Summary: Hana, Anna and Yoh's son, is growing up, and has learnt how his uncle died. Distraught, he is determined to find the whole truth, even if it means hurting his Okaa. AnnaxYoh, PirikaxRen, JunxRyu, TamaoxHoro, JeannexLyserg

Rating: K+ (PG)

Chapter Notes: I had writers' block from my other stories, and wanted to try something with Hana. If you review, tell me what you think of Hana's personality. I haven't seen the Manga, so I'm making it up as I go.

Pairings: AnnaxYoh, PirikaxRen, JunxRyu, TamaoxHoro, JeannexLyserg

Disclaimer: Shaman King belongs to Hiroyuki Takei. I own Seiharu, Tetsu, Gemmei, Kimiro and Lynne.

Key: In Japanese, Okaa means mother, and Otou means father.

Other: For being really kind to me, and taking the liberty to email me about her wonderful story, I'm dedicating this story to 'The dark midnight sky'! Thanks for everything

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was 2007, eight years since Yoh had defeated and killed his twin brother, Hao. He had married Anna a year after becoming Shaman King and shortly after, Anna gave birth to a boy. They named him Hana, which meant Flower.

Hana was a spitting image of his father, but his hair was blond, not dark brown. He had the same brown eyes and the same addicting laugh. He shared his father's love for adventure, and was constantly getting into trouble. Although Yoh had not put him through any Shaman training, Hana was still practised at using a sword and showed this off on many occasions.

The family lived in Tokyo where, nine years before, Yoh and Anna had lived before the Shaman Tournament. Their friends still kept in touch, many of which had paired off, married, and had children of their own. Tamao and Horo Horo lived next door to them, with their twin daughters Gemmei and Kimiro, who were five. Pirika and Ren with their 4-year-old son Seiharu lived Yokohama, a town about 15 miles from Tokyo. Jun and Ryu lived in a different part of Tokyo with their eight-year-old son, Tetsu, who was almost exactly a year older than Hana.

Chocolove, not surprisingly, hadn't married anyone, but lived a comfortable life just north of Tokyo in a city called Utsunomiya. Faust had followed him there and set up a hospital with Eliza. Manta, now twenty-two years old and a lot taller than he used to be, had gone to university to study science in Hiroshima. He had discovered that Millie studied art there and, although neither of them would admit it, everyone knew that they were very close.

Jeanne, with the help of Lyserg, had freed herself from the Iron Maiden after Hao's death, proclaiming that she'd done all that needed to be done. After a few years, the two had fallen in love and recently had a baby girl. They named her Lynne, a combination of their names and lived in Sapporo, a city on Hokkaido. As a result, they rarely saw the rest of their friends. They felt uncomfortable around Yoh anyway, especially Jeanne, because of what she did to his twin.

Yohmei had passed away two years previously, at an age of 86. Kino was still alive but very elderly. As a result, Mikihisa had moved into Izumo to look after her. To keep the place running, he had some students living there and taught them basic Shaman techniques. Tamao sometimes dropped by to help, as she had once been a student there herself.

However, for Christmas, Anna and Yoh had invited all of their old friends round to their house to have a party and remember 'the old days'. Since it used to be a motel, they could accommodate everyone until New Year and Ren's 22nd birthday on the1st January. On Christmas day, the children, to their annoyance, were ushered off into the room where the Christmas tree was, while the adults sat around a table in the next room reminiscing.

----------------------------

Hana pressed his ear to the door and screwed up his face. "What're they talking about in there? I can only hear Uncle Horo laughing." He opened the door a crack, but the voices were still muffled. He considered creeping outside to listen closer, but then imagined what Anna would do to him if she caught him eavesdropping. He closed the door.

He sighed and slumped against the door. It was no good. The only distinctive sound he could make out was laughter and occasionally silence. He looked around the room. Anna had decorated it well. But he couldn't admire it for long. His curiosity soon kicked in again and he resumed trying to overhear his parents and their friends.

