Through the Ages chpt 10
After over a month of no updates, here I am at last. Enjoy chapter 10, folks.
Disclaimer: Nope, no own Shaman King. That's all to it. You'd have to arrest over 8000 people if we ff authors did.
November, 1999
The word "uncomfortable" wouldn't even begin to describe the queer situation the young shamans were in.
Yoh and his friends stood stiffly, occasionally scuffing bits of snow with their feet. Opposite them was Hao, differing from his visitors' stances in the fact that he was instead sitting down leisurely on a boulder, his arms folded complacently. There was nothing on his smiling face that hinted any sign of threat towards the eight arrivals, but the row of people surrounding him indicated otherwise. Hao's followers eyed them hostilely, reminiscent of a cold, silent war ongoing between the frosty stares each side sent to each other.
"Come now." Hao was first to break the ice, shutting his eyes in mock disappointment. "Must we be so unfriendly? It's not usual for us shamans to get time-off from the Fight, and I think that the least we could do is to relax."
"Tell that to your lackeys," Ren muttered, earning him even more ferocious glares, particularly from a certain orange-haired girl, going by the nickname of 'Macchi'.
"Lackeys?" she said furiously. The volatile witch had by no means forgotten about their last fight – from which he had emerged as the winner, of course, Ren thought smugly.
"Such an uncivilized term," a bearded, deep-voiced man remarked, looking somewhere torn between annoyance and amusement. "Just as expected from children like them."
"Don't say things like that, Lucifer," Hao chided playfully, his amused gaze never once tearing away from the group in front. "In fact, why don't you go bring everyone inside the house? It looks like my brother has some…personal affairs to share."
Lucifer merely nodded in acquiescence, leading Hao's followers back into the small cabin that stood cozily near them. The devoted faction trailed behind the former X-Law silently, all the while throwing dissatisfying glances at the gang, which most of them returned with enthusiasm. "You too, Opacho," Hao added kindly to the small African child near him.
"We need to ask you something," Yoh rushed on immediately after Hao's underlings had safely retreated into the cabin. Best to get to the point now that they were all here.
"Yes, I figured as much," Hao replied mildly. "It has to do with my Cho Senji Ryakketsu… something like that?"
Yoh didn't stop to wonder how he knew that. "Something…something went wrong with it," he pressed on. "It's Manta, he got sucked into a…a…a black hole of sorts, and we think he probably ended up in a wrong time."
Hao didn't say anything for a moment, before smiling at them again. "Manta? That little human friend of yours who's always tagging you, Yoh?"
"He's disappeared, and we need him back, all right?" Horo Horo barked out. The Ainu, in his agitation, shifted his snowboard over his shoulder roughly.
"Ahhh, no wonder you're all so uptight," Hao said teasingly, jumping off the boulder to land with a small thud on the snow-covered ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Yoh could see his fiancée's left hand twitch, as if resisting the urge to give the fire shaman another taste of her legendary slaps. Yoh wondered how long it would take before her patience broke.
"And?"
The nonchalance, the feigned inquiring puzzlement, and that never-ending amused grin wrapped around that single word certainly pushed everyone's boundaries a few notches further. Anna's hand twitched some more.
"What do you mean, 'and'?" Ren growled, sounding outraged and choked with angry humiliation. "You know what we want!"
"Travelling for such long hours, and yet you refuse to ask the thing you need from me," Hao sighed.
The itako might have lashed out by this point, but Yoh, fortunately, butted in. "We want your help in bringing Manta back!" His voice had developed just a hint of determined desperation.
"Of course you do," Hao remarked cheerfully, not answering the plea at all. "Though I wonder what made you attempt such an advanced level of sorcery. Whatever was it that gave you the notion that time travel was a good way to kill all that free time in your hands?"
That was it. The question they had all been dreading. And there was he, staring at them with such an exaggerated interest that no one doubted for a moment that this boy was doing all of it on purpose.
Even the blind would've been able to see that insufferable mocking glint his brown eyes.
"... No answer, eh?"
"Yes, we were trying to kill you," Anna spoke crisply, tossing a dirty glare to her male counterparts, as if miffed by their cowardliness. Her patience was already thin enough in his presence, and Hao was not going to get the satisfaction of seeing her own internal enraged embarrassment. "So what? It's not such a big secret that almost every shaman that meets you wouldn't try to get rid of you."
The statement, as she should have expected, had no effect whatsoever on Hao. Instead, it had the opposite impact of widening his already-bright smile, making his amusement so palpable that a fair few of them nearly broke off their struggling resolve to be civil. "Indeed so, Anna. But this must be the first time that such shamans would actually find the need to approach for my assistance in one of their failed attempts to kill me. Interesting."
