"HAAAAAAH--!!" Ren swung his kwan dao forcefully, slicing trees down from the roots that ground them to life. The halberd's blade shimmered with a glossy metallic sheen. Its intense golden finish matched the eyes of its wielder, and its sharp tip was only a tad more pronounced than his hair.
The boy smirked. It was twilight, and he loved the humid, sticky air that incited him to keep on training, keep on pushing forward. He knew he couldn't stop; he was too angry.
Angry at his father for eternally keeping a piece of his only son's heart shrouded in darkness.
Angry at Hao, for being the only shaman truly stronger than he was.
Angry at Horohoro, for being so stupid all of the time.
And livid at Yoh, for getting married to the only girl who was as strong as he was.
Ren had always secretly wanted his stone-cold soul to be Released; Tamed; Loved by someone who could put him in his place. After all, he never felt like he truly had a part in the world, much less the Great Spirit. This worried him. Always feeling out of control, he fought for domination of his own life.
The only way he could do it would be to have one to prompt him all of the time. Constantly carving it out for himself, it had never really worked. He felt that Anna was the only one who could make it so.
Her steely blue eyes, her confident poise, mysteriousness, and above all: her dedication to training the hell out of the one she had by her side.
Ren jammed the soil with his kwan dao and chugged whole milk from a half-gallon thermos.
"Master Ren, you should retire for the night," Bason urged.
"I DON'T CARE WHAT I SHOULD DO, BASON!" He was in a daze; a frenzy. "I'M GOING TO DO WHATEVER I WANT! I DON'T NEED A MOCHIREI! I DON'T NEED A WOMAN WHO WILL GIVE HERSELF TO THAT LAZY SLACKER ASAKURA! I AM MY OWN PERSON!! I AM MY OWN SHAMAN!!!"
One second later, he had cleared most of the trees within fifty feet of him.
Bason was silent as Ren broke down, and sobbed for the first time in years. Even Bason had never, ever seen him so.
"Damn it...DAMN IT ALL!!" With great force, he lost control of his hand and his powerful grip pulsed.
He plunged his own weapon through his thigh.
For a moment, Ren clenched his teeth and ground them together until anyone who consumed less calcium would have been all gums. He then bit his lip, which trickled blood also, and cried out to the darkening forest surrounding him.
Bason was panicked. Still loyal to his master, he spattered frantically, "Do not worry, Master! I will retrieve help for you right away! The En Inn is not far off!!" With that the hitodama-form Chinese warlord flew away for assistance.
"BASON!! YOU BASTARD!!! YOH IS THE VERY LAST PERSON THAT I WOULD ACCEPT HELP FROM RIGHT NOW!!!" Ren moaned and dried his tears, sinking lower to the ground. Despite his excruciating pain, he ripped the kwan dao's blade through his flesh, muscle, and bone, ushering new blood with the withdrawal, and struck a nearby shrub out of frustration.
"EEP!" There was an unexpected echo that came from the direction he thrust the halberd towards.
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" Ren burst, his small, salty tears flying off his face. He did not want to be seen, so he hastily added, "GET OUT NOW!!!"
He was used to being alone.
"Gomen nasai, gomen nasai," was the meek response. Ren could tell by the voice's reverb that its carrier was shivering. He barely felt any guilt. He just needed to keep to himself; solitary.
He had been hurt too many times. Too many to count.
At that moment, the shrub that had been skewed by Tao Ren's kwan dao fell into two, not a single leaf connecting its once whole two parts anymore. A small, lanky, quivering silhouette had become visible.
It apparently was too shocked to leave, but it dared not approach Ren.
Ren looked down at his leg. Its bleeding had slowed down a little, but he knew that without help he could bleed to death or get a life-threatening infection with a wound that big.
But he wasn't going to ask for help! Of course not!
However, he felt the presence of the one over by the split bush, and it made him uneasy. Seeing as it wouldn't leave anyway, he asked, "If you're not going to go away, at least come where I can see you so that I don't have to kill you to feel safe."
With a small jump, the figure nodded and came into sight. Barely visible in the foggy twilight of the deep woods, Tamamura Tamao simply stood and regained her composure.
The awkwardness of her being lost in the melancholic atmosphere, she stared through the haze to see Ren's great injury. Immediately flustered, Tamao came closer and cried out, "Ren-sama! Oh, are you all right? You are really, really hurt!! Oh my gosh, what can I do? Aaah, no—"
"Yoh's coming. So just go away now."
