Disclaimer: (see last chaptaa) OK! I just saw Rurouni Kenshin (I don't own,
*weep*) and .hack//sign (*weeps more* don't own this one either) last
night. I think it's safe to say that SOUJIRO IS INSANE!!! Just a tad.
In .hack//sign did Sora die? The real Sora. The one in the real world. I don't get it. That show is confusing sometimes.
-__________- zzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ Sorry. Tired today.
Here ya (yawn) go
~*~
The next day went by slowly. It was supposed to be a 'take a break' day but everyone wanted the break and the day to be over. Well, not everyone.
Kai sat on the porch while both his legs were swinging off the edge. His stomach had been re-bandaged several times but the pain never went away. It seemed to be getting worse and worse by the second. He kept feeling shots of lightning being set off on his lower chest. Leaning forward, he clutched his stomach in pain. His feet had stopped swinging and were now locked to the porch. The pain seemed unbearable.
Suddenly, Tyson came through the front gate. He was carrying his dark blue backpack and he was wearing a dark green winter coat. He looked over at Kai who was sitting on the porch still clutching his stomach. 'I am the Great Kai,' he thought. 'I shouldn't let somebody like him see that I'm a weakling!' With caution, Kai removed his hands from his stomach and put them to his side, the pain still searing through his skin.
"Yo, Kai! What's up?" Tyson shouted over the Zen garden.
"What are you doing here?" Kai replied in a cold tone. And it wasn't the temperature.
"I live here dude," Tyson said with a bit of confusion on his face. "Why do you ask?"
"Aren't you supposed to be in school?"
"Oh! Yeah! Um, about that," Tyson began but was cut short by Max and Rei running up from behind.
"Guys! Guys!" Max began.
"Yeah?" Tyson said.
"You'll never guess what's going on!" Rei said trying to make it sound important which in a way, it was.
"Dude! What is it already?" Tyson said with a little bit of irritation in his voice.
"There's a mini Beyblading tournament going on right now!" Rei shouted.
"And it ends at six so you'll be home in time to do your homework, Tyson!" Max teased.
"Shut up," Tyson said under his breath. "Wait! Are we in it?"
Max and Rei just stared at him. "Of course not!" they said together while Max finished it. "If we were, we would have told you sooner!"
"But there are a lot of teams that we will be competing against in our tournament too!" Rei said. ((Ok! I don't really know what the tournament is but who cares!)) "So we'd better check it out."
"Good idea!" Tyson said trying to forget anything to do with school or school work. "Let's go get Chief and we'll head over there," They all began to head for the gate when Rei turned around only to see Tyson and Max.
"Hey," Rei said. "Where's Kai?" They all looked around but saw no sign of Kai anywhere.
"He must have gone ahead when we weren't looking," Tyson said.
"But he was with us the whole time we were talking. He must still be here," Max said. "Rei, why don't you go look for him and we'll meet you at the stadium. Okay?"
"Okay," Rei replied. Tyson and Max walked out the gate as Rei walked back through the snow to the dojo to try and find Kai. He looked in almost every room except for one. It was the room Tyson and his Jiisan practiced sword. 'Why would Kai be in there?' He thought to himself. He opened the door only to find, to Rei's surprise, Kai sitting in the middle of the room working on his Dranzer.
"Kai! There you are. C'mon! We have to meet Max and Tyson at the stadium!" Rei said. Kai didn't flinch. He just kept putting the parts of his beyblade together under the small shred of light coming through from the window while his stomach still seared in pain. 'As much as I'd love to go to the beyblade tournament,' Kai thought. 'I'd also lov- LIKE to see Key at four o'clock.' Kai thought making sure he didn't let his mind use the word 'love' when talking about Key. For some reason, he was afraid to.
"Kai! C'mon!" Rei shouted to Kai thinking he didn't hear him the first time. He walked over to where Kai was sitting and knelt down beside him. "Why don't you want to come?" Rei asked quietly. He looked into Kai's eyes thinking he might be able to tell what's wrong. There was a small glint in his eye that looked like snow, but at the same time, determination. Rei pulled away and began to laugh.
Kai turned his head toward Rei who was now laughing on his side. "What's so funny?" Kai asked.
Rei turned to Kai. "This is about Key, isn't it?"
Kai's eyes widened a little at his thoughts. 'How did he know?'
