AN: Ey guys! I'm sorry for not updating for long. A lot has happened and our internet got broken so there was a very BIIIIGG momentary lapse. But now I'm back and I'm updating! (yay!) Anyways, here is the latest chapter. Hope you like it. And just so you guys know I might not be able to update much with school and all. So just try to be patient and wait for the updates. They'll come sooner or later. Don't ever think that I won't continue this story because I am.
For those who are reading this right now thank you so much for your support. I appreciate it. Please R&R and if you can please advertise this story to others so they can read it as well. Thank you!
Chapter 5 - Unyielding Woman
The thief was still looking for Hiei when something in the color of golden brown stopped right before her eyes. She was taken aback for a few minutes then recovered as quickly and glared at the falcon.
"Fal! What the hell are you doing? I'm busy trying to kick some baka's butt." She told him. The falcon sighed and shook his head.
"Listen to me. I've seen what happened here and I know how much you wish to geteven withthis stranger and deal with him but this getting out of hand. You better stop and leave him alone before you get yourself into trouble." He said. The thief grumbled and glared at the bird.
"Calm down and just chill out. Everything's fine. I am not going to get myself into trouble if I knew I was headed for it." She told him. "Now go and roam around and do whatever it is birds do while I deal with him." The falcon gave a soft sigh and fluttered away into the sky. The thief watched the falcon for a few minutes until she heard the soft crunch of leaves and twigs. Her head snapped towards the source of the sound to find the man she was chasing standing there, the smirk on his lips never disappearing from his face. A new sensation began creeping into the thief's mind. It wasn't one of pleasure or one of happiness. It was one of caution and suspicion.
"So you're not just a normal, pathetic ningen are you?" He asked her. Before the thief could ask what he meant by that, he disappeared from her sight. She tried to react as quickly as she could but knew she had failed when she felt a searing pain at the back of her head. Her body went numb as she felt herself fall to the ground and saw everything slowly being covered in darkness.
When the mysterious thief woke up she wasn't in the forest anymore. She found herself lying down on a soft, comfortable material. She sat up, looked around and found out that it was a bed. She looked further and saw that she was inside a small and messy room filled with clothes, comic books, and games. A green uniform lay on the foot of the bed she was in and there was a chair and a table filled with school books left untouched on one side of the bed. When she looked outside the window she noticed that she had fallen asleep for only a few hours or so. The sun was still up and about. The thief tried to stand up and leave the bed but she felt so weak at the moment that she fell back.
Ugh...where is that baka oni? I'm going to kill him for this headache! The thief thought as she massaged the back of her head where it was still throbbing with pain. Her head snapped up at the sound of the door opening and she pulled up the covers over her, pretending to be asleep. She heard footsteps coming in followed by the sound of voices.
"So this is the thief who took the necklace from Kuwabara..." One said. The thief immediately recognized it as the spirit ruler's own voice. "How did you find her?" He asked.
"I went to the forest to ask for Hiei's help." Another voice answered. This time she recalled hearing the voice from the kistune she fought with when she took the necklace from the ningens. "And he did by bringing her to us." He finished.
"So shall we wake her up now?" Konema asked. All of a sudden the thief felt the covers being pulled away from her. Then she fell from the bed to the ground with a loud thump as someone tipped over the mattress she was lying on. She gave a soft "ouch" as she struggled to stand up and looked up to find the man who was responsible for bringing her there standing before her with a smirk on his face. The thief glared at him and was about to shout angrily at him when someone did it first.
"What is wrong with you Hiei!" Konema, in his older form, had shouted. "We want to wake her up, not get knocked unconscious all over again. And how the hell did you enter here without us knowing in the first place!" Hiei turned to the thief with a short, sarcastic laugh.
"She won't get knocked unconscious with something like that. She's just like those two stubborn boneheads. In case you didn't know, she was awake even before the two of you entered the room. I was here ever since she was placed on the bed, making sure that the baka doesn't run away." He said. The thief glared at him and had the urge to chop him to pieces, fry him on a pan and feed him to the dogs or better yet, to her own black wolf.
