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Anime/Manga Fan Fiction >> Yu Yu Hakusho >> An Exercise in Learning
By Selena "You're really a B class," he stammered, taking a step back, then another, fear pulling his features. She straightened, petulantly irritated. "A class!" Her foot twitched as though it wanted to stomp, to punish the bent blades of grass that had begun to rise in the battle's lull. There was nothing so childish in her gaze, however. Her golden flecks were radiating murderous intent. Hiei thoughtfully gazed up at a distant spot in the sky. "A minus, perhaps," he mused. "Ratings have become weaker recently. But then... No. B." He looked up and caught her furious glare. "B plus," he conceded. He grinned, an unpleasant sight. "I'll be generous and give you a B plus." "I am Suriashi Tan Surujin, born of the Chemerinsky and Dressler. I am an A class demon. I lured you here to my trap and I will teach you to fear me!" She made again as though to lunge. "Hn," Hiei agreed, too pleased to snarl sincerely. It was unusual for him to delay a battle with talk, but this was getting rich. He might as well enjoy himself. How many times would this situation come up in a lifetime? "That's nearly right. And wrist charms. . . Hiding your power was pretty impressive." "Then again," he continued, "you didn't see me coming the first time, eh? How impressive is a life saved by pure clumsiness?" The words slithered out sibilant and low. He spoke slowly, as if genuinely turning the issue in his mind. His mask of fear had slipped away to be replaced by a look of thoughtful reflection. He reached into his Ki, rousing it from the rest he had allowed it though the whole battle, encouraging it to grow--just a little. Then the fear he had faked began to tinge her, just a little, at the edges. The Jagan heated at the feeling. "Fool," she hissed, full of bravado but lacking something in conviction. Her sais began to pulse hungrily; she snapped her wrist, flung one in a deadly line of jade afterglow. Hiei dodged imperceptibly, unscathed, but raised an eyebrow. She was full of surprises. She lunged forward as she pulled another sai from its imaginary sheath. Her attack was a practiced maneuver, as smoothly instinctive as an intake of breath. He parried, dodged; let her control the tempo for the moment. "Temper," he called, his voice rising as the manic joy began to sing within him again. His red eyes grew wide with glee, glowing. Cat and mouse games were his forte. They were never so pleasurable as when the mouse thought she was a jaguar. He let her lead the dance and landed only incidental cuts, as if by accident. He never took the upper hand, but never let her return the blows. He looked convincingly defensive, as though always evading death by a hair. "I have you," she growled. "I am more powerful than you. If you concede now I'll take your life swiftly rather than take you as a slave." His temper lit at that. He recalled what brought him here in the first place, the insult momentarily forgotten in the joy of an actual resistance. His grin pulled back from his teeth as he roared, "Your information is out of date! I am more powerful than before the Tournament and FAR OUT OF YOUR CLASS!" He picked up pace with two actions for every one he made before, his feet becoming a blur behind the whirling glow of his katana. He tried to take the lead . . .and failed. As his timing quickened she caught each attack with a parry and added a reposte to each. She not only met his pace, she surpassed it. Parried, attacked; feinted and cut. A sai tasted his blood. And then his temper exploded. It sparked his Ki, twisted his features. He no longer smirked in ennui at the workout he was enjoying. It was unthinkable that she had cut him. He required her blood, needed her death NOW. This had gone on too long. Yet even as the lightning thought flashed though his mind, she moved faster still. A sai flicked, and then the other, and again. His katana was flung from his grip, thrown spinning to bury to the hilt in an oak. He jumped away, but not quickly enough. She did not follow, but straightened, pausing. His shoulders tensed in fury. With that small motion the wrappings around his right arm fell away, cut by the final flick of the previous attack. The pattern of a dragon emerged on his forearm, black as the pits of hell. She noticed the design; her eyes widened imperceptibly. He followed her line of sight. Enraged almost beyond thought now, he took her notice as an invitation. The dragon began to ripple on his arm. "You can't," she began. "You don't