Sadly I don't own shaman king; only my oc's and part of the plot. Dang.

Expect some violence, swearing, and funny.

Chapter 2- Crossing That Bridge

They had been trapped inside the cave for many days now, and not once had Hao visited, which in Nindie's opinion was a good thing. Although at first irritated by her captive state, Shinji was growing to like the new sense of motivation it brought her. It seemed that the only thing she had been doing lately was training without any real feeling behind it, and as much as she wanted become shaman king she didn't have any motivation because everyone she had fought was far too easy for her. Her first match in the tournament has lasted all of thirty seconds, and although she had now missed her second match thanks to the sudden kidnapping, she was certain that she could tackle whatever was thrown at her in her third. If there was any bright side to this situation it was that there wasn't any bigger challenge life could throw at her than Hao Asakura.

As the light slowly dimmed out of the view of the cave entrance the candles lining the inside walls all spontaneously lit, casting fantastic shadows into the deep crevices of the walls and dancing across the floor with the flickering flames. The warm glow sparkled on the small trickle of the water dripping down of the ceiling at the far corner of the room. Shinji was beyond grateful for that little dribble of liquid because it had both provided her with drinking water, and entertainment. She sat with her back against the hard stone, weaving a small ball of water between her fingers and transforming it into numerous different shapes. Nindie on the over hand, lay on her stomach, floating an inch off the ground with an open book placed in front of her. The barrier blocking the entrance kept her trapped inside as well, and she was eternally thankful that Shinji had the bag of supplies that contained her book when she was knocked out.

Behind her, Shinji laughed loudly, making the spirit jump and glare around at her companion who had manipulated the small sphere of water into a mini replica of Hao's face, and was distorting it into several funny facial expressions. Nindie sighed in irritation, and snapped her book shut with a sharp stream of water.

"Your immaturity never ceases to amaze me." She snapped in annoyance.

Shinji looked up briefly, before continuing to abuse Hao's watery face. "Someone's a little crabby." She replied absently.

"We've been here four days already, why are we still here!" Nindie cried.

"What's the big rush? It's not like we have to be anywhere."

"You haven't had a shower in four days, Shinji. You haven't eaten anything but the bag of cookies you stored in your pocket, and don't even get my started on your apparently non-existent toilet habits."

"That seems a little hypocritical coming from a ghost," Shinji countered with a cheeky grin, "And what's it matter to you whether I shower or not? You can't smell me. And besides, it's not like I haven't been washing with that water dripping down off the roof."

"That's not the point. We can't stay here much longer, it's not healthy for you."

The concern in her friend's voice made Shinji frown. She hated when people worried about her. "Relax Nindie, I am a shaman. We've been in worse situations than this plenty of times. I think I'll live. Besides, it's actually weirdly comfortable here."

"Well what happens if we get a match? We missed the last one, so we definitely have to make the next one or we're out of the tournament."

"Don't worry; we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Suddenly the room began to flash an unnatural blue from the light of the oracle bell, and the chiming echoed around the walls. Shinji winced slightly, and sheepishly peeked at the ghost girl, who was folding her arms with a smug look on her face.

"What were you saying about that bridge?"

Shinji rolled her eyes in response, and lifted her arm to take a look at the name illuminating her screen. Her face paled, going almost as white as her hair.

"Oh no."

Somehow, with all her confidence, she hadn't thought of this kind of complication. Her next opponent was Luchist Lasso, one of Hao's main followers. The fight itself wouldn't be a problem, Luchist wasn't a pushover but he didn't have a thousand years of experience behind him, the real issue was that there was no doubt that Hao knew about the match already, and that made escaping a whole lot harder than she had anticipated. There was no time to dwell on it now though, the only thing she had on her side was the small chance that she might be able to break out before Hao could get there. Without a second thought she snatched up her bag, worked her hands through a series of rapid hand signs, and swiftly broke the seal on the entrance. The cold night air buffered against her face, and her hair, almost glowing against the darkness, whipped around her back as she stepped into the night. Nindie followed close behind, scanning the surrounding area cautiously.

For a moment Shinji felt a breath of relief escape her, but then she saw the first flicker of a flame appearing in front of her, and her relief vanished. Less than a second later a roaring blaze had formed, and Hao was stepping out of the flames, a smug smirk on his face. She glared at him darkly. There was no way she could avoid him now, especially not with the spirit of fire suddenly appearing behind him.

