Catse: Heyya guys! Chapter numbah twenty four here! But I will warn...this is the longest chapter I think I have ever written for this story. It came out to eight pages in word! My longest is like seven! Well, I can't really blab too much...enjoy!
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Disclaimer: See chappie one....
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Suki sighed irritably. "Just get the fight going!" She hollered at the two boys in the arena, as they stared at each other, waiting for one of them to begin.
Both ignored her however.
It was strange. Both were stuck staring at each other, and Seika smiled.
"I guess we better get going or we'll be here in the arena all day." He joked, pulling his staff up before him.
Kenya stared at his sword. He really didn't want to use the Flaming Sword in this battle, because he had a feeling something bad was going to happen. But then, he also needed a weapon to defend against Seika with. So he was tied in one spot, unless both of them chose to leave their weapons on the side.
"Right." Kenya replied.
He closed his eyes for a mere moment of concentration, but found he couldn't receive it when Seika jumped out at him in a frontal attack.
Staff met sword in that moment, and quickly, with a speed not his own, Seika leapt away and began to swing his staff around as if her were a master.
Kenya did his part in the fight, by blocking each swing, and before long, they had increased their fighting by adding spirit energy to their weapons. Kenya's took a red glow, Seika's a light vibrant green. Seika swung at Kenya's feet, and Kenya leapt up and flipped over him, landing behind for a backhand assault. Seika twisted around where he was standing and blocked Kenya's sword, smirking in his enjoyment of the battle.
Kenya smiled in the same way, and lashed around the staff towards Seika's side. Seika in turn twisted out of the way and flipped backwards, pulling his staff up to try to peirce at Kenya's stomach, but Kenya too flipped backwards and out of the way.
"Isn't it strange Kenya?" Seika replied, his voice a little deeper. Kenya noticed the slightest shimmer of silver in his eyes.
"What Shadow?" Kenya replied, bringing his sword to lay gently on his shoulder.
Seika smiled. "Smart Kenya. Yes."
"I thought you didn't want to interupt in the battles. That it was, unhonorable."
"Yes well, I'm not intruding on the battle in the term of me fighting. I just had to say something to you."
Kenya frowned. "What?"
"Don't you find it strange that I, your father's old foe, am in the body of the one fighting his son." Shadow replied, snickering.
"Yes. And you will loose all the same!" Kenya thrust his sword forward, and Seika, finally regaining his control, leapt backward.
Seika frowned. "Sorry about that Kenya. He wouldn't let me alone about it."
"No prob." Kenya answered. "What do you say we try a few tricks. See what we know?"
"Alright." Seika set his staff down before him and smiled. "I believe you recognize this." He began to concentrate, much like the way he had with Katai when he was trying to fool her into thinking he was still in the same spot.
Kenya smirked. Seika was trying this rather foolishly if he thought he would be as fooled as Yusuke's daughter had been, after seeing it done once already!
So Kenya concentrated the same way Seika did, only he was searching for the hidden spare trace of Seika's energy that would lead to his real position somewhere in the arena.
Where….Where was it…There!
Kenya latched onto the trail of energy, and followed it to right behind him, where he leapt into the air just as Seika applied a burst of energy to where he had once been standing.
Seika stood for a moment, puzzled as he searched, and then nearly fell over when Kenya landed on his shoulders, sword swinging before his eyes playfully.
"Katai was the first one to see it. I'm the second. And second times leave no time for failure." Kenya announced downwards, from an old saying his father had developed when he was a small boy and learning to master the art of his father and mother.
"Whatever!" Seika shouted, collapsing so as to make Kenya leap off of him.
Kenya did so, and jumped in front, kicking Seika's staff to him. "You'll need it if that's the only new move you got from Genkai, Kuwabara, and Shadow."
"I'll show you! I got a ton of new moves! Just watch!" Seika argued, setting his staff on his back by the string he had tied around it for that purpose.
"Then show them." Kenya replied, leaning on one foot patiently.
"Alright! I'll show you a move Kuwabara taught me!" He announced, setting his hands together.