Damn it...why didn't I sense him in the room? It must be because of this stupid headache...With that last thought in mind, the thief stood up and wobbled over to Hiei who stood where he was with cold indifference. She then grabbed his cloak and glared up at him.
"How dare you hit me on the head like that? Because of you my head is aching like crazy!" Hiei shrugged and slapped her hands away from him.
"It's not my fault baka. You were the one who brought it upon yourself." He replied. The thief backed away and sensing that she was about to fall soon, decided to sit back on the bed. Once she was comfortable she glared at Hiei and answered back.
"No I didn't. If you had spoken to me like a normal being you wouldn't have had to hit me on the head like that and I wouldn't have a headache right now." Hiei raised an eyebrow at her.
"And you expect me to believe that you'd willingly go with us if we asked?" The thief didn't answer him and knew that he knew the answer to that anyway. She tried to redeem herself with another comment when Hiei interrupted her. "Quit complaining baka ningen. I only knocked you out unconscious. If I wasn't under watch by this stupid ruler you would be getting far worse than a pathetic headache.
"Enough! Hiei, if you're going to keep stalling us with this little quarrel I suggest you leave. If you don't want to leave, then keep quiet." Konema snapped in anger. Hiei glared at Konema but conceded and moved away from the thief to lean against the wall. He crossed his arms and watched as Konema walked up to the thief instead.
"We apologize for the way you were brought here but you left us with no choice. Now please kindly hand over the necklace you stole to me. It's a very important item that needs to be taken care of by better hands. If that necklace falls into the wrong hands then it would bring a great disaster to the world." Konema said, trying to get the thief to give him the necklace. The thief crossed her arms stubbornly.
"Nothing's going to happen with it as long as it stays with me. I need this necklace too, believe it or not. And I'm not going to tell you why if you're going to ask." She added before anyone could open their mouth. "I can defend myself against anyone and I won't use the necklace for evil or whatever. So just forget this ever happened, forget about getting the necklace and forget I ever existed." She was about to stand up when Konema forced her to sit back on the bed.
"Now hold on for a second. I was not asking nor pleading you to hand the necklace to me. I ORDER you to hand it to me. You have no idea of its immense value and I would like it to stay that way as well. I'm not saying that you can't defend yourself or that you can't keep that necklace from our enemies, it's just that that necklace will be much better off in our hands." He told her.
"I am not going to hand over the necklace no matter what you say or do to me and that's final!" The thief shouted. Konema was about to explode in anger when Kurama held his shoulder calmly and whispered in his ear.
"Maybe we should let her go and convince her some other time. Nothing we say or do is going to convince her now. We can just keep an eye on her while she still has the necklace." Konema paused for a moment to consider Kurama's suggestion and nodded slightly.
"All right...we'll let you leave this room with that necklace under one condition. One of my men has to go with you and keep an eye on you whatever you do, wherever you go. Deal?" The thief frowned at Konema and hesitated before replying a weak "fine" to the ruler. Satisfied, Konema turned to Hiei with a knowing look. The fire apparition raised an eyebrow at the spirit ruler and made a small grunt of understanding. The thief saw this and widened her eyes in realization.
"Wait...you don't expect him to...of all people...can't you get someone else to follow me around?" Konema shook his head at her.
"No. Either you let Hiei keep a close watch on you, or you stay here until you decide to give up the necklace." He said. The thief glared at Konema and wanted to say a lot more. But knowing the situation she was in, she had no chance of getting out without a fight. Not only that, she could sense about 5 more people outside the room. The thief gave a defeated sigh and nodded.
"Alright. You got yourself a deal." She mumbled. Thinking that it was over, she attempted to stand up again when Konema pushed her down again.
"Speaking of which, I would like to ask you about your...profile. Strangely, we never found any information on you no matter how much we looked for it. Not even an address or a name. Care to explain that?" Konema asked her. The thief was about to shout angrily at Konema when she heard his question. At this, a mysterious smile came upon the woman's lips and she shrugged casually at the spirit ruler.
