There is something wrong with the great spirits. Hao is wholly convinced that it must have started some time during the Shaman Fight – Yoh isn't so sure. Of course, Hao is the Shaman King, so it's not as if Yoh could argue with him. Or stop him from sending Yoh to the past to figure it out.
Bit of editing here and there, but otherwise totally just torn out of my writing folder. What would I do without the cloud? I find so many crazy things stuck in storage..
xx
The stars above Funbari hill look so warm and inviting, though all Yoh can feel upon his skin is a wash of cold from the oncoming winter wings; scintillating light like diamond lancets sprinkled upon a dark blanket. The sight instills within him a quiet sense of repose. He could lie here forever like this, gazing into the stars.
Could have—but doesn't.
Movement, and an undeniable aura stir him about of his daze.
"Ohachiyo?" He smiles, without turning around.
The demon grunts, sounding incredibly put upon.
Yoh turns around, greeted by the familiar sight of the small demon. "Is his highness sending you to do his bidding again?" He teases, still smiling.
Hao doesn't have servants or followers anymore. He does however have friends: an unruly and mutinous demon and an equally mutinous and rebellious cat. Sometimes Yoh disparages the kinds of friends his brother manages to find. Other times, it warms his heart that Hao has friends at all.
"When is he not?" Ohachiyo drawls in return. Still, he jerks his thumb behind him, where a strange sifting thread of light wanders in and out of the gravestones. "He's asking for you."
"Ah," says Yoh. Ohachiyo turns, slipping out of existence as he walks into the light.
Yoh follows quickly.
Hao, as usual, looks a supreme mixture of bored and annoyed. He is also wearing a comically effeminate orange yukata with flowers—but Yoh has long since learned to refrain from commenting on his brother's choice in attire.
"Yo!" Ohachiyo greets, one hand tossed in vague salute as he saunters over to the Shaman King.
"You actually did what I told you," Hao notes drily, sounding genuinely surprised.
"I always do what you tell me to do!" Ohachiyo gasps, miming offense.
"Lies." Both brothers say; it would surprise Yoh more how often he and Hao have the same thoughts, but then, they're kind of the same person anyway.
"Hello, Onii-chan," Yoh grins, winningly.
Hao sneers. "Don't call me that." But it's a token protest; at this point, his response is practically an endearment.
"You called me here for a reason," Yoh says, after Ohachiyo has attempted to voice theatric protests and has now sprawled himself on the back of Hao's throne.
"Yes," Hao agrees, strangely solemn.
"Did Hana die again?"
Hao shoots him a small smile. "You really shouldn't joke about that."
Yoh grins. "Just checking."
"No," Hao sighs, dramatically. "It's not about your wayward progeny, unfortunately. The many untimely deaths of your son would be a significantly easier problem than the one presented."
This gives Yoh pause. "Problem?"
"Does anything seem different to you here, Yoh?"
Yoh looks around. It looks like the inside of the Great Spirit. Which, granted, has never looked like much to begin with, but still doesn't appear to have suffered any noticeable ailments.
"…No?" He says, tentative.
His brother seems honestly concerned. "Nothing at all?"
Yoh frowns. "Well maybe…" He starts, then stops. "Wait, is something wrong with it?"
"I don't know." Hao replies, which is the most disturbing thing Yoh has ever heard.
Hao not knowing something is like the universe flipping upside on its head; the idea of it is absurd and cause for global anarchy of apocalyptic proportions. Hell, maybe it is the apocalypse.
"That's…" Yoh starts, alarmed. "Not good." He finishes, lamely.
"Well yes, that would be the obvious conclusion." Is the droll response.
"But you think there is? Something wrong, I mean?"
"Yes." He says again.
Yoh looks around. "What is it?"
"I can't say for sure," Hao drums his fingers lightly upon the armrest of his throne. He appears ill at ease; this also is great cause for concern. If Yoh has ever before seen his twin anything approaching worried, he has no conscious memory of it.
"But it feels… different."
Which is the most ambiguous and unhelpful explanation possible. Typical.
He's about to voice his complaints aloud, when he feels—he feels something, drifting over him, a gossamer shroud wandering over his shoulders, and he feels his heart constrict.
