Blah blah blah...
Disclaimer: Same as always. *sigh*
Chapter Eleven: The Dead Are Alive
All over the field, skeletons were standing, glowing an eerie green. Skeletons of all types; most of them demons, as well as the occasional hanyou or human. Rags and the occasional bit of torn, moldy flesh clung to their bones. Even Frogari looked disgusted.
"Now that's interesting!" Faye exclaimed, "Yakusoku's somehow managed to bring up the bones of those who we buried here from past Tournaments! This promises to get good!"
A low growl erupted from Yakusoku's throat.
"Oh, what's wrong?" Frogari asked in mock sympathy, "Is Yakusoku not happy with what he's done?"
"SHUT UP!" Yakusoku roared. In a swift movement the edge of his scythe was against Frogari's throat.
"If you want to live," Yakusoku growled, "Stop pissing me off." Frogari's eyes bulged, and he nodded. Yakusoku removed the scythe and planted it in the ground before smiling and eventually laughing.
"What're you laughing about?" Kuwabara asked.
"My summoning didn't go like it should have," Yakusoku answered, grinning like a madman, "Instead of summoning a few very powerful, Guardian Set, I have many skeletons that will attack at my command! Which is better, I wonder?"
"Who cares?" Kuwabara asked, "No matter how many skeleton-thingies you have, you're still going to lose! SPIRIT SWORD--DOUBLE!" Twin beams of light shot into existence, one in each hand. Yakusoku's smile grew wider, and more mocking. He opened his mouth to say something, but a look of confusion crossed his face, and he cocked his head.
"D'you hear screaming?"
***
"BACK! BACK YOU FIEND!" Kzou slashed left and right with her two knives, while Niyali used her handy-dandy driftwood stick to further indent the skeletons' skulls.
"THEY JUST KEEP COMING!" she yelled to Kozu.
"SOMEBODY HEEEEEEEELP!!"
***
"I don't hear anything."
"Hm." Yakusoku shrugged, "Maybe it was just my imagination." He pulled his scythe out of the ground and pointed it, blade first, at Kuwabara.
"Skeletons, attack!" As one, the skeletons turned towards Kuwabara and advanced. Bones flew left and right as they came in contact with Kuwabara's Spirit Swords, but for every skeleton that became a useless heap of bones there was one more to take its place.
Hiei smirked.
"Idiot. He'll never defeat them that way."
"What?" Yusuke and Arashi turned towards the small demon, "What do you mean?"
"Think about it." The three of them looked to Kurama, who was watching Kuwabara intently. "For every skeleton he eliminates, Yakusoku calls up another. There have been too many Tournaments and deaths for him to run out before Kuwabara is exhausted."
"So...the baka's going to lose?" Arashi asked, hopefully.
"If he keeps this up," Hiei muttered.
"But if he can stop Yakusoku from summoning any more, or from controlling them," Kurama continued, "He may have a chance."
"COME ON, KUWABARA!" Yusuke yelled, turning back to the fight, "THINK OF SOMETHING!"
"SHUT UP, URAMESHI! I CAN HANDLE THIS MYSELF!" Yakusoku smiled.
"That's what they always say." He sighed, "Nobody's ever gotten further then this attack, even when it works properly." His scythe pulsed black as Kuwabara sliced through yet another skeleton. Kuwabara, half watching him and half concentrating on destroying the skeletons, noticed this. On a sudden impulse, he changed his course of action, pushing through the skeletons instead of letting them come to him. Yakusoku's eyes widened just a little bit.
:What is he doing? Oh, well, it doesn't matter, my skeletons will still destroy him--doesn't matter if it's later rather then--:
"SPIRIT SWORD!" With the cry of his trademark move, Kuwabara's two swords molded into one. He brought it down with a battle cry, which turned into a cry of victory as it connected with something.
:What!?: "NO!"
"WOW!" Faye exclaimed, "Kuwabara's somehow managed to fight his way through the skeletons and attack Yakusoku, cutting his scythe in half! I can't believe Yakusoku didn't see that coming!"
"I DID see it coming!"
"Then why didn't you block it?" Frogari asked.
"Uh...that's just a technicality." Yakusoku dropped the two pieces of scythe and turned to face Kuwabara, who was grinning triumphantly.
