1Ch. 2

After a full day of walking in the hot sun, we finally found a small town to rest and form a plan. We found out that we were in New Mexico, just a few miles away from the Arizona border. But this still didn't give us any clues where to go next.

We got a room for the night in a tiny, rundown hotel. The twins went to go train in the woods in the outskirts of town while I took a nap in the room we were sharing. I lost a coin toss so I was sleeping on the floor tonight so I wanted to sleep on a bed at least once while everyone was away.

But my naps don't last long. I just spend my time watching the ceiling. For the past year, sleep has been harder to come by. Every time I close my eyes, flames fill my vision. The heat feels so real that I always wake up covered in sweat.

After a few hours of no sleep, I got up and put my knife back in my hip holster. I then grabbed the memorial tablet my ghost was currently occupying and left the room.

When you're a shaman, all of your senses are nearly tripled compared to normal humans. And when you have a sixth, shamanic sense, it's really easy to find other shamans or other powerful beings. You just concentrate on what your looking for and your furyoku, or mana, will take care of the rest.

I closed my eyes and let my senses scan the area in the forest. I could 'see' and 'hear' two powerful forces clash over and over again. I smirked, knowing that my friends always went as far as they could when they sparred against each other. They liked to impress and surge their furyoku when they battled so it's easy to find them. After ten minutes of climbing over boulders and crawling through the underbrush in the wilderness behind the motel, I found my friends.

Right now, they were about to form their individual Over Souls with their mediums and spirits. Zach, with his guardian ghost, Wyatt, and Maria, along with her animal spirit, Kaa. Zach held a gun in his left hand and held out his right hand.

"Wyatt, spirit form," Zach yelled out. Wyatt's form changed into his spirit ball form in Zach's hand. "Now, into the pistol!"

Wyatt's spirit was intergrated into Zach's six-shooter. The gun was then emblazed with a navy-blue aura and then completely transformed. It now resembled an old-fashioned cannon mounted on his arm and packed more power than a tank. But for him, I knew it was lighter than a feather. They way he wielded it, it looked like a child holding a foam bat.

"Cannonball Blast," Zach yelled aiming the cannon towards a boulder in the center of the clearing. It was about the size of a minivan The recoil of the blast made him back up a couple of feet.

A blue cannon ball shot out of the chamber. Despite the power, the ball was wearing a cowboy hat, a pair of eyes and a frown. It looked quite funny.

Their was a flash of white light and a resounding boom as the boulder was obliterated into pebbles and sand. The only sign that was left was a crater with a twenty-foot perimeter.

"Oh, yeah! That's how you do it, sis," he gloated. His cannon reverted back to his six-shooter. He placed it back into his holster as Wyatt reappeared next to him.

Despite being 15, like me and Maria, he stood at six foot even. His intimidating size scared the daylights of his first round opponents. He was pretty much built like a pro wrestler, you know muscles over muscles. His face was chiseled and thin, with a long scar over his left eye.

But despite his menacing appearance, he was actually kind-hearted and goofy. Even to a point where it got annoying sometimes.

His guardian ghost was actually Wyatt Earp, the legendary cowboy. After his death, Wyatt traveled all over the west seeking evil spirits that liked to cause the living trouble. Wyatt and Zach met in a ghost town in the Texas panhandle. Wyatt was interested in the way Zach handled spirits as a young kid. Ever since then, they've teamed up to find troubled spirits and help them with their problems.

Their medium is an antique six-shooter Zach bought when he and Wyatt were in Nevada on a family trip. They found it in an old pawn shop. The owner gave them a cheap price for it since the bullets for it were not longer made.

Zach's dream is to bring peace to both spirits and mortals.

"It's your turn, sis," Zach said as he walked towards the tree line.

Maria untied her leather whip from her belt. She grabbed the handle and with a twist her wrist, the full twelve-length whip unfurled with a crack.

"Kaa, spirit form," she called out, holding out her palm. Her animal spirit, an Indian Python, changed into it's spirit ball into Maria's hand.

"Merge with the whip!" she called out, pressing Kaa's spirit and whip together. An pink aura surrounded the transformed weapon. The whip remained the same, but now had a small blade shaped like a fang attached at the end, sharp enough to cut through steel without any effort. The handle was covered with pink snake skin. The bottom of the handle had a serpent's head with it's fangs bared.

