The Welder of BlackFire:

Thorn's New Life-The Legend Lives

Chapter Ten: The Battle for the Jewel of Greed and Kurama's Discovery

"Are you sure they're around here, Kuwabara?" Yusuke asked.

"Yeah. Five demons. Their energy isn't much. It shouldn't be too hard," Kuwabara replied smugly.

"There is a diamond store down the street a block or two. Its called Newport's Diamonds," Botan said, looking at a list of all the jewelry stores she could find and their address.

"Well lets go check out the store then. They might be scoping it out for their next big steal," Yusuke said.

The sun was drooping low in the sky as they began to make their way down the street. Some stores had begun to close shop for the day. When they finally stood at the store's entrance they found themselves too late.

"Botan! Why didn't you check to see if it closed before we got there! Well, this is just great," Yusuke said, crossing his arms with a huff.

"The energy signal is still around here, Urimeshi. And its getting stronger," Kuwabara said. The street was eerily quiet. They were on the outskirts of the major city, and few people seemed to be around as the stores began to close up.

"Maybe they're around back," Yusuke said, running quietly down the alley next to the building with the rest behind him. They turned the corner. Nothing.

"Man, this is strange," Yusuke said. A sudden shattering of glass from the front of the building caught their attention. They all ran around in front to see glass strewn all over the street and on the carpet in the jewelry store. Five figures were greedily scooping up jewels from a shattered display case into large, burlap, sacks.

"There they are!" Botan said, pointing.

"Stay here, Botan," Yusuke said as they all ran in to 'greet' the theives. The five figures looked up, looking like normal humans.

"We have visitors," hissed a large male to a shapy woman. They all turned to face them, their posture saying they debated on fleeing or fighting.

"Drop the bags," Yusuke said, his voice full of authority. The woman smiled and took a step forward. Yusuke raised his aim, pointing his finger at the dark-haired woman as it slowly began to glow. "I'm warning you."

"And I am warning you. Leave if you hold your life to any value," the woman said, her voice bold with warning.

"Don't let her freak you out, Urimeshi. She hardly has any spirit energy," Kuwabara said, stepping forward to stand directly behind the detective.

"You should never underestimate the enemy." From the store's ceiling dropped a black and tan blur, in hand a long wooden staff topped by a bright metal that reflected the sun's retreating rays. The black-haired woman below the figure dropped the bag and brought up a spiked mace just in time to ward off the attack from above. The mysterious streak's staff meet with the mace and it pushed off it as the figure spun around and landed in a crouch on the glass-covered carpet. The girl's eyes were intent upon her opponent's as her dark brown hair settled over her back, the tie that bound it at the base of her neck taming its wild locks. The tresses lay flat on her back down past the top of her short skirt, revealing her large broadsword.

"Thorn! What the hell are you doing here?" Yusuke shouted. The girl did not turn as she watched the five hidden demons.

"Unless you have forgotten how to count, there are five demons here, and only four of you. You are underestimating their power already. I would have thought you would have used my distraction to your advantage and attack. Not a good start, Yusuke," Thorn said. He growled under his breath.

"I'm sick of this happy little reunion," said the seeming leader, who held her mace up to oppose the staff-welding girl. She charged, her black-haired human disguise ripping away as she slashed. Her baby-blue skin was smooth and her wild, black-streaked, silver hair streamed out behind her in its high pony-tail.

The rest of the thieves attacked as well, shedding their male, human disguises from their demon bodies.

"We'll kill you!" cried one of them as the four attacked the spirit detective and his group. Yusuke gritted his teeth and took aim with his spirit gun, but the demon that attacked him was fast and easily dodged whenever the boy got him in his aim. He drew a sword and rushed in periodically to land a blow on the detective.

"Stupid..." Yusuke grumbled.

"Spirit sword!" Kuwabara yelled. His serpent-like opponent hissed as it drew four daggers. It threw them at the boy, skinning both shoulders with their blades.

"Rose Whip!" Kurama drew his weapon as a red-skinned demon charged with a deadly ax. He slashed at the demon, his whip reaching out to fend off the ax in the demon's hand.

"Take this!" Hiei growled as he slashed a green-skinned demon with his sword. The demon jumped backward just as the blade sliced through his tough hide, drawing blood. The one-eyed, green, youkai cursed and held up his hand, from which burst a startling beam of energy. Gritting his teeth, Hiei dodged it and went in for another strike.

The battles continued, neither side gaining the advantage.

'Thorn was right, they're a lot more powerful than I thought,' Yusuke thought as he dodged his opponent's sword.

'This is proving much more difficult than we anticipated,' Kurama thought, using his great agility to avoid the demon's swinging ax.

'That's it, I'm tired of playing around,' Hiei thought. Dodging yet another energy blast, the fire youkai bolted under his enemy and slashed upward, gutting the demon with his sword's sharp blade. A dark red power flowed from the dead demon as blood spewed onto the carpet, streaming upward before flashing and being absorbed by Thorn's opponent, who's speed seemed to increase with it.

Thorn was dodging the demoness' mace with ease and grace, although her speed as hardly what anyone would call impressive. She seemed to avoid the attacks more by luck than anything, moving at the last minute to dodge a hit.

