A/N: I decided I won't do the Hiei/Kurama pairing. Some of you would stop reading if I did.
I'm not going to write out all of Yusuke and Kuwabara's fight because I want to get the semi-finals over with. So this will be a combination of Kyra's and Yusuke's fights.
In all honesty, Yusuke and Kuwabara were stronger than their opponents. But because of their lack of cooperation and ability to strategize, the playing field had been leveled out. They were going up against Toran and Yoku, leaving Somocho for Kyra should they lose.
Both teams were present on the stage waiting for Koto to start the match.
"Yusuke Urameshi," Toran said aloud. "I've heard much about you."
"Thanks. I can't say I've heard much about you though."
"News of our kind doesn't really reach the human world that often."
"I guess that explains it."
"I'm looking forward to a good fight, I hope you don't let me down."
"I wasn't planning on it."
The two teams prepared for the second match of the semi-finals as the buzzer sounded.
Kuwabara and Yusuke silently agreed to make the first move by charging on their enemies. The fight started with hand-to-hand combat and progressed from there. It didn't take long for both teams to pull our their weapons and start using them. Toran and Yoku also used bows and arrows although their specialties were a little different. It turned out that Toran was an expert sniper with his and Yoku's arrows would explode upon contact with anything.
As time wore on, the battle became more violent and fatigue began to take hold of the warriors. Yusuke and Kuwabara, finally having decided to use some real teamwork after fighting with each other through most of the fight and almost staying out of the ring for 10 seconds, made one last attack. It broke through whatever spiritual defense the Spirit demons had left and made the Urameshi team victorious.
The two friends helped each other off the arena stage and over to their team. The other members rushed to help.
"Great job guys! I'm glad to see you won, but I'm pretty sure you pulled that last stunt out of your ass!" Kyra laughed.
"I think we did," Yusuke remarked.
"I have to admit, you had me a little worried there when you started to argue," Kurama spoke up.
"Your faith in us is overwhelming," shot back the hanyou.
Hiei was quick to retaliate, "At least he had faith."
"What's that suppose to mean, short-stuff!" Kuwabara screeched.
"I'm just happy I don't have to fight. I'm wearin' my nice shoes today," Kyra interrupted. They all looked down at the white tennis.
"Onna no baka," mutter Hiei under his breath.
Kyra made a hand gesture behind the shorter demon's back causing Kurama to slightly chuckle. Hiei looked back just in time to see them start to assist Yusuke and Kuwabara back inside the waiting room.
The small group was stopped just outside the entry to the dark hallway leading inside by an announcement.
The sound of Koto clearing her throat was broadcasted through the microphone before she spoke.
"I would like to bring to the committee's attention that Somocho of the Spirit Demon's team has challenge Kyra of the Urameshi team."
Kyra slowly looked back in the direction of the other team. After a minute the large display screen flashed an "O", giving clearance to the match. Her eyebrow twitched once in annoyance.
"As long as both parties agree, there will be another match," the half cat, half fox demon announced.
The male members of the Urameshi team glanced back and forth between each other. Kyra didn't pay any notice to it as she strolled over to the stage. At the motion of the girl's finger, Koto hurried over. Chancing a look as Somo, the she fighter could see a smug grin planted on his face. It made her smile slyly.
"And you decision is?" Koto asked in a confident voice, leaning forward a bit.
"Forget it." The answer was short and simple.
The arena filled with an eerie silence. "Excuse me?" the demon questioned.
"I said forget it."
THUD!
Kyra looked over to see that Somocho had collapsed from shock. When the Spirit Demon recovered, he pointed an accusing finger her way.
"What the Hell do mean 'Forget it'?" he yelled.
"I mean 'no'," she said nonchalantly.
"You can't say 'no'!" His voice continued to rise.
"Why not?"
A pause. "Because, it's the Dark Tournament."
"I fail to see how that makes me unable to say 'no' when I can."
"You really want this on your reputation." His tone and attitude had completely changed, hoping the new approach would change her mind. "People will talk."
"I can live with that."
"Fine. Be afraid."
She gave a short laugh. "If that's what you have to tell yourself to ease the pain of rejection."
As she walked back to the group, the crowd started to speak up. It didn't take less than a couple of seconds for them to reach a deafening roar. They began calling her foul names as well as mocking the Urameshi team for bringing a weak, female, human, fighter.
"What do you think your doing?" Hiei asked, pissed off.
"Walking away. Does that bother you?"
