Hello, all. I know you have heard from me in ages. I'm usually pretty good about posting on time, I guess this story is the exception to that. So, I will no longer set a date for the next chapter, I'll just try to get them up faster. Which means of course I'll start getting them up every other week or so because I haven't promised that, right? Oh well, whatever. I hope you enjoy this and I'll see you all later

Hiei stood in the center of the room, sword held steady before him. He went through a series of moves, too fast for anyone to see. Around the edge of the room, WuFei, Heero, and Trowa were watching closely. Hiei reached the end of the set and sheathed his weapon. He went straight into a set of martial arts forms. Finally, he finished and stood for a moment to gather his breath.

WuFei let out a soft whistle. "Sugoi. That was amazing."

Hiei turned to look at the Chinese youth. "Could you even follow the moves?" He asked, more than a little edge to his voice.

"Most of them, yes."

Hiei eyed the boy for a moment. If he could follow the individual moves with little effort . . . Hiei wished Koenma would have taken the time to figure out where the boy's youki came from. This boy was potentially a bigger threat than the enemy.

WuFei and Heero left the room shortly after that to explore the forest around their current residence. Hiei fixed his gaze on Trowa, who hadn't moved at all. "Shouldn't you be doing something? You don't want to go with them?" Trowa looked up for a moment, then back towards the ground without a word. Hiei frowned, years with his fox having made him worry more about others. "What's wrong, Trowa?"

The banged pilot was silent for a few minutes before answering. "He's hurt. He's in so much pain, I can feel it."

"Quatre?"

"We have to help him. Soon."

Hiei sat leaning against the wall. "We'll save him. You have to believe that."

Trowa shook his head, pulling his knees more tightly into his chest. "You don't understand. You can't feel it. Hiei, he's dying." A sob dragged it's way from Trowa's throat.

Hiei didn't know what to say. He didn't even share that strong a bond with Kurama. It was true that he didn't know what Trowa was going through. But it was also true that he knew what it was like to be worried about a lover. He placed a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder. "We will save him."

Trowa nodded. "We have to."

Quatre forced his eyes open. There was no thought of escape, no thought of fighting. He just wanted to survive. There was no light, no way to tell if it was day or night, no way to know how long he'd been out. Hesitantly, Quatre tried to move.

Mistake.

No sooner had he begun to access the muscles in his stomach to turn over, than Quatre remembered exactly why he had been unconsious. The wound in his stomach made it impossible to move even the slightest. He bit back cries of pain and focused on breathing. Gods, even breathing hurt!

Cold laughter rang through the tiny room. "You're finally awake. I was beginning to think I'd gone to deep with the dagger."

Quatre held still, not daring to move or speak. His mind began working overtime; he had to think of a way out. The man came over and set a hand gently on Quatre's stomach. Without thinking, Quatre's hands shot up to grip the man's arm at the elbow. A look of panic crossed his face.

The man laughed again. "Don't be frightened. I'm not going to kill you. Yet. In fact, I won't even hurt you this time. Too much too fast and I'll lose my leverage. I can't touch you until you recover some. So you can rest easy. For now."

Quatre didn't loosen his grip. "Why are you doing this to me?" His voice was small and frightened. Unrecognizable.

"Because through you, I can get to them. And I will make them pay." The man was increasing his pressure on Quatre's stomach, causing the blonde to squeak in pain and try to fight back. It took a moment for the man to realize and back off. "Heh, sorry about that. Your own fault for asking questions I don't want to answer. Sit tight, I'm going to send a healer in to work on you."

The man left, leaving Quatre seeing spots and fighting to stay awake. It was several minutes before Quatre heard the door open again. He turned his head to see a small girl in a tattered purple kimono come in. She met his eyes through messy brown bangs for a moment before quickly looking away. Quatre watched as she moved across the room. She placed a hand over his wound and Quatre could feel a warmth flood his body. "Thank you."

She met his eyes again. "I'm sorry I have to do this. I don't have a choice."

"Why should you be sorry for helping me?"

The girl pulled away, eyes still locked on his. "The sooner you get better, the sooner he'll hurt you again. And I'm a part of it."

Quatre pushed himself up. "You don't have to be sorry. It's not your fault."

She shook her head. "Be careful. I didn't finish, with any luck you've got a few hours of peace at least. I'm sorry I can't do more."

Quatre reached for the girl's arm, gently grabbing her wrist. "Are you a prisoner here?"

"I was bought. Same as you. I don't think he wanted me for any reason other than a slave though. I really don't have it that bad."

"My name's Quatre."

She hesitated a moment before giving him a small smile. "Terri."

Quatre smiled and leaned back. "I hope I see you again soon."

Terri looked away. "I hope you don't. But, if we do, I wouldn't mind. Goodbye, Quatre." She left without looking back.

Quatre didn't know how long he lay there. He couldn't keep track of time through the dull pain that still coursed through his body. But eventually, the door creaked open again. Quatre didn't need to look to know it was the man. He felt the overbearing presence as he crossed the room and laid a hand on the blonde's stomach. "She could have done better. I'll have to let her know that."

Quatre felt his pulse quicken. "What are you going to do to her?"

"I would be more concerned about what I'm going to do to you, little boy."

Quatre fought to stay calm. "Please, don't hurt her. It was my idea. You can't touch me if I'm still hurt after all."

The man moved his hand to cup Quatre's throat with a warning squeeze. "Don't test me, Quatre. You wouldn't like the results." Quatre forced himself to lay still. He wouldn't fight, his best defense right now was to just lay still. After a pause, the man moved away. "But you're right. I'll have to wait until later to do anything really fun. But don't think you've gotten off the hook. I'll see you tonight." And with that, he left.

