Chapter 5

Awakening of the Darkness

The intruder stepped closer to the sleeping Jin and held up a poisoned knife, and drove it down onto Jin's head, but he caught and glared at the intruder.

"So, yu wan' t' play dirty tricks now do yu?" Jin asked the intruder, grabbing his arm and throwing him down, the intruder's face was Touya himself.

Loreena stirred but didn't wake up and Jin turned back to Touya, who seemed to be out of some sort of daze.

"Where…Why am I in here?" Touya asked Jin softly, rubbing his head as he stood up.

"Yu were tryin' t' kill me Touya," Jin told him quietly but coldly, his blue eyes staring at the clueless ice ninja.

Touya wondered still what had happened, but he felt a sudden sharp pain in his neck his felt around felt two holes in his throat. "Wha' is it Touya?" Jin asked, his mouth wide when he saw the two bite marks: the edges all black and sick looking.

"How should I know Jin, one minute I was in my room asleep, the next I'm in your room with two marks on my throat? Do you think I would know?" he shot at the wind Shinobi, who gave him a sudden goofy smile.

"I guess yu would't know now would yu?" he asked, but got serious when Touya's serious face kicked in.

Both were quiet for a while, and then walked back to Touya's room to talk for a bit. Jin shut the door softly then turned to Touya who was staring at him, and then they started talking.

"I'm thinkin' those camp leaders know where we ar' Touya," Jin started, his face getting serious for once. "S' just a though' but I think they know she's 'ere." Touya thought for a minute or so, and then nodded in agreement.

"I think you're right Jin, but how could they know, they retreated back to the camp that night she fell down the hill and no soldiers have come by and asked us," the ice youkai said lowly, then turned to the door.

"We'll say nothing of this to her until we get more information, or it happens again, she might be able to tell us in her own way." Jin nodded and said goodnight, walking to his room to see Loreena still asleep, safe and sound.

'She looks s' beautiful, but I have t' focus on her tranin',' he told himself, laying back on the wooden floor and fell asleep and he snored lightly this time since he had a long case of snoring and saying stupid things at night.

For the next day, Jin and Touya helped Loreena train for her fight against Ryshio the next day. They fought against her, helped her train her power occasionally, and even taught her to use different weapons, she turned to be good with a sword and bow.

"You're improving by the hour, usually no one can do that in one day, even a demon like me couldn't do that," Touya complimented. Loreena shoved him playfully, meaning to tell him and Jin to train her till nightfall.

That night, Touya carried a very exhausted Loreena inside Jin's room and set her in the hammock, glad it was over. He gave a small good luck smile then left the room to sleep, the sound of his yawn echoing in the hall.

Jin came in a while later, taking one huge yawn, told her good luck and good night, then started snoring off to his dream land, curled up in a ball like a little boy. She watched him sleep, but shook off every emotion she felt then drifted into a cold blank dream.

(Day of the Fight! Loreena vs. Ryshio)

Morning had finally arrived, but dark gray clouds threatened a pouring rain anytime as they all got up for the fight. Jin and Loreena were the last ones to come out to back of the dojo, her eyes digging fiercely into Ryshio's.

"This should be fun, if you can handle my earthly power," Ryshio said sarcastically, cracking his knuckles to fight. Loreena smiled and stepped forward, no weapons at hand, neither was Ryshio.

"This is a fight to the death mute, no one is allowed to help you or back you up when you are injured," Gamma started, but was knocked to the ground after Jin punched him in the gut.

"Shut yu're mouth!" Jin shouted to the demon on the ground, and then turned to Loreena.

"Hope she makes this Jin, no one can survive Ryshio for more than twenty minutes without them being killed," Touya said quietly, crossing his arms over his chest and stared at the two fighters.

"FIGHT!" Touya shouted, and the fight had begun!

First, Ryshio charged at Loreena with his fists ready but she just stood there then stepped aside from his punches. He started getting pissed off and started using punches and kicks, but she kept avoiding them until she ran behind him and kicked him in the back, making him smack his face against a rock, but he just stood up and laughed.

"You're more impressive then I thought, but let's see how you can handle the wrath of the earth!" he wondered and summoned his clay armor onto his body, then fired clay spikes at her.