"Yes it does. Just because you don't care about what they think about you doesn't mean we feel the same way. We haven't come all this way just for you to blow it."
"Yeah, you're making us look like we ain't got any honor," Yusuke commented.
Kyra looked to Kurama for his response. "I'm afraid they're right," he said. "We've worked hard to get the reputation we have and by you denying this fight makes us look bad."
"Can you imagine how long it'll take for us to fix your mistake," Hiei emphasized.
Kyra gave an exasperated sigh. "Kyra," Kurama spoke up. "I know why you don't want to fight, but I don't think this one battle will really make a difference."
"Alright, alright, I'll do it." She walked briskly back to the stage and jumped up. Somo gave an arrogant grin before hopping up as well.
Koto, having taken a look at the situation, spoke into her mic. "It seems that after a brief discussion with her team, and a little provoking from the audience, Kyra has accepted the challenge."
"I'm glad to see you've changed your decision," Somo said smugly.
"Yeah, sure," she replied uncaringly.
"You sound upset."
"No shit, Sherlock."
"What? You don't like me anymore? I mean, you sure seemed friendly last night."
The comment made her smirk. "The way you say it just makes it sound so dirty."
"Maybe it was, a little."
"Ha. Only in your wet dreams."
His face visibly reddened.
"Oops!" she said sarcastically. "It slipped."
Somo's cheeks were still heated. "Whatever," he snapped.
"Don't use that tone with me. You started this whole thing in the first place. It's only fair that I wound your pride to the fullest."
"And just how do you plan on doing that?"
Kyra only shrugged her shoulders and gave a suggestive look.
Somo took a defensive stance and waited as, slowly, Kyra did the same. He analyzed her posture and found surprisingly, many weak spots and openings. 'So much for making me regret this,' he thought.
Kyra could feel his gaze drop, and the uncomfortableness that came with it. She never had been one to tolerate attention like that to her body. Once he delayed the first attack, she stood up straight.
The demon was snapped out of his less than pure thoughts by her sudden movement and constant tapping of her foot.
"Are you just going to stand there all day or what?" She blurted, trying not to point out just what he was doing exactly to the audience.
"Oh, right." Somo began his assault starting with hand-to-hand combat.
Kyra decided to take on the defensive, jumping and dodging out of the way of Somo's fists. Even though what they were doing wasn't anything spectacular, he still couldn't land a blow.
"Come on, Somo. I know you can do better than that. Give these people a fight worth watching." That's when Somo really put on some the speed. Kyra found herself really concentrating just to keep herself from getting hit. Her large sweater didn't help either. As soon as she saw a break in the fighting she put distance between them and called a "time out" so she could take it off revealing a black skin tight long sleeved shirt. She didn't wear to look sexy—it helped to restrict a certain part of her body he'd been staring at earlier.
Once Kyra was ready to fight again she found that Somo had already summoned a bow and drawn an arrow. He shot it when he knew she was looking, easily allowing her to dodge it by bending almost completely backwards even though her legs were straight. Surprised by her flexibility, he shot two more arrows and they too were dodged in an act of acrobats.
"I honestly don't think you're going to hit me with one of those," Kyra commented.
"Well if I can't hit you with one, let's try five." When the Spirit demon pulled back the string, only one arrow appeared, but after release, it separated into five.
Kyra did, what she would later call, her "Matrix Move". Bending at the knees she bent backwards arching her back somewhat and balancing on her feet.
"You know there's only so many you can avoid," Somo explained. He wasted no time in drawing three arrows at once that again separated into several more upon release.
The number was too great for her to avoid by moving, so with quick reflexes Kyra withdrew the Soul Blades held securely to her back by her waistband and transformed them into they're more advanced form. She spun them in super fast circles in front of herself to deflect the oncoming arrows. A few landed in front of her with a soft klinck.
Some gave an exasperated sigh at having none of his attempts to injure her work. Guess he'd have to come up with different plan.
"Something wrong, Somo?"
"No," he half grunted, half snap.
"Are you sure? Cause I could give you a little boost if you needed." Kyra did a cartwheel to emphasize the fact that they weren't fighting.
"That's ok." He wasn't really paying attention.
"Well that's too bad because I'm going to anyways."
Somo looked up in time to see her charging him straight on and immediately took on the defensive just like she had earlier. She swung her blades around as if she was inexperienced. The demon could dodge them easily enough, but was puzzled by her actions when he knew she could to better.
