Author: Blu/Rendezvous (blujade88@yahoo.com). Disclaimer: Don't own, except ideas and OCs. Steal the idea and die. Rating: outer-limit PG-13 for violence (Hao), profanity (Hao), and sexuality (Hao). Summary: [Y/A][R/H] Where does Yoh end and Hao begin? What was once black and white is now just gray; Anna searches for Yoh as Hao plays cat and mouse with her, sadistic bastard that he is. AN: I swear, I had reserves about the fic name even before the, uh, well-intentioned review. Serious! Don't you believe me? *coughs* Annnnnnyhow... RenxHoroHoro because even a non-yaoi fan like me can appreciate such a cute (not to mention semi-canon) couple. Also a spin-off from one of the last few anime episodes. I find it a fascinating concept, and I hope you do too. Enjoy! ^_~
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Chapter One[November 2nd, 2003]
Wind in time
rapes the flower
trembling on the vine
and nothing yields to shelter
from above.
They say temptation will destroy
our love.
The never-ending hunger.
--sarah mclachlan, "Fear"
--
It was their wedding that day.
It was a beautiful one, as days went, the sunshine spilling across the courtyard like thick layers of honey, golden rays chasing butterflies and dappling the grass beneath her feet yellow-green. She had gathered her skirts around her, smoothing out the folds of white chiffon as best she could. Even now she acted the part of a lady, though she would much have preferred her old black dress with its short-skirt and accompanying red scarf, a familiar weight wound around the top of her head. Her dress now—one that he had given her, forced her to wear—bared her shoulders, her neck, and she felt naked because of it. The day was warm, and beautiful—perfect, really, but Anna was shivering.
She leaned against the tree, and shivered, and wondered, distantly, why the world pretended to be so normal when it wasn't.
She had never really noticed such materialistic things like that before—the leaves as they drifted to the ground around her, twirling in their red-gold attire, the tree trunk against her back, comfortably scratchy, the sunshine, the sky, the entire sleepy afternoon. The day was that lazy kind, the kind where she had had nothing to do but watch television and relax in her nice shaded room while she made Yoh run thirty times around the block outside—the kind where, back when everything was normal, she would see lovers sitting under a tree on her way home, holding hands and drowsing together, her head on his shoulder.
It was, ironically, the kind of day for a wedding. Anna sat there and waited. She had calmed herself some time ago; now she was completely still, breath measured and hands loose in her lap.
In time he came. She had been expecting him for a while now.
"Anna, dear," the voice came from behind the tree. "Have you forgotten what today is?"
"No." She turned her head his way. "Come around."
"As m'lady wishes." He was mocking her. She hated it when he mocked her.
With a swish of cloak he was down on level with her, eyes made a deep, inquisitive gold-color by the sunlight. "Hello," he said, and smiled.
She looked at him looking back at her. When he reached out to tuck a strand of wheat-colored hair out of her face she did not flinch back. He touched a finger to her cheek, traced down to the corner of her lips, where his eyes lingered. Still she didn't blink. He stroked her hair again, as one might do a pet; she stared at him. Her hands had clenched in her lap.
"They're waiting for us, darling."
"Don't call me that."
He laughed. "I can call you anything I like."
"I am Anna Kyouyama," she stated.
"And not Anna Asakura, is that right?" A fine black brow arched in derision.
"Correct."
"Come now, don't be so uptight." He leaned in to her. If she had been the cowardly type she would've been forced right up against the tree. "Darling Anna."
Instead she met him eye for eye, though he was so close it seemed he might kiss her. "Get back."
He smiled. "Or you'll hit me?"
"Yes."
"Go ahead." His voice was musical, amused.
"Don't underestimate me," she said, and lashed out with her feet. Or tried to, because he moved out of the way so fast she couldn't even follow his figure, his hair as it trailed in the warm breeze, his smile. Before she knew it she had grabbed a handful of his cloak in her fists, and tugged, hard. She put all her strength into it, pulling down at him, felt his knees buckle just a bit. If she had been the type to growl she would've, right there and then.
