Catse: Here you go everybody! Sorry it is late. I tried to upload on Friday, but as many know they were having trouble with the site. Plus, yesterday, I was busy with cleaning and dinner, and I didn't get much of a chance to get on the computer. So, without further adeiu (sp?) I present you with Chapter two of Dance of Swords 3: Search for Revival. R&R!
Disclaimer: See chappie one for this...hehehehehe
"Hey Mom! Hey Dad!" Kenya remarked as he and Satou walked into the Dojo.
"Oh, Kenya! Could you come here a moment." Suta called from one of the rooms in the Dojo, and Kenya complied. Inside were a room of students he had never seen before.
"These are all new students Kenya. I was telling them about how good you are with your Flaming Swords and they wanted to see you dance with them." She explained.
Kenya thought about it a moment, staring at the classroom as Satou walked past in the hall behind him. They all looked very expectant.
"Sure. I guess one showing couldn't hurt. I don't have that much homework tonight." Kenya replied, and the classroom seemed overjoyed to the extent of whispering madly to each other.
He stepped out of the room and went to the sword display his mother kept on the wall near the door of the Dojo. His swords hung on a rack that welcomed all customers as soon as they walked in, the kanji the first thing they noticed on both swords when they saw them.
Protector of the Protector, and Tool Master: Protector of the Innocent. His best swords.
He pulled them from the wall, his strength immediately adjusting to the weight of them, and returned to the classroom. Now, Satou was sitting with the other students too. She loved to watch her brother perform his skills, and wouldn't miss a chance in the world to see them.
Kenya nodded to his mother, whom started up a level 12 song with a fast beat and an even faster melody. Kenya concentrated for a moment, before beginning the dance with a stance he had learned from his mother a while back, where the swords were crossed before the person's body and one foot was balanced before the other. Then, as the song picked up the speed, he began to move the swords with it. He spun the swords on his fingers, and when the main beat of the song hit, he squeezed the swords and their flames sprung to life. All of the children awed with excitement, Satou most of all for she loved the swords flames. Kenya continued to dance, and when the song was almost finished, he released his grip on the blades so that the flames died down a little, and then, just as the last beat erupted from the radio, he allowed the swords to burst into flames one last time, and then fade away slowly on their own.
Everyone in the room clapped, including Kenya's mother, his father, and Satou who had by now stood up for an encore.
Kenya bowed his head and left the room to return his swords to the rack.
His father walked in beside him, a towel resting on his shoulders.
"You're still right on your toes." He remarked. Hiei stepped behind the welcoming desk in the room and pulled two bottles of water from the small fridge kept under the table.
He tossed one to Kenya, before opening the other and taking a long sip out of it.
"Father. May I ask you something?"
Hiei took the bottle from his lips and nodded, recapping it.
"Have you ever heard of a Dark Lord?"
They were silent for a moment as Hiei thought, but in the end, he shook his head.
"No. I've never heard of such a being. Why? Was he brought up in your mission?"
"Yeah. Apparently the messenger we were after was working for him, whoever he is."
"Have you already tried to scan him through on your watch?"
Kenya nodded. The watch in question was the one Koenma had given him and his friends from the very beginning, with the little Spirit World archive search and worldly maps. He had forgotten about it through most of his first mission, and only remembered it when he walked into the room and found it on his table. Apparently, he had accidentally left it in his pants, and his mother had only just barely found it before they hit the wash. From that day on he wore it, finding it to come in handy in times of need. Not only that, but no one went on a mission unless they had a watch, because not only did they have information, if one of them went missing, another could locate them by means of the watch. Kenya wanted to make sure that there was every possibility of finding his team if they got separated. It was a leader's duty.
"Yeah, but the Spirit World Archives don't have anything on him in the nicknames file. He must not have a history."
"A fresh demon then? Hm." Hiei mumbled to himself, glaring at the floor. He was now a good forty years old, in which age lines had only just barely began to show on his forehead, and a few very fine laugh lines had come around his lips and eyes. In basic, Hiei still looked like his younger self, and acted much that way too.
"Sounds to me like this might be an easy case. Fresh demons don't come everyday."
Hiei began to walk away, but Kenya stopped him with his next remark.
"But what if he isn't a demon? That would explain why he isn't in the archives, wouldn't it?"
"Not a demon. Hn. I doubt that. Humans don't have the kind of ability to be a ruler of demon world, and Spirit World's people are well accounted for. Who else could it be?"
Kenya bowed his head, staring at the floor. He knew his father was right. The Logic was very reasonable. But there was something in him that told him that this was not like the usual case. This wasn't a half-crazy demon lord looking for world domination. No. This enemy was smarter than that. It knew how they thought, how they worked. It could keep track of them where many demons could not. Either this enemy was a demon, but that of a high intelligence and tranquility, or a human with a strong demeanor and an even smarter disposition.
