Well, it's oneshot time. *Sigh* My computer had a major virus attack. All my files are gone. I had to reset the entire thing. I don't even have MS Word installed again yet. So I'm writing this on Wordpad. Yeah, old school, I know. But it's the best I can do.
This Yoh/Hana fic takes place in 2014, so 13 year old Hana and 28 (going on 29) year old Yoh. Also, Hana's spirit ally is the orange from the Mentalite cover.
If you wanna read my story of how they met and became partners you can. It's called "Hana Asakura: All His Own". Still in progress too.
The orange's name is Hoshika. It means "Star Fruit". And just like Hana, is usually a girl's name. Hoshika is prideful and sort of abrasive. He and Hana disagree on stuff but somehow get along with eachother.
Anyway, let's get started!
Black Ice
Snowflakes fell on top of the car, in turn they melted and rolled slowly down the windows. It had been lightly snowing their whole trip. Of course, it was Hokkaido. And of course, it was rental car. In most people's opinion, Yoh was should hardly be allowed to drive on land, let alone underwater.
Not because he didn't pay attention, which more times than not, he wasn't paying attention. No, just because he occassionally fell asleep at the wheel. In his defense, driving is not exactly the most exciting thing ever. But one would like to be more careful.
Also, he didn't have much experience with it either. He preferred walking places, even though cars were slowly becoming more enviromentally friendly. He wouldn't show it, but Hana knew he was a tad annoyed that the rental shop didn't have a lot of electric cars. In fact they had waited nearly five hours for last electric rental car to be returned. Yoh would admit to there being a lot more electric cars in the days of 2014 than there ever were when he was younger.
[AN: In this reality, by 2014, we have also found ways to make electric cars much more efficient, and we are in the process of making them widely available]
Hana checked the LED above the front view window, 17°F. He was wearing a loose black hoodie with Ainu designs sketched out upon it in sky blue. Horohoro had given it to him the last time they came up to visit. He'd outgrown it years before. Despite the hoodie being only slightly younger than the person wearing it, it was surprisingly well-intact. Not exactly store-bought new, but it didn't feel like a hand-me-down in any way.
And then a pair of midnight blue cargo pants to match. Folding his arms behind his wild blond hair, Hana yawned, which was clearly visable in the cool air. Beside the temperature, the LED displayed 7:19 PM. Not too late, considering sunset was less than an hour ago. Hana wondered why he had just yawned, he shrugged, maybe it was the cold.
Hana looked to his father, who was wearing a sea green jacket, but otherwise casual outfit. Most kids his age had already started calling their father "their old man(s)". Hana didn't, for a number of reasons, the first being that Yoh was not exactly that old, and was only nearing his twenty-ninth birthday. Most of his classmates' parents were in their mid to late thirties, if not fourties.
And the more significant reason is because, to Hana, his father was never old. Being closer in age to his parents gave them a lot less of a generational difference. ("You kids today!"). Now, there were some odds and ends, but for the most part, Yoh always knew what Hana was talking about.
The car swayed, and Hana raised an eyebrow. "You got it, tou-chan?", he asked, as the car returned to moving along steadily. Yoh grinned and replied, "Yeah, that must've been the wind".
Hana smiled, his father always made up lame excuses when something went wrong. Usually as something to tell Anna when he messed up. In fact, Hana knew that Yoh didn't honestly expect him to believe it was the wind that made the car sway. Just another little game he played.
"Horokeu said we had to come up as soon as possible", Hana stated, crossing his legs and reaching into a bag of chips inbetween their car seats. Yoh nodded, "He said most of the Koropokkuru have come to his fields", his voice filled with happiness. He was proud that his friend had succeeded in his biggest goal.
[AN: Shaman King wiki says that after the end of Shaman Fight, Horohoro accepts his birth name once again. Even though in Hana's Epoch, everyone calls him Horohoro still, I'm using Horokeu just because I don't feel silly typing it. Forgive my western-born brain but it just sounds better to me]
While it wasn't true that Horokeu's fields reached from one end of the horizon to the other, they were still impressive. Hana had seen them before but not in the complete state they were in now.
The snow started to fall faster, and winds were picking up. 7:41 PM.
"It must've been cool to fight like that though", Hana commented, as his father finished talking. He had asked him about the Shaman Fight again. Yoh didn't mind talking about it, afterall he had known even during the Shaman Fight that he'd talk about it the rest of his life.