The only answer was a stony silence.
Another sigh. "All right then."
For a moment, anyone not paying close attention would have thought Yoh to be speaking. Then after realizing where the voice had come from, the group could only gawk in wary disbelief.
"You're…going to help us?" Faust, unexpectedly, asked in a cautious manner. They flicked brief glances towards the doctor, surprised that the normally quiet necromancer had deigned to speak up.
"Correct," Hao agreed, with the usual boyish yet mature brightness that donned his features all too often.
"We were trying to kill you, and you're just going out of your way to do us a favour?" Ryu said disbelievingly.
The fire shaman only chuckled some more at their gob smacked expressions. "Am I so petty? After all, it is my dear brother's friend who's in need of rescuing." Hao's grin then took on a gradual festering of something resembling concentrated, dark interest, which anyone who knew him even remotely well enough would realize that there was more to his intentions. "I think I'm duty-bound as Yoh's aniki to accede to this request."
Heian Period, Japan
Whether or not it had been purely his imagination, Manta had the lingering notion that there was something "they" (he wasn't quite sure who) weren't telling the Fujiwara residents. He could pick it up from the little hints these few days, the way he sometimes saw the worried frowns upon the governors' faces and the whispers he occasionally picked up while walking along the corridors. Every time he got near though, they would immediately shut up, or pretend to be doing something else – or so he felt.
And Michinaga had been casting him searching, almost suspicious looks at him during the times they vaguely crossed paths. All Manta could do was to swallow down his indignation and fear, and pretend not to notice.
Trying to pull himself out from his depressing mood, Manta tugged rather violently onto the sashes tied around the gift parcels, which were already wrapped in vibrant-coloured cloths. Gritting his teeth, the blonde tried his best to secure them firmly with as much strength as his small body would allow.
"How is it, Manta? Doing all right?" a young, scruffy man called out to him. He carried the huge bag of winter melons and plums effortlessly as he spoke, gathered painstakingly from the house's storage supplies.
"Just fine, thanks," Manta replied, smiling awkwardly. He had to raise his voice over the noises of scurrying and shifting of goods, as servants and maids hurried to follow the orders barked out by several ladies in-waiting. The crammed space, filled with frantic cries and an all-in-all hassling ambiance, was nearly pandemonium, but the blonde felt strangely comforted by all the hustle and bustle.
The young man shook his head in despair as he struggled to make way for people to squeeze past him. "And to think Michinaga-sama wants to do this for all of his daughters!"
"Be quiet!" another woman scolded. She paused in the middle of packaging strange-looking ornaments into a box, turning her well-donned head up to glare at the man. "Such audacity!" The woman nodded furiously at the ladies in-waiting standing not too far away.
"Ah, relax, they're too busy throwing their weight about, yelling out orders like that… Makes you wonder how they can still sing so prettily in front of His Majesty…"
Manta suppressed a smile as he returned to his own job, the surrounding noise drowning out any remnants of the oncoming argument. This was why he liked helping out with the wedding preparations for Prince Ichijo and Lady Akiko, where he didn't have to spend his days in silence and boredom, since his Heian reports were long completed (and hidden away).
Not to mention that it also kept him from dwelling profusely on that previous incident with Hao…
A high-pitched voice of a young girl sounded somewhere to his left. "Have you heard? Some newcomers are arriving today, probably in the late afternoon…"
"Really? Who?" a small boy piped up curiously, pausing in his own process of tying up the goods.
"Dunno, but I overheard that it's some members of a certain family…"
More for the sake of pushing the memory of the unhappy encounter out of his mind, Manta joined in on their conversation. "Family?"
"Yeah." The girl turned to look at Manta, pleased to have another person as her audience. "They sounded really important, but I don't think they will tell us until the family members come…"
"Where do you hear all this stuff from anyway, Miyo?" the boy questioned, sounding a little miffed.
"I just hear them," the girl said obstinately. "Anyway - " she turned back to Manta. "- the really interesting thing is that they're not from Japan."
"Oh? Where're they're from, then?"
The girl rubbed her head sheepishly. "I didn't manage to hear all of it," she admitted. "They saw me and chased me away as soon as they did."
Manta assumed 'they' meant the governing officials. But the girl had one last thing to add. Leaning forwards, she whispered conspiratorially to Manta and her companion. "This family sounds scary, though. I could tell from their voices. They're scared of the family."
