The train pulled into the station. We got out of it, taking only a few things. None of us carried our bags, Hagrid having assured us that it would be sent straight to the school. We were going to walk through the Forbidden Forest, at night (Yes, I know you think its' suicidal) and we would separate into two teams. Ecah team would leave the station from a different side, but because the trail eventually met up again, we would journey the last few metres together before leaving the forest. Because of our proximity, we would also be in close range in case any of us weer in trouble, which I seriously doubted. Then again, weirder things have happened.
Kurama, Yokoshima, Botan, Peter and me were to be one team while the rest in the other. My sister had grinned when she pulled out the straw that put her in Hiei's group. I could have sworn that the man's eyes popped out of his head, but then again, it was probably my imagination. What was not my imagination was the gleeful smile on Kurama's and Shuura's faces. What was going on? @_@
We set off, Botan wearing an outfit that fit the idea of a mysterious fortune-teller. All you could see were her eyes and a small gem at the collar of her cape. Kurama wore the same outfit he wore when he picked me up from the airport, while Yokoshima and Peter had retained their current outfits. As for me, I wore what my sister termed 'Mean-Gypsy.' It was not so much as they followed the gypsy style as the way I wore it, she had said. I didn't really care. All it would do was to tell people that I meant business, no matter how soft I may look.
I saw Kurama eyeing me curiously as I took the sapling Gon offered me. I had asked him to cut a walking stick for me, doubling it up as a weapon. The cloak I wore was dark and would hid me quite well.
"Are we ready?" I asked my group. They nodded, eager to be off.
"See you soon!" I told my sister. She cheerfully returned the greeting, but I heard Hiei mutter in a soft tone to himself.
Part Two
We set off at a rather brisk pace. I took up the rear, with Yokoshima directly in front of me. From time to time I would rap his head sharply with the walking stick because he irritated me. There was nothing in the forest so far, but as we went along I took out the map I had managed to persuade Daniel to 'lend' to me. Kurama would stop the group once in a while to confer.
AS we walked I muttered to myself. This map was next to useless. I might as well fly up on Kimoso, my Dragon Shikigami and get a better bearing. However, I had made a bet with my sister and flying would definately count as cheating. The fact that night air was clear, cool unbelievably light meant that it was a perfect night for flying. DAMN!
We would reach the rendenzous point in a few minutes, but Peter suddenly stopped. "I thought I heard something," he said. *Note: Accounts may differ from Barb's POV and mine*
"It's probably just the wind," Botan said, but the rest of us were alert anyway. It was also the perfect time for Yokoshima to behave like the fool he was.
"I'm hungry! Should have had those ice-cream cakes... *ITAI!" he said as I rapped him sharply with my walking stick.
"Urusai!" everyone was saying, which also meant, "SHUT THE HELL UP!"
"I definately heard something," Kurama whispered to me as we gathered in a bunch.
"Let's just move to the next clearing. At least there we have a fighting chance at getting a look at whatever that's stalking us," I concurred.
We kept moving. Suddenly something jumped on us. Because it landed right on him, Yokoshima screamed and ran about like an idiot, which, IMHO, He was. THe rest of us immediately disappeared, as the being spoke in another language. Ne?
The rest of us had immediately jumped back. Botan had done the only thing she could do, jump and hide in the bushes, while the rest of us prepared to attack.
Interestingly enough, the thing just stood there and made no attempt to attack us. However, none of us liked the way it looked at us, and if there was anything any of us had learnt, it was shoot first and ask questions later. We ambushed the creature. Surprisingly it moved faster than we thought possible, and Kurama and I missed slicing each other in half. The creature, (a griffin according to Peter) was nowhere. Unspoken, we hid ourselves, treading silently in the forest.
The other group came running towards us. We knew they had found something when someone went, "Who the $^#^&#@ put their basket here?!!"
Part Three
"Onee-chan!" Sukina shouted, worried for my safety.
"I'm here imouto," I stepped out of the bushes where I had hidden myself with Botan. She ran to me and hugged me close. My sister had apparently had not gotten over the fear of losing me yet.
"The creature's gone, sensei," Peter said suddenly. Here in Europe, he was the most sensitive to changes.
Hiei, Kurama and me all looked at him in bewilderment. There were three senseis here. "It, or should I say she is no longer here. I can't feel the chi anymore," he explained.
We can find her for you if you wish, Mistress. She seeks refuge not far from here and we would only need the scent of her from that basket, my Shikigamis said in an amazingly choral voice. It was very rare for that to happen, all of them in agreement. It was far easier for George Bush to back down on Iraq than for them to agree to something.