Ren looked on, his amber eyes piercing through the fog to Tamao's. Her large, pink irises were hidden by numerous blinks. "...Huh? Yoh-sama, coming here? Oh..." Tamao fidgeted with her shirt. "I see. But he is with Anna-sama right now; are you sure?"
She waited for the response that didn't come.
"Oh, well I do guess that they would come together. Both of them would wish to help you, I'm sure." She at least looked a little less depressed now, weakly smiling. "Ren-sama, I cannot stay here until Yoh arrives. I would be very...uncomfortable."
"You mean you would need to resume talking through that notebook that's as big as you?" Ren shrugged.
She hesitated. "...Probably, Ren-sama."
Ren was curious. "Why aren't you using it now?"
...Tamao was silent. She had always felt so shy around the family she served, the Asakura—especially Yoh-sama. But with Anna, Manta, and now Ren, she had forgotten all about her predisposition to speak with her index finger and a kokkuri board.
She finally answered, aware of her mind trailing off and afraid of another outburst from Ren. "Ren-sama, I don't feel like I need it with you. Even when you are hurt like this, you are not completely weak and you make me feel safe. I don't think I need to shield my words..."
Ren's eyes widened at this, but he didn't know what to say. Tamao was a strange girl, but he was glad to keep her company. Yoh would surely be arriving soon by now, and then Tamao would leave. But did Ren really want to see that bastard right now?
Tamao was unsure of her feelings at this point, and hovered somewhere between leaving Ren behind to bleed or at least comforting some of his hurt. But she was a small girl and could not decide. Her cheeks were flushed as pink as her rosy, flippy hair when Ren broke the silence.
"Tamao, please stay with me. We should leave this place together, before anyone else comes to annoy me." He did not want to see Yoh, but even more...he did not want to see Anna with Yoh.
Tamao was red now. She knew Ren needed assistance fast, whether he wanted it or not. But when she thought about it, it was only logical that she stay with him and see to it that he would be all right. Contemplating and thoughtful, a light went off in her head. She pulled out some old bandages from her pack that had been waiting to be used, and although she had no cream or other first-aid, she knew that the bleeding needed to slowed and stopped in dramatic time.
Ren looked on, realizing that she decided to stay, but apprehensive for Tamao to approach and offer someone as strong as him medical help (even if it was unbelievably incompetent).
"Ren-sama, please let me address your wound."
"No. Give me that bandage." He snatched it from her. "I can do this. Thanks."
Dumbfounded, Tamao watched as Ren tied the cloth once around his leg and tightly pulled the edges. This cut into his skin through his silky black pants, and he screamed in agony.
Worried at what his amazing idiocy would bring to him next, Tamao grabbed the bandage and untied it. "Not that tight, Ren-sama! And you need to cover the wound much more thoroughly."
"Fine, why don't you do it?!"
"FINE!!!!"
Ren stared with a look of complete surprise on his face as Tamao turned purple, and then she started to work on his leg. He didn't know what to say.
Tamao's eyes began to water, and Ren just laid back and waited for it all to be over. Tamao needed multiple bandages to guard his open flesh, though, so it was taking a while. During the ordeal, Ren asked Tamao, "What were you doing out here, anyway?"
She kept on tying, and then said, "I couldn't stay in the house any longer. I decided to divine..."
"About what?"
Tamao would not answer. Ren sighed, realizing that she could be as mysterious and stubborn as Anna. Ren asked another question, filling up their dead air. "Why couldn't you stay in the house any longer?"
Tamao gulped and sighed. "When you have lived with someone as wonderful as Yoh-sama for a very long time, and then his time is taken up by a woman that is so much more mature and sophisticated and talented and beautiful than me...it's hard to see that kind of change just happen."
Ren could not believe that Tamao was actually talking to him (hell, anyone), but he knew exactly what she was talking about. He smirked. "You do love Yoh a lot, don't you? Pathetic."
Tamao looked up at him for a split second and then hung her head again. "I think I have realized that Yoh-sama was unattainable from the very beginning. Perhaps that dissipated my strong longing for him, and maybe that jaded me, too." She sighed. "Love won't come for someone like me. I would be too naïve to realize it anyway, Ren-sama. I'm so stupid."
"Tch. You are pathetic. Stop acting so weak."
"Huh?"