It doesn't feel as anything coherent, just an intangible distinction of wrongness, settling into the very calendar of his bones.
"I…" He swallows. "I think I know what you mean."
Hao's eyes widen, and he sits up. "You feel it to, then?"
Ohachiyo looks down upon them, curious and unhappy. "Feel what? I don't feel anything!" He complains, looking left out.
Hao waves him off. "I had thought there might be a possibility…" He murmurs, mostly to himself. He looks up, pensive; "We are one in the same, after all. If there was any being that had a chance of feeling it too…it would be you."
Yoh nods slowly. "Sure," he agrees. "But uh, I mean, it's me." He laughs sheepishly. "I could very well be making it up."
"This is also true," Hao intones, solemn; it is common knowledge that Yoh had the subtlety of a rock. Occasionally he wonders how he ended up with an other half that is so wholly and expressively opposite of him—and further, how he ended up coming to hold him in such high regard. The very idea of a universe without Yoh is deeply disturbing to him, and a fate he doesn't often like to contemplate.
"Still," he continues. "It's doubtful you're imagining it; after all, I feel it too."
"Ah," Yoh nods. "But we still don't know… what it is we're feeling, right?"
Hao frowns.
"I think I've felt this before," he says at length.
"Before?" Yoh echoes. "When? From your life in the Patch tribe?"
"No," Hao refutes. "More recently than that."
Yoh's brow furrows. "On Mu?"
Hao hums thoughtfully. "Hmm, no."
"When you merged, then?" He tosses out, at a loss. He may be the other half of Hao—and in consequence, the Shaman King as well—but that doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that he knows what goes on in Hao's mind.
Hao appears to think this over.
"No," He deduces, finally. "Before that. In the Shaman Fight."
"The Shaman Fight?" Both he and Ohachiyo balk in unison, for entirely separate reasons.
Ohachiyo enjoys the lauded tales of the most recent battle for the throne of the earth, most especially when told by Hao or Yoh, but preferably at the same time. He says he enjoys seeing the brothers blatantly deny the logic of the other, but secretly Yoh thinks it's really because he likes seeing Hao speak avidly of something other than total human annihilation.
Yoh's remark of surprise has less to do with the events of the Shaman Fight itself and more to do with the duration of it.
Hao gives Ohachiyo a long look, and for a second Yoh wonders if they're attempting telepathic communication at each other. It wouldn't terribly surprise him.
"Uh," He starts, eloquent at all times, shaking them both out of whatever strange staring contest they were having . "You might need to be a bit more specific than that."
Hao gives him a long look. "You think I'm not aware of that?" He retorts, scowling. "It most certainly took place during the second half."
And, before Yoh can protest further, "And no, I can't pinpoint it any further."
"And you're sure it happened then?" Yoh returns, skeptical.
The look he gets in return could kill lesser men.
"Ah…" He rubs the back of his head. How foolish of him to question the Shaman King and expect a legitimate response…
"As I said, it's hard to know for sure," Hao continues, cross at his impertinence. "But I can deduce that my younger self must have been in close contact with the Great Spirits at the time. Hence, the second half."
"How close?"
He shrugs. "The same continent, I assume."
Great, Yoh thinks, disparaging, because the North American continent isn't all that big, or anything.
"Close, but not too close," he amends. "If I was in any significant contact, I would have remembered it with better detail. As it is, all I can say is I know I've felt this aura before."
"Fair enough," he supposes, shrugging. "But unless you can remember it further—I don't know what else we can do. It's not as if we—
And suddenly, it all fits together.
"No," he says, in complete and utter horror.
Hao's smile could slay puppies.
"Yoh, I have a favor to ask of you."
And anyone who had spent even a diminutive amount of time with the current Shaman King knew exactly how voluntarily favors of his were.
He backed away slowly.
Hao tapped his chin lightly. "It's clear that I can't investigate this myself," he begins, ponderous and mischievous.
Yoh pouts. "Hao…"
He smiles winsomely in Yoh's direction. "So it's a good thing you're here, no?"
He pouts further.
Hao's deep and genuine laugh is almost enough to make the inevitable shitshow this would be worth it, though. "Come now, Yoh, don't make that face. You may finally prove yourself useful as my other half."
"I would have preferred to have lived my life without ever having to." He deadpans.
