Satori-sama: Hi yall!! I hope you guys like this chapter, a little different from the first two. Tell me what you think, Im open to all comments!!!
Chapter 3—Training
The days have passed quickly since the trial of Daja and the unexpected change in the balance of power within her. Against her deepest wishes, she suppresses the feeling half of her and retains her murderous side only to find that it is no longer the powerful unfeeling soul that it once was. Moreover, she feels that the caring side will only weaken her further although it sometimes shows itself in most expected times and ways against the other side's will and visa-versa.
Upon the 3rd day of her sentence, she was sentenced again to training under a harsh and uncooperative fighting instructor. This instructor was none other than Hiei. Koenma choose him for this job because he is roughly the same size and shape as Daja, and definitely of the same power, speed, and agility. Hiei, however, was not at all impressed with this method of choosing an instructor, but he took on this burden it because what was he supposed to do? Deny Koenma the right to tell him what to do? Anyway, Koenma wasn't about to change his mind and Daja could not possibly be up to Koenma's standards already. So Hiei accepted Daja as his student as he should.
Hiei:
Where is she? She said she would be here. I gaze at the rising sun. I said at dawn. Oh well. I don't want to have to wait for her again. This arriving late business is beginning to take its toll on my already thin patience, yet another reason why Kurama should have been Daja's instructor.
I decide to whip out my katana and begin to train with out her. I thrust and slash with everything I have, pushing my speed and power to its limits. Suddenly, a flash of blue streaks in front of me stopping my sword half way through its powerful thrust. Grrr. I should have sensed her coming. She grins and pushes me off balance, grazing my arms with her practice sword as a means to show me she could kill me if she wanted to.
"Hiei, you have to keep your defenses up, you hypocrite." Daja looks at my sprawled figure and laughs, but not for long. I take a leaf out of her book and trip her up, sending her down on the grass in front of me to land on her butt. She sits looking like she normally does. She looks at me and mutters obscene language under her breath, wiping the grass from her clothes and rows of braided hair and never once repeating the same combination of words. That is one of her special talents I discovered while training her. She can go a whole two days with out ever repeating herself. Ever.
"You're late," I say accusingly getting up to stand over her menacingly. "Where were you?'
"Hn. I didn't know this was such a big issue to you," Daja replies sounding really annoyed. "If hadn't of overlooked me, you would have realized I was sleeping in a tree not too far from here."
What? How could I have missed that? I frown in disgust, and Daja gets up and stands about 3 yards to my south. The farther the better, although.... I shudder and suppress every thought of her in my head except the ones about her training. She is coming along nicely, learning faster than I thought she would. I mull over these thoughts and come to a conclusion about her.
"I'll be back. My stomach is talking to me again," she turns around and walks off towards the tree line seemingly fighting something inside her head. I watch her while picking up my sword again. She disappears up into a tree and for a moment the leaves rattle and shake. After a moment a bag drops down to the ground and its owner follows suit except landing on her feet instead of her backside. Picking up the bag and walking through the waist high grass back towards me. She goes through her bag, looking for something. After a moment she is back to where I stand waiting for her so we can continue our training. But we never get that far.
"Hn." I comment as Daja throws a hunk of bread at me. She herself bites into a piece of fruit. I must admit the bread would be a welcome source of sustenance, but I cannot accept it from her. She eyes me suspiciously as she collapses a few feet away just looking at me. Her eyes get cloudy and distant as she bites into her food again. I look at the bread in my hands and study it.
I can tell it was baked in the Demon World by the coarseness of the grain and the fact that it is just an uneven hunk and not round like the ones in the Human Realm.
"Aren't you hungry? And if you are too proud to accept it from me, than it is your loss. It is really good bread. I bought it in the Demon world a few days ago, so it shouldn't be stale yet," Daja says to me. I look at her and she averts her gaze up to the rising sun. Her head tilts to the side and she bites into the fruit again, eating it slowly probably because she wants time to digest her meal before we have to train. I feel my stomach grumble and I look at the bread in all its baked glory. She gave it to me. I might as well eat it to please my stomach. She looks amazed as I tear into the bread and begin to eat it. Her eyes glaze over again and she looks at the ground realizing that she was staring.