He hit the ground next to her, but it was with his lip curled up in laughter, as if he had fallen down only by his own consent. The leaves flickered in sunlight, and more fell as he grasped her shoulders. His grip hurt. She knew, distantly, there would be bruises left over tomorrow, faint purple smudges that only the two of them would see.
"Tell me, Anna," he said, and pulled her to him. His hands were like banded steel. "Do you still miss him?"
She looked up at him. "Yes."
His eyes were lidded, lashes black against honey skin. "Stupid woman, you should've told him you loved him when you had the chance."
She did not try to deny it, but was instead silent.
"Now—" he leaned to her, brushed lips against her forehead. "He's gone forever, isn't he?" His voice was comfortable, conversational. "You're not going to hit me for doing that?"
"He is not gone," she said, "And I won't waste my time trying to hurt the likes of you."
She liked to think she was honest to herself, always. She had seen Yoh that last day, held his limp body within her arms, felt the bare flicker of life contained within. She knew, she knew, he wasn't dead, because—because—
But now it had nothing to do with logic, or sense, or pure, cold facts—only that Yoh was her Yoh—that he couldn't have been defeated that easily, that his life couldn't have been snuffed out like a candle flame, so simply—
She liked to think she was honest to herself.
He is not gone, or dead.
He watched her for a little, as if he could see the turmoil behind her calm façade—and that was what it always was, a façade—then chuckled. "The likes of me, huh?"
"Shut up."
"Don't tell me to shut up," he said, gently. "I am Shaman King. But it's true, you shouldn't try and go against me. You never know what people like me can do."
"I know that you can bring back Yoh," she said.
He smiled at her, and tugged her further to him, so that she was half-sprawled across his lap in the most uncomfortable position. He wanted to humiliate her, but she wasn't so easy to humiliate. "And why would I want to do that?"
"Because if you don't, I'll kill you," she said, softly.
"Tough words for such a little girl. It would be shocking indeed if the Shaman's King wife were to stick a knife in him in the dead of the night, hmm?"
"I'm not so little as you might think."
"Ahhh—" he stretched out. She moved away, tugging the hem of her dress from his fingertips as she did. "You're right, I guess."
She leaned against the trunk of the tree, stared out at the butterflies. "That's why you should believe me when I say I'm going to kill you."
"It'd be interesting to see you try."
She stared at him a little. "I'm going to do more than try."
"Oh! What a threat!" He turned to her, smiling. He looked like Yoh when he smiled. "But first things first. We've wasted enough time here."
"I'd rather just stay."
"Silly child!" He laughed, stood up and offered her his hand, then retracted it with a small grin when she ignored it. "The shamans are getting impatient. Surely you don't want to keep them waiting any longer?"
She pushed herself to her feet, adjusting the fall of the dress and her necklace as she went. The material was whispery against her bare legs. "I hate you, you know," she said, calmly.
"I know, darling," he said, taking her hand in his. His fingers curled around hers just hard enough to hurt. "I know."
--
She had watched him watching the humans before.
Some of them had been rounded up in the castle grounds (and it was a castle, there was no other word for it—she suspected Hao wouldn't have settled for anything less), numbering in the hundreds at least, bleating and milling around like so many lost sheep. There was no hate in his eyes, no anger—just a certain contempt, as if they were all below him, ants that he could step on and grind into miniscule bits, and no one would give a damn. It was as if he just didn't care, now that he had gotten what he had wanted out of some 1000 years of life and half-life—eradicating humans left and right, disease and famine and everything burning, burning, burning. It was as if—as if he were—bored.
And then there were the times that she caught him watching her. There would be the heat of his eyes, a long trail of ghost fingers down her skin, perhaps imagined, perhaps not; she would snap her head up, and find him studying her as if she were a specimen under a microscope. There was no hate there, either; just a certain curiosity.
She knew he was wondering how much she could take before she broke.
