'Jade!' Aaron shouted, hopping over the array of obstacles that separated them. 

'Aaron?' Jade asked, shocked, unmasked surprise in her voice. 'What are you doing here?' 

'I just thought that since I have not been training with you all for so long, I would today,' Aaron explained, grinning from ear to ear. 'Er...Where's Gui Gui?' he asked, looking around curiously.

'She's...um...missing in action,' Jade replied, slight nervousness showing on her face. 'Don't ask anymore Aaron,' she thought. ' What if Aaron doesn't stop asking? What if Aaron finds out that Gui Gui is not here because she has been watching his every move, every moment he trained? Speaking of that, how could she allow him to come out without stopping him?' Jade asked herself, biting her lip.

'Oh. I see. Well, in that case, I'll train by myself,' Aaron replied, walking out to an empty rope climbing obstacle and starting to train. Loosely handling the rope, he assailed the wall with little effort, this having been what he had to master before starting his training with the poles. Hand over hand, with spider-like actions, he climbed. But yet, his attention was not fully on the task at hand.  He was always keeping an eye on what Genie was doing. But he didn't notice anything unusual about her. She trained as hard as she usually did, never once stopping to take a break. Just as he was about to give up on whether he could spot anything unusual about Genie, the doors burst open and Gui Gui stomped in. 

'Aaron!' she shouted. 'What are you doing here? Aren't you suppose to be in training?' She seemed angry, the fire in  her eyes obvious.

'Er...' was Aaron's only response, so shocked was he at her sudden outburst. He was about to make up an excuse when he saw a swift figure exit the room from his peripheral vision.  Turning instinctively, he saw that the figure was Genie. Dressed in her black shinobi, her hair tied back in a ponytail, she exited the training room swiftly, silently, not making a single sound. Her passing was obvious in the brightly-lit room, but yet, no heads turned. Didn't they find it strange? Where could she be going in the middle of the night? Unless she was the...He remembered the figure he had seen the day Calvin had been murdered. The figure had been there approximately at this time of the night too... Without hesitation, Aaron made to run after Genie but Gui Gui, seeing his line of vision, stopped him. He felt a hand clutch his wrist in a firm grip, preventing him from going any further. He whipped around to face Gui Gui in confusion. She looked deeply into his eyes and slowly shook her head. 'Why?' his eyes seemed to convey. Gui Gui released her iron grip on him and looked away. 

'You wouldn't want to know,' was all she said, her voice barely a whisper.

'Why? She might have--' Aaron exclaimed before catching himself mid-sentence. He had almost told her about Calvin's death.

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Aaron stood in the garden that was his training place.  There he was, trying very hard to train but yet he found that he could not concentrate. What he had seen the previous night kept demanding his attention, no matter what he did. Had Genie murdered Calvin? Why had Gui Gui stopped him from following her? These disturbing questions kept flowing into his mind, taking first priority, but yet he was getting no answers. 

'Aargh!' he exclaimed, frustration threatening to overwhelm him. How could he concentrate on his training with such a demanding issue at hand? But he had to. He had to see what Genie was up to and the only way to do that was to follow her when, if, she snucked out again. But how could he do that if he was trapped here, training in seclusion? To even have a chance to follow her if she ever sneaked out again, he would have to get back to training at the training room. But right now, that seemed almost impossible for he still had little success conquering those domineering poles. Once again, he could feel the similar feelings of frustration well up in him as feelings of hopelessness passed over him.  Unable to control his emotions, he decided to practice a technique he had been taught as a samurai to calm himself down. Sitting down in a cross-legged position, Aaron took in deep breaths, breathing in and out, in and out.  His eyes were closed and his ears more open to the quiet around him. He allowed a sense of serenity to flow through him, overflowing his heart and mind with peace as he hit a few of his acupoints to encourage blood circulation. From the frantic state he had been in, he slowly calmed down to a serene form worthy of a Zen master. Now, with peace in his heart, his eyes slowly opened and he prepared himself to attempt to get up the poles again. He stood ready before charging at the rosebushes, not thinking of anything except the task at hand. He pratically flew through the air as he ran, his steps as fast as the fastest wind, and when his foot finally connected with the rosebush he had aimed for, it did not crash through the rosebush as it had the many times before. Instead, his foot rebounded off the rosebush and sent him flying towards the tall poles, against all laws of gravity. Mid-air, Aaron somersaulted before landing on the poles, a foot on each of the two he had landed on. He was standing, or rather balanced, on the poles in a split-like position-that was how far the poles were from each other. Aaron looked around him in wonder, flabbergasted at his astounding success. Then, he realized that his success had been because of the peace that had been coursing through him. The peace had allowed him to be fully concentrated on getting up the poles whereas he had been greeted with previous failures due to the simple fact that he had always been discouraged due to past failures or the seeming impossibility of the task when he had tried before.  He had also always had the nagging thought that he would fail and that had been his stumbling obstacle, always causing him to fail miserably. He grinned as he realized that he had finally found the secret to getting up the poles. But as elation overwhelmed him, he felt himself losing his balance and he fell. Rolling on the ground to break his fall, he grinned good-naturedly to himself before getting up to try again.

Gui Gui look at Aaron, puzzled, through the hidden panel. What was it he had just been doing? Why had he sat in that strange way and where had he learnt that from? It had seemed so weird, so out of this world. She had never seen anything like it. The way he had sat like a rock, never moving, with his back extremely straight and the feeling it had given her, how it seemed to venture into pastures she had never stepped into before. Such strange practice...should she record it down? She pursed her lips and a thoughtful expression appeared on her face as she made her decision. She would. It was her duty and she was not one to defy it.

Aaron was on his seventh try and by now he had gotten use to the big gaps between the poles. With practiced ease, he ran across the poles and finally came to the last one. Leaping down from the last pole, he felt elation coursing through his very veins. He had finally completed the once deemed impossible task! Grinning from ear to ear, he exited the garden in search for Gui Gui. 

Gui Gui stood in shock, wide open. She was blinking furiously and was moving like that of a goldfish. How had Aaron done that? He had mastered the course so easily, so much more easily than the many who had tried the course before him. He had mastered it with such speed that should not be possible. How...She bit her lip as she wondered what the extent of Aaron's abilities were.

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sorry, this chapter is a bit more boring, isn't it? Anyway,it will get better. :)