Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. 'cause if I did, it wouldn't have
been restarted on Toonami right before the Dark tournament finals. Stupid
cartoon network. they shall pay. Oh, and I don't own those little sootball
spiders from Spirited Away, but they were so cute I just had to put them
in.
KKC: * grumble * Grr. here's the quote. *Continues cursing under breath about Toonami *
Quote of the week: "I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it."
-Dennis Leary Hiei: I bet you are.
KKC: You little shit! Die!
Chapter 8: A day full of never-ending horrors
Lyra woke up in quite a rough manner. Hiei had apparently stalked up to her room after he got out of the pit and broken down the door. She woke up on the floor, Hiei was now standing on her balcony and burning her sheets to a crisp. "Hey! You jerk! Those were my best sheets!" Lyra caught Hiei, whom was obviously enjoying himself, off guard and kicked him in the shin. After watching him hop about in pain for a little while, Lark and Holly called her down. Lyra shoved the demon out of her room, set up a barrier spell across the cracked doorframe, and went down to see what her sister and Holly wanted. "We better hurry. Rachel was pissed when she woke up, I think she twisted her ankle when she stepped in one of our traps." Holly said while the girls hurried down the stairs and into Rachel's bedroom. Lark opened the glass- plate door and nervously sneaked inside, followed by Lyra and Holly. Rachel lay on her queen-size bed, her ankle propped up on a pillow and an herbal ice pack on it. She glared at the three students, who uncomfortably fidgeted under her eyes, and finally spoke. "I'm not angry at you-" Lark and co. visibly sighed and relaxed. "- I would have done the same thing in your position. even though it wasn't very smart. Rogerik is. how should I put it. Ah, an egotistical, hopeless prick. That about fits the bill. In fact, the entire situation was humorous on a whole, not that I would ever like it to happen again. Do you understand?" The girls nodded in unison and hurried to leave when Holly stopped and asked, "But Rachel, what about, like, punishing us? Aren't you going to make us clean or do extra homework? Cook dinner for a week maybe?" Rachel shook her head and readjusted herself on her bed. Grabbing a thick novel, she replied, "On Labor Day? By the goddess, no. You're in deep enough as it is. Now go and apologize to the boys, quick now." She made a shooing motion with her hand, and opening the book to the first page, she started reading.
"Well, that was." Lyra searched for the right word while Holly quietly closed the door. "Um. strange, I guess."
"Strange? She let us off the hook! What is she taking for painkillers? I wonder." Lark practically screeched, strategically a few inches from her friend's faces. Holly winced. "Um, yeah. But what was that about we're 'in deep enough as it is?' Personally, I don't like the sound of that." Lyra shrugged and suggested, "We better go apologize, though."
"I just love Labor Day! A three-day weekend! Where you can sleep late, chill out, quit spazzing out because you thought that five-page essay on runes was due today, and go party all day long! Let's go to town today. I heard that the "Blue Mile" is coming in today with imports from the spirit world." Lark bubbled enthusiastically all the way up the stairs, but soon noticed that Lyra was downstairs in the kitchen. "Hey, Lyra, what're you doing?" Lyra started the coffee and motioned for her sister to quiet down and take a seat. "Believe me, this'll work better than any amount of nagging and whining. Just watch." Lyra flopped down on the couch and fell asleep almost immediately. Lark looked to Holly for an explanation, but the witch just shrugged. Kyuro hopped up on Holly's lap and started purring while she gently stroked the fur between his fuzzy black ears. Kurama didn't really want to get up, but the smell of coffee was too enticing. His fox's nose picked up the scent almost immediately, and he knew that youko never passed up a chance for his favorite ningen drink. Grumbling, Kurama woke up, got dressed (jeans and a T-shirt), and made his bed. After what happened last night, he wasn't really in the mood to deal with Lyra and her friends. Those plants were hard to kill.
Jin was already awake and listening to songs from Meatloaf's (Long live Meatloaf! Yeah!) "Bat out of Hell II" CD. Humming along, he finished writing his reply to Rishio's letter and called the waiting albatross over. The giant bird hopped through the small basement window and flapped over, wingtips grazing the furniture and one of the walls. It settled down on the computer chair and patiently held out a leg while Jin tied the letter on. "Now git. Hurry up, too. Rachel doesn't like wild birds inside." The wanderer hopped up and out of the window, but not before giving Jin a questioning look. "No, I can't go for a flight today. I'm supposed to keep both feet on the ground, remember? Orders from Rishio." Jin gave the bird a baleful grin and locked the tiny window shut.