Now he walked in front of her, in his cloak that fluttered like waves being skimmed over by a frisking wind. They passed a group of people, shamans all of them, dressed in the colorful garb of their homeland. All ducked their heads as they strode by; a woman bowed so low that her long hair rippled down to the ground, where it mingled with the dirt. "Hao-sama," they murmured.
She watched him smile at them, friendly as a cobra before it strikes.
"You're a hypocrite, Hao," she said, conversationally, after they had left them behind. "You treat them like they're your friends, but when it comes down to it you wouldn't blink if they died some way or another."
"Always the eloquent one." He slipped her a smile over his shoulder. "But aren't you the same as me, Anna? If not for Yoh you wouldn't care if the world ended tomorrow and everybody died except for you. And maybe not even that."
"But there is Yoh," she said.
He gave a little hmph. "And what about Yoh's friends? Would you care for them?"
She stared at his back. "It doesn't matter, does it?"
An easy shrug, and then silence.
Keeping up with him was easy, even as the road steeped, curving up over the side of the hill. Trees bowed down on both sides, shedding leaves red-gold that fluttered away in the brisk wind.
She hated this. She hated this with a strange, detached fury.
There was some part of her that stirred against the rational side of her mind, who complained—no, not complained, but raged—at being led around like a helpless puppy. She was so unused to this—this heat that centered in her chest, blocking her lungs and shortening her breath and clenching her nails into claws. When Anna hated it was ice, not fire. When she hated she hated logically, so that there was still room left for thought, for cold reasoning. She did not hate often, but there he was, walking in front of her with the wind slipping in underneath his clothes so that she could see his lean back, all sinew and locked muscle and a hollow where his shoulder blades met. And in between the shoulder blades, she imagined she could see the slow, steady beat of his heart.
"We're here."
The path cleared out into a large platform set a few stories off ground level. The front part of it descended into stairs, towards where a group of people huddled together, conferring about something or other. Polished hardwood squeaked beneath her sandals; her sandals, the only thing that Hao had let her keep. If she looked over, she could see all the people crowded into the vast expanse of the canyon—yes, it was a canyon, a natural open-aired audience room carved out by nature. They looked like ants, they were so small, and they roared their approval, their joy, their excitement. It seemed like the whole shaman population was out, and then she realized that the thought wasn't too far off.
"Anna," he said, still facing outwards. "Please do keep yourself from trying to kill me until after the ceremony."
And then he turned to her with hands out. The clapping, the whistles, the cheering swelled until she wanted to scream for all of them to be quiet—for god's sake they were acting like this was the formal coronation of Hao, only that had been a week back, and today was just supposed to be a small passage that she could get over with quickly—
Because, damnit, she didn't want to reminded anymore than she was that she was going to become wife to the Shaman King; that she was going to become wife to Asakura Hao; that she would never become wife to Asakura Yoh, because he technically didn't even exist anymore.
Damnit.
There were no tears, though. There were never any tears. It was her own fault, because she never should have cared so much in the first place. But Yoh had been tricky like that, the sneaky spoiled brat, a brat she had known since her younger, more innocent days—Yoh, the little Asakura shaman who made her her breakfast every morning and trained so hard to become Shaman King, to have the chance to become Shaman King—she had made him just because she wouldn't have settled for any less, and then somewhere along the way she had looked at him and thought, "He is my husband. He is—will become—my husband," and she hadn't even felt bewildered by the way he had somehow tiptoed through all her considerable defenses, scaled her ice-slicked walls—
And then he had gone off and died, on her.
"We will go through the human ritual," he said, and laughed a little when he saw the way she looked at him. "In honor of Yoh."
"You are still going to bring him back for me," she said, quietly. "Asakura Hao." And then she let him take her arm and lead her down to the foremost of the open-aired platform, where the Indian priest awaited them in white and crimson attire. The people roared. The day was as bright as fresh-fallen snow.
--
It began as soon as they took the first step down together: the music only she heard, the strange cawing of spirits, the steps downward, one after another after another, as if she were walking into hell and willing as a lamb being led to its slaughter.
