A/N: Yeah, yeah, I've done thirteen of these (or I should have): I do not own any of the Yu Yu Hakusho characters or Nara Ska. I also do not own the theme to "Star Wars" or Dr. Evil from "Austin Powers" (but you should have already figured that out. There is a flashback sequence toward the end of this. In the event that the italics do not work, let me know and I will fix it. And without much further ado…

Part 13: Realizations

"Ogre!" Koenma sat at his large chair in his office, frowning. "Ogre! Where are you?" He watched Aniya slowly regain part of her strength. He began to tap his fingers on the desk in impatience.

George rushed in. "Here Koenma sir! Was there something you wanted?"

"Obviously you idiot! I need every book that we can find on dracons."

"We have books on dracons? I thought they were just one legend sir."

"Well, find out if we have any! We need to fix it!"

"Fix what, Koenma sir?"

"Aniya's problem you big blue doufus! Bring everything you can find, to me immediately."

Yes, Koenma sir." George rushed out of the room. Koenma turned to watch the screen, 'She'll be too weak to defeat Sukeisa unless we find a way to bring her power back. I hope there'll be something in one of the books that tells us how we can get her back to her old form.'

*****

Another person was watching Aniya try to regain her former strength. "This is quite amusing. Thanks to Nara Ska's excellent work with smashing the stone, there is no chance of her coming back. The prophecy cannot be fulfilled, so it is extremely interesting to see her trying to regain her powers."

"Why can't she come back?" Calisandra was standing behind Lord Doukai, peering at the screen.

Suddenly, Lord Doukai whipped around and slapped Calisandra as hard as he could in the face. The blonde girl stumbled back, clutching her cheek, which was growing increasingly redder from the slap. Whimpering, she cowered as she saw Lord Doukai stand up and loom over her.

"What did I say to you about talking?"

Calisandra shut her eyes tight. "You said that I wasn't to talk because of what an idiot I was at the ball the other night."

"Precisely. And what makes you think that you have been released from this predicament?"

"Nothing sir."

"Good." He turned back to his chair and continued to watch as Aniya struggled to get into physical shape with Hiei make snide comments in the background. "There's no way that we could fail. She doesn't have the stone, so she can't get her power back from dragon man." Suddenly he tilted his head, "Nara Ska! Go pay a little visit to our friend. I want her to have a reminder that we are always an option—that she doesn't necessarily have to lose her life."

The red-eyed demoness walked out of the room, passing the gagged and bound form of Tarukon. 'I have to get to Aniya! She won't be able to figure out the counter curse without me! Why didn't I tell her about the truth before? Then she would have known what to do!'

*****

"Hn. You're still weak. Weaker that Kuwabara."

Aniya looked up at Hiei. "You really think so? 'Cause last time I checked, I wouldn't lose a fight if I had a light saber."

Hiei blinked, "What are you talking about?"

She rolled her eyes. "Come on, didn't you ever see Star Wars?" She started to sing the theme song, "Dumdumdum duh, DAH! Duhduhduh DAH dah, duhduhduh DAH dah, dududaduhhhhh…."

"Why would I waste my time thinking about stupid ningen things like battles fought by stars?"

Aniya sighed, "You really didn't have a child hood, did you?"

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that you're a weak, idiotic human. And if you can't get stronger soon, we'll lose the battle."

"Will you stop calling me weak and stupid? I know I'm weaker in this human form, but that doesn't mean that you can call me stupid."

"It most certainly does." Hiei smirked, seeing Aniya fume in rage. Without any warning, she lashed out, nearly smacking his face. He dodged the blow, but not nearly as well as he would have liked.

"See? I can pull my weight around. A few seconds later and you would have been like Miruko after a bashing from Sango."

Hiei's face took on an expression of disgust. "I don't see the point in not calling you an idiotic human. You act more like one than either the baka or the spirit detective."

Aniya shook her head, "Shut up. I'm not like that."

"Yes you are. You're still weak. I'd be amazed if Kuwabara lost a fight to you right now."

Aniya exploded, "Did you hear me before? Just because I'm weaker than normal doesn't mean that you can say that I am."

"It most certainly— "

"Zip!"

"What was— "

"Zip it!"

Hiei was getting annoyed, "What are you do—"

"Shut it!"

Now he was angry. "What is the point in—"

"Zip!" Aniya smiled, calmed down from her bout of anger. "Haven't you seen Dr. Evil in Austin Powers? The part where he…." Seeing the blank look on Hiei's face she stopped, "never mind." She smiled evilly, and put her pinky to the corner of her mouth. "I think I will call him…mini me." Then her smile faded. "I think we've got company."

