A/N Thank you all reviewers! I love you all! And here it is, chapter 6! O my, I can't remember ever writing or typing a story this long, actually getting it to be a real story O.o Sorry, just some self-statement… Now I'll shut up and let the story begin!
Disclaimer: I still don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or the characters, except for the Acire. Those will always be mine
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Chapter 6: Calm Stream or raging River?"No, don't!" Yusuke screamed, but it was too late. Kuwabara had already sprinted towards the water-demon.
"I tried to do this the peaceful way, but if you want to fight, you leave me no choice," Ira whispered softly, an strange vibe in her voice. The wind stopped moving, the water of the lake became wild. High upcoming waves tossed a blanket of small water drops on the land. In Ira's aqua eyes, the colors stopped swirling around and they started to become deep ocean-blue. She took a fighting position, eyes fixed on her opponent.
Kuwabara was closing in. He lifted his sword, ready to let it hit the Acire with as much strength as he could.
The Acire girl was ready to take him down in order to protect herself, her last remaining fellow Acire, temporary home but mostly, to protect her goal: revenge for the loss of her people.
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From the rock on the plain on the bottom of the lake he had watched it all. He kept a close eye on the little house and especially on the demon inside of it. Unlike his elder, he didn't trust the Youko.
'As long as she protects him, there is nothing I can do.' He grinned. 'But I'll give my own turn to this all. I'll keep to her rules, but with a little twist. This guy… she knew I was watching them, he has her full protection. Too bad…'
He turned his attention to the water. It was flowing more roughly to the west, the wrong direction for this time of day. The grin on his face widened. 'I hope the guy she's fighting dug his grave, because he doesn't stand a chance against Ira, defiantly not now she's in a 'protecting mood'.'
Sarchi laid down. All was going as Ira planned. It was hard or him to admit, but her theory was right. Soon the second phase of her plan would start. That was the moment he was waiting for, his one chance to try to make things go a little more his way. He knew Ira would get pissed, but at least he had eased his mind.
Frowning, Sarchi started to think of the best way to change the plan to his wishes, but even more, how to tell Ira he had changed it and getting out of the situation unharmed.
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Kuwabara was fast, but far from fast enough to hit the Acire. When trying to hit her, she had dogged his attack like it was child's play. She easily jumped to the right side of him, quickly dogging the next attack he threw at her.
For a little while it continued this way, Kuwabara charging, Ira avoiding.
"She's playing with him!"
"You think that's strange?" Hiei said. "She's a water-demon. In water, you move more slowly than in air. A demon who is fast in water, is even faster on land."
"Logic enough," Yusuke said, looking concerned, "but why doesn't she attack? Is she waiting for him to give up or get tired or something?"
For his answer he didn't had to wait long. Ira jumped, creating some distance between herself and her opponent, taking a defensive position, one the Reikai Tantei knew, one only used when they weren't going to avoid the next attack.
Kuwabara noticed this at well and used this opportunity for one more full out attack.
Ira saw him coming, putting her left hand a little to the back, concentrating on the detective's movement. She was ready for him.
He jumped, sword up high. With him coming down, the sword of energy came down as well. Ira didn't put up her arms to defend herself, she stood, unmoved as a mountain. This caused her to be fully hit on shoulder by the sword. Her hair moved, because of the wind flow the hit had created. Her skin, most correctly the entire part of her shoulder was… wrinkling…?
"What the…?" Yusuke couldn't believe his eyes. No blood, no visible damage. The sword had entered her body part, but there was no sign it had happened.
"You could've predicted this," Hiei stated. "They are creatures from water… And you can't destroy water by hitting or cutting it."
"They are… untouchable…?" Yusuke asked, a small sign of fear in his voice.
Kuwabara jumped back in total shock. Fear and amazement were all over his face.
Ira noticed this. Her normal calm smile turned in an evil grin. 'Time to turn things around.' With great speed, she swung her left arm forwards.
Kuwabara thought he saw her throw something, but much time for thinking wasn't given to him, since almost the same moment he felt a sharp pain in his left arm. When he looked, he saw that there was a deep cut from which some blood dripped.
When he turned his head to the girl again, he saw she was making some strange moves. She made a big circle with her left arm, ending straight in front of her. Next, it seemed like she was motioning from someone to go towards her.
From the ground rose a few strings of water, floating back to Ira. When they reached her, they mixed with her hand, vanishing like they never excited.
"I'll give you one last chance. Get back to your own world and no harm will befall you and your friend."
"Never!" The human wasn't about to quit, because of some cut on his arm. It was nothing compared to other injuries he had gotten during other fights, like those in the Dark Tournament.
"Then you leave me no choice…" Ira looked to her right arm: the light ball was still there on the ribbon. 'Let's do this.' She stood up straight. "I'll try to make this not too painful." She closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could.
Yusuke smacked himself in the face, hoping that he would wake up form the dream, that what he saw happening wasn't real, but the Acire stayed, just as the dumb-struck Kuwabara. The scene playing for his eyes was something like he'd never seen before.
Ira's mouth, eyes, her entire face was becoming vague. Her body lost any form of solid structure, becoming like a liquid. Yusuke could've sworn he was able to see trough her.
As Kuwabara stood still from shock, Ira saw her chance to end the fight.
The water of the lake behind her became even wilder then before, tossing a giant wave. The exact moment the water started to spread over the ground in small drops, Ira shot her right arm forwards with tremendous speed, while she remained in the same position. Her liquid arm stretched on and on, becoming thinner as it got further away from her body. She had carefully aimed and hit her target directly: Kuwabara's arm, or more precisely, his wound. Her arm entered the wound, a large part of it disappearing inside the human.