Her hand was in his, sunlight slanting down towards them, old gold and warm. The noise of the crowd grew; she saw him smiling out of the corner of her eyes. His smile grew too, and it was sweet, like Yoh's; the wind whipped his hair sideways, and if her mind's eye placed an orange headphone around his neck, he could've been Yoh.
She thought she saw him...glowing.
Just a faint emission of light, like the play of fire; and the heat burning like embers against the palm of her hand. It grew, steady as their descent downwards. She did not try to twist away, because that would be admitting defeat to him. He was still smiling. She didn't want to give him reason to smile more.
What are you doing, Hao? She concealed a small wince as his grip tightened—then released, just as suddenly. Trying to burn me up?
They arrived at the bottom, him a half step in front of her, because that was the way he wanted, and she could do nothing about it.
"Ready?"
No.
And she said, very clearly, "You'll never break me."
She did not flinch when he took her hand again, pressing hard into the bruise forming there. "Strength is only to be expected of the Shaman King's wife."
They faced each other. The priest crept up besides them, as if afraid of what Hao might do if he interrupted such a moment. A high, nervous cough sounded. "Hao-sama, I think we will have to begin soon—"
"Go ahead," he ordered. His hands clenched around hers, eyes the same strange gold-black. "We're ready."
The priest cleared his throat. And something that she had known only a few times in her life clenched low in her stomach, like it was trying to get out. It made her squirm in his grip, and it didn't matter that he was smiling at her, triumphant as a tiger crouched atop his prey; it only mattered that she couldn't do this, she couldn't, how could she have agreed in the first place—
Until the panic died down, and she was left with only something old, something tattered, something so tired.
"We meet in this place to celebrate a mystery as ageless as humankind; a mystery of enduring power and inspiration..."
She met his gaze, kept it, and knew that he saw the same irony as she did. The bastard was mocking her again, damnit. "In honor of Yoh," she remembered, and the strange heat flared up within her chest again.
"'...Place me as a seal over your heart… for love is as strong as death, Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers overflow it; Love is beyond price; to what can it be compared?'"
Quiet, still; the numbing silence flowed into her veins, clawed up her throat, froze her feet to the ground. And he was still smiling at her. She didn't want to understand the way he was looking at her; she could only stand there, watch as he brought her hands to his lips. Warm. His mouth was warm, and when he set his teeth gently down into her skin she flinched.
"...You come to this altar of commitment individually as man and woman. But when you leave, you leave as husband and wife, united by vows and blessed by God..."
There was something wet nipping at the back of her eyes.
"Do you, Asakura Hao, take this woman as your wife and your closest friend, and do you agree to be fully committed to the sanctity of this marriage for as long as you both shall live?"
"Yes," he said.
This is all a dream. I'll wake up and Yoh will be in the kitchen making me my breakfast, and I'll yell at him for not having it ready by the time I'm out of the bathroom. She stared at the face looking down at her sightlessly. A dream. The ghost of his teeth stung against the back of her hand. And we'll walk to school together, and he'll be listening to Bob, and—and—
"Do you, Kyouyama Anna, take this man as your husband and your closest friend, and do you agree to be fully committed to the sanctity of this marriage for as long as you both shall live?"
No. No.
"Yes," he said, laughing a little. "You'll have to excuse Anna, she has a bit of a speaking problem."
And she couldn't; only she had to. And—
"Come on, Anna," he urged her on in a gentle voice, as if she were that same lamb, being led to its death. "Remember what we talked about earlier."
She looked at him, then at the priest, who was standing there and watching Hao with a reverent light in his eyes, and then back at Hao; then out to the shamans crowding out the nature-made canyon, all eyes on her and the air as silent as dawn before the birds came singing. Dawn, before Yoh's alarm clock rang; dawn, the last night together with him, enveloped in his warmth and trying not to like it.
"Yes," she said. "I do."
Someone screamed. "ANNA!"
"Oh," he said. "Did I forget to mention that I have a wedding present for you?"
"How could you do this—Anna, over here—ANNA!"