"Miyo! Are you telling one of your stories again?" an elderly, stern-looking woman reprimanded, towering over the three children. "Don't distract the boys and do your work! We've still got much to do!"
"Hai, hai," the girl complied grudgingly. She stood up and walked away, carrying a basket of wrapped gifts, muttering something along the lines of "slave-driver" and "no fun at all". Manta saw the old woman shake her head before also disappearing into the fray.
Family, huh… The words ran through his mind, but other than the family having a frightening reputation and was from another country, there was... Manta brushed his thoughts aside as he wanted to finish packing. After fastening the final bow, Manta stood and piled the things into his arms, trying to look around the stack to find his way.
It was difficult trying to navigate amongst the sea of people, and once again, Manta's short height put him at a disadvantage. After twisting, turning and several close calls, he finally made it outside, panting, to the goods' wooden carriers, where the men would pull them to goodness-knows-where.
"Need some help?"
Manta froze. He twisted his head sharply upwards at the figure standing over him.
"Hao-sama!" someone gasped, and like the flick of a switch, almost all activity ceased as the crowd turned to stare at the renowned onmyoji.
Hao raised his head and smiled slightly at the people. "Don't let me interrupt your work. I've just come to pick someone up."
Mumbles of stammering "hai" rippled through the throng, as they tried to recover from their momentary surprise and confusion, and continued on with their jobs. "Well, Manta?" Hao asked, looking down at him again. "Will you walk with me for a while?"
"Umm…the stuff…" Manta mumbled lamely.
"Can you carry this boy's things to the carts, please?" It took Manta a moment to realize that Hao was addressing a young woman standing near them.
"Y-yes, Hao-sama!" the woman stammered, nearly leaping forwards to relieve Manta of his burden.
"Thanks," Manta said, but the woman didn't appear to have heard him, for she had flounced away as soon as the goods were in her hands. Out of the corner of his eye, Manta saw a huddle of women, whispering behind their hands as they gazed at Hao, rosy blushes tinting across their pale faces. A fan club, indeed.
"Shall we go?" Hao said, standing aside to indicate that Manta walk beside him.
Despite of his gentle tone, there was steadfastness in Hao's voice that left the blonde with no choice but to agree. He nodded uncertainly.
Ignoring the crowd's curious glances, the two of them slid past them and disappeared from sight a few moments later.
"Are you cold?"
Manta started at the unexpected sound of Hao's voice. They had been walking in silence for the past few minutes, along the pathways covered in thick sheets of snow that had come late the previous night. It was still falling.
"Mm, not really," he replied, shaking his head. It was true. The air felt strangely lukewarm even in the minus-zero temperature and Manta didn't even need to wear his scarf or any woolen jackets that most of the residents wore – but of course, he already knew the reason.
"You don't seem very interested in knowing why."
"Oh," Manta said, brought up short. "Ummm…well, you see…" Oh, whatever… he thought. "Must be because of you, I guess, since you're a shaman and all…"
"True," Hao said, a tinge of amusement seeping through. "I was wondering why you lacked your usual curiosity to ask me why you still felt so warm in such cold weather, even during that trip to Aokigahara."
I knew it. He really is on to me. Manta groaned inwardly.
To his relief, Hao changed the subject, although not to a less awkward one. "I shouldn't have raised my voice to you the other day. I'm sorry," Hao apologized, inclining his head towards the boy.
"O-oh, um…" Thrown by the sincerity in the onmyoji's tone, Manta fumbled for words. "That's ok… I started it in the first place..."
His voice trailing off into silence again, Manta cast a tentative glance at the onmyoji, trying to read his expression. The blonde thought Hao's orbs held a rather pensive look, though the other features of his face were kept carefully blank. It was an expression that was becoming familiar to him, and once again led him to reflect on how very different this Hao was from the one in the future.
But try as he might, Manta couldn't shake off the foreboding that coursed through him as he remembered the form that Hao had taken on the other day. The flicker of insanity that resided in those eyes had pulled his mind forcefully back to the modern-day Asakura Hao, in whom the old hatred sometimes flared whenever he was displeased.
It had scared Manta back then. In the Heian era, it was no different. But it was really much worse, because Manta had already seen a side to this Hao that he never knew existed, a side that Manta had unconsciously come to like, albeit cautiously.
Damn. Everything was so confusing. Everything would make so much more sense if Manta just knew what exactly was happening to him, the thing that would riddle the onmyoji with so much pain that it was enough to bring the infamous Asakura Hao to his knees.