When they glowed yellow, Kenya figured he was forming another spirit sword, but he was not expecting what Seika brought up from his hands.
Between each of the fingers in his fist, a small spurt of light appeared, almost like a dagger, and when the concentration was complete, Seika took his hands together to show them.
"Spirit throwing daggers! Wonderful bits of work! Really!" Seika looked pleased with himself, and Kenya sighed.
He had been taught that kind of move! Sure it was impressive, but it required accuracy along with ability.
"Let me show you how they work!" Seika tossed one hand of daggers at Kenya, and as he saw them come at him, he began to realize how accurate Seika was.
That just had to be another of his knacks! Accuracy!
Kenya leapt up into the air to escape the multitude of attacks, when he discovered the second part of the ability.
Suddenly, the daggers grew four times their orginal length, and sprout thorns reaching up at him at the exact same length.
They grazed Kenya's shoes as he came down to hit the tile of the arena, and he grunted in pain as he felt the torn skin rub against the rubber of his shoes.
The daggers had managed to scrape his skin!
He wanted to check on them, to make sure they were alright, but found it almost impossible during tournament time when the opponent was set to do his best to win.
"Sorry if you got hurt Kenya…but it is a tournament after all…" Seika replied softly, a little mad about having to actually hit Kenya.
Kenya shook his head. "It's all right. I can take it!"
Seika nodded. "Alright then, here comes the next wave." Then came the daggers, five flooding at him, and this time Kenya rolled out of the way, only to discover the sharp prongs could hit him no matter the distance he put between him and them.
He got his arm gashed in several places, and stood up, holding it as a tiny trickle of blood came from them.
"Hey! That's no fair! Seika stop cutting our leader up!" They heard a female voice shout.
It sounded as if Katai was up and raring to go again. "I'll beat your ass to your brain if you keep it up!"
"Don't worry Katai!" Seika shouted back, rolling his eyes. "I don't lengthen them long enough to really hurt him! Just to prove how well they work!"
"I don't care if you're proving yourself or not! If they hit Kenya I'm gonna be ticked!" Katai shouted back. Kenya turned to see her and saw that she was only inches from jumping in the arena and attacking Seika herself. Her brows were knitted furiously, and her fists were clenched and up before her like she was strangling some poor creature in the air.
"I'll be fine Katai. Don't worry." Kenya replied in hopes of calming her down. After all, it was a tournament, and you always got hurt in them unless there was really no competition between you and the opponent.
"Yeah…fine and bloody!" Katai argued, setting her hands on her hips in a similar style her mother would. "Just come out able to fight for when we go into Lord Rioko's territory day after tomorrow!"
"I will." Kenya assured.
Seika smiled. "Shall we finish this?"
Kenya closed his eyes for a moment, and then a brilliant smirk on his face came to life. "Yes, but this is only just beginning."
Seika stared at him in confusion, and ended up shrugging and bringing to life a new set of daggers.
Then, with another toss at Kenya, he discovered what was meant by, "Just beginning".
Kenya leapt up into the air once more, and as Seika lengthened the thorns of them up at his opponent, Kenya thrust his sword beneath his feet and stopped the daggers from hitting his soles.
The daggers bounced off and shredded themselves instead, breaking up their composure into the air.
"Wow! Impressive! I wouldn't have thought of that!" Seika acknowledged cheerfully. "Which means I need a new approach. Oh well, since I have the still have a hand of daggers, I might as well use them." Seika tossed the next set of daggers at Kenya, and, knowing they couldn't get past his sword, Kenya knocked them away from him, forcing them into several different directions.
Then he began to walk towards Seika, prepared to get back to the real fighting.
But Seika's smirk never disappeared, and suddenly, as Kenya felt them come towards him, he managed to twist and block away the first miniature…boomerang?
Several others came after it, and he knocked them away in the same fashion, but, as boomerangs are made to do, they swung around and came at him once more.
Seika chuckled. "I learned how to make them into any shape I wanted Kenya! Let's see if you can figure out how to destroy them now!"
In response, Kenya sliced on in half, but began to understant that that wasn't working either. The sliced boomerang ended up nipping both of his cheeks, causing a bit of blood as they in turn sped back at him from behind.