"I could have told you that," said Hiei, turning around.

They both looked at the red-eyed demon sitting in the tree. Aniya glared at her. "Nara Ska."

*****

Yukina woke up in bed. 'That's funny, I could have sworn that Aniya…it must have been a dream.' Then she looked at the pile of empty sheets on the floor. 'Maybe it wasn't a dream.' She quickly got of bed and hurried over to the window. Aniya was nowhere in the backyard. Yukina left her room and bumped into Kurama in the hallway.

"Yukina. You're worried about her too. Hiei's gone as well."

"Is she safe?"

Kurama shrugged, "With Hiei? I cannot tell. But I have a feeling that she'll be alright."

Yukina nodded, but didn't look entirely convinced that her new best friend was completely safe. Kurama noticed this and added, "I was going to out to check on her anyway. Will you be alright here?" Seeing the ice maiden nod, Kurama left his house, leaving some plants behind that would make sure that Yukina would be safe.

'I hope Aniya will be alright…'

*****

Nara Ska watched as Aniya glared at her from the ground. "What the fuck are you doing here, bitch?"

"You have fifteen hours, twenty three minutes and four seconds left." Nara Ska whispered before fading into the darkness.

Aniya froze. 'Great! Now Sukeisa's going to send her as a little stopwatch?! I cannot believe this!'

Hiei smirked, "Well, perhaps you might want to."

Aniya huffed and started to stamp out of the clearing when Hiei asked, "Where are you going?"

"Where does it look like I'm going? I'm going back to Kurama's house!"

Hiei glanced at some darkness between some trees, "Speaking of which."

Kurama stepped out. "I heard there was trouble."

Aniya smiled, "No, there's no trouble at all, Sukeisa's only taken away my powers,  I'm constantly being followed by people who think that I can't take care of myself in a fix and I now have a living timer until the point where I have to meet with Sukeisa!" Her expression had gone from happy to murderous faster than the speed of light. She practically blazed a trail of flames as she stomped out of the clearing.

'Right. So if the curse happened nine hours ago at 8:00, then it must be 5:00 in the morning right now.' She shook her head. 'If none of this had happened, I'd be getting my ass out of bed and going to the arena for the first fights of the day.'

Kurama watched as the girl left. "There is something about this whole situation that does not seem right."

"Don't tell me that you've gotten stupider too."

Kurama raised an eyebrow. "I was just wondering how she is going to meet Sukeisa and what they could possibly have to talk about."

Hiei leaned against the tree, "If you haven't forgotten, the portal to the past will open in less than three days. Sukeisa probably wants to have a last chance to make sure she's out of the way."

"That will be a problem if she doesn't have any powers to fight with."

"You're worrying over nothing, baka no kitsune."

"Am I Hiei? Are you so sure that everything will work out?"

"Hn."

"That's what I thought."

*****

Aniya approached the Minamino house and wondered how she was going to get in. 'It'll look just a tad suspicious if I come in the front door, on account of the fact that I was supposed to be in bed all night.' Then she saw the tree that she had tried to jump down the night before. 'There, that'll should be good practice for me.'

Within minutes, she stood inside the bedroom. Making sure that Yukina was fine, she smiled, relieved that her friend was still okay. 'And after all this time, Sukeisa hasn't even thought of targeting you yet, 'Kina.' Then she heard the call of her stomach. 'Wow, I must be hungry after all that. I hope Mrs. Minamino has some food or something.'

Walking downstairs, she met Mrs. Minamino in the kitchen. "Good morning Aniya, how are you feeling?"

"Much better, thank you."

Mrs. Minamino stared at Aniya. "What happened to your hair? I thought it was silver last night."

Aniya's eyes widened, 'That's right, I look like a human now, so I have to find something to explain this!' She put on a nervous smile, "Well, …you see…Botan…she brought me to the hair dressers, and…they…dyed my hair—that's it, they dyed my hair, just for last night. Normally, my hair looks like this."

"Oh, and you were wearing contacts as well?"

"Umm…yes? I mean yes. And I wasn't feeling too good about going to the ball in the first place. Normally I would never have gone to such a thing, but Kur—I mean Shuichi invited me and I couldn't turn him down," added Aniya, in hopes that this extra information with the hidden compliment to Kurama would put Mrs. Minamino on another subject.

"Oh, you poor thing. You must've been so nervous because you were so pale yesterday." Aniya nodded energetically. Then her stomach chose to growl again at that moment. "Are you hungry?"

"Very."

"Would you like something to eat? We have toast, bagels, a bunch of old cereals…." She began to bring things out of the cupboards and put them on the table.

