Growing Pains
09: The belonging you seek
Auteur : Rain
Disclaimer : Shaman King…. Doesn't belong to me! How surprising! I am only playing with borrowed toys.
Notes :
To choose; to give; to want.
Thank you very much to my guest reviewer! I hope you will like this chapter, too. And Allie! Thank you so much for your detailed feedback *hugs*
This chapter said TamRyû rights, and also TamYoh friendship rights. Look, I know I have a clear path to my own satisfaction, but if I can feed people along the way? *finger guns*
Who can guess where that title comes from? I'm a transparent fangirl, I guess.
One more night before the second round.
Just one.
A few precious hours of darkness.
Sense tells her she should be in the Iron Maiden. She should be using every last second to siphon more power from her blood and her suffering. She needs to be more than she is and she knows it.
Instead she is here, on the roof of their lodgings. She has come here by herself, without telling anyone.
The night is full of light here. It doesn't make sense that the stars be so bright, but they are. One could almost draw lines between them. Jeanne guesses at constellations and worlds she will never see. She doesn't know any of their names.
They are beautiful.
Below them stand the Great Spirits, so she looks at them, too. According to Marco, their calling could be felt from the mouth of Mesa Velde. A choir song, from afar, at the edge of hearing. It's like it was written in his blood, how to find them; his soul an infallible compass pointing resolutely to… hell. Her faithful captain heaved and hurled the whole way, talked of nightmares and visions. Not just him: they all desperately want to get out of this place. That is how she got them here; going towards the source of the malady. The great evil. The Great Spirits as an entity, as a concept, sickens them.
And yet… And yet for here it's just there. She doesn't feel anything looking at them. It's not even that beautiful. There are no dreams and no fevers, no whispers of the past or the future. Rutherford told her that her power would make it worse for her, that it would be impossible for her soul to ignore.
But clearly her soul is just fine.
Something is wrong. Something is terribly, horribly wrong. She cannot help but wonder. Did she cut off her emotions that well? Does that mean that her soul is somehow broken? That the Great Spirits is rejecting her? That perhaps, just perhaps, she never had a soul to begin with?
The marks on her arms say she does. But she doesn't have any marks. Lyserg's silver cheek says she does! But Lyserg is marked by evil, too.
Lyserg. She doesn't trust him, yet, doesn't want to, but the boy is growing on her. The idea of him, at least.
She cannot afford to socialize with her soldiers, but she reads the reports. Chris teaches him to wield a gun. Porf explains stillness and patience. Kevin lends him books and he reads them. Lyserg asks after her.
His faith is obvious and absolute.
It is only fair hers should be exactly the same. Burn away the candles, burn away the facts. Destiny means nothing if you do not choose it. He has chosen his. And here, alone in front of something that asks more of her than she can give, she chooses hers.
Standing at the foot of the Great Spirits she, actively, chooses it. Til now she was doing it for Marco, for her men, for all the hours spent saying she would, for all the hours suffering for it. She does not remember what she thought when she stepped into the Iron Maiden for the first time, her skin unblemished and sun-kissed. She doesn't remember how she understood what they wanted from her, what they still want from her. Since she brushed against Hao she has been troubled, uncertain, shaky. The others cannot quite grasp what he is. They are like ants before the magnifying glass. She, well, she is strong enough to sense the extent of the danger. To know what she is fighting.
Here, faced with Lyserg's virgin faith and this monument that refuses to acknowledge her, she chooses it. There is no need to scream, no need to say anything, but it writes itself in her heart like a flash of fire.
As if to answer this call, in the distance, Spirit of Fire rises. It's only now she can properly appreciate what she's heard so much about. How tall he is; how bright. How powerful. A tower of light and strength.
That, too, she chooses. This is where she will be, the third point of the triangle, holding the line. This is where she should be.
And as the thought shoots through her, this brief flash – the feeling of hands, warm, curled around her shoulders, the ghost of an embrace. Two notes on a piano.
There you are