Shaman
Chapter 4: A cry for help, a priest's angst and the headless mule

*Tsuna's pov*

It's me, Hakurei Tsuna again. Last time we had to deal with the vengeful ghost of a deceased kendoka. He was angry because in the past a jealous kendoka made him lose his arm and ended his dream to be a kendo master. Takeshi's father, Yamamoto Tsuyoshi-san, was the captain of the ghost kendoka, and thanks to the Yamamoto family we could make Aoyama Takeshi's ghost resting in peace.

But our greatest surprise was when Takeshi-kun summoned a cute and sympathetic shiisa (Liondog) named Aoyama. Both of them have the same personality, much to Gokudera-kun's annoyance. Now the three of us are training are training to control better our powers and help people around.

*End of Tsuna's pov*

Tsuna, Gokudera and Takeshi were in the gardens with Hinoto tutoring how to mediate along with their daemons. Tsuna had no problem meditating with Tenma, but Gokudera was another story.

"Gokudera-kun, you should relax more and not focusing on anything," Hinoto said, without opening her eyes.

Gokudera released a frustrated sight. He tried really hard but he coudln't focus on the meditation.

"You're still upset about not being able to destroy that barrier made by Aoyama Takehsi, aren't you?" the old miko asked, as she opened her eyes and looked very kindly at Gokudera.

"Y-yeah." He answered , embarrassed. Ryuki looked at him with comforting eyes, as she nuzzles his face.

"Do not worry; it takes years for a person to master the powers of barrier. You're just beginning, but I am amazed that you can be away from your daemon about 7 meters. When Tsu-kun first summoned Tenma, the limit of distance between them were 4 meters. After several years of training, his limit now is 30 meters. That means you have some talent for supernatural stuff for someone who just summoned your daemon."

Gokudera looked at the elder miko, still blushing. After he and Takeshi had summoned their daemon, they learned a lot about themselves and their daemon: first, Gokudera learned he was a barrier master, which means his talent is create, pass through, and destroy barriers while Yamamoto's talent was being a ESPer, which meant he could pick up sensory impressions of others through handling an object or visiting a location the person has touched or been to. That was the reason why he could pick up his father and Aoyama Takeshi's memory through the old bamboo sword. Until he was able to control his power, Takeshi needed to use gloves all time, or else he might see things he should not, like the incident that happened a day after Takeshi got Aoyama, when he accidentally got his baseball teammate's bat and saw the teammate's memories with his girlfriend in a hotel room. After that embarrassed incident, Takeshi swore not to remove the gloves, except in the bath and during mealtimes, until he master his new abilities.

Another thing they learned about were their daemons; first- the daemons were always the opposite genders of their masters. As Tsuna-sama and Hinoto-sama put it, every soul has a male half and a female half, and when the daemon is born, they represent the other half of the soul outside of their masters' body. So the daemon would reflect the gender of the master by being the opposite gender. Now Gokudera understood why their daemons were females while Hinoto-sama's was a male. The second thing they learned about daemons was that the color of their bodies represented the color of their flames, like Ryuki's red body represented Gokudera's storm flames while Aoyama's blue body represented Takeshi's rain flames and Tenma's orange body represented Tsuna's sky flames. But Gokudera wondered what kind of flame Hinoto-sama had since Byakko was a white tiger, and Gokudera had no knowledge about a white flame. Hinoto-sama only told him her flames were represented by Byakko's red-brown stripes, which made the silver haired boy wonder even more. And the 3rd and most important thing they learned about daemons, there was a limit to the distance that a daemon could be away from its master. Daemons and masters were one being, a single soul, and if they were separated from each other beyond their distance limit, both master and daemon will become very ill and weak and, in extreme cases, die. And when a daemon dies, the master dies too and vice e versa. That's why they needed to learn how to fight together and also train to increase the limit of distance. For now, Gokudera and Ryuki's limit of distance was 7 meters while Takeshi and Aoyama's was 5 meters. Tsuna and Tenma's distance was 30 meters thanks to the years of training. Hinoto could go much further than 3 of them together since she is a master, but the wise miko recommended the boys remain together with their daemons whenever possible.