In any case, Kenya was going to have to regard the matter seriously, for he had never seen this new foe, and just by seeing how the enemy dealt with them, told him that the enemy was taking them seriously as well. It wasn't like most demons who let their pride get ahead of them and attacked them head on, or tried to use children to their advantage. He sat back calmly, like playing a chess board, and played pieces for the purpose of them to get taken off the board, just so he could figure out the strategy of his opponent. He was one Kenya was going to have to pay close attention to.
"Don't worry about it too much. I believe you've got training?" Hiei broke Kenya from his thoughts. The teenager nodded, and after excusing himself from his mother and her students, left for home so he could finish his homework and his training.
Kenya wiped a drain of sweat from his forehead with a clean white cotton towel from his bathroom. Training had been rigorous as usual consisting of the same sword practice, hand to hand combat with a fake dummy, exercise to keep his muscles strong, and sensory training, in which he meditated and recorded in his mind every sound he felt from the vibrations he received, then checked on them. When he had finished his work, he felt the growing need for a Dr. Pepper or some sort of soda, so he stepped inside the back door to the kitchen.
Inside, he hadn't expected to see the two familiar suspects digging around in his fridge.
"What! No pickles! There's always pickles in here!" Katai hollered around a pastry Suta had baked just yesterday from a few left over ingredients and a new recipe.
"Pickles? All you can think about are pickles? Where are the—Oh, wait there they are!" Seika replied, standing back away from the fridge as he popped an olive in his mouth. The bottle was in his right hand.
Kenya felt an eye twitch. Those were his olives!
"I gather you were hungry?" Kenya inquired, stepping between them so as to snatch a soda from the inside of the fridge. Afterward, he sat at the kitchen table to listen to their excuses.
"Well yeah, we just got finished with training this afternoon, and Katai decided, hell, why not! Let's visit Kenya! Then when we got here, our stomachs were rumbling and we decided to see what you had in the fridge." Seika answered, popping another olive in his mouth.
Katai stepped away from the fridge, the half eaten pastry still hanging from her mouth, a soda in one hand, and a handful of cookies in the other.
"Hey Kenya! How's it hangin'?" She inquired as she quickly devoured her pastry.
"It was hangin' fine until I found too pack rats digging around in the family fridge." Kenya replied as he opened his can of soda and took a sip.
Both Seika and Katai smiled mischievously as Haku choose that time to step into the room.
Everyone's attention went from his face, to the bag of chips in his hand.
"So! Haku! You've been stealing food from Kenya's fridge too!" Seika inquired as Katai shoved a cookie in her mouth and watered it down with the soda.
Haku glared at them, and took a chip from the bag, making sure his crunch into it was loud.
"I don't steal food. I buy it." Haku answered with little emotion.
They were quiet for a moment, until their attentions turned to a pair of giggles that came running down the hallway.
Tsuki and Satou ran through the kitchen, toothy grins on their faces as they raced past the team. They didn't even stop when they snatched a couple of cookies off a plate on the kitchen counter, and ran up the stairs skipping every two steps.
"Guys! Not too much noise. Remember! The neighbors can hear you from up there!" Kenya shouted, and two heads popped down from the top of the stairs.
"Okay, no prob bro. We won't make a sound!" Satou answered, putting her fingers up in a peace sign as Tsuki giggled uncontrollably.
Everyone was silent once again as the girls disappeared and the vibration of a door closing caught to Kenya. It wasn't true that the neighbors could hear them. In fact, half of their neighbors were deaf. It was just that Kenya couldn't think when his delicate ears were picking up all of their commotion.
"As I was saying. I don't steal food, I buy it. They steal food." Haku commented, pointing at the stairs, before disappearing around the side with another crunch of a chip.
"Amazing. I didn't think the Prince of the family of Nutrition would have a bag of potato chips in his hand. He does realize how many calories that has right?" Katai inquired, shoveling down yet another cookie.
"Katai, guys don't really care about calories. Only girls trying to keep a figure or loose weight do." Kenya stated the obvious. "Besides, you do realize how many calories are in those sweets you just devoured right?"
"Yeah, but I can care less about my figure. As long as I can still kick ass, then why should I care about getting fat!" She announced walking away with a defiant guzzle of her soda.
"She's got a point." Seika murmured, throwing yet another olive in his mouth. Kenya took the bottle from him and placed it back in the fridge.
"Come on. I guess it's about time to discuss our new enemy." Were the only things he said as he walked in the same direction of Katai and Haku.