Lark and Holly waited until everyone came down, drawn by the smell of pure caffeine goodness. Jin was the last to come up. He cheerfully nodded towards the girls and said "G'morning", but Holly could tell that the smile plastered on his face was anything but genuine. Lark sighed, and started off. "Look, we're really sorry. We didn't know you guys would get mixed up in half the traps we set-" Yuske interjected. "Half? There's still more of those flower shop horrors out there?" Holly nodded in response, and Jin's face blanched. "For the love of Mike." Lark quickly got their attention back on topic and continued. "-uh, right. So we have to disarm the others. How about we split into three groups? Holly will take Hiei and Jin out to the front yard to disenchant the tree," Lark pointed to the flailing plum tree, which was now terrorizing the mailman. "I'll take Yuske and Kuwabara out to the beach, and Lyra and Kurama will go tackle the backyard. Um. once she wakes up, that is." Everyone glanced over at the sleeping girl, and Holly took the liberty of trying to wake her up. Lyra groaned, flung a pillow that Holly easily dodged, and turned onto her other side. A few minutes of stunned silence, then. "Alright! Let's get to work!" Holly clapped her hands and shooed the boys out the front door. Kurama pointed to Lyra. "Um, should we leave her?" Lark shrugged. "Sure. Unless you can't take on a few deadly weeds by yourself." Kurama "hmph"-ed and walked outside, Lark calling behind him, "And watch out for that flesh-eating wasp's hive!"
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"Man, this sucks." Yuske carefully disarmed a tripwire, careful not to fall into the muck a few inches away from his left knee. He didn't even want to know what was in that stuff. Every once in a while, he would see a large fin cut through the muddy water, and bubbles coming up. Kuwabara and Lark were busy prying sea urchins and other poisonous mollusks off the cliff stairs. Making it down had been a bitch, and neither one of them wanted to make the same trip back up. Yuske snickered as he watched Kuwabara fall backwards off the steps and into the shallow water. "I'm okay! Water broke my fall!" The redhead shouted back up to Lark, who was clearly worried about something. Yuske then saw the silhouettes of some sort of menacing creatures or something, and shouted, "Idiot! Get out of the water! Now!"
It took a moment for the warning to sink into the crevices of Kuwabara's brain, and he sat there trying to figure out what could possibly be freaking out Yuske so much. That was all the time it took for the shadows under the water to actually contact with Kuwabara's skin. The youth shuddered, and quickly jumped out of the salt water. A skeletal fish, nearly three feet long, jumped up out of the water and snapped its ridiculously long teeth at Kuwabara, whom was scuttling away from the school of deadly sea creatures. "AHHHH! Shit! What are those.those things?" Lark sighed and replied, "Skelefins. They're the undead version of Piranhas. Nasty little buggers, aren't they?"
Yuske was, meanwhile, ever edging away from the foreboding puddle and ready to bolt for the house. "Uh, we better get going." Lark pried a few more urchins off the steps and along the cliff wall. "Not yet. We need to get rid of these-" She pulled off another urchin, this one a foot in diameter, and kicked it over the side into the water. "-Ow. I think one pricked me. Damn. Yuske, Kuwabara, could you finish up for me? It shouldn't take too long between the two of you. I have to run up to the house and get some anti-venom. Bye!" Lark ran off towards the house. Yuske and Kuwabara looked at each other. "You don't think-"
"Nah. Since when do sea urchins have poison that powerful?"
"Really?"
"Sure."
"Okay. well, you better get started. I, um, gotta go. Heh heh."
"Urameshi! Where the hell do you think you're going?!"
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"Okay. Hiei, Jin. You guys distract the tree while I work on taking off the enchantments, please?" Holly was trying hard to be patient with the two. Jin was extremely stubborn, as you would expect of his heritage (He's Irish, ya know?), but Hiei was even worse. The short demon sat in the shade of the house's front porch and refused to budge. "And why should we distract it? It's a tree." Holly massaged the bridge of her nose while she explained why they had to distract the goddamn tree for the third time in less than fifteen minutes. "Because if you don't the tree will hit me. I am the only one that knows how to reverse it besides Lyra and Lark. If we don't disenchant this tree, we can all look forwards to clearing out the manticore's den. And I, personally, don't like that idea. Do you?" Hiei "hn"-ed, but Jin actually asked an intelligent question instead of silently sitting back and watching the two argue. "Uh, what exactly is a manticore?" Holly looked relieved someone had actually asked her that question. "A manticore is a giant lion with a human head, a poison-barbed tail, three sets of razor-sharp teeth, and it has an appetite for flesh. Animal, human, demon, spirit, doesn't matter. There's a den of manticore in the Far Eastern border of the Rekai, and the academy is looking for volunteers to go and exterminate them." Hiei shrugged. "So you're saying that if we don't go get pummeled by a tree, you're going to volunteer us to go get eaten by a monster?"