"Takeshi-kun and Aoyama-chan are able to mediate peacefully." Hinoto smiled when she saw how serene Takeshi and Aoyama were.

Tsuna and Tenma opened their eyes and looked at Takeshi and Aoyama. They blinked several times as they noticed something.

"Eer… Oba-chan, I think they're asleep," muttered Tsuna.

Hinoto blinked several times as she noticed Takeshi and Aoyama were really sleeping. She glared at the sleeping teen and daemon with an angry vein in her forehead. She looked at Byakko as her daemon became a paperfan ready to hit their heads. Tsuna and Gokudera pitied them.

XXX

Elsewhere that night, Reborn was accompanying a woman with dark pink hair and a pair of goggles resting on her neck. She was Bianchi, Gokudera's sister and Reborn's lover. They both left the hospital, after Bianchi had bandaged the right side of her face thanks to a certain red haired boy.

Bianchi would have killed the boy for scaring her face if Reborn hadn't stopped her.

"I apologize for what happened, Bianchi. But do not forget you were completely at fault for trying to kill my student," Reborn said to Bianchi. "You're lucky Kouga did not blind your eye."

Bianchi frowned as she remembered what happened that afternoon. She had planned to give her poison soda to the boy, so that she could set Reborn free from the burden of tutoring a brat. But somehow the boy had sensed her poison and in a matter of seconds had attacked her like a wild animal. Reborn had needed to stop him.

"How…" she asked softly, placing her hand on her bandaged face "How did he sense my poison? Not even a bloodhound could smell my poison. I am very careful to make my poison tasteless and scentless. But that nine years old brat could still tell it was there."

Reborn looked at Bianchi; she was totally in stage of shock. He couldn't blame her for feeling like that. Bianchi was the famous Poison Scorpion, using her poison cooking to kill all her targets, not leaving any smell or taste in her poisons. Her pride was wounded when Kouga, an inexperienced 9 years old, sensed the poison and attacked her.

"Reborn, is that boy even a human?"

Reborn didn't answer her since he questioned it himself. When he first introduced himself to Kouga, the boy didn't attack him but he knew the hitman was on another level from Kouga, so the boy was only civil enough not to attack Reborn, but Kouga treated the hitman as if Reborn ever hurts or even uses Fuuta or his mother in any of the hitman's games, Kouga would attack Reborn without any hesitation. Truth to be told, the real reason for Reborn calling Shamal was for the pervert doctor to exam Kouga's blood, to find out any reason for the boy's extreme aggression towards people, except for Fuuta and Nana since neither of the boy's parents had said anything about Kouga's odd aggression. And to complicate the hitman's tutoring more, Reborn had no idea what kind of flame Kouga had because the color of the boy's dying will flame did not belong to any elemental sky flames.

"Whydid I accept this job?" Reborn thought frustrated.

Then, his thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone screaming. Reborn, being the best hitman in the world, immediately felt the terrible killing intent and danger. He quickly ordered Bianchi to stay there while he checked out. Bianchi nodded to him and whispered for him to be careful.

When Reborn arrived at the location, he couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing. A man lay face down on the ground unconscious, and above the man there stood a creature Reborn never seen before; it looked like a horse but in the place of the head burned a furious flame. Its mane and tail were also made of fire. The creature let out a terrible sound that seemed like a demonic snicker. Reborn had covered his ears because the snicker was so loud that it hurt his ears, and he merely watched as the fire creature running off. Reborn went over to check the man on the ground.

"Hey, are you ok?"

Reborn's eyes widen in shock when he saw the guy's condition; his eyeballs were ripped off, along with his teeth and nails from his fingers. There was one word in his mind.

"Mierda!"

XXX

In the next day, Tsuna, Gokudera and Takeshi were having lunch on the school's roof. They and their daemons were chatting about the things that were happening lately.

"What? Another person was attacked?" Tsuna asked , shocked.

