Her eyes were closed; she had fallen asleep in her boredom and exhaustion. Yusuke crossed his arms in defense but refused to speak. Botan sighed defeat and they all left to let Reana sleep. When everyone was gone, Reana cracked an eye and looked around.
"Finally." she said with much exasperation and clicked on the tv.
For three days she rested, allowing her energy to return and her knee to heal.
(This is a line... don't tell anyone)
Friday morning found Reana sleeping like death in her room, and Yusuke grumbling about her not having to go to school. Despite his rather loud grumbling, Reana managed to stay in her impossibly deep sleep. Yusuke was eventually shooed out of the house and Atsuko when off to parts unknown.
Friday afternoon, late afternoon, found Reana just as the morning had left her. The house was, other than the sleeping girl, empty. The afternoon light managed to push its way past her curtains and streak across her face. She shifted as the light started to bother her. She rolled over in her strange sleeping position to avoid that light and succeeded in finally rolling of the edge of her bed. She landed with a dull thump on the floor in an ungraceful heap.
"And that would be karma, telling me to get up..." she mumbled sarcastically from her position on the floor and grabbed her clock off the table, pulling is close to her face so that she could actually read it. It took a long moment for her to comprehend exactly what it said, but the second her brain processed the information; she was off like a rocket. She frantically tore at the blankets that she was tangled up in and jumped up, rushing to her closet.
'Crap,' she thought, 'school was out 15min ago and I am supposed to meet Kurama in the park right after! Crap, I am going to be late!' She unbuttoned the top few buttons of her mens shirt and yanked it off over her head. She quickly stepped out of her loose pants and pulled on a pair of slim jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt. As she ran for the front door she dragged a brush through her messy hair and slipped into a pair of shoes. She rushed out the door, brushing past Kuwabara and nearly knocking Yusuke down in her hurry.
"Going to the park, be back later." she shouted over her shoulder, and continued running. Yusuke brushed himself off and he and Kuwabara stared after her for a moment.
"What the heck is up with her?" asked Yusuke.
"Dunno." Replied Kuwabara, "Maybe she's late for something."
Reana continued running as fast as she could without exceeding the point where it would look suspicious. She slid around the corner of the fence of the park, and saw Kurama leaning up against the gate. Reana slid to a halt in front of him and smiled apologetically up at him.
"Sorry that I am late. I kinda overslept...." she rubbed the back of her head, slightly embarrassed. He smiled back.
"Don't worry about it, I wasn't waiting to long, and its nice out today." She felt relived that he forgave her so easily. "Well go to the place where Kuwabara and I trained for the Dark Tournament." Reana nodded in response and they turned and she followed Kurama into the park. It only took a few minutes to get to their destination. It was in a forested part of the park.
It was heavily wooded and very uninviting before it suddenly opened into a mid-sized clearing. The sun came down in patches through the leaves of the canopy. Kurama lead her to the center of the clearing and turned to face her.
"Ok," he started, "Today I just want to get a proper gauge of your skills thus far. We wont do too much." Reana nodded, and Kurama took a step back and took a ready stance, waiting for her to show that he was ready. She took a single step back, falling into a ready stance.Within that singular moment her mind switched to fighting mentality. Her face became emotionless, and she concentrated on Kurama's body, waiting for his move.
"We are going to have a short sparing match to begin." he said, and she again nodded, not taking her concentrating eyes off him for a second. "Alright."
He pulled out his rose and cracked his whip to signal to her that he was beginning. First he took a straight on strike at her and she easily sidestepped his move. Kurama used a simple side crack, snapping the whip at her waist from the side, and again she easily dodged. Kurama decided to start actually trying, seeing as she wasn't exactly sleeping on her feet.
He cracked the whip at her head, and she dodged predictably to the left, so he took a step to the right and made a looping swing, causing several points of the whip to come at her at once. Reana waited to the right moment and jumped into the air, landing behind him. He saw her movements and followed her with his whip, leaping back in the same instant so that any attack she may have aimed at him would be outside the range of distance.
He sent the whip at her again in the same multi-contact-point attack, but this time she jumped up and landed to his left. Kurama again followed her with his whip, but the instant Reana landed, she jumped again, causing Kurama's whip to, instead, strike the ground. Reana landed to Kurama's right and sent several strikes at him. He dodged each one, having to step back each time to limit her striking range.
He finally found his second of opportunity and swung his whip at her. Reana threw one last punch at Kurama before she was forced to jump back to avoid the whip. Kurama has also been forced to jump back to avoid being hit. They were back where they had started in the fight. Kurama decided to make one more attack at her to see her reaction.