"You're out here to divine about love, right? That shows you haven't given up."
"Right," Tamao nodded slightly.
Tao Ren couldn't help but crack a smile. He knew everything that forced her out here into "seclusion" now. Funnily, she didn't even realize how much she'd spilled about herself. Even more ironic was that, however much it irked him,
He had come out here for the very same reason. He just dealt with it through a temper tantrum.
"All done, Ren-sama. You dealt with the pain well; I'm very very sorry that it must have hurt. I'm so inexperienced at so many things...!" She covered her face with her small, fragile hands.
Ren stood up, wincing but glad to be back on his feet. It didn't feel right when he wasn't pushing himself to the limit; doing something.
"Ren-sama, I'll be going. I think I hear Yoh-sama's footsteps."
Ren jerked around. He heard two pairs of footsteps.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?!! BAKA ONNA!!" Heart pounding now, he grabbed Tamao's hand roughly, and although it hurt, ran with her dragging behind.
"Ren-samaaaaaaaaa—!!" Tamao struggled to comprehend what he was so worried about.
"RE—N!" Yoh's cool voice called, emitting an aura of ease. But anything could have been easier for Ren right now than the risk of Anna seeing him.
"Dammit, need to get away...!" He had cleared so much of the forest around them that he struggled to find shelter behind anything. Please, God, don't let her see me.
Tamao frowned now and asked shyly, "Ren-sama, I need to know where you are taking m—MPH!"
Ren clapped his hand over her mouth as he thrust her down to lay behind a wide hardwood. He thrust himself and his semi-lame leg down beside her and kept her quiet.
"Ren! Where is he?" Yoh echoed.
Anna simply stood in silence, her cobalt eyes cutting through the haze. She said not a word, whether she knew where the two were or not.
"Huh. And Bason said that we'd know exactly where to find him. I wonder why he didn't come."
"Are you dense? He said that Ren would be irritable. Who wants to be around someone who is so controlling and temperamental when he's on edge?" Anna asked her husband.
"You've got that right!" exclaimed Yoh with a grin, thinking about his own relationship. Anna veered around and glared.
"eep."
"That's right," Anna responded. Looking right in Ren and Tamao's direction, she sighed exasperatedly. "Let's go. If he's here, he's well taken care of by now. Not a trickle of blood besides where he was on that stump."
"Mm! Sou ka," Yoh nodded. Anna had already started walking away, and Yoh started after her.
As the open forest-made-field was silent again, Tamao looked at Ren confusedly. Upon viewing her dazed expression, Ren let go of her mouth.
"Ren-sama, how did you hurt yourself so badly in the first place?"
"It's none of your business. Now we can go." Ren got up and grimaced—it still hurt to stand physically, though in his mind it made him all the stronger.
"Don't say that!" Tamao cried, still sitting in a pile of loose dirt beside him. "I saw your eyes. They didn't peel away from Anna once, so why didn't you ask her to help you?"
Ren stared her down, and sneered. "I...I don't care what you think! No one needs to care; I could have gotten myself back out of here without anyone. As a matter of fact..." He knelt down, and pushed her away. "I don't need you out here either." Ren's eyes started to water as he began to make his way out of the forest without the pink-haired girl.
She didn't expect him to return to see her out of the darkness. She just whispered, "You're the pathetic one. Everyone needs someone, but you even deny yourself."
Ren could have heard this from a mile away. Limply, he made his way back toward her.
"Tamao...what?" He wasn't sure if he was more mad or perplexed.
She started to sniffle. "Ren-sama, you think that you are so self-sufficient. But you really just feel sorry for yourself."
Opalescent tears trickled down her pink-kissed cheeks.
"And I know that someone besides Anna could love you if you opened your heart to her."
Ren was the one blushing now. He looked down at Tamao and her round, sweet face. Her look was one of desperate and genuine concern, and to see this mixed in with her angelic tears hit even Ren deep inside.
He knew it right then:
She was even more beautiful than Anna.
His eyes met hers, and he sat down beside her. She looked away to wipe her tears.
"Don't," Ren pleaded. His finger gently turned her chin towards him.
As she cried softly, his lips met hers in a tender kiss.
They embraced there in the darkness of the forest, and their hearts became light together.
"Come on, Tamao. Let's go."
Tamao stopped crying and helped Ren up. She led him toward Anna and Yoh's house to get him better help, and they held hands within the glow of their new, fresh love the entire way there.