So long ago:
"Anna-hime,
dear, come here. We have something to tell you."
"What is it, oka-chan, otou-san?"
"We have wonderful news. You are going to have a baby sister!"
"Reh? Really?"
"Yes."
"That's… that's… that's wonderful!"
"Yes, it is. Anna, you will be a big sister soon. Onee-chan Anna. We want you to love your baby sister when she comes out, okay?"
"Yes! Yes, I will!"
If only I knew…
"Oka-chan's
tummy is getting soooo big."
"Yes, it is. That's because of your baby sister. She is staying in my tummy."
"Really? So baby sister is in your tummy?"
"Yes."
"And does she look like oka-chan?"
"Maybe."
"How about me? Do I look like oka-chan?"
"Of course."
"So, my baby sister will look like me, too?"
"Yes, and that is why we want you to love her because she is a lot like you, too. Promise me, Anna. Promise me you'll be a good big sister. Promise me you will love your baby sister."
"I will! I promise to be the best onee-chan ever! And I will love my baby sister a lot!"
…If only, then maybe I could have spared
myself so much pain…
"Okaa-san, when will
my baby sister come?"
"A little more, Anna, and then you will finally meet her."
"But I want to see her now! I want to be the best onee-chan ever!"
"Be a good girl, Anna. Be a good girl and wait a little while longer."
"Okay…"
…pain from promises that would never be
kept by everyone…
"Where is she, oka-san? Where is my baby sister?"
"I'm so sorry, Anna-hime. Your baby sister never woke up. The doctors tried to wake her up, but she never did."
"She– she never woke up? She– she's dead?"
"Anna–"
"She's dead? My baby sister is dead?"
"Anna-hime–"
"No! She is not dead! She is not dead!"
"Please, Anna! Anna!"
"I want my baby sister! I want to see her! I want to see my baby sister! I promised to be the best onee-chan for her! I promised! I promised!"
… including me.
Once, long ago, I made a promise. I promised to be the best big sister for my little sister. I never got to keep that promise. I never will.
And so, on that very same day, I made a new promise to myself.
Never again. Never again.
Never again will Kyouyama Anna cry.
.
The Romancers
Set Two
Spiritless Poppet And
Shaman King
Chapter Six
Anna
Disclaimer: Sheo Darren (meaning, me), owns only what I have created: My
original characters and the story general. I don't profess to own Shaman King
or any other familiar anime, movie, novel, song or others that is already owned
by someone else.
Anna found Yoh at his favorite lazing spot in Funbari Onsen. He was not exactly
in his best moment, but he sure was content. The most powerful Shaman in the
world was happily enjoying the evening's blue cool by himself. The only
immediate clue that he was alive and not a lifelike statue plopped there by
accident was that his head occasionally bobbed back and forth most gently. Typical Yoh. He never changed.
She had had enough. Enough of that conniving fox who pretended to be a witch; enough of cousins who didn't have their heads screwed on correctly; especially enough of stupid Ainu who knew not when to get out and stay out of the Kingdom of Death and Destruction that was her domain; and enough of the dark-haired youth happily bathing in the cool air of the starry night.
It was time to finish it all.
With all of her stern backbone and domineering tone of authority, Anna commanded:
"Yoh. We need to talk."
The week had been a surprise in itself. It was also full of surprises (both good and bad, mostly the latter) for everyone, especially Anna. This was no exception.
Yoh didn't wince, cringe, talk back, move or otherwise react in any way that would acknowledge that she existed.
It hit her. It felt like running smack into a brick wall. While in a Corvette. At a hundred miles per hour. And after forgetting to put on a seatbelt. It didn't hurt, somehow, not at all. The pain wasn't automatically registering in her brain. She couldn't identify it. But it was there.
Her first instinctive reaction was to glare. Hand in hand with this gesture of annoyance was a frown. (People who didn't know her assumed that her face was set in a perpetual frown, but that wasn't true. Anna did have a frown that was distinctly separate from and far more lethal than her usual disgruntled expression.) Along with it was a slight but very dangerous adjustment in the tone of her voice. It was the first –and last– warning she gave those who crossed her.
She growled:
"Yoh."
Again, the same brick wall. Again, the same Corvette, but double the speed. But it happens that our particular driver is very obstinate on where she wants to go: Heaven, Purgatory, Hell, Dante's version of the first three or whatever afterlife waited nervously for her coming invasion of conquest.