"Hey. It's not my fault I love olives." Seika murmured under his breath as he followed everyone else.
They spent most of that afternoon discussing how the mission had gone, and deciding on how they were going to find their enemy.
Haku suggested that maybe instead of actually catching the next messenger, they should plant a bug on him and follow him. Maybe then they would catch sight of the enemy they were after, and would be able to pin an actual name with a matching picture. It would take a while, but surely Spirit World had some sort of picture of him, somewhere.
"Yeah, but what if he finds the bug? We're screwed over then." Seika acknowledged, as he fed Niko next to the window.
"It would not fail. We would put it on him in a place he wouldn't be able to see or feel it." Haku tried to defend, but Kenya's raised hand quieted him.
"Seika's right. If we use a bug, we only have it to use once. Any mistakes and we get stuck in a corner without hope of escaping. Besides, if it's anything I've learned as a detective, it's not to ever underestimate the opponent. That's where the mistakes come."
"Then what do you suggest?" Katai inquired as she tossed her soda can into the trash can of Kenya's room.
The room was spacious, with a bed, a closet, a desk, and a few posters on the walls of animes and music bands that Kenya knew and liked. Seika sat at the window, Katai on the bed, Haku leaned against the wall, and Kenya sat in the seat before his desk.
"I suggest we use two bugs. The first we'll plant obviously. Something a professional will most likely find. The other we'll have to plant on him without his notice, although I'm not exactly sure how that will go. If he finds one, there is much doubt he'll find the other before he reaches his destination."
"Sounds good to me." Seika announced as Niko climbed unto the window sill, yawned, and curled into a ball. It was getting dark outside, and soon the stars would be out.
"Well, I've got to get going. Me and Tsuki need to be home early. Pop really starts to throw a fit when he worries." Seika announced, picking up and cradling a sleeping Niko as he stood. Seika had gotten into the habit of actually looking at Kuwabara as a father, even coming to the extent to call him father proudly. After all, by law, they were father and son.
"Same here. I've got to go home and help with Yujiro's training. The little kids a brat, but he's got a mean punch and a major desire to be a detective." Katai announced, as Seika walked out of the room with a salute to Kenya. She did the same as a joke, and left, marching as if she were a soldier.
"And you Haku. I gather you have to be in bed early?" Kenya inquired.
Haku nodded. "Yes. I must be well slept before a day of class otherwise my students are able to pick out mistakes in my formulas and herbology notes. I will meet you at lunch tomorrow and we'll finish our discussion then. Hopefully Koenma does not wait too long in giving us our next mission."
"I agree. Okay, see yah."
Haku left the room and Kenya leaned back in his chair, thinking.
Haku was only twelve years old, yet he had already been a professor at Harvard for about a year or two now, becoming well known for his excellent theories and wonderful explanations of everything. Harvard was far from Japan of course, in which Kurama and Jennifer had bought a permanent home there so Haku could stay with his friends, but as of recent Haku had learned to teleport form Katai, so now he could be there at Harvard in a matter of five seconds each morning.
In fact, Kenya had been there for Haku's first day, considering it was a Saturday and Haku had asked him to come.
Kenya sat in the class, Seika and Katai off training somewhere considering they didn't know about Haku's first day, and when Haku walked into the classroom, many of the students snickered.
"Hey kid! I think you're in the wrong spot! Elementary school is a couple roads down from here!" One hollered, and the class laughed.
Haku merely walked in, winking to Kenya as he slammed his books on the table, and proceeded to the white marker board.
He picked up a marker, and wrote in clean, nice handwriting, Mr. Haku Minamino.
"This is my name everyone. If you have trouble reading my last name, I'll pronounce it for you. It is not Minny. It is not Midget. I will have no one mistake me for a character in the Spirited Away or Naruto animations. It is Minamino. Say it with me. M-i-n-a-m-i-n-o. Now that that is settled, let me introduce myself. I am, as of this day and from this day, you're Calculus and Biology Professor so I would get used to seeing me around if I were you."
"See you around. I can't see you anywhere but down there Prof." One guys snarled, laughing.
Haku gave him a look that Kenya realized as his mean look, and asked the man to stand before the class.
After a bit of grumbling, and a little shake of his head, he stood before the class and rolled his eyes.
There, Haku proceeded to ask questions.
"What is your name?" He inquired.
"Midget—I mean Brooks sir." He fixed quickly.
Haku glared up at him, but after a moment, smiled. It was then Kenya knew this Brooks guy was in a heap load of trouble.
