I'm back, and it's only been a week (I think). The miracle in this is that I hadn't even started this chapter until after I posted the last one. Oh, and I have overcome my writer's block. I like this chapter. So, you know who I own. Thanks for your reviews. Now, go and be happy as you read this rather entertaining chapter, which shows the difference between the old team and the new one.

I would like to thank Amethystnight88, animegrlsteph, and Kurama no Miko2003 for their reviews!

On a completely different note, you should check out my story 'Lonesome Kisses.' It's a poem and it's really depressing, so if you want to read that you should probably read it and then this chapter. Thanks.

Kasumi jumped up, looking around herself. Then she heard Yusuke chuckling. "Nice reaction time," he told her. She glanced down and saw a small pebble before rubbing the place on her cheek had hit her. She unthinkingly stuck her tongue out at him, which only made him laugh harder. In response she flew at him, punched him repeatedly, but he didn't even flinch. She failed to even make him fall out of his seat. Noticing that, he laughed harder. And when she stopped punching him he continued laughing, the end result being that he fell out of his seat on his own. Gasping for breath he said, "This is exactly what happened when I met my demon father. I couldn't knock him out of his chair either." Then he collapsed into another fit of laughter.

"Stop laughing!" Kasumi finally shouted.

He looked up at her with what she could only identify as respect. "Good. That shouting and you attacking me show me you're not afraid to go after what you want. Very nice. Your compliance yesterday was annoying. And just so you know, if you hadn't attacked me, I would've refused to teach you. Fearing your own power and fearing harming someone are terrible… second only to simply being afraid. And as far as I'm concerned, morals don't matter. You'll use your power however you see fit. Which is good, since I'm exactly the same way. And the few morals you have you're not willing to sacrifice for anything insignificant. Good."

Kasumi stared at him dumbfounded for a few moments before looking around. Seeing only Takeshi still asleep, she asked, "Where are the others?"

"Kiyoshi and Kurama are out training the that godforsaken jungle. Hiei and Akiko are probably wreaking havoc on the closest village."

"What?!"

"Kurama gets up way too early. Hiei too. So Kurama woke Kiyoshi and Akiko up. Then he made a path to the outside world and essentially kicked them both out so they could figure out their problems."

"But what did you mean by 'wreaking havoc?'"

"Oh, that. Nothing more than when Hiei gets angry things tend to be… destroyed. The glare she was giving him said she is probably the same way. And it's obvious they don't get along." His voice was bored, suggesting he was far too used to Hiei not getting along with people for this conversation to be interesting.

"You said you'd train me. When and where?" Kasumi asked.

"We need to find Kurama or at least get his attention so he can let us out of here. This place does weird things to aura."

"What do you mean, weird?"

"Fire a shot, as powerful as possible, at that wall." Yusuke responded.

"Won't Kurama get mad?" Kasumi asked nervously.

"Only if it's destroyed. But don't worry, if it is, I'll take him." Yusuke grinned.

Kasumi tentatively powered up her finger. It didn't feel like full power though. Maybe she was just tired. But when she released it, it didn't turn the wall to dust. Instead, it was diffused and absorbed as if it had never existed. She stared at the wall, confounded. "What in the world…?"

Yusuke just laughed. "That's what I thought too. That's why Kurama chose this place; it naturally absorbs all aura. But because of that, we can't reach full aura capacity. When we got here Kurama had me fire an aura blast at it to test its limits; nothing." Yusuke got up and pointed to a small black mark on the wall, "That is all the damage this place suffered from Hiei's black dragon. Aura can run rampant in here but the moment it hits the floor, the ceiling, or a wall it is dissipated. No aura emanates from here. Particularly convenient if you're on the run from the prince of the underworld…" The last part seemed to be an afterthought, tacked on in a way that seemed too casual when discussing Yusuke's fugitive status.

Kasumi just laughed nervously, "Heh…"

"Nice. But stop holding back." Kurama instructed.

"I'm not." Kiyoshi grunted as the plants around him grew to enormous proportions in a futile attempt to stop Kurama's attacks. His attempts were in vain and it only took a few moment for him to be completely bound, exactly as Akiko had been the night before.

