Heya, folks.

I've started writing again, isn't that interesting?

I took a break after my last huge fic to recharge my batteries and fiddle with new ideas.

And thus we have this fic here, the result of my new Shaman King interest.

...Let me be perfectly unclear on this: this may or may not be a one-shot. Get it? Got it? Good - now explain it to me.

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Disclaimer: I do not own Shaman King

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Somehow, it seemed almost peaceful to watch the roaring white light envelop him, washing out the rest of the world and hiding it from sight. Certainly much more peaceful than the battle they had just fought.

Actually, Yoh decided after another moment, it felt like he was inside a big, bright bubble. That was a nice feeling – bubbles always looked very happy and sparkly. Although the soap bubbles had been more see-through than this…so this would be a very strange bubble, if it really were one.

Yoh would have asked for an opinion on it, but Amidamaru had disappeared with the coming of the bright white wave of light. Yoh thought about worrying about that, before shrugging it off. Somehow, he knew that he and Amidamaru weren't in any danger of permanent separation from this. This brightness had come from the swirling pillar that embodied the Great Spirit, and despite everything that had happened, Yoh felt perfectly safe.

All the same, though, it had been a long day, and with the fighting, the running, the more fighting, the Hao-taking-his-soul thing, and the rest of the fighting, Yoh was getting kind of tired. Not to mention how hungry he was from all that exertion. Yoh hoped that whatever the Great Spirit wanted to happen now wouldn't take too long.

As if in response to this sentiment, a shape appeared, emerging out of the whiteness just in front of Yoh. From the way the whiteness was peeling back from around the shape, it seemed as if it had been right in front of Yoh's eyes the entire time, merely concealed from view by the whiteness. It was shaped like a person…a very familiar person…

Yoh felt himself stiffen a little. The person was as unmistakable as his own face in the mirror would be; you could really take that literally, considering that Hao was his identical twin and all.

As Hao came into clearer view, Yoh was startled once again. Hao was just standing there, slightly hunched over and face pointed towards the ground, so that his long hair covered his features. Hao looked like someone who had lost a tough battle recently, battered and blood-splattered – his long cloak even had some signing around the bottom, probably from too-close contact to the overpowered Spirit of Fire near the end of their fight…

However, the thing that Yoh found startling was the strange writhing aura that he could see covering his brother/ancestor. It stood out clearly against the white background, red and black flickering like flames.

Yoh would readily admit that this hadn't been this disturbed since the first time he had seen a fixated ghost. The only people he'd been friends with back then had been the various ghosts and spirits in the town, and it was very freaky to see something he considered a prospective friend calmly hanging around while on fire.

The last of the whiteness between them faded. Hao stood without moving for another moment, before seeming to register Yoh's presence and raising his head. The glare Hao fixed on Yoh upon recognition was nothing short of murderous.

"I hate you, Asakura Yoh," Hao said.

While the words rang out in an even manner, Hao's voice nearly throbbed with bitter rage. Yoh surprised himself with the sudden realization that Hao's declaration of hatred didn't bother him, not really. If he'd been the one desperately surpassing death and fighting for a thousand years, only to be thwarted at the absolute last second, Yoh figured, he'd hate that guy too.

Now, though, Yoh didn't feel much more than a strange sense of pity. So in response to Hao's declaration of hatred, Yoh calmly nodded, and replied, "I know."

This answer served only to infuriate Hao further.

"I hate you," Hao repeated, "I wish I had made sure you were stillborn!"

"I know," Yoh replied.

"I should have told Spirit of Fire to burn your soul at birth!"

"I know."

"I should have burned your body the second I had your soul to keep you from escaping me!"

"I know."

With every unfazed answer he received, Hao's rage-twisted expression seemed to falter. Hao had spoken from fury, but Yoh was giving no place for that fury to latch on and grow, and simple confusion was starting to overtake the anger.

"I should have made certain you never existed to begin with!"

"I know."

"This isn't over, not for me," Hao snarled, "The next Shaman Fight is only five hundred years away. I'll transmigrate into a new body and burn this filthy world of humans to ashes!"

"I don't think you will," Yoh replied.

"Oh really?" Hao sneered, "How do you figure that?"

Yoh thought about it a moment. How could anyone stop Hao's next transmigration? Well, there was the obvious way…

"The Shaman King from this fight might ask the Great Spirit to seal your soul so that it can't transmigrate anymore," Yoh pointed out.

Hao's expression darkened. "I hate you," he snarled, "That's just what you would do with your victory, bastard…"

Yoh blinked. Then, much to the obvious dismay of Hao, Yoh beamed at him.

"You think I can really win?"

"…I hate your stupidity the most," Hao growled, "Why the rest of my soul is such an idiot, I'll never understand."

