Hello! I'll start with the bad news!
1) my laptop did officially kick the bucket
2) I lost everything I had already written :(
3) I figured out how to do everything I needed to do from my phone: but then I cracked my phone to shit! :,(
So I AM STILL here and alive, updates just may be slower now :P I was CRUSHED when chapter 14 went down because I loved it just as it was, but I think I got it pretty close to the original I had written :P SO here it is!
-B.J.
Chapter 14: Fire and Ice.
"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice,
From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire…"
- Robert Frost; Excerpt from Fire and Ice.
Fuck. Fuck.
Kirazuki sat up in her bed with a painful groan, cradling her head that she was positive was attempting to crack itself in half. "What the hell…" She muttered, dragging herself to the edge of her bed grudgingly. She scooped her hair up into a long ponytail, fastening it by tying another separate strip of her hair around the mass at the top of her head.
Hair control: Check.
She gazed around the room in search of one of her shirts, all of which were still packed away in her small backpack.. all the way across the room. Shit. 'Here goes nothing.' She thought, pushing herself off of the bed and landing with a loud thud, 'Alright, not so bad.'
She somehow managed to wrestle her way into one of her shirts, another plain white cropped t-shirt; that's really all they received in the Reikai, but she had taken the liberty of tearing the bottom half off of it long ago.
Shirt: Check.
Pants.. She still had on a pair of plain black shorts from last night. She contemplated if a pair of new pants was worth the hassle.. No, no it wasn't. Not on a morning like this one.
Pants: Check.
Her door peeked its way open just a small crack with the slightest of creeks, "Are you alright? I heard a bang.." Keiko asked, fairly concerned from the hallway, but as soon as she opened the door all the way she couldn't help but giggle, "Do you need help?"
Kira grinned up at her sheepishly from the floor, pointing towards her robot-leg, "Perhaps…"
Keiko smiled as she entered the room, picking up the brace and sitting on the floor with Kira, "You get to start your training with me today," She slowly began tightening the velcro straps, laughing at the look of heartbreak on Kira's face, "Just for stretching, Kurama thought it would be good to stretch first. Oh, and he said he needed to talk with you about something. And that Hiei is training you after,"
"Oh great," Kira groaned, rubbing her temples, "Don't be surprised if I come back dead."
Keiko laughed, "He won't kill you," Her face fell slightly as she recalled the little 'trying to take over the world and possess her' incident.. "I think…"
Kirazuki was laying on her back in the dojo section of the temple, Keiko was currently pressing her right leg as close to her chest as she could; she had regained a significant amount of feeling in the upper half of her leg as well as a small amount of movement, but the lower portion of her leg was still moderately numb.
Kira sighed as Keiko brought her leg back down to the floor, "I hate this,"
Keiko laughed in return, "It'll get easier, you'll see," She smiled, twisting her ankle in a circular motion, "Ryuu seems nice," She added randomly to the conversation.
Kira shrugged from her spot on the ground, "I suppose.."
"Oh, are you two not..?" Keiko's cheeks flushed with momentary embarrassment.
Kira's nose instantly wrinkled, "Goodness no; that's not how things work up there," She winked, wrapping her arms around her thigh and pulling it up to her chest. This leg was still a giant pain.
Kurama suddenly cleared his throat from the doorway to make his presence known as he entered their conversation, Kira grinned at him, "Good morning fox," She greeted happily.
Kurama hadn't expected her to be so cheery by any means, "Good morning," He nodded towards the pair, "If you're feeling up to it, Hiei is ready for you,"
Kira groaned, letting her leg drop lamely to the floor, "Can you just tell him I died, please?"
"I'm afraid that excuse would be quite pointless," Kurama chuckled in return. Ahh, yes, the Jagan. Damnit. He offered his hand out to Kira to help her up; but she simply shook her head, clumsily managing her way upright.
"I've got this, thanks Keiko!"
"If you insist," He chuckled yet again, bidding farewell to Keiko and heading towards the doors with Kira trailing behind him. The brace was definitely helpful, it supported her practically useless lower leg and gave enough extra support to her upper leg to be able to walk by herself, despite the limp. Upon their exit, Hiei was already trailing off into the woods ahead of them.
"Keiko said you needed to talk to me about something?" She pondered, nearly tripping over a set of vines that had found its way into her brace.
Kurama sweatdropped; yes, he certainly did need to cover the concept of public indecency with the creature, recalling the previous night; he chuckled nervously, "Another time perhaps,"
They followed Hiei's fading form in silence for quite some time; Kira swore they had walked for at least an hour, her thigh was very rapidly growing sore. Was this her retraining? A simple stroll through the woods? That seemed very unlikely. "How much further are we going?"
Kurama smiled with a simple shrug, helping her over an old tree trunk which had fallen, "Unfortunately you are asking the wrong person,"
Hiei had finally halted below a very large tree ahead of them, waiting casually with his hands in the pockets of his cloak.
"Finally," Kira muttered, picking up her pace slightly to catch up with Kurama until they finally reached him, "Why so far?" She was already slightly out of breath, resting her hands on her knees in an attempt to catch it.
Hiei simply smirked in return, "It was the tallest I could find," He explained coldly, gazing up into the leaves, "Climb it."
Kurama instantly sweat dropped, "I don't know if that's-"
"No problem!" Kira grinned, relying primarily on her arms to begin hoisting herself to the top of the tree.
Kurama chuckled as she grew smaller and smaller, scaling her way up the branches, "Are you sure this is wise?" He directed towards Hiei.
