The Beastly Encounter | Part II | (Kouzai, Wolfie)

Yami had no idea what had come over her. Those images appearing in her mind...it was something different. She hadn't willed them there. But somehow, she remembered what she needed to remember when she needed to remember it, even if it carried a heavy amount of emotion. She quickly wiped her tears away, giving a slight apologetic bow. "I'm sorry, I got a little carried away, I guess. It won't happen again."

Konoe went silent for a bit, making weird facial expressions. His jaw slightly moved as though he were trying to speak but was somehow incapable. Suddenly, he sat up a bit and told her to get some sleep. "What? But i'm not tired, I-" he interrupted her, explaining how she needed her rest for the events of the following day. She gave in and walked down the little flight of stairs leading to the hold. There wasn't much down there, just a bit of food and a few tools, along with some spare lumber and cloth. She lay down in a corner, feeling the soothing rocking of the boat on the calm water. She stared up at the ceiling, wondering how the freak she had gotten into this mess.

"Wow, one moment i'm trying to earn money just to survive, and the next i'm on a ship with someone who can actually help me with my...problem." She said aloud, though quietly in case Konoe was listening. Oh, so i'm a problem now. Yami snickered. You always have been. And you likely always will be. She closed her eyes, shutting Kokuo out of her mind.

Her dream wasn't bad, thank goodness. It was common for Yami to have nightmares when she was stressed (or if she happened to avoid the curse of the full moon and fell asleep instead), but today she was oddly calm. She felt like things were going to turn out okay, that life was taking a turn of the better. If she were to learn to control Kokuo, even just a little, she wouldn't be as scared as she always was.

Her dream was instead happy. She dreamed that she was with Drago, the two of them sitting on a hillside, looking at a beautiful sunset. They were holding hands. Everything was peaceful, and everything felt right. He turned to her and smiled, and though he didn't say a word, he didn't have to. The two of them leaned toward each other and shared a passionate kiss, though his lips felt oddly...rough. The texture was familiar...

Yami woke up to find that she was making out with a sack of potatoes. She pushed the sack away, sending it flying across the cargo hold. Konoe was standing over her, and she blushed slightly, realizing that he had seen that. She barely got to her feet before he grabbed her arm and practically dragged her off of the boat and onto the beach. They made their way to a wide plain of grass. The morning was nice. It wasn't hot, but it wasn't too cold, either. There was a slight breeze blowing Yami's hair into her face, and she had to keep brushing it to the side with her fingertips, trying to tuck it behind her ear to stop it from inevitably hitting her face again.

Konoe asked her how far her transformation has gone before she lost control. She thought for a moment. "To be honest, I don't really willingly transform at all. Every time it happens, it's by force or circumstance. I don't think I have ever intentionally unleashed the power of Kokuo." Yami stared at the grass. Was she supposed to have been practicing using Kokuo's power? She'd been so afraid of it for years that she had done her best to avoid using it at all.

Yami had never had anyone to teach her how to use Kokuo. Heck, she'd been kept from the knowledge of Kokuo even existing for the first twelve years of her life. She didn't know where to go for help, except maybe Spirit King Owlan. But she was afraid that if she revealed herself to anyone in a position of power, she'd be sent to the Northern Air Temple to claim what was rightfully hers: the position of the next ruler of the Air Nomads. She didn't want that. She didn't want to be a queen. She just wanted to be Yami. She'd grown used to her life, and while it wasn't ideal, it was certainly better than being royalty. As a result, she knew very little about Kokuo, aside from the information Konoe had shared with her on the boat.

Konoe frowned. He was afraid of this. He would be opening her seal for the first time. Time to calm her down. With a sigh, Konoe closed his eyes, focused and meditated standing. He pulled all the energy he could from Kurama, gathering all the chi. Orange chi surrounded him and Konoe slowly began to change. Then with a sudden burst, Konoe erupted into the visage of the giant monster fox.

Standing there, towering hundreds of feet over Yami, Konoe looked down at his new student. Speaking with his voice through the mouth of the fox, Konoe spoke to her, his voice echoing across the island. "When you are through here, you will be able to fully control your tailed beast," explained Konoe, "You will be partners, working together. Not master and servant. You will be able to go full tailed at will, and will be able to control how far you progress through the evolution. You will also be able to use partial transformation and some of Kokuo's skills in human form without the need for transforming."

Konoe as Kurama turned around, facing out towards sea. Lifting his head, he gathered massive orbs of blue and red chi, bringing them together into one massive, black orb. Once the orb balanced itself over Kurama's open mouth, the ball larger than his head, he swallowed it. Instantly the size, weight and density of the orb bloated him and caused him to create deep depressions in the ground where his feet were. Looking at the see, Kurama opened his mouth, and a massive blast of chi towards the ocean. The chi beam started out the size of Kurama's mouth but as it grew it became the size of him. The beam went out to sea.

