Author's Notes: I think this installment best exemplifies my somewhat twisted sense of humor.

Disclaimer: Although the severely warped and twisted imagination is my own, Shaman King and its characters are the property of Hiroyuki Takei. All original characters are also the property of their respective creators.

Izumo Chronicles Part 3 - The Search Begins

In retrospect, Crystal really should have left a note for Cat to let her know she probably wasn't going to make it back to Funbari Onsen for several days. Unfortunately, she hadn't thought to do that so that meant that once Cat managed to get herself out of bed and properly dressed it only took her a few minutes to notice that Crystal wasn't there. This elicited Cat to perform a high speed investigation of all of Crystal's usual hangouts in the neighborhood surrounding the inn.

Crystal wasn't at the river and she wasn't on the roof. She wasn't in the onsen either. However, that did cause a rather awkward moment for Ren who hadn't been expecting anyone to burst in on him like that. "Sorry Ren, have you seen Crystal?" Then Cat sped away leaving a blushing and thoroughly flustered Ren behind her. Finally she went back upstairs to check the room that Crystal had been staying in. Cat knocked on the door and when there wasn't an answer she tested the door. It opened and Cat immediately realized that Crystal wasn't there. However, she did catch a brief glimpse of Jun in what might have been a rather compromising position with Bailong. "Oops, sorry Jun. Sorry Bailong. Have either of you seen Crystal?" Cat zoomed off back downstairs again and this time she found Horohoro helping himself to a late breakfast in the kitchen.

"Horohoro," she whined pitifully. "I can't find Crystal."

"Sorry," Horohoro sounded apologetic. "I haven't seen her." He paused. "Or Hao." He paused again. "Actually, come to think of it, I don't think Yoh or Anna are here either."

"Um," Tamao couldn't help but overhear their conversation since she happened to be in the room making tea. "I'm pretty sure Yoh-sama and Anna-sama went to Izumo a few days ago."

Cat made a very good show of invading Tamao's personal space. "Do you think Crystal and Hao might have gone there too?"

"Maybe," Tamao squeaked and tried to back away. "I mean, the Asakura family does own a house there."

"Then that's where I'm going to look." Cat turned back on Horohoro, much to Tamao's relief. "Are you up to a little road trip?"

"Um, sure?" Horohoro just looked innocent and confused. "When do we leave?"

Cat faltered a little at that. "Well, I don't know the way to Izumo so I guess we're going to have to find someone who knows and ask them for directions."

By then Tamao had escaped into the other room with her tray of tea. As far as she was concerned, Cat's enthusiasm was a little scary. Nevertheless, Cat and Horohoro were eventually able to secure a map with a highlighted route to get to Yoh's house in Izumo from Ryu. And after that was taken care of it was just a simple matter of using Horohoro's hitchhiking skills to get them there. Even so, it was probably going to take a couple of days.

As promised, once breakfast was out of the way, Hao had set about taking Crystal on a tour of the estate. Given that the estate had belonged to the Asakura family for roughly 1000 years it was fairly obvious that Hao was going to take credit for the location and the architecture. And, of course, his choice of landmarks worth pointing out was rather self centered what with the fact that there was a shrine to himself hidden on the premises. Considering the extent of his ego, this really didn't come as much of a surprise and actually just seemed rather fitting somehow. For that matter, there were also quite a lot of cats wandering around.

By the time Cat and Horohoro finally got around to forming a search party consisting only of themselves to venture forth from Funbari Onsen, which was around the illusory hour known as lunchtime, this had somehow culminated in the fact that Hao was forced to follow Crystal up a tree that she had become distracted into climbing because it was just one of those tall trees that looked perfect for climbing. The tree itself was situated along the mountains that bordered the estate which meant that the added elevation would provide them with a rather impressive aerial view.

"I had forgotten about your affinity for high places," Hao remarked once he reached the branch that Crystal was perching on. Although it was rather far up the tree, the branch seemed sturdy enough that Hao saw no harm in joining her.

"Well," Crystal started, "it doesn't generally come up unless I have an excuse to act on it."

"You mean, like you did during the Shaman Fight?" Hao couldn't help asking.

Crystal scratched behind her ear. "You kind of gave me the idea for that because of Spirit of Fire." She paused, lowering her hand from her ear. "You told me I shouldn't count on you to catch me if I fell so I decided to improvise."