Tetsu was sitting in one corner of the room, staring at the snow out of the window. He had inherited Jun's gentle nature and not Ryu's adventurous one, so he was content just sitting and watching the world go by. Hana found him dull in the extreme because he never wanted to join in rowdy games. He was more comfortable to curl up with a good book and block out all other noise.

Two-year-old Lynne was asleep in her cot under the Christmas tree. She looked like a mini replica of Jeanne and, when she was awake, you could see her huge, deep pink eyes.

Tamao and Horo's twins were completely different from each other. Although they had identical blue hair and pink eyes, you could easily tell them apart by their personalities. Gemmei was more like Tamao: shy and never liking to be in the spotlight. Kimiro was the complete opposite. She had Horo's sense of humour and, although she was only five, she was as mischievous as Hana.

At that moment, the two were involved in a long and complicated game of dress-up where Gemmei was the princess and Kimiro was the brave knight who had to save her. Hana had been playing with them as the baddy, but had quickly got bored.

Seiharu, Pirika and Ren's son was, in Hana's opinion, just an average kid. He didn't have any striking features apart from his long purple hair and baby blue eyes. While Hana was at the door straining to hear something, Seiharu was sucking his thumb while pushing a small wooden train around a track. He had got it for his fourth birthday a few months ago and still hadn't tired of playing with it.

"What is WITH this?" Hana finally came to the end of his fuse. All the faces in the room turned and looked at him, everyone falling silent. Even Tetsu looked away from the window to stare in surprise at him.

"It's Christmas day! They shouldn't just leave us here all alone. And Okaa even took away the presents from the tree so we couldn't open them. Can't we do something more interesting than just standing here and doing nothing?"

Seiharu shrugged and a quiet clicking sound filled the room as he resumed playing with his train. Hana glared at him but aborted his gaze to rest on Tetsu. "Well?"

Tetsu met Hana's eyes with a bored expression. Gemmei and Kimiro stared at him with their wide pink eyes, lost for words. For a few moments the only sound was the clock ticking and Seiharu's train making its steady way around the small track. Then Lynne, disturbed by Hana's shouting, began to cry. Gemmei jumped and peered into the cot. The sight of a strange face made Lynne scream even louder.

Hana ran over to the door to fetch 'Auntie Jeanne', but before he got there it had already opened and Lyserg came in. He waved cheerfully at them before scooping Lynne out of her cot and cradling her in his arms, humming softly. He caught Hana looking at him and smiled in his soft way.

"Never have kids," he teased, kissing Lynne on her forehead before grabbing a rattle from the cot and exiting the room. Hana slipped out after him and Lyserg looked back and frowned.

"I thought your Okaa said that you had to stay in that room until we were ready to give out presents."

Hana smiled innocently at him. "I just need to go to the toilet," he said, inching along to the bathroom. Lyserg seemed to accept this excuse and went through to the room where everyone else was. Hana made his way as slowly as possible and heard Chocolove crack some sort of joke, because everyone laughed and Ren yelled something. He smiled slightly.

He went into the bathroom but just sat on the lid of the toilet. He had to stay in here long enough to make it seem as if he'd actually been. He sighed and looked around the room and his eyes rested on a pile in the corner. Sliding off the toilet, he went in for a closer look and jumped back as he realised what he was looking at: a pile of white skeleton charms. Faust must have put them there.

Hana didn't really know what to think of 'Uncle Faust'. He was the only one of his parents' friends who he didn't call by his first name. Come to think of it, he didn't even know what Faust's first name was. He thought it began with a 'J' but that could bring up a whole range of names, especially since he was German. He'd talked to Manta once about it, and all he would say was that he had forever been scared of Faust because they had a bad encounter when they first met. He wouldn't say any more in the subject, so Hana had to be contented with guessing.

But Faust had never put a pile of bones in the bathroom before. Hana was wary of him anyway, being in love with a dead spirit and infatuated with bones and skeletons. He sighed, flushed the toilet to make it sound like he'd been, and kicked the pile as he went out. He would tell Anna later.

For now, he was going to find out what the adults were talking about.

