AN: Okay. This chapter is a waste of time, I tell you!! It's covering a lot of Blaze's training, so it's pretty boring. Not to mention that this entire thing is one long jumbo of me working with my writer's block. I swear I confused myself on more than one occasion with this!!! *heavy sigh* But alas, it is here. Just wanted to warn those of low tolerance!! I swear to you, the next chapter will be better!!!!

Special Note (SN): Everyone should thank AnimeFreak452 because she's making sure I work on this stuff!!!

Now, without further ado, my terrible chapter 10!! Peace muchachos!!!

Chapter 10: "…I'm not going to let you get hurt!"

Heero shook Blaze awake, and Blaze turned her bleary eyes to the clock. "6:30?!" she exclaimed. "Heero, what the hell are you doing waking me up at 6:30 in the freakin' morning?!"

"You need to start training. Get up. We can't waste any time." Heero ordered.

"Yeah right! Kiss my royal white behind!" she shot back, and pulled the covers over her head.

'Not this again…' Heero thought to himself. He ripped off her covers, and she curled up into a ball from the chilling air that swept over her. "Get up. Now." he demanded coldly.

Blaze lifted up her head at glared at his back. He turned and glared at her, making sure she wasn't going to fall back asleep. She narrowed her eyes, grabbed her pillow, and threw it at him stubbornly. "Ass…" she muttered.

Naturally, Heero being Heero, caught it and dropped it aimlessly behind him. His expression clearly showed that he was completely unfazed. Blaze rolled out of her soft bed and stood up and stretched. Heero, satisfied, turned his back on her momentarily. Blaze took this opportunity to snatch Heero's pillow and in a matter of seconds, was literally on his back, beating him over the head with his own pillow.

Muffled grunts greeted Blaze's ears each time she bopped him on the head, and she got off of him and continued to whip the poor stoic spandex-wearing pilot. Heero put up his arm and blocked her blows, then grabbed the pillow with his other hand, snatching it from her and causing the poor still-somewhat-sleepy Blaze to lose her balance. The force of Heero's pull and her Usagi-equivalent lack of balance caused her to hurtle into Heero, which threw them both off balance, and they both fell to the floor with a loud thump. The pillow, which was in Heero's hand, flew into the air and landed flat square on his face. Blaze immediately started laughing at him, and pushed herself off of him. Her laughter was cut short by a pounding on the far wall.

Duo's angry shouts made it through the white wash wall. "COULD YOU TWO BE ANY LOUDER?? SOME SHINIGAMI'S NEED THEIR BEAUTY SLEEP!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS YOU TWO ARE DOING IN THERE, AND I DON'T WANT TO KNOW, BUT WHATEVER IT IS, DO IT QUIETLY!!!!!"

"MAXWELL!!! SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!" Wufei bellowed. "IF YOU DON'T I'LL SHOVE THIS KATANA UP YOUR ASS!!!"

Blaze and Heero glanced at each other, and moved closer to the wall to hear the early morning argument.

"Wufei, just go! Okay? Go join them in… whatever it is they're doing!! Let my braid and I sleep!" Duo shot back crankily.

Blaze blushed at that suggestion, and Heero tried to keep from showing any reaction at all. Duo, always the big mouthed American, found a way to place something sexual in anything. Heero pulled away and completely bypassed the situation of the uncomfortable atmosphere that seemed to hang over the two of them. No more sounds issued from their rowdy and grouchy neighbors.

"Get dressed." Heero demanded. "Today I'm going to find out the level of your abilities to save time in training."

Blaze groaned and slumped over to her dresser, and grabbed her clothes to get dressed.

"We'll start with the physical aspects first." Heero explained. "I need to know your endurance, your reflexes, and how much you really know when it comes to hand to hand combat."

"That's great." Blaze replied. "When you find out let me know, cuz I have no clue."

"Stop your comebacks." Heero ordered. "I'm training you, and you'll speak only if you have a question or if you are giving me an answer to a question."

"Hey! Excuse me!" Blaze huffed. She put her hands on her hips. "I'm letting you train me! Don't act all high and mighty."

Heero put his finger to Blaze's lips and glared into her eyes. "Don't. Speak. The more time you waste talking back, the less time we have to get you ready for this war." Blaze averted her eyes to the floor submissively, and then back up into his eyes. Once Heero was sure he had her attention, he began to test her.

He put her through a string of warm ups, and then began certain weight training, long distance running, and so on. She was really out of shape. Still, she was determined so whatever strength she lacked physically, she made up for in her willpower.

Still, her willpower wasn't enough. Heero's main concern was to first get Blaze in acceptable physical shape. Then they would work from there. He was only going to spend a month at the max, to get Blaze into an adequate condition.