She walked towards a tree that had dying branches. Her whip seemed to float and move in slow motion as it waved like a snake through the air.

"Twister Snap," she called out, thrusting her whip around the tree. In a pink flash, all of the branches were shaved off the trunk. The blade cut cleanly through the wood, never stopping on impact. In less than a second, all of the branches were firewood and the trunk was bare.

Maria recalled her whip and Kaa withdrew himself from the whip. He took his position around Maria's shoulders instead of returning to his tablet.

"Well done, asss usssual," Kaa hissed. It kind of creeped me out when he talked.

"And that's how big sister does," Maria gloated while tying her whip back to her belt.

"We're twins," he pointed out.

"I was born first."

I smiled. No matter how many times they started to fight, it never got old.

Maria was not as big as her brother was, but she was just as strong as him. She was about 5 and a half feet tall and all of her muscles were toned to perfection. She had the athletic body of a cheerleader and curves in all the right places. She's every guy's dream girl. When I first met her, my face heated up so fast that Zach asked me if I was running a fever. She knew why I was blushing and teased me about it from time to time.

But she was a loyal friend and I wouldn't change it any other way.

Her guardian spirit was Kaa, the boa constrictor I read about in The Jungle Book. You think after watching the Disney movie that the guy would be evil, but once you got to know him, he was pretty social. When he passed on, he wanted to protect the forest he had grown to love. He heard whispers from other animal spirits that the world is in danger. The rainforests and jungles were being destroyed little by little.

Maria met Kaa when she went with her grandparents to India for the American Red Cross. Kaa felt a small shamanic sense coming from them and hitched a ride in their suitcases back to America. When he arrived in Texas, he sought out for her. He saw Maria's potential and asked for help stop the deforestation in the world. Ironically, her dream was the same.

Looking at Maria and Zach, you could tell they were twins. They both had brown eyes, the same mouth, ears, and eyebrows. Maria's hair was brown, like her mother's, curly and went down to the middle of her back. Zach's hair was black, like his father's, and tied into a small ponytail. They once showed me a picture of the entire family so I knew what their parents looked like

They grew up on a ranch in Texas and liked to play the cowboy theme. Zach was wearing a black stetson with two red-tailed hawk feathers around the band. He had a black leather vest with small tassels in the front pockets underneath a white shirt and a pair of blue jeans ending in his rattlesnake-skinned boots.

Maria was wearing a straw hat and white buffalo-skinned vest underneath a red blouse. She was also wearing a brown skirt that went down to her knees ending with black cowgirl boots with spurs.

They harnessed their shaman powers when they both were seven. A Native American medicine man recognized their potential when he saw them talking to the spirits in graveyard. He taught them about spirit unity, furyoku, and the upcoming shaman tournament taking place in Tokyo. He actually paid for their plane tickets when they got permission from their parents to participate.

"Well, Well, look who woke up," Zach yelled from across the clearing.

"Come on, show us what you got, oh mighty ninja warrior," Maria joked.

I grinned and leaped towards them in two bounds. Including super senses, a shaman's strength is increased nearly tenfold. This gives the ability to jump high to avoid attacks and enough speed to dodge them.

"All right then, nyuuyouji(babies). Let me show you two a real shaman warrior," I said.

They smiled and stood behind me as I took my knife from its holster. This was a gift from my sofubo's store. It was a kunai knife, one of the weapons used by a ninja in the ancient times. It was about nine inches long, five of it being the handle wrapped in tape. Four inches was the blade, but only the last inch of it was sharp. The rest of blade was chipped.

"Ready?" I asked to my right.

My guardian ghost appeared next me. Dressed in black battle gi with a red spider stitched onto the back. He had a black headband tied around his dark blue hair. He also had battle scars over his face and arms.

His name was Niiro Kumo (Red Spider)

"Ready, master," he said.

I sighed. He wasn't going to change his formalities..

"All right. Kumo, spirit form," I said. His body shifted and shrunk until he was a spirit ball. The red ball had two angry eyes, a scowl, and a headband.

"Integrate with the kunai." I pushed his spirit into kunai, using my furyoku to merge the spirit and medium together.