Takeshi nodded as he started to explain the last victim was a client of the sushi restaurant. His father was shocked when he heard the news from the wife's victim.

"Papa visited his friend," Aoyama said, her dog ears were down in sadness. "He said like all the past victims, his friend's eyes, teeth and nails were ripped off."

Tsuna and Tenma felt chills in their spines when Aoyama gave the details of the victims. Tsuna could not help but feeling he was in a Criminal Minds episode, especially after seeing an episode where a serial killer rip off his victim's eyes as trophies.

"But guys, this could be a doing of a youkai," Ryuki commented. "Haya-chan and I heard about one of the victims did not lose his teeth and he said he saw fire and heard strong gallops before losing his eyes and nails."

"Are there any youkai that fit that description, Tsuna-sama?" Gokudera asked

Tsuna and Tenma were quiet. Gallops, fire, and removing eyes, nails and teeth. Tsuna didn't know any youkai with that description. This could be a very complicated case. His thoughts were interrupted when he saw a yellow Hitotama flying around them.

"Hum? A hitotama?" Tenma asked in wonder

The teenagers boys and daemons were looking at the small yellow fire ball curiously. Then, the hitotama formed a human figure. The figure was a man, around of his 30 years, short dark brown hair and he had honey eyes. He ghost was wearing a black golden trimmed priest robe with a red scarf around his shoulders. The ghost kneeled and looked at them with disappear in his eyes.

"Please, I extremely need your help!" begged him.

Tsuna and the others blinked confused.

XXX

At the Sawada residence, Nana was preparing dinner while Fuuta and Kouga were doing their school project in their room. Kouga looked worried while they were doing their project.

"Fuuta, please, tell me you know Portuguese," Kouga begged to his foster brother. Fuuta looked at him, with an apologize expression in his face.

"Sorry Kouga nii-san, I may know Italian, Japanese and English, but I don't know how to speak and read Portuguese."

Kouga groaned. He should not have asked to Fuuta to use his ranking ability in order to know which folklore creature their classmate would use for their myth and legends projects, that way getting some extra scores by choosing a completely different one. From Fuuta's raking, the top last creature their classmates would use was the headless mule. When they saw the picture of the headless mule, they got interested in the legend but the problem most of the information was in Portuguese, a language they can't read or speak.

"Hum… Fuuta, I think it's better we use another subject for our project. Even with the online translation, there are a lot of grammatical errors, and I can't understand anything of it."

"Or we could also ask to Reborn-san for help," Fuuta commented. "I know Reborn-san knows a lot of languages, including Portuguese."

But Kouga didn't like the idea. He was too proud to ask help, especially from Reborn. Kouga was pretty sure if he asks any favor from the hitman, Reborn would want something back. Something that would embarrass Kouga.

"You're right. I want something back," Reborn said, suddenly appearing behind of the two children.

Fuuta and Kouga startled when Reborn showed up out of nowhere. Kouga growled. He hated whenever Reborn did that; hiding his presence and then showing up out of nowhere to startle people.

"Well, how may I help you, my faithful student?" Reborn smirked, and Kouga growled at the hitman as Fuuta showed him the subject of their project.

"You see, Reborn-san, we're working on a myths and folklore legends at school. The teacher said we have to research about a legend and tell this legend to the class. She said legends from other countries are allowed," Fuuta explained as he showed the subject in their laptop.

"And I thought we could get some extra points if we talked about something our classmates have never heard about or bothered to research, so I asked Fuuta to rank the lasted creature our classmate would use and the top one is the headless mule," Kouga explained. "We research at Wikipedia but there's not many details about the mule in English, only in Portuguese since the headless mule is more popular in Brazil and in Portugal."

Reborn looked at the page with interest. The creature in the page was the same creature he saw yesterday; a black mule body with fire name and tail, with fire in the place of the head, with a white cross mark on the chest. From what he was reading, the creature still neighed, usually very loud, just like how it had almost made him deaf last night but something else caught his interest; the headless mule is a woman who was cursed by a priest.

XXX

At the Namimori shrine, the boys and their daemons went into the main temple to talk to the ghost priest about his situation. Hinoto was surprised when she saw their visitor in the main temple.

