The sunlight danced between the leaves, shining on the water like diamonds. The wind whispered secrets to the trees and made the birds giggle. Their wings made speeding shadows on the ground, on the water, on my skin. I could imagine growing my own pair of wings and just flying away from my problems. Then again, with the dilemma at hand, maybe I should be careful what I wish for.
I tilted my head to glance at the calm surface of the most recent bane of my existence; the water. For the thousandth time since I had come to this compound I cursed Genkai. She didn't need to always be right; there was a sort of humility that came from losing. I wondered if that made me humble or a moron and turned away to look at the sky again.
After yesterday's… drama… this morning had sidelined me a little. Genkai decided to run into town, which was an oddity in and of itself, and of course she had left me alone in that quiet, boring place with the warning not to touch her games. Apparently she was working on her high scores. I had expected a lecture, the silent treatment… anything but the calm, kind warning that she would be gone all day and that I didn't have a test because I was too far ahead of the curriculum for her to test me at this point. She was being nice, and that much I didn't trust even remotely.
I had known what she was doing, of course, and being me, I had tried to defy her unspoken expectations. I danced. I trained. I freaking sat down and tried to meditate for crying out loud. Nothing was working. My heart wasn't in my routines, I couldn't make a fist due to the bruising and bleeding in my hands, and I can't meditate to save my life. There was too much going through my head to truly ignore, and I hated that she knew that.
And now I was lying on the forest floor, miles away from the compound, completely lost and moping. Hell, I was pouting.
Very mature, Gavriella. Very mature indeed.
I turned to the water again and lifted my hand up for the third time, making a pushing motion with my hand. Nothing happened. Again.
It didn't make sense. Yesterday I didn't want anything to do with it, and today when I'm reluctantly beginning to accept that I would never be a normal person, I can't even make a ripple. Were these abilities as defiant and sassy as I was? Or were they just something that came and went as they saw fit?
I pushed myself into a sitting position, turning myself towards the water pretzel style and staring down at my reflection. I don't know what I expected to see other than myself, but I was disappointed. Leaves were stuck in my braided hair, my tanktop was still damp with sweat, and my eyes were still ringed with red and purple from my lack of sleep. There wasn't a single special thing staring back at me. No reason that I should be anything more than a short, mixed heritage teenager living with a cranky old woman in the mountains.
I reached up to brush away stray hair blowing across my face, and felt that pressure return to the back of my head. I froze. What was it that Genkai had said? I was feeling pressure because I was suppressing the ability. I swallowed, moving my hand above the water and making a pushing motion, slowly this time. A small wave rose up and followed in the direction of the push. I was both terrified and exhilarated, which confused the living hell out of my body on how to react.
I swallowed a lump in my throat and stood up, overlooking the surface of the stream. This far up the trail it was a far cry from the raging river I had fallen into yesterday, but it was no less stunning to look at. I stared at the surface, the pressure dispersing out over my head and creating a thrumming sensation over the whole of my scalp. I watched in amazement at the small orbs, that separated themselves from the water, lifting about a foot above the surface and gliding their way over to me, circling me at all levels. I reached out and touched one passing in front of me, watching it mold around my hand and move about where I wanted. It was cool, but not damp. I expected the wet feel of... well... water, but it just passed over my skin and and molded to me.
Breathing out, I brought my hands up and watched the orbs circle into my palms, following my thoughts and combining into one single ball. I separated my left hand and watched it stretch, and shrink back, and stretch again as I moved. I couldn't stop the stupid, silly grin and spun, watching it stretch out and circle with me, following me almost flawlessly. I circled again and again and again until I couldn't breath, starting to dance faster and faster while the water in my hands formed and reformed and moved with me like a partner. It was, in a word, thrilling. I could feel the thrumming sensation trickling down my veins with my blood, circling through me. I couldn't describe what it felt like, just that I felt... alive. More than I had ever remembered feeling before. And I could just see the smug look on Genkai's face when she came back and looked at me and saw it.
Genkai...
I frowned, realizing that I didn't know how to stop this. Whatever this power was, it clearly knew better than I did, because as the thought passed through my head the string I had been playing with whisked across the surface of it's home and sank in, barely making so much as a ripple as it merged with the rest of itself once more. I looked up at the sky, nervous when I found the pinks and oranges of the sunset overhead. It was getting dark and I still didn't know how the hell to get home. Why didn't I just stay to one single trail instead of deciding to wander off? I hate how much of a Kuwabara I become when I get irritated...
I started following the stream downriver, my thought being that I at least would recognize the bridge that we trained on yesterday. I realized after a bit of walking that the relaxing breeze was starting to pick up into an uncomfortable wind, and as the adrenaline was beginning to wear off my hands were starting to throb. I felt a little sick, realizing that I had only eaten half a granola bar this morning, and sighed. The light was beginning fade, and I wasn't getting anywhere that I recognized, so I just sat down next to the beginnings of a rushing river and started unwrapping the cloth from my knuckles. It hurt like hell to peel the wraps away from my skin, and I was sweating by the time I got the damn thing off, wincing at the sight before me. The bone was showing through on two of my knuckles, the bruising was extensive, and the gouges were still oozing bits of blood. It was, in a word, disturbing.
I barely got the second wrap off without screaming, and didn't let myself think about what I was doing as I plunged my broken, bloodied hands into the water. The breath disappeared from my lungs, agony shooting up my forearms and burning all the way back down. The world stopped. There was no sound outside my heartbeat.
The tears fell when I tried to touch the wounds to clean them out. The sobs came when I touched too hard and the red of my blood started blending with reflection of the sunset, little pools and thin lines on the overall scheme of the painting on the water. I felt sick to my stomach.