"Okay, I'm sick of this," Yusuke said angrily. With a quick, hard punch, he bashed his opponent into the wall. Taking aim before the swift demon escaped, he fired off a shot of his spirit gun.

"Whew, he was fast," Yusuke said. He turned to watch as Kuwabara and Kurama finished their fight and did not notice the small red orb of energy as it zoomed past the fighters and into the mace-swinging demoness.

'Kurama is taking too much time to study this weak link. Just kill him,' Hiei thought, his eyes darting from each of the remaining three fighters.

As if hearing the fire demon's thoughts, Kurama's Rose Whip plunged deep into the red-skinned demon's belly. The youkai fell to the ground, his breath ragged before stopping completely.

'What is that?' both Kurama and Yusuke thought as they saw a misty red substance drain from the corpse and flit through the air to be absorbed by Thorn's enraged enemy.

"Agg!" Kuwabara yelped as he was thrown against the cash register with a painful-sounding 'chink' as change bounced in its holders.

"Kuwabara!" Yusuke yelled, clenching his fists.

"Shut-up, Urimeshi, I'm trying to think," the boy said. Finally, he brought his Spirit Sword up into a offensive position. "Spirit Sword, get longer!" he yelled as his sword elongated. Caught off guard, the demon had no time to react as the sword literally tore him in two. "Ha! No problem," he said between panting breath. Trying to dodge all the daggers had been difficult.

"There is still one more fight," Kurama said, turning toward Thorn and the mysterious leader of the thieves.

"Hey! What happened to the blue girl's power?" Kuwabara asked, his expression amazed.

"What do you mean?" Yusuke asked.

"Her power! Its like, big! You mean you can't see it? She's glowing like a red light-bulb!"

Thorn dodged another swing of the mace, the closest spike nearly brushing her exposed stomach.

"Fool. She's playing around," Hiei said, watching as the blood-red eyes of the demon lit up a brighter scarlet and Thorn's nearly unnoticeable smile widening.

"What do you mean, Hiei?" Botan asked, running in the store as she watched Kuwabara end his fight.

"Botan! I told you to wait outside!" Yusuke shouted.

"I mean that, if you look, Thorn seems to be enjoying herself more than anything, she's not even trying to finish her off," Hiei explained as they ignored Yusuke. They all looked up to see Thorn sweeping her crested half of her staff by the youkai's throat, but the other's speed made her miss her mark, slicing ruggedly through the armor on her shoulder. The girl's face turned grim suddenly as she landed on the wall, sticking like a fly. She paused a moment, her expression hinting deep thought. With a powerful thrust of her legs she flew toward.

"Black Dragon Claws!" she cried, her right hand glowing bright sapphire, mingled with rippling black streaks. With a lightening quick swipe of her hand, she tore through the thick armor easily and put a gaping hole in the demoness' chest.

She landed easily on her feet behind the wide-eyed leader. With one last gasp, she fell to her knees, dropping her mace. Thorn looked behind her, watching as she twisted to land on her back. She sneered.

"Yes, I am well aware that it could have been neater, no need to tell me that," she said to a vibrantly humming sword. She looked forward, into the wide and shocked stares of the group.

"That was amazing," Kurama said. "I've never seen anything like it."

"You wouldn't have. Its a personal recipe of my trainers'," Thorn said. "And he and I are the only ones who know it."

"But I don't get it, how can normal spirit energy kill someone without hardly touching them?" Kuwabara asked. They all looked at him.

"What do you mean, Kuwabara?" Botan asked.

"Well, it was slow enough so that I could see that even before her hand, or even her spirit energy touched the demon lady, all that energy that she was giving off just disappeared, like she was already dead." Thorn gave the smallest of chuckles.

"Well, ah, yes, its the air waves that the energy was giving off that killed her, not the actual strike," Thorn explained with a smile. "Its much cleaner if I use it that way."

"I've never heard of anything like it," Yusuke said.

"Hn. It relates to the Darkness Flame attacks, doesn't it?" Hiei asked, fully recovered from the shock. Thorn turned her green gaze toward him.

She hesitated a moment before saying, "That information is confidential."

"Yeah, well, it figures," Yusuke said.

"Wait, I wanna know why the demon lady was glowing like that," Kuwabara said. Thorn looked up at him before recognition glinted in her eyes.

"I can answer that," she said, turning to face the body. "They were all glowing, as you say. But she held most of the energy, of which she supplied to the others when they needed it." Thorn placed her hand on the corpse's chest, her hand glowing faintly. After a moment she stood up and turned around, revealing a large jewel. It was ruby red, and when it moved, it looked as if the center was made of a cardinal liquid. Like blood.

"I know that you all saw the energy coming from the other demons after they died and then become absorbed by her. This was the thing that gave them all their powers. I was told, by an extremely old and reliable source, that this jewel, the Jewel of Greed, imbeds itself in a body and resumes to control it with its power. In this case, the demon I was fighting. It drives its host into a greedy lust, making it kill, steal, basically driving it to do enjoyable evil deeds. It improves their speed, strength, endurance, you name it. It must have fused its powers with the other four and so when they died the power came back to the body it occupied, making it stronger."