She spun sideways, and hearing only distantly Hao in the background, as he said, quickly but not hurried, "Hurry and get it over with; skip over the ring part, we'll have to do that another day—", his words made crackly in by the confusion swarming in her head. For a moment her eyes darted this way and that, unsure of where the yelling was coming from, and then she saw the crowd of shamans parting like the red sea, rippling apart before a giant blue form. Ice sprayed outwards as structures that had been set up for shade were torn down. She could see HoroHoro now, a small figure with spiky blue hair—f he only reached out with his oversoul, he could've run through the place where she was standing, splintered the wood and fractured the stone. Behind him was the gold-blue form of Ren, and then the snakeheads, and the leopard-claws, the angel wings and the pink dress—
"Anna!" he screamed hoarsely. "Yoh—we can still bring him back—Amidamaru is with us, he says—he says there might be a way—Anna, Anna—don't you see what that means? Anna!—"
A hand touched her arm from behind. "What idiocy," Hao said.
"By the exchange of vows and the giving and receiving of rings, you have proclaimed and affirmed your intentions to enter into a sacred union. In recognition of the above, and, as a minister of the Gospel and in accordance with the laws and statutes of the new shaman world order, I now pronounce you: Husband and Wife."
"ANNA!!"
"You may kiss your bride."
He kissed her. Quickening, so unbelievably fast. He caught her chin in deft fingers and tilted her face to him, not roughly but with irresistible precision, and kissed her. Her hand itched; she clenched it into a fist. No matter. It doesn't matter. Whether I'm married to him or not—but it did, because she was promised to Yoh, not Hao. Only, Yoh was gone.
No. No, he isn't.
Her knees trembled. She looked up to see how much closer they had come, with Hao's warmth a breath away from the side of her neck. Maybe there was a small frown on his face, or maybe it was a smile. But there was HoroHoro, so close to her she could've reached out and touched the ice blue of his oversoul. She yanked free of Hao, or tried to. He held on with an unmoving firmness.
"Jeanne," he said.
And then, quite simply, HoroHoro and Ren and Ryu and Lyserg and Chocolove disappeared in a flash of brilliant light. When the light faded there was in its place a cage, and just standing so far from it she could feel the power it took to trap the shamans beneath the heavy gold bars. A large black spirit crouched over the top of the metal bars, a key clasped in its paws.
The girl came from behind them, hands clasped as if in prayer. "Hao-sama."
"Care to explain?" he asked, half-turning.
"I'm sorry, Hao-sama." Her voice was serene, but held an undertone of something off, like a portrait hung upside down, or a voice on a recording tape playing backwards. "Yali and his friends were talking about your wedding to the itako girl today, and they heard. They broke out when I wasn't watching."
Yoh had told her about Iron Maiden Jeanne. He had said that Hao had devoured her spirit.
Then why...?
He nodded. "You are excused. And keep them there until I tell you otherwise."
"Hao-sama?"
A half-smile. "It's amusing watching them playing around on the half-wit toys they call oversouls." He turned back to her, eyes alight in the afternoon sunshine. "This is my wedding gift to my wife," he said, only it was to the whole gathering of shamans now clustering back together beneath them. "This is my gift to you," he said, this time quietly, with a brush of lips against her brow. It was almost tender.
Then he released her.
"Jeanne," he said again. The cage lowered so that they were directly in front of them, so that she could see Ren pounding against the bars with his fists, and Manta huddling in the corner with his backpack clutched to his chest, and HoroHoro yelling at Ren to stop, he was going to hurt himself, and Faust slumped next to Manta, Eliza absent from his side, and Ryu leaning against his wooden sword. She watched him stagger down to his knees.
"Anna," he said, "Which traitor would you like me to execute first?"
The people roared hungrily. The day was too bright, like a dying star burning brilliantly, determined to blaze on to its last.
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AN: I'm sorry, but I had to cut it off right there. The chapter was getting way too long. (I know, I'm evil.) Review, and have a traditional first chapter cookie! ^_^