bad-asses. His cocky grin was just an addition to the effect.

"W-will I get hurt?" Cagalli asked in low voice.

"I hope you won't," he was still grinning, and laughed out loud when he saw Cagalli cringed at his words. "Oh, chill, Cagalli. I think you'll just get some scratches," Kira assured her, waving his hands to shake the fear from Cagalli's mind. "Now, come closer."

Cagalli did as she was told. After a few moments of blinking and trembling slightly, she looked up to see his face.

"So, let's begin, your first training as a guardian," Kira stated.

Cagalli nodded her head. She inhaled, straightening her posture and looked straight at Kira's eyes. "I'm ready."

"Good," Kira nodded his head. "Okay… You know… that we, the descendants of the Blue Dragons can control woods, right?"

Now Cagalli nodded for understanding his words. She figured that much, since she could only break woods into ashes and pieces. But when Athrun showed her his fire, he didn't tell her more about the other guardians' power. "What about the other guardians' power?"

"The Red Bird element is fire. The White Tiger's is earth, and the Black Tortoise's is water," Kira explained. "You must know that in our body, we have this power called 'Pneuma', and this power affect our body greatly. It can cause us disease, and also can cure us," he paused to see if Cagalli was following him until now. She just looked at him, like a student keeping her attention to her teacher. So, he continued, "Our 'Pneuma' is not a constant thing. Sometimes, we have enough of it, but on the other times, we might have more or less than the amount our body need.

"In this earth, there are three things as the provider of Pneuma. They are earth, sun and wood. Earth provides pneuma for the Tortoise and the Tiger, sun provides for the Bird, and wood for us, the dragon. We can control our pneuma as we want, and it's easier for us that other people. We have the ability to control and flow our pneuma to our providers, and link their pneuma and ours so we can become one with them. Sort of like borrowing the strength they have," Kira finished. "So, do you understand?"

"I don't think I do…," Cagalli replied shyly. All of the explanation was making her confused and more nervous. Kira made it seem hard for her to control things.

"Yeah. It took me a while to understand it too. But the practice is the thing you need more than the theory. So let's practice," Kira moved a step closer to her. "Close your eyes."

Cagalli did as what Kira told her. Her other sense were increasing a bit; just what usually happened when she disabled one of her senses.

Kira did the exact same thing while giving her the next instructions. "Take a deep breath from your nose. Imagine the oxygen you took flowing from your nose goes to your lungs… and then it spreads through your body. Imagine that one breath taking all the toxins from your entire body… Continue to your abdomen… When it reaches your tail bone, imagine it flowing upward, through your spine, sweeping all the filthiness inside… Slowly… when it reaches the back of your head hold it there. One… two… three… The polluted breath is passing through your head now… And exhaled through your mouth…"

Cagalli released the breath that had traveled through her body. She opened her eyes and looked at Kira strangely. Was that what their training would be, just like that?

Kira chuckled. "That was to make sure your body is ready. We have to clean it from anything that might filth your body. You have to repeat that two more times." Cagalli obeyed and did just that. And then, she felt like her body was being refreshed.

"Feeling better now?" Kira asked, smiling. Cagalli returned the smile, bobbing her head up and down. "It seems easy this far."

"Okay then. Now, just like before, you take a deep breath. But now, imagine it goes from your nose to your lungs… And then it spreads to your arms," Kira did just like that for Cagalli. She did just that too, mirroring Kira's movement. Both had their arms in front of their chest; they were looking at their palms. "And it ends on your palms… Put your hand palms facing each palms."

"Like this?" Cagalli asked, holding out her hands in front of her chest, looking like she was holding an imaginary concertina.

"Yes. Imagine your just taken breath as power radiating through your palms."

"It feels warm," Cagalli said, seemed fascinated with her own power. It didn't make her nervous anymore. She was excited.

"Can you feel it? It's like you are holding a balloon between your hands," Kira said, moving his hands like she was trying to squeeze a balloon lightly.

"You're right!" Cagalli pushed her hands, and felt something like balloon in there. "Is this my power?" she looked up at Kira.

"Yep. That's your pneuma, and that means you are able to control it in basic level. To move to the next stage, you have to be used to it; focusing your mind, feeling the pneuma flowing through you and the pneuma that envelops your body. Now try to imagine your power going back slowly to your entire body."

For a few hours, Cagalli trained her body to be used to this practice. After she mastered how to control her power, she tried to do it faster than when Kira told her how to do it step by step. She couldn't use her power in that pace when she was in a battle.

Kira admired her determination to train. She must be exhausted because Cagalli was not used to extort her power out of her this long, and it had usually been by accident. Now she had to concentrate hardly and forces her power out, so she must be tired, physically and mentally.

"Look at that tree," Kira said. Cagalli could do this, he thought.

Cagalli followed where Kira was looking, and saw a quite big tree in front of them. "You want me to do something with that tree?"

