okay this one's a little longer! enjoy!

Facing Your Inner Demons

Ch 37: Moving On

Training continued as usual, but now Kelly wasn't the main focus of it. Everyone was focusing on getting better. The demon tournament was coming up in a year and a half and they all had to be ready, except for Kurama and Kuwabara.

Kelly was surprised when she heard that Kurama would not be participating in the upcoming tournament.

When she asked him about it he responded with, "I'm living my life as a human now. This is the path that I'm taking and I plan on continuing down it. I cannot stray from it now."

"Yeah, but you're still a demon," Kelly argued.

"In a human body," Kurama replied with a smile. Kelly gave a huff of frustration.

"Fine, fine. I can respect that. But if you're gonna live as a human then you at least need ta get yourself a girlfriend." Kelly laughed when she saw Kurama's surprised face. "Oh, come on, Kurama! You need to live a little! Get out there and find yourself a girl! Don't tell me you haven't thought about it."

Kurama had a slight blush on his face when he said, "No, I have. But like you said, I'm a demon."

"In a human body," she replied with a smirk. "With human needs." She winked at this last part.

"Kelly!" Kurama shouted. She merely laughed and ran out of the room the two and Hiei were talking in after training that day.

Hiei chuckled from the windowsill he lounged on. "Calm down, fox. You only get mad because she speaks the truth."

Kurama pinched the bridge of his nose and said, "She should understand, though. She is in the same predicament as I am; only hers is more… complicated."

"She does understand, which is why she is pushing you," Hiei said, looking back out the window. "As for her… she's too laid back and lazy to think much of it."

Kurama shook his head. "That's where you're wrong," he told Hiei. Hiei turned to look at him, surprised barely etched on his face. "She thinks about it quite a lot. And it's your fault that she does."

"Are you accusing me of something, fox?" Hiei asked with narrowed eyes.

Kurama sighed before he said, "You know what I mean."

Hiei scowled. "The onna will get nothing from me."

"She already has, Hiei," Kurama said softly. Hiei said nothing and suddenly became very interested in his hands which rested in his lap. "Shouldn't you go find her? Who knows what kind of trouble she could be getting into?"

"She went to look for Jin or Rinku," Hiei informed him. It was true. Kelly had let Hiei know telepathically before she left.

"My point exactly," Kurama said with a chuckle.

Kelly had become fast friends with the six demons, but she had taken a particular liking to Jin and Rinku. They were like little kids whenever they were together. Kelly had claimed that they reminded her of her siblings, and so it was like she was back home whenever she was around them.

As for getting in trouble… well… there were many incidents where most of the others had not been happy. Like the time Jin and Kelly blew everyone over in the training grounds. Their combined wind power was too much for the others to handle, and they were sent sailing across the grounds. Another time, Kelly and Rinku had used Rinku's yo-yo strings as a means to trip people going through doors and causing them to fall flat on their faces. Then there was the time all three of them had been involved. Jin and Kelly had catapulted Rinku into the training grounds hitting Chu right in the head, causing him to fall back and land on Touya who fell on Yusuke who fell on… well, you get the picture.

But other than that, the others were very fond of Kelly. They loved to listen to the songs that she often sang. They had run into her more than once when she had used her strange power of emanating music from her body. It was the right way to pump them up before training, or a nice way to soothe them afterwards. Kelly had been shy at first, immediately stopping the music when she realized the others were listening. But she got over it quickly and soon she was singing all the time.

As Hiei went to search for Kelly, he expected to find her entertaining someone as always. The onna was meant to perform in some way, but she had never displayed any want to pursue a career in it. When her family asked her what she wanted to major in college, she always answered that she didn't know.

Hiei finally came to the kitchen where Jin, Touya and Chu sat at the table discussing the training that they had done earlier that morning.

"Have any of you seen the onna pass through here?" he asked them. They looked up and shook their heads.

"Nah, mate. Sorry. She's not with Rinku either. He went to wash off not tha' long ago," Chu informed him, slurring his words slightly. He had already opened a bottle of some sort of alcohol, his routine for after training.

Hiei nodded and left. He struggled to think of where she would be. She had told him she was going to look for Jin or Rinku. She wasn't one to lie either.

He made his way to Kelly's room which was on a floor all of its own, mainly because the third day there at the tower, she had run into several scantily clad demon males. She had immediately asked for her room to be moved, not that anyone blamed her. It kind of was a shocker for her.

Hiei knocked on her door, knowing that if he just walked in, she would have a fit. When he didn't get an answer, he slowly opened the door and stuck his head in.

She wasn't there, but a mess was. Books were strewn everywhere, the mattress to the bed was halfway off the bed frame. Looking to the left, Hiei could see spikes of ice lodged into the wall. And to top it all off, her iPod lay on the floor by the side of the bed. She would never, ever leave it behind like that.

Hiei immediately raced to the window and looked out. There was nothing.

Hiei strained his Jagan eye to go as far as he could. There! About fifty miles outside of Raizen's old city was what appeared to be a building of some sorts. Looking further her saw that the building led to an underground base and at its top level was Kelly in the arms of some demon. She had another collar around her neck that seemed to be draining the energy out of her. Hiei probed her mind to find that she had let down all her barriers; some good quick thinking on her part.

-Onna.-

-Hiei?- Her voice was weak.

-Don't worry. We'll come get you.-

-It's Lon. Hiei it's him. He was here the whole time.-

-I see that. You can't panic. You have to stay calm.-

-I know. I'm trying. But Hiei, I'm scared. And they put another collar on me. It hurts. And it's making me weak.-

-I know. I'm coming.-

-I know… thank you…- The connection went blank and Hiei was left seeing the unconscious girl as she was carried away by the demon Hiei came to know as Lon.

Hiei went back to where Kelly's iPod was still laying on the ground. He picked it up and wrapped the ear buds around it, just as he had seen Kelly do so many times before. He pocketed it, keeping it safe so that he could give it back to her when he found her.

He would find her. He would rescue her. He made a fist with his right arm and punched at the door frame, causing it to crumble to pieces.

He would make Lon scream in agony for ever taking away something that belonged to him.

and so we get the exciting part! lots of fun stuff going on now! lol