But she surprised him with the black metal claws that burst from her fingers, and she sliced through each one he fired as she stepped closer, feeling the power of her stone kick in.

"You know what your problem is?" she asked him, her body exploding with black energy. "You like to hear yourself talk too much, you'll have to do more than that!" she yelled, her eyes glowing red that created a thick fog.

Ryshio stopped firing his spikes and waited patiently, then went into the dirt when she snuck up from behind and stabbed him in the legs with her black metal claws. She smiled to herself, but was surprised that got up and fired a rock spike at her, but her form was fake!

'Crap, she can create copies of herself while this fog is work,' he thought, firing spikes everywhere. 'Come on…Where are you?'

Then he smiled coldly as the fog cleared and he saw her in the trees, his rock spikes through her entire body.

But what amazed him was that she pulled everyone out with ease and she ran towards him at amazing speed and punched him square in the mouth.

His back was slammed against a tree, but he just wiped his mouth and glared at her as he increased the amount of clay armor on his body, his armor spiked with rocks and sharp roots.

But she laughed at him, her eyes now glowing stone gray…and his body was frozen in place. 'How is this possible?' Ryshio asked himself, screaming in pain as she ran all around him, continuing to stab his body with her black metal claws, his armor breaking as if it were glass.

Her claws ripped into his body, leaving his shirt half torn, then she gathered her black energy together again, the rain finally coming down like waterfalls.

"DARK ECLIPSE!" she yelled in a deep sinister voice and the entire sky became black, like when a lunar or sun eclipse happened but longer.

The Shinobi clan couldn't see a thing for a while, and then they all saw Loreena in the sky and glowing darkly.

Her energy surrounded her as she charged downwards towards the still frozen Ryshio, her screech like a bat's.

But her attack was countered when Ryshio was suddenly unfrozen and a huge sandstorm was fired at the Night Maiden. She screamed as rock and clay spikes plunged into her body, her energy completely disappearing.

"EARTH NIGHTMARE TWIST!" his voice echoed across the area, his earth energy was fired in razor earth swords and Loreena fell fast down into a ditch of spikes he had created earlier during the eclipse.

Her entire body was pierced by the sharp spikes, her blood slowly filling the ditch though her body was slightly twitching in some places and broken up. Ryshio's twister faded away and he looked down into the ditch and laughed for his victory, his short black hair plastered to his face of the waterfall like rain.

"I knew she wasn't good enough to beat me, looks I kind of underestimated her too much," he said to himself, not caring who heard. "She was just a worthless runaway that couldn't stand how she lived and decided to see if she was hardcore enough. She has no family, no friends...NO ONE COULD CARE LESS ABOUT A STUPID NIGHT MAIDEN WHO WAS LOWER THAN A WEAK SLAVE!"

Jin glared at the leader and snarled at his disgusting words, his wind energy swirling around him fast and fierce. "Calm down Jin, we can't do anything to help her now…she's dead," Touya told him slowly in a soft voice, watching Ryshio look into the bloody death ditch.

Jin calmed down but sighed sadly and stared down at the soaking ground, the cold not bothering him at all, he felt nothing now.

"I've heard the Night Maidens were the dominant species of Spirit World centuries ago, but they soon became endangered because they had a soft spot for love," Ryshio started talking again.

"How can a race so stupid be so vulnerable and fight when they needed to? They all deserve to die, every one of them. They give us demons bad names for their mistakes! Just seeing this stupid, worthless, weak demon's blood spill entertains me, there's nothing killing a hotheaded stupid slave like her!"

He turned to walk away, but a sick sound made him turn around and face the ditch to see long black lines of energy. He heard more sick sounds then saw her bloody head rise to the surface, and it was healing fast and her glare made him stand back.

"Shut up…Shut up…SHUT UP YOU WEALKING!" she yelled at him, her body rising on wavy black wings.

"You think I'm worthless, weak and stupid…and a slave!" she asked him, her power off the scale now as she levitated out of the ditch, her smile cold and evil. She charged at him full force with full energy and started giving him the extreme beating of his life.