And then came the "too fast for him to really recall" attack. The only thing he knew about for sure is that she had made a head-on attack with one of her blades and missed when he moved his head. She continued to push forward until their bodies were almost pressed up against each other and then felt a hard object make contact with the back of his head. Something happened in those next few moments where his feet were knocked out from under him, he flipped forward and landed on his back none too gently.
He must have blacked out or something because when he woke up he could hear his teammates yelling at him and Koto standing over him, counting. She was only at 3 by the time he scrambled up to his feet.
"It almost looked like she had him there," Hiei stated.
"Almost," Kurama replied.
"Did any of you guys catch that?" Kuwabara asked, dumfounded. The other's just rolled their eyes and ignored him.
Somocho stood rubbing the back of his neck where he had been hit. Kyra still stood with her back towards him, but turned ever so slightly so she could peer over her shoulder to speak to him.
"Are you OK?" There was a cocky smirk on her lips and he was sure her eyes were laughing at him even though they were hidden behind the darkness of her sunglasses.
Her question only perplexed him more. "What?"
She turned completely around to face him and crossed an arm over her stomach, resting her chin on her other hand. Her weapons hung loosely in each hand. "I've never done that move before. I was just wondering how much damage it did."
Somo's old expression was replaced with one of shock. "What do you mean you've never done that before?!"
Kyra shrugged off his shrewd comment. "It was a spur of the moment kind of thing. If it didn't really do anything then I won't attempt it again. But I don't think you're going to cooperate anyways so just forget about it."
"Do you always do that?"
"The spur of the moment thing?"
He gave a nod.
"....Yeah..." The young woman refused to give him any more information than that.
After a brief moment for Somo to catch his breath, the fight began again. The Spirit Demon decided to use one of his spell casting attacks and put Kyra on her feet. The assault consisted of several, softball sized orbs being hurled at her and then locked on to her ki making for a hard escape.
The orbs chased Kyra around the stage while Somo stood off to the side, seemingly watching in amusement. Her weapon had been put away so they wouldn't weight her down more than she already was.
The portal keeper continued to dance around the objects until she could figure out some way to get rid of them. And with barely any surroundings, it would take awhile.
Well it was taking too long for Somo. The Spirit Demon, having been watching and seeing no progress, summoned his bow and prepared to fire 3 arrows. He waited until the opportune moment arose. Kyra had jumped out of the ring and had her side facing him. Aiming a little ahead of her path, Somo released the drawstring.
Kyra, having bee distracted by her task at hand, realized a little too late that arrows had been shot by a high-piercing sound. Before she could make a decision about which to avoid and receive less damage from, her body decided for her. It all kind of happened in painfully slow motion. Her body twisted and her arms came up to black the arrows, one hitting each of her wrists, with the third missing completely. Kyra might have been able to avoid some of the bombs, but she was too weighted down and had lost her footing. Some of the bombs hit her mid-fall, others just exploding beside her. She landed ungracefully on rough ground, more debris falling on top.
The scene happened a lot faster to the viewers than to the victim. The arrows were shot in her direction, but whether or not they actually made contact was hidden by a large explosion and the crashing of that section of wall. A dark cloud of smoke obscured their view as well.
Everyone was silent for a split second before the crowd burst out with joys of excitement. Koto jumped over to the pile and saw a hand but it wasn't moving. She started her count, half thinking the young girl was dead.
By the time she reached 4 there was still no movement and the Urameshi team was beginning to worry.
It wasn't until the count made it's way up to 7 that the girl stirred. The announcer watched as the hand was pulled into the pile of rubble and then scrambled away as energy and purple light began to flood from the cracks.
Suddenly rocks shot out everywhere as Kyra's ki surged for a moment. Bystanders looked away for a moment to avoid the purple light that emitted. When they looked back they found Kyra already back on the stage looking more confident than ever. Her clothes looked a little tattered and there were a few scratches here and there, but other than that she looked ok.
Somocho felt uneasy about the situation. "What are you smiling about?" he said on the defensive.
"You'll find out." Kyra rolled up her sleeves and broke what looked like metal cuffs off both of her wrists. Her opponent felt a small energy surge as she bent down and broke off two more, one around each of her ankles.
Her actions puzzled him and he was about to ask what she had just done when he felt another energy surge—this one much bigger than the last. It almost felt like a pulse and he experienced the same thing again in about 4 or 5 seconds, following the last.