"Did I really say that?" Hao had to think back to it. Then he glanced at Crystal, "You know I didn't mean it like that."

Crystal smiled. "Of course you didn't. You just wanted me to be more careful." She paused and added, "But you didn't want to say so directly."

Hao looked off into the distance. "You were really onto me the whole time, weren't you?"

"Well," Crystal started slowly. "No, not the whole time. All I had to go on was a feeling I couldn't explain. Once the pieces started falling into place, then I thought I had a better idea of what was going on. I mean, all I could really do was make an educated guess and trust my intuition."

"At least you had your friends to back you up, right?" Hao still didn't fully comprehend the concept, but he had at least come to appreciate what it seemed to signify for those around him.

"That's true," Crystal looked off into the distance herself. "I was always more worried about being a good friend. I'm glad they were there for me, but I still worry about being a burden on them. It's confusing because I want to believe I'm doing the right thing, but I can never tell whether it's actually working or not."

Hao became thoughtful. "You make it a lot more difficult for yourself than it has to be."

"That's probably true." Crystal couldn't help but laugh. "Of course, no one really tries to stop me from thinking like that."

Hao turned back to her skeptically. "Do you even bother to tell them what you're thinking?"

"I guess not," Crystal admitted quietly. She rested her hands on either side of her along the surface of the tree branch.

Hao remained quiet a little while longer before asking, "You do remember that I can't read your mind anymore, right? Why do you still bother to tell me what's on your mind?"

"I want to say that it's just force of habit," Crystal responded, "but I don't think that's all there is to it. I mean, for one thing you actually ask. I'm pretty much an open book when people let me get away with it."

"I've noticed," Hao acknowledged with some amusement. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "It's cute."

After he said that Crystal tried really hard not to start blushing. It didn't really work though. Of course, then she became distracted by a quiet growl from her stomach.

"And I suppose that means we might as well get down from this tree to grab some lunch," Hao announced as he easily began to make his descent from the tree.

Crystal remained silent as she followed after him. If anyone else had dared to call her cute she would have argued against it, declaring that she "doesn't do cute", but for some reason with Hao she couldn't rightfully bring herself to say it. Really, why did he even have that effect on her? When she approached the bottom of the tree, still partially absorbed in her thoughts, she kind of lost her footing. She really wasn't all that far from the ground, but Hao was still the one that caught her.

"Would it help your concentration if I didn't tease you so much?" he asked her seriously as he set her back on her feet.

"It might," Crystal admitted in a quiet voice. She wasn't quite sure what he was getting at. Or maybe she could and she was just having a hard time convincing herself that it was actually happening. Really, could it?

Meanwhile, much to Anna's annoyance, Yoh had been pacing around trying to make sense of the morning's events. After all, Yoh had been one of the first to really try to accept and understand his brother, but even he had barely seen this one coming. He was both surprised and knew he shouldn't be. The signs had been there from the onset, hadn't they? Yoh probably just wasn't paying enough attention for it to register before what he had witnessed that morning. Still, for Yoh it was nice to see that Hao was finally trying to open up to someone besides him. And Anna. She must have appreciated it too, even if she wasn't inclined to say anything to that effect.

"Yoh," Anna's voice brought him out of his little reverie. "If you keep pacing like that you're going to leave dents in the floor."

"Sorry Anna," Yoh sounded a little bit nervous as he rubbed the back of his head looking slightly embarrassed. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about this morning."

"It's really not that big a deal and you know it," Anna stated simply. "Besides, they'll get along a lot better if you don't try to push them into it."

"I'll take your word for it," Yoh decided after thinking it over. Anna was probably right.

Hao was actually surprisingly at home in the kitchen. He had decided that yakitori would be the best option since once it was ready he and Crystal would be able to head back outside without drawing too much attention to themselves. Of course he was improvising by using the stove instead of a charcoal grill, but aside from giving it a slightly different taste it wasn't like it would make too much of a difference. Besides, Hao knew how to handle fire.

Needless to say, Yoh was a little bit startled to find that his brother was actually cooking for a change. At first he thought he was hallucinating, but then sure enough Hao was standing there wearing an apron with Crystal watching attentively. Hao took in Yoh's expression and gave him a falsely innocent smile.

"Don't worry Yoh," there was obvious amusement in Hao's voice. "You still get to make your own."

To Be Continued...