Blaze was woken up again the next morning by Heero shaking her awake. Again, it was 6:30, and time for her to get up. However, her body said otherwise. She slapped his hand away. "Heero, go away. I'm really sore from that run you made me do yesterday!!" she demanded.

Heero, not willing to waste any time, picked Blaze up out of her bed and carried her into the bathroom.

Icy cold faucet water bombarded Blaze and she leaped up, completely shocked. "OH MY GOD!!!" she screamed. Heero avoided her angry fist, and Blaze started to get up in the bathtub to get him, but slipped on the slick ceramic. Still, determined to seek vengeance, she made her way clumsily out of the aim of the cold spray of water, and chased after Heero. He was naturally faster than her, but her anger gave her speed and she darted forth. Heero bolted to avoid her fists, and Blaze stopped immediately at his desk. She ripped his laptop out of its plug. Heero turned and saw this, and his face paled. She ran into the bathroom and slammed the door, but he chased after her and smacked the door open. She held the laptop precariously over the bathtub.

"Don't even!!!" Heero demanded.

"Do what, Heero?" Blaze mocked. "Do this?" she pretended to drop it a few times, causing Heero to tense up.

"Don't drop it!" Heero ordered, his voice harsh.

"Don't ever wake me up like that again!" she shot back.

"Then get up when I tell you to!" Heero replied.

"You're in no position to compromise with me, Heero!" Blaze said. "I have your laptop!"

"You're still wet!" Heero shot back.

"Which is why you're laptop must suffer the same fate!!" Blaze retorted. "Where do you get off treating me like this all of a sudden??"

"This isn't a democracy, Blaze! It's a dictatorship! You're now my responsibility, and I am the one who is training you!" Heero explained. "You made you're choice!!"

"Hardly!"

"You did! You always have the choice! There isn't time for kindness! There is going to be a war, and if you're not ready for it then they will capture you and they will kill you! Do you understand that?" Heero yelled. "Every minute you waste adds up to days, and that's valuable time! We can't keep protecting you! There will be times where you'll have to know what to do in a matter of seconds, times where you'll have to defend yourself and know how to escape, and you're not ready for that yet!!"

Banging on the far wall interrupted them again. "SHUT UP!!!" Heero and Blaze yelled at once. It stopped immediately.

Blaze's hand shook with anger as she held Heero's precious laptop over the flowing bathwater. "That still doesn't give you the right!"

Heero held out his hand. "Blaze, give me the laptop! That's a precious commodity!"

"Yeah, I know! It's the only thing you seem to care about!" she remarked.

Heero snatched it from her hand. "That's not true." he replied, his voice quieter. He turned his back on her and walked out of the bathroom. "Just get ready for today."

Blaze give him a glare that would have sent Heero to a burning, fiery hell. She opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she was thinking of him right then, but decided against it. Something inside her told her to use this anger to excel in her training today, more so than Heero would suspect.

Blaze did excel, and in half of the time that Heero estimated, which surprised him and pleased him at the same time. Heero began to instruct her on the uneven bars in Quatre's private gym.

One day, as Blaze struggled while Heero left her alone to figure out what he had shown her, Trowa came in. She breathed a sigh of relief, and stumbled over to the silent one, leaning on his shoulder for support. "Trowa! Thank goodness it's you."

"What did he do now?" Trowa replied expectantly.

Blaze playfully hit his arm. "Hey! Give me some credit! I just need you to help me."

"With what?"

"I lack a wonderful thing called balance. Teach it to me." Blaze replied simply.

Trowa smiled slightly at this. "Alright."

With Trowa's handy assistance, he taught her how to walk on the high wire (though for Blaze's case, it was the low wire), which in turn gave her much better footing, and therefore a sense of balance. Meanwhile, Wufei recovered Blaze's martial arts skills, so now when she used them, she knew what she was doing and wasn't just reacting unexpectedly. Still, Wufei won most of the time…

Each pilot ended up helping Heero out a little bit, but Heero still did most of the training, since she was placed under his care specifically. Still, it certainly didn't hurt to have some help. Heero mostly used his time with her to train her in the art of stealth. She picked up quickly, as she did with everything else.

One day Heero took Blaze to a shooting arena. He handed her a hand gun. "Do you know how to use this?" he asked.

She looked at the black weapon in her hand. "Just about as basically as everyone else does…" she replied. She pointed to the barrel. "This is the end where the bullets come out when you pull the trigger…. Could it be any more complex than that….?"