So deep Manta was into his inner turmoil that he failed to notice where they were heading until Hao drew to a stop.
"The snow is late this year," Hao said quietly, reaching out a hand to let some of the white bits fall into his palm.
"…Yeah, I think so too." Without thinking, Manta stretched out one, single finger for a snow fragment to land gently onto his digit. There was no one around apart from the two of them.
"But the snow seems to be coming down more heavily than usual," Manta added, his gaze going around in circles as he scanned the area around them. The deserted compound was covered in purest white, the thick blanket covering bare tree branches and the roofs of the various sections of the Fujiwara household.
Manta shifted a little, his feet making a slight, crunching sound as they grazed against the snow, which nearly enveloped the entire outside of his shoes. On impulse, he said, "You know, my mother used to say that, flowers that bloom late in the year often turn out to be the most beautiful of all."
Almost immediately after the words left his mouth, Manta blushed. That had been a very random thing to say, even stupid… Perhaps the snowfall, silent in their descent, made him feel tranquil, almost melancholy, enough to compel foolish thoughts and yearnings to be spoken aloud.
But Hao didn't react. He smiled, sadly, at the sky. "Funny. Someone used to say things like that to me as well."
"Who?" Manta couldn't help asking.
"My mother." Hao didn't turn to look at Manta, but rather, kept his gaze fixed above him, unheeding of the snow flitting down his face and also onto his long, greyish hair.
"Your mother?" Manta echoed, not bothering to hide his surprise. Up till now, the blonde had never considered asking after Hao's personal relationships, or even gave it any thought… No doubt it would have felt audacious and embarrassing, but this time, under the soothing presence of winter, it seemed more natural to raise the topic.
"Her favourite season was winter," Hao said, still not looking at the boy behind him. "Mine was spring." He then let out a soft laugh. "As a child, I used to attempt all kinds of ways to change her preference to mine, since I thought a mother and her son should share everything together."
Manta paused, unsure of how to proceed. If anyone had ever told him he would be listening to Hao's life story firsthand in the future (kind of), he would've either scoffed or thought the person high on drugs.
"What happened to her?" he asked carefully.
"She died," Hao replied. His voice, tinged with sorrow, became somewhat brusque.
"Oh." No wonder, he thought sadly. In a time like this, diseases must be rampant…
"It wasn't disease that killed her."
Manta's eyes widened and his head shot up, opening his mouth but at a momentary loss for words.
"Can you read minds or something?" The question, automatic and entirely unintentional, came blabbering out of his mouth, and into the air between them.
Then, coming to his senses quite abruptly, Manta gasped and clapped a hand over his mouth. "Sorry, I-I mean…" he stammered. "It's just that… well…"
Hao turned, and might have given Manta something resembling a smile, if it wasn't his imagination in overdrive once more. "I promise you, Manta, I will find a way to send you back home – to your own time."
"H-Hah?"
Hao's smile turned more teasing as he glimpsed the fretfulness on the blonde's face. "I know you miss your home. And your friends too, if I'm not mistaken."
Bingo.
Completely unnerved, Manta could only stare back at the onmyoji. It was rather…scary…
"Have you…have you made any, ah, progress?" Manta asked, trying to keep his mind calm and nerves under control.
"A bit. But I think perhaps your friends from the future are trying to contact you as well." Idly, Hao rubbed a single white particle between his thumb and forefinger, apparently fascinated at how fast it melted.
"Really?" Manta exclaimed, perking up at once. "How do you know?"
"There was some spiritual pressure when I had finished with some part of it," Hao explained. "Perhaps coming from the other side, as you may call it."
"So, you've finished the whole spell already?" Manta asked eagerly.
Hao smiled wryly. "I am not that much of a miracle-worker. I said I only completed part of it, but the rest still remains to be seen.
"But," he added, lowering his hand. He turned his back to Manta, and then let his head slide to the side, his eyes on Manta. "I will get it done. As you may believe so firmly in me for that fact."
Manta didn't want to think about what the last statement implied. "Anyway," he started to say determinedly. "I think I already have an idea what is going on – some part of it."
It was rather rash of him, risking to destroy whatever amendment of their liaison that had occurred in the past half an hour or so. But Manta wanted to imply something else to Hao - that whatever the onmyoji might say or do, it was not going to stop him from finding out the truth if he could. With bated breath, he waited to see the man's reaction.
Hao looked at him, his expression blank, an art Manta knew he had mastered skillfully over the years. He merely stared at the blonde, his head almost fully bent to make eye contact with the small boy.