In the instant Reana exhaled, Kurama brought his whip down on her. Reana barely had enough time to jump out of the way, and had to twist her body slightly in order to dodge the strike completely. He did not even give her time to breathe before he sent the curve of the whip after her again. Luckily she'd had the idea to keep moving rather then stopping after dodging Kurama's attack.
She suddenly got an idea. As the whip chased her she stopped dead and dropped to the ground in a position resembling an attempt at splits while holding her body off the ground with her arms. Reana knew that the whip would continue in its current path for a few more seconds, even Kurama tried to change the whip's path. She also knew, though, that once it did change direction the speed of the tip of the whip would be enough to cause serious pain. The moment that the whip had passed over her head she used her arms to throw herself off the ground in a flip towards Kurama.
Once in range, Reana took a slash at him with the side of her hand. Kurama only barely managed to throw himself backwards in time to keep from getting hit. He cracked his whip in front of her causing her to back up, and cracked it again missing her on purpose to signal that they were done. Reana understood what he meant by the last whip crack and she dropped her stance and tried to catch her breath that she had been holding since she had jumped into the last time.
Kurama also had been holding his breath since the time that she had surprised him and ducked under his whip. He had been caught off guard by her choice of counter measure. Though they had not been trying to cause each other real injury the had still been trying pretty hard to achieve the objective of contact.
'When I used the same move as before she came up with a new way around it. That last move that she used surprised me.' he thought to himself as he returned his rose whip to its normal size.
"So," said Reana when she had enough breath to speak, "how did I do?"
"Better then I expected." said Kurama with a smile.
"I wonder, if that is a good thing or an insult." she replied also with a smile.
"Your last dodge was unexpected." he said.
"Does that mean that you thought that I wouldn't be able to dodge it?" she asked. Kurama shook his head and walked over to her.
"No, I just didn't expect you to pull off something like that. The easier dodge would have been to move just out of range of the strike. If you had done that you would have had time to recover and move before I would be able to attack you again." he replied.
"Yes, but had I done that I would still be at a disadvantage, and would have not been able to attack you." she said matter-of-fact-ly.
"Exactly. Very few people would recognize that fact and then still be able to find a way to within attack range in such a short amount of time. Your calculation of timing must have also been very precise in order to avoid the whip's backlash attack."
"So that means I did well?"
"Yes," Kurama smiled widely again. "You did very well. I am not sure that even Hiei would have made that maneuver." Reana smiled at the thought that she did something in battle that Hiei could not."Also when I repeated my attack you came up with a different way to dodge and attack when the first try didn't work. You think in battle, and change your plans accordingly. That is a very good thing to be able to do in battle." Reana couldn't help but smile more. She rarely received praise ever in her life, and to be given so much over something that she had not seen as a big deal, felt very good to her.
"I think we should be done for today. Could you meet me her again tomorrow? Then we can officially start training." Reana thought for a moment before responding.
"I am sure I could, I don't have anything to do. I don't think Yusuke would mind having me out of the house either."
"Good, then we will meet back here at noon, is that ok?"
Reana nodded, "Sounds good."
Kurama nodded and they both walked out of the clearing, through the Forrest in silence. Once they reached the park gates they said their good-bye's and each went their separate directions home. Reana couldn't help but smile all the way back to Yusuke's house.
It had been such a long time that she had been praised like that over anything. She had forgotten how nice it was to hear such words of praise. She entered the house to find Kuwabara gone, and Yusuke slouching on the couch watching tv. He turned to her as he heard the door open and shut.
"Hey, where have you been?" he asked lazily. Reana opened the fridge pulling out a soda, and taking a sip.
"With Kurama. He is helping me with my powers." she replied nonchalantly. She came into the living room and jumped over the back of the couch, and sat down watching tv.
"So, Yusuke, how was school?" she asked with a slight smirk-ish smile.
"Who are you?" he replied, "my mother?" Just then Atsuko walked into the house, slightly tipsy, and she smiled at the two sitting on the couch.
"Ohhh, heya two. Good to seeya gettin along good..." she slurred slightly. "Don't forget to do your homework..." she added before wobbling her way to her room.
"Well some one has to be." Said Reana jokingly.
"Nah." said Yusuke with a smile. "I have Keiko for that, and she is more then enough 'mother' for me." They both shared a laugh before lazily watching tv until they fell asleep on the couch.
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Hey ya! Hope you like my new chapter. I am getting touches of writers block for some of my other stories, so if you are reading them excuse my lateness, and if you are not reading them then you should check them out. Also, note that this is the first fighting type scene that I have ever typed up like this, so if it sucks then just bare with me. If you have any suggestions give them to me and I will give my response in my next chapter.Oh well, all I can say is Review please!