"Your sources must be very poor then. Maybe someone stole it or something." She suggested to him.
"And why would someone steal your profile of all the profiles we posses?" He asked. The woman shrugged.
"I don't know. Ask the guy who stole it. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go back." Konema massaged his throbbing head and gave a defeated sigh. Then he moved aside as the thief stood up from the bed and stretched. When things seemed fine enough, Konema began leaving the room. He opened the door and found Yusuke and Kuwabara crouching below, trying to eavesdrop on them. Theyimmediately stood upas the door opened and grinnedinnocently and cluelesslyat the spiritruler.Konema shook his head and mumbled silently to himself as he began walking out. When Seiki heard the door open, she immediately rushed to the ruler with eager, hopeful eyes. Tenerie stood up from the couch she was sitting on, expectantly looking at Konema.
"Did she give you the necklace?" Seiki asked. The spirit ruler sadly shook his head at her in reply. The red headed girl frowned and turned to the thief who seemed relieved to leave the room she was in. Seiki walked up to the woman and crossed her arms.
"Why won't you give the necklace to us? That necklace belonged to someone very dear to Tenerie who asked her to get it before he died. She has been looking for it for a long time all over the place and she has gone through a lot just to get that necklace. Please give it back to her. I'll do anything you want if you do." She pleaded. Tenerie was touched with the way Seiki was pleading for her and held her shoulders with a small smile.
"It's okay Seiki. You don't have to do it." The thief watched all this with cold indifference and crouched in front of Seiki to look straight at her.
"I must say this touching scene is really sweet and all but unfortunately for you I don't buy it. I've gone through a lot just to get the necklace too and I don't intend on giving it back that easily. So why don't you do your little act in front of someone who actually has the time for pity or compassion? Those two might do well." She said, gesturing to Yusuke and Kuwabara who were glaring angrily at the thief. She patted her head and stood up to leave. Hiei silently followed without saying anything to the others.
switch scene
"This is really annoying Konema! We should just kick her butt and steal the necklace back from her." Yusuke told him as he paced around his home. The spirit ruler was standing before everyone with a slight frown on his face.
"I don't like how this is going too Yusuke but we can't do much to her unless she tells us where she's keeping the necklace or she hands them over herself. All we can do now is wait and pray that those magic-weilding youkais won't catch them before we get the necklace." Konema replied. Seiki was sniffing lightly in the background while being comforted by Tenerie. Everyone else couldn't say or do anything else and left the conversation there. During the silence, they heard a few explosions coming from outside Yusuke's apartment. Kurama stood up and narrowed his eyes in concentration as his senses percieved his surroundings. He turned to the rest with a worried look on his face.
"I sense youkais with the same energy as Tenerie's. Hiei's energy is there as well." Kuwabara sensed it too and voiced out his agreement to Kurama's statement. Yusuke smiled excitedly, punching his fist in his hand and warming himself up for another fight.
"We better hurry before Hiei steals all the fun from us." He said. So everyone hurriedly ran downstairs and out of the apartment to see a group of magicians attacking Hiei and the thief. Hiei tried to attack the magicians but he couldn't reach them with all the attacks flying towards him. The thief couldn't attack them as well and spent her time avoiding the fireballs and the other attacks.
"Hiei!" Kurama cried worriedly as the fire apparition was blown away by a volley of fireballs. Hiei fell to the ground and gave a small groan as he tried to stand up again, using his katana to push himself up. He turned his head to Konema and the others and widened his eyes as the youkais blew up the electric post beside them.
"Watch out!" He shouted. The party looked up and quickly moved away from the falling post. But another youkai threw another attack, hitting Tenerie and Seiki and keeping them from moving away. The thief stopped evading when she saw what they were planning and ran as fast as she could towards the two women. She jumped and pushed Tenerie then took Seiki in her arms and backed away just in time as the post crashed to the ground and destroyed a car that had been parked there.
