Niana: Yee! I got a new reviewer! [Hands Silverknight7 a really big cookie] To answer your question, you'll have to wait and find out. I've actually got the ending to this fic already worked out, but I don't have the stuff about Saffron so I can't finish the middle. T.T
Starling: You talk too much, Niana.
Niana: Says the wolf who spends over an hour on the phone with Cassiopeia talking about a certain tasty bishie--
Starling: =0.0= [Hides her wolf-demon plushie] . . I don't know what you're talking about.
Disclaimer: Yanno, screw it. You want one, go see the other chapters.
Chapter 11: Pick a Card, any Card!
==========================
"You certainly did a number on yourself, Rei," Dr. Tofu chides gently as he wraps her ankle in a support wrap. "How did you say this happened again?"
"It--ow!--happened while I was--ouch!--running from Yakuza or Triad--yow!--men, that's how."
"Why were they even there in the first place?" Ryoga demands from his chair by the exam room door.
"They gave me some crock about Taro being uncooperative in their dealings with him."
"Eh??" Ryoga bolts to his feet and looks just about ready to rush off--thereby getting himself lost once again--but a glare from Rei has him resuming his seat.
"Don't you even start. I know for a bedamned fact that he has nothing to do with any of the world's Families, Ryoga. So don't go and get your bandanna in a twist." Tofu merely shakes his head as he ties off the support wrap and stands up.
"As an experienced medical practitioner, it is my job to know when to stay out of things. This is one of those times," he informs the two. "Rei, you can take the bandage off in five hours, unless you go and 'tweak' it. Try not to walk on it until then, either."
"Hai, Dr. Tofu," Rei sighs. "Thank you very much." She looks over to Ryoga. "Looks like you're piggy-backing me home, bro."
====
Next morning:
"Akane! You gotta see this!" Ranma's pleased voice pierces Akane's dreams and wakes the raven-haired girl from a rather unusual dream. Something about threads…
"What??" she yells back, shaking the last fragments from her mind and sitting up.
"Just come downstairs! Wear your gi!" Curiosity outweighing her annoyance at the rude interruption of her sleep, Akane obligingly gets dressed in her gi and goes downstairs, fluffing her hair into some semblance of order. What she sees through the back door makes her stop in her tracks. A dozen older men and a few middle-aged women are standing there, talking to Soun, and all of them are carrying gym bags.
"So what do you think, Tendo-san?" one of the men says as she walks up. "Since most of the dojos around town are just catering to the younger set, we wanted to know if you'd think about gettin' yours up and runnin' again. You always did have extra consideration for old bones."
"Well, if it isn't Akane-chan!" one of the women says in surprise, looking past her father and smiling. "How are you, dearie?"
Akane smiles when she recognizes the baker from down the street. She always has a bun or two for the kids when they've had a bad day. "Good morning, Oba-Yoshida! What's going on?"
"Oh, we're trying to get your father to reopen the dojo for us poor senior citizens, is all. But you know him, he's being stubborn."
Soun is instantly given the starry-eyed treatment from his youngest daughter. "Oh, please, Daddy?? It'd be so nice to teach and train with a class again!" Soun stammers and stalls for a few more minutes, but finally gives in to the cajoling of the older folk and the pressing of his daughter.
Akane spends the next minute or two bouncing around the yard in pure excitement, much to the amusement of Ranma and the adults, before setting a time for the first class. Nabiki is the one who sets the price--relatively modest, considering it's Nabiki. Then the teens remember that today happens to be a school day, and the excitement vanishes in a rush to avoid being late.
Excitement returns halfway through first period however, and Rei keep giving her amused looks as her friend squirms occasionally in her seat, as though ready to burst with happiness. Akane nearly pounces on her the second the bell rings, grinning joyously at the red-haired girl.
"What's got you so wound up, eh, Akane-chan?" the affectionate use of the suffix just increasing the smile's width.
"You'll never guess, Rei-chan! My Dad's opening his dojo again!" To Akane's mild surprise, Rei merely tips her head back and laughs.
"Ah! I see! And didn't I tell you such a thing'd be happening?" Akane thinks back and realizes that Rei had indeed bet that things would change.
"How do you know all this stuff, Rei? All the fortune-telling, and the techniques, and all that?" is the wistful query from Akane, and Rei merely gives her a cat's-got-the-canary smile and a wag of a finger.
"Mm-mh, my dear Akane, that's a trade secret! If I told you I'd have to kill you," she finishes laughingly, giving the short-haired girl a sidelong glance as an invitation to join in her amusement, and after a few moments of startlement, Akane does so.
====
Kurama sprawls on the lawn of the Kenobishi front yard, sunlight streaming down and making every single blade of grass glow bright emerald, all tension slowly leaking away as he watches his cousin--who despite not being of his actual blood shares so much of his appearance--go through a wide variety of katas from all sorts of styles. "How many styles do you know anyway, cousin?" His question is a lazy one, those entrancing green eyes of his half-shut and sleepy.
"Every style that exists, Kurama," is the matter-of-fact reply. One thin red eyebrow goes up, those eyes no longer sleepy. "Of course, that doesn't mean I can actually use every style. Take the Anything-Goes Style of Contortionism. My body is simply never going to be that flexible: hell, sometimes I wonder if those practitioners even have bones."