"My my, what rare occasion, I never thought I would be here to see the day a ghost of a Vongola member would come here in my humble temple," Hinoto said, looking at the ghost, very interested. "Especially from the first generation."

Gokudera gasped, totally shocked when he heard what Hinoto said. He pointed his finger at the ghost priest.

"I knew I knew you from somewhere!" shouted Gokudera. "You're Knuckle; Vongola's first sun guardian!"

Tsuna and Takeshi looked at Gokudera surprised.

"You know this guy, Gokudera-kun?" Tsuna asked.

Gokudera nodded as he started explained who Knuckle was and the ghost's connection with Vongola Primo Giotto. Since Gokudera's family is the ally to the Vongola, Gokudera knew everything about the past generations and that's why he knew Knuckle.

"But what I do not understand why you're here, Knuckle-sama?" Gokudera wondered. "Except for Giotto-sama and Asari-sama, all the first generation's bodies were buried at Italy."

Knuckle sighed. He really didn't want to explain why his spirit was there and not at Italy. But he did not have any choice.

"You're extremely right." Knuckle said, softly. "My body is buried in my hometown at Italy, as my last extreme wish, but I died here in Japan. You see, I came here along with Giotto and Asari, after a close friend extremely betrayed us. Giotto changed his name and he married with a local woman while Asari returned to his clan. And me, well I came here to teach about God and the catholic religion to the local people here since they had become very interested in the western culture to the extreme."

Everyone went silent as they listened to Knuckle's story. Gokudera who had more knowledge about Vongola concluded that Giotto, Asari, and Knuckle came there during the time of Japan's Westernization. Knuckle continued.

"I built a small church at Kokuyo, and I met a girl there. Her name was Yuriko. She was beautiful to the extreme. We become close friends when she became interested in the Bible, and we start to read it to the community. But everything changed because an extreme mistake we did; we sinned together."

The others looked confused.

"Sinned together?" repeated Takeshi. "What do you mean Knuckle-san?"

Knuckle bit his lower lip as he closed his hands into a fist. He started to explain he was with Yuriko in a traditional Japanese celebration, Tanataba Festival. He mentioned they had a lot of fun together but both of them had a low tolerance and the next morning, he woke up in the same futon with Yuriko. Tsuna and other knew what was coming.

"I asked Yuriko to create some space between us, for our extreme sake. She agreed and left to Namimori, to have some time for herself. I had an extremely hard time. I had no idea what to do to the extreme. Giotto and Asari knew about my dilemma, and they said God would forgive me if I really extremely want to follow my heart. So, I decided to give up my priesthood and be with the woman I love. But it was too late. Yuriko died … in the childbirth."

Everyone was shocked. So, their union had resulted in a child, but the mother died in the childbirth. They felt sorry for Knuckle and for Yuriko. Knuckle continued his story. He mentioned he was so angry at Yuriko for not telling him she was pregnant and for dying. And to make the matter worse, he had no idea where his child was.

"I was extremely angry, so angry at Yuriko that I cursed her spirit, though I extremely didn't realize what I did. And now, every night her spirit becomes a monster, a headless mule. I found out when Yuriko herself in her headless mule form killed me. Everyone at that time thought I had extreme killed myself because of Yuriko. Since then, I follow Yuriko everywhere, hoping to fix my mistake and break her curse but Yuriko's headless mule form is fast to extreme. That's why I extremely need your help!" Knuckle begged, bowing to them.

The teens, the elder and their daemons looked at each other. They did not know what to say about this matter. Hinoto asked Knuckle why he wanted their help, when there were other shaman, monks and mikos. Knuckle answered that he saw what they did with Aoyama Takeshi's ghost. They didn't exorcise Aoyama Takeshi right away, not without learning about Aoyama Takeshi's past. They gave to Aoyama Takeshi a chance to find peace in his heart, which happened. Knuckles knew that they were the right people to save Yuriko. Hinoto looked at the boys. Tsuna, Takeshi and Gokudera nodded to the elder miko.

