!-Begin Chapter Sixteen-!

Battle of the Earth

They walked through the door to the next battle room. Standing in the middle of the room was a slender female. She was wearing a dark purple and blood red stained shirt, the right side of her shirt was sleeveless while the left had a long sleeve. On her right arm was a black tattoo of sorts that depicted vines with flowers on them. Her pants were black and the left leg was cut off around her knee. On her feet was a pair of worn black sandals. On her back was a set of bat-like wings that were dark in color and blood stained. Her black hair was short to account for her large demonic wings.

"My name is Ayukai. Which one of you goes by the name Kurama?"

Kurama stared calmly. "How did you come across my name?"

"Gura told me all about you, and your fox spirit." Between "you" and "and your" she had paused for what she probably considered a more dramatic affect.

Nuema looked over at Kurama amused, "Fox spirit?"

"Yes. His name is Youko." This came from Shiei. Nuema looked down at her.

"You knew?"

"Yes." 'I just read that from the fox's mind.'

Nuema rolled her eyes thinking, "Figures." She then turned to Kurama to find he was walking away from the others. "Kurama." He turned to look at her when she said his name, his eyes voiced his question. "Ayukai can control both rocks and plants. She has a reason to wanting to fight you. Don't do anything stupid."

Kurama nodded and continued walking.

"And why does he get a warning? Why couldn't you have warned me or Kuwabara?"

"Because," Nuema crossed her arms and sat on the ground, "Ayukai is a dangerous foe."

"Like stealing moves and souls isn't dangerous!" That was Kuwabara.

"If the soul is taken away I can put it back in a certain amount of time. I can't do anything once their life is taken. Besides, I didn't know she could do that, you twit. Now shut up." Nuema's silver eyes held a slight hint of gold to them as she watched the ensuing fight between Ayukai and Kurama intently.

Kurama was calm, his eyes showing no trace of fear. He was soft spoken, not out of fear, but out of extreme calm. "Do you wish to make the first move?"

Ayukai smirked but did nothing else otherwise. Suddenly a spire of earth popped up under Kurama. He moved to dodge, but he was too late as the sharp point caught his hand as it rose. The spire pierced through his right hand between the bones of two fingers. The spire rose until his feet were dangling five feet in the air. He kept a calm appearance as if this happened everyday. Suddenly the rock embedded in his hand became razor sharp. His eyes winced in pain as the rock cut through his hand, after a minute he fell to the ground, the spire disappeared into the ground once more.

Kurama stood up, his right arm hung uselessly by his side. Nuema watched in slight sympathy, "That's got to hurt." She wondered how well he could fight with one hand useless, not to mention it was his dominant hand.

As another spire rose out of the ground, Kurama dodged successfully. He stood still, letting his arms hand by his side. He closed his eyes and concentrated hard, creating a forest out of plants that looked like normal ningenkai plants, if one excluded the fact that plants that were usually a foot tall were now eight feet in height. Other plants were clearly demonic in their nature, mainly because there was no way they could grow naturally on earth by their structure. A few of the plants tried to grow around Ayukai to immobilize her or at least slow her down.

Ayukai jumped backwards to avoid the plants. "Naughty boy." She had several spires grow around Kurama, trapping him. Kurama flicked his left hand back through his red tresses, producing a red rose. He held it carefully to avoid the thorns and less then a second later, he flicked the rose as one would a whip. The petals fell off and the stem lengthened until it was whip length. In fact, it was a whip, although it was odd considering it was green and covered in thick, strong, durable thorns. He cracked his whip, it sliced through the spires trapping him like a heated knife would through a stick of softened butter.

The others view of what was going on was blocked by the myriad of plants Kurama had created. Nuema knitted her eyebrows, recognizing the scent of, "Roses?"

"Yeah. Kurama's rose whip can slice through anything."

"While the plants may slow down a person, his rose whip can slice through the plants to reach Ayukai."

Back in the "forest", Kurama had closed his eyes in concentration once more. This time he was making strange use of his nose to try and smell out Ayukai in case he didn't hear her moving in the brush. His eyes snapped open and in a flashed he had cracked his whip into the plants slicing through them. Ayukai had not been expecting that and she had to jump backwards to avoid getting sliced into two. However, she was hit slightly by the end of the whip, sending her back into a plant. Blood quickly appeared on the one sleeve she had, as well as a small tear in the cloth over her wound.