Seiki had closed her eyes and was trying to brace the pain when she felt herself being lifted from the ground. When she opened her eyes she saw the thief and realized that she had saved her again. She was about to open her mouth when her eye caught a silver glint. She looked for it and smiled when she saw the silver chain hanging around the thief's neck.
There it is! She's been wearing it all this time.
Seiki reached out and snatched the necklace from the thief before she was placed down or before the thief began noticing her. The woman quickly felt it and looked down as the little girl wriggled away from her.
"Hey come back here! Give that back! This isn't funny." She shouted as she ran after Seiki. Some of the youkais saw what Seiki had done and chased after her as well. Seiki began to feel scared as she ran away from the battle. No one had noticed her, being too busy fending off the other youkais so this time, she was on her own. Tears began to fall from her eyes as she was chased down the road. One of the youkais threw another attack, hoping to slow the little girl down. But a shield had suddenly appeared around her and blocked the attack easily.
Seiki looked over her shoulder and saw that it was only the youkais chasing her down. She wondered if the youkais had caught up with the thief and had killed her or something. But that thought was interrupted when she tripped over a crack on the road and fell down. She immediately rolled around and began backing away as the youkais slowly walked towards her.
"Give us the necklace little ningen. We'll spare your life if you do." One of the youkais said. Seiki hugged the silver chain closer to her and shook her head.
"No! This belongs to Tenerie and only she deserves to get it."
"That's where you're wrong Seiki." A voice answered. Everyone frantically looked around for the source of the voice. Seiki felt a very familiar note to the sound and realized that it was the thief's own voice as she looked up at one of the roofs. The thief jumped down from the roof and landed on the ground, swinging her arms sharply to the side. Along with her action a huge wind pressure suddenly appeared and blew the youkais away by surprise. She then rushed to Seiki and took her away from the road.
Seiki was stunned with what she saw. Despite being young she knew that there was no wind strong enough to blow away youkais alone. She had seen the action the thief made before it had happened. It was as if the thief had control over the wind. She wanted to ask her how she did it, who she was, why she wanted the necklace. But she felt herself struggling with the waking world as her body grew weaker and weaker by the minute, the effects of the recent battle exhausting her.
"Take it easy kid." The thief said as she continued running. "You're safe now. I'm not going to hurt you. You can relax and sleep while I send you to your friends." She added. Seiki felt safe and protected in the thief's arms and was compelled to do as she was told. She hugged the chain closer to her, making sure that it was still there before she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
switch scene
Far from Ningenkai, somewhere within the heart of Makkai, there was a dark figure living in a large unoccupied castle. This dark man was tall, thin with a muscular body and broad shoulders. He had short dark grey hair and cold purple eyes that brought fear to those who looked at it. He had everything he would ever want within his reach. And this was all because of his great powers. So far he has the alliance of quite a few strong, useful villages such as Tarleina. Youkais were crawling to him like bees to honey. Everything was going according to plan. But there was something that was keeping him from progressing. And that was his lack of the Sorcerer's necklace.
It was important for him to find at least one of them. As soon as he found one, looking for the rest would not be as hard. He needed the necklaces. He needed the gems that were hanging on the silver chains. He needed them in order to fulfill a dream that was made a long time ago. A dream that began with his father, who had passed away during the Magician's War. He cursed the Sorcerers and Sorceress for depriving him of his parents and vowed to get his revenge someday.
He has been sending youkais to Ningenkai for quite a while now and so far none of them had come back, probably killed while they were on their errand. Then he decided to send in the amateur Dark Magicians that he has been training and found that they were killed as well. He had just send in the recent batch of Dark Magicians and was relieved to find survivors. But what they reported to him was not good.
One of his faithful servants entered his chambers one day merely planning to clean up his room. But the master of the castle had other plans as he interrupted the servant from his work.
