Sweetheart and Enemy

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho, but I do own Kuraiya, Hatsune, Riho, and Katsuya, Rahvanna, Sakaki and Sasaki.

Summary: Hatsune returns from a foreign exchange program in America and enrolls at Meiou High. She is unaware of the close tabs being kept on her as chaos returns to her home and her mind.

Chapter Twenty-One: The Semi-Finals, Part Two

I leaned forward to see what Hiei meant by pain from the depths of Hell. I was curious. I had only really seen him with his katana, so I was about to get schooled. I looked over at Kurama who just motioned for me to watch the fight. I guess I would get all of my answers from there. I paid attention to the stillness of the two of them. I could feel mass amounts of heat emanating from Hiei. It was about to get pretty hot in here…

I backed up a little, but still paid a good deal of attention as Dajouya charged Hiei, who happened to be in the same spot though his adversary moved. I found that a little odd. Dajouya was picking up some speed, but Hiei stayed put. Suddenly, Hiei's fists were covered in dark purple and black flames. He took a few good punches at Dajouya before the army man decided it would be a good time to back up quite a few feet. Those few steps back were more qualified as stumbles. Dajouya was standing, but I didn't think it was going to last much longer. He was getting a little ashen.

I blinked a few times after the initial attack. Hiei wasn't burnt at all, but Dajouya, well, let's just say he wasn't so hot anymore. He had bruises and blood and he was a little shaky. I could see the onset of tiredness in Dajouya. The crowd went wild for their first sight of blood; it wasn't much, but it worked.

"I told you do not underestimate me."

Dajouya was breathing heavily as he took a few steps forward. Hiei matched those steps and he pulled out his katana. He lunged forward and swung it around a few times. Stepping back to see the oncoming damage, Hiei watched as Dajouya fell into tiny, square pieces. A small gurgling sound could be heard from the pieces that piled up.

Koto blinked a few times as she saw the blood pool around the victim. At the sight of it, she jumped for joy and announced Hiei as the winner. Two to one; we're pretty awesome right now. Hiei walked back to our small group and was relatively calm. Kuwabara had a split look of happy and disturbed and Rahvanna's was quite the opposite of his latter: she was ecstatic. The rest of us were neutral.

"Hn. Weak fool."

I was super nervous now. The upcoming fight was Kurama's and I could feel my stomach doing back flips and getting knotted up slightly. I wanted to throw up, it was getting that bad. It wasn't my fight and I was about to have a panic attack or something.

Kurama stepped up onto the ring and Shigure followed him. I watched intently, but I had to put my head down for a brief moment to collect my panic attack. I was worried about him and nothing had happened yet. Yusuke walked over and stood next to me. I just assumed it would be a better view until he started talking to me.

"He's gonna be fine," he started off. "He can handle this, so don't freak out about it." His voice was very calm, almost soothing. It was slightly refreshing since we'd be avoiding each other, in essence.

"I think I'm more worried about a heart attack right now," I mumbled. I felt my heart lurch forward and begin to beat incredibly slowly. I lift my head up and nodded at Yusuke.

"Besides," he started up again, "it's not like he's gonna do a lot of damage to Fox-boy."

I shifted my weight onto my right leg and leaned slightly. I stared at him with annoyance and amazement at his statement. Did he not remember what he did? I let my face show my prominent exasperation and the classic 'you didn't just say that'. He deserved it and I could tell it was working. He raised a nervous eyebrow at me, but said nothing. Maybe he realized what he had said. He looked up to the ring.

Returning my attention to the fight, I reset my shift in weight so that I was standing up straight. I took a deep breath in and watched the fight commence. I noticed that this wasn't a large stadium, so Shigure's boomerang thing was very lethal at this point. That worried me to a great extent.

Kurama took a rose out of his hair and held it perpendicular to him, about eye level, maybe a little lower. Shigure unlatched his signature weapon. I took notice in that and the fact that he had more piercings than I could count. They stayed locked for a few moments before Shigure took the first step forward to unleash his unbiased blade. It was aimed for Kurama, but he easily dodged the first attempt. He hopped and flipped around to avoid the other instances, but one caught the side of his arm. Blood shot out of the open flesh wound, but it didn't stop him. He summoned his rose whip and cast it at Shigure, he dodged, but his bell separated from the chain. It dropped to the floor and rolled a little bit.

Again, I blinked. I wasn't too sure what else to do other than not distract him. I was beginning to hate just watching from below, so to speak, but until I stepped up onto the platform, that was all I could do.