There was a pause. Then a massive explosion, followed by several minutes of sea water and fish raining down in a hundred mile radius of the blast as the ocean water and fish in it were blasted sky high from the explosion. Yami and Konoe, now returned to human size, were drenched in the false down pour and almost crushed by two sharks, a whale and half a school of tuna that landed all around them. Konoe smirked, "Well it looks like we have dinner for the next few days." Looked back at Yami, he began to explain the technique.

The Bijuu Dama. It was the ultimate technique of the Bijuu and their Jinchuriki. Very powerful and very deadly. It required an equal balance of yin (negative) and yang (positive) chi to work. To much yin, and the Bijuu blew itself up and died until it resurrected itself, the Jinchuriki dying with it. Too much yang and the technique would fizzle off and die too early. It required perfect mastery and much practice. "When you're done here you'll be able to do all that. But first we need to open your seal. Life your shirt please," realizing how this might sound Konoe added, "Not far. Just enough for me to see your stomach. That's where your seal is located. Over your navel. The stomach is the center or 'sea' of chi. It makes most sense to store the beast there, where its chi can be send around the body. I'll need to examine the seal before I open it--just a bit of course, to see how far you can go before you lose control."

"From what I saw at the bar you can grow slight features before losing control. If anything goes wrong I'll go full tails and keep your down until I close the seal," Konoe then added slowly, "Keep in mind that even if you master this technique, if your emotions aren't kept in check the beast can still take over forcefully. They're tricky buggers. Anyway, let me see the seal on your stomach." As Konoe spoke he raised his sleeve and removed his right glove, revealing his arm up to his elbow was covered in black writing and kanji. There was a black sphere in his palm and each finger was written with a different kanji for one of the five elements original elements.

The key to the Five Elemental Seal. Konoe was granted it after he mastered his Bijuu. Now he had the ability to use it on any other Bijuu he needed to. Today it was Yami. If things with Yami went well today, he'd be bringing in a friend, and cousin, of his to help her train further. The Three Tailed Jinchuriki and Crown Prince of the North and South, Ieyasu Leiheng.

Yami was at a loss for words. In an instant, Konoe had gone from being a mellow man to a giant beast. Yami stared in wonder. She wasn't scared. Quite the opposite, in fact. She was entranced by the majesty of the creature standing before her, the power that it radiated, and the beauty of the beast. No, it wasn't beautiful by human standards. But something about it seemed to put Yami in a trance. She couldn't look away. Is that what she would be able to do someday? Would she really be able to control that much power? For a moment, Yami was concerned that it would be hard to control. But Konoe was somehow able to talk to her through the spirit. He had complete control.

How was it able to eat its own chi? Yami didn't know if she would ever know the answer. But by doing so, Konoe blasted a giant laser into the sea before returning to his human state. Then came the explosion. The ground under Yami's feet shook with the force, throwing Yami, clumsy as every, onto her face. She looked up in time to see a huge fish land in front of her. Them came the tidal wave. It would have crashed down on the island, but it seemed to lose some of its force as it was pelted with fish. Yami helped force the wave down before it receded into the sea.

Yami stood up. "That was...amazing. For the first time since I met you, i'm actually excited for what's to come, which is a new feeling for me." She stared at the fish-covered beach, watching as a few of them flopped around, desperate to return to the water. Many had already died from their impact with the ground. Others were slowing in their flopping, dying from lack of water. Soon, every creature was still.

Yami's face flushed red the moment Konoe asked her to lift her shirt. She would have slapped him if he hadn't explained that she only needed to show the seal. She calmed down, realizing that he was right. She had noticed the seal before. Kokuo had even told her about it, so it's not like the fact that there was a seal on her stomach was strange news. But Konoe was about to open it, to grant a fraction of Kokuo's power to Yami. Would she be able to control it? In the past, even the small amount of power that Kokuo drew from the full moon was beyond Yami's control. Would this time be any different?

Yami was intrigued by the markings on Konoe's arm. Many were familiar to her, as she had spent a good deal of time studying in the old spirit library. But there were a few marks that she had never seen before. Yami took off her cloak and jerkin, realizing that they would only be a hindrance. Slowly, she lifted her shirt, up to the base of her ribs. There, the familiar symbol seemed to stand out a little more than it had before. It burned a little as well. Yami nodded to Konoe. "I'm ready," she said, determination in her eyes.

Konoe placed his burning finger tips to Yami's stomach, up against the seal, matching each of the points of the seal with one of his fingers.  Yami winced a bit; the fire would not harm or burn her, but it stung a bit, and she had been bracing for it, which only made the pain worse.  Konoe held back a sigh and gently turned his hand, opening the "lock."  The spiral of characters started to fill out in the spaces in between, filling in the whirlpool like pattern with solid black ink.