Kenya was left to fight of six tiny boomerangs, and as he managed to knock them away, he began to wonder how to destroy them.
How can you destroy an amount of energy that keeps coming at you and won't be destroyed by physical weapons? What way is there?
Then he remembered what had happened to the daggers when they had spiked and he had knocked the spikes back towards themselves. The dagger completely desintigrated. Mybe the same was possible for boomerangs as well. But how would he make them attack themselves…Unless….
"Give up Kenya! I've mastered those and there's no way of beating them!" Seika mocked, his arms folded in a smug look.
"You jerk! Leave Kenya alone!" Katai shouted, her fists again in front of her face in a menacing fashion.
"Don't worry! He'll be fine! I won't let the daggers hurt him too severally!" Seika replied, turning to Katai for a moment.
"You idiot! Don't look at me! The daggers will go astray!" Katai shouted. But by the time Seika realized that and turned to look, he found Kenya standing straight up in the arena, the remnants of the other boomerangs disapearing on the wind.
He began to wonder how Kenya had destroyed his boomerangs, when he began to notice a sort of different feeling to the arena.
He thought it was the heat Kenya had tried on Haku in the first match, where he made it where plants couldn't grow, but there was no warmth to this aura. Instead, it seemed a slight bit colder in the arena, as if a chilly wind has swept through.
"What the…?" He mumbled, but he froze in place when Kenya turned towards him, his eyes glowing in their scarlet color. "Kenya…What the…? Are you also possessed?"
Kenya shook his head. "No. When I change the environments temperature around me, my eyes always glow. You didn't notice it earlier because I closed my eyes, but I couldn't really do that here. I didn't know if it would kill the boomerangs or not."
"You…You killed the boomerangs by chilling off the arena?!" Seika and Katai shouted at the exact time, and after a glare at each other for being twin like, they returned their attention to a nodding Kenya.
"Yes. If an energy can destroy itself, that means that any other energy, as long as it doesn't lay off the power of the one it's trying to destroy, can anihilate it without a problem. That's the weakness of spirit energy. Only the most powerful can either knock that kind of defense away, or head right through it. You may have mastered the daggers themselves, but you haven't mastered the amount of energy given them. I suggest you work on them. But now, considering you've become serious with the fight, I will too."
Kenya began to glow with a red energy around his body, and before they even realized what was going on, he had managed to strike Seika in the back with the handle of his sword, swipe a leg behind his feet to knock him over, and with a blow from his knee to Seika's back, made him collapse to the floor in pain.
Kenya stopped sighed, and the coldness of the arena dropped instantly.
Then he leaned down, and held out his hand for his beaten friend.
"Here. Sorry I went so rough on you." Kenya acknowledged, as Seika took his hand to be helped up.
Seika sighed and rubbed the places he had been hit. "Man…when you get ticked you're a force to be reckoned with. Shadow actually wanted to come out and beat your ass in but I held him off for you."
"Doesn't matter. Our parents are here. He wouldn't have been able to fight us, even if he wanted too."
"Our parents are here?" Seika turned to the edge of the arena, and found that, indeed, each of their parents were there. The group consisted of Yusuke, Keiko, Yukina, Kuwabara, Hiei, Suta, Kurama, his wife Jennifer, Koenma, Botan, and Genkai.
"What…What are you guys doing here?" Katai inquired, stepping into the arena and upto the group of adults.
Koenma looked as if he wanted to collapse. "We have trouble everyone. You're to go on the mission immediately!"
"What do you mean?" Suki inquired, as she and Haku stepped over to the group as well.
Koenma turned to them, and sighed. "Five thousand children have gone missing since our meeting the day before yesterday. Lord Rioko has spread from Tokyo and gone to the rest of the world. America, Europe, China, Australia, Mexico, and Africa have been affected. He's hurrying it up because he knows we're after him."
"Then that means that Arune was telling the truth about it not being her stealing the children!" Katai exclaimed, understanding a little more of the situation.
"Yes. I was." They heard a reply from the back. Arune stepped forward and smiled, giving a curt bow to them as a way of hello.