"Kai," Rei began still chuckling a bit. "You've only been saying 'Key' in your sleep for god knows how long." Kai felt like blushing but made sure he didn't. "I know you like her," Rei said in a polite smile. "It written all over your face. And I know that's where you were Saturday night and yesterday morning." ((It's Monday if you didn't know))
Kai didn't know what to say. He asked himself questions but answered them quickly. Except for one, 'I don't like Key. Besides, what does liking a girl feel like anyway?' He couldn't answer that one for some reason. Then Rei spoke up again.
"Don't worry. I know how Tyson and Max can be. I won't tell them. I won't tell anyone," Rei said with a smile but then it disappeared. "That's got to be hard. Choosing between your reputation and the girl you like." Kai wanted to say, 'Buzz off! I don't like her!' but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Rei got up and walked over to the threshold of the room. "Don't worry!" He said as Kai turned to face him. "I'll tell Tyson you got sick and couldn't come. Just be home before six so they don't suspect anything." Rei smiled and walked out.
Kai listened to the footsteps fade until he heard the gate open and close and there was silence. He looked down at the several parts of his Dranzer scattered across the tatami. He then closed his eyes, began to clutch his pain filled stomach like he had done earlier, and smiled.
* * *
Key sat on her porch and listened to the bare branches of the trees rustle while she was waiting for Kai to come in the freezing cold. She was wearing something similar to what she had worn the day before when Kai saw her. Only she had an extra layer on due to the freezing cold and the fact that she had no blood circulating through her body. She had her arrow case with four blue feather tipped arrows on her back and her bow in her hand but she was beginning to shiver and she could hear the clicking of her teeth. 'Great,' she thought. 'My teeth are chattering. This is going to be a fun day.'
She looked at her watch and it said the time was 4:23. 'That's it,' she thought with a little bit of frustration. 'If Kai isn't coming than I'm not going to sit here and freeze my ass off.' Just as she had risen to reach for the door handle, she heard a familiar voice. A voice she was somewhat relieved and somewhat upset to hear.
"What? Giving up already?" Kai said as he made his way up the hill and through the trees to the clearing in which Key's cabin was. His stomach was now feeling worse than ever. He was pale and cold but he tried not to show his weakness.
Key turned around to see Kai walking toward her on the porch but Key noticed he was trying not to limp. "Kai," Key began. "Are you sure you can do this? My training is not for weaklings and you still look pretty bad."
"I can take anything you throw at me, teach."
"Well alright then! Today we'll just do archery and tomorrow you can show me beyblade. Is that ok with you?"
"Fine," Kai flinched at another shock in his stomach. "Just fine."
* * *
"Hey! Rei! Over here!" Tyson shouted to Rei when he spotted him in the crowd. Tyson was with Max and Kenny but frowned when he saw that Kai wasn't with Rei. Tyson squeezed through the crowd as he tried to get closer to Rei. "Hey. Did you find Kai?"
"Yeah," he said with a smile on his face.
"So? Is he coming?" Tyson said with anticipation.
"No," Rei said quickly. "He wasn't feeling well when I got there so I let him stay."
"Oh. That's too bad," Max said. "I guess we'll have to see the tournament without him!"
"Yeah," Rei said as he looked up at the sky. 'I'm sure they're having fun!' He thought to himself as he followed Kenny into the stadium.
* * *
'God,' Kai thought to himself. 'It's freezing out here! I hope wherever we're going has some heat.'
They had been climbing up the mountain that was behind Key's cabin. It wasn't very big but one could surly collapse under severe circumstances. Key was in front leading the way up the steep slope. She had climbed this mountain many times before so not only did she know the way but she was fit to run up the entire mountain without breaking a sweat. Kai followed behind, trying not to show the pain that shot through his stomach and the pain of walking with half his chest bandaged.
"We're almost there," Key said turning her head to her side so Kai would be able to hear her.
"You said that a half hour ago," Kai said with irritation.
"Sorry," Key said defensively.
"We're only going to be able to have an hour of training time. I need to be at Tyson's by six," Kai shouted up the hill to where Key was walking.
"An hour? Why?" she said as she stopped to look at him.
"Um," 'Don't tell her. If you do, she might call off the lessons.' And for some reason, Kai didn't want that at all. "Tyson wants to have a meeting so I have to be there."
"Oh. Well, ok then," she said with a bit of sadness in her eyes. Kai tried not to look into her lavender eyes so he wouldn't melt like he did before. Key turned around and began to walk up the hill again.