"Little human girl all alone."
I whipped around, standing up and stumbling back with the speed and force of my movements. A pit dropped in my stomach; standing before me were two creatures that were not remotely human. One looked relatively like what an imp would look like if they were real, and the other like the troll under the bridge. Was the pain making me delirious?
"She'll make good sport for us with that power of hers." The troll's growl made my blood run cold. "You," It addressed me, "will run into the forest. We will chase you, and when we catch you, we will tear you apart limb by limb."
"Give us a good fight." The imp's shrill voice added, starting to laugh. I couldn't move, just stared at the two monsters before me. This couldn't be real.
The troll slammed it's massive hand into me, a shock of red blinding my vision, and sent me flying into the underbrush. I landed in a lump, curled on my side and cradling my hands to my chest. It was hard to breath, and the entire right side of my body was numb and tingling.
"No fun little human girl. Run! Give a chase!"
I heard the rustling and forced my body up. My ribs were on fire and my leg felt heavy, but they moved well enough to get me distance. I could hear their voices behind me and tried to stay as quiet as possible while I ran, my adrenaline kicking in for the third time today and starting to dull the throbbing that plagued my body. I screamed when something grabbed my leg and sent me face-first into the ground. I rolled just in time as the meat-cleaver of a hand slammed down where my body had just been lying. I kicked out wildly and heard laughter, my legs jarring with the heavy impact they made. The troll swiped, and I rolled out of the way again just for the imp-like creature to latch onto me as I moved, it's teeth sinking into my shoulder. I screamed, the red overtaking me again, and I was launched into that horribly familiar world of color and sensation that I'd come to Genkai to understand in the first place. I jerked my arms up and grabbed the creepy little thing's body, whipping it off me. It wasn't possible, but it was attached to my arm just as it's body hit the ground, claws tearing at my skin. I felt the troll grab my right leg, and kicked with my left, terror and despair warring for domination in my body.
"Pathetic human. You are too easy to catch." The troll laughed. "We will have fun tearing you apart now."
"If you wanted a chase, you should have chosen better prey." A vaguely familiar voice inclined. The monsters and I all whipped to the source, and I cursed my luck. "Hunting down such a pitiful excuse of a psychic only shows your own weakness."
"What do you mean weakness?" The troll growled, it's grip tightening on my leg. I hissed in a breath, but otherwise stayed as quiet as humanly possible. "We'll rip you apart, you puny little thing!"
Hiei sneered. "You are so pathetic you can't even sense how my power eclipses your own."
The imp squealed laughter, and the troll tossed me out of the way again. I braced myself for the impact, and the breath was still knocked out of me. Whatever Gods I pissed off today were hellbent on my suffering.
What happened next was amazing; I had just looked up to see the troll rushing in and in the next moment Hiei's body was engulfed in fire. I stared, but the troll shielded its eyes and the imp appeared on the ground, its ugly head severed from its tiny body. I blinked, and the scream of the troll was cut off. The fire burst out in a ring and incinerated it, the burnt body disintegrating where the fire had touched it. I braced myself on a tree and pushed myself upwards, grunting and ignoring the burning that once again overwhelmed me. There was nothing in front of me but the bodies, and I pushed myself away from the bark and limped over to where they laid.
They were exactly as my memory served. The imps head was twenty feet from its body, its eyes wide open, and the trolls entire torso was gone, the severed halves cauterized and lying there. If the heart had not been destroyed, the creature may very well have been alive to suffer what had happened to it. I covered my mouth, panic setting in. This was real. This was really real.
I turned, and gasped again, jumping back and crying out as my leg finally gave way. Hiei had been standing directly behind me, staring at me like he was expecting something. The look he was giving me now was nothing short of crude and filled with disgust.
"If you can't defend yourself, you shouldn't utilize your power." He stated, hands in his pockets. I pushed myself up again, slowly, and kept eye contact with him. It was unnerving, but looking away scared me more than whatever he might see in my eyes. "That display was pathetic. I should have expected as much."
"If you hadn't been here, I would've died." I blurted, swallowing the dry patch in my throat. "Thank you."
His head snapped back, his eyes going wide. He stared at me for so a brief a second that I thought I imagined it before he turned his head to the side and gave me a dismissive vocal noise. I decided this was the permission I needed to look away, and looked at wherever I was now. It wasn't familiar.
He had started walking away from me when I turned to him again, and I panicked for the hundredth time this evening.
"Wait!" He stopped, not bothering to turn around. "I have no idea where I am. I'm sorry to ask, but could you help me one more time?"
"If you want to survive, you need to grow strong. Make it back on your own or die out here. I don't care either way." He sneered, his body crouching and vibrating. He moved so fast I couldn't see him, and I was alone again. Fuck me.
I stared at the sky for a long minute, turned around and kicked the tree behind me as hard as I possibly could, the blunt pain aggravating but nothing in the comparison to what my body had been through. I yelled, and looked down at the ground and breathed. In. Out. In. Out.
"Fuck this." I growled, limping back to my starting point by the river and heading left, the direction I assumed I was at before. I couldn't feel my hands, so that was a positive for the time being.
When I came across a trail (the first trail on this path I'd decided to take), I sighed and went to go down it. I had made it four feet exactly when a branch fell two inches in front of my face. I froze, clenching my jaw and counting to ten. I stared down at the branch in my path, touching the clean-cut of the wood where it had broken off, and turned around. I knew a sign when I saw one.
When the river finally led me to the bridge I had practiced on, I almost cried again with joy. I hurried down the trial and glanced behind me, facing the invisible presence I had felt watching me the entire walk back.
"Thank you, Hiei." I murmured quietly, smiling a little to myself and rushing back to familiar ground.