"Alright, we will help you to deal with the headless mule and save your loved one. But you need tell us everything about the headless mule. Headless mules are western youkai and creatures that none of us are familiar with."

Knuckle smiled. After so many years, he could truly smile. He now had a chance to save his beloved and go together into nirvana, as it should have been years ago.

XXX

The next night everyone was ready. Knuckle was beside Hinoto and Byakko while Tsuna, Gokudera and Takeshi were in the center of the park, where the attacks happened the most often. Since they were dealing with a different youkai, Tsuna, Gokudera and Takeshi were wearing different outfits; they are wearing a black skin-tight suit and armor plates on their shoulders, knees, and elbow and special glasses on their eyes.

"Tsu-kun, you look so awesome in this outfit!" Tenma's eyes were shining when she saw Tsuna in his battle suit.

"Haya-chan does not look bad either in this outfit. I think the outfit really suits you well." Ryuki said, happily while rubbing Gokudera's face

"Takeshi-kun, you would look like a ninja if you were wearing a mask and not glasses." Aoyama wagging her tail while grinned at Takeshi as he grinned back.

"I know, right? These outfits are awesome!" Takeshi said. "I didn't know you had these cool outfits, Hinoto-oba-sama."

Hinoto smiled and commented that these outfits belonged to her children when they were shamans in training. Gokudera and Takeshi were surprise; they did not know the older miko had children. Tsuna mentioned Hinoto has 3 children: the oldest ones were twins who are living in Kyoto while the youngest daughter was a doctor working at Kokyo hospital.

"I understand the meaning of the outfits, Oba-chan, but why the glasses?" Tsuna asked as he pointed to the glasses on his face.

"From what Knuckles told us, the headless mule has the power to suck teeth, eyes, and nails from any male looks at her flame head. With the glasses you will not be affected by the mule's ability."

Knuckle was worried. He was worried about the kids' safety and that they might be forced to harm the mule. Hinoto told Knuckle not to be worried. Her apprentices were stronger than what they appeared to be. Knuckle could not help but see his old friends in the children, especially with the children having almost the same personalities. Then, the group started to hear galloping. The boys and their daemons quickly prepared for what was coming.

Suddenly the mule appeared before them with all her fury and breathed flames at them. Gokudera quickly formed a barrier to protect them from the flames. Ryuki took the opportunity to warp herself around the mule and bite the headless mule. With the help of Aoyama, Takeshi summoned a sprinkle of rain to fall on them, hopping the rain flames would cool off the mule's fury.

But to their surprise, the rain didn't affect the mule, and she let out a high neigh. Gokudera, Takeshi and Tsuna hissed in pain as they fell on their knees and covered their ears. Feeling the pain of her master, Ryuki also fell from the pain cause by the mule's neigh, causing her to un-warp herself as the same pain affected Tenma and Aoyama. With the barrier down, the mule took this opportunity to tackle Gokudera and send a powerful kick towards Takeshi. The two boys were thrown against a tree along with their deamons.

"Takeshi! Gokudera-kun!" Tsuna shouted as he saw the mule about to attack him.

Tenma quickly became rings, giving Tsuna speed to avoid the mule's attack. Tsuna glared at the mule. He never thought a western youkai would be so troublesome. He used his speed to try to attack the mule, but to his surprise, the mule was as fast as him. Tsuna hissed as he felt the mule's hooves hit his temple. Both Tsuna and Tenma (returned to her original form) fell on the ground while the glasses on Tsuna's face fell far from them, and Tsuna lost consciousness. Tenma tried to wake Tsuna up but the mule was above them.

The mule gave a powerful stomp, making a cloud of dirt. When the cloud cleared, the mule noticed her victims were not there. Tenma noticed she and Tsuna were floating. Tsuna moaned and opened his eyes. He gasped when he noticed they were floating as he saw his grandmother active her flames. Knuckle gasped in surprise when he saw the color of her dying will flames.

"Y-You extreme use earth flames?!" the dead priest shouted in shock.