----------------------------

"Tell us what happened with the1080 beads again!" Pirika looked beseechingly at Anna.

Tamao nodded her agreement. "We weren't there to see it happen, and I've never tired of hearing about it."

Anna was sitting back on her chair with her arms crossed. Yoh sat next to her with his arm around her shoulder. Sometime in the past eight years, Anna had relaxed her personality and sometimes let her emotions show. She didn't train Yoh as hard as she used to but she could still pack a hefty punch when she wanted to. But, of course, that was only when Hana wasn't around. At Pirika and Tamao's request, she sat forwards and placed her elbows on her table they were sitting around. Nobody noticed Hana peering in from the door.

"The 1080 beads are the weapons that defeated Hao 500 years before in the last Shaman Tournament. When used correctly by an Itako, they can freeze their opponents movements and, consequently leave them vulnerable to attack and unable to defend themselves. Before I used them, they hadn't been seen for the 500 years before. Kino powered them up for me, and I ran off to where Yoh and everyone else were fighting Hao.

"But…but when I arrived, Yoh was…" she glanced at her husband. "Dead."

The room fell silent; nobody liked remembering. Outside, Hana furrowed him brow. He couldn't have heard that correctly. If his Otou had died, then he wouldn't still be there, right?

Anna continued. "Silva and Karim tried to tell us not to fight with anger, but we didn't listen. After hard fighting from Ryu, Chocolove, Faust, Horo Horo, Ren and Lyserg," she glanced at them with something close to gratitude on her face. "They managed to get Hao in an exposed position. I called on the 1080 beads to bind Hao so that we could defeat him."

There was an awkward silence. Anna sighed. "But, as you all know, Hao had been expecting that and broke them apart." She fingered her own beads. "And that's my part of the story."

She looked around the room. Yoh was staring at the ceiling, probably remembering his time inside Hao's body. Lyserg had his arm around Jeanne, the two of them concentrating intently on Lynne, who had stopped crying. The others in the room were looking at anything but Yoh and Anna, who had tears in her eyes. She took her elbows off the table and leaned back against Yoh and closed her eyes, remembering.

----------------------------

Hana sat back against the doorframe. He'd heard all that he wanted to hear and decided to go back to where he was supposed to be. He didn't want Tetsu to tell on him. Once back inside the room he sat in one of the big armchairs and closed his eyes. Something bad had happened before he was born. Something involving someone called Hao and his Otou. His Okaa had been there too, and all their friends. So why hadn't they ever told him about this before? It was important enough for them to shove him in a room while they talked about it.

He opened his eyes. "Tetsu!" he called across the room. Tetsu averted his gaze from the snow out the window to Hana.

"What?"

"Have you ever heard of a guy called Hao?"

"Nope. Why?"

"Nothing."

So he hadn't heard about it either. He inquired the same thing from Gemmei and Kimiro and Seiharu, but got the same, blank response. He snuggled deeper into the armchair and turned the name Hao over and over in his head. Nothing made any sense.

All too soon, the door opened and the adults came streaming in, looking solemn. Gemmei and Kimiro shrieked happily and rushed to Tamao and Horo to be swung up in the air. Seiharu pottered over to Pirika and got a hug in return. Tetsu was given a peck on the cheek by Jun. The rest of the adults were hefting big parcels and soon there was a small mountain of them.

Yoh was one of the last to enter the room, with Anna just behind him. He smiled at Hana and kissed him on the cheeks, but something seemed wrong. As he looked closer, Hana could see a tear glistening in the corner of his Otou's eye.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do the Japanese celebrate Christmas? It was the first holiday that came to mind. In case you were wondering, all the town and places mentioned where they all live are real. I, however, made up what happened to each character. None of 'who married whom and what children they had' is from the Manga, apart from Hana.

About the bit with Hana not knowing what Faust's real name is. I'm not too sure myself. Anyone know? And, just a thought: is it 1080 or 1008? The beads, that is. The next chapter should be up in a week or so.

As always, please leave a review!

Xbakiyalo