Chapter 8: The Lesson
Well this is annoying Anna thought to herself as she stared at the unconscious girl Jun was holding. She looks pretty beat up we'd better get started
"Jun take her to my room and we'll get started" Anna told the green haired Chinese girl
"But that's upstairs" complained Jun
"So you would rather we undress her and bandage her here where all the guys will see her when they come back?" Anna asked with a dark expression on her face
Jun grumbled but didn't argue and carried the unconscious Mia upstairs, followed closely by Pilika, Tamao and Anna.
Just as they had set Mia down on the bed the phone downstairs rang.
"I'll get it" Anna told them, with a bit more enthusiasm than normal. They heard her rush down stairs and pick up the phone.
"Yes it's Anna. We spoke yesterday. Yeah we're at Funbari hill near the graveyard at the edge of town you can't miss us. You'll be here tomorrow morning? Great I'm sure he'll be pleased to see you"
At the last statement the laugh from the person on the other end of the phone was audible to all those upstairs, for some reason it sent shivers down their spines.
"Anna who was that?" Tamao asked the young Ikato as she re-entered the room
"Someone I've invited round tomorrow"
"Who?"
"You'll see, now come on we need to get started"
The four girls worked quietly and efficiently as they tended to the unconscious girl. First removing her damaged clothes, then wiping off the blood and then slowly bandaging her wounds.
"She took quite a beating" Pilika observed
"Yes I noticed that, it seems Haru doesn't like going easy on people, Tamao could you hand me that cloth, oh would you stop cringing it's only blood" Jun snapped at Tamao who handed Jun the bloodied cloth at arms length, as though afraid it was going to explode.
"Yes but if you notice she doesn't have any broken bones and the cuts she has aren't that deep. If you ask me I think Haru was being careful, you saw how fast he was when he fought Ren, I'm guessing he could easily have killed her but he didn't" Anna remarked in her usual expressionless tone.
"I didn't think he was that good, maybe she was just too skilled for him to be able to hurt her that much" Jun replied, annoyed that Haru was being defended.
"No I don't think so, if she was as good as that Haru would have been hurt as well wouldn't he? And he seemed perfectly fine when he walked in" Pilika said
"Hey look what I found" Tamao exclaimed showing the group a black memorial tablet. "I found it in her shorts pocket, should I open it?" she asked the others.
"Not yet, let's finish working first, the last thing we need is a rouge spirit roaming around the house" Anna told Tamao curtly.
It took Haru ten minutes to reach the graveyard, it wasn't difficult to find because you could hear Ren yelling a mile away.
Haru made his way up the hill towards the cemetery and stopped to get a good vantage point so that he could see what they were doing.
Ren and Horo were fighting again but Haru had come to accept this as normal. Rio was arguing with Tokageru about some new attack he had come up with. Yoh was leaning against a tree and was talking to Manta who had his laptop out and appeared to be reading something and Choco was over by the gravestones trying to get some of the ghosts to laugh at his jokes.
"This is training?" Haru asked bewildered
"Actually master I believe they are taking a break"
"They expect to win the tournament like this? Huh… well I guess I'd better get going, the sooner I start the sooner I'll finish" Haru replied and began walking up to the SK gang.
"I'm sure Anna would be real impressed by your training efforts Yoh" Haru said as he came up behind the relaxed shaman.
"Huh, what the? Ow!" Yoh said as he lost balanced abd fell over.
"Hi Haru we were just taking a little break" explained Yoh as he got back up.
"For half an hour?"
Yoh hung his head as he heard this "You were watching us?"
"Yes"
"You aren't going to tell Anna are you?" Yoh asked in a worried voice
"No, I know what it's like being forced to work day and night. Anyway Anna doesn't seem that tough, you guys should consider yourselves lucky.
"What!" exclaimed both Yoh and Manta at once. "You have seen what she puts us through haven't you"
"Yes but her training has never threatened your life has it?" Haru replied
"Well…"
"I'm not talking about the way she slaps whenever you're late or make a small mistake. I'm talking about the kind of training where you have to fight for your life. My sister would wake me up every morning at five and force me to swim against the current of the river…"
"That doesn't seem so bad" Yoh remarked
"…and if you weren't strong enough you went over the edge of the waterfall, 500 feet down.
"Ouch" That was all Manta could think of
"Then there was the time she thought I wasn't running fast enough so she had her 'little' pet chase me to make me go faster.
"When you say little pet" Yoh began
"It was a lion. So trust me when I say that Anna isn't that bad, she may be cold but believe me there are far worse"
"Hey Haru, how's it going? When did you get here?" Horo had only just noticed Haru presence and his question alerted all the other shaman who came to gather round.
"I've been here for a while and I must say your training style seems truly unique" Haru answered the blue haired shaman.
"What? Oh yeah thanks I like to get a good workout" Horo replied
"You realise he just insulted you" Ren told the hyped up snowboarder
"Huh? How would you know?" Horo asked indignantly
"Because I have a brain that's larger than pea" Ren said calmly
Before Horo could reply Rio butted "Ah Mister Haru you have come to teach us a new ability have you not?"
"Actually I came to teach Yoh" Haru answered "but you can watch if you want"
Turning back to Yoh Haru saw that he had oversouled with Amidamaru and was looking anxious to begin.
"Don't bother with your oversoul you won't need it at this stage"
Yoh complied and released Amidamaru from his weapon and waited for the next instruction.
"Good now the first thing you'll need to do is focus your Furyoku into the sword and…"
As Haru spoke these words a black cloud appeared out of nowhere and filled the sky, it started to rain and lightning could be seen in the distance followed closely by thunder.
"Aww man where did this storm come from?" Horo yelled over the noise of the thunder, while holding his snowboard above his head.
"How should I know?" Ren shouted back
"Lets just try and get back to my place" Yoh told the others as he started running
They all started running after Yoh but Haru stayed behind and looked up at the sky.
"This isn't right" he muttered to himself. He felt someone tugging on his leg and looked down to see Manta who had stayed behind as well.
"Come on we need to get out of here, you don't even have a coat on"
With that said Manta jumped on to bike and began heading back followed closely by Haru.
In the darkness of the one of the trees a figure could be seen sitting on one of the braches above where Yoh and the gang had been talking. A flash of lightning suddenly illuminated his features and the figure appeared to be identical to Yoh.
A smaller figure jumped down from one of the higher branches and sat down beside the first figure.
"Master Hao left that very close" the smaller figure remarked
"Indeed I did, but I wanted to see where he would start. It seems that I will have to act more quickly to remove him, I was hoping to avoid a confrontation but now it seems that will not be possible" as Hao finished speaking he immediately vanished in a wall of fire.
Author: well that one more chapter done, sorry if it's moving a bit slowly but I don't like to rush things, anyway I hope you enjoy it. If there's anything you think I could improve on or if you just really like the story why don't you send me a Review, it doesn't matter if it's signed or anonymous but I just like to know if people are enjoying my story.
To my Reviewer(s)
Mikauzoran: Sorry to hear that you're ill, I hope you get better soon, I really value your opinion and I really enjoy reading your stories. Your info has helped me plan out future chapters for when Haru meets Hao and his followers. Hao will appear in chapter 10 although I had to make chapter 9 quite along to accommodate this. Anyway I hope you get better and that your Internet problem gets fixed soon.