"My Shikigamis can find her. Should we or do we let it pass and let Dumbledore handle it?" I asked.
With the exception of Botan, the rest of them looked at me as though I was insane, even my sister. I sighed. There goes hope for an early night. "We hunt then," I said, stating a statement and not a fact.
We spread out in a circle, each of us pairing off with Botan in the centre with the basket. According to her, the herbs in the basket were used mostly for to make energy drinks. "According to the textbook, I think they were called sourwine leaves and bittersweet berries," she said. Kurama concurred, although I think he doubted the names BOtan gave them. Nevertheless, he had other things on his mind.
Sukina followed me silently as we left the clearing, following the trail prescribed by our Shikigamis. Only those trained to detect them could, but I was worried. The killing of the Shikigami Trainers family that was the original catalyst for bringing me back here was never far from my mind. I was not entirely truthful when I told Nat how they had been killed. A Soul Crystal would have to be nearby, but it would not have to be used. The basic function of a Soul Crystal (SC) was to put Souls and Spirits to sleep. A little chant and a lot of time would enable you to ask the SC to change a person's soul into a spirit. A long ceremony later and you would be able to change the spirit to a Shikigami. No Banshee would have been able to keep such a sleep for so long, and the Soul Crystal would not have been able to keep souls who had just left their bodies asleep.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" Botan screamed.
My sister and I loked at each other before we rushed back. We were quite afraid, as we had no idea what had happened. The scream had hardly happened a few miliseconds ago, but it felt like hours to us. We ran and heard the other converging on Botan's position.
All of us reached her at nearly the same time. There was a man dressed all in balck standing in front of her, holding his wand threatheningly at her. "Who are you?" he asked. Botan was staring at us as though we were her salvation. That prompted Peter and Clapika to immediately spring into action. Clapika attacked him, forcing the man to face him while Peter whisked Botan away. As he prepared to attack, I shouted, "YAMATEH!" That means stop in Japanese.
Everyone looked at me. My sister left my side to hurry over to Botan. She checked the girl for injuries. "Let's not start attacking people simply. What's going on?" I asked them. Everyone looked at me as though I was insane. I sighed.
"May I ask who are you, Sir?" I said politely to the man standing in front of us.
"Who are you?" he asked us instead, his manner haughty. "You're trespassing on Hogwarts," he continued.
"We're the students and teachers from the Far East," I said. Most wizards and witches understood what that meant.
"The ones from Japan?" he asked us, but his question was cut off by shouts from above us.
It was an ambush.
Part Four
As was our usual Modus Operandi, we split up. My sister was with Botan. Both of them defended themselves well enough, with Botan providing the energy shields and my sister supplying the missiles. They, whatever they were (but most likely to be youkos), were dying like flies.
None of us spared any attention to the man as we were too busy getting rid of the youkos. Notice that I said getting rid of them. They were numerous, but none of them were even close to our level of expertise, so the guys got some much-needed excercise. We were cutting them down like stalks of grain. I didn't get involved physically as my Shikigamis were already out. They were gleefully eating the youkais, but I could hear the Twin Maidens, daughters of my second-in-command Shikigami, Plenia, complaining to their mother that the youkais tasted horrible! I giggled.
Suddenly there was a orange blur among us, biting and snarling at the youkais. I turned my head to take a good look, but suddenly the youkos broke through my defense shield and attacked me personally. "All return!" I shouted, jumping but holding my right hand out to them.
In the moonlight the Shikigamis returned to my hand's shadow and disappeared. Instead, I strengthen the walking stick and used it in a spinning arc as I came back to the ground. Several of the youkais had a problem with their cranial capacity also immediately. The others started having second thoughts as I decimated their ranks fairly quickly.
Three of them were smarter than their compatriots. Instead of trying to attack me they took hold of my staff. "Onee-chan, look out!" Sukina said. I cursed. I could feel the youkai behind me, but I couldn't touch him as my staff was being held securely by the three youkais and I didn't have the strength to throw them off.
"Drop it Naoko!" I heard someone shout. I dropped the staff and found myself in warm arms going above the youkais.
I didn't think, just reacted. "Diranes!" I said, holding my right arm over the red shoulder of my rescuer and burning my former attackers to a nice crisp. I think I won't eat BBQ food for a while.
All about us the last remnants of the youkos were dying. We counted about 150 of them, most of them lying in pieces and their blood staining the ground.
"Uh... Naoko-kun? You're a little heavy," Kurama said, his voice close to my ear.
"Oopps!" I said, blushing. I picked up my staff which had remained untouched by the fire and planted it square in the ground.