Aniya suddenly spied something she'd only had once in her life. "You have Cinnamon Toast Crunch?!" She grabbed at the box and walked out the living room when she sat down on the sofa and turned on the TV. 'This is life as it should be; a working television, a functioning sofa and a box of the cereal with the taste that you can see.' She began munching away while watching some show on Cartoon Network.

"Alright, Inu Yasha!" The show had just started when the doorbell rang. Aniya tensed up, but in order to keep Mrs. Minamino out of the know, she didn't run to the door and stick a sword into whoever was there, because it would have looked just a little suspicious.

"Oh, hello Genkai. If you're wondering about Aniya, I'm very glad to report that she is much better than she was last night."

"May I speak to her? There is something of great importance that I want to tell her."

"Certainly. She's in the living room watching television. It's the second door on the left."

"Thank you."

Aniya sat still on the sofa. 'Genkai…where have I heard that name before?' Then it hit her, 'She's one of the seven people I've got to meet. Her and Koenma. Well, I supposed now's a good of a time as any to get to know her.' She stopped thinking as the door opened and a little old lady walked in. Aniya stood up, out of politeness and held out her hand, "I'm Aniya."

"I know that."

The girl jerked back, "Okay, Mrs. Old Geezer, did you wake up on the wrong side of the rocking chair this morning?"

Genkai challenged back, "That's enough back talk from you. I have something I need to tell you, which you're not going to want to hear."

"Really? Then spit it out already."

"What did I tell you? Don't interrupt."

"You haven't actually told me not to interrupt, you just said not to back talk."

"Seems like you're ears and your brain aren't connected yet."

"Excuse me? At least I don't need a hearing aid."

"If you think that's an insult, what kind of a polite society did you grow up in? The land of the pretty pink flowers?"

"Oh, what was that? You want me to hit you so hard that you see the pretty pink flowers? I think that can be arranged."

Genkai pushed her onto the sofa and turned the television off. "Enough fooling around. I've got information that will help you fight Sukeisa."

"Let's hear it then."

"Don't interrupt. Before I begin, I want to know about this time limit thing that you have."

Aniya gaped. "How do you know about the time limit? I thought I was the only one that Sukeisa told."

Raising an eyebrow, Genkai replied, "Yes, but I also know Kurama and Hiei. They're very perceptive."

She smacked herself in the forehead, 'Of course! I was thinking about it in the forest, and…damn…Hiei's a telepath isn't he? Great going, Aniya. Well, I better tell the old hag anyway.' "So what do you want to know about the time limit?"

"When it started and how long you had at the beginning."

"It started at 8:00 last night when Nara Ska broke the stone. Sukeisa said that I had twenty-four hours to tell him whether I would join him or oppose him. I assume that if I joined him, that it would end the prophecy because I would not be opposing him anymore. And if I refused to join him, I would have another forty-eight hours to find a way to defeat him."

Genkai was thinking. "So that gives you fourteen hours to train for a preliminary battle, and sixty-two hours total to train what powers you have."

Aniya was getting frustrated, "Did you just come to review my situation, old hag, or did you have something else that you wanted to say to me?"

"Shut up, I also came to tell you how much of an idiot you've been."

"Me? An idiot? Are you sure that you weren't talking to Kuwabara?"

"No I'm sure. He's an idiot, but he's not blind to the truth."

Aniya snorted, "Sure. And Hiei is going to start working as a hired clown for six-year-old birthday parties."

Genkai waved the thought away. "If you're not an idiot, why haven't you done anything to recover your powers."

"I have. I've been out there regaining my strength." Aniya protested, "And I can't get my powers back."

"So you think that you can fight Sukeisa with your bare hands?"

"If that's what it takes, sure, why the hell not?"

"Why don't you use your spirit energy?" Genkai could see Aniya about to object, "Don't give me any of that 'I have no control over my energy crap.' You've got some of the best control of spirit energy that I've seen."

Aniya gaped (again). "I think you've got me confused with somebody else. The last time that I used my spirit energy, in pure form, was when I was a little kid. I blew up a hospital."

Genkai sat down in another chair, "Yes, well that's my point. The last time you used your spirit energy fully was before you had any training with Katomi."

"Yeah, so? I've only developed my magical spirit energy—not my regular spirit energy. And I can't use that whenever, so we have to come u p with something different to beat Sukeisa with."

"Shut up. I told you not to interrupt. What if I told you that your magical energy is just regular spirit energy?"

Aniya looked at her suspiciously. "And what if I told you that you were going insane because you were talking about things as improbable and Kuwabara getting about a fifty-five on a test?"