She kicked and punched his stomach to make him throw up blood, used her extended claws to slice through his body and rip him apart…then used her ultimate attack to finish him off. "You want to know what class my race is?" she asked him softly, her energy rising extremely off the scale.

"We're the highest of S class!" She folded her wings into her back, and then stood still with her arms stretched out at her sides. "NIGHT REAPER!"

What happened her attack made Jin, Touya and the still down on the ground Gamma shake with fear as her entire body disappeared under her black spirit energy, then a bleeding skeleton corpses with rotting bloody fresh covering most of the body appeared out of her energy.

Its eyes were hanging at odd angles out of the sockets, a thin black robe appearing around the demon. They could hear laughter behind the bloody reaper, but they couldn't tell who it was.

The reaper's screech made Ryshio's bones shake with fear, his blood running cold and his heart stopped beating.

"NNNNOOOO!" he yelled, then a sick gurgling sound came from his open mouth as the reaper's hands went inside his body and started ripping the inside of his body apart, the reaper's head started devouring Ryshio's head slowly.

Blood covered the entire back of the dojo, most of the trees splashed with the earth Shinobi's blood, then the reaper disappeared and Loreena became visible again but she seemed exhausted.

Jin ran past Ryshio's broken body to check on Loreena while Touya dealt with Gamma.

"Ar' yu alroight Loreena?" Jin asked, shaking her gently. She stirred and screamed when she saw Ryshio's decapitated and broken body, burying her face in Jin's shoulder crying in fear.

'Huh, why is she so scared when she won the fight?' Jin asked his confused mind, but held Loreena close to soothe her.

Touya nearly gagged when he saw what the strange demon had done to Ryshio, but walked past to Jin who was holding Loreena.

"What the hell was that, I've never been so afraid in my whole life," Touya wanted to know but Jin changed the subject when they decided to throw Ryshio's body into the ditch and bury him.

Night had come and the rain was coming hard still, but they had buried Ryshio's and Gamma's dead bodies.

(Touya killed him, had to surprise all of you!)

After that, they had asked Loreena questions referring to her extreme energy and the strange demon, but they realized that she was mute again and could no longer talk.

But they could tell she was confused and worried of what she did, so they assured her she could stay with them as long as she wanted and that they'd help her find a way to figure out how to kill the four slave leaders.

That night while she was asleep, Touya and Jin snuck out into the hallway to talk about the fight.

"I guess it is possible she's an S class demon, since I could feel her energy grow off the scale," Touya whispered.

"But still I don't understand how the weird demon was summoned." Jin nodded and sat down against the wall, thinking the same thing, but he gave up after a while, a hard knock at the front dojo door surprising them.

They opened a door to see a Netherworld demon guard standing with a piece of paper in his hand.

"Read this, then report to the Black Fortress in four days…no exceptions," the guard told them, shoving the paper in their faces then walked off into the roaring rain.

The two examined the paper that said:

You are contestants and guests to

the Dark Massacre Tournament!

Come with seven fighting members per team and try to beat the most ruthless demons ever seen. The final team will face the four leaders of the

Black Fortress leaders: DarkEyes, Pyroblood, Jacknife and Rathan.

Everyone who receives this paper are officially in the tournament, report to the fortress when your fighting team is ready. Anyone who rejects this offer will slaughtered by the four leaders themselves in front of the audience with every torture possible. Good luck to all fighters!

Jin and Touya were speechless at the words written on paper, surprised the Dark Tournament was starting again after the stadium fell at Hanging Neck Island.

"Six fighters must report to the fortress, this is stupid!" Touya hissed quietly, slamming the paper on the table in the middle of the main room on the ground floor.

"I don' get it either Touya," Jin agreed, looking at the paper over and over again. "Where ar' we goin' t' get three more fighters?"

Both were silent for a moment, then thought of only four people who were their last allies: Yusuke, Kurama, Hiei, and Kuwabara.

"Jin, it's going to be a long day tomorrow for us," Touya told his friend softly as they walked back up to hall where the bedrooms where.

"Righ' Touya, I kno' I kno'," the wind demon responded, yawning as he said good night then went back into his room, the wood floor calling his name.

TO BE CONTINUED…