Surprise, Surprise

By:  Cece Williams

((Disclaimer:  I don't own YYH, so don't sue.))

Cece:  Well, someone's happy.

Yusuke:  (grins from ear to ear) I'm in it!  Yahoo!

Kurama:  Well, perhaps this chapter should be starting soon, right?

Cece:  Yep!  R&R.

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Andrea stayed in the tree, that is until she felt something fly near her.  She jumped down, landing on her feet, and looked up, seeing a green thingamajig with wings heading towards her.  She ducked out of the way, but the weapon struck her in the small of her back.  This knocked her down, but she couldn't recover in time as she hit the ground on her side.  She looked up at the branch she jumped off of.  Trying to stand up wasn't a problem, but ignoring the pain in her back was a whole other ball game.  She gritted her teeth in pain as she stood back to her feet.

A tall familiar figure appeared on the branch where Andrea was once on.  His long black hair blew in the chilled morning breeze.  "Peek-a-boo," he said.

Andrea's blue eyes looked angry, as she now knew who it was.  Karasu.  "What do you want?" she asked, holding onto her back.  "You know you don't stand a chance against Kurama."

Karasu said nothing in return, only jumped down from the branch so as to land perfectly on the ground below.  Instead of moving closer to her, though, he stuck his hands in his pockets and simply stared at her.

"What's the matter; cat got your tongue?" Andrea asked, getting out her bow.  She pulled a Spirit Arrow onto it and held it at his head, gritting her teeth from the pain in her back.  "Did anyone ever tell you it's unmanly to attack someone from behind?"

Karasu simply shook his head.  "I pushed you out of a tree, little girl," he answered, his dark voice reaching out to her.  "I'd hardly call that 'attacking' you."

Andrea fired her Spirit Arrow at him, hoping to everything she believed in that it'd hit him.  ~Come on, please hit this freak,~ she thought to herself.

Having already seen the arrow coming at him, Karasu ducked away, but not before the arrow grazed the side of his face.  A trickle of blood ran down his cheek, and behind his mask, he smiled.  "Was that supposed to hurt me?"

Andrea fell to her knees, drained from the arrow she shot.  She put another one on the bow and shot it into the air.  Looking back at him, she smiled through the pain.  "Well, at least I hit you," she answered back.

Musingly, Karasu smiled.  "Yes, I'll give you that one," he said.  "But you can rest assured that it won't happen again."

Meanwhile, Yusuke was walking back to the hotel, tired and weary after his training.  He looked up to see something shooting in the sky.  "That looked like Andrea's arrow," he said to himself.  He turned his head to see Kurama, who evidently saw the arrow as well.  "Did you see that?"

Kurama didn't answer; he only nodded and took off running in the direction from which he had seen the arrow shoot out from.  ~Andrea… she's in danger,~ he thought to himself as he ran.

Yusuke looked on as Kurama ran out of sight.  "Good luck, Kurama," he said into the wind.

Back in the woods, Andrea's breathing was getting ragged from her sudden loss of Spirit Energy.  ~I just hope someone saw that,~ she thought to herself.  ~I don't know how much longer I can take this guy.~ Looking up at him, she growled, "In a way, I wish Kurama would've capped your behind back there."

Karasu in turn shot a small blast into the air, and in doing so, disintegrated her Spirit Arrow on contact.  "Oops, you really needed that, didn't you?" he asked her; his dark eyes glinted.

Andrea's body was shaking due to the two arrows she let fly.  She looked up at him, trying to hide the fact that she was shaking.  "What's it to you?" she growled through the pain, which had started to progress.

Karasu only smiled before closing the distance between them.  "It's a real shame that a beautiful girl like you has to suffer to such a fate," he said, his hand about five feet from her.  But just as he was about to grab her neck, a whip laden with sharp thorns caught his wrist and pulled him back from Andrea.

Andrea fell to the ground face-first; her tired and weakened blue eyes looking at a pair of unfamiliar legs, although the attack was very familiar.  She smiled, although the pain was progressing.  "Kurama… you made it…" she whispered, her tired body lying on the ground.

"I suggest if you wish to keep those hands of yours to keep them to yourself," Kurama replied darkly.  Turning to Andrea, he put away his Rose Whip and helped her up so that she was leaning against him.  "Of course, I made it," he answered her.  Joking lightly, he added, "Don't you know that the hero always makes it in the nick of time?"