"What are you doing here?" Seika inquired, sitting down in the arena, his staff in his lap.
"Weren't you supposed to be locked up?"
"We let her free after some questioning. It appears everything she has said has checked out. And she has agreed to helping you get to Lord Rioko and the children he has before anything unwanted occurs." Koenma answered.
"What about Yoru?" Suki inquired.
"Puu's out looking for her!" Yusuke replied, winking.
"Puu? Who's Puu?" Came Seika.
"That's Puu!" Katai acknowledged, pointing at the huge bird-like spectacle flying across he sky. It had Yoru in his beak by the back of her shirt, and she was kicking and screaming, doing her best to kick him of bite him.
Instead of landing easy and setting her down softly, Puu tossed her into the arena, where she roughly landed on her feet, and landed near Yusuke.
Yusuke patted Puu on the beak, with praise of his good job of dropping Yoru off, and gave him a treat from his pocket.
"But that doesn't explain who Puu is?" Seika continued.
Yusuke smiled. "It's my spirit beast!"
"That's the penguin?"
"Yep. Well, now he's more like a giant swan thing, but he was a penguin."
Seika nodded.
"I guess you all thought of everything." Kenya remarked. "We have our weapons, our allies, our plan, and the training."
"Not everything!" Came Seika. "I need Niko!"
"Niko…Why do you want to take Niko?" Botan inquired, sitting up on her oar.
"In case we need to check ahead, Niko can look for us! I found out that when he has the desire to fly, he grows his own wings!"
A chirp from behind them told that Niko had arrived, flying on a set of what looked like firm clusters of electricity, and landed on Seika's shoulder. "Ah! Niko!"
But Niko looked a little distressed, and after a rustling from the forest, they knew why.
"Miroki, how many times must I tell you!" Genkai shouted as they large snake like beast came into veiw.
"Shut up hag. I do as I please." It answered.
"Why you…!!!" But Suki stopped Yusuke from attacking it. "Let me…I need to make sure my strength is still there for the using."
Yusuke shrugged and Suki stepped throw the branches of the trees.
They waited.
A moment later, they saw a tree collapse, as Miroki stared down at the forest with wide eyes, and then, he too collapse, when he was knocked over the head with the very same tree.
Then, with what looked like a string of white energy, he was tied to that tree, and tossed a good half way through the forest, him screaming the entire way.
Suki stepped out of the forest, rubbing her hands together with glee. "There…taken care of!"
"Yep…You still got it!" Kuwabara shouted, smiling.
"Yusuke. I'm going to kill your beast." They heard Yoru grimly acknowledge.
She hadn't spoken since she arrived, but now she chose to do so.
"You will not!" Was her reply from the older Urameshi.
"You don't tell me what to do!" Yoru shouted, raising her hand in the air so as to collect some energy in her fist, but before she could get enough, a firm hand set itself on her wrist, and pulled it to Yoru's heart.
"Fire that energy, and you'll hit yourself." Suki quietly snarled, her strenght forcing Yoru to stop her assualt.
"I will kill you one day…ningen." She whispered as Suki let her go.
"I'm sure, but when that day arrives, I'll drag you with me."
"Okay guys! Let's get this over with already!" Yusuke announced. "Oh, and Katai, get over here! We have a gift for yah!"
Katai nodded and walked up to her parents, as Keiko dropped a package in her hands.
Katai opened it quickly, and past the cardboard and tissue paper, she found a set of gloves made especially for her.
"Awesome! They're just what I needed!" She exclaimed setting them on. They were a set of black leather gloves that had holes for the fingers to stick through, and sharp dagger blades coming out of the knuckles and at the back where the wrist joint was.
She punched at the air a few times as she delighted in them. "Oh yeah! I can cut them up as I kick their asses!"
"Katai!" Keiko snapped. "Don't cuss."
"Oops…sorry mom."
"Awe…Keiko…go easy on her…She just got some bad-ass gloves…."
"Yusuke…the same goes for you."
Yusuke folded his arms and turned away. "Fine!" He and Katai announced at the same time.