The third pulse was followed by a strong breeze of wind.
"Tell me Somo," Kyra began as a circle or dust started to rotate around her feet and the wind continued to pick up. "Haven't you ever wondered what my specialty is?"
"It's crossed my mind a few times."
"Would you like me to show you?"
"Only if you're friendly," he said jokingly trying to hide his nervousness.
"I can't make any promises..." The strong breeze pulsed before turning into a violent windstorm, similar to when Jin was fighting.
The force of it was strong enough to push Somo back bit as he shielded his eyes. It abruptly stopped after a few seconds and the young demon looked to see that things had returned to normal. But it was always calm before the storm.
Kyra stood with her right side facing him at a bit of an angle. She slowly raised her hand so that the palm was pointing straight at him, fingers spread apart.
Somo saw her attack a split second too late but it had already grabbed a hold of him and hurled his body high into the stands, him screaming his head off (a manly scream, not a girly one ).
Kyra really didn't want to show her ability as a psychic, but Somo's last attack had caused the wound on her stomach to reopen and it was bleeding. You couldn't see it through the dark material of her shirt even though it was slowly descending down her skin in small droplets.
The Spirit Demon hit the surface hard, forcing demons to scatter and leaving a pretty good-sized crater in the seating area. He lay there for a second or two trying to gather his bearings. Lord Kye and Tsuko were almost directly above him by the railing, looking down at him.
"You'd better stop while your ahead," Tsuko called down to him. The look the young demon gave him was almost funny. Deciding not to respond, Somo hurried to get back to the stage before exceeding the time limit.
"You don't think she'd actually kill him, do you?" Kye asked, watching the fight with half interest.
"Haven't you been keeping tabs on her at all? I know I said you shouldn't, but I thought for sure you'd find some way to at least keep an eye one her."
"I did have someone watching her from afar for the first couple of years of her absence, but she figured out he was there later and threatened to kill him if he didn't stop. He never sent any pictures or important information; just told me how she was doing to calm my nerves."
Tsuko gave an understanding nod. "She did that to one of my 'watchers' as well. As to answer you earlier question, no, I don't think she'd kill him, but he could end up seriously hurt."
They watched as Somo shot a couple of arrows at her, only to have them stopped in mid-air, turned around, and fired right back at him. One missed him, but the other got him pretty good in the right shoulder. He ripped it out of his skin adding more blood to his already wounded body. In a last attempt to win, Somo tried to fire another arrow, but was launched into the wall before he could release it.
His struggle to get back up was in vain as she sent yet another burst towards him to keep him down permanently. Having finally given up, Somo stayed where he was and let Koto count to ten and announce Kyra the winner.
The other angelic demons hurried to his side to help him out of the pile of rubble.
"Are you ok?" Noraku asked
"I'm fine," he replied, clutching his left shoulder trying to make the bleeding stop.
"I can't believe you put your ass on the line just to fight with her," Toran grumbled as he headed back inside the arena walls. The others shrugged at his comment and followed.
Kyra took her time getting off the stage, holding her side as she landed on the ground. She walked over to her awaiting teammates.
"That was some nice fighting," Yusuke complimented giving her a thumbs up.
"Thanks," she said a little off handedly.
"I don't see why you didn't want to fight in the first place," Kuwabara stated.
Kyra gave a small, almost forced, chuckle. "Yeah, me neither."
"Kyra," Kurama cut in, "are you bleeding?" The smell of blood had hit his nose just a little before she came to stand next to him. He had also noted that her breaths came out in slow, short gasps.
"Just a little, I'll be ok." Kami! If Kurama found out that she was hurt as bad as she was, he'd rip her a new one.
Unfortunately for her, Kurama wasn't as easily fooled, and by the look Hiei was giving her, she didn't think he believed her either.
The redhead seized a hold of her wrist and pulled her hand away from her waist. It had a thin coat of fresh blood covering it and now that her hand wasn't in the way, he could see blood staining the rim of her pants.
Kurama sent her such a glare that she had to avert his eyes. She felt a sinking feeling her stomach along with a sharp pull in her side as her friend pulled back into dark recesses of the stadium waiting room, mumbling something about needing to heal her up. The others followed close behind.
A/N: I'm glad I finally got this done, I've been working really hard to this week. The next chapter won't be as action packed, but probably show more on Kurama's and Kyra's awkward relationship. In case I haven't told you, I'm just making this up as I go, but I do have a plan. Peace out!