Heero began to point out the different parts and define them. "This button is the safety switch. To cock the gun, you pull back on this small lever here. To take out and put in a cartridge, you press this and it'll come out." Blaze watched with not much enthusiasm, but paid enough attention to get the gist. Heero handed her the gun. "Now shoot at that target." He pointed to the target of the black silhouette of a man, which was quite a long ways away. Blaze steadied the gun in both hands and fired off her entire round. In a slow and steady percussion. Once they brought the target forward, they both saw how close the bullet holes were to the center. "Perfect. Do it again. Faster." Heero ordered, as he applied a new target. Blaze changed the cartridge, and aimed again. By the end of the day, Blaze could shoot her gun in a matter of seconds, with exact precision.

Later that night, Heero instructed Blaze in the different types of firearms, and taught her how to disassemble and reassemble weaponry, and how to clean it. She was timed on that as well. In fact, Heero timed her on everything. It was most annoying.

Blaze stretched her well toned arms up and over her head. "Alright, Heero sir, what great knowledge are you going to bestow upon me today?"

Heero gave her the eye, then took her by her arm. "We're going for a walk."

Blaze followed him. "oooh….." she grinned.

"And I'm going to talk to you about war." Heero added.

"Oh."

They made their way through the residential streets of the underground town, until they came to one of the larger roads, where small shops were set up. They walked by each one, Heero not looking at anything and making sure Blaze kept up with him.

Blaze frowned. "I don't understand why you lead me to these places, and then ignore them."

Heero ignored her comment, and got right to the subject. "There are certain rules of fighting that you need to know. There are certain facts as well." Heero looked at Blaze, making sure she was listening. She looked back at him, expectantly. "All warfare is based on deception."

"Duh." Blaze responded.

"I'm not done."

"Oh."

Silence.

Heero continued with his lecture. "There is a certain code that every fighter abides by. If your enemy is superior, evade him… if angry, irritate him… if equally matched, fight... if not, split and reevaluate. Do you think you can remember that?"

Blaze shot a glare at Heero. "Don't insult my intelligence, Spandex Master!" Heero gave a small grin, and walked on. 'Wow, that was cute…' Blaze thought to herself. The boring lecture of battle strategies and different techniques continued, much to Blaze's unlucky circumstance. Finally, she slowed to a stop.

Heero stopped ahead of her and turned around. "What's wrong?"

"Can we have just a single break? I've been going at this for weeks, now Heero. Just a small break would be appreciated."

"We don't have time for breaks. Come on." Heero replied. Blaze groaned as Heero pulled her along. "There's something I want to introduce to you."

"What is it?" Blaze asked curiously.

"It's a surprise." Heero said, his voice giving away no clues as to how exciting this 'surprise' might be.

"Wow Heero, I didn't think you were the type." Blaze smirked.

He led her into a tall building, taller than the rest, and looking a bit more advanced in its architecture. Inside white wash walls, white marble floor, and bright fluorescent lighting greeted them. They walked past a clerk desk and down a hall where they reached an elevator. As they waited for the light to reach their floor level, Blaze looked around at the hospital type looking place.

"This is cheery…" she mumbled. Heero ignored her, and pulled her into the elevator. They stood inside, silently, waiting as the elevator took them down, further underground. Blaze looked at the mirrors on the wall and ceiling, the asked, "Why do they put mirrors in elevators? Especially on the ceiling…"

Heero gave an annoyed sigh. "Probably to make it not look so small."

Blaze smirked. "I dunno… maybe it's so people can watch themselves as they do stuff in elevators that people don't normally do…" Heero gave her a wide-eyed expression. Blaze shrugged her shoulders and looked at him innocently. "What?! People do it!"

Silence fell momentarily, then Blaze added (just for good measure), "I'm not one of them, of course…"

"I didn't need to know that…." Heero responded stoically, as he ran a hand through his messy hair. Blaze grinned at him, but kept any further comments to herself.

The elevator door slid open, and Heero took a breath of refreshing air, and stepped out of the confined space. Blaze's comment still hung over his shoulder, threatening to invade his mind with interesting thoughts that one would usually keep to themselves. Heero, being the silent stoic type that he is, usually keeps things from popping into his head because such thoughts make him blush.

Blaze walked behind Heero as he led her down a small hall and into an office. There sat a woman with short blue hair that fell slightly over her face. She sat comfortably at her desk in black pants and a white blouse. "Hello, Heero!" she said amiably. Heero nodded his hello, and pulled Blaze forward. "Ah, so this is who you were talking about!!" the woman said, and smiled at Blaze with blue sparkling eyes. She shook her hand. "It's nice to meet you, Blaze. Heero's told me about you."

Blaze pierced Heero with a brief glance. "I don't doubt it." she replied.