Kurama and Jennifer summoned Haku to them next.
Not much was to be heard in their conversation, except for a firm hand planted on Haku's head, and a golden glow radiating from it that no one really noticed.
"Use that ability well Haku. It will come when you need it, but also when you least expect it. Do well my son." Jennifer remarked, taking her hand from his straight red hair.
"I will mother."
"I'm sure you'll do well Haku. Just keep yourself, and everyone else safe." Haku nodded. "Yes father." Then he turned to Kenya and shook his head. "I will be right back."
Hiei called his two children with him there as well. They came up and noticed Satou was standing next to him, giggling.
"Satou…what are you doing here?" Kenya inquired, crouching.
"I wanted to see you off at the field into Lord Ryo…what every his name's land…"
"That's lord Rioko." Suta answered for her, smiling. "We wanted to make sure you were prepared before you left."
Kenya and Yoru nodded. "Yes, we're prepared."
Hiei nodded, and once, very rarely seen, he smiled. "You will do as I expect I'm sure. Leadership of this sort of team is a priviledge and a pride that can easily be taken away if not used to the right of the situation."
Kenya nodded to his father. "I know."
"Good. If you ever have a need, think of it to the sword, and the sword will do it's best to provide it's help. Yoru."
His eldest daughter turned to him, her arms crossed in a bad attitude sort of manner. "Yeah."
"Here."
He handed her an item wrapped in oiled tissue paper, and taking it, she unwrapped it to find a whip.
"Care for it, but I had better not hear of any case that you would use it on your team."
Yoru glared at him, and then covered it up with a smile. "I knew you'd see it my way father. I'm just glad you came to your senses is all. Take care." She walked away smugly, attaching the whip to her belt under her long black shirt.
Kenya shrugged. "If she happens to use it, we'll quarantine her or something."
Hiei and Suta smiled. "You do that." Hiei acknowledged as he noticed Haku step up to them.
"Kenya. Let me heal your wounds. I doubt you want to start your first moments as leader with bloody scratches on your face and arms. Sit still."
Kenya nodded as Haku set his hands towards him, and closed his eyes in concentration.
The same effect happened then as the last time he was healed. His wounds closed up, and Haku stepped away, pleased with himself. "That's better."
Kenya smiled back. "Yeah…It is…Thanks."
"Yo! Seika! Get over here!" Kuwabara shouted above the crowd.
Seika, surprised his name was called, walked over to inquire the reason.
"We just figured we'd give you a word of good luck." Yukina acknowledged, as Seika noticed that Tsuki was hiding behind her. The little girl came out from behind her mother, and giggled. "I hope your come out okay Seika…"
"I'm sure I will." Seika replied, patting her on the head.
She giggled again, and touched her head. "That tickles!"
"Just don't get killed, alright?" Kuwabara told him, as Seika looked up to him.
"Will do."
Kuwabara patted Niko and then bowed to Seika. "I've taught you all I can kid."
Seika bowed back. "And I have learned all I can from you, Sensei."
"Stop the mushy stuff and join your group over there!" Genkai replied, coming up to them with her hands behind her back as usual. "And when you return I expect you to be prepared for more training. The entire six months like I gave Yusuke and Katai."
"Really?!"
She nodded. "Of course. I'm too old to lie about something as serious as that. Now get going."
But as Seika walked away towards his group, he heard the tiniest, but most meaningful whisper he never thought he would actually hear.
"Keep yourself self Seika. I want my older brother safe."
He stopped and turned, only to notice Tsuki giggle and hide behind her mother again.
He figured he had imagined it, but if that was the case, then he'd make himself think it was real so as to keep it in the cold days he might have later on should he have to leave again.
And with only a few last words, the entire group, parents and children, took a portal to the outsides of the gate, to start their very first mission, passed from expert to amature, parent to child.
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Catse: In case you're wondering who won the tournament, they don't even know. Because the parents showed up, the kids didn't get the chance to finish. But basically it's at a draw, even though Kenya did the most damage around the end. Well, next chapter is the beginning of the mission! So...as always...Ja Ne for now!