Another cast of the boomerang was delivered and unfortunately Kurama couldn't avoid this one. He took a hit to his right side, and it wasn't a shallow one. Blood rushed from it and fell down to soak his clothes and drip onto the stone. He still stood, but it didn't exude confidence as it did in the beginning.

Shigure smirked and took a few steps forward to close the distance between them. Kurama took a step or two back until he felt that he was at the edge. That was my guess. That or he had a really good plan. He let go of his injured side and crossed his arms out in front of him. Smoke flooded out of his sleeved and nothing was to be seen for quite some time.

I didn't stare into the opaque mass. I just listened for some form of movement or attack, possibly the result of an attack. It was still for quite some time; that's when Koto popped out of the thick fog and began talking.

"Well, I obviously can't see what's going on in there, but I don't think it's much," she stated. Way to be.

Randomly, I felt a loss of one energy source. I looked up to the filmy air and nothing seemed to change until I saw sparks emerge from it. They were strong and well pronounced. My classic blinking occurred mainly because I wasn't sure what was going on. The majority of the haze passed and I saw Shigure, but the other person I saw was not Kurama. There was a very tall fox with silver hair and clear, golden eyes.

Fox… Fox-boy… Kurama…

Click. Even though I had made a new discovery, I tried to play it off like I already knew it (to the crowd, anyway). So, I found the true meaning of fox, quite literally mind me. He looked very intimidating and very cold. He struck me as the evil alter ego of Kurama, kind of like the evil twin concept.

Koto hopped back into the ring and resumed the fight. I could tell she was excited about Kurama's transformation.

"Wow, Youko Kurama has made another appearance! This just keeps getting better and better," she squealed.

Another appearance? Well, people did mention something about a Dark Tournament, so I guess that would make sense. Curiosity took over and my mind began to think about the damage that he could do- Youko Kurama, that is. For some odd reason, my mind delved into the most morbid thoughts that I had ever produced in my life. They seemed right, though.

I shook those away and glanced up, locking my gaze onto the two fighters who were in the midst of staring at each other. A staring contest wasn't going to win this, sorry. Shigure's small smirk grew larger and he once again readied his angled sword. Kurama just stood there, possibly and probably planning something.

My eyes were glued to the two as idleness briefly took over; the boomerang like sword was thrown and the festivities began. Shigure lunged forward and Kurama danced along side of him, so to speak. It seemed like a slow motion movie- like that moment in the Matrix- where you could pinpoint every tiny detail, but, in this case, you had absolutely no clue what was going to happen next. There were few punches or kicks issued; it was mainly use of energy or objects relying on an energy source. I waited for the usual rosewhip, but it didn't come.

Nearly imperceptible cracking noises echoed throughout the large, loud stadium. A pungent smell followed it and slowly began to overcome my sense of smell. I cringed and backed away from the smell that leaked from the stone. A glare formed on my face, but it was not for the smell- something was crawling through the area, and it was foreign (to me). I looked over to Kuwabara and Hiei, who were to my right, and they seemed to be fine. Hiei had a smirk on his face. I think he knew what was going on. Out of curiosity, I glanced to my left. Yusuke didn't appear to be bothered by whatever was happening. I returned my line of vision to the fight that was now up in the air, literally. Kurama had some butterfly attachment on him and he was zooming through the air. I thought it was kind of nifty, I mean, how many demons can do that? (I don't know the answer, but I don't think it's many.) While in the air, rose petals circled Kurama and they also happened to attack Shigure. The majority of them were disintegrated, but one maybe two made contact with him. There was hardly any damage; just a line of blood from each paper-like cut. I sort of wonder why he did that.

Allowing the wings to detach, Kurama landed on his feet. He turned to face the opposition and smirked. There were no words, just actions, which left me in the dust. Shigure still kept attacking him, but he didn't put any effort into trying to attack him. I figured there would be a few easy points to try to get, but I was wondering why he wasn't taking the opportunity to take him down.

I stared oddly that off situation and it was answered with a random and (I'm pretty sure) wrong statement.

"Think of him as a big cat- he's got to toy with his stuff first," Yusuke stated in a serious manner.

"I though foxes were part of the dog family, though," I said back to him.

His frown stretched out across his face and he leaned down toward me to state his next words. "That's not my point, smarty pants!"

I turned back to look at the near end of the fight- it seemed like that anyway. Shigure had succumbed to heavy breathing and small beads of sweat running down his face. Kurama didn't look tired, but then again he didn't exert much effort, so that was understandable. Another grin graced our presence, but not Kurama's. His boomerang came back into play and hit the stadium with a boom and with heavy dust and debris. It didn't balloon out like last time, but it was still hard to see what was going on. When it did clear, it didn't look amazing at all.

