Disclaimer: I do not own Shaman King or any of Hiroyuki Takei's characters.
Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Can Ren Tao fall in love?
"Ren you should stop and come celebrate the new year with us," Jun tried hard to persuade her brother to join the festivities. He ignored her and continued training.
"Come on. It'll be fun and you can get your mind off of-"
"That's enough," Ren cut off his sister. He sat up and wiped away the sweat on his face with a nearby towel.
"I'm not going to the festival. I think I'm just going to take a walk through the mansion," Ren stated as he got up to shower. Jun watched helplessly as her brother lifelessly exited the room.
"All I want is for you to be happy," she whispered as he disappeared into the bathroom.
Ren walked through the vacant hallways of the Tao Mansion in a pensive trance. The Shaman Tournament had been suspended a year ago with no king, although he was absolutely positive that Yoh would have won. When Ren had returned to China, he resumed schooling, which he passed extravagantly, and then constantly went about his callous training everyday. His existence was so boring and he was beginning to feel obsolete.
A large metal door caught his eye, dragging him out of his thoughts. He stared at it. A childish sense of curiosity seemed to take over his body. The door creaked as he slowly twisted the knob and pulled it open. Inside he could see a stone tomb, and behind it a white staff enclosed in a glass box. He stepped into the dark room, walking past the stone tomb, and proceeding to glass box. The white metal of the staff was twisted until it bent into the shape of a heart where a crystal clear orb was embedded in the middle. Ren reached out and touched the glass, but retracted his arm as it shocked him. Then suddenly he heard a screech of rubbing stone.
He turned to find a mysterious woman standing in the open tomb. Her skin was a tanned bronze despite the darkness of the room, and her hair was short and red-orange. She wore a short, black, vest-like dress closed over her body by a red strip of cloth around her waist. Beneath that were tight, black shorts and sandals that laced up her legs. Ren slowly made his way to face her from the front. She seemed to be asleep. Her eyes were closed and she was completely still. He jumped back as her eyes shot open, revealing cold, empty, black eyes.
"Who are you," Ren asked coldly. The woman didn't answer. Ren repeated his question, but she still showed no sign of life. Ren gave up and sighed as he began to exit the room.
"You are a Tao, correct," a female voice asked when he reached the door. Ren turned quickly and found the woman's black eyes staring at him.
"What of it," he replied. She stepped out of the tomb gracefully and walked towards him, one of her arms outstretched. Right as was about to speak a punch sent him flying out into the hall.
"What the hell," Ren cursed as he hastily got up.
"You will die at my hands," the mysterious woman said impassively. Ren grinned.
"Try and kill me then," he provoked her. She smirked and her eyes suddenly turned blood red. Before Ren could react, the woman was behind him and held a small dagger to his throat.
"Game over," she whispered. Ren sighed and shook his head. In a matter of seconds he sent the woman flying over the railings and spiraling down towards the ground. He turned in satisfaction as he heard the thud come from the lower level.
"Easy as pie," Ren grinned, but his expression changed as he narrowly dodged a dagger that flew past his face.
"I underestimated you, but you will die," the woman appeared behind him, floating just outside the railings.
"Mother, I just hate seeing him suffer like this. He's so lonely. I think that we should send him back to Japan," Jun told her mother, Ran.
"He will protest against it. You know that," Ran replied. Jun hesitated as she searched through her thoughts for the right response. Then the two of them heard the sound of an explosion come from the west side of the mansion.
"What was that," Jun asked out loud as the two women stood up from their chairs. The door swung open and En stomped in.
"It came from the west end. Ren is in serious trouble. We'd better hurry," Jun's father said.
"What is it," Jun asked, ignoring the last part of her father's suggestion.
En hesitated, "It's Erida, Goddess of Hate and War," he answered. Jun didn't quite understand.
A goddess? Here in the mansion? No way. The Tao's were never THAT strong, Jun thought to herself. "What are you saying," she questioned her father.
"Long ago the Almighty One threw Erida down to Earth to repay her debt. She created chaos, violence, wars, and fed off of the hate that people held for one another. She was out of control, so our ancestors decided to fight against her and successfully sealed her into a stone tomb. They built a shrine around her tomb and later built this mansion around that tomb. Since Ren has now awakened her, we must fight to seal her once again," her father finished the story gloomily.
"I'm going to help him. Assemble your army of jiang-si. If this tale of yours is true, then he'll need help," Jun voiced her opinion to her father.
"Jun, she can do what we can and so much more. Don't underestimate her," En tried to warn his daughter. But as another explosion came for the west end, Jun exited the room to rescue her little brother.
"What's the plan Miss Jun," Bailong asked as he ran up behind her.
"I don't know yet, but we've got company," Jun answered as she came to a halt. A group of jiang-si blocked the hallway leading to the explosions.
"Let's go," she shouted as they began a brawl with the jiang-si.
"Die,"
she stated calmly, as she smiled and ran her dagger across her hand.