A cry of dismay arose from my sister. "'Nee-chan, you can't wear that tomorrow!" she said, referring to my blood-stained cloak. She held it up and mumbled something about bloodstains being hard to wash out. The guys sweat-dropped.
"It is an honour to meet you," Peter intoned.
A griffin was standing next to the man who now looked vaguely familiar.
Kurama, Yokoshima, Botan, Peter and me were to be one team while the rest in the other. My sister had grinned when she pulled out the straw that put her in Hiei's group. I could have sworn that the man's eyes popped out of his head, but then again, it was probably my imagination. What was not my imagination was the gleeful smile on Kurama's and Shuura's faces. What was going on? @_@
We set off, Botan wearing an outfit that fit the idea of a mysterious fortune-teller. All you could see were her eyes and a small gem at the collar of her cape. Kurama wore the same outfit he wore when he picked me up from the airport, while Yokoshima and Peter had retained their current outfits. As for me, I wore what my sister termed 'Mean-Gypsy.' It was not so much as they followed the gypsy style as the way I wore it, she had said. I didn't really care. All it would do was to tell people that I meant business, no matter how soft I may look.
I saw Kurama eyeing me curiously as I took the sapling Gon offered me. I had asked him to cut a walking stick for me, doubling it up as a weapon. The cloak I wore was dark and would hid me quite well.
"Are we ready?" I asked my group. They nodded, eager to be off.
"See you soon!" I told my sister. She cheerfully returned the greeting, but I heard Hiei mutter in a soft tone to himself.
Part Two
We set off at a rather brisk pace. I took up the rear, with Yokoshima directly in front of me. From time to time I would rap his head sharply with the walking stick because he irritated me. There was nothing in the forest so far, but as we went along I took out the map I had managed to persuade Daniel to 'lend' to me. Kurama would stop the group once in a while to confer.
AS we walked I muttered to myself. This map was next to useless. I might as well fly up on Kimoso, my Dragon Shikigami and get a better bearing. However, I had made a bet with my sister and flying would definately count as cheating. The fact that night air was clear, cool unbelievably light meant that it was a perfect night for flying. DAMN!
We would reach the rendenzous point in a few minutes, but Peter suddenly stopped. "I thought I heard something," he said. *Note: Accounts may differ from Barb's POV and mine*
"It's probably just the wind," Botan said, but the rest of us were alert anyway. It was also the perfect time for Yokoshima to behave like the fool he was.
"I'm hungry! Should have had those ice-cream cakes... *ITAI!" he said as I rapped him sharply with my walking stick.
"Urusai!" everyone was saying, which also meant, "SHUT THE HELL UP!"
"I definately heard something," Kurama whispered to me as we gathered in a bunch.
"Let's just move to the next clearing. At least there we have a fighting chance at getting a look at whatever that's stalking us," I concurred.
We kept moving. Suddenly something jumped on us. Because it landed right on him, Yokoshima screamed and ran about like an idiot, which, IMHO, He was. THe rest of us immediately disappeared, as the being spoke in another language. Ne?
The rest of us had immediately jumped back. Botan had done the only thing she could do, jump and hide in the bushes, while the rest of us prepared to attack.
Interestingly enough, the thing just stood there and made no attempt to attack us. However, none of us liked the way it looked at us, and if there was anything any of us had learnt, it was shoot first and ask questions later. We ambushed the creature. Surprisingly it moved faster than we thought possible, and Kurama and I missed slicing each other in half. The creature, (a griffin according to Peter) was nowhere. Unspoken, we hid ourselves, treading silently in the forest.
The other group came running towards us. We knew they had found something when someone went, "Who the $^#^&#@ put their basket here?!!"
Part Three
"Onee-chan!" Sukina shouted, worried for my safety.
"I'm here imouto," I stepped out of the bushes where I had hidden myself with Botan. She ran to me and hugged me close. My sister had apparently had not gotten over the fear of losing me yet.
"The creature's gone, sensei," Peter said suddenly. Here in Europe, he was the most sensitive to changes.
Hiei, Kurama and me all looked at him in bewilderment. There were three senseis here. "It, or should I say she is no longer here. I can't feel the chi anymore," he explained.
We can find her for you if you wish, Mistress. She seeks refuge not far from here and we would only need the scent of her from that basket, my Shikigamis said in an amazingly choral voice. It was very rare for that to happen, all of them in agreement. It was far easier for George Bush to back down on Iraq than for them to agree to something.
"My Shikigamis can find her. Should we or do we let it pass and let Dumbledore handle it?" I asked.
With the exception of Botan, the rest of them looked at me as though I was insane, even my sister. I sighed. There goes hope for an early night. "We hunt then," I said, stating a statement and not a fact.