After a flash of bright light, the knife transformed into a katana, the red blade being four feet long. The flat side of the blade was serrated with wave-like designs. The guard was decorated with eight, spider legs. The aura around it glowed red as my furyoku was pumped into the medium. In the aura, you could almost see eight eyes staring in all directions around me.

I turned to my friends. "You two might want to duck."

Zach and Maria groaned as the sat down and watched. I closed my eyes and focused on sending the right amount of mana into my sword. Too much and I would pretty much destroy the entire forest. Probably kill me and my friends as well.

"Kumo Kiritateru (Spider Slash)." I spun three-hundred and sixty degrees around, releasing the mana I built up in the sword. When I opened my eyes, I saw the trees in the inside of the clearing laying on their sides now. They were dead trees, so Kaa and Maria didn't have any problems with me chopping them down.

I released my furyoku and my sword changed back into a kunai. Kumo reappeared next to me and looked at the damage with satifaction.

"Well done," he said.

Niiro Kumo was renowned across Japan as a world-class assassin. When a important person was killed with no witnesses, you could guarantee it was Kumo. He could kill his target and disappear without a trace. It was rumored that he could craw over the walls, stick to ceilings, and could blend into the darkness.

Hence the name Spider.

He didn't exactly have a ruthless streak or any malice, but I wouldn't call him a good citizen, or ghost. He spent his afterlife haunting soldiers, saying they were cowards for letting enemies go and veterans for quitting the army.

He didn't get along me all the time either.

"Not bad. But I still can't see how you could have beaten me in our second fight of the preliminaries," Zach said. He crossed his arms smirked down at me.

Maria scoffed. "He beat you because he has talent and courage. While you just have a rock for a brain and believe power is the only way to fight."

"Hey, I made it to the second round of the tournament, didn't I?"

"Only because your opponent tripped over a rock in your third shaman fight."

There they go.

I sat down and listened to them argue....again. Kumo returned to his tablet and Kaa and

Wyatt floated next to me.

"Remind me why you two picked those two as your shamans?"

"I don't remember," Wyatt told me.

"Ssssometimesss I wonder, too," Kaa told me.

I sighed and turned back to the fight. They changed their tactics from name calling to poking each other. Then proceeded to pushing and finally a full-out brawl. This lasted for a couple of hours until it was sundown. I've learned not get involved with their fights. First time I tried to stop them, I ended up knocked out for the rest of the day. When they were done, they both ended up with black-eyes and cut lips.

"Sibling squabble over?" I asked.

"Shut up," they both said.

We made our way back into town and ate at the only restaurant the small city had. But it was good. It pretty much served anything you wanted, as long as you paid by singing karoke in the bar. Maria was on-stage, singing a few Shania Twain songs while Zach pigged out on the barbecue. Wyatt was integrated with him because he liked to try and remember what food tasted like.

The townspeople loved us. The restaurant was the nightly hangout so a lot of people were there that night. They whooped and hollered and even threw money as thanks on stage when Maria sang. They cried and begged for it to stop when Zach was up there though.

It was a night where we could forget about the tournament and our troubles, even for just a moment.

We went back to the hotel around midnight, after we collected about two hundred dollars in tips. Maria gave me enough to get my own single room.

I put my bag in the corner and went into the bathroom to take a shower. My image stared back at me in the mirror. My brown hair stuck up in spikes all around my head, my bangs being supported by my red headband For some odd reason, my black hair had brown streaks in the tips. It was natural, yet I couldn't explain how.

I was wearing a long-sleeved, navy shirt underneath a black, short-sleeved button shirt with the buttons undone. A red spider design was sewed onto the back of my shirt. I was also wearing black cargo pants with a couple of big pockets on the sides for my memorial tablet and other tools. Black combat boots covered my feet and red, fingerless gloves covered my hands.

Including my tablet and kunai, I also kept few shuriken stars and other kunai knives in my pockets. Kumo advised me to keep extra weapons in case I ran out of furyoku. I never had moment when I had to use them, but I kept them sharp and practiced with them whenever I could. My aim with shuriken was 99 percent and was and had expert knife skills with a kunai.