"I know that…" Before she could anything further, she screamed in pain, squinting her eyes shut.  She gritted her teeth in pain.

Kurama's demeanor changed when he saw the look of pain on her face.  He pulled his arm from her back to her neck, locking it securely to her face.  It was only a brief moment of glaring harshly at Karasu that he picked Andrea up into his arms gently and began to walk away.

Karasu looked at Kurama, enraged.  "Kurama, get back, get back here and fight me," he said.

Kurama didn't even look behind him.  "Sorry; I have more important matters to tend to before I destroy you," he said, shaking his head.

Andrea's words came out almost like a whisper.  "I thought Karasu destroyed that arrow… how did you find me?" she asked him.

Kurama shook his head; still carrying her tired and injured form.  "He did; but I had already pinpointed the arrow's location long before he destroyed it," he answered her.

Andrea opened her blue eyes for a second and looked down at the ground long enough to know she was being carried.  She laughed slightly, although the pain coursing through her was immense.  "Now, how are you going to explain this to everyone else?" she asked him.

Kurama smiled down at her, allowing a small laugh to escape his lips.  "Hmm, who says we have to explain anything?" he asked her back.

Back at the hotel, Kuwabara had already walked outside, seeing the blast that destroyed Andrea's arrow.  Yusuke and himself stood in an unnatural silence, both suspecting the worst; someone had attacked Andrea and she was probably dead.  He heard some rustling; he looked up and saw Kurama carrying a girl in his arms.  As Kurama got closer, Kuwabara saw that it was Andrea.  "Kurama…" he said.  "Are you practicing carrying Andrea across the threshold?"

Andrea rolled her eyes at Kurama.  "I think we might have to…" she answered Kurama's question.

Yusuke punched Kuwabara upside his head, rolling his brown eyes.  "Stupid…" he muttered under his breath at Kuwabara.  Turning to Kurama, he asked, "What happened to her, Kurama?"

Kurama ignored Kuwabara's comment and turned his attention to Yusuke.  "It was Karasu; he surprised her," he answered.  "He attacked her and I found her like this."

"What?!" Yusuke's voice showed concern and anger for what happened to her, and from the look in his brown eyes, it wasn't a smart idea to tick him off; Andrea and the rest of the team knew that all too well.  "Where's that little…" he growled angrily.

Andrea looked at Yusuke.  "Yusuke, I couldn't beat him… what makes you think you could?" she asked him.

From somewhere far in the corridor, Karasu said, "And you can rest assured they'll be plenty of more surprises where that came from, Kurama."  With that, he gave only Kurama a glance and disappeared into the darkness of the opposite corridor.

Andrea looked at them as Yusuke growled.  "I know…" Tears started to fill her eyes as she turned her head back to Kurama.  "I'm sorry."

While her back was turned, Yusuke looked at a patch of skin at her back that looks bruised when Andrea turned her head.  She looked like she was hit in the back real bad.  "Oh, man," he said, shaking his head, his anger lightly subsiding.

Kurama shook his head at Andrea's apology.  "Don't be sorry, Andrea," he answered her as he started to walk, continuing to carry her.  "It's not your fault; besides, if anyone should be sorry here, it should be me for not finding you sooner."

The tears fell from her eyes, tears of anger and of pain mingled together as if they were one emotion.  "I …should have done something…" she started her defense.

Kurama shook his head again.  "Don't trouble yourself over this anymore, Andrea," he answered her, silencing her.  "For it's not so much your problem as it is mine."  Kurama's emerald eyes narrowed downward, but not before the angry glint in his eyes appeared that his eyes sharpened.  "I will take care of him soon enough."

The look in Kurama's eyes scared her… probably more than Karasu.  "But if I couldn't beat him…" she started.

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((What could Kurama have up his sleeve?  Will Kuwabara ever keep his thoughts to himself?  What plans does Karasu have planned for Andrea and Kurama?  All in the next part!))

Cece:  Man, I didn't know Kurama could look so pissed off.

Yusuke:  You should've seen him in "Flowers of Blood."  That was scary.

Cece:  I did see that… in the dark.

Kurama:  Let me venture a guess; you screamed during the episode?

(Cece nods)

Kuwabara:  Geez, what a wuss.

Yusuke:  Why don't you look at yourself in the mirror?

(Kuwabara and Yusuke start a mouth-off)

Genkai:  Shut up, you two!

Cece:  Thanks.  R&R… while we try to shut them up.