"And how would you know so many?"
"In my line of work, my fair cousin, you'll come across anything you can think of, and exponentially more that you haven't." She flashes him a grin as she moves into another form. The other eyebrow goes up, and a lopsided grin stretches his lips.
"One of these days, Rei, you really are going to have to tell me what it is you do."
A warm chuckle. "Maybe someday, if you're unlucky."
"Don't you mean lucky?"
"Oh, no, Kurama. I most certainly mean unlucky!" And she pounces--literally--on him, and starts wrestling him with all the playfulness of her cursed form, effectively ending that conversation's thread.
A few breathless minutes later, the two are contentedly lying on the grass, head-to-head, just staring upwards at the slowly-clouding sky. "It must be irritating to not be able to use your full knowledge," Kurama murmurs, picking up the topic where they left off.
Rei lets out a somewhat miffed huff of air. "Sometimes, yes, but that's what the world is about, Suichi." She drawls his human name in a verbal poke. "Checks and balances, you know? Nothing in this world is allowed to be too powerful."
"And you base that theory off of what?" Kurama tilts his eyes back in her direction, smiling faintly.
"Well, like what I told you: I know every single technique and finishing move, pressure point, kamikaze action, weapons specialty, School, and kata in the entire world. And don't ask me how," she says, lifting a hand that he's in no position to see in an effort to forestall him, "because I honestly can't tell you that. But despite all my knowledge, I can only use a fraction of it. Youkai with human blood can't access all of the full-blooded abilities of either bloodline, but they can create new ones, that's another example."
"But the entire world?"
"The really mean nasty demons that's got Koenma-sama paranoid are capable of destroying everything, but they sleep sealed away at the bottom of Makai by their own choice until someone comes along who can give them a challenge. People learn more as they grow older, but their age is what prevents them from implementing a majority of it. Chaos has Order, Water has Fire, Earth has Air. Humans, with the exception of the ones who know about the other worlds, haven't met their check yet. Demons are supposed to be humanity's counter, but the worlds are too divided for that to work anymore. Hiei can't use his abilities to his full extent because of the locks his heritage places on him, but the Jagan eye gives him others." She grins. "Which reminds me: are you going to sit in that tree all day, porcupine-head, or are you actually going to come down and enjoy what's left of the sunshine with us?"
Hiei gives her a mild glare from his perch in the tree. "I am perfectly comfortable, ningen girl, so leave me be."
"Still not happy that I won't give you any hint about those blank spots, desu ne?"
"Hn." Rei rolls her eyes.
"I can promise you that they probably won't be blank in about three months, Hiei. Does that make you feel any better?"
He gives her a more heated glare. "I do not need your patronizing, Kenobishi." A fanged grin.
"No, you prefer sulking."
"I said leave me be, you aggravating mortal wench!" He freezes, sensing he's gone a bit too far as Rei sits up and leans over Kurama.
"Do you mind?" she asks sweetly, and Kurama sighs.
"Don't hurt him too badly?"
"I'll try." And with that, she vanishes from sight. Hiei makes a startled sound as he is struck from behind, tumbling out of the tree with his ears ringing. Rei is hanging by her knees from the branch just above the one he had been stretched out on, one hand still curled in a fist.
Hiei merely lands hard on his feet and glares daggers at the girl who is glaring just as fiercely back. She flips forward and her feet somehow land precisely on Hiei's branch, the momentum moving her into a graceful backflip. Hiei makes another sound, this one a pained grunt, as Rei lands on his shoulders and stands there. "Get. Off."
"Not until you apologize."
"You started with the name-calling."
"I called you nothing I have not called you before. The 'wench' was entirely inappropriate." She grinds a heel into the muscle attached to his neck as an added admonishment.
Hiei snarls, sounding remarkably cat-like. "Then what should I call you, ningen girl?"
She makes a pleased sound. "Annoying pain-in-the-ass works just fine." Kurama, who had been watching this while propped up on an elbow, bursts out laughing.
"And it suits you so well," Hiei replies sarcastically, and Rei hops off his shoulders. "I thought you weren't going to get off until I apologized."
"I remembered getting you to apologize is harder than getting Kuwabara to stop being a baka. I didn't feel like standing there the whole afternoon." Rei tosses this barb with as much merriment as any of her other teasing remarks, and resumes her place by the once-again flat Kurama, lacing her hands behind her head and breathing a happy sigh. After a few moments of staring at the eccentric girl with wide maroon eyes, Hiei slowly walks over, drops into a cross-legged seat, waits a few more moments, stretches his legs out, and lays down. A little longer and he actually sighs, letting the tension that is his near-constant companion slowly release into the earth, tucking his arms behind his head and crossing his ankles, closing his eyes. Rei gives him her impish smile. "See? Doesn't that feel better?"
"Hn."
================================
I love putting Hiei in there. It's so much fun seeing how far I can get him to unbend. [Runs off, getting chased by Hiei]
Starling: You know, you get chased a lot. [Phone rings, Starling picks up] Moshimoshi? Oh, hi, Cass! [Looks over at readers] This is gonna take a while, sorry. Read and Review, people! We've only got 13 at the posting of this chapter! [walks off, chatting on the phone. Niana races past, still getting chased by Hiei.]
Why can't Kurama chase me for a change?? T.T