Hiei simply smirked in return, "I guess we'll find out." It took her about 10 minutes to work her way as far as she could before they heard her call 'Piece of cake!' from the top. Hiei disappeared at once from Kurama's side and returned almost instantly, setting Kira unceremoniously on the ground at the base of the tree before giving his demands, "49 more,"
"I. Fucking. Hate you." Kira panted, using her shaking arms to hoist herself up onto the final branch for the 50th time in a row. The second she was far enough up, she planted herself so she was seated with her back against the trunk; she was entirely drenched with sweat. She reached up and untied her pony tail, relieving the pressure on her head as her long white, grey and black hair fell around her shoulders.
Kurama had left somewhere around the 15th time, it had been time for his own training with Taryuu.
Hiei smirked from the same branch with his hands resting leisurely in his pockets, fairly impressed she had managed to scale the entire tree his requested 50 times, he hadn't actually expected that, "Good."
"Go to hell," She breathed, resting her lame leg across the length of the branch and reaching for the velcro on her foot, she needed to escape this thing; mixed with sweat it was beginning to itch insanely.
Hiei raised his eyebrow and sighed as he watched her pathetic attempt at undoing the brace before sitting with his feet dangled towards the ground, swatting Kira's hand out of the way and tucking one of his hands under one of the many straps, lifting and dropping it carelessly on his lap before resuming the unfastening.
"Thank you," Kira smiled briefly, setting her head back against the trunk of the tree before speaking again, "But I still hate you." She added quickly, peeking her eyes down the length of the tree; how she had managed to actually climb it 50 times was beyond her. The sun was already starting to set in a brilliant range of pink to orange to blue; it must've taken her quite some time. Hiei smirked without a word. "Do you think it'll work again?" She asked suddenly, feeling the now-familiar but dulled warmth work its way up her leg.
"Eventually," He replied simply,attempting to focus on the task at hand. Why did humans make these with so many straps?
Kira grinned,her ears folding back playfully, "Is that a fact or an assumption?"
Hiei's eye twitched in irritation, knowing exactly what she was referring to, "The Jagan isn't a crystal ball, dog," He spoke through gritted teeth, contemplating shoving her from the branch momentarily as he finished with the straps.
Kira simply grinned again, slipping her leg out of the brace, swinging her good leg onto the branch before attempting to shimmy her way up to a standing position, but the very instant she attempted to put weight on her bad leg it collapsed under her. She let out an odd panicked squeal, dropping her brace and reaching for the nearest object to hopefully hold her in place, but still fairly surprised that she hadn't gone with it. She blinked in confusion, watching her self-proclaimed robot-leg spiral down to the grass, hitting every branch on it's way.
"Did we not cover this already?" Hiei growled, entirely furious. This was supposed to be the Reikai's greatest creation, and she nearly managed to fall her way to her own death.
It was then Kira noticed the incredibly tight grip on her upper arms, holding her steadily against the trunk of the tree, her own hands knotted in the sides of Hiei's cloak, "Oh," She whispered, tearing her vision away from her grounded brace and up towards Hiei's obviously angry stare where she grinned sheepishly, her stomach knotting from the closeness.
"'Oh'? You nearly topple like a helpless infant out of a tree and your reaction is 'oh'?" His rage was clearly faltering, fighting back the urge to smirk as his grip loosened slightly.
Kira took a deep breath, as though she was about to give some long winded speech about the issue, raising a pointed finger in front of her, her ears folding back, "..Yes." Was her only reply, her hand dropping to her side indignantly.
Hiei sighed, shaking his head, but his smirk gave away his sudden lack of irritation, "You fool."
"We should probably go down now," She whispered, finally relaxing her death grip on the other side of his cloak and slipping her arm behind his shoulder blades. Hiei simply nodded, attempting to ignore the foreign shiver as her cold seeped through the thin fabric at his back; releasing one of his hands and shifting his arm to her lower back in preparation for their 50th and final descent of the day.
But he didn't move.
'Move,' Willed his subconscious; but it was as if his mind and body had separated. Kira, picking up on the sudden atmospheric change and growing increasingly uncomfortable of the close proximity began to tense, 'Go,' His hand remaining on her arm seemed to begin to navigate itself, trailing upward and stopping at the side of her neck, he could feel the cold line of her jaw under his thumb; Kira flinched involuntarily from the warmth against her chilled skin, 'Leave.' She could hear her own pulse in her ears once again; casting her mismatched eyes upwards, momentarily taken aback by how close they were, she could once again feel his breath floating across her cheeks; she felt claustrophobic, "Hiei?"
"Mutt," He countered, some deep part of him enjoyed her discomforted reactions, how this supposedly powerful creation almost crumbled so easily, 'Screw it.' He finally closed the minuscule distance between the two with a confoundingly benevolent touch.
Kira inhaled sharply, simultaneously freezing over the upper half of the tree, startled by the sudden sensation so similar to fire dancing gently across her lips; it was almost vertiginous, the knot in her stomach seemed to have exploded, radiating itself through her being like a freight train of disorientation.
And then, at once, it all vanished just as quickly as it had come.
The fire had disappeared.
Kira stood for quite some time at the highest branch of the tallest tree, long enough so that the sheet of ice had begun to melt. 'What the fuck just happened?' Confused would have been an understatement, and she still had that lingering, strange 'dizzy' feeling; but one incredibly important question remained, as she gazed down helplessly towards the forest floor, "How am I going to get down?"