Hiei nodded his understanding. He and Kurama had something of a similar arrangement; Kurama had his house, and Hiei had his own space off in the woods. He preferred to have his own space.

"It works for us," Naomi said. She grinned. "She tried telling me once that she had a plant hardy enough to survive a visit to my place... It still died."

Hiei snorted. "I have not yet found a plant impervious to fire," he said after a moment. Clearly, her talent wasn't the only one that could kill plants unerringly.

Naomi almost snorted. If high school chemistry had taught her anything, it taught her that anything is flammable with enough lighter fluid and a match.

"No kidding," she said. "Neither extreme is all that good for them, I take it."

Hiei smirked. "Not at all," he agreed, sounding far too amused to be normal. He glanced down at her.

"Then again, most things don't like extremes."

"Yeah, really," Naomi replied. She didn't say anything about the last time she nearly drained herself completely. If there was ever an instance of not liking extremes, that was it. She lived in her electric blanket for four days before she could endure the cold again. Shaking away the thought, she grinned. "Well, as far as I know, you haven't torched anything in the last twenty-four hours, and I haven't frozen anything in the last twenty-four hours, so I think that counts as doing good so far."

Hiei snorted. "Unfortunately," he grumbled. "We'll see how long that lasts." Because he was just slightly maniacal.

"I'll make sure to stay out of the way when things start going up in smoke, then," Naomi said with a bit of a grin. "You know, since being torched is generally bad for my health and all."

Hiei snorted. "Oh don't worry. I won't be aiming for you." He grinned briefly, looking rather homocidal, before he looked down at her briefly.

Naomi's eyebrows went up briefly. The homicidal look was a little unsettling, to tell the truth.

Hiei resettled himself, absently looking over at Kurama and Osanna once when he felt Kurama's energy flare, just for a moment, before he shook his head and relaxed again. Then he had a question.

"How much can you sense?" he asked, glancing down at Naomi again.

Naomi looked over when she felt the flare, too.

"I sensed that," she replied. She shrugged a bit. "I'm not half-bad at sensing energy. I can usually tell how much stronger than me someone is, at least, which is helpful." She gave a wry kind of grin. "Although I never thought I would be used to hanging around a group of Fives that are bordering on Sixes."

Hiei glanced down at her, curious. "Your classification system?" he asked. He was curious about that.

"Yeah," Naomi replied. "Ours goes from Zero to Six. Zero is human, and Six is the highest rank there is. I rank right around a low Three, Osa is closer to a mid to low Two." She waved a hand. "I figure you three rank really high on the Five spectrum, maybe even on the lower Six side, given enough time."

Hiei smirked at that. "Hn." It was a compliment, and he preened for a moment. "How long have you trained?" he asked, looking down at her again. He had the feeling she could improve even a little more with more training.

"I went to a specialty school, a few years back," Naomi offered after a moment of thought. "I was there for two years or so. That's about as formal as my training's been. It wasn't as good as it could have been, though... Lessons weren't exactly tailor-made to half-breeds."

"Hn." Hiei started setting his mind to the task of coming up with a better plan for her, already sifting through his own training methods. He'd have to think of something.

Naomi shrugged. Nobody really bothered training her properly in the past, not even her family. She did what she could, and managed to get by. That's all she could really ask for.

Hiei jumped down, landing in front of her easily. "Try now," he said, looking at her, his voice brooking no room for argument.

Naomi blinked.

"Try what?" she asked. She had no idea what he was talking about. He couldn't possibly be saying to practice on him... could he? Because she was fairly sure he could tear her apart without even thinking about it.

Hiei made an impatient motion. "Try." He kept his core temperature at normal human level. He was interested in guaging her power.

"Try what?" Naomi asked again, standing up. "I don't know what you're telling me to do." She didn't notice the blue stripe in her hair wavering slightly, widening marginally before narrowing again.

Hiei caught the slip and smirked faintly. "Form your ice. See how much you can make." He looked at her expectantly.

Naomi blinked. With nothing to work with? Creating ice from nothing was a lot harder than working with existing water. After a moment, she complied and started to gather some of her energy. Once she created the initial chunk, the rest would be a bit easier. She was so focused on what she was doing that she didn't notice the blue stripe in her hair getting wider, or the tiny blue streaks that seemed to appear as well.

Hiei watched her carefully, noticing all the changes as he observed. Hmm. Curious. He didn't tell her to stop, though.