Hao shakes his head. "Always so inconsiderate towards your elder brother."
"You just told me not to call you that!" He scowls.
"Did I?" Hao feigns ignorance. Ohachiyo snickers from behind him.
"Don't make that face, Ototo," he sits up, laughing again. "It won't be so bad."
"I don't want to time travel," he whines, though it's of no use. Even he can only change Hao's mind so much. "Don't you have any better ideas?"
"I'm afraid not."
Yoh has resigned himself to the constant and often ludicrous whims of his elder brother, this is true. He'll never admit it to anyone—and he will protest and deny it to his very grave—but he'd forever resign himself to be the unwilling servant and unending source of amusement for his older brother if it meant Hao would always smile like that. Because seeing his brother like this, happy, relaxed and laughing, meant that humanity had a chance. That, and he liked knowing he was one of the few people in the universe that could make it happen. Even if it normally was at his own expense.
Yoh sighs. "Well, if I have to…" He says, begrudging to the end.
"Great!" Exclaims Hao, with a truly heinous and unnecessary amount of cheer, "now that that's all sorted out, I'm going to transfer you back into the body of your younger self."
Yoh makes a face. Being fourteen again sounds like a fate worse than hell.
"Since it will still be your conscious though, you shouldn't have to worry about your furyoku or abilities; I'll caution you not to do anything to change the space time continuum, though. It's really quite fragile."
Yoh gapes. "But wait—
But Hao talks right over him. "Remember to be very careful—even the slightest mistake could destroy the universe forever!"
He chokes.
"Wait, Hao—
"It'll be easiest to send you to a moment where you come in great contact with my furyoku, I would suggest you prepare yourself for… any number of difficult situations." He is clearly having him on, but for the life of him Yoh can't tell how serious it is. Hao's favorite pastime as god is to constantly find amusement in Yoh's confusion, but he is often times quite serious. It's impossible to tell if he's joking or not.
"There really has to be someone better for this job," Yoh pleads, as a last ditch attempt. "What about Lyserg? He's a detective! He'd be so much better at—
"But he's not me," Hao waves him off. Yoh has no response to this.
The light of the great spirits grows until it is almost overwhelming. Colors fade before his eyes, until only the smallest slip of reality remains. His twin grows farther and farther, but Yoh can make out his smile; quite and soft.
"Have faith, Yoh. You're the Shaman King too, after all."
xx
Yoh comes too in the remains of a bright, glorious white light.
For a brief, hysterical moment he thinks that Hao had transported him in some kind of lethal free fall in crash course to earth, because that would be just like his twin—but when his vision clears and his disorientation fades, the visage in front of him is alarmingly familiar.
Large juts and rivets of rock, burned into an indeterminable shade of burnt and baked mud.
He muses for a moment that time travel isn't actually all that bad, and then he promptly throws up what could practically be everything he's ever ate in his life.
"Yoh-kun!" That's Manta, definitely, but he can't quite bring himself to look up and confirm it. "Are you alright?"
"Ugh," He groans. Hao, I hate you. "I'm fine… I think." Have his organs rearranged themselves? It sort of feels like his spleen and liver have migrated around each other.
"Is that supposed to happen…?" He hears Jun whisper fiercely to Anna.
"I wouldn't know," Anna answers, blunt and honest as always. Still, there's a slight lilt to her voice that belies her concern.
He appears to be the only one of the group to have regained any sense of consciousness. HoroHoro, Ren, Ryu and Chocolove are all staring sightlessly out into the world, still as stone. The vacancy would be alarming, if Yoh hadn't already lived through this once before.
"Yoh," Anna starts.
"Ah," Yoh sits up. "Anna." He gives her a quick, reassuring smile.
She doesn't return it, but he could read the relief in her shoulders. "The Chou Senji Ryakktesu… was it—?
"It worked," he says, but doesn't offer anything further. And then, with a laugh, "I think I just ate something bad!"
There's an audible sigh of relief from the whole group. Anna grumbles something suspiciously like, "You stupid moron…" but Yoh grows distracted. A presence, like a bright flame lights up in his eyes, and almost intrinsically does he know who it is.
Hao?