Youko Kurama had disappeared. The red head had returned to grace us with his human beauty. He still had the injury to his side, but it wasn't freely bleeding anymore. He too was grinning but his had a different vibe to it. Just like he knew what was about to happen- same as Hiei. Now, I wanted to know what was happening.

Another still moment came and passed, but nothing exciting happened. Kurama snapped his fingers and out of nowhere flowers bloomed from Shigure's body. He looked shocked as he stepped back to far and fell back first to the ground.

Kurama won through a definite ring-out. Shigure looked dead, but he was still twitching and slowly dragging himself back to his team. The flowers were beginning to wilt and the stems and leaves were disintegrating with his every pull from the ground.

The fox hopped down from the stone and slowly walked over to us. Kuwabara helped him over and forced him to sit down. I turned around to see how he was doing and I noticed him waving me over. I decided to go with it and I sat next to him as he released a deep breath.

"Are you nervous?" he asked me openly.

"To an extent, yes. Why?"

He reached out with his blood-free hand and tugged at my hair that happened to be black.

"Oh, that," I started off since I had forgotten about it. "I got nervous during your fight." I was being very nonchalant about it because I didn't want to make myself look like or feel like a moron. Underestimating him was never on my mind and I didn't want him to think that.

His smiled was genuine, not teasing as I may have thought it had been. He just nodded and pointed to the ring. It was my turn and I was only looking forward to about half of it. I'm not even sure if it was that much, to be honest.

"Remain calm," he stated as I stood up and walked toward my hopefully prospective win. Kuwabara had wished me luck, but I think I was going to need more than that to win this. Speed and brains would do me some good, so I was really cheering for those to be working overtime in this situation.

I entered the ring and it felt odd. I was off the actual ground I know and had stepped onto foreign soil. It felt wrong and out of place. I looked around for a couple of second, then I focused my attention on Koto who was getting more and more impatient by the nanosecond.

"Will the contender for this match please enter the ring?" she asked as she tapped her foot on the ring. She wanted more action, and if the last match wasn't enough, it would be brought in this one- guaranteed. I was going to go out with a bang, and I had a plan to make it happen, too.

Casually walking up to and jumping into the ring, Katsuya made his lazy appearance. He looked like he had just woken up from a nap. He was stretching and pushing his hair out of his face. It had grown since yesterday- that was odd. For some reason, he reminded me of someone, but I couldn't place it just yet. His energy like mine when I'm not nervous was nonexistent. This would prove to be very interesting. Neither one of us really had an idea of what each other could do and technically speaking, we're related.

"Okay, I can't take nothing happening anymore, so begin!" Koto yelled into her microphone and both of us took an ambiguous stance. I noticed that I was at a slight disadvantage; of course I, a lefty, would have a kid who would be a righty. To try to better my chances of a hit and dodging his, I switched quickly to the opposite side, and it felt very inaccurate.

"Hey, what the hell are ya doin'?" yelled one of the guys- probably Yusuke. I wasn't paying that much attention to my outer surroundings. I was definitely in my zone.

I flicked my left wrist, which was now in front of me, and thread ran quickly from my hands. Slithering its way about the edges, it formed a foot tall barrier for two main reasons: a reminder and some damage.

I shift back to my natural stance since the other one was very uncomfortable. I would just have to take the chance of getting hit or not connecting well. I stared him down as I made the change, but just when I finished it, he vanished. I stood prostrate and looked about as I tried to figure out what he had done. Randomly, I was punched in the face and I got well acquainted with the stone I once stood on. In the process, I managed to throw my foot up, but I knew I had missed my target completely. I flipped over onto my feet and stood up. The left side of my face was slightly swollen and it throbbed a little.

I snapped twice and the strings expanded upward and closed in on the both of us. I wanted to make sure I knew the general vicinity so that way I may have a better chance. If not, then I probably set him up for a better chance. We would see.

I formed thick shards in my hand and threw them down in the middle of the ring. It was a few inches in front of his location. He scoffed at my effort.

"It's sad that you can't hit me."

I smiled mockingly and retorted. "It's said that you're doltish."

His expression went from playful yet airily cocky to grave and nearly emotionless. I replied by tapping my foot twice and clapping once. The ring exploded and all of the smoke and debris stayed within the boundaries that I had set up.

Gasps could be heard all around the crowd and even some of the members of the team were shocked.

"Hey!" yelled the annoyingly familiar voice that I now had a moment to concentrate on. "What's goin' on in there?"

Once the smoke reasonably cleared up, the area that Katsuya and I stood in was ringless. We were on the dirt with dust remains of the stone.