Two strikes were not an out. Anna was still at bat. Tough girl that she was, she was still game for more punishment.
People say that we always hurt the ones we love.
Well, she grimly muttered to herself, I'm about to prove that old saying big time.
"Yoh."
Again insert the parallelism of earlier, itself a variation of the age-old schoolboy question on 'immovable object meets irresistible force'. After all, what man can resist a Chevy? Before we begin with our repetition, though, please find a person with a mass of about 500 pounds. Place said sumo wrestler in the back seat directly behind the driver. Now, have the said car smash into wall.
Inertia hurts.
(So does Physics class, though only in the head.)
If Anna was a driver, she would be the worst one to ever terrorize the paths of life. As it was, she was content with being the local stunt driver's nightmare.
Content?
It fitted Yoh like an old shirt. A nuke might have gone off right beside him, yet not a bang (pun not intended) on his hair would have stirred. Neither would the blast pressure wave, intense heat or massive irradiation even make him notice. He was so taken with whatever occupied his thoughts that the satisfied aura around him didn't need to work itself at all. It would only need to exist, and then all others of this world could let their tempers simmer and their heels start tapping. Yoh was beyond them and the world.
Even beyond Anna.
Why is he ignoring me? What is wrong with him? Damn it! He can't do this to me! I'm Kyouyama Anna! I'm his fiancée! I'm the girl he loves the most in this world.
An illusory Mari, her ghostlike frame draped lovingly upon the inert youth like a living, loving cloak, smiled triumphantly at her.
("Is obaa-san sure of that?")
And another part of Anna –another, smaller, mournful side– plaintively whimpered:
Please. Don't ignore me. Please.
I don't want to be ignored.
And then she noticed the I-Pod upon Yoh's chest.
Of course. It made sense now. His inattentiveness towards her, his far-away demeanor and distraction: It all added up– and not with some stupid guy named Magellan as the sum. Stupid Filipinos, and stupid me for not noticing at once. Yoh had his headphones on, was listening to the I-Pod that Lyserg had given him. Maybe it was even at full volume, though the young Shaman's taste in music was more to the sweet and sappy J-Pop and not the violent blood-and-guts metal or rock. Of course he couldn't hear her.
Silly me.
Now I have a good reason to kill him.
As if her imagined pledge of death was a cue, Yoh opened his eyes, looked up at his angry fiancée and said:
"Oh. Anna. It's you."
Just those four words were devastating. Oh. Anna. It's you. Few people could be as casually callous as Yoh revealed himself to be in that moment. Or at least that was what Anna told herself. The world ran in one way; she saw it in another way. This skewed perception of reality might have been the reason why she acted so mean. A crazy person cannot understand normal people. Then again, everyone was crazy in one way or another. Maybe the normality to this world was craziness, and all the normal people were actually the crazy ones. Or maybe the people who deny they are crazy are actually the craziest ones around.
But back to Anna, who almost did a double-take but caught herself and partially growled:
"Excuse me?"
"Yes, Anna?"
A tic formed above her left eyebrow.
"What did you say?"
"What I said."
"That was not what I meant."
"What do you mean?"
"Yoh…"
At least he cringed a little. This was better. People should know their place.
"Yes, Anna?"
"You're trying my patience."
"Am I?"
"Yes."
Yoh grinned sheepishly. "Sorry," he apologized.
"'Sorry'?" She was starting to get worked up. "'Sorry' is all I get? No, Yoh. 'Sorry' is not what I want."
"Then what do you want?"
Her voice went up one octave. "You know what I want."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do, dammit!"
The snarl caught both of them off guard. Yoh seemed a bit shaken by Anna's vehemence. The itako herself could not believe she actually lost her cool. She usually remained in control of herself even when she was pissed off. (Doubters may ask Horohoro for eyewitness accounts; do prepare to be traumatized, though.) But she felt that real uncontrolled anger was in order after all she had allowed herself gone though. This ought to warn Yoh that I'm serious.
"If it's about Mari–" But she cut him off.
"It is all about her. I don't want her here anymore."
"Had she done something wrong?"
