Pages: 12

Words: 5,081

Chapter Seven: Training

Two days had flown by in the blink of an eye. Kagome stood looking at the giant gates with a green backpack that carried things she wanted to bring. She could see Kaede looking at her from the corner of her eye patiently waiting until she was ready to leave. It was currently four A.M as the two stood by the gates. She hadn't slept; she had waited until Sango and Miroku had fallen asleep before slipping quietly slipping out of bed and turning off their alarms, setting them to wake them up for school.

Then she left them the note she had written when they weren't looking, on her bed. She grabbed her backpack and Kirara, then went to Naruto's apartment using the key he had given her to get inside and made sure his alarm was set for school and left him a note as well. She had gone to visit Sasuke, who was still recovering in the hospital. Sasuke didn't seem like himself at all…but she had woken him up around three A.M.

"So you're leaving Konoha so that you can live with your Obaa-chan?" Sasuke's quite voice asked her after Kagome had finished telling him what had happened.

"Un, I won't be at the academy anymore either. Kaede Obaa-chan wants to teach me how to use my reiki whatever that is," Kagome replied swinging her legs back and forth as she sat in a visitor's chair. "But don't worry Sasuke, she promised me after one month, that I can come visit whenever I like and I promise that I'll come visit you."

"Sou desu ka. [is that so.]" Sasuke said tilting his head discreetly trying to catch a glimpse of Kagome's neck, which showed no signs of any trace of there being a bruise.

"I'll break into your house if I have to. Remember your Kaa-san gave me a key." Kagome said jokingly trying to get some sort of emotion out of Sasuke. When she had opened the sliding door he had been sitting up in bed staring out the window with a sullen look on his face.

"Hn." Sasuke grunted tightening his grip on the bed sheets in two clenched fists. His 'Kaa-san' her beaten body flashed in front of his eyes. She was looking up at the ceiling with blood coming out of her mouth; his Chichi-ue's body was thrown on top of her. Then how he ran and jumped over Kagome's body without even trying to see if she was still alive.

"Sumimasen [Excuse me] visiting times are now over, I'll give you five more minutes to finish up your conversation." The nurse said popping her head into the room closing the rattling door behind her. She pitied the child she had to keep an eye on he didn't have a family anymore.

"Okay, we'll you heard her, I've got to go now Sasuke. I'll see you in a month from now," Kagome threw her arms around Sasuke. She noticed he brought his arms up to return the hug but immediately dropped them back to his sides. Kagome just didn't understand why he had done that, she told herself that it was because his arms might have hurt. "I don't really want to go live far away Sasuke I want to be here for you………but I already said I was going to…. While I'm away you're going to get a lot stronger aren't you Sasuke?" 'When I found out my family had died I was the same way…'

"H-hai." Sasuke replied feeling somewhat shocked, how did-? She continued talking to him while she hugged him.

"Well then I promise you Sasuke that I'm also going to get stronger so I can protect the things that I love, just you wait and see!" Kagome said with a smile releasing him from the hug and jumping off the chair making her way to the door she then turned around and said, "Good luck."

"You too." Sasuke said giving her a small smile watching her leave as while his bangs hung over his eyes.

"And Sasuke if you ever need someone to talk to while I'm gone you can always talk to Sango, Miroku or even Kirara if you like." With that said Kagome slid the rattling door shut behind her before running to the gates to meet up with Kaede.

"I'm ready to go Obaa-chan. After all I'll be back here in no time." Kagome said giving the quiet village a look over before walking out of the gates.

"Kirara if ye may," Kaede nodded towards the unique two tailed neko who transformed and waited patiently as the two humans got onto her back before taking off into the forest being told were to go by Kaede by light taps on her furry shoulders. "This should be far enough away from the village so no prying eyes can see."

Flames surrounded Kirara's feet as she took off flying in the sky. They stopped for a couple of breaks allowing Kirara to rest, but they arrived at the Kaede's hut five hours after they had departed from Konoha. This totally beat Kaede's two months and a half it had taken the elderly woman to get to the village. The neko transformed back into her smaller form going off to explore her new surroundings, maybe kill a couple of mice or rabbits if she got bored.

"Kagome this is ye first lesson in meditation," Kaede said not wanting to waste any time. She had to start training Kagome from scratch it was as if the girl knew nothing at all. "Close ye eyes and clear ye mind from distractions I want ye to focus on what surrounds and expand ye senses see if ye can find where Kirara is by using this method, that is ye first exercise. I want ye to stay out here and keep trying to mediate until I come back for ye."

