The full moon hung high over Hiroshima, lighting the way for the floating red, transparent spirit with antlers as it looked for a place to stay. An illuminated window caught its attention. A puny human was awake in this sleeping city. It swooped down, carrying the bundle carefully as it gazed into the window. A small lamp lit up the room, revealing the figure of a young man sitting on the floor in front of a model house.
His hair was short and unkept, he had been up for the past couple days trying to complete this model house. The man was short for his age, four feet tall at least. He stood up and pulled a box down from the shelf above him, sitting it down beside him and carefully looking for the piece he needed for the house. As the spirit watched the man, he already knew his personality. He was not at all social. A very shy and skittish man because he was vertically challenged. He sought out to fill that social need with his pet rats, their cage sat near the bed at the other end of the room. This man, with his caring nature and undiscovered shamanic powers would be the excellent candidate for a caretaker of the almighty Lord Hao.
The spirit tapped on the glass, hoping the man would hear the spiritual knock. To answer its hopes, the man turned around and stared in horror and surprise at the spirit and the newborn baby in the window. He ran and opened to window to rescue the baby but didn't expect the spirit to fly in and land on his bed, holding the baby tight to its chest. The man rushed to the baby's aide but a voice suddenly stopped him.
"Stop or you will die." A voice said. The man froze in fear. "I am Hao, and I have returned to this earth to be Shaman King. I will rid the world of humans and make a world for shamans. You, Blocken Mayer are lucky to have been chosen as my adoptive father."
"What?" Was all that the man could mutter as he stood at the end of the bed almost wetting himself.
"Don't be nervous. I will sleep now but the Spirit of Fire shall watch over me." The baby said telepathetically as it closed its eyes.
The Spirit of Fire laid next to its master, warming him with its fiery body. Blocken fainted on the floor. This had to be a dream! He stayed up too long and had a weird dream. This couldn't be real.
It was real. Blocken woke up to find that his life revolved around taking care of this special baby. The baby had so much knowledge already, Blocken had found out. He didn't need to teach him anything. Hao quickly started to walk and talk with his mouth moving! A year had passed when that terrible event happened.
Blocken had been working on a new project, a model of a body. Not just any body, a body like that of his lego people that he decorated his model house with. But this body would be bigger, a child's size. He planned to get it patented and on the market. He would make millions! All those children out there who would love to dress as their favorite toy, he was surprised no one had done that before. He picked up a Phillips screwdriver and tightened a screw in the leg when he heard a crash in the hall.
"Hao? You okay?" He called as he set the screwdriver down.
"The power..." Hao mumbled as Blocken found him huddled behind an end table in the hallway.
"The power is on, don't worry." Blocken reassured him, referring to the electricity.
"The power!" Hao exclaimed and laughed. Fire suddenly rose behind Hao in the hall, blocking off the main stairway.
"Hao, what are you doing?! Stop it!" Blocken pleaded.
"Feel it! It's so strong." Hao laughed maniacally as he grabbed Blocken's hands, burning them to the touch.
Blocken ran back into his bedroom to find the Spirit of Fire guarding the window. There was no way to escape, that spirit would follow him everywhere at Hao's command. Hao entered the doorway, his gaze was like that of a madman's.
"You can't run, Blocken." He grinned as the fire flooded in through the door, not even touching Hao.
Blocken fell back onto the floor in fear. They were going to burn him alive! That's what he gets for putting up with that baby for a year now? He probably should have never opened that window. He should have stayed seated and let someone else deal with it. Why was he so caring?
The bars on the rats' cage melted and they flooded out onto the floor and escaped down a hole behind the bed. At least they could escape unharmed, Blocken thought with a smile. He could die now, knowing his rats were okay. Hao stood with a wide grin in the doorway as the fire ate away at the floorboards.
"You don't need your legs anymore, do you, Blocken?" Hao asked as he lifted his hand towards Blocken.
He felt a burning pain up his legs and he looked down at them. The fire was eating up his legs! He furiously tried to put it out with the blanket off his bed but it was no use. This fire was controlled, it was not natural.
"Or your arms." Hao cocked his head and lifted his other hand. Blocken cried in pain as his arms burned away, skin, muscle, bones and all.
"Why Hao!! WHY!!" Blocken hollored as he laid on his back, writhing in pain. The fire had ate away half of his limbs already, leaving a black leather on the burning wooden floors. The floorboards fell about them and the bed soon fell through.
"You'll understand when you acquire as much power as I have. That is, if you survive the fire." Hao smirked as the Spirit of Fire opened the window and carried him out safely, leaving Blocken burning away on the floor.
This was the end, surely, Blocken thought as he cried. He choked from the smoke as his body burned. He didn't have any friends to help him. The rats left for their own safety. But he was glad, at least they'll be okay. He wished he could have finished the lego body before he died. At least he would have accomplished something.
Suddenly he heard conversed squeaks from the floorboards that still remained. The rats began to poke their noses up from under the floorboards and chew their way through. They were going to save him! He was in so much pain and joy, as he watched thousands of little noses poke up around him and chew their way through. The few that he had went and gathered more rats to help him! These rats weren't just pets, they had hearts and minds. They gathered under him but the floor creaked under all the weight and both Blocken and the rats knew they would fall through. The rats did not think that the holes they made would contribute to that. Blocken felt the floor give way under him before he fell through into the pit of fire. The burning, he wished it would stop. He wanted to die if no one could save him now. The pain was too much as he laid there amongst the rubble, an armless and legless freak. The fire died down away from him and he stared up into the grinning face framed by dark hair. Hao.
"Ha. You survived with minor casualties. Unforetunately," Hao held up a dead rat by the tail. "They didn't." He said as he tossed it into a pile of dead rodents that had died in the fire.
Blocken's whole body, or what was left of it was in terrible pain. He dared not look at what he had become. Hao said it wasn't very sightly. The surviving rats brought down the lego body he had been building along with the tools and parts he needed to finish it. Although he had no hands to use the tools, Hao and the rats pitched in. Hao out of pure boredom and curiousity as to how Blocken would live inside this new body. The rats, like the fire to Hao was now under Blocken's control. Whatever he wished, they did within reason. Hao informed him that the spirits of the dead rats had been helping too and that Blocken was indeed a shaman. Although he didn't know what that meant, he was sort of glad to be one. To be something other than a freak.
"I remember, it was troublesome to adjust the new body to my disfigured one." Blocken whispered. "But I managed it as I have managed many other troubles alongside Hao."
Kaia laid on her side, her back to Blocken as she stared at the forest. Little did he know that she had been awake to hear him talk about the body. She pitied him. Being constantly ridiculed for his differences when he was such a caring person. No one really liked him except her and Big Guy. Even though Turbine claimed to be friends with him, she highly doubted that. The world was evil to judge people like that. She and Blocken were alike, she thought with a sweet smile.
To be continued in Chapter 39!