Heero ignored her comment, since he was pretty much use to them, and the best way to deal with her was to ignore them. He motioned a hand at the woman. "Blaze, this is Lucrezia Noin."

"Nice to meet you, Noin." Blaze said.

"She's going to help with teaching how to pilot in zero G." Heero explained. "I'll be teaching you mostly, but she is going to go over the basics with you and strap you in."

"I finally get to know how to work a mobile suit??" Blaze asked with excitement.

Heero shook his head. "You're just going to learn how to move around. The anti-gravity room is much safer than putting you in an actual mobile suit."

"Close enough." Blaze replied. "When do we start?"

"Right now." Noin said. "Lets go. We'll get in uniform. What size are you?"

"I don't know. I don't wear uniforms." Blaze replied uneasily.

"She's probably a small. Maybe a medium, but I doubt it." Heero spoke up. Blaze looked at him with raised eyebrows, and he turned his eyes away from her. "Where do I suit up?"

They met outside thick metal doors, each of them in a black and gray suit. "Alright." Noin started. "When we go inside the gravity will be normal. But I'm going to change that once these doors are closed and we're inside. I'll turn on the anti-gravity switch, and it'll feel a bit weird. You probably won't be use to it. Just for today you're going to spend time to get use to it, alright?"

"Uh, okay…" Blaze said, and scratched her head.

"Well, lets go in!" Noin announced, sounding rather excited. They entered the room, and there was plenty of space. The room itself seemed nearly rounded, like a tunnel. If they thought that the previous places were white, then this one definitely took the cake. Blaze had to squint her eyes until she was able to get use to it. Blaze put a hand over her eyes and checked her surroundings. A computer console was on the right side of the metal doors, and Noin latched them shut with a few clicks of the keys.

There were four seats bolted to the floor, each one looking exactly the same: like the seat of a mobile suit. Noin pointed to them and informed, "When we take away the gravity we can unlatch the chairs and control them by the buttons on the arm. But we're not going to do that today."

Heero stepped next to Blaze and took her hand. "Alright Noin. Take away the gravity." he ordered, then he looked at Blaze with his usual stoic expression. "This'll feel weird at first."

Blaze nodded, not really sure what to expect with the concept of no gravity. Noin typed in some codes, and suddenly a low rumbling started, and Blaze felt herself feel lighter and lighter. Noin walked forward and with each step, she gained farther and farther distance as the gravity dissipated.

Noin took Blaze's other hand. "If this feels too uncomfortable for you, then we'll stop it and start with the antigravity practice with simpler things." Noin peered at her through her hair. "A trainee usually first adapts to antigravity through water training first, otherwise their body can't adapt. But Heero told me to start you right away at this stage."

"I think I'll do fine…" Blaze replied. Her hair started to float around her, and she realized that her feet were an inch above the ground.

"Ready?" Heero asked.

"Ready for what??" Blaze replied, puzzled. Without her knowledge of it, Heero and Noin both kicked off of the ground simultaneously, sending them into an upward spinning motion. Blaze tightened her grip on them automatically, and prepared to hit a wall of some sort, but Heero and Noin turned their feet and hit off of what would have been the ceiling. Heero gave Blaze's hand a tight squeeze, and she opened her eyes.

Noin laughed lightly. "What are you so afraid of, Blaze? This is actually really fun!" Noin let go and floated through the air by herself.

"I'm not scared! It's just weird! Besides," Blaze added. "Don't you remember the laws of physics? When in space or antigravity, a body in motion stays in motion until altered by some outside force! I don't like to be stopped by a wall."

"You have control of where your body turns." Heero said. He let go of her hand, much to Blaze's disappointment. She wasn't very comfortable floating aimlessly in a room, and she really didn't quite know how to move about of her own free will.

Blaze reached out for Heero's hand as he floated away from her. "Hey!" she scolded. "I wasn't ready!" Her finger tips grasped his, and she clung to him for some sense of control. As she floated in her one spot, Blaze couldn't help but notice that she was starting to turn upside down. "Uh… uh… hey! Right side up. How do I do this??" She glanced Heero, who turned upside down with her, completely unfazed, and not willing to help.

Noin looked at her with interest. "I'm amazed that this zero gravity has no effect on you!"

"No effect?! I can't tell where the hell I'm going or what I'm doing! Che, no effect…." Blaze grumbled.

Noin narrowed her eyes in annoyance. "Don't be difficult. You know what I meant. Usually people get nauseated by now if they haven't had previous training."

"Yeah, I know…" Blaze sighed.

Heero glared at Blaze. "Enough fooling around. Come on."