Anna was all about to yell "Yes!" but found that she could not lie outright. She had always been truthful about what she thought and felt. Blunt like a club and brutally direct as she was in her ways, it was still a mark of her person that she did not tell lies. If she believed something, she would tell you about it. It didn't matter that she all but stuffed it down your guts, being a pushy dictator that she was. Neither did it matter that everyone thought otherwise (and thought so with good reason). They could go and break their teeth on it or hate her forever, for all she cared. In fact, she could care more than she usually did– and Anna did not care. As long as they knew that was her position, well and good. That was Kyouyama Anna talking, and you'd better believe it.
And no matter what you thought about her, this dictum of straightforward honesty was always an impressive thing.
Anna couldn't lie.
Anna always told the truth.
And Yoh knew it.
He grinned innocently at her, hoping to defuse what he could of the explosive ticking powder keg that was his fiancée before she blew up and did him bodily harm.
"Anna."
Anna.
"I was rather hoping that Mari could stay at Funbari Onsen with us."
"NO!"
"NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND, YOH?
"No, I'm not–"
"BUT YOU SURE ACT LIKE ONE! BY THE GREAT SPIRIT, SHE'S ONE OF HAO'S MINIONS, YOH! SHE TRIED TO KILL YOU BEFORE!"
"–I know that, Anna, but –"
"BUT OF COURSE YOU DO! AND YET, YOU'RE GOING TO LET HER LIVE WITH US DESPITE KNOWING IT?"
"Anna."
"Anna." Her name had signaled the
world abruptly turning upside down for her. It marked the moment when Yoh had truly stood up to her and rebuffed her, threw away
the yoke of tyranny she had laid upon his back and became a free man. When Yoh had spoken it in that way he did so a week ago, her
name took on a new meaning. No longer was Kyouyama
Anna the name of the invincible itako of Funbari Onsen, the Shaman Queen.
Her name was all that remained to her. It was the core of her person. It was her. It was the only name she really had. Kyouyama Anna was Kyouyama Anna. Right?
But they had destroyed her name. Yoh and Mari had. Now it was synonymous with Waterloo and Watergate. Kyouyama Anna had become the word associated with a crushing defeat.
It was her second disappointment in life.
"I want my baby sister! I want to see her! I
want to see my baby sister! I promised to be the best onee-chan
for her! I promised! I promised!"
She had lost her baby sister even before the latter was born, was deprived
of the joys of sharing her love with another person so early in her young life.
Her first disappointment had led her to harden herself against sadness. She had
sworn never to cry again. And so she had done so, up until this very point.
But she was human, all too human.
But promises were made to be broken And so they were indeed broken into a hundred thousand million pieces, shattered shards scattered to the four winds of change, a sparkling in the sky like the stars– and then nothingness, oblivion.
But the tiny voice inside of her pleaded to the 'her' who was broken. It was the voice of her little sister and the voice of her old, young self. It was the voice of desperation and of wanting.
It was the voice of one who wanted love.
Please. Don't ignore me. Please.
I don't want to be ignored.
I don't want to cry again.
Anna kissed Yoh.
In Japanese culture, a hug was more powerful than a kiss. In tradition, it was the boy who was supposed to make the advances and the girl was to receive them.
But Anna felt the need for more than just her arms around him. And she couldn't wait. She needed her lips pressed upon his, their bodies pressed together in an intimate crush of cloth and flesh, inhaling the scent of him as she rested her face upon his strong chest. Yoh would not take the initiative anytime soon. Anna needed to guide him for the rest of his life. It was a role she was content to play. She was his, after all. He was hers and she was his.
She loved him. Anna truly loved Yoh. When she thought that Tokagero had killed him, she had fallen upon her knees and nearly wept. When she saw Hao kill him, Anna would have preferred to have died at that very moment so as to chase after Yoh's and be with him to the very last. That she didn't wasn't a proof of her thinking mind, but of her love winning over a barrier such as death. She chose to live, and because Anna lived, Yoh lived. In her living, they lived.
But their ending was still long in coming. And now their happy lives were being unraveled by the pale witch who had almost destroyed them once already– almost destroyed then, and in succeeding at her attempt to killYoh, Mari may have utterly destroyed Anna.
Maybe it was too late already. Maybe this gesture was useless. Maybe she was twenty-five minutes too late.
But Anna was perfectly happy to have this last moment to their selves before the final adieu.
She kissed Yoh. Passionately, strongly, she kissed him, breathed into his mouth and let him breathe into hers. As he was taller than her, she had to rise up and stand on her tiptoes to maintain lip lock. Her little balancing act kept them in very close bodily contact. Loosened, the red bandanna fell to the ground and was forgotten. It was an intimacy that she did not want to lose for ever.