Kuwabara screamed, but it sounded a bit muffled, since he fainted almost the next moment. Once he had hit the ground, Ira withdrew her arm from the wound, getting it back to normal proportions. Before it became really clear what she had done, her body turned solid again.
"I'd warned you, but you wouldn't listen…" Ira turned to the two other boys, who were unable to move because of surprise and not-knowing-what-to-do-ness. "He'll be OK…" she said with a soft voice, gesturing towards Kuwabara, slowly turning away from the sight. "Eventually…"
A huge wave washed the shore, breaking as it reached the pebbles. The water fell over the girl and when it withdrew, she was gone.
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In just a few seconds Ira reached the house again, but before entering she swum to the nearby rock. "The first part is complete. Prepare to go on with phase two."
"Will do," Sarchi answered her.
"Good. Now that's done, we don't need the Youko anymore. I'll take him back to shore, so he can join his friends."
"Do whatever you want."
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"Kuwabara. Come on, say something!" Yusuke yelled, shaking his fainted friend. "Damn it! What did she do to him?"
Hiei watched the human, next he fixed his eyes on the lake.
"We need to take him back to the human world. Maybe Yukina can heal him, now we don't have Kurama to do that. Great… There goes our second team member…" Yusuke said.
"We'll stay here."
"Huh?" Yusuke looked up, surprised. "But… why?"
"Because I have a feeling that there's more to this all that we suspect. If they wanted to harm any of us, they would've killed Kurama back in Ningenkai, so the baka is probably in no danger."
"And the reason why we have to wait is…?"
"That I have the feeling there'll happen something more really soon."
"And you say that? What are you, some kind of psychic? O wait… You are…"
"Hn."
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The roughly streaming water calmed down. The three demons inside of the house looked up and watched Ira enter.
"Hai!" Meike greeted her caretaker. "Now that you're back, will you tell us what you did?"
Kurama looked at the aqua-haired girl. Something had changed, but he didn't know what. He scanned her body completely, from hair to toes. Then it struck him. The light ball she took with her on the ribbon before she'd left: it was gone. The dark green ribbon was still tied around her arm, but the pea-sized ball was missing.
"No, since it's none of your business." Ira took off the ribbon and turned to Kurama. "We're going."
"What? Kurama is leaving?" Meike asked.
"Yes."
Kurama didn't know what to say. Something had happened where he had no knowledge of and now, she had decided to let him go, just like that?
"We don't have much time. Come on!"
"Bye Kurama," Jeresa said softly.
"Bye Jeresa," he said, stroking the young girl's head. Next he turned to the pink-haired girl and waved. "Bye Meike."
Ira reached her hand to him. The redhead took it and before he knew right and well what was going on, Ira pulled him along, away from the house.
"Do you think we'll ever see him again?" Jeresa asked with a shaky voice.
"I really don't know…" Meike replied, biting her lip.
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They were near the surface, he could see it. The light became stronger every second.
Ira stopped swimming and turned to the Youko. "If you go right up, you'll reach the surface in half a minute. Just half a minute more swimming and you'll reach the shore, you'll see it once you're above the water level. There's a portal nearby."
"Can't you show me where it is?" Kurama asked, not sure he knew where to search for the passage.
"I don't need to lead you to it," Ira said, kindly smiling. "Your friends will take you there."
"My friends?" His teammates came for him? Had she met them, when she rushed of in a hurry? "You've seen them?"
"Yes."
They stared each other in the eyes for a while, but after some time Ira broke the silence. "You really need to get going. They are waiting. And tell your friend, the orange-haired one… What was his name again…?"
"Kuwabara."
"Tell Kuwabara that I'm really sorry for what I did, but he left me no other option." She let go of his hand and gently smiled. "Maybe we'll meet again someday. Goodbye Kurama…" The water drifted the two demons apart, leading Kurama to the surface and Ira back to the depts.
"Goodbye Ira!" he said loudly, just before the girl faded away from his eye side.
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"Look!" Hiei pointed to the water.
Yusuke looked up. In the distance some red hair had appeared above the water. Immediately he recognized the Ki. "Kurama!"
The redhead walked to the shore. Once he was half way above the water, he felt like a blanket was lifted up and removed from his body. He knew the water bubble Ira had made him had disappeared. But his attention quickly changed when he saw Kuwabara laying on the ground.
"Kurama!" Yusuke ran towards him. "Are you alright? Have they done anything…"
"No… no. They treated me really kindly," he said, interrupting Yusuke.
Yusuke stared at his friend like he was some madman.
"Honestly! But what happened to Kuwabara?"
"One of those damned Acire attacked him. I don't know what she did, but he was out cold in just a few seconds."
"The Acire with the aqua hair?"
"Yep, that one. Man, she was like a little devil!"
Kurama tried really hard to picture Ira as a devil, but didn't succeed. He gave up practically immediately. "Let me take a look at Kuwabara. Maybe I can help him."
He walked towards his friend and studied his body. There were no wounds, bruises or torn clothing, expect for the cut on his arm. 'Out cold, with one cut…?' Clearly he was far from knowing what capabilities Ira had. "I suggest we take him back to Genkai's temple. I can't do anything now. I need to take a better look, and maybe Yukina can help me."
"Then lets going!" Yusuke picked up Kuwabara and Kurama helped him to put him in a stable position for transportation. Yusuke looked grateful to his friend and softly said smiling: "Glad you're back."
"Me too," Kurama said.
They started walking towards the portal, but when Hiei turned around he noticed his just returned friend looking back to the lake with a sad smile, before walking on, back to Ningenkai.
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A/N Woot! There it is! Chapter 6! I hope you enjoyed it and please review! I'd love to hear what you think of it!