Like the opening of a lock, the swirl slowly appeared.  There were six locks on Yami's particular seal.  One for each tail for a total of five, and one that locked down the demon's chi and prevented it from mixing with Yami's, thus disallowing her to draw on the bijū's power.  The Chi Lock it was called.  Konoe was not surprised to find it broken.  It was the weakest of the locks--Konoe wondered why it was even bothered to be included in the first place.

The Chi Lock was always the first to go.  One bad incident and the jinchūriki would shatter the lock and draw from the demon's power.  This often led to rampages; and if it got bad enough, death for the jinchūriki and people involved.  Of course the Chi Lock was also partially made weak for a purpose.  It was meant to be broken; the demons power was meant to be used by the jinchūriki; they were supposed to master their demons, though this wasn't always the case, and the method by which the Chi Locks were broken was often accidental and not planned.

Konoe though, had the power to reseal the Chi Lock and reinforce it; he would only do so if Yami proved to be extremely unstable with her powers, and hopefully that would not be the case.  Slowly Konoe turned the lock more.  One click resounded through his skull.  Kurama stirred, swishing his nine tails.  "That's one," he shrugged nonchalantly, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Konoe didn't answer, he needed to focus.  But if he could he would respond with a resounding yes.  He thought so at least...well he hoped so.  Gritting his teeth, Konoe held his focus, his brow sweating.  He wondered if he should keep going.  The weakness of the first lock showed him that it had been opened before; not often, but before.  One more then, just to see if she could handle that extra bit of power.  Another clicked and Konoe could hear Kokuo chuckle merrily within Yami's head.  She wanted freedom.

If she wanted it that bad she'd have to wrestle Konoe and Kurama for it.  Tough luck at that though.  Konoe pulled his arm away, and let the flames die.  "That should be enough for now, two locks opened, the Chi Lock wasn't really there anymore so I don't count it," explained Konoe.  While he didn't count it, the seal did, and the black bar that filled the lines between the spiral was about half of the way to filling the entire middle of Yami's stomach.

"Go ahead," said Konoe cautiously, poised and ready to transform in needed, "Test out your powers; slowly though!  Like getting into a cold pool.  Let yourself adjust otherwise Kokuo's going to burst out of there and I'll need to kill you and restrain her to get her sealed again, understand?  I don't want to be cleaning up bits of Yami Sentoki on my time off."

Yami took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She closed her eyes, trying to calm her nerves. It's okay here. There's nobody around that I can hurt. Konoe is much stronger that I am, so if I lose control, he can stop me... Yami realized where her thoughts were going and tried to shove them aside. She shouldn't have to rely on somebody else to take care of her own problems. No. I can do this. I won't lose control. I have to learn to tame her, or thousands, maybe even millions, will perish. I need to learn to use this power to save lives rather than destroy them.

Initially, Konoe's touch surprised Yami. His hands were strangely warm, hot even. The sting was no more painful than a bee sting, but still surprising nonetheless. She felt her stomach churn as Konoe turned his hand in a circle. A strange clicking sound resounded through her mind, and then she was hit with a wave of energy she didn't know she had. She felt as though she could run around the entire island, the way you feel when your body has created too much adrenaline. But it was different from adrenaline. After a second click in her head, Yami felt overcome with nausea. Laughing resounded through her mind. I can taste my freedom. Come on, Kurama, once more? Another laugh. Yami felt dizzy and on the brink of collapsing. Yami's eyes snapped open as Konoe pulled his hand away.

Yami's breathing was heavy, but slowing. She pulled her shirt back down, looking up at Konoe. He asked her to try out her powers, but to be careful. Yami nodded. She lifted her right hand, palm upward. It was shaking, though from strength or fear she didn't know. Yami created a small flame in her palm, but it wasn't fire colored. Her flame had become a light blue, cyan. Her eyes widened in surprise. She played with the flame a little, making it dance through her fingers and around her hand. She couldn't help smiling. The flame was graceful and precise, something Yami had never really been able to do before. She brought her left hand into play. As she lifted the hand, water shot from the ground to her hand before she even realized she was bending. Water bending was nothing new to her, but she had never been able to summon water that way.

The water froze and unfroze, forming patterns and beautiful ice crystals. Then Yami felt the impulse to bring her hands together. She made the fire bigger and collected more water, then clapped her hands together as the water and fire cancelled each other out, leaving a puff of steam.

"Fire and water together...it's interesting to see how polar opposites can create something new. Fire is alive, wild, deadly. Water is cool and smooth, sometimes jagged and painful. Put them together, you get steam. Steam is relaxing. It's calming and warm." Yami took a deep breath, taking in the steam. As she exhaled, she felt her worries go with her breath. Every thought of losing control, of hurting innocent people, of breaking apart relationships or causing catastrophe melted away.

She thought about her father, and the fear he struck into her heart. She thought about everything he had done to her, about how he was the cause of all of her troubles in the first place. Breathe in, breathe out. She moved her arms smoothly, making more steam. A thin cloud of steam now filled the area. Breathe in, breathe out. All of her troubles, carried away into the air.