"Yeah, but in a way I envy you, Hana-kun"
"How's that?"
"Not having to go through all that, you have a lot easier than I did"
"Hmm..."
"I said easier, not better"
"Heh, I guess"
What did it mean? To truly have it easy?
The car continued to sway occasionally, they had lost the radio signal. There was an upcoming snowstorm. "I hope we make it before it hits", Hana said, looking out his window onto a frosty forest. "It'll work out", Yoh replied, smiling. "So then, we will get there before it hits?", Hana asked, still looking out the window. "Maybe", Yoh answered, leaving Hana with a temporary riddle.
8:06 PM
Yoh looked to his son, who sat beside him watching the snow pour onto the woods. "Hana-kun, are you getting any bars out here?". Hana muttered a quick "Lemme check...", and pulled out his sleek red phone. [AN: I was puzzled by that image in the Mentalite where he had the cell phone, it was 2014 and looked like a phone from 2005] on the screen it showed a lonely stub of a bar beside the silhouettes of three others.
"Just one... barely good enough to make a call, why?", he said, looking back to Yoh while stuffing the device back into his pocket. Yoh smiled, and replied, "Just in case". Hana shrugged, as the car shook rapidly for a moment, then a big bump.
Hoshika appeared beside Hana, "Why'd you wake me, for!?", he replied in an annoyed tone. The orange floated next to Hana's shoulder, and Hana turned his head to face him. "I didn't! It was the stupid road!", he snapped back at his spirit's accusation. Hoshika looked out the front window and then back at Yoh, "Or maybe your daddy can't drive".
Hana gritted his teeth, "Don't insult tou-chan!". Hoshika leaked a bit of fear in his expression, but regained himself quickly, "Fine". The orange looked to Yoh, he smiled as if he knew what the spirit was going to say already.
"Besides, I'd like to see you do better, Hoshika", mocked Hana with a sudden smirk. Hoshika's face darkened, making him look like a bruised fruit. This was his way of blushing, as he knew Hana was implying at his lack of limbs.
"Bah! I seem to get along fine without limbs!", he retorted back at Hana, who lip-syncing his sentence in a form of mockery.
"Only because your a ghost"
"Nuh-uh"
"Uh-huh!"
As the pair continued with several more rounds of 'nuh-uh's and 'uh-huh's, Yoh couldn't help but smile at the situation, his friends had these kind of petty arguments all the time. He knew it only meant that Hoshika was perfect as Hana's spirit ally.
Suddenly, the car hit a big bump and swayed like crazy. Hana shouted something and Hoshika shouted something and the three of them suddenly found themselves sitting sideways. The car had flipped over, the window on Hana's side broke wide open and chucks of glass burst inside the vehicle.
One of the glass shards got Yoh on the cheek and let go off the wheel to feel for blood, which there was. And then the car crashed into a tree, which was inside a snow bank. The collision was the tree caused the tree of fall on top of the side-way overturned car, crushing it a bit. The airbags went off and Yoh's airbag was splashed with a bit of blood from his cut.
Hana's airbag went off wrong and knocked the seat back, causing Hana to tumble into the back seat, where two large suitcases fell on top of him. He groaned as his face was pressed against the window, which showed until the blank whiteness of the inside of a snowbank.
"Hana-kun!", Yoh shouted in a slightly more fearful tone than one might expect from him. Hana had to push one of the suitcases off his head to respond, "Yeah!?", he shouted back at his father, who was trying to undo his seatbelt. Hana tried crawling around, but to no avail. Yoh could see his son through the space inbetween the headrest and the chair. Only a couple scratches from the glass and airbag, but no blood, that was good.
Hana felt his pocket, but what he was looking for wasn't there. Hoshika appeared in front of him, looking concerned. "Tou-chan! Do you see the futsu no mitama!?", he asked, as he could hear the blizzard build up outside the broken window above him. Yoh looked around quickly but didn't see a thing, the snow started pouring inside the car from the broken window. He crawled onto the seat by the broken window, where Hana was previously sitting. He turned around and looked for it, but didn't see it.
"Check under the back seat!", he said, trying to move glass pieces out of the way. Hana ducked his head underneath the seat and saw a bit of red under some snow that fell inside. "Tou-chan! I think I see it, but I can't reach it! It's under the snow by your end!".