"I will have you know, Brooks, that I am a ten year old body with an ageless mind trying to talk to a twenty year old body with a five year old brain. If you do not like the fact that I am professor of the class, then you can proceed to do one of several things. One: You can take this to the Headmaster here and complain, and he will tell you himself, that my knowledge is not something to take likely or two: you can walk straight out of here and never return. If you refuse to do either then I suggest you sit your butt down and pay attention, because I don't like to repeat myself."
"What, you too afraid to say ass kid?" Brooks teased, smiling broadly. The class smiled.
Kenya shook his head. They were underestimating him greatly.
"Alright then. What is the square root of 2,349?" Haku inquired.
"Give me a moment—"
"No. Now. Straight from your head."
"Hell. Why should I? You don't know it."
"Wrong. The answer is 48.46648326. What is 2,324,033 to the second power?"
"Geez. I can't believe you! What are you trying to prove?"
"Wrong. It's 540112938500 or if you want it a little more simple 5.401 by ten to the twelfth power."
"This is ridiculous! You memorized those before coming here so you could get at us right? I don't believe you are a genius!"
"Fine then. Ask me any question. Any question at all and I will answer it."
"Okay. What is 5 squared equals 10 squared plus 4 squared minus 2 times 10 times 4 by the cosine of 34 degrees?" Brooks inquired, knowing he probably couldn't answer him.
Haku smiled. "That is an unanswerable question."
"See! Even a genius such as yourself isn't that smart—" Brooks began, but Haku's smile never left.
"I did not say I could not answer it. I told you that it was impossible to answer. For one, that equations requires something for answering. There is no x value in it whatsoever to be solved, so the equation resolves itself to 0 and cancels it self. Secondly, if there were to be an answer to be found, such as the angle in terms of theta (sp?) then the equation completely destroys itself for it creates an impossible triangle. After all, the equation you gave me is used mostly for finding the missing sides or angles of a triangle either ninety degree or not. You, Brooks, created an impossible equation from the top of your head."
Brooks stared at Haku a moment, as if there was something wrong with this picture. Another student in the classroom, one with a calculator, confirmed Haku's answer.
"He's right Brooks. That equation can't be solved out. It's an imaginary triangle."
Brooks still couldn't believe what he had been told. He gave Haku several more questions, in which left him just as dumbfounded as the last.
"What is the square root of 36 to the second power!" Brooks inquired, and the class shook their heads. Most of them knew by now how to solve those questions with ease, yet Brooks insisted to give Haku easy ones because he himself was really there for that class because his father paid for him to go.
"Thirty six you jackass." Haku answered. "Now get your ass in that chair so we don't burn anymore daylight. Now, considering your buddy Brooks here has kept me here for an hour answering meaningless questions, you all get to stay here for an hour longer if you want to learn what I have to say. Now, let's begin."
"You can't do that! We have lives you know!" One student piped up from the seat. Haku turned around, the marker open in his hand.
"Your life is none of my concern. Be seated or leave."
The student frowned and sat back down, and the rest of the period had the students quiet to the point of a pin drop being the loudest sound in the room, as Haku reviewed on the items for discussion on the board. When it was finished, half of the students left in a huff, the other half surprised at the young boy's abilities. After class, Haku came to Kenya and asked him if he thought he had been too harsh on the students.
"Nope." Kenya had answered, smiling. "I you ask me, they deserve every bit of that for underestimating you. They should have just been quiet and listened. Afterall, what twelve year old gets the gall to stand in a class of a good fifty students and begin teaching unless they are the professor. You'd have to be smart right from the off to be able to get rid of the actual professor and whatever substitute might be coming, just so as to fool the class. I say, keep up the good work."
They left the class smiling, and since that day, no one questioned anything Haku had to say. In fact, some of the professors, those that majored better in the other fields, would come to him with some of the major mathematical problems, the ones that needed a mathematical genius to help them. Considering both math and plants were Haku's strong points, he was the main talk of the teachers. Of course, the class wasn't the last to be heard of Brooks.
Kenya had already heard how Brooks gathered together some of his buddies so as to pounce and attack Haku one night when he wasn't aware, but what they didn't realize was that Haku was always on the alert, and had been since he first became a detective. The men that attacked him ended up in a hospital for weeks with broken arms, nerves, and heavy blushes at having been beaten by a ten year old at the time.
Plus, they kept screaming crazy things about boys turning into golden foxes and attacking them. Of course, many people in the hospital paid little mind to it, considering it wasn't everyday they heard about ten year olds running around in the streets with golden fox ears and tails.
Before the night was over, Kenya's friends had left for home, and it was time for him to retire to his homework, and then to bed.
Catse: Okay, well, tell me what you thought! I think my favorite part here is Haku's first day as Professor. Now, I'm not sure Harvard allows ten year olds to be professor but in this story they do. Please Review!