Then, to Manta's multiple-timed (was there even such a word?) astonishment, Hao smiled again, although perhaps rather ruefully. "I always knew Keiko was too soft-hearted for her own good," he said.
Manta barely had enough time to comprehend the frightening power that he thought he had already witnessed from Hao, when a smaller figure, sleek and almost aloof, padded its way towards the pair.
"Hao-sama," Matamune greeted, inclining his head towards Manta as well.
"Matamune?" Manta said, surprise overtaking his momentary trepidation a while ago.
Manta saw Hao tilting his head towards the cat in an inquiring gesture. "News, Matamune?"
"Yes." The brown cat looked directly at the two of them. "They are here."
Much to Manta's irritation, Hao and Matamune refused to tell him who "they" were, apart from the infuriating "You'll see" when he asked the question.
Once they had returned to the busier area near the wedding preparations' rooms, they saw governors and rigid-looking guards lurking outside a door that belonged to the Northern Branch, Michinaga's committee of advisors, as Manta had read in his textbook. The governors' faces were pale.
Upon seeing the three (two, Manta corrected himself, since Matamune had been made invisible) figures coming their way, the ministers jumped, but immediately rallied at once. "Good afternoon, Hao-sama," all of them murmured in unison.
"They are inside?" Hao asked, turning his head towards the closed door.
"Y-yes," one of the governors answered, casting a wary glance at the door. "Michinaga-sama is seeing them right now."
"It was a rather drastic measure on Michinaga-sama's part, is it not?" Hao said, turning back to gaze at the ministers. "To get them to come all the way here for this mission?"
The ministers shifted, apparently also uneasy with the mysterious arrangement. "It cannot be helped," another governor muttered. "Things have gone far enough. They have been too many accidents, too many deaths. And yesterday, Prince Ichijo's mother nearly fell into the deep river outside the Fujiwara - "
"What? More people died?" Manta asked, aghast, before he could stop himself.
Several pairs of eyes shot their gazes towards him, but Manta was too horrified to react appropriately this time.
"More of Prince Ichijo's men," the governor said at last. "A stirrup yesterday broke, and nearly tossed Prince Ichijo's honourable mother into the river from her carriage. And…" His voice trailed off.
"And?" Hao asked.
The governor fidgeted. "And just two days ago, a…what seemed to be a human finger appeared in Lady Akiko's soup during mealtime, and no one knew how. The poor lady received a huge shock."
"She must have," Hao remarked softly.
Manta swallowed. Human body parts in soup. He wanted to vomit.
Who on earth had a sick mind enough to do this?
Suddenly, the rumble of voices coming from inside the room gave way to a huge commotion. To Manta's huge shock, a man flew out from the room and onto the snowy ground outside, through a nearly-broken door that bounced off from the wall from the impact.
"W-w-wha??" Manta blubbered, his body stiff and his eyes as wide as dinner plates.
The ministers' expressions artfully mirrored the one on the blonde's face, as they stared at the seemingly unconscious man lying on the snow. The scene was almost comical to any outsider's point of view.
"LI!" a man's voice, loud, booming and authoritative (not Michinaga's) directed everyone's bewildered stares to the inside of the room. "Behave yourself, whelp!"
"It's not my fault," a nonchalant, completely remorseless voice sounded in reply. The voice seemed to belong to a younger boy. "He was really going on about himself, how capable he was, and how dangerous we were…"
"With you around, anyone sane will reach that conclusion," a young man commented bemusedly.
"That hurts my feelings, aniki…"
As if suddenly aware of their new audience, the crowd of men turned around to stare at the gawking people outside. But what freaked out Manta most was the boy who was obviously guilty of somehow throwing the unfortunate man out of the room.
He had yellow eyes. Dark blue hair. Even a small, spiky upturn of hair at the back of his head that had given someone, whom Manta was rather familiar with, the trademark…
"I planned on introducing these newcomers to all of you in a more…dignified manner, but just as well," Michinaga's dry voice came from the front of the room. Manta saw him shake his head in resignation. "Gentlemen, the Tao family will be here for as long as it takes for their mission to be fulfilled. They will be in charge of hunting down the culprit responsible for these despicable acts."
END OF CHAPTER 10
Author's Note: Well, there you have it. Did you all like the new characters at the end?
Now you'll have to wait till my prelims are over, which won't be until early September, for an update. This chapter was churned out with difficulty (one word – homework), although it ended off quicker than I expected.
In any case, many thanks to the people who've reviewed! (so many of you have been with me since chapter 1 ).
So remember to do so for this chapter as well. XD