Yoh ducked under the passenger seat and saw the red object that was partially covered in snow. He reached out for it but when his hand grabbed it, he was shocked. "No, Hana-kun! This is just your phone!".
"Hold on to it! We'll need it!", Hana said, moving a suitcase out of the way and attempting to get into the driver's seat. Through the luggage, he couldn't see Yoh very well. He had to squeeze himself through the gap between suitcases to get in the front part of the car.
Hoshika appeared again, "Hana-kun! I found it! It's under this seat!", he exclaimed nodding to the driver's seat. He couldn't see underneath the driver's seat at the position he was at, so his blindly reached underneath for it. He felt through snow and chips of glass before he finally got his hand around the futsu no mitama. "Got it!", he shouted, pulling it out.
"Oversoul: Toutoi Daidaiiro Yaiba!", Hana exclaimed, forming a glowing orange blade with Hoshika. Unlike the asian-style samurai blade his father made with his oversoul, Hana's weapon looked more like a european longsword. With it, Hana stabbed the roof of the car and tore a hole.
[AN: btw, If I am correct, and I might not be. Toutoi Daidaiiro Yaiba translates into "Sacred Orange Blade"]
Hana pulled himself through and offered his father a hand out of the wreckage. He pulled Yoh out and they hopped down and sat by a tree.
Hana noticed the cut on Yoh's face, "You alright?", he asked sympathetically, feeling his own face for cuts. "Yeah, I'm fine, you?". Hana nodded, dissolving his oversoul. Hoshika appeared by his side and wandered over to the road, and analyzed it.
"Ice... same color as the road. You could never have seen it in that blizzard", Hoshika stated plainly, floating back over to Hana. Looking around them, Hana noticed the blizzard had let up quite a bit. Yoh placed his arm over Hana's shoulder, and Hana blushed a bit.
"You did great, Hana-kun", he said smiling. Hana stared at his father's proud eyes, and returned the smile. Hoshika was about to interrupt with a comment about his contribution, but decided to not to interrupt their moment. It was one of those... father/son things.
Yoh felt very proud, he didn't know why. It was one of those moments where you realize 'this is my little boy... look what he can do'. He felt Hana's blond hair and Hana rested his head against his father's shoulder, smiling. He was thirteen, by his age, most kids strayed as far away from their parents as possible. But he only wanted to get closer to them, that made him different, and he liked it. It wasn't just a shaman thing, he didn't exactly know why either.
Yoh didn't even feel the frigid air around them as he scooted closer to Hana, and he closed his eyes. How many more moments like this would they have? He didn't want to think about it, he would just take them all as they came. He loved who his son was. He wouldn't change that for anything.
"Tou-chan? Should we be calling Horokeu for help?", he suggested, breaking the silence. Yoh looked around and shook his head, "No need, we're close enough to walk, see?", he said point towards a small sign across the road. Hana nodded and looked back at the wreckage, knowing what kind of trouble they'd have to go through with the rental company.
Yoh had a look of despair on his face, and he sighed deeply and muttered, "What am I going to tell Anna...".
"Do you think she'll believe it was the wind?", Hana suggested, grinning at his father. The two of them laughed together and Hoshika let out a small chuckle of his own. "I think we'll have to work on our approach..", Yoh said.
"What's with all this 'we' stuff? You crashed the car, tou-chan!"
"Aw... Your going to leave me to explain this by myself?"
"I was kidding, I don't want to see you die"
"Haha, yeah... wait, you really think she'll kill me?"
"Maybe, but it'll all work out"
The two laughed all the way to Horokeu's place, and Hoshika admired the bonding between them as he followed beside Hana.
Amazing, they just crashed the car and their having a grand ol' time!
Thought Hoshika as they came up on Horokeu's front door. He sighed and smiled, it was definately one of those father/son things.
Iacta: I had a really fun time writing this oneshot, despite writing it on Wordpad. I like writing Hoshika. And to those of you, who might know, my inspiration for the relationship between Hana and Hoshika was a lesser known Manga called M.Ä.R and the relationship between the main character, Ginta (who looks just like Cloud from Final Fantasy) and his talking weapon Babbo. It's an interesting manga if anybody wants to give it a try.
Well, now to write chapter 14 of AHO, hope you enjoyed his oneshot!