Hinoto didn't say anything as she landed gently set Tsuna and Tenma down next to where Gokudera, Yamamoto, and their daemons were. The two boys were also shocked because it was the first time they had seen Hinoto use her flames. With a wave of her hand, Hinoto used her flame's ability to crush the mule on the ground, making the creature unable to move anywhere.

"I think it's the time you remove the curse off this poor soul, Knuckle-san," Hinoto said to Knuckle. The deceased priest flinched at the tone of the old miko voice. But he did what Hinoto said as he walked towards to where the mule is.

"Yuriko?"

The mule let out a high neigh. The high neigh did not affect Knuckle and Hinoto since the priest was dead and the old miko was woman. But the same can't be said for Tsuna, Gokudera, and Takeshi who hissed once more in pain, while covering their ears. Knuckle hugs the mule, tears falling from his eyes.

"Yuriko, please, forgive me to extreme. If I knew about your pregnancy, I would never have left you alone to the extreme. You were the extreme light of my life. Please, Yuriko, come back to me!"

Knuckle's tear fell on the cross mark on her chest. Suddenly the mule glowed, and Knuckle felt arms around him. He opened his eyes and saw the face of his beloved Yuriko. A face he hasn't had seen in centuries. She smiled to him, while tears rolled down on her own face.

"It's been a while, Knuckle-dono."

Knuckle cried harder as he hugged her tightly. He shouted at her to forgive him for everything he had made her going through. Yuriko smiled, saying she forgave him a long time ago, and she had just been waiting for him to get rid of her curse. Suddenly, they started to glow; it was the time for them to go to nirvana. Before they disappeared, Knuckle said one last thing to the miko.

"Be careful with Daemon Spade."

With that final warning, the two spirits became two yellow hitotama and went to the nirvana together.

Hinoto's eyes widened in shock when she heard that name. It was the same one that her friend had told her once in her youth. Did that mean the spirit of Daemon Spade was still around?

"Boys, I apologize for facing such dangerous creature with a higher level than yours," Hinoto said to the boys.

"WHAT? DID YOU SAY ANYTHING, BAA-CHAN?" Tsuna shouted.

Hinoto and Byakko sweatdropped. The high neigh had pretty much damaged boys' hearing.

"I think it's better to call school and tell them usagi and his friends will not coming for the classes for a while, Hinoto," Byakko said to Hinoto, and she nodded.

Unbeknownst to them, a small figure stood hidden in a nearby tree. He hadn't expected to see what he just saw.

"You gotta to be kidding me. Even Knuckle was involved with them?" Reborn whispered to himself, as he turned off the power of his pacifier. The yellow pacifier allowed him to see things normal people couldn't. "And the flames she used, they're the same as Kouga."

XXX

That same night, in Namimori family Graveyard, a shadow figure was standing before of the tombstone of someone named Sawada Ieyasu.

The shadow figure, with the snap of her fingers, opened the casket and pulled up a handful of the deceased man's ashes. Having collected what she sought, the figure placed the ashes in an urn and proceeded to place the dirt back over the unearthed grave. After finishing her work, she knelt over and grabbed the jar, chortling devilishly whilst observing Ieyasu's ashes keenly.

"There. Just one more essential ingredient and I'll have acquired all I require..." Turning around, two glowing eyes burned inside the cloak, leaving a vague impression. "...to give rise to my ultimate undead warrior."

To be continued

Here is the new chapter. I hope you liked Knuckle's especial appearing in this chapter.
And who was the figure who stole Giotto's remains? You have to wait and see what happens next.

Please, do not forget to review my story. You are the ones to give me incentive to write more and more chapters. ^^

I wanna thanks to KuraiArcoiris for helping me in this fic

Cyclopedia

Headless mule: Is a cursed woman who becomes a headless mule. There's several versions of the legend, the most popular one is the woman becomes a headless mule because she had a relationship with a priest or losing the virginity before the weeding and the priest punishes her for this sin. To break the curse, the own priest must remove the curse or a brave man wounding the mule with a virgin blade (only hurting enough to make a small bleed).