Ten more minutes pasted until they finally reached their destination. It was a waterfall surrounded by tall gray rocks. There were strings hanging everywhere with small rocks, pieces of cloth and leaves tied to the ends of them. The sound of the waterfall was pounding on the earth. As Kai approached the dirt and sand by the water, he could feel the waterfall shaking the earth beneath him.
"What is this place?" He asked.
"It's my training center. The taki makes it hard to hear the targets on the strings. It's good practice," Key shouted over the waterfall. She got out one of her arrows from the bag on her back. She aligned the arrow with the center of the bow and pulled back on the string. She hesitated for a moment while one of her eyes was shut to see better and then let go. The arrow bounced off three of the rocks and at an angle it bounced right back to Key. The arrow dug itself into a tree that was about a foot next to where Key was standing. She didn't flinch what so ever.
Kai was stunned. 'Wow,' he thought. 'She must have known that was going to happen or else she would have ducked or moved out of the way.' Then Key spoke up.
"You'll learn to do that too. Obviously not today but later. You have to always know what will happen if it doesn't hit the target you want it too. What angle will it take and where will it stop." She turned towards Kai. "Today, you'll just be learning how to hold a bow and arrow. And trust me, it's not as easy as it seems."
Kai nodded. He didn't know what else to do so he just nodded. Key walked over to him and handed him a bow and arrow. She demonstrated how to hold it and how to release the arrow.
Kai took the bow and held it like she said too. 'This is easy,' he thought. He then placed the arrow onto the bow pulled back, and released. It all happened so fast he couldn't see where the arrow went. He looked around at the rocks and looked up at the waterfall to see if it was up there but he couldn't find it.
Key began to laugh. Kai turned to her, unsure of why she was laughing. "I'm sorry," she said still laughing. "It's just, well," she then pointed to Kai's feet. The arrow had fallen off the bow and landed about a centimeter from Kai's feet. Key just kept laughing. She knelt down and clutched her stomach. Kai was embarrassed. He began to glow bright red out of both anger and embarrassment. He bent down and picked up the arrow at his feet.
He looked over to his side where Key was still laughing. And for the first time in his life, (or at least since he could remember), he laughed with her.
~*~
YAY! Ok, Fluffy stuff coming up. One of the next two chapters is pretty sad so get your boxes of Kleenex out. You're gonna need 'em! HA! Now I'm off to watch the 14 hour Law & Order marathon on TNT! YES!!! I love Law & Order.
Hope ya liked it! R+R
o(^-^)o
Thanx a many!
Kitsune Ria
In .hack//sign did Sora die? The real Sora. The one in the real world. I don't get it. That show is confusing sometimes.
-__________- zzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZ Sorry. Tired today.
Here ya (yawn) go
~*~
The next day went by slowly. It was supposed to be a 'take a break' day but everyone wanted the break and the day to be over. Well, not everyone.
Kai sat on the porch while both his legs were swinging off the edge. His stomach had been re-bandaged several times but the pain never went away. It seemed to be getting worse and worse by the second. He kept feeling shots of lightning being set off on his lower chest. Leaning forward, he clutched his stomach in pain. His feet had stopped swinging and were now locked to the porch. The pain seemed unbearable.
Suddenly, Tyson came through the front gate. He was carrying his dark blue backpack and he was wearing a dark green winter coat. He looked over at Kai who was sitting on the porch still clutching his stomach. 'I am the Great Kai,' he thought. 'I shouldn't let somebody like him see that I'm a weakling!' With caution, Kai removed his hands from his stomach and put them to his side, the pain still searing through his skin.
"Yo, Kai! What's up?" Tyson shouted over the Zen garden.
"What are you doing here?" Kai replied in a cold tone. And it wasn't the temperature.
"I live here dude," Tyson said with a bit of confusion on his face. "Why do you ask?"
"Aren't you supposed to be in school?"
"Oh! Yeah! Um, about that," Tyson began but was cut short by Max and Rei running up from behind.
"Guys! Guys!" Max began.
"Yeah?" Tyson said.
"You'll never guess what's going on!" Rei said trying to make it sound important which in a way, it was.
"Dude! What is it already?" Tyson said with a little bit of irritation in his voice.
"There's a mini Beyblading tournament going on right now!" Rei shouted.
"And it ends at six so you'll be home in time to do your homework, Tyson!" Max teased.
"Shut up," Tyson said under his breath. "Wait! Are we in it?"
Max and Rei just stared at him. "Of course not!" they said together while Max finished it. "If we were, we would have told you sooner!"
"But there are a lot of teams that we will be competing against in our tournament too!" Rei said. ((Ok! I don't really know what the tournament is but who cares!)) "So we'd better check it out."