"Yes, you are." Kurama contradicted, "Both in this forest and in Mizuko's palace you had far more control and power. You may have been angry, but not even Yusuke's power ratchets up that much when he gets mad. Whether you are conscious of it or not, you are not releasing your full aura potential."

"I'm trying as hard as I can." Kiyoshi muttered.

"Perhaps that is the problem. Perhaps you are trying too hard. When you somehow overwhelmed my plants, when you created that beautiful hybrid, were you trying or acting on instinct?" When Kiyoshi didn't respond, Kurama continued, "Instinct. No conscious decision can prepare you for battle, where you must move based on what you think, instinctively know, will happen." Seeing Kiyoshi still trying to catch his breath, Kurama added, "Let's take a break. You can tell me about the lovely plant on your arm."

They sat down and Kiyoshi began, "I didn't really think about what I was doing. I had two plants available to me. The one that would be useful was hard to control, a grass Akiko referred to as 'violet poison.' The other was a vine; it just felt… logical."

"And it became embedded in a wound. Why didn't you remove it?"

Kiyoshi showed Kurama his forearm. There was no scar. "It placed itself there; then it healed me. I don't wish to kill it. I don't know why. Akiko told me a verse to remember it, but all it says is that it will kill you if given the chance."

Kurama nodded his understanding. "Very few people know the rest of that verse. Growing anywhere and of a violent shade, Do not touch lest in death you would be repaid, But if one would seek the truth they would come to know, That properly prepared it would instead health bestow."

Kiyoshi looked up. "That would explain it."

"I'd imagine so. Although that preparation is difficult; I'll teach you sometime. Not that you need it. A healing plant embedded in your skin… the likes of that I've never seen. I just can't believe I didn't think of it." Kurama sighed. "Talk about a huge advantage in battle."

Kiyoshi nodded, not quite sure if there was an appropriate response to that. Kurama continued, almost talking to himself, "And you probably control it as well or better than I control any of mine… Indeed, I should start experimenting." Suddenly his eyes snapped to Kiyoshi. "Then again, maybe I shouldn't. Heaven knows how well my last experiment is going."

Kiyoshi looked at him quizzically, unaware that he was the experiment Kurama spoke of.

Yusuke and Kasumi stood on the edge of the forest. "Couldn't we just fire a shot at it?" Kasumi asked, only half-joking.

Yusuke chuckled. "Now that would piss Kurama off. And I don't particularly want to make him mad. I may be able to summon more aura than him, but that isn't much use when he is so much more intelligent. And when he's truly angry, he gets vicious. I really don't want to deal with that." Suddenly his voice got much louder, "Hey, Kurama!"

Then there was a slight thud behind them and Kasumi spun around. Yusuke didn't, completely aware that Kiyoshi and Kurama had climbed through the branches above their heads. "You called?" Kurama asked.

"First, don't act like I can tell you what to do because that has never been the case and you pretending like it is is annoying. Second, let us out so we can train."

"No."

"Why not?"

"You just said you couldn't tell me what to do."

"Kurama…" Yusuke groaned, caught once again by one of Kurama's technicalities. "Then I'll have no choice." He then leveled his finger at the forest in front of him.

"You wouldn't." Kurama chuckled and slowly a path cleared to the outside world. Then Yusuke said, "Thanks."

A while later they stepped into the bright sunlight. "Fire up your reigun." Kasumi did as directed and was happy to find her aura was no longer hindered by the strange cavern. "Now fire it at me."

"What?" Kasumi didn't know what to say. Fire a potentially deadly shot at her teacher? "It could kill—"

Yusuke cut her off. "You're thinking in human terms in regard to strength. I fired a shot at my father after my transformation and all it did was knock him out of his seat. Now fire your most powerful shot at me. Do not hold back." He looked serious, a rarity. So Kasumi pulled the trigger and closed her eyes. When she heard the collision she opened them again. He still stood before her, no different than before.

"Impossible." She muttered.