Quatre breathed out a sigh of releif as the door latched again. "Trowa, where are you?"

"I just don't see it. This brat can't be related to me."

Kurama looked from Yuusuke to Heero and back. "I don't know, I can see it pretty well. Same stubborness, same proficiency at fighting. Tell me, is Heero easy to anger?"

WuFei snorted, trying to bite back a laugh. "Is he? Barely insult him and he's promising your death!"

Kuwabara was smiling now, too. "He's just like you, Yuusuke."

The former spirit detective scowled, perfectly matching the look on Heero's face. Yukina giggled softly and stepped forward. "That's enough, everyone! We have to get to work, we have to be ready!"

Heero nodded, instantly ready to get to work. "Where'd Duo go?"

Kurama looked around, noticing the braided boy's absence. "He's been talking with Koenma all day. I'm sure he'll be back soon."

Hiei walked to the center of the room. "Come on, we'll start without him. Pair off with someone to train." Hiei walked over to WuFei and led him aside. "I'll start with you."

Kurama went over to Heero, Yuusuke following, and Kuwabara and Yukina went over to Trowa. Heero immediately started meditating, imitating everything Yuusuke did and trying to gather his ki to a point. Trowa was doing about the same thing, watching in fascination as Kuwabara formed and reformed his spirit blade and explained it in rather simple terms.

WuFei watched his friends for a few minutes before turning to Hiei. "All right, how do we start?"

"Earlier, you said you could follow my moves, right?" WuFei nodded. "Well, that's a good place to start. Until we can figure out what form your ki is in, we'll work with what you've got. Let's go." Hiei lunged at WuFei. The Chinese boy dodged and began sparring with the fire demon. Slowly, Hiei increased the speed, hoping to draw out some of WuFei's youki power.

Finally, Hiei landed a punch and the other boy went down. He hadn't gotten the speed up that much, he had thought, but he supposed it was faster than any normal human would have been able to go. He offered his hand. "Can you go again?" WuFei nodded and stood without the offered assistance, getting ready for the next round.

Heero cursed and punched at Yuusuke. The raven haired man dodged, slapping his fist away with a laugh. "Come on, I thought you were mad at me!"

"I'm going to pummel you into the ground, Urameshi. Omae o kurosu." Heero's voice was deathly quiet as he charged the other man again.

Yukina clasped her hands together in front of her. She turned worried eyes upon Kurama. "What happened? Why aren't they working?"

Kurama let out a long-suffering sigh. "This isn't going well. Heero can't focus his energy at all and he just plain ran out of patience for his 'wise sensei'. This would be easier were Genkai still alive." He pulled his face into a smile and turned to the ice demon. "What about Trowa? I wasn't paying much attention, how's he doing?"

"Remarkably well, actually. He can't seem to produce a weapon like Kazuma-kun, but he's taken a likeing to fighting with a staff. He's able to actually pour his ki into it and it's proving to be extremely helpful, and powerful, too."

An enraged snarl brought Kurama's focus back to the fight in front of him. It had been Yuusuke, apparently just getting into the battle seriously. He practically flew at Heero, but the boy sidestepped and Yuusuke sailed past before turning. This put his back to Kurama as he faced his opponant and, as a result, the fox didn't see exactly what happened. One moment he was looking at the battle from several paces away, the next, he was pinned to the ground by Yuusuke's body.

The spirit detective was on his feet again immediately, but hesitated as he stared at Heero. Slowly, he raised one hand to his chest, feeling the bruise forming there, and smiled. "All right, I can live with that, too. Spirit gun or no, if you can put that much ki into your fist, you just may be one of the most helpful fighters here!"

Heero grunted and turned on his heel, stalking towards the kitchen.

Mere seconds later, another boy was knocked across the room, this one not getting up on his own. "Fei!" Kurama and Yukina chimed in unison. Kurama went to his side, helping the dazed boy sit up, and glared at a certain fire demon. "Hiei, go easy on him! You're supposed to be trying to train him, not beat him to death!"

Hiei snorted, but looked generally unconcerned. "It's his own fault for not keeping up. If he has no useable abilities, better we find out now and he doesn't get in our way."

Yukina was frowning at the short demon. "Hiei, that's a horrible thing to say." Hiei's expression softened slightly, but even before she'd finished speaking, WuFei was on his feet and heading towards the door. They let him go, thinking it would be better to let him cool down alone.

Nearly an hour had passed when Kurama walked outside to see what was taking WuFei. The pilot sat on the root of a tree, staring at his hands. Without noticing the fox, he stood and seemed to concentrate on something, but nothing happened.

"Hey, Fei, what's going on?"

The boy sighed and sat heavily again. "I can't get a hold of it. Everyone here has caught on to their powers right away. All I've got is a little speed boost and a bit more strength. I'm not really upset, it's just hard. I need that power to help Quatre, you know?"

Kurama sat beside the boy. "You need to relax. If you press it too hard, it'll never come." He held out his hand, slowly summoning his own power. WuFei nodded and imitated the process, to no avail. Kurama sighed. "I can see why you're frustrated. But we'll think of something."

"I told you, I'm not frustrated. I'm just worried that I won't be able to help."

"I'm sure you just need more practice. Don't worry so much about it, it's something that will come naturally once you relax." The fox stood, a small smile on his lips as he went back into the house.

Fei continued to practice, not even noticing Hiei watching from the shadows. Suddenly Hiei's eyes widened. He recognized that power. Fei struggled, sensing the flicker of ki within himself, but unable to grasp it or bring it to any meaningful form. Hiei disappeared back into the house. Something would have to be done. If he was right about that boy's abilities . . . the Chinese youth could not be trusted.