have the power. You've used it too recently, you can't control it. . ." "Again your information fails you!" he shouted, wild with the energy that began to form around him. The mania infused his whole being; darkness began to swirl around the arm, to take shape. "You're not strong enough to call the dragon here!" Her voice was high as if in a panic, but there was an odd note of finality to it. He was so caught in the power, in the untamed void of it, he did not hear her words. He wouldn't have listened anyway. Lit from within, his outline blurred at the edges and rippled like pavement in the desert sun. No demon on earth could withstand his mastery of this attack. There would be nothing left of her, on any plane, and even that was more than she had earned. "Dragon," he bellowed, "of the Darkness. . .FLA—" But his baritone war-cry became a strangled shout. He fell heavily, again outlined in crisp relief. The energy around him was gone as if switched off by the flick of her wrist. He clutched his arm, gripping the pulsing glow of a jade and gold-flecked energy thread that crisscrossed the limb. The thread wound up and down his limb, binding the writhing dragon to his forearm and looping gently away from him. Its other end was held delicately between her two fingers. She brought her hand up to her face, gently brushing the tail of the thread against her smiling lips. "I did mention that you weren't strong enough to call your dragon, didn't I?" she asked sweetly. There was an alto tone to her voice now, the rich tenor of womanhood. He tried to stand but only made it to his knees. With a glare and a sudden flick she tugged the thread taught. Hiei was jerked forward and fell to his side, curling up around his captured arm. The thread bit in like barbed wire, shredding his skin in a criss-crossed pattern of blood. She smiled again. She stepped toward him and pulled in the thread as though winding a reel, not tugging again but leaving little slack. When she drew close enough he lunged suddenly with his free arm outstretched. Another casual brush of her wrist and he was pushed away, the thread now a pole keeping the distance steady between them. He strained to claw her but couldn't stretch far enough. "And they say you can't push a rope," she chuckled, shaking her head. She flicked again and he was laid out, teeth biting back a howl. She looked at him speculatively, assessing him. The jade energy digging into his flesh was making it impossible to marshal his thoughts and summon his own powers. The agony was disconnecting from his body from his mind. His Jagan was behind a veil of fog, disoriented by the shroud; he couldn't read her expression, let alone her mind. The ground suddenly felt very far away. "What is my name?" she asked. She paused a mere moment for a reply, then began to trace a circle with the thread. The bindings on his arm turned in response like the blades of a meat grinder, peeling his flesh. He gritted his teeth, looking around for his katana. He had survived the Jagan, tamed the Dragon that tried to eat the soul from this very arm. He would cut it off at the elbow rather than answered to her. "Will you be still when I bind you? I'll tie your wounds as well, if you will." Hiei "hn'ed" a snarl, but it was marred by his jagged breath. The thread cut into his arm and its energy pulsed mind-numbingly though his body. She rolled him onto his back with a toe, waving the thread in warning against ill-advised action. He breathed in with a glare. She waited no longer for a reply; her free hand moved four times in quick succession, as though flicking away flies. Hiei roared again in anger and pain, but couldn't curl up in protection. His wrists and ankles were pinioned to the ground with glowing jade spikes of energy. They too pulsed, raging against his Ki and burning it. His voice went hoarse; the yell stalled out but he still did not answer. He had never begged. Death would come before he begged. No pain could reduce him so. She sighed. "How unimaginative you are." Casting the fingers of her free hand wide, she traced the outline of a circle twice with her index finger. Closing the hand and drawing it back as though pulling in a net, she snapped the fingers of both hands. Instantly the line to Hiei's arm was gone, tied off, leaving the constricting, pulsing web behind. Another thread appeared in her opposite fingers, leashed to a collar around his neck. "I promise to help you think more creatively." A flick of her hand, as though motioning a waiter, and Hiei passed out.
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