"Monsters. There's twelve of them." Holly corrected, fighting the urge to just blow him at the tree with some hurricane-force winds. "Um, I'll take the tree." Jin said nervously. "Yay! Let's get to work!" She started to prepare the spell while Jin drew the tree's attention away from her. The tree had run out of ammo a long time ago, and had taken to just wildly whipping it's thick branches about. As Holly continued with the chant; however, it seemed to become even more enraged. Lunging out towards Jin, the roots ripped out of the earth and the tree continued to move, using its roots like legs. For a tree, it was pretty fast and soon pinned Jin against the house, violently beating him with it's thick and sturdy limbs. Jin tried to get out of the way, but the plum tree had sunk its roots into the ground and back out to wrap around the Shinobi's legs and arms.
Hiei sat and watched, not more than ten feet away, as the wind master was beat within an inch of his life by the tree. Getting beat up by a plant. doesn't get more humiliating than that. Sighing in exasperation, Hiei waded through the chaos, katana drawn, freed the unconscious demon, and flipped Jin over onto his shoulder. Hiei cut his way through the tree's defenses and dropped Jin off at the front porch before going back in to keep it away from Holly, who was almost done with the disenchantment. Slowly, the plum tree stumbled over to its original place, branches and roots stiffening with each passing moment, until it finally planted its roots in the soft soil and was silent.
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"That looks serious. I'll go get some of my physicke." Erika hustled through the backyard and into the small green house full of herbs. Kurama and Lyra had thoroughly exterminated and disarmed every trap in the garden without much difficulty; even managing to get rid of the flesh-eating wasps that had built a giant hive there over the last four years. Jin made himself more comfortable on the couch, careful not to move his broken ribs too much. Holly sat by his side, tenderly bandaging his shoulder, which he seemed to have pulled while keeping her safe. "I'm sorry. It's my fault. I should have been able to fix it on my own without you getting beat up." Jin Stopped her and cupped Holly's face in his hand. "Don' go crying over me, I'm not really worth all the fuss." Holly looked up and tried to force a smile. "Liar. You know damn well you want the attention."
"Me? Nah. But if you could pass me that herbal pack."
"Um. Erika's coming back. Good luck."
"Eh? Waddaya mean?" Jin craned his head back to watch Holly leave, but it was too sore to move much.
Erika now came back in with a ceramic jar and a large spoon. Jin could only watch in horror as she uncorked the bottle and a smell not unlike that of patchouli oil (I hate that stuff) filled the air. He dared not move for fear of making his injuries even worse and was starting to wish that he had called a doctor instead of trusting Erika. "Open up dear, it'll only take a second." She closed in on Jin, and the demon frantically looked for an escape route, but it was too late. Within seconds, Erika had shoved in a spoonful of the awful stuff she called medicine and forced Jin to swallow it. Jin gagged for a minute and hurriedly felt on the table for his glass of water, eager to wash down the horrible after taste of rotting soybeans and all sorts of weeds he was sure didn't do a thing for the human body, much less a demonic one.
Yuske snickered at Jin's swearing and cursing from the other room, and watched as Kuwabara made a crude impression of the wind demon gagging and puking up the vile substance. Lyra and Lark had opened all the windows on the lower levels of the house so the stench could escape as quickly as possible. Holly was back in the living room giving Jin some raspberry tea to help soothe the aftereffects of the psysicke (I.e.: Sore throat, possible stomach cramps, and one student turned a nasty orange color.). Hiei was off somewhere snickering behind the shinobi's back while poor Jin lay on the couch almost completely out of it. Kurama was up in the boys' room brewing up a cure for the physicke in case the fox himself might need it sometime in the future.
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The doorbell rang and startled Jin out of his daze. Wincing at the slightly throbbing pain, the demon got up and stretched a little before stumbling over to the oak door. It seemed Erika's "medicine" actually worked, after you gave it some time to digest. Jin had thought that today couldn't go any worse for him, until he opened the door and got a good long look at the visitor. "Hi! I was re-assigned to this dorm this morning-" Slam! Jin shut the door in the boy's face and locked it without a second thought, wishing that Rogerik would just leave him the hell alone.
"Jin! That was so rude! Let whoever it is back in."
"Trust me, Lyra. You don't want that thing in here!"
"Jin!"
"What?! I'm telling you, he's like an insurance salesman. Invite him in and he'll never leave unless you threaten his life! No! Don't!" Jin Kaze was too late; however, as Lyra opened the door and was immediately shoved aside as Rogerik ran through and started strangling Jin. "Shut the door in my face, will you? Come on, you prick!" Lyra recovered soon enough to help a worried Lark force the "guest" off of Jin and tie him down with a few enchantments. Rogerik put up a terrific fight, and the wind master stealthily snuck out of the living room rubbing his neck. That kid is freakishly strong, he thought as he quietly opened the door to his bedroom and hurried downstairs to nurse his new bruises.