Nindie didn't need to be told that it was time to even the odds, and with a bright flash she had transformed into the huge, imposing form of the spirit of rain. Even in her giant spirit form though, she couldn't quite match up to the spirit of fire in size, and Shinji found herself wondering what on earth Hao had been feeding it.

"Spirits." Hao said, answering her unspoken question, "And if it weren't for the potential risk of putting nature out of balance I would have fed her to it long ago."

Shinji unintentionally flashed him a horrified look, which only seemed to make his smirk grow, before she quickly schooled her features.

While the spirits sized each other up, the shaman were busy playing at indifference.

"Going somewhere?" Hao asked casually, blocking her way as she tried to step around him.

"Yes actually, I have a previous engagement to attend to, so if you'll excuse me…" she said, working hard to keep her voice even and attempting to go around him again. He grabbed her wrist in a vice like grip that held her in place. The spirits towering over them vanished, and without a word gave their support to their shaman. An Intense heat radiated off of his body and she had to summon a layer of water over her arm to stop him from burning her skin. As the heat grew so did the water, spreading over her whole body and she grabbed onto his arm in an attempt to pull him off, failing miserably and then glaring at his smug smile.

"You're not going anywhere." He said.

"And you think you can stop me?" she laughed, though sounding a lot less threatening than she had hoped.

"Yes, I do." He replied, pulling her body close to his. She could feel the water around her beginning to evaporate.

Shinji jerked back, finally getting free, and shot a high powered jet of water at him. Within a few inches of his face, the water vanished, leaving her stunned.

"What the…?"

Hao simply smirked, and with a slight wave of his arm hundreds of fireballs burst into life around him, fighting away the darkness of the night with a flickering luminosity. Wide eyed, Shinji hastily threw up a shield of water just as the barrage of fire flew towards her. She clenched her teeth and braced herself, her watery shield holding fast on the onslaught that didn't seem to be letting up. Several times a fire ball slipped through, singing her clothes and burning her outstretched arms. The shield was weakening, steam rising up into the sky from the intense heat and Shinji had to continuously feed her mana into it to keep it up. Suddenly the attack ended, but before she could even hope to relax, Hao appeared behind her, kicking her hard in the back and sending her flying through her own shield. Before she hit the ground she spun, twisting her body to face him and throwing out her arms. The shield froze over, splitting apart into thousands of tiny needle like points of ice that shot towards the fire shaman at a blinding speed. Fire instantly blazed up around him, blocking him from view, but as the flames died down he was no longer there.

Shinji quickly sprung to her feet, readying herself for the next attack and peering into the dark cautiously. Hao appeared behind her, grabbing the back of her throat only to have his arm wrenched away as she spun around and slashed at him with a dark dagger of ice. He jumped back, and the knife sliced through the material of his poncho, but not before he burned through the flesh of her side with a well timed fireball.

The pain of her scorched skin was nearly unbearable compared to the smaller burns on her arms, and Shinji screamed through gritted teeth in pain and rage, while her eyes bled to a deep, dangerous red.

"You asshole!" She cried in outrage, "What the hell did I ever do to you!?"

"You killed me." He snapped back, glaring sharply at her from the clearing.

"...Oh yeah, right...oops." She replied sheepishly, her anger fading.

"I may not be able to get revenge on that fool Asakura Yohken, but I can make you suffer. And there won't be anyone to help you now."

"Oh come on Hao, lighten up. That was five hundred years ago, you can't possibly still be m- aah!" She cried, ducking as a fireball came flying at her head, "Okay, so maybe you can still be mad."

Another fireball was lobbed at her, and she winced as she dodged, holding her burned side as if it would lessen the pain. It didn't, and suddenly Hao was behind her once again. Shinji ducked as he reached for her, moving to sweep his legs out from under him, and as he jumped over her leg she slashed at him with a large chunk of ice. He grunted as it clipped his jaw, knocking his head back. Shinji took the advantage, shooting a high powered jet of water that blasted him back several feet.

She leapt away from him, watching warily from the other side of the clearing as his hand went to his chin and blood stained his fingertips.

"Ha, take that!" Shinji gloated with glee. It had taken a while but she had finally gotten a good hit on him. "Now who's the weak one?"

He chuckled slightly, rubbing the crimson liquid between his fingers as he looked up and smirked. The sight caught Shinji off guard. Why was he smirking? He should be going nuts-Oh, she made him bleed! Something wasn't right here. And then she saw it. The mark on his chin was shrinking, the skin closing back over the wound as if it had never even been there. A cold breath of fear shivered down her spine as realization dawned on her. Hao could heal, and she could not.

'This is going to be harder than I thought.'

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