Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King

Teaser: After one careless mistake, Yoh loses an important friend to Hao, and over time he realizes how much Ren meant to him.

A Promise of 500 Years

Yoh and Ren hurried through the sacred area that held the Great Spirit. They were tired from running for such a long time, but they knew they cannot stop to rest. Yoh turned to his friend beside him as he ran. Wheezing and out of breath, he simply gave the other a nod, telling him to hang on and to make sure he was okay. Ren returned the nod reassuringly, head going down and up in one quick motion; though in reality, his legs were hurting and every part of his body was telling him to stop. It wasn't just Ren, they were both at their limit.

Right after Hao had declared he will forcefully obtain the Great Spirit without completing the tournament, Yoh and his group of friends had thrown down their oracle bells and set off to pursue Hao. Hao's henchmen tried to stop them and one by one, the group of friends stayed behind to fight to clear the way for Yoh to stop Hao. In the end, only Ren managed to catch up with Yoh. It's been a while since then and they have been running non stop. Finding Hao in such a great expanse wasn't easy.

Brown eyes caught a glimpse of a figure ambling in the far distance. His brows tightened. Yoh knew for certain that it was Hao, not just another of the fiery shaman's henchmen. He couldn't understand Hao's actions. He couldn't understand why someone who is able to see spirits would do bad things. It went against his thinking, but Yoh knew he had to do something. He couldn't sit aside and hope Hao would turn a new leaf on his own any longer.

"Hao!"

Yoh and Ren had finally caught up to him. Hao and Opacho turned around. They stood there to look amusedly at them as they breathed heavily from the chase. Hao gave them an arrogant smirk.

"Oh, it's Yoh. What do you want?"

"Hao..!" Yoh called desperately with all his breath, but the fire shaman didn't wait for Yoh to give his answer. "I don't need you anymore, Yoh," He told his other half in a cool voice. He continued, eyes looking up to the sky in a manic way. He laughed. "As of now, after my Spirt of Fire consumed that sprite of a spirit, I'm already more than strong enough to claim the Great Spirit on my own." He spread his arms from under his cloak to emphasize his point. Yoh shook his head.

"You can't!"

He stared straight at his brother. Ren beside him held his weapon tight. They were both ready to stop Hao no matter what. Seeing this, Hao's face darkened. He voice was beginning to hold a tone of annoyance. "Why do you try to get in my way?"

"Because I can't let you kill innocent people!" Yoh shouted.

"And why can't I kill those humans?" Hao shot back, his temper was beginning to flare. Yoh, however, didn't care. He abruptly spoke what was on mind, what he believed to be the truth.

"Because you're human too!"

There was a fearsome look in the long haired shaman's eyes. His teeth gritted, then the corners of his lips tightened into a wry grin. Step by step, he began approaching his other half. Hao was seriously ticked off, Ren could tell. He just couldn't understand why Yoh spent all that time negotiating with Hao. If it were up to Ren, he would've jumped right into battle with the ruthless killer.

He couldn't comprehend Yoh's ways, but one thing was for certain. He clutched his blade as Hao came closer. He was protecting Yoh no matter what.

"Hold your guard," he told Yoh, but Yoh wasn't listening.

Yoh suddenly felt a strong sense of fear wash over him. His feet were rooted to the ground and the air seemed to be trembling about Hao, who was slowly coming towards him. Yoh didn't know that his own face was capable of looking so scary. He felt his whole consciousness being sucked in by Hao's words.

"Yoh…"

"…you are so naïve…"

The words held a tone of suppressed anger. His voice seemed to tremble with every word. Hao stopped when he was right in front of the stunned Yoh and sneered, "...so naïve that it sickens me!"

Yoh didn't know what happened next, but he heard Ren call out to him frantically and felt a hand roughly push him away. Yoh stumbled onto the ground. He turned around to see Ren standing in his place before Hao, but there was something wrong. Ren wasn't just standing there, his whole body seemed to be bending in pain.

"Ren!" he called out. Ren looked like he wanted to respond, but no words came out of his open mouth. His face was twisted in pain and his body was shaking as if it was too excruciating to bear. Yoh couldn't understand what was going on and his eyes followed to where Hao's hand remained connected to Ren's side. Then he saw the gloved hand was not only touching Ren, but it had reached within the boy's very flesh. There was no blood and no wound could be seen. It was like magic, but Yoh could tell there was pain, from the way Ren looked.

"Huh," Hao smirked. "Guess I got the wrong one…"

He seemed to ponder for a moment at his miscalculation. Then a cold grin appeared on his face. The hand suddenly tightened within Ren's side and the boy began making a coughing sound. Yoh watched in horror as Hao's hand withdrew and a transparent film came along with it. Ren twisted in pain as it was being extracted.

"Ren!" Yoh caught him when Hao released the now unconscious boy and had nudged him towards the ground. He shook at Ren frantically, but there was no response. He looked up at Hao and saw a glimpse of Ren's transparent form before it shrunk into a small glowing ball of white light. It remained captive in Hao's hand and Yoh knew it was Ren's soul.

"This should teach you to not get in my way again," Hao spat. He turned his back to Yoh and vanished along with Ren's soul.

Hi everybody. I felt like writing something angsty so here is something angsty and surprise surprise – there's no pairing in this one. After writing so much shounen ai it felt kinda weird writing something without it. But the usual characters are still there, Ren, Yoh, and Hao… Yoh gets the leading role this time!

I was going to save this till after the Saturday morning airing of the last few episodes, but due to computer problems I wanted to upload this fast. I didn't want to spoil the moment for you, when Hao stuck his hand in to grab Yoh's soul, but we all knew that was gonna happen way before, when foxbox showed us the trailer So no spoilers there, right?