Genkai got mad. "Well, then I'd say that you're proving my point about you being an absolute idiot."

"What did I say about the idiot thing? I'm the smart one!"

"Well, you're sure acting dumb."

"Shut up!"

"I won't. Anyway, you've got to hear it, even if I have to use a hammer to pound it into your head."

Aniya slumped back on the sofa in defeat. "Fine. So what you're saying is that my magical spirit energy is just regular spirit energy. Right….and the moon is made of cheese."

"If you had to describe you're magical spirit energy to someone who had never heard of magical spirit energy before, what would you say to tell?"

"Since when have you gone all philosophical? Is this one of those questions where if you say the wrong thing they can tell if you're a cold-blooded murderer?"

"Shut up and answer the question."

"Fine, hag." Aniya sat back and thought about how to describe it. "I'd say it's kind of like spirit energy…but if spirit energy was yellow, I'd say that magic energy is yellow-green."

Genkai nodded, "But according to what Katomi taught you, or according to what the books told you, magical energy should feel completely different. Do you know why your magical energy is different from other magical energy?"

Aniya suddenly realized something, "How do you know this much about magical energy anyway? It's just a myth in the human world, but only those actors can use it. Nobody knows about it in the human world. And why is my magical energy so different? As you so put it."

"There's a long and a short to this story. Originally, there were several types of energy, religious, spirit and magical. But magical was by far the weakest of the three. So priests and priestesses trained with religious energy, training it to fight demonic, or evil spirit energy. Demons fought with spirit erg, as well as some humans. There were only a few people who remembered magical energy. The power of make-up also comes from magical energy. Since the humans were the only ones who had any interest in it, because practically anyone could use it, but it was only a little energy. The stupid humans forgot the secrets and later attributed the "magic" to stage magic.

"It passed out of knowledge for a long time, but Katomi had a book on it."

"You knew Katomi?"

"Not really. She was a student where I first started to train, but she didn't last beyond the first week." Genkai shook her head and remembered the day that Katomi left.

A girl with long black hair sat in a forest reading a book feverishly.

"Katomi, you know that you won't find the answer there."

The girl whipped her head around to look at a smaller girl with pink her behind her. "No one asked you Genkai. You don't know what it's like to be the weak one." She smiled, "But this magical energy is the answer! With song, dance and drama, I can harness the same amount of power as even you!"

"You're a fool to think that the old powers will help you. You're too weak to even do the song magic. You could never complete the training needed to learn the magical energy."

"Quiet! I don't recall having asked for your opinion, you midget." She stood up. "With this book, I don't need to go to stupid training anymore!" She started to run away from the young Genkai.

"Idiot girl…"

"Idiot girl…" Genkai opened her eyes. "She never did get the power that she wanted."

Aniya was confused, "Then how did she fight against me? And how did she teach me how to do all those things with magical energy?"

"She had the stone, remember? It granted her the power that she wanted, but she did not have the strength to take the amount of power that it would have taken to beat you."

Aniya nodded, "That sounds alright, because I was able to overcome it. But that still doesn't explain how she could have taught me all that stuff. She didn't complete the training, so how did she teach me that stuff?"

Genkai smiled, "She taught you the basics, because that was all she wanted to teach you. Despite her actions to try and get you to stay weaker than her, you became stronger. Since you haven't had much experience or training with your spirit energy, you automatically began to incorporate your spirit energy into your magical attacks."

Suddenly, it dawned on her, "So that's why I can say that it feels kind of like spirit energy, but it's not, because it is my spirit energy." Then she came up with another problem. "Then this means that I can use my spirit energy right? Just like with my magical attacks?"

Genkai shook her head. "Since you were doing a blend of energies, you could do what attacks you would normally use for just spirit energy and just for magical energy. I'm afraid that the number of the attacks that you will be able to do with just your spirit energy will be limited. But, your attacks will be stronger because they will not be hindered by your magical energy."

Aniya stood up. "So, if I can learn to use my spirit energy, then I can fight Sukeisa, right?"

"Not exactly."

"What do you mean, not exactly?!"

"Well, since you aren't in your dracon form, you won't have the power to harness enough energy to defeat him."

Aniya shrugged. "Who cares? Now, are you coming or not?"

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to work on my ass-kicking skills." Then she walked out of the room. Genkai shook her head.

'We can only hope that someone finds a way to bring her back to her dracon form before the time is up because if not, we are all lost.'

A/N: Kind of long. The story is now 105 pages. Wow, this is the longest story I have ever written. Too bad I can't try to publish it or anything. Anyway. I am sorry for not being able to put this out earlier.