It's undoubtedly the aura of his twin. It's strange; Yoh was never able to sense Hao before. Then again, a lot had changed since the last time he had lived through this particular moment of his life.
A sudden thought occurred to him.
How the hell was he going to fool his twin? Had the Hao of the future, the Shaman King, actually overlooked something as obvious as his younger self's Reishi ability? Yoh decided to have faith. As eccentric and enigmatic as Hao could be, he was never wrong, and rarely caught unawares. He must have thought of the possibility.
He did, replied a voice in his head.
Yoh stands up suddenly. …Ohachiyo?
Yo! Is the demon's greeting, so familiar that Yoh can't help an involuntary smile. Surprised to see me?
Well, technically I can't see you.
Hey you know what I mean! Ohachiyo harrumphed.
Ah, well yes, to answer you're question… I am a little surprised. Yoh replies, sheepish. What are you doing here? Suddenly they're strange staring contest makes sense. You two planned this, didn't you.
Ohachiyo laughs. Got me there! He continues; I'm blocking Hao's Reishi ability. Ohachiyo boasts. You know he got it from me, right?
Yes, Yoh rolls his eyes. I know he got it from you. You've only told me at least a thousand times, he thinks but doesn't say.
Hah! Well, you should still be careful. Just because he can't hear your thoughts doesn't mean he'll be so easily fooled.
Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. Yoh silently agreed, troubled. How exactly did the Hao of the future expect Yoh to fool the Hao of the past? Either he had way too much faith in Yoh's ability, or way too little faith in his younger self's power.
Even more concerning, how was he supposed to imitate his fourteen year old self? It was plain to see that he hadn't changed intrinsically as a person, but he was not so foolish to assume he still retained his youthful naivety of the world around him. Not only that, but what of himself, mentally? Hell, he was Shaman King, he could still feel his furyoku inside of him like the universe ensnared in his heart, life and energy tucked away beneath his ribs in quiet power.
Not only that, but—
A great white light shines down upon them, and he fumbles to gain his footing. He realizes just in time that the light is actually coming towards him and he chokes.
Amidamaru!
The spirit came to him as if he had never left Yoh, coming to his aid as a giant angel oversoul flew towards him.
The X-Laws.
Yoh breathed a sigh of relief as his familiar samurai ghost merged with him His first and immediate response was to summon the Spirit of Earth—who, he realized, he was still the master of regardless of the fact they hadn't met yet—but at the last moment his brain caught up to him and he oversouled with the guardian ghost of his youth. Which was... strange, to say the least.
It felt strange, to have Amidamaru again. Strange like walking through an unfamiliar door to a familiar room. Amidamaru had been with Hana for some time now, and it felt strange to oversoul with the ghost after so long.
Yoh-dono… The ghost begins, worried.
"I'm fine," He waves off the ghost's concerns. Something tells him he's going to be using that phrase a lot.
The X-Laws observe and retreat in about the same manner Yoh remembers. He doesn't share his friend's concerns over Lyserg not when he knows the boy will turn out just fine—though not without being a bit of a pain first.
For a while he even thinks being in the past is nice. It's more relaxing than his present, at any rate; the scenery is beautiful and glorious, and he has no worry over finding Patch Village any longer (not that he had many to begin with). He flops to the ground and lets the familiar voices of his friends wash over him with a wave of nostalgia. Manta, furiously researching the directions to the village, the murmur of Ren's sister by the waterfall, Ren himself growing red with embarrassment as Anna teases him ruthlessly.
The Chinese shaman sputters when Anna calls him out on his embarrassment. "You don't want people to know that someone's worried about you, right?" She tosses him an evil smirk. "You're so obvious."
He turns around, furious, red as a tomato; "Bakana!" At the same time Chocolove does the same, brandishing a banana; "Banana!"
There's a moment wherein no one appears to find it funny.
Except for Yoh, who bursts into uncontrollable hysterics.
It's completely and utterly unprecedented for any of them to laugh at Chocolove's jokes; Yoh doesn't remember them being at all funny during his youth, if anything, he remembers them being quite horrible. But perhaps it's because Chocolove as a grown man so rarely tells jokes anymore, or maybe it's just really that funny. Either way, Yoh finds it so comical he almost starts to hyperventilate.
"Yoh-kun…?"