Shrugging it off, Yoh let himself grow serious. There was no telling how long this situation would last, and Yoh was determined not to leave this situation unresolved. "Speaking of the transmigration…"

"…You think I'd tell you how to do it, so you can follow me and ruin my next life like you did this one?"

Hao sounded incredulous, but Yoh shook his head.

"I don't need to learn how," Yoh clarified, "But I do have a question. When you leave the body to transmigrate, how does that work? Do you just say 'hey, this life stinks, I'm going to try a different body for next time' and then you go and find one?"

"You must think I'm a complete idiot," Hao retorted, "You know already that it doesn't work that way; even you wouldn't make it sound so stupid otherwise."

"Well, it didn't sound like it did, but now I'm sure," Yoh pointed out, "Now I have another question. The last two lives you've had…neither of them ended very good, did they?"

Hao didn't reply to this one; he grit his teeth and glared at Yoh, eyes narrowed to slits. Yoh took this to be an affirmation and continued speaking, nonplussed.

"So each time you died, or…were killed, you were angry and wanting revenge. You kept those feelings bottled up inside your soul, letting them drive you along as you focused on your goal before anything else…" Yoh shook his head, "That's a bad fixation for a ghost to have, Hao."

"…What are you…are you calling me a ghost?"

"Well, not really, since you're alive and all," Yoh scratched his head, wondering how to explain this half-formed notion of his properly, "But you have died before, and if you had stayed dead, then you would be a fixated ghost. …At least I think that's how it would work."

Hao gaped at him for almost a full minute.

"You think I'm…that I could even be…a fixated ghost?"

"Well, that swirly aura of yours makes you look like one," Yoh pointed out.

"And yours doesn't?"

Blinking, Yoh looked at himself more closely. Sure enough, he was covered in a swirling aura the same as Hao was. There was an obvious difference between them, however – unlike Hao's unpleasant black-red aura; blue-white flames surrounded Yoh. They reminded him of Amidamaru in the Oversoul, actually.

Looking back over at Hao, Yoh saw the other Shaman was still studying himself. Judging from the look on his face, Hao was not happy with what he was seeing. Well, Yoh didn't know what he could do, but he was pretty good at quelling raging spirits with bad fixations, so there must be something he could do…

Hao's head jerked up as Yoh walked closer; something like dismay twisted the old Shaman's features, but Hao didn't move away. He looked like he wanted to step back very much, but something was keeping him rooted.

"W-What are you doing?"

"I'm not really sure," Yoh answered, speaking honestly, "I think it will help…"

As Hao started to protest against that decidedly non-reassuring sentiment, Yoh raised his hands and placed them on his twin's shoulders. He really wasn't sure what he was doing, but he wanted to do something to help and this was the only thing he could think of doing…

Power swirled around, and Yoh had the sudden, very distinct impression that he was inside Hao again. This time, he wasn't all the way inside with no anchor, but it was still a little disconcerting. Brushing those feelings aside for the moment, Yoh reached out carefully, tracing the tendrils of tainted power back to their origin. Their battle had exhausted Hao's huge center of power to almost nothing, but there was still a sizable portion left. Tied into that power were many centuries' buildup of negative emotions, crusting and poisoning the rest of Hao's aura and soul – grief, sorrow, loneliness, fear, agony, and cruel death stank with noxious fumes. Yoh didn't have to think about it; the power was pulled taunt and the thousand year deposits tainting it untangled and cast aside with no hesitation at all. Without the crusting buildup holding it all together, the power seemed to disintegrate rapidly, evaporating right before his eyes.

Yoh lost track of this when a sudden blow knocked his hands away. Hao followed up with a shove, propelling Yoh backwards for a few awkward steps. Hao had his other hand clutched to his chest, and looked shocked and appalled.

"You…" Hao said, "What did you do!"

"I fixed it," Yoh said, "Look. That bad aura is gone now."

The black-red was indeed disappearing, vanishing into more neutral gray. Hao clearly didn't care.

"You…"

Hao seemed at a loss for words. Eventually, he settled on, "I hate you…" the statement hissed and final.

There was really nothing else to be done here, Yoh decided. Looking up and around at the bright whiteness that still surrounded them, he wondered if the Great Spirit had been waiting for them to finish.

"...If you were waiting for us, we're finished now."

Yoh addressed the whiteness directly, figuring that it couldn't hurt. A deep rumble, something like a chuckle or a small earthquake, passed through his body. The whiteness flared to blinding brightness for a moment, then faded away completely. Yoh was standing in the desert, surrounded by his friends, watching the hidden entrance to the Patch Village disappearing into the cloud of blowing black sand.

There was no sign whatsoever of Hao.

…