Ayukai stood up and gave Kurama an annoyed look, her injury stung since it had been inflicted with the tip of the whip. She raised the arm with the markings on it. A plant appeared behind Kurama and swung at him. Kurama jumped backwards to dodge the sharp edge of the plant. Two plants jumped out of the ground next to Kurama and swung at him as well. He jumped into the air to dodge, doing an expertly executed back flip.

When he landed he felt something pierce the skin on his cheek. He gently felt his check with his right hand, using his pointer and thumb, since the next two fingers would cause agony to move. He felt something buried in his cheek and gently pulled it out and stared at a bloody seed. Suddenly it burst into growth and to make sure it didn't take root in him he tossed it to the side. He heard a low whistling sound and looked up, quickly spotting more seeds flying at him. Taking no chance he swung his whip three times making three consecutive whip cracks. The rose whip sliced through all the seeds.

Outside the massive silence was unnerving or rather annoying two people, Yusuke and Kuwabara.

"All we hear is Kurama using his rose whip! What's going on in there?"

Nuema lifted her cold silver eyes to look at Yusuke, "Kurama is on the defensive."

"How do you know that?"

"Twit I can read minds, I've mentioned that before."

"Oh, but I don't feel your territory."

Nuema made a sound that sounded like scoff, "I wouldn't be much of a psychic if I needed such an unrefined aurora to use my skills. Now shut up." Nuema looked back to the "forest".

Between dodging attacks from Ayukai and destroying seeds with his whip Kurama didn't have much of a chance to attack and he was using his spirit energy, fast. Eventually, when he landed from a dodge he accidentally landed on his right hand. He winced and dropped his whip, it turned back into a rose, minus its petals.

Ayukai smirked and sent a few seeds flying at Kurama. Kurama tried to dodge, but was too late. The seeds hit him, causing explosions upon impact. The myriad of plants Kurama had created withered and died.

When the smoke from the explosions cleared, Kurama was no where in sight. Standing where the red-head should have been was instead a different person altogether, and obviously a male demon. He was almost a foot taller then the five foot eleven inch human. He had long silver-white hair going a little past his waist and a long fluffy tail the same color as his hair. Sitting on top of his head was a pair of large fox ears. He had emotionless golden-hued eyes. His attire was in the same style as Kurama's, but was completely white and lacking a shirt under the tunic type thing. This could only been, of course, Youko. "Shuuichi should be thankful." His voice was as devoid of emotions as his eyes were.

Youko was as calm as Kurama, eyes betraying no emotion. He raised his hand and brought it down as a silver glow formed around said appendage, forming a silver rose in the motion. He used this as a distraction as he flicked a seed into the ceiling. Fortunately, it went unnoticed to Ayukai who was the only person it needed to be unnoticed to.

Ayukai smirked and forced plants to grow around Youko's lower limbs and torso, not allowing him to move. Youko didn't even try to dodge the move, and soon found himself only able to move his arms and head. Youko didn't seem much affected by this fact. That was until a demonic plant, resembling a venous flytrap, grew up behind the fox demon, chomping on his tail and pulling it slightly. Youko remained emotionless; although it was a struggle to keep that look up he was in pain. He forced the plant to wither and die.

The fox just flicked the silver rose he was holding and formed a rose whip much longer then Kurama's. He cracked his whip, only to wrap the thorny weapon around his own neck!

"Planning to kill yourself, baka kitsune?"

Youko offered no response, and made to tighten the whip when something dropped from the ceiling. It was a plant, it was similar in shape to the plant that had recently been making a meal of his tail, although it was hanging from a lengthy vine attached to the ceiling where Youko had sent the seed. The plant dropped over Ayukai and bit her head off. The plant withered and died, falling on top of the remains of Ayukai's corpse. Youko offered the faintest of smirks and turned his whip back into its original form of a silver rose.

Youko closed his eyes and concentrated. He turned back into Kurama, whom promptly dropped the silver rose that Youko had been holding in his right hand for the thorns had dug into his injury.

Nuema got up and walked over to Kurama. She picked up his right hand and stared at it.

"Nuema? What?"

"Idiot. You're lucky you didn't break the bones that you had already weakened when you landed on it like you did." It was true, to create the injury the rocky spire had had to slice through some of the bones in his hand.

Kurama slightly grinned in a sheepish fashion and sweat dropped. "You knew?"

"Yes." Nuema closed her eyes as she healed his hand, for the most part. She left a gash running from the center of the back of his hand to the center of his palm. As soon as she had finished she walked through the door that had opened.