"So. what are you doing here?" Lark asked the bound teen, who was close to being gagged as well. "Me? I got reassigned here! I-"
"God no."
"That's right, Lark! I'm your new roommate!" Rogerik would've bowed if he wasn't tied up, but all he could do was innocently smile. Lyra was so starled at this comment that she released her hold on Salvatore. The little parrot immediately scurried across the floor and started to gnaw on Rogerik's fingers. "Ow! Frick! Little basta-" His mouth was suddenly sealed shut with a quick spell from Lark. "Not so loud, idiot! Rachel or Erika will hear you." Lyra whistled for Salvatore and the vicious bugger fluttered onto her outstretched finger. The peach-face lovebird climbed up to her shoulder and started to preen himself.
"Rachel or Erika will hear what?" The sisters jumped and tried to make up a story as to why Rogerik was bound and gagged on the floor. Rachel listened to their blabbering for a second before shooing them out of the way. "Well what do we have here? What did you get yourself into this time, Rogerik?" Rachel undid the enchantments and patiently waited for his explanation. "I got reassigned here this morning. My teachers found out about last night."
"It was quite a fiasco. These girls do know how to protect their property."
"Uh. yeah. So, um, where's my room?"
"All the other rooms are full, unless you might want to room with Lyra-" Salvatore growled at the thought of a boy rooming with his owner. "-or Jin." Rogerik looked puzzled. "Who?"
"The guy you tried to strangle ten minutes ago." Lark muttered darkly. Rogerik carefully thought about his choices. Neither person liked him; both were really dangerous looking, and either way he was screwed. Personally, he was more scared of what Lyra would do to him than Jin would. What was that guy anyways, an overgrown leprechaun? "I'll room with Jin." Rogerik sighed, not at all pleased with his predicament.
Rogerik shoved the door open and precariously walked downstairs with his arms full of bags. Jin was asleep, wrapped up in the cotton sheets and looking kind of sick and pale. Rogerik opened the closet and unpacked his clothes. His Irish roommate had already put his few belongings in the mahogany chest of drawers on the opposite side of the room. The blond psychic nervously glanced around before opening his last bag, releasing a stream of tiny black, spidery creatures. They clustered around Rogerik's feet, squeaking and scurrying up onto his arms, where he praised and played with them, until the demon across the room stirred and they all scuttled into a crack in the brick wall. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lyra sat on her balcony, tapping a pencil against her sketchbook as she thought of something to draw. There was a meteor shower scheduled at ten tonight, and she was looking for something to do in the remaining twenty minutes. Rogerik had settled in nicely, and even helped out during dinner. Apparently, he wasn't as bad as she had thought. Of course, he could be sickly sweet and innocent whenever a teacher was around, and it was going to take more than one day of good behavior to completely change her mind. Someone knocked on her bedroom door, snapping her out of her daydream. Lyra set her book and pencil down on her chair, and went to answer the door. Kurama had come. "Hey. Do you mind if I come up?" the green-eyed boy asked. Lyra shook her head and let him in, stunned. "Why are you coming up here?" She kindly asked, not really expecting an answer. Kurama wandered around her room, looking at a framed picture here, a knick-knack there, and casually answered over his shoulder, "I was wondering if maybe I could watch the meteor shower from up here. if you don't mind, of course." Lyra closed her door and walked out onto her balcony, savoring the sea air and gentle breeze. "No. I don't mind. Pull up a chair, there's plenty of room." Kurama did so and they started talking. Telling stories from school, about their friends, and even a little literature. Eventually, Lyra managed to get Kurama to tell her about the Saint Beasts and the Dark tournament. The night dragged on, and the two friends carried on until after the tiny meteors had stopped falling.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Hi! This is supposed to be a humorous chapter, and totally screwing up one of the character's day seemed pretty funny at first. I'm afraid I might've carried on a bit too much, though. Having Rishio forbid Jin to fly or use his powers to their full extent was kind of added at the last second, but it might work out. Y'see, Jin loves to fly, right? Add all the other mishaps he had that day, and. well.it's a pretty crappy day, isn't it? Don't get me wrong, I love Jin. He might not be my absolute favorite Yu Yu Hakusho character, but he comes in as a close second (Genkai is #1). Oh, and I was talking about Meatloaf the band. Meatloaf is a pretty old band; it started somewhere in the 70's, I think. Anyways, Listen to their song "Objects in the rear view mirror appear closer than they are". Its soooooooo pretty! ^_^
I don't have too much to rant about in this chapter, except Toonami restarting Yu Yu Hakusho. But I'm sure you all know what I mean, right? I hope you saw "Nefertiti resurrected" on the discovery channel. It was pretty cool. If you didn't, well it's your own damn fault. See ya later!