"Wakatta! [Got it!]" Kagome said folding her legs beneath her body, closing her eyes clearing her mind from all distractions.

When Kaede went outside to grab some herbs from her garden for the stew she was making she looked over to the spot where she had left Kagome to practice mediating. The girl's head was down and hung over her body in a relaxed manner but it wasn't until Kagome let out a light snore did that alert Kaede that the girl had been sleeping the entire time! Grabbing a log that's purpose, other than today, was to burn as fire wood, the log soon found itself air born as it was hurled in the direction of the sleeping girl.

"Obaa-chan!" Kagome whined opening her eyes wiping the drool that had come out from her mouth holding onto her throbbing forehead in pain. "What was that for?!"

"Ye must meditate! Tap into ye reiki and focus on finding Kirara. Until then, ye will get nothing to eat." Kaede said making her way back to her hut leaning heavily on the bow to walk. If this was the way Kagome needed to be taught, then so be it.

"Mou…" Kagome said her stomach already rumbling at the thought of food, she was already hungry. "This is hard." She complained to Kaede who was at the entrance of her hut now.

"Of course at times it will be even harder than this. I never said anything would be easy child! Anything worth in life you have to work hard for!" Kaede snapped scolding Kagome as the pain in her body was really becoming unbearable today. She moved faster, even though it made the pain worst. Once in the safety of the hut with the door closed Kaede fell to the ground. Her skin on the younger side of her face changed color and texture, claws grew on her hand and her ear came to a point. She used that claw to tear into the wooden floors pulling up the panels, somehow she was able to force down her cries of agony.

Kagome pouted crossing her legs, she stuck her tongue out and shot glares at the hut her Obaa-chan had retreated into leaving her alone to try and meditate. She changed her facial expression immediately once she remembered that she had willingly gone with Kaede who had offered to train her. Remembering the promises she had made to all her friends she closed her eyes, she was determined more than ever now, she never broke any of her promises and she wasn't about to start.

Everyone she had met had their own special feel to them. Sango's was cool like running your finger the edge of a blade. Miroku's was smooth yet bumpy like the prayer beads he wore around his hand. Sasuke's felt hot and wispy. Naruto's was strange it felt orange and soft. Her face scrunched up, how could you feel the color orange? It didn't matter to her that's what his 'special feel' felt like. Kaede's was-

"Chotto matte! [Wait a minute!]" She said opening her eyes and whacking herself on the same spot on forehead that Kaede had thrown a log at. She winced she was supposed to be finding Kirara not finding everyone else. With a huff she shut her eyes once more Kirara's special feel felt, sharp, but the stronger feeling Kagome felt when she thought about Kirara was as if you were running your hand down her smooth giant fang and pleasant warmth. Biting her lip she kept that in mind when she searched for the exact same feeling. Ignoring the same sharp feeling when she 'searched' through Kaede's hut she needed to continue her search for Kirara who was located ten miles away in a forest and near some water.

"Sugoi [Cool] I did it!" But how had she known that Kirara was near water? That was just weird. It was cool though she wondered if Sango, Miroku, Naruto or Sasuke would do this. Then feeling mischievous she wondered if she could pin point where they were at the moment. A smile played on her lips when she found them. Sango, Miroku and Naruto were at close together probably at the academy and she found Sasuke's feeling rather far away from the others, so she concluded that he was still in the hospital.

Kaede let out a groan grabbing onto anything she could use to help her stand up, she finally had managed to fight back the demon blood from surfacing it truly was a horrible fate. She often referred to the pain in her body as what it would feel like if a person were the actual Shikon no Tama. With a demon and priestess souls in a constant battle to survive, only when it came to Kaede's old body, it was apparent that the demon side was slowly winning. A light feathery sensation passed over her body her dry lips twisted upwards in a smile. If Kaede didn't know what it was she wouldn't have noticed, but she knew that Kagome had finally figured out how to use her reiki to sense auras.

"Obaa-chan I did it I found Kirara, she's over in that direction and near water. I'm ready to eat now! It smells really good." Kagome said walking inside the hut looking at a giant pot cooking over an open fire in a pit.

"So how did ye find her? The food is not yet ready so ye will have to wait."

"Wakaranai [I don't know] Kirara has a special feeling and I found it." Kagome shrugged her shoulders watching Keade dumping in a bunch of vegetables into the boiling pot.

"This 'special feeling' as ye called it, is actually called an aura. That is what ye sensed and what ye used to know exactly where Kirara was. This is skill is very essential and helpful as a Miko. Ye can use this to locate people ye want to find," The vegetables were giving a stir with a wooden ladle. "While ye wait ye can find out where Sango and Miroku are by locating their auras."