I sighed. It had been a long day. I took my shower, enjoying the water as it washed away the dirt and weariness of a full day of traveling. And enjoying it for it would be a long time before I could take another one. It seemed like we would be doing a lot of camping if Dobie Village was in the middle of a desert.

After I was done, I put on a pair of clean shorts and went to bed, making sure my pendant was not damaged after training today. I laid down and pressed the dragon's head in. The pendant opened up, revealing the inside. On each side of the pendant was a picture. The first one was a picture of my adopted grandparents. It was an old picture, taken ten years after they were married.

I smiled. No matter how old they got, they still looked the same. Jiji had dark hair that fell to the sides of his face. His still had they strong look, but there was a small sign of gentleness as he held his wife. Obaasan looked young and pretty. The wrinkles were gone and her hair color was a light red color, the lightest I have ever seen on anybody.

On the other side was my parents. Somehow, a picture was the only thing that survived the inferno blaze besides me. The once square picture was burnt in a perfect circle, with slight yellowing marks on the edges.

It was taken at the hospital the day after I was born. Mother was sitting up in her bed, holding me in her arms. Dad was sitting beside her on the bed, holding on to one of my hands. They were both smiling towards the camera.

"You should be resting," a voice said to my right. Kumo came out of the tablet in his spirit ball mode. His eyes never changed from their stoic look.

I held up the medallion. "I'm just going over some memories." I stared at the pictures for a few more minutes. "Do you think they're watching over me, Kumo?

The ball moved up slightly and lowered, the motion of a nod. "Yes, master. I know they are watching over you. They're protecting you every step along this journey you make. As am I."

"Thanks Kumo." I snapped the medallion shut. Then turned off the light and slid under the covers. Hopefully my exhaustion would take me quickly without any dreams of infernos.

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FLASHBACK (12 YEARS-OLD)

Everyday after school, I would help out Jiji and Obaasan in their shop. I would work from 3 until 5 in the evening and would then head back to the orphanage. I spent all day there on the weekends. The caretakers never questioned where I went. As long as I wasn't causing trouble, they didn't care what I did.

Although, they were a couple of times I wanted to stay beyond curfew. Just to stay overnight at their home again was a blessing. It was like living with a real family.

I learned a lot after spending so much time with them. Jiji was a navy sailor during WWII and worked on battleship in Tokyo Bay. His ship was only a reserve so he never saw battle. He was even on a weekend vacation in Okinawa when the Americans bombed Tokyo. He never had any hard feelings towards the U.S. back then or now. He was just following orders. But it was in Okinawa on that trip where he meet Obaasan.

Obaasan was worked as a waitress in a sushi shop. It was a family owned business and she was third generation to work in the shop. The shop was a very popular spot for young couples and sailors on leave. It was there that Jiji fell in love with Obaasan.

They spent every moment together they could with the war going on. When it finally ended, Jiji moved across the bay to Okinawa and the two of them married. Both of them settled in Naha city with money from both of their parents. They lived happily together ever since.

Although, how a sushi waitress and a sailor opened up an antique shop, I'll never know.

I told them everything I could about myself. They were surprised to hear that was the famous 'Fire Child'. They assumed that I died when I disappeared from the media. However, I never told them about Hana or about my weird talents. Why scare them.

But some things cannot be kept a secret for long.

It was Saturday and all three of us were at the table eating lunch. We were all kneeling at the table while I was telling them about my week of school. It was the first month since I met them.

"Could you please pass the curry?" Jiji asked while tilting his bowl of rice into his mouth.

I nodded and reached for the bowl. But before I could touch it, the bowl rose up, floated towards Jiji and landed in front of him. Jiji lowered his bowl and grabbed the curry.

"Thanks," he said. He poured the spice into his rice bowl and stirred his rice. He never noticed the floating bowl but he did notice my wide eyes and open mouth.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

I snapped out of my daze.

"Nnoo..oo. No. Nothing's wrong. Everything is okay," I said, probably a little too fast.

Jiji just stared at me for a moment before shrugging his shoulders and turning back to his meal.

I shook my head, trying to get it together. Either I was hallucinating or my grandparents had a ghost for a waiter. I recognized the way the bowl was picked up. Shaky and slow. When Hana moved an object, it moved the same way the bowl just did.