KKC
KKC: * grumble * Grr. here's the quote. *Continues cursing under breath about Toonami *
Quote of the week: "I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it."
-Dennis Leary Hiei: I bet you are.
KKC: You little shit! Die!
Chapter 8: A day full of never-ending horrors
Lyra woke up in quite a rough manner. Hiei had apparently stalked up to her room after he got out of the pit and broken down the door. She woke up on the floor, Hiei was now standing on her balcony and burning her sheets to a crisp. "Hey! You jerk! Those were my best sheets!" Lyra caught Hiei, whom was obviously enjoying himself, off guard and kicked him in the shin. After watching him hop about in pain for a little while, Lark and Holly called her down. Lyra shoved the demon out of her room, set up a barrier spell across the cracked doorframe, and went down to see what her sister and Holly wanted. "We better hurry. Rachel was pissed when she woke up, I think she twisted her ankle when she stepped in one of our traps." Holly said while the girls hurried down the stairs and into Rachel's bedroom. Lark opened the glass- plate door and nervously sneaked inside, followed by Lyra and Holly. Rachel lay on her queen-size bed, her ankle propped up on a pillow and an herbal ice pack on it. She glared at the three students, who uncomfortably fidgeted under her eyes, and finally spoke. "I'm not angry at you-" Lark and co. visibly sighed and relaxed. "- I would have done the same thing in your position. even though it wasn't very smart. Rogerik is. how should I put it. Ah, an egotistical, hopeless prick. That about fits the bill. In fact, the entire situation was humorous on a whole, not that I would ever like it to happen again. Do you understand?" The girls nodded in unison and hurried to leave when Holly stopped and asked, "But Rachel, what about, like, punishing us? Aren't you going to make us clean or do extra homework? Cook dinner for a week maybe?" Rachel shook her head and readjusted herself on her bed. Grabbing a thick novel, she replied, "On Labor Day? By the goddess, no. You're in deep enough as it is. Now go and apologize to the boys, quick now." She made a shooing motion with her hand, and opening the book to the first page, she started reading.
"Well, that was." Lyra searched for the right word while Holly quietly closed the door. "Um. strange, I guess."
"Strange? She let us off the hook! What is she taking for painkillers? I wonder." Lark practically screeched, strategically a few inches from her friend's faces. Holly winced. "Um, yeah. But what was that about we're 'in deep enough as it is?' Personally, I don't like the sound of that." Lyra shrugged and suggested, "We better go apologize, though."
"I just love Labor Day! A three-day weekend! Where you can sleep late, chill out, quit spazzing out because you thought that five-page essay on runes was due today, and go party all day long! Let's go to town today. I heard that the "Blue Mile" is coming in today with imports from the spirit world." Lark bubbled enthusiastically all the way up the stairs, but soon noticed that Lyra was downstairs in the kitchen. "Hey, Lyra, what're you doing?" Lyra started the coffee and motioned for her sister to quiet down and take a seat. "Believe me, this'll work better than any amount of nagging and whining. Just watch." Lyra flopped down on the couch and fell asleep almost immediately. Lark looked to Holly for an explanation, but the witch just shrugged. Kyuro hopped up on Holly's lap and started purring while she gently stroked the fur between his fuzzy black ears. Kurama didn't really want to get up, but the smell of coffee was too enticing. His fox's nose picked up the scent almost immediately, and he knew that youko never passed up a chance for his favorite ningen drink. Grumbling, Kurama woke up, got dressed (jeans and a T-shirt), and made his bed. After what happened last night, he wasn't really in the mood to deal with Lyra and her friends. Those plants were hard to kill.
Jin was already awake and listening to songs from Meatloaf's (Long live Meatloaf! Yeah!) "Bat out of Hell II" CD. Humming along, he finished writing his reply to Rishio's letter and called the waiting albatross over. The giant bird hopped through the small basement window and flapped over, wingtips grazing the furniture and one of the walls. It settled down on the computer chair and patiently held out a leg while Jin tied the letter on. "Now git. Hurry up, too. Rachel doesn't like wild birds inside." The wanderer hopped up and out of the window, but not before giving Jin a questioning look. "No, I can't go for a flight today. I'm supposed to keep both feet on the ground, remember? Orders from Rishio." Jin gave the bird a baleful grin and locked the tiny window shut.