"That's no fun, I've already done it, and it was easy. They're both at the academy." She stated placing her hands behind her head walking around the hut looking around.

The hut was messy. There were papers, scrolls and books over every surface. There was a small wooden table with deep grooves carved away into in them the chairs and the floor looked the exact same. Actually the floor was worse. Kaede's bed wasn't in the best condition either it looked like an animal had attacked it, that just might have happened to because it was directly under a window that had a shredded curtain that blocked out any light from getting in. The room dark, the only source of light was from the fire pit in the middle of the Kaede's house. Shelves covered all of the walls especially above the sink. Over there the shelves were crowded with hundreds of labeled jars filled with various dried plants and herbs some of which had been ground into a powder and there were also dried and pickling vegetables in some jars.

"Then ye can pull out the weeds from my garden. Ye must go around back- not yet, come back here Kagome and hand me four sheets of paper from that pile, that pot of ink that is on top of my kettle and that brush on the ground," Once the tip of the brush had been dipped into the ink it flew over the papers with long elegant brush strokes. "Roll up ye pant legs- what are those?"

"They were a present from Gai-sensei! They made it so it was harder for me to walk." Kagome said proudly not only that but they did make her legs awfully itchy sometimes.

"Ah Naruhodo [I see], ye must take them off, now hand them to me. Hmmmmm….. Naruhodo, hand me two more sheets of paper." Kaede crumpled the two she held in her hand dropping them into her garbage. Then took the two fresh sheets of papers and dipped her brush back into the ink pot writing different characters on the paper letting them dry before slowly kneeling down in front of Kagome's legs.

Kagome let out a sigh it felt good to take the things that Gai had given to her, off. She didn't know that her Obaa-chan was so demanding. And what was the old woman doing now? She was on the floor in front of her bare legs wrapping a piece of glowing paper around each her ankles. It disappeared into her skin leaving her with a small thickly lined black circle the size of a bottle cap on both sides of her ankles. Inside of the circle was something that looked like a forty five. "What are you doing to me?"

"I'll explain in due time, ye must hold out ye arms now." Kaede said leaning heavily on her counter top relying on it to help her stand up again.

Kagome did as she was told and more and glowing paper was wrapped around each of her forearms disappearing into her flesh. Her arms suddenly dropped to her sides, it was harder for her to lift them and there was the same black circle with a small twenty on the inside. Her legs were another story, it was as if someone had attached fifteen bricks to each one of her legs and was forcing her to walk. "Mou….Obaa-chan what is this?"

"Part of ye training now go pull out every single last one of those blasted weeds from my garden." Another bucket of vegetables were dumped into the simmering pot.

"Slave driver this isn't even the first day either," Kagome mumbled so quietly under her breath as she walked out the hut before turning around and saying, "Fine, but you better be making tons of extra food because I'm going to eat it all!"

Surely enough Kagome was true to her word, she had ended up finishing off the entire pot of soup even when it had been served with a giant bowl of rice. Kaede watched with a wide eye as Kagome managed to scarf down everything, suddenly the old priestess no longer felt hungry anymore and placed the half finished bowl on the ground with a grunt. This girl was acting like- InuYasha when it came to his ramen noodles, only worse if that was even possible. She wiped off the soup splatters mixed with saliva that had landed on her face. The splatters had gotten there when Kagome had started 'eating' which was more like swallowing all the food without even chewing. Of course Kaede knew the real reason why Kagome needed to eat as much as she did, but the girl could still be tasteful going about regaining her energy back.

"Are you going to finish that Obaa-chan?" A finger pointed towards the half full bowl of soup.

"Ye are still-? Never mind ye can have it," The elderly woman didn't bother to finish asking her question it was no use. The bowl was taken from her hand and disappeared in one gulp. "So have ye finished pulling out all of those weeds?"

"Iie I'm barely half way done pulling them out of your garden and my arms already hurt," Kagome groaned when she was told that she had to finish weeding the entire garden before she would get any dinner. When Kagome had heard the word 'garden' she had thought of a small patch of dirt with a couple of weeds in it, but no. What she got was an acre of 'garden' which was purely filled entirely of prickly weeds. "There is already a huge pile of weeds in the bin behind your house. I don't even know where to put them anymore!"

"..Training," A tick mark thumped on Kaede's forehead from anger as she yelled. "How many times are ye going to complain about something I tell ye to do?" The wooden ladle was held in a threateningly manner ready to whack the young child on the head.