"Phew… okay." Blaze breathed. "But uh… could you help me turn over first?"

"No." Heero responded. He opened his fingers, and Blaze's hand slipped away from him again. She drifted away from him, all the while glaring at him, her expression something similar to a pout.

Blaze kicked her legs, and she drifted towards the floor. As she touched it with her hands, she pushed herself off, propelling herself upwards again. She somersaulted in mid-flight, and hit her head on the ceiling. "Itai!!" she seethed, as she rubbed the sore spot.

"This might take some work…" Noin said as she shook her head. Heero nodded in agreement.

One night, Blaze slumped into her room, Heero behind her, walking slowly to her own sluggish steps. Training had been especially rough lately, and Blaze's head hurt with everything that Heero tried to cram into it on a 24 hour basis.

"Heero, you've been training me nonstop for months now!! I don't care what you say, I'm going to take a break!! Just a single day off!!" Blaze said.

Heero, who was used to her ranting, ignored her. She always said the same thing nearly every night, but she continued onto the next day. He glanced at his laptop, and moved the mouse, disturbing the screensaver. There was a message from Dr. J., and Heero immediately suspected that it was a mission. Finally! It was about time!! He opened the file and read over the e-mail, taking careful mental notes of what was requested. The mission was to be tomorrow.

"Fine." Heero said. "One day off. That's it." He quickly typed up 'mission accepted' and hit enter. Blaze eyed him suspiciously.

"You got a mission, didn't you?" she exclaimed.

"Yes." Heero replied simply.

Heero sat down in his seat at his laptop, as Blaze laid across his bed with her chin in her hands. "So, what did it say? What do you have to do?"

Heero narrowed his eyes at the screen. "ESUN is shipping large quantities of gundanium to Earth for mecha productions. It's probably for their new mobile suit model. I have to destroy it to slow down their productions."

"Let me go with you?" Blaze pleaded.

"No." Heero said flatly.

Blaze let out a whine. "But Heero! Why not??"

"You're not fully trained yet."

"So?" Blaze defied. "I know enough!"

Heero turned his eyes towards her, his eyes once again starting to glaze with the ice he always kept. "How do you know? You're my responsibility. I say you're not ready, I'm not going to let you do something foolish."

"Do you think I'd screw up?" Blaze shot back, her voice rising. "You know while you're training me, perhaps you could teach me some confidence! All of this stuff is useless if you say that I won't be able to do it!"

Heero grounded his teeth in aggravation. "There is nothing to argue about, Blaze! I'm not going to let you get hurt!"

Blaze's eyes softened at that, and Heero noticed it. He immediately looked away from her. "You can spend the day with Trowa. You two get along, so I'm sure that's not a problem."

"No… I guess it isn't." Blaze whispered, as she sat up and looked at her hands. "Why do you protect me?"

Heero took in a slight breath. "Because I have to."

"Why?"

"Because Dr. J. told me to."

"Is that the only reason?" Blaze looked up at him, questioningly.

Heero turned his head away from her. "You should go to bed."

Blaze scowled. She hated it when he avoided her questions. "I'm not tired any more."

"Yes you are. I can hear it in your voice. Stop being so stubborn all of the time." Heero scolded.

"But if I'm not stubborn then I'm not myself! And if I'm not myself then who else would I be?" Blaze replied mockingly.

"Just go to sleep." Heero said softly. He looked at her again, his mask back on his cold and handsome features.

"What are you going to do?" Blaze asked as Heero clenched and unclenched his hands, preparing to type some more.

"I need to schedule where the shuttles are going and when I should encounter them." Heero replied.

"Are you going to use Wing?" Blaze asked. Heero nodded. Now was their time for action. Blaze sighed at this, and felt sleep start to weigh her down. She soon fell asleep to the sound of Heero's typing.

Heero paused in his work and glanced at her, asleep in his bed. He got up quietly and leaned over her, turning off the lamp on the nightstand between their beds. Now the room was dark, except for the light of his computer screen. He debated moving her or not, and she shifted, her face resting against his hand that was on the pillow from when he had leaned over. Moments passed as he stared at her, and his logic tried to make sense of the illogical. Emotions wasn't his area of expertise, and they often left him all scrambled up (like Duo's terrible cooking). His emotions told him to do multiple things, and he didn't know which voice to listen to.

Heero blinked in confusion. He softly stroked her soft cheek with his thumb, and then removed his hand. He felt as if he had just broken a taboo of some sort. He felt he had crossed a line that he wasn't meant to cross, and reprimanded himself in his head. To quickly reserve himself, he returned to his laptop and continued his work, blocking out the moment before with things he understood. Technology. Mathematics. Calculations. A mission.