Lark and Holly waited until everyone came down, drawn by the smell of pure caffeine goodness. Jin was the last to come up. He cheerfully nodded towards the girls and said "G'morning", but Holly could tell that the smile plastered on his face was anything but genuine. Lark sighed, and started off. "Look, we're really sorry. We didn't know you guys would get mixed up in half the traps we set-" Yuske interjected. "Half? There's still more of those flower shop horrors out there?" Holly nodded in response, and Jin's face blanched. "For the love of Mike." Lark quickly got their attention back on topic and continued. "-uh, right. So we have to disarm the others. How about we split into three groups? Holly will take Hiei and Jin out to the front yard to disenchant the tree," Lark pointed to the flailing plum tree, which was now terrorizing the mailman. "I'll take Yuske and Kuwabara out to the beach, and Lyra and Kurama will go tackle the backyard. Um. once she wakes up, that is." Everyone glanced over at the sleeping girl, and Holly took the liberty of trying to wake her up. Lyra groaned, flung a pillow that Holly easily dodged, and turned onto her other side. A few minutes of stunned silence, then. "Alright! Let's get to work!" Holly clapped her hands and shooed the boys out the front door. Kurama pointed to Lyra. "Um, should we leave her?" Lark shrugged. "Sure. Unless you can't take on a few deadly weeds by yourself." Kurama "hmph"-ed and walked outside, Lark calling behind him, "And watch out for that flesh-eating wasp's hive!"
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"Man, this sucks." Yuske carefully disarmed a tripwire, careful not to fall into the muck a few inches away from his left knee. He didn't even want to know what was in that stuff. Every once in a while, he would see a large fin cut through the muddy water, and bubbles coming up. Kuwabara and Lark were busy prying sea urchins and other poisonous mollusks off the cliff stairs. Making it down had been a bitch, and neither one of them wanted to make the same trip back up. Yuske snickered as he watched Kuwabara fall backwards off the steps and into the shallow water. "I'm okay! Water broke my fall!" The redhead shouted back up to Lark, who was clearly worried about something. Yuske then saw the silhouettes of some sort of menacing creatures or something, and shouted, "Idiot! Get out of the water! Now!"
It took a moment for the warning to sink into the crevices of Kuwabara's brain, and he sat there trying to figure out what could possibly be freaking out Yuske so much. That was all the time it took for the shadows under the water to actually contact with Kuwabara's skin. The youth shuddered, and quickly jumped out of the salt water. A skeletal fish, nearly three feet long, jumped up out of the water and snapped its ridiculously long teeth at Kuwabara, whom was scuttling away from the school of deadly sea creatures. "AHHHH! Shit! What are those.those things?" Lark sighed and replied, "Skelefins. They're the undead version of Piranhas. Nasty little buggers, aren't they?"
Yuske was, meanwhile, ever edging away from the foreboding puddle and ready to bolt for the house. "Uh, we better get going." Lark pried a few more urchins off the steps and along the cliff wall. "Not yet. We need to get rid of these-" She pulled off another urchin, this one a foot in diameter, and kicked it over the side into the water. "-Ow. I think one pricked me. Damn. Yuske, Kuwabara, could you finish up for me? It shouldn't take too long between the two of you. I have to run up to the house and get some anti-venom. Bye!" Lark ran off towards the house. Yuske and Kuwabara looked at each other. "You don't think-"
"Nah. Since when do sea urchins have poison that powerful?"
"Really?"
"Sure."
"Okay. well, you better get started. I, um, gotta go. Heh heh."
"Urameshi! Where the hell do you think you're going?!"
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"Okay. Hiei, Jin. You guys distract the tree while I work on taking off the enchantments, please?" Holly was trying hard to be patient with the two. Jin was extremely stubborn, as you would expect of his heritage (He's Irish, ya know?), but Hiei was even worse. The short demon sat in the shade of the house's front porch and refused to budge. "And why should we distract it? It's a tree." Holly massaged the bridge of her nose while she explained why they had to distract the goddamn tree for the third time in less than fifteen minutes. "Because if you don't the tree will hit me. I am the only one that knows how to reverse it besides Lyra and Lark. If we don't disenchant this tree, we can all look forwards to clearing out the manticore's den. And I, personally, don't like that idea. Do you?" Hiei "hn"-ed, but Jin actually asked an intelligent question instead of silently sitting back and watching the two argue. "Uh, what exactly is a manticore?" Holly looked relieved someone had actually asked her that question. "A manticore is a giant lion with a human head, a poison-barbed tail, three sets of razor-sharp teeth, and it has an appetite for flesh. Animal, human, demon, spirit, doesn't matter. There's a den of manticore in the Far Eastern border of the Rekai, and the academy is looking for volunteers to go and exterminate them." Hiei shrugged. "So you're saying that if we don't go get pummeled by a tree, you're going to volunteer us to go get eaten by a monster?"