"I just don't understand how this pertains to 'reiki' training." Kagome responded it was just that all she saw that she was doing was just pulling out weeds for an old woman and that hardly seemed like training to her.

"It takes patience, accuracy, muscle and concentration to pull out the weeds from the earth does it not?" Kaede asked using a bucket to pour water into the pot so she could clean it out and use it for their next meal.

"Un… I think I get it now, so this is just all part of my training. Alright Obaa-chan I'm going to go finish weeding your garden for you!"

"In some ways weeding my garden is like training for Kagome I suppose, I can't believe she bought that. I just wanted my garden to be finally weeded. I can't stand the sight of those weeds." Kaede chuckled while dumping out the dirty water she used to clean her pot, off to the side of her house.

"There Obaa-chan! I'm finished weeding your garden." Kagome announced cracking her back as she re-entered the hut it was so dark outside now. A bowl of steaming hot noodles with lots of vegetables was placed in her hands. She wanted to shove all the noodles in to her mouth because she was so hungry but it took her awhile to be able to wrap her very sore fingers around the chopsticks. All of her fingers were bright red and puffy her index one on both of her hands looked the worst. "Itadakimasu [Thank you for the food]"

"Ye are welcome…..ah I see Kirara that ye have brought me two hares?"

"Rawwr." Kirara replied with a nod of her big head dragging the two dead mammals into Kaede's hut. She was willing to sacrifice these ones. After all she had already caught and eaten five fish from the river and three of those hares. They were fun to catch and much better tasting than the dozens of rats and mice she had eaten in Konoha.

"Alright come here I'm going to remove the weights from ye arms and legs until I deem ye ready to wear some all the time." After Kaede her heavily callused hand over the area she peeled off the edge of the paper with ease using a small bit of reiki to do so.

"This feels so much better! So Obaa-chan, where are Kirara and I going to sleep?"

"Both of ye are going to sleep in a separate hut together this is the key do not lose it because there is only one," Kaede warned as she handed the key to Kagome. "Ye must go outside, go past my garden until ye reach a tree then ye must turn right and the continue walking. Don't forget to take ye belongings Kagome."

"Hai Obaa-chan oya-oyasuminasai…. [go-good night…]" A very sleepy Kagome yawned putting the key on her necklace adding it to her growing collection of keys after picking up her bag and placing it on her back.

"Oyasuminasai Kagome and Kirara, I will see ye tomorrow."

Kirara guided the half asleep girl to the small hut Kaede had been talking about. Once the door was unlocked the neko used her teeth to shake the dust off the covers and to tuck the extremely worn out Kagome into bed. Her backpack lay deflated, forgotten at the entrance. Kirara snorted out a sneeze the place was very dusty it looked as if no one had been in here for at least fifty years probably even more than that. Using her two tails she dusted the entire place making sure to get all the cobwebs, no dusty surface was safe from her spinning twin tails! She went outside and shook all the dirt from her tails using the leaves from a bush to help clean them off but also quickly swirled them in a clean puddle of water that was nearby. Once Kirara was done she closed the door behind her and using one of her paws she locked the door. Then she transformed into her smaller form, jumped onto the bed, made herself comfortable and fell asleep.

The next morning Kagome awoke she just lay there staring at the ceiling for an hour. Her arms and legs felt like led weights that would twinge with pain every now and again. She eventually turned her head to one side getting a good look around the hut. The size of the room was a little smaller than the size of Kaede's place it was a lot cleaner too. There was a bookcase full of books leaned against the wall right across from her. The bookcase was close to the door, there was large rectangular table with a stack of yellowing paper on it, at the foot of her bed two feet away was a small dresser and there was the window spilling in the bright light from the outside world into the room. The bright light had caused her to wake up. How or why she had managed to drag herself out of bed, Kagome will never know. She struggled to turn her bag upside down emptying her backpack. She had the strangest feeling that she was going to need it today.

"Onegai no more weeds." Kagome muttered sitting down at the table digging into her share of the cooked piece of rabbit with rice, polishing it off before Kaede even had time to get back to the table.

"Iie, there will be no weeds, they are all gone. Today ye will be studying these scrolls I want ye to read through them all. Ye can go outside or back to your hut and read them. I just want ye to practice on controlling ye reiki into ye hands for the next couple of weeks. Once ye have complete control and are able to summon ye reiki as ye please I will move to the next lesson." Kaede dumped massive armfuls of scrolls into Kagome's backpack until the fabric started to rip at its seams, it could hold no more than shoved more into her arms..