"Send in Sir Lucas and tell him I need to speak with him immediately." He demanded. The servant had no choice but to oblige and nodded profusely, afraid of disappointing the master.
"Yes, yes, at once, my Lord." The said servant hurriedly ran from the room in order to seek Sir Lucas who was training Dark Magicians outside at the time. After relaying the message to the captain the servant ran off to do some other chores he had. Sir Lucas casually walked through the long halls into the master's chamber where he found the Lord standing before the window, looking at the wonderful view.
"You called my Lord?" He stated, greeting the man with a low bow. The Lord turned around and had a content smile that never reached his eyes as he began walking back into the darkness of the room.
"Your amateur Dark Magicians have failed me once again Sir Lucas. I am wasting my time standing here and waiting for you to make something out of them when I could have gone there and gotten the necklace myself. Please tell me you have good news for me today." The Lord told him, the smile never leaving his face. Sir Lucas nodded in reply.
"My Lord, I have decided to send in the older and stronger Dark Magicians if you permit me to do so. Based on their reports, the Dark Magicians have encountered the Spirit Ruler's men and a mysterious ningen woman who has strange powers as well." Sir Lucas explained. "As much as I hate to admit it, we have no other option." He added. The Lord pondered on it and waved a hand after a while.
"Do it. But send in only four of your best team. I do not wish to wipe out my army on such trivial errands." Sir Lucas nodded and bowed once more before leaving the room. The Lord stood where he was and took a glass of wine that was left on a table, sipping it slowly with his lips. He placed back the wineglass and gave a small chuckle that turned into a soft laugh.
"In time father. In time I shall bring you back to life and give you the revenge you so longed for."
switch scene
When Seiki opened her eyes she found herself surrounded by everyone she had met this past few days who were looking at her worriedly. She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes as Tenerie rubbed her head lovingly.
"Seiki! Thank goodness you're alright. We thought something had happened to you. Tells us what happened to you and how you came here." She said. Seiki looked around and found herself lying on grass at the park. The sun was setting now, casting its soft yellow-red glow on the leaves and the sky. Yusuke, Kuwabara and Kurama all looked tired and battle-worn, with their clothes ripped up at some parts and their bodies covered with splotches of youkai's blood. Hiei looked just as dirty but still stood with the usual cold arrogance. Whether he was just as tired was impossible to know with his equally cold and expressionless face.
"Well, I remember being saved by that woman...then I saw the necklace hanging around her neck. I took it from her and began running away. Other youkais were chasing me too. They were about to get to me when..." At this the little girl tried to recall what happened next. But it was all a blur to her now and she could barely remember the next event. "The thief saved me...I forgot how but she did. Then while she was carrying me away I fell asleep. When I woke up I found myself looking at all of you."
"I see...where is the necklace now?" Seiki widened her eyes as she began feeling around her for the necklace. It wasn't with her anymore. Obviously everyone knew what had happened to it and where it was now. Seiki frowned and looked down, feeling so helpless and so useless to her newfound friends.
"Go after her Hiei, just like we planned. We have to keep an eye on her now especially after what happened here today." Konema said. Hiei gave a curt nod and disappeared from everyone's eyes in a flash. The spirit ruler turned to the others next.
"Keep an eye on things here as well. We're going to take Tenerie and Seiki with us back to Rekai to protect them from any other youkais who plan on chasing them." As he said this Botan took out her oar and hopped on it, motioning for the other two to ride with her as well. Konema nodded to them and followed Botan as they began flying up to the sky. Kurama turned to the others with a weary sigh.
"What a weekend it has been. We better go back to our homes and get a good rest then. We have to go to school tomorrow." He reminded the other two, who weren't as enthusiastic as Kurama was about it. They said their goodbyes and began walking to their own homes. Kurama walked slowly, thinking about the events that had passed for the past few days. Everything was going too fast, and he needed time to take it all in. He gave a soft sigh as he reached the door to his house and entered, evading his mother and keeping her from seeing the state he was in.
Hopefully tomorrow will bring a brighter day for everyone.