"Monsters. There's twelve of them." Holly corrected, fighting the urge to just blow him at the tree with some hurricane-force winds. "Um, I'll take the tree." Jin said nervously. "Yay! Let's get to work!" She started to prepare the spell while Jin drew the tree's attention away from her. The tree had run out of ammo a long time ago, and had taken to just wildly whipping it's thick branches about. As Holly continued with the chant; however, it seemed to become even more enraged. Lunging out towards Jin, the roots ripped out of the earth and the tree continued to move, using its roots like legs. For a tree, it was pretty fast and soon pinned Jin against the house, violently beating him with it's thick and sturdy limbs. Jin tried to get out of the way, but the plum tree had sunk its roots into the ground and back out to wrap around the Shinobi's legs and arms.
Hiei sat and watched, not more than ten feet away, as the wind master was beat within an inch of his life by the tree. Getting beat up by a plant. doesn't get more humiliating than that. Sighing in exasperation, Hiei waded through the chaos, katana drawn, freed the unconscious demon, and flipped Jin over onto his shoulder. Hiei cut his way through the tree's defenses and dropped Jin off at the front porch before going back in to keep it away from Holly, who was almost done with the disenchantment. Slowly, the plum tree stumbled over to its original place, branches and roots stiffening with each passing moment, until it finally planted its roots in the soft soil and was silent.
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"That looks serious. I'll go get some of my physicke." Erika hustled through the backyard and into the small green house full of herbs. Kurama and Lyra had thoroughly exterminated and disarmed every trap in the garden without much difficulty; even managing to get rid of the flesh-eating wasps that had built a giant hive there over the last four years. Jin made himself more comfortable on the couch, careful not to move his broken ribs too much. Holly sat by his side, tenderly bandaging his shoulder, which he seemed to have pulled while keeping her safe. "I'm sorry. It's my fault. I should have been able to fix it on my own without you getting beat up." Jin Stopped her and cupped Holly's face in his hand. "Don' go crying over me, I'm not really worth all the fuss." Holly looked up and tried to force a smile. "Liar. You know damn well you want the attention."
"Me? Nah. But if you could pass me that herbal pack."
"Um. Erika's coming back. Good luck."
"Eh? Waddaya mean?" Jin craned his head back to watch Holly leave, but it was too sore to move much.
Erika now came back in with a ceramic jar and a large spoon. Jin could only watch in horror as she uncorked the bottle and a smell not unlike that of patchouli oil (I hate that stuff) filled the air. He dared not move for fear of making his injuries even worse and was starting to wish that he had called a doctor instead of trusting Erika. "Open up dear, it'll only take a second." She closed in on Jin, and the demon frantically looked for an escape route, but it was too late. Within seconds, Erika had shoved in a spoonful of the awful stuff she called medicine and forced Jin to swallow it. Jin gagged for a minute and hurriedly felt on the table for his glass of water, eager to wash down the horrible after taste of rotting soybeans and all sorts of weeds he was sure didn't do a thing for the human body, much less a demonic one.
Yuske snickered at Jin's swearing and cursing from the other room, and watched as Kuwabara made a crude impression of the wind demon gagging and puking up the vile substance. Lyra and Lark had opened all the windows on the lower levels of the house so the stench could escape as quickly as possible. Holly was back in the living room giving Jin some raspberry tea to help soothe the aftereffects of the psysicke (I.e.: Sore throat, possible stomach cramps, and one student turned a nasty orange color.). Hiei was off somewhere snickering behind the shinobi's back while poor Jin lay on the couch almost completely out of it. Kurama was up in the boys' room brewing up a cure for the physicke in case the fox himself might need it sometime in the future.
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The doorbell rang and startled Jin out of his daze. Wincing at the slightly throbbing pain, the demon got up and stretched a little before stumbling over to the oak door. It seemed Erika's "medicine" actually worked, after you gave it some time to digest. Jin had thought that today couldn't go any worse for him, until he opened the door and got a good long look at the visitor. "Hi! I was re-assigned to this dorm this morning-" Slam! Jin shut the door in the boy's face and locked it without a second thought, wishing that Rogerik would just leave him the hell alone.
"Jin! That was so rude! Let whoever it is back in."
"Trust me, Lyra. You don't want that thing in here!"
"Jin!"
"What?! I'm telling you, he's like an insurance salesman. Invite him in and he'll never leave unless you threaten his life! No! Don't!" Jin Kaze was too late; however, as Lyra opened the door and was immediately shoved aside as Rogerik ran through and started strangling Jin. "Shut the door in my face, will you? Come on, you prick!" Lyra recovered soon enough to help a worried Lark force the "guest" off of Jin and tie him down with a few enchantments. Rogerik put up a terrific fight, and the wind master stealthily snuck out of the living room rubbing his neck. That kid is freakishly strong, he thought as he quietly opened the door to his bedroom and hurried downstairs to nurse his new bruises.