"Good idea!" Tyson said trying to forget anything to do with school or school work. "Let's go get Chief and we'll head over there," They all began to head for the gate when Rei turned around only to see Tyson and Max.
"Hey," Rei said. "Where's Kai?" They all looked around but saw no sign of Kai anywhere.
"He must have gone ahead when we weren't looking," Tyson said.
"But he was with us the whole time we were talking. He must still be here," Max said. "Rei, why don't you go look for him and we'll meet you at the stadium. Okay?"
"Okay," Rei replied. Tyson and Max walked out the gate as Rei walked back through the snow to the dojo to try and find Kai. He looked in almost every room except for one. It was the room Tyson and his Jiisan practiced sword. 'Why would Kai be in there?' He thought to himself. He opened the door only to find, to Rei's surprise, Kai sitting in the middle of the room working on his Dranzer.
"Kai! There you are. C'mon! We have to meet Max and Tyson at the stadium!" Rei said. Kai didn't flinch. He just kept putting the parts of his beyblade together under the small shred of light coming through from the window while his stomach still seared in pain. 'As much as I'd love to go to the beyblade tournament,' Kai thought. 'I'd also lov- LIKE to see Key at four o'clock.' Kai thought making sure he didn't let his mind use the word 'love' when talking about Key. For some reason, he was afraid to.
"Kai! C'mon!" Rei shouted to Kai thinking he didn't hear him the first time. He walked over to where Kai was sitting and knelt down beside him. "Why don't you want to come?" Rei asked quietly. He looked into Kai's eyes thinking he might be able to tell what's wrong. There was a small glint in his eye that looked like snow, but at the same time, determination. Rei pulled away and began to laugh.
Kai turned his head toward Rei who was now laughing on his side. "What's so funny?" Kai asked.
Rei turned to Kai. "This is about Key, isn't it?"
Kai's eyes widened a little at his thoughts. 'How did he know?'
"Kai," Rei began still chuckling a bit. "You've only been saying 'Key' in your sleep for god knows how long." Kai felt like blushing but made sure he didn't. "I know you like her," Rei said in a polite smile. "It written all over your face. And I know that's where you were Saturday night and yesterday morning." ((It's Monday if you didn't know))
Kai didn't know what to say. He asked himself questions but answered them quickly. Except for one, 'I don't like Key. Besides, what does liking a girl feel like anyway?' He couldn't answer that one for some reason. Then Rei spoke up again.
"Don't worry. I know how Tyson and Max can be. I won't tell them. I won't tell anyone," Rei said with a smile but then it disappeared. "That's got to be hard. Choosing between your reputation and the girl you like." Kai wanted to say, 'Buzz off! I don't like her!' but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Rei got up and walked over to the threshold of the room. "Don't worry!" He said as Kai turned to face him. "I'll tell Tyson you got sick and couldn't come. Just be home before six so they don't suspect anything." Rei smiled and walked out.
Kai listened to the footsteps fade until he heard the gate open and close and there was silence. He looked down at the several parts of his Dranzer scattered across the tatami. He then closed his eyes, began to clutch his pain filled stomach like he had done earlier, and smiled.
* * *
Key sat on her porch and listened to the bare branches of the trees rustle while she was waiting for Kai to come in the freezing cold. She was wearing something similar to what she had worn the day before when Kai saw her. Only she had an extra layer on due to the freezing cold and the fact that she had no blood circulating through her body. She had her arrow case with four blue feather tipped arrows on her back and her bow in her hand but she was beginning to shiver and she could hear the clicking of her teeth. 'Great,' she thought. 'My teeth are chattering. This is going to be a fun day.'
She looked at her watch and it said the time was 4:23. 'That's it,' she thought with a little bit of frustration. 'If Kai isn't coming than I'm not going to sit here and freeze my ass off.' Just as she had risen to reach for the door handle, she heard a familiar voice. A voice she was somewhat relieved and somewhat upset to hear.
"What? Giving up already?" Kai said as he made his way up the hill and through the trees to the clearing in which Key's cabin was. His stomach was now feeling worse than ever. He was pale and cold but he tried not to show his weakness.
Key turned around to see Kai walking toward her on the porch but Key noticed he was trying not to limp. "Kai," Key began. "Are you sure you can do this? My training is not for weaklings and you still look pretty bad."
"I can take anything you throw at me, teach."
"Well alright then! Today we'll just do archery and tomorrow you can show me beyblade. Is that ok with you?"