We spread out in a circle, each of us pairing off with Botan in the centre with the basket. According to her, the herbs in the basket were used mostly for to make energy drinks. "According to the textbook, I think they were called sourwine leaves and bittersweet berries," she said. Kurama concurred, although I think he doubted the names BOtan gave them. Nevertheless, he had other things on his mind.
Sukina followed me silently as we left the clearing, following the trail prescribed by our Shikigamis. Only those trained to detect them could, but I was worried. The killing of the Shikigami Trainers family that was the original catalyst for bringing me back here was never far from my mind. I was not entirely truthful when I told Nat how they had been killed. A Soul Crystal would have to be nearby, but it would not have to be used. The basic function of a Soul Crystal (SC) was to put Souls and Spirits to sleep. A little chant and a lot of time would enable you to ask the SC to change a person's soul into a spirit. A long ceremony later and you would be able to change the spirit to a Shikigami. No Banshee would have been able to keep such a sleep for so long, and the Soul Crystal would not have been able to keep souls who had just left their bodies asleep.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" Botan screamed.
My sister and I loked at each other before we rushed back. We were quite afraid, as we had no idea what had happened. The scream had hardly happened a few miliseconds ago, but it felt like hours to us. We ran and heard the other converging on Botan's position.
All of us reached her at nearly the same time. There was a man dressed all in balck standing in front of her, holding his wand threatheningly at her. "Who are you?" he asked. Botan was staring at us as though we were her salvation. That prompted Peter and Clapika to immediately spring into action. Clapika attacked him, forcing the man to face him while Peter whisked Botan away. As he prepared to attack, I shouted, "YAMATEH!" That means stop in Japanese.
Everyone looked at me. My sister left my side to hurry over to Botan. She checked the girl for injuries. "Let's not start attacking people simply. What's going on?" I asked them. Everyone looked at me as though I was insane. I sighed.
"May I ask who are you, Sir?" I said politely to the man standing in front of us.
"Who are you?" he asked us instead, his manner haughty. "You're trespassing on Hogwarts," he continued.
"We're the students and teachers from the Far East," I said. Most wizards and witches understood what that meant.
"The ones from Japan?" he asked us, but his question was cut off by shouts from above us.
It was an ambush.
Part Four
As was our usual Modus Operandi, we split up. My sister was with Botan. Both of them defended themselves well enough, with Botan providing the energy shields and my sister supplying the missiles. They, whatever they were (but most likely to be youkos), were dying like flies.
None of us spared any attention to the man as we were too busy getting rid of the youkos. Notice that I said getting rid of them. They were numerous, but none of them were even close to our level of expertise, so the guys got some much-needed excercise. We were cutting them down like stalks of grain. I didn't get involved physically as my Shikigamis were already out. They were gleefully eating the youkais, but I could hear the Twin Maidens, daughters of my second-in-command Shikigami, Plenia, complaining to their mother that the youkais tasted horrible! I giggled.
Suddenly there was a orange blur among us, biting and snarling at the youkais. I turned my head to take a good look, but suddenly the youkos broke through my defense shield and attacked me personally. "All return!" I shouted, jumping but holding my right hand out to them.
In the moonlight the Shikigamis returned to my hand's shadow and disappeared. Instead, I strengthen the walking stick and used it in a spinning arc as I came back to the ground. Several of the youkais had a problem with their cranial capacity also immediately. The others started having second thoughts as I decimated their ranks fairly quickly.
Three of them were smarter than their compatriots. Instead of trying to attack me they took hold of my staff. "Onee-chan, look out!" Sukina said. I cursed. I could feel the youkai behind me, but I couldn't touch him as my staff was being held securely by the three youkais and I didn't have the strength to throw them off.
"Drop it Naoko!" I heard someone shout. I dropped the staff and found myself in warm arms going above the youkais.
I didn't think, just reacted. "Diranes!" I said, holding my right arm over the red shoulder of my rescuer and burning my former attackers to a nice crisp. I think I won't eat BBQ food for a while.
All about us the last remnants of the youkos were dying. We counted about 150 of them, most of them lying in pieces and their blood staining the ground.
"Uh... Naoko-kun? You're a little heavy," Kurama said, his voice close to my ear.
"Oopps!" I said, blushing. I picked up my staff which had remained untouched by the fire and planted it square in the ground.
A cry of dismay arose from my sister. "'Nee-chan, you can't wear that tomorrow!" she said, referring to my blood-stained cloak. She held it up and mumbled something about bloodstains being hard to wash out. The guys sweat-dropped.
"It is an honour to meet you," Peter intoned.
A griffin was standing next to the man who now looked vaguely familiar.