"So. what are you doing here?" Lark asked the bound teen, who was close to being gagged as well. "Me? I got reassigned here! I-"
"God no."
"That's right, Lark! I'm your new roommate!" Rogerik would've bowed if he wasn't tied up, but all he could do was innocently smile. Lyra was so starled at this comment that she released her hold on Salvatore. The little parrot immediately scurried across the floor and started to gnaw on Rogerik's fingers. "Ow! Frick! Little basta-" His mouth was suddenly sealed shut with a quick spell from Lark. "Not so loud, idiot! Rachel or Erika will hear you." Lyra whistled for Salvatore and the vicious bugger fluttered onto her outstretched finger. The peach-face lovebird climbed up to her shoulder and started to preen himself.
"Rachel or Erika will hear what?" The sisters jumped and tried to make up a story as to why Rogerik was bound and gagged on the floor. Rachel listened to their blabbering for a second before shooing them out of the way. "Well what do we have here? What did you get yourself into this time, Rogerik?" Rachel undid the enchantments and patiently waited for his explanation. "I got reassigned here this morning. My teachers found out about last night."
"It was quite a fiasco. These girls do know how to protect their property."
"Uh. yeah. So, um, where's my room?"
"All the other rooms are full, unless you might want to room with Lyra-" Salvatore growled at the thought of a boy rooming with his owner. "-or Jin." Rogerik looked puzzled. "Who?"
"The guy you tried to strangle ten minutes ago." Lark muttered darkly. Rogerik carefully thought about his choices. Neither person liked him; both were really dangerous looking, and either way he was screwed. Personally, he was more scared of what Lyra would do to him than Jin would. What was that guy anyways, an overgrown leprechaun? "I'll room with Jin." Rogerik sighed, not at all pleased with his predicament.
Rogerik shoved the door open and precariously walked downstairs with his arms full of bags. Jin was asleep, wrapped up in the cotton sheets and looking kind of sick and pale. Rogerik opened the closet and unpacked his clothes. His Irish roommate had already put his few belongings in the mahogany chest of drawers on the opposite side of the room. The blond psychic nervously glanced around before opening his last bag, releasing a stream of tiny black, spidery creatures. They clustered around Rogerik's feet, squeaking and scurrying up onto his arms, where he praised and played with them, until the demon across the room stirred and they all scuttled into a crack in the brick wall. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lyra sat on her balcony, tapping a pencil against her sketchbook as she thought of something to draw. There was a meteor shower scheduled at ten tonight, and she was looking for something to do in the remaining twenty minutes. Rogerik had settled in nicely, and even helped out during dinner. Apparently, he wasn't as bad as she had thought. Of course, he could be sickly sweet and innocent whenever a teacher was around, and it was going to take more than one day of good behavior to completely change her mind. Someone knocked on her bedroom door, snapping her out of her daydream. Lyra set her book and pencil down on her chair, and went to answer the door. Kurama had come. "Hey. Do you mind if I come up?" the green-eyed boy asked. Lyra shook her head and let him in, stunned. "Why are you coming up here?" She kindly asked, not really expecting an answer. Kurama wandered around her room, looking at a framed picture here, a knick-knack there, and casually answered over his shoulder, "I was wondering if maybe I could watch the meteor shower from up here. if you don't mind, of course." Lyra closed her door and walked out onto her balcony, savoring the sea air and gentle breeze. "No. I don't mind. Pull up a chair, there's plenty of room." Kurama did so and they started talking. Telling stories from school, about their friends, and even a little literature. Eventually, Lyra managed to get Kurama to tell her about the Saint Beasts and the Dark tournament. The night dragged on, and the two friends carried on until after the tiny meteors had stopped falling.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Hi! This is supposed to be a humorous chapter, and totally screwing up one of the character's day seemed pretty funny at first. I'm afraid I might've carried on a bit too much, though. Having Rishio forbid Jin to fly or use his powers to their full extent was kind of added at the last second, but it might work out. Y'see, Jin loves to fly, right? Add all the other mishaps he had that day, and. well.it's a pretty crappy day, isn't it? Don't get me wrong, I love Jin. He might not be my absolute favorite Yu Yu Hakusho character, but he comes in as a close second (Genkai is #1). Oh, and I was talking about Meatloaf the band. Meatloaf is a pretty old band; it started somewhere in the 70's, I think. Anyways, Listen to their song "Objects in the rear view mirror appear closer than they are". Its soooooooo pretty! ^_^
I don't have too much to rant about in this chapter, except Toonami restarting Yu Yu Hakusho. But I'm sure you all know what I mean, right? I hope you saw "Nefertiti resurrected" on the discovery channel. It was pretty cool. If you didn't, well it's your own damn fault. See ya later!
KKC