"You're crazy if you expect me to get though all of these today!" She tiredly yelled with her eyes bulging there had to be at least fifty or more and each of them were three or more inches thick!

"Nay not today child in the next couple of months ye should be done. Two months should be sufficient enough. I am being too generous with the amount of time I am giving ye. Back in my day I had to read through that amount of literature in one month. This is the only day I will be giving ye time to read through them after today ye will have to make time to do so."

"But you'll be training me on top of all this…" Kagome mumbled, she couldn't even see where she was going with so many scrolls piled high.

"What was that? Did you want to read all of it in one month?"

"I said, it's a nice day out that you've given me to read all of these."

"That last youkai was just nasty. There is no reason for there to be purple goo inside of a youkai." Kagome grumbled to herself holding a giant handful of herbs to clean the globs of gunk out of her hair.

Her first real battle, she had thought Kaede had used the youkai part of her to manipulate the trees in the surrounding area like she always did, turning them into some enemies. Since that's what the youkai blood inside of Kaede allowed her to do even if it made the younger part of her spread quicker to the older half. It was part of her training that her Obaa-chan made her do. But these were legitimate bunch youkai that had really tried to eat her.

Due to all the training she had been doing the battle couldn't have gone any better. Some injuries she sustained could have been avoided because of a bad fall but her Obaa-chan had made sure she was able to maneuver her body to fall safely under many different circumstances. That was one of the worst three weeks she lost count how many times she knocked herself out because she landed on her head. Then Kaede would take great pleasure in smacking her in the face a couple of times to wake her up so she could do it again.

"Seriously?" She asked herself pulling out another giant chunk of flesh before dunking her head under the ice cold water.

"Hungry… me see ningen me eat! Tasty tasty Raaarrrggghhh!"

"Mou!" Kagome blocked the arm shaped like a bat from crushing her body. The smell of skin burning filled the air as the arm was burned by reiki. 'It's a one eyed ogre…'

"HURRRRRRT!" It stomped around angrily shaking the trees waving its arm around then tried to bash the young girl again.

She jumped out of the way then wiped a rock into its eye. The target practice Kaede had been making her do was really helpful. Watching as it screamed in pain she gathered a ball of reiki into her hand and slammed it into the ogre's stomach wincing when it smashed its arm into her side twice tossing her body into the air.

"What this?!" It screamed stomping around with its eye closed as it rubbed its bumpy green hand where the wound was smearing around its blood.

'That really hurt.' Kagome kicked her leg into the ogre's back making it fall forward onto its knees. Then she jumped back before it whacked her in the side again.

"Die!" While she was jumping back the ogre stood up and grabbed both of her legs and held her up to its red watering eye and shook her. It would grind her bones for some bread and make a nice roast from the flesh.

"You're making me really late." Kagome complained gathering another ball of reiki and pressing it against its face scrunching up her face at the foul odor of the ogre's breath. She winced when it bashed its bat like arm into her other side but she refused to move and continued holding her hand there until it completely disintegrated. She twisted her body around so she wouldn't crack her skull open when she hit the ground.

As she washed her hands, to get rid of the odor, in the river and kicked around the pile of ashes she thought Sango would have loved to get her hands on the bones of the massive beast. Too bad Kagome just wasn't in the mood to not use her reiki to slay the enemy. Sure there were those times were she felt like playing around with the youkai that sought her out, but not today.

"Child where have ye been all this time? Ye are late for ye lesson this isn't very becoming of ye." Kaede asked holding the wooden ladle threateningly in Kagome's direction with a cup of freshly brewed steaming hot tea sitting in front of her.

"It's not my fault youkai have been trying to eat me all morning." She cowered holding her hands over her head for fear that the old woman would smack her in the head.

"Then why have ye not been suppressing ye aura and ye powers like I taught ye to? That is mostly what is contributing to all those youkai attacking ye. Since ye may have not noticed it ye powers have already grown tremendously in this last year. Ye must keep ye emotions in check that is what is causing ye to lose ye control!"

"I forgot about that…Itai!" She held her head that now had a lump on it, courtesy of the wooden ladle.

"All these lessons ye are being taught are vital and will help ye, when I think ye are ready to return to Konoha. Now come here it is time to change ye weights again."

"Roughly how long do you think it will be until I can go back for good?"

"It varies if ye keep on forgetting the lessons I teach ye it will take longer but if you are committed perhaps another year or so."

How would you describe Kagome's aura?

Best review for the last chapter: Bloodcherry