"Try to bend the trunk of that tree. You have to be careful, you might lose control of your power, and you might kill us both with that tree," Kira told her seriously. With Cagalli's power the tree might went out of control and end up killing them.

Cagalli gulped. "Don't you think it's a bit early for really using my element? I just learn the basic today…"

Kira smiled encouragingly at her, "I'll do what I can to help you. But I want you to do this on your own, and hope I won't have to help you. Now try." Kira took a few steps away from Cagalli and watch her concentrate. She used both her hand to transfer her pneuma, and though he could not see it, he could felt Cagalli's power flowing from her to her aim.

As Cagalli felt her pneuma connected with the tree's, Cagalli thought about what she has to do next to make the tree bend like she wanted. She tried to focus and in her mind, focusing her power to bend the tree slowly. Cagalli smiled widely, knowing she could do it, and tried to move the tree to another direction she wanted. Curiously, she tried to move her pneuma as she likes to see the result. The tree branchs were getting longer, Cagalli could catch anything with that. The trunk could move where ever she wanted it to. Satisfied with her experiment, Cagalli tried to return the tree to its original shape. And as the tree returned to normal, Cagalli slumped down, feeling the exhaustion of exerting her power so much for the first time.

"That was fun!" she beamed, grinning at Kira, who approached her with a smile on his face. "And that was great! You are a natural," Kira praised the worn out Cagalli. With her face covered with sweat, Cagalli replied to her cousin. "Thanks for being a good trainer." She looked back to the tree she just used. "You can fight enemies with that…" she imagined fighting with her father apprentices with her power. They always trained themselves. Cagalli wondered if what they did were just like this. But what she was doing was far from what she saw Rey and Athrun did last time.

"Like what I said, it's just the basic, Cagalli. If you want to fight your enemies, you have to be able to do this," Kira lifted both of his hands, and suddenly two trees grew taller and moved upward, but suddenly it crouched down and collided with the earth, leaving two big holes in the ground.

"Wow…" Cagalli whispered as she stared at the holes, while Kira used his power to change the trees to its original shape. "It really can kill…"

"If you have mastered your power, tree branch can be as deadly as a sword in your hand."

"Can you do that?" Cagalli asked, looking up to him.

"Not yet. But maybe you can outrun me, and master the technique before I can," Kira smiled at her, holding out his hand to help her up.

"I'll teach you when I can," she grinned and took his hand.

"Did you do that, Cagalli?"

Kira and Cagalli turned their heads and saw Athrun approaching with a backpack. He pointed to the holes on the ground. "You did that on your first day?"

"No, that was Kira trying to show off," she walked to her boyfriend and smiled, "I just learned the basic and all I can do was moving a tree slowly, and it didn't do any harm."

Athrun nodded in understanding as he took a towel from his backpack and gave it to Cagalli. She took it gladly and wiped the sweats from her face. Athrun took two bottles of water and threw one of it to his best friend, and gave the other one to Cagalli who gladly accepted it.

"You are the best boyfriend I ever had, Athrun!" Cagalli beamed before she drank the water.

"I'm your only boyfriend, Cagalli," he replied.

"That's right!" she exclaimed, laughing with him and then Kira joined the two. "Hey, do you always fight with each other? I mean, to train," Cagalli asked Athrun.

"Yeah. And speaking of that, it's been a long time since we train together, right Kira?"

"Wanna fight with me again?" Kira challenged him.

"Sounds good. This time there will be a winner," Athrun took his backpack and gave it to Cagalli, who looked at them in confusion. "There will be a winner?"

"Every time we fight, the result is always draw. We could never beat each other," Kira answered as he threw his bottle back to Athrun, who gave it to Cagalli. "Now, this should be a good thing for you to see, Cagalli. You have to watch carefully," he added as he stretched his hand again. Athrun did the same after rolling up his long sleeved shirt to his elbows.

Cagalli stood a few feet away from them as they began moving so quickly in the woods, jumping from tree to tree. Every time Athrun threw his fire ball to Kira, he blocked it with the tree near him. And Every time Kira tried to get hold of Athrun's arms or legs with tree branches, he burned them before they could reach him.

Cagalli just watched in awe as she saw them dancing around, fighting each other, trying to reach one another without success. They are both great, Cagalli thought. Maybe today, there wouldn't be any winner, just like always, she thought to herself as she watched the boys trying to beat their best friend.

I got the pneuma thing from my grandpere's book. He knows many unique things!

I'll do my best to update as fast as I can, if you still want me to continue.

If you think that there are so many mistakes in my chapter and want me to continue, please tell me where are the errors because I can't find it myself, and a reader opinion is better than the writers itself. Or if you want me to just stop with the story, just tell me and I'll understand. I have a read a few stories I don't like because of many errors on the story, I know the feeling. And if this is one of that in your opinion, just tell me.

Thank you for reading!