Spoilers: Through about 110

Rating: Just for breif but naughty language.

Chance Encounters

By Allegra

Patch Village was really quite beautiful, if one stopped a moment to take in their surroundings. Bellow the mountain range and forest ringing it, tufts of spider grass shot out of the ground in an overgrown field, tickling the shins of passerbys. A scraggly tree stuck up here and there, devoid of any leaves but still alive; despite the poor quality of the soil, they toiled on, attempting to reclaim the grassland in the name of the forest. The sun beat down upon it all with a steady blaze, as small butterflies with plain wings flitted about; simple, but beautiful none the less.

Anna scowled. Yoh was going to pay for making her come all this way.

Envisioning extra miles, weights and push-ups to add to his training regiment, the itako followed a dirt path through the countryside and towards where Yoh and his friends (who should have been enemies) were staying. However, after several minutes of walking, she began to feel uneasy. Pausing her step, Anna stood rigidly for a moment before turning her head to throw an accusing glare over her shoulder.

"You're not fooling anyone, get your ass out here." She called into the seemingly empty field. One moment there was no movement but the wind rustling through the long grass, the next a cloaked figure with long, dark brown hair emerged a few yards away from her.

"Just how long did you plan on following me?" Anna growled in a lower tone.

"Not long, I simply wasn't sure how to approach you after our last encounter." The man said unabashedly. Hao looked at her appraisingly, while Anna refused to face him directly, opting instead to turn half-way and gaze ahead. "How did you know?"

"You're not hard to sense." She muttered, though both knew that it was a lie. She heard a breathy chuckle beside her.

"You're really something, Anna." Hao stated, smiling.

Anna frowned slightly, disliking the way he used her first name so casually and hating the way he looked so much like Yoh when he smiled, but maintained her air of apathy as he continued.

"You'll be the perfect bride for the Shaman King."

"Of course I will." She snapped, having heard this dialogue before and currently lacking the patience for flattery. "Yoh is my fiancé. By the end of this tournament he will be the Shaman King, and my husband. Now what do you want?"

"What if he doesn't win?" Hao questioned, ignoring her inquiry. "What if I kill him first?"

Anna turned to face him for the first time, glaring directly into his eyes.

"Then I will destroy you." She threatened with enough malice in her voice to convince Hao that she would do just that, or at least try to. He smiled in return.

"But you're bluffing." Anna continued, turning away from him again and resuming her indifferent manner. "You won't kill Yoh."

"That was quite a reaction for a simple bluff." Hao said, infuriating smile still in place. His eyes slid open to focus on her as the smile morphed into a smirk, which was a relief in some ways, because Yoh would never make a face like that. Of course no matter how similar they looked, it was never difficult to tell them apart; their presences were night and day. Even if Hao cut his hair and spiked it back in Yoh's trademark style, no one could ever copy the little nuances of Yoh's persona perfectly enough to fool Anna. Still, sometimes the striking similarity made her uncomfortable, despite her best attempts to ignore it.

"You must really love him." Startled out of her reverie, Anna looked at Hao as if he was the most idiotic being on the face of the planet.

"Of course I do." She stated contemptuously. "Have I ever made any attempt to keep that a secret? Yoh is hardly a connection to be taken advantage of."

"I would never seek to use such a connection against you." Hao said as he walked closer to her, with enough sincerity in his voice to make Anna wonder whether or not he was lying. "I'm simply curious about you, Anna. You can't imagine how frustrating it is to not know what you're thinking." His eyes were smoldering when she met them, as if she could feel him attempting to bore into her mind. Anna straightened up to stand a little taller reflexively, and scowled when Hao smiled, knowing that he'd noticed.

"I can, actually." She said matter-of-factly, taking a step back while still facing him. "You'll get used to it."

"But I still haven't. Every time I see you, you become more of a mystery; I glimpse just enough of your power to make me wonder all the more urgently what you're hiding, and all the while your thoughts remain silent. It's quite infuriating, really." Anna noted coldly that he didn't look infuriated, though he did seem urgent, and her brow wrinkled in irritation as he edged closer again. She took a step back to restore their former proximity, but Hao grabbed her wrist and took an audacious step forward.

"Just what are you, Anna?"

Anna's only response was to bring back her free hand and slap him across the face. A resounding 'SMACK!' rang throughout the field as Hao released her and brought his hand to his face good-humoredly, tenderly touching the reddened skin.

"You surprised me the first time you did that, I didn't think that I would give you the opportunity to do so again." Rubbing his cheek, he sighed. "Curiosity got the better of me."

"You have no need to know what I am." Anna stated, crossing her arms and looking past him. "Unless you wish to continue our last battle, I have no reason to show another hint of my power to you, and we have no reason to fight."

"No, I don't want to fight you." Hao agreed. "Though there are plenty of reasons that we could."

Anna 'hm'ed noncommittally, and smiled slightly when Hao's mouth ticked down in a frown at her refusal to continue.

"I am Yoh's fiercest competition, after all, though I wouldn't consider him competition at this point; which is all the more reason for you to want to take me out for him. Once I've become Shaman King, I'll either kill or absorb him. Plus I sometimes get the feeling that you don't like me very much, which is a shame."

"Tch." Anna rolled her eyes slightly.

"So really," Hao continued, smiling. "we have lots of reasons to fight."

"I thought you didn't want to battle?" Anna challenged.

"Of course not, I like you very much; I wouldn't want to hurt you. Merely… test you, I suppose. Though that might be impossible, given both of our powers, I'd like to learn more about you."

"No. Why did you come here?" Anna demanded abruptly.

"To talk." Hao stated amiably. "As I said, you will be the perfect bride for the Shaman King, so you should get used to my presence. Otherwise we'll have quite an awkward honeymoon."

Only the fact that Hao would probably catch her hand kept Anna from decking him. Clenching her fist, she growled "I am engaged to Yoh."

"You're engaged to the future Shaman King, from what you've said." Hao corrected, continuing before she could cut in. "What gives you such confidence in Yoh? He's very strong, but he's not the strongest. He's improving quickly, but not quickly enough; as things are, you are far stronger than him. You're the only person to have ever injured me as grievously as you did in our last match; you have more than proved yourself worthy of being the bride of the Shaman King. But what gives you such faith in him?"

Anna was silent for a long moment. Finally she replied "I don't need to explain that to you."

"You love him, yes, but surely that can't be your only reason." Hao pressed.

"Yoh is going to be Shaman King." Anna stated, turning away from him. "It's that simple. If he's not strong enough yet, I'll make him stronger, until he's able to achieve his dream. If that's all you came here to find out, then leave."

Hao stared at her, perplexed, before shrugging and turning to leave.

"We'll talk again some other time." He stated, before engaging his oversoul and leaping into the air. Anna scowled at the empty space in front of her as she felt the wind from his takeoff ruffle her hair.

"Flashy." She stated to no one in particular. She turned to glance at his retreating form, making sure that he was really leaving, before continuing on.

AN: I wasn't quite sure where I was going with this. I just knew I wanted to write a Yoh+Anna fic. Somehow that started with this, because Hao is pretty cool, in that he allows Anna to show her awesome even more than usual. Chapters 106 and 162+ of the manga show this quite well, and were where most of the inspiration for this chapter came from. Check that out for good ol' Anna-beating-the-shit-out-of-Hao action, if you haven't. Or even if you have. It is worth reading several times, and basking in its literal ball-kicking glory (it is now up to Yoh to carry on the Asakura line).

I'm sorry, it's one a.m., I'll try to be more coherant later. Please review!