He wipes tears from his eyes. "Chocolove!" He exclaims. "Have you always been this funny?"
Chocolove looks torn between pride and offense.
He's still laughing as he sits up. "Sorry, sorry," He rubs the back of his head. "Right. The village."
He pauses, giving a cursory glance to the fork in the river they're following. He points left. "Let's head this way!"
"Eh?" Manta looks up from his computer. "Why's that?"
Yoh shrugs. "Intuition, I guess."
He spends most of their journey lost in thoughts, wondering how in the hell he's supposed to know when Hao's mysterious 'feeling' occurred. It comes to him that the logical solution would be to simply join Hao for the time being, if only to be constantly in his presence. Maybe he'll be able to visibly discern whatever Hao's feeling. Or maybe he'll even be able to feel it too. Not for the first time, he wishes the Shaman King wasn't always so vague and eccentric with his orders. And who's to say Hao's right, anyway? Just because he's Shaman King doesn't mean he knows everything. Well actually it does, but he can still be wrong.
Ohachiyo doesn't speak to him again, and Yoh is unsure whether the demon is actually with him in the past or simply transcending his powers through time. Who the hell knows. Hao seems capable of manipulating both.
But this all leads full circle.
Only Hao can know what Hao thinks.
But wait… Yoh thinks, panicked, Would joining Hao ruin the space time continuum?
How do you define that, anyway? Would something as simple as kicking a rock away this time around when before he had tripped over it be changing space and time? Would even the slightest change ruin time forever? Or is it only reserved for serious events of impact; Hao's induction as Shaman King being the biggest event that comes to his mind. And if so, how would he be able to tell he's messing it up?
This is horrible, he mopes. How is he to know?
So much for being relaxed.
He feels Hao's presence again, just as he clears a long and rickety bridge connecting two of the cliffs together.
He looks up, immediately fixated upon an indistinct smudge against the indeterminable horizon, settled on the apex of a large, loping structure of rock. The aura alone tells him who it is, and he appears to be… talking? Yoh squints. He's fairly sure he can make out Lyserg's hair.
Both Hao and the X-Laws were watching them? Yoh balks. Did he make this happen by time traveling, or was he really just that oblivious before?
He lingers for a few moments longer, even after both Lyserg and Marco and Hao and Opacho have left, lost in thought. Should he join Hao? It would sure make his life easier but completely and utterly derail everything he knew about the past.
Maybe I should wait and see what happens, Yoh decides, as his friends call to him to hurry up.
It couldn't hurt, right?
xx
It quickly becomes apparent that joining Hao might be the only option, when Yoh comes to the inevitable realization that attempting to get Hao alone without joining him was going to be practically impossible. He tries to be as bad as possible when facing off with the Hana Gumi. It's a little strange, staring down at the one-day formidable waitresses of the Funbari Onsen.
Even stranger, seeing his brother again. As Shaman King, Hao hasn't physically aged with the passage of time after the Shaman Fight, and the one before him looks the exact same as the Hao constantly bossing him around from his throne as god. It's mildly disconcerting.
As his twin nears him, he half expects Hao to slap him upside the head and bemoan how useless he is as his other half. Fortunately, it appears the Hao of the past has more self-restraint than that.
Still, for all the similarities between the two the differences are just as numerous. For one, it has been a long time since he's seen Hao with the Spirit of Fire—to the point he'd almost forgotten who Hao's guardian spirit had been. It's been Lyserg's for so long in his mind that it's hard to reconcile the two now.
"I saw your strength," he appraises, when he reaches Yoh. "The results were better than I expected."
Yoh!
He startles at the voice. Wait, is that… Matamune?
And then, with no small amount of annoyance, What, is everyone just gonna be in my head now?
Well maybe not everyone, He can hear the cat's laughter. Would you prefer Hao-chan instead?
I'd love to hear you say that to his face. Yoh deadpans.
—real soon now."
Yoh blinks in confusion, shoving Matamune away. "Wait. What?" He says, genuinely confused.
"That body," Hao's expression looks very satisfied. "Was originally mine."
He turns to leave, much to Yoh's complete and utter horror. "Wait—no, Hao—
"Until next time," Hao calls over his shoulder. He turns, once he's reached the Hana Gumi. "Otouto."
Dammit.