Blood spilled to the floor.
Ren gasped for breath as he got up
from the floor. Who is this woman? Why is she here, Ren asked
himself. He tightened the grip on his glaive and ran towards her in a
frontal attack.
"Wrong move," the Goddess leered and sent a blast of blinding light at Ren. When it finally dissipated, Ren was lying on the floor and En was standing at one end of the hallway. Jun entered on the other side of the hallway and the two of them began closing in on her. The Goddess began to laugh.
"I'm
glad you're here. Now there are more of you for me to kill," she
screeched. Twenty jiang-si suddenly jumped up from below the railings
and flew to her protection. The fight began and Ren eventually got up
to join in.
About ten minutes later En, Jun, and Ren lay on the
floor struggling to stand up. The Goddess laughed maniacally stepping
towards En with the intent to murder. "Bailong, Sha-Wen kill the
other two," she commanded.
Then it all happened in a split second. Bailong picked up a gun from one of the defeated jiang-si and shot a bullet at the Goddess, who failed to dodge it. Blood spurted from the wound and she fell to the floor unconscious.
"Are you all right Miss Jun," Bailong asked worriedly, dropping the gun as he bent down to help his green-haired mistress. She nodded and leaned on him as she stood up. Ren forced his legs to hold him straight up as he clutched the railings for support.
"En," Ran came running from the darkness to tend to her husband.
"Huh? Where am I," asked a timid voice. The five of them stared incredulously at the woman who just got shot in the head.
"We have to seal her now," En commanded. But his body would not allow him to make any more movement.
"We can't. The stone tomb is broken," Ren replied weakly. Jun stared at the Goddess, who stared back at the four family members in a daze.
"Bring me to her," she ordered Bailong. He hesitated but obeyed. Jun knelt down to come face-to-face with the Goddess. "Who are you," she inquired casually. The Goddess looked more like a normal girl now. Her eyes were still black, but they twinkled with innocence instead of danger. In fact her whole facial expression had changed, along with her composure.
"I don't know," she answered slowly.
She's lost all her memories. We should be safe…for now. I have an idea; Jun thought to herself for a few moments and then quickly executed her decision.
"Everything's going to be okay, Erida. Um…you're here visiting for the New Year festival. And I think we should take care of that wound in your head," Jun told her genuinely with no regards to the previous event.
The girl raised her hand to touch her head and was alarmed at the amount of blood that stained her hand. Tears began to well up in her eyes and she looked up at Jun with frightened eyes.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of you," Jun reassured Erida.
-Months Later (after some moments happened)-
"Why are you always out here," Erida asked as she walked up beside Ren. The two of them stood at the edge of the pond behind Tao Mansion wrapped in the darkness of a mountain midnight.
"The stars shine more beautifully here," he replied. Erida looked up to see billions of sparkles across the velvet sky. "They'll shine their light on the path I should take," Ren continued. Erida stared at him. Suddenly, she grabbed his hand and pulled him to follow after her.
"Where are you dragging me to," Ren asked, irritated. Erida just smiled and kept running. She came to a stop a few minutes later at an opening to a grove of small trees.
"Come on," she whispered as she walked through the trees and laid down on the grass in the middle. A confused Ren followed her.
"Lay down," she commanded him. Ren obeyed, curious to find out what Erida was trying to do.
"Look up. Do you see anything," the red-haired girl asked him. Ren stared at the empty black sky above him. "No stars," Erida answered her own question. She was right. There was nothing there.
"Earlier you said that you're waiting for the stars to light your path, but you don't have to wait," Erida said softly. Ren looked over at her. "You can shine a light on your own path. Make your own life what you want it to be. Just like how the sky above us chooses to be dark and starless, yet it's still just as beautiful as a starry night," Erida finished, smiling to the sky.
Ren was speechless. And as he stared at Erida a weird, warm, fuzzy feeling filled his chest. Silence roared through the moment as he laid there next to a Goddess who had tried to kill him previously.
"Ren," Erida said as she sat up facing away from him. She heard him sit up behind her. "I don't know how to say this. And it might be bad. No, it can't be," she began to argue with herself but stopped and hugged her knees close to her body. "Ren, I really like you," she whispered.
Ren stared at Erida's back. Questions streamed through his mind. Am I supposed to reciprocate her feelings? How do I even feel about her? Do I…like her? She did try to kill me once. But she's different now. Maybe there's a chance. What am I thinking? Love is for the weak. So many thoughts and memories. But he still didn't know how to respond.
"I'm going back," he finally replied, standing up to leave. Erida looked up and watched as he walked away, a single tear rolling down her tan cheek.
"It wouldn't have been normal for you to say anything anyways," she whispered to herself as she got up to follow him back to the mansion.
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Note from me: So I kind of cut it short near the end. Laziness got a hold of me. But if you liked it review. And if you didn't like it review and tell me why. Or if you just want to you should definitely leave me a review. They make me happy.