She finishes her fruit and throws the core away. She reclines in the tall grass so I can't see her any more. I don't like it when I can't see people. It lets them have a slight advantage over me. I know, however, that she won't attack me today. She doesn't seem like she wants to do anything but lie down and rest. How pathetic. But after a moment of thinking about it, I realize how tired I am as well as how hungry so I finish my ration of food considering my next course of action. Then I see Daja's head poke up over the top of the grass scanning the tree line for something. She shrugs and disappears again. I finish my bread just in time to see her come closer to me. She looks thoughtful as she gazes at me making me feel very uncomfortable. She collapses in front of me into a sitting position. I raise an eyebrow at her and she shrugs. I get it now. She is waiting for me to order her to do something or train with her.
"What do you want," I yell at her irritably.
"Why the hell are you yelling at me for!" she yells back smirking at me. I get it. She is just pushing my limits, seeing how far she can tread on me before I get angry and do something like chop her into pieces.
"Shut it!" I yell at her
"Shove it, Hiei! I am not going to do anything you say!" She yells back at me, apparently trying to test out the capacity of her lungs now as well as my temper.
"You will do as I say!" I shout at her as I stand up over her making myself look taller than I actually am.
"Syngo AllaHYh mAku! AtILLa Mora Tunsoo kayo Hiei tanikuo!" She shouts at me her eyes changing colors and her arm's muscles twitching uncontrollably.
"Junto Kiljalo mya AtILLa Mora Tunsoo kayo Daja yukikouiakun!" I shout at her. After a moment I realize that the dialogue that just passed between us was in a language not of the human realm. "How do you know that language," I ask her searching her for answers I need to find.
"Do you honestly think I spent my whole life with fingers in my ears. No you foolish demonic man, I needed to be able to speak with any one in the Demon world so I could con him into giving me anything I wanted. I am not as simple as you think I am, I know more about you than you most likely know about me," she looks at me and gasps for her breath, trying to refill her lungs as fast as she can. Her form trembles with the lack of air and I cant help but wonder what about me she knows. I give in to temptation and pounce on her knocking her back ward onto the ground, my hands wrapped around her neck cutting off the air supply to her lungs.
"Hiei... Uh," she gasps striving with all her energy to put air into her deflated lungs, "Aaah... Let.... me go...uh" she stops struggling more than she had previously done. I watch as her eyes stare up at mine filled with fear of dying. I loosen my grasp on her throat and watch as her eyes slowly come back into focus. I am still crouched over her as she blinks and gently tries to move away from me. I trap her under me and say, "Get away from me and you are done for today." She looks up at me looking sick and tired. I feel her hands grab my shoulder and pull my body close to hers, and then I feel her let me go with a slight push to my chest. I feel strange...she felt so close, so nice, so welcoming...then, she felt cold, icy almost, and she pushed me away, but why? I sit back on my heels and let her remove herself from under me. She crawls away then stands up to brush off all the dirt from her clothes. She looks at me with blue eyes, not the normal neon green color I have grown accustomed to seeing. Then after a second they turn to the green but they are tinged with sapphire streaks. She tilts her head to the left looking at me with confusion in her eyes. She seems to shake off all doubt she has as she shakes her head.
"I shouldn't have done that. I forgot who you were and who I am now," she sits down on the ground to the left of me and begins to clean her sword once again. She closes out the rest of the world as the focuses on the blade and the hilt making sure all the dirt is wiped away all grooves. From time to time, she looks up at the sky, just looking up at the cloudy atmosphere above. Then she sighs and returns to her work, rubbing the sword to shine it to perfection.
"Would you like me to shine your sword," she quietly asks me sounding a little depressed. I throw my sword at her turned back, willing it to stab her through the heart and in turn getting rid of the tormenting problem known as Daja, but she catches it easily in her hand by reaching over her shoulder without thinking, muttering "I won't be killed to easily" under her breath. She unsheathes my katana and runs a hand down the edge feeling the sharpness of it graze her skin. Sighing, she runs a finger over all the intricate designs and patterns of dragons and flames etched into the steel blade.
"You know, I remember when I was not as heartless as I am today. It was a long time ago..."she says looking at me with green eyes making a transition into dull navy ones. Koenma and Kurama had long figured out that the green shade meant the murdering thief aspect of her and the blue was a different aspect of her from long ago, and had informed me that if her eyes ever turn a neon shade of green I should be on my toes. Well, it doesn't help that her eyes always green or that she is always changing personalities the way youko foxes can change lovers. I don't care if she is schizophrenic or whatever they called her, she is who she is and many personalities I guess is just part of who she is. Plus she is really strong, that more than makes up for her not so nice attitudes. She would make quite an ally...