I breathed and took a drink of my tea. If there was a spirit here, I had to find a way to get it out of the shop. But when I set my cup back down, I spitted the tea I just drank through the ghost that materialized across the table from me.

Jiji and Obaasan sprang up from the table when some of the tea got on their clothes. I didn't notice because there was a huge ninja standing with arms crossed and with a scowl aimed towards me.

"What's wrong? Are you sick?" Obaasan asked me.

I...I...Ineedtogotothebathroom," I yelled. I jumped over the table, around the spirit and up the stairs. I ran into my room and began pacing around, trying to figure out what just happened and what I could do to solve it.

That spirit was huge. Hana didn't look that tall at all in her ghost form. How could that guy be that big? How was I going to get him to leave?

"Ok, ok. Even if ghosts can't hurt them, he can certainly make life miserable for Obaasan and Jiji. I need to get him out of here."

"Taking to yourself is one of the first signs of insanity," said a voice behind me.

I screamed and turned around, tripping over my feet in the process. The ninja was in my room, towering over me with a smirk on his face.

"How is it that you can see me, mortal?" he asked.

"Forget me. What are you doing here?" I asked, jumping to my feet and pointing towards him.

"My name is Niiro Kumo. I serve under the command of Master Nishi and Miss Kubai. I won't allow you to harm them."

"Neither will I," I growled, holding my arm in front of me in an attack stance. I don't know why I was doing this when I never had any training.

Serve them? Yeah, right. He's a ghost.

My pathetic attempt to defend myself seemed to really amuse the ninja.

"What do you think you're doing, baka? I'm a spirit. You can't touch me and I can't physically harm you. You're just being-"

He shut up due to the fact I sank my fist into his gut. I don't know how I was able to touch him, but I didn't care. The only thing going through my mind was that I had to protect the two people I had come to love.

The ninja rubbed his stomach with a confused look on his face. Then the look became angry as he walked towards me.

"I don't know how you did that. No one has ever been able to touch me, not even Master Nishi. But I will not stand by and let you have a free shot!"

He swung his fist towards my head. I ducked and jumped backwards with speed I didn't even know I had. But Kumo used the momentum with the miss to swing his leg in a roundhouse kick that caught me in the chest. The air exploded from my lungs as I flew through the air and slammed into the wall. My body sunk to the floor.

My vision was filled with stars and all the air had left my lungs. But after my second wind, I was able to use the wall and push myself back up.

The ninja looked shocked. "That's impossible. No man has been able to get back up after my kick, much less a boy."

I coughed. "Oh, that hurt like hell though, I'll give you that. But I'm fighting to protect my family." I yelled and charged forward. Kumo did the same, rearing his fist back for another punch.

"What the hell are you doing, gaki?" came a voice from my door.

Both Kumo and I stopped. Jiji and Obaasan were standing in the doorway, staring at me with a mixture of annoyance and confusion.

"You spit up the tea your Obaasan made for you without even bothering to clean up the mess and run upstairs like a demon was after you. Then we hear you jumping up and down in your room."

"I was....just doing some exercises?" I groaned after I said that, cursing myself at my lame attempt at a lie.

Jiji just stared at me for a few moments before looking towards Kumo.

"And just what are you doing, Kumo?"

"I was helping him?" he said sheepishly.

"What a minute. YOU CAN SEE HIM?" I yelled pointing towards the ghost.

Jiji just nodded like it was an everyday occurrence to see spirits.

"Yeah. He works for us after he lost a bet to me several years ago." Then he frowned. "How are you able to see him?"

I pointed towards Kumo. "He tried to pick a fight with me."

Kumo's face darkened. "You're the one who hit me. You started it."

"You did!"

"You did!"

"Whoa, hold on. You're each fighting other? How?" Jiji asked.

"How should I know? All I know is that this guy kicked the crap out of me"

Obaasan then smiled. "I know." She then turned to her husband and whispered something into his hear. Jiji looked surprised after a moment, then smiled.

"Well, well. It looks like we have a shaman in our home," he grinned towards me.

"A what? I'm a what?" I asked.

"A shaman," Obaasan said with a smile. "A link to the world beyond."

"Let me explain..." Jiji started.