"Dumb luck," Yakusoku told him, "That's all it was." He raised his arm in the traditional stance for the Spirit Gun.
A low growl escaped Yusuke's throat.
"Mine..."
"And they say foxes are overprotective."
"What did you say, Kurama?"
"Nothing."
"SPIRIT GUN!" The black orb of Spirit Energy was released from Yakusoku's index finger. Kuwabara twirled his Spirit Sword and deflected it off into the trees, where it left yet another ruin in its wake. Yakusoku quickly followed with another Spirit Gun, which Kuwabara also deflected. This time, however, the orb hit the boulder at just an angle to blow a hole through the middle. It kept going, however, deep into the ground. The edges of the boulder crumbled and caved in, leaving a giant hole in the middle of the field.
This time, however, no one could say they hadn't heard the screams.
***
The skeletons finally backed off, and the girls were left standing in a pile of dirt and bones. Kozu's arms felt like they were going to fall off as she returned the knives to their hidden sheathes, and Niyali removed her energy from her stick and turned it back into a twig. Both were breathing hard, and bleeding from a few places. Niyali was muttering something, and Kozu was quite sure she caught "Minoru" and "stupid" several times, as well as many other not-so-nice words.
"What makes you so sure Minoru did this?" she asked.
"Stupid *&%$ was the ^(*&%$ one who got us caught here in the first *&!@ place," Niyali muttered.
"Niyali! Language!" Niyali turned and glared at her. Kozu glared back. At the peak of their staring contest, there was an interruption in the form of an unusual noise. Kozu's ears twitched before she glanced up. Her eyes widened in disbelief and she gasped in shock and fear.
"The boulder's caving in!" Having experienced this before, she ducked and covered. Niyali turned her face up and just stood there, staring at the falling rock before Kozu screamed her name and pulled her down. Neither one of them noticed the black orb that shot through their prison, shooting through one of the walls, which in turn started to cave in. As the first bits of dirt and pieces of rock landed upon their bodies, the girls screamed.
***
"NIYALI!" Arashi screamed, "KOZU!" She would have run straight out on the battlefield if Hiei hadn't held her back.
"STOP THE FIGHT!" Yusuke yelled, "THAT'S OUR TEAM MEMBERS TRAPPED IN THAT HOLE!" Kuwabara moved over towards the edge of the hole and looked down. All he saw was a massive pile of dirt and rock. But somebody had screamed...
"WATCH OUT, KUWABARA!"
"SPIRIT GUN!" Kuwabara looked up in time to see the black sphere coming right towards him. He brought his Spirit Sword up and twirled it to deflect it. But the sword just grazed the sphere as the sphere continued on its chosen path right into Kuwabara. The human was blown backwards by the force of the blast, slammed into a tree, and through the tree, finally landing on the ground where he lay, unmoving.
"OUT OF THE RING!" Faye and Frogari exclaimed, at the same time, "ONE! TWO!..."
"Come ON, Kuwabara, GET UP!" Yusuke yelled.
"Five! Six!..."
"Face it, he's not getting up." Yakusoku said, "Don't you remember how far the other blasts went?"
"Nine! Ten! And Yakusoku is the winner by a ring-out!" Yakusoku smiled, waved to the non-existent audience and went back to his team. Yusuke raced over to where Kuwabara had landed, while the rest of the team headed over to the hole, Arashi dragging Hiei.
"Hold on!" Faye exclaimed, "All of Team Urameshi has volunteered to fight in the next round! But only one of them came! Will they battle amongst themselves? But that would be stupid!"
"Shut up," Hiei told her. Faye blinked.
"Well that was rude." Arashi peered over the edge of the hole. Like Kuwabara, all she saw was a big pile of dirt and rocks, as well as the occasional bone.
"I don't see them!" she whined, a bit of panic creeping into her voice. Hiei's Jagan flared under his bandana, and he frowned.
"They're underneath all that." Kurama had long since jumped into the hole, and was working at clearing away the debris. Arashi leapt in to help, dragging Hiei after her.
:Please,: she thought, as she pushed a big rock to the side, :Please don't be dead...:
***
Keep going...