"My aura too vastly exceeds yours for that to cause any harm. Although I haven't felt a punch like that since I told Keiko I had to leave because of Kuwabara's death…" Kasumi saw his eyes soften and saw a different side of Yusuke. The side he rarely allowed out, that allowed him to show the pain he still felt at the deaths of his friend and only love. Suddenly the nostalgia wore off and he said, "This is why you have a long way to go before your body could undergo the transformation." Now he fired up his aura and the true force of it knocked her a few steps backward. She could see that, in the cave, his aura had been restrained by himself as well as the room itself. It blew her mind. "I have four shots of this power each day," he explained, "Although each of those can be divided up into sufficiently forceful aura bursts of lesser power to make it go farther." He fired the shot and watched it until long after it was visible to Kasumi.

Hiei was bored. And angry. This demon didn't know her place. But she was about to learn. But before he could summon flames of any kind, she spoke. And what she said was probably the only thing that could've made Hiei stop in his tracks as he did then.

"I know about the strange circumstances of your birth. I also know they are even stranger than they appear, stranger than you would have people believe."

He stopped, raising his eyebrows. "Make your point."

"Instead of taking on the characteristics of only your father, you were somehow endowed with your mother's traits as well. And I think Yukina actually had a father."

"Why do you think that?"

"There is sufficient evidence to suggest that I have at least a small amount of fire in me. But I have no way to control it."

"Why should I care?" Hiei responded, ignoring the fact that this girl was the first to ever guess that, while he could control fire beyond all imagination, he could also control its opposite to an extent. Fire and ice… He had never devoted himself to improving his abilities with ice. Fire was more intimidating. Compared to fire… well, ice just seemed a bit tame.

"Because your sister is my grandmother. Because that makes you my great-uncle. Because one of these days I'm going to get angry and hurt myself." She paused. "God forbid my grandmother Yukina be with me when that happens."

Hiei's face lost any expression it had previously held. This girl knew just which buttons to push. "You would not dare harm my sister."

Akiko looked at him in silence for a moment then said, "Not on purpose."

Hiei's eyes widened slightly in understanding. She couldn't control the fire, so what happened with the fire when she got angry was not entirely up to her. And that made him angry. Why did she come to him? He wanted nothing to do with teaching anyone anything. And he wanted even less to be caught up in something involving Koenma and his old life. He remained convinced that his leaving Yukina and all that behind him was what was best for her. "Watch and learn." He said.

So quickly her eyes could barely follow, much less have time to comprehend and memorize the moves he then demonstrated. Not that she would have been capable of imitating them anyway, as they were far beyond the basics. Hiei, however, flowed from one move to the next as if they were nothing, second nature almost, finally ending with a blazing sword integrated with aura just far enough from Akiko's throat that it didn't burn her skin but still singed her hair. "Your turn."

Akiko glared, understanding the game Hiei was playing. He was forcing her to admit something she would never admit to under any other circumstances. "I can't."

Hiei smirked.

Then he tackled Akiko. They hit the ground hard, only a fraction of a second before an aura blast tore over their heads. Hiei was on his feet almost immediately, fuming. "That idiot," he muttered.

Akiko was also mad. Mad that he refused to teach her. Mad that he had made fun of her. Mad he had knocked her to the ground and not apologized, never mind the fact that he had probably just saved her life. And suddenly sparks flew. Hiei simply watched as he was hit by fistful after fistful of fire. His shirt burned away but he didn't blink as his fire absorbed hers.

Suddenly, something nicked his arm. Cold, freezing, deadly. He had been hit by something other than fire. Dripping blood, shimmering heat waves formed around Hiei as the fire in him created a shield of our heated to several thousand degrees. The fire passed through but was unable to harm him. The ice, over which he had only a limited control, melted.

After a while, Akiko stopped, seeing her attempts to kill Hiei were fruitless. "Nice. Good integration of opposing elements; I like it. And it's been years since someone other than Kurama ore Yusuke wounded me in something other than close combat." He held up his arm, showing the slight cut. "As for control, you controlled it well, you just can't seem to control when you release it. We'll have to work on that."

Akiko hardly registered that she had just been on the receiving end of an incredibly rare phenomenon—three times in a row. Hiei had given her a compliment. Three times. She, however, was too busy with the fact he had agreed to train her. Little did she know, the only reason for that was that Hiei had suddenly seen the advantage of having ice in his fighting. Great surprise technique. And he felt watching her was the best way to improve his own ice and integrate it into his fighting.

For no apparent reason, Takeshi woke up. Looking around himself and seeing no one, he called out, "Where'd everybody go?"