"Hn" I remark as I watch Daja finger the designs on my katana with affection. She takes up a rag in her hand and dips it into a small can of cleaner that she used on her own blade before continuing.
"I was young when I was forsaken. I never knew my mother or my family, I was told I had a large one which included my whole people even if we were not directly related or related at all," she pauses for a second only to dip her rag back into the cleaner so she can continue to rub my sword, "I was different from them, furthermore I think that they were afraid of change, afraid of me and what I could do to them if I felt threatened by their way of life. I was left to defend for myself all alone in a distant moor far away from my homeland. My instincts told me that there was good in everything, but it seems like my instincts were wrong." Here, Daja bends over to run a finger over the blade, checking for spots she may have missed the first time she ran the cloth over it. "I learned how to trust only my cleverness and my muscles. Only strength is worth becoming allies for. The greatness of what is," she again pauses to re-dip her rag in the cleanser again, "good is vastly over rated. I do not know any more what I am along the lines of good or evil. The lines of soul taker and soul saver with in me are blurry at times. You and the others have probably noticed that by now... I..." she bends over my sword biting her tongue while working the polish into every groove making sure all substances are removed from the divots and ridges in the leather hilt. I watch her hands work for a while thinking over everything she just told me. "I don't know why I exist anymore, the world would be a lot better without me to dirty it up," she adds as an afterthought. She looks at me and I have to turn away.
God damn it, she brings back all the emotions I have hidden beneath a shield of ice over my heart for years. Not even Kurama had ever been able to crack my defenses to see what was underneath my calm and contempt expressions. It is so new, to have someone trust me so much to confide in me something he probably never told anyone else before. But whether I like this new type of bonding is a question that will have to remain unanswered for now. I ask her a question by saying, "why are you telling me this?"
She jumps slightly at my voice; I think she forgot I was sitting here with her still. She looks at me her eyes still the dreary cobalt color filled with sadness.
"I guess... I guess.... maybe I...." she looks back at the katana, looking at it is all its glory and putting her hopes into the bright sheen on its blade. "You are my master now, I guess it just felt right to tell you about my past, why I am the way I am so you can decide whether you feel as if I deserve to be trained by you or something like that. I dunno..." she averts her eyes to the ground as she stands up my sword now in her hand sheathed and ready for me to use it once again.
I grab it and just run the other way. I need to sort out my jumbled thoughts. I thought Daja was just a strange kid in general not because of what happened to her. Her past...it is so much like mine... was she abandoned because she was not what was expected or because of what she was or maybe both... as I gaze back at the clearing from the top of a tree I see Daja trying to do something in the middle of the grass.
Her body disappears and reappears leaving and afterimage behind her to show where she had been. She looks depressed as she looks behind her at her reflection. After about an hour of watching her test her speed, I observe as she shifts gears and begins to throw punches at invisible opponents. Her demeanor changes for the better, I suppose, and her movements become strong and powerful. I almost want to go spar off with her because she would be a worthy opponent, but I decide against it because she might wonder if I have been watching her this whole time. Her body follows a specific pattern. Punch, Punch, Kick, Dodge, Dodge, Kick, Kick, Dodge, Punch, Dodge, Punch, and so on repetitively.
I watch some more as she changes gears yet once again, this time using a sword instead of just her bare hands and body. Her swordsmanship is very advanced. She is able to trust forward leading into a side slash and end up in a ready defending position with out even losing her original stance of guard. Her style is different from anyone else's I have seen in my whole lifetime. She seems to imagine flocks of opponents instead of just one single one and every once in awhile she reaches into her pocket to whip out her dice to through at an opponent or two. She integrates every attack or weapon she has into one full-fledged effort to slaughter her imaginary adversaries. It is like Daja is on some type of killing spree and has no remorse for what she is unconsciously doing to her invisible challengers. It is almost like a sorcerer's enchanting dance, weaving in and out of opponents mindlessly, killing the imaginary foes with single strokes.
I wonder if that was all her life was like, one endless uphill battle of theft, death, and destruction to find her place in the world only to have it crashing down around her when she finally got her life put back together the best she could. I kind of feel a little sorry for her.... kind of....
satori-sama: i've finally figured out ow to put a divided in the text. I promise the next part to be up soon, goodbye part one, hello part two!!!