And the wonder of it all was that Yoh –despite his body's involuntary stiffening against her abrupt advances– Yoh softened, put his arms around her and richly reciprocated in kind by kissing her back.
And Anna knew then that Yoh still loved her as always.
And she told him so, then, when they broke apart to breathe in the air of this world, happy though they were to have only each other to themselves.
"I love you, Asakura Yoh."
"You, too, Anna. I love you, too."
Unknown to them, someone was there.
Mari didn't know what she felt. She had just left the furo without answering Tamao's question. She didn't want to think about it, wasn't
ready to make such a strong commitment of her feelings based on vague
suppositions and a week of apparent heaven. She definitely was reluctant about
certain things– like admitting that she did have feelings for Yoh.
Maybe that was why her heart nearly stopped upon seeing Anna and Yoh in that most unreluctant of kisses.
After all, the clue to her ponderings was clutched in her right hand all along.
Or was it?
"Do you like Yoh-sama as well?" Tamao had asked.
But Mari had no answer for that question. She couldn't think of one. Her mind was blank. Nothing in her past had taught her what to do.
The person whom she relied upon so much these past few days was right before her, and yet she couldn't ask the answer out from him.
The only other person she could turn to was long gone, never to return.
And Chuck was dead.
And so she did the only thing she could do, the thing she had been doing all along.
Mari ran away.
I've fallen into a light sleep, a
sleep that encompasses my whole being. I never carried out any of my promises.
I discarded the brightness of my person so long ago; like the light borne by
the dawning sun, it can never come back to me again.
How far back should I go? Tell me. Tell me! Everything is so painfully vivid. I know the answer lies beside this cold frozen heart of mine, frozen, mindlessly driven to persist for all eternity. Numb, mute, blind and suffering, I gathered the sorry remainder of the wreck that was once my emotions. And searching for redemption, I–
But I've fallen into a light sleep. On lonely nights I'm beginning to learn the designs of sorrow. The hiding away of your warm presence makes me fear the overflowing darkness.
I cannot find you.
It was there. It had always waited for her. It had followed her for a long
while now. It had hunted her all this time, had fed upon that hapless ghost
that tried to stand in the way of the hunter. It was hungry and impatient and
very dangerous.
But it was not mindless. Nor was it invincible. It could sense formidable foes within the sanctuary its prey had chosen, Shamans powerful enough to wound or even kill it. That gave it pause. It valued its own life. It could not allow itself to die senselessly, so it had instructed by the one who called it forth into this world. Thus, it did not immediately attack.
Instead, it waited. It waited for its target or her guardians to grow careless, waited for the proper time to strike.
It could afford to wait. It had all the time in the world.
After all, it was a ghost.
And now that moment came.
She approached it. Its fearsome head lifted at the sight and scent of her. The whine it uttered would have chilled almost anyone.
There was no fear in her. No brave thoughts dwelt within her, either. All that she had against this thing was the hopeless confusion of her emotions. Her sadness was all that held her together.
She held her hands out to the thing and pleaded, choking on tears all the while:
"Take Mari. Please. Take away all of Mari's pain and suffering."
Fluidly the thing shambled forward, towards her. As it enveloped her, she murmured what would be her last words:
"Take me."
Alone, the ragged doll of Yoh lay upon the dirty
floor, forgotten.
Tsuzuku
Sheo's Notes:
As I will be taking summer classes for the majority of April or May (either that, or I will probably die most horribly), I will find updating this fan fiction difficult. But it does not mean that this is the end of Poppet. It does not end here. Not by a long shot.
All the others are still waiting. Mari and her newly-healed, newly-hurting heart; Rione and the mysterious former Romancer called Kite; the supposedly dead Meene; Jeanne-sama and Lyserg, Marco and Rune, and the new X-Laws; people whose names I cannot reveal, not yet; and even our favorite akuma. They are all waiting for me to write their stories down.
It will take far more time than I had anticipated. Maiden/Dowser was a quicky, easy write. Poppet is hard work, and I'll have far more of that coming soon that I really want to.
Still: Everyone else waits. You wait. And I, too, I suppose, must wait.
Next Chapter: His name is Kite. Chapter Seven: Kite.