"Fine," Kai flinched at another shock in his stomach. "Just fine."
* * *
"Hey! Rei! Over here!" Tyson shouted to Rei when he spotted him in the crowd. Tyson was with Max and Kenny but frowned when he saw that Kai wasn't with Rei. Tyson squeezed through the crowd as he tried to get closer to Rei. "Hey. Did you find Kai?"
"Yeah," he said with a smile on his face.
"So? Is he coming?" Tyson said with anticipation.
"No," Rei said quickly. "He wasn't feeling well when I got there so I let him stay."
"Oh. That's too bad," Max said. "I guess we'll have to see the tournament without him!"
"Yeah," Rei said as he looked up at the sky. 'I'm sure they're having fun!' He thought to himself as he followed Kenny into the stadium.
* * *
'God,' Kai thought to himself. 'It's freezing out here! I hope wherever we're going has some heat.'
They had been climbing up the mountain that was behind Key's cabin. It wasn't very big but one could surly collapse under severe circumstances. Key was in front leading the way up the steep slope. She had climbed this mountain many times before so not only did she know the way but she was fit to run up the entire mountain without breaking a sweat. Kai followed behind, trying not to show the pain that shot through his stomach and the pain of walking with half his chest bandaged.
"We're almost there," Key said turning her head to her side so Kai would be able to hear her.
"You said that a half hour ago," Kai said with irritation.
"Sorry," Key said defensively.
"We're only going to be able to have an hour of training time. I need to be at Tyson's by six," Kai shouted up the hill to where Key was walking.
"An hour? Why?" she said as she stopped to look at him.
"Um," 'Don't tell her. If you do, she might call off the lessons.' And for some reason, Kai didn't want that at all. "Tyson wants to have a meeting so I have to be there."
"Oh. Well, ok then," she said with a bit of sadness in her eyes. Kai tried not to look into her lavender eyes so he wouldn't melt like he did before. Key turned around and began to walk up the hill again.
Ten more minutes pasted until they finally reached their destination. It was a waterfall surrounded by tall gray rocks. There were strings hanging everywhere with small rocks, pieces of cloth and leaves tied to the ends of them. The sound of the waterfall was pounding on the earth. As Kai approached the dirt and sand by the water, he could feel the waterfall shaking the earth beneath him.
"What is this place?" He asked.
"It's my training center. The taki makes it hard to hear the targets on the strings. It's good practice," Key shouted over the waterfall. She got out one of her arrows from the bag on her back. She aligned the arrow with the center of the bow and pulled back on the string. She hesitated for a moment while one of her eyes was shut to see better and then let go. The arrow bounced off three of the rocks and at an angle it bounced right back to Key. The arrow dug itself into a tree that was about a foot next to where Key was standing. She didn't flinch what so ever.
Kai was stunned. 'Wow,' he thought. 'She must have known that was going to happen or else she would have ducked or moved out of the way.' Then Key spoke up.
"You'll learn to do that too. Obviously not today but later. You have to always know what will happen if it doesn't hit the target you want it too. What angle will it take and where will it stop." She turned towards Kai. "Today, you'll just be learning how to hold a bow and arrow. And trust me, it's not as easy as it seems."
Kai nodded. He didn't know what else to do so he just nodded. Key walked over to him and handed him a bow and arrow. She demonstrated how to hold it and how to release the arrow.
Kai took the bow and held it like she said too. 'This is easy,' he thought. He then placed the arrow onto the bow pulled back, and released. It all happened so fast he couldn't see where the arrow went. He looked around at the rocks and looked up at the waterfall to see if it was up there but he couldn't find it.
Key began to laugh. Kai turned to her, unsure of why she was laughing. "I'm sorry," she said still laughing. "It's just, well," she then pointed to Kai's feet. The arrow had fallen off the bow and landed about a centimeter from Kai's feet. Key just kept laughing. She knelt down and clutched her stomach. Kai was embarrassed. He began to glow bright red out of both anger and embarrassment. He bent down and picked up the arrow at his feet.
He looked over to his side where Key was still laughing. And for the first time in his life, (or at least since he could remember), he laughed with her.
~*~
YAY! Ok, Fluffy stuff coming up. One of the next two chapters is pretty sad so get your boxes of Kleenex out. You're gonna need 'em! HA! Now I'm off to watch the 14 hour Law & Order marathon on TNT! YES!!! I love Law & Order.
Hope ya liked it! R+R
o(^-^)o
Thanx a many!
Kitsune Ria