"Is that why you waited?" Hiei asked. Thorn looked at him curiously before giving a grunting in agreement.

"That's right. I like to kill knowing that they were giving it their all. Its good you killed the rest quickly, or I would have had to make her suffer."

"You mean you really were just playing around?" Yusuke asked. She turned her smirk to him.

"I never said that. I wasn't playing. I was just holding back was all. Really, that's about as fast as I go!" she said with a smile and a laugh. Yusuke, Botan and Kuwabara did an anime fall. Hiei closed his eyes and smiled.

"Hey! Its not my fault," she grumbled as they began to rise. "I'm just not that fast."

"You have a lot of talent, Thorn," Kurama said. She looked at him wearily, like a cat unsure of a dog. Or a fox.

"No need to tell me that, Kurama. What I lack in speed I make up for in talent." Kurama smiled.

"Tell me, how long have you been training?" the kitsune asked. Thorn crossed her arms, still holding the jewel firmly in her right hand.

"Why?"

"Oh, just curious."

"About four months or so," she said almost sulkily in her dark voice. Yusuke, Botan, and Kuwabara did another anime fall while Kurama stumbled (like half an anime fall).

"WHAT?!" Yusuke screamed. Thorn suddenly straightened, her sword buzzing nervously.

"Time to go. Cops are coming to investigate," the girl said. She tossed Kurama the Jewel of Greed before turning around to face the dead demons. "Better clean up the mess." Her sword gave a long hum as she nodded.

"You'd all better get back to the hotel, I can do this," Thorn said as she went over to the first demon, the one Hiei had been fighting, and knelt down next to it.

"But-" Botan began.

"No, don't ask me any questions right now. Perhaps I'll meet you back in your hotel and we can talk there," she said, her hands an inch above the body. "Hurry up, the police will be here any minute."

"Let's go," Hiei said, his step making the glass underfoot to crack and break under his feet as he made his way out the front of the building. The others followed. Kurama held back a moment, his thoughts wild and confused as he watched from outside the building.

"Keep watch," she whispered, her sword hummed. Her hands began to radiate a fiery red over the body. There was a crackling sound that resembled that of burning fire and then a small puff of smoke. The demon had been disintegrated.

"Kurama, I told you all to leave," Thorn said, her tone dark and forbidding. Kurama turned away and walked swiftly to catch up with the rest of the group.

'I know that attack. I had seen it when I was still Youko. She literally burnt the body from the inside out. There is only one creature that could do that attack. But he couldn't still be alive,' Kurama thought, his eyes wide as he went over the way the attack had been preformed.

"What's the matter with Kurama?" Yusuke asked, noticing the look in his eyes.

"I don't know, Urimeshi. But he looks like he just saw a ghost," Kuwabara replied.

"Uh oh. Boys, I think we have a problem. Cops coming from both directions," Botan said nervously.

"C'mon, in the alley," Yusuke said as they ducked in, hoping the police didn't see them.

"They will find us if we stay here. Let's keep moving," Hiei said walking back toward the hotel.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Authoress' Note: Yay! Another chapter complete! Thanks for baring with me here, I've been trying to finish my other, Inuyasha fic. Its not as good as this one, I will admit, but there's another story (just a one-shot) that I wanted to post ASAP and told myself that until I finished the other one, I couldn't post that one. But, just to give ya'll a sneak pre-view (although I'll prob. Post it at the same time as this chapter) it's a sad short story about Hiei and….well…his thoughts on…complications….in his life. ^_^ sorry, that's all, I don't want to give it away! It's Hiei's story after all!

Hiei: damn straight. I wrote it. Its mine.

J: -sigh- you're so difficult!

Hiei: hn.

J: -rolls eyes- whatever.

All but J&Hiei: -chuckle-

Botan: -waves letters in hand- look J-chan! REVIEWS!

All: yes! Finally, she wont torture us this chapter! -high-fives all around-

J: -glare- quiet you barbarians. Except for Kurama and Hiei of course.

Kurama&Hiei: -superior grin-

J: -shakes head- -sigh- wateva. Anyway! Reviews! From:

Hiei's1girl - glad you like my story! I'll update again soon, hopefully before next week, school work, barn chores, and work permitting! Thank you again for you're support!

RoseWhip of the Darkness Flame - -sniffle- I'm so happy to hear that you like my story! Not to mention you said it's the only one you really liked? -sniffle- that's so heart-warming! Thank you so much! -tilts head- I don't except non-signed reviews?! Oh no! I'll get right on changing that, PRONTO! (is that Spanish, anyone? I know, total tangent there…) -giggle- no, its not a K/T fic. Foxy remains a bachelor… for now -evil snicker-

Kurama: -gulp- I don't like the sound of that…

Lol. Anyway. It is NOT A HIEIxKURAMA fic! I despise those! Actually, I don't really like yaoi ANYTHIME. EVER. I mean, not that I don't respect those who see them that way, I just don't, plain and simple. I read FAQs on a site and they asked FUNdimation and other people if they did. They said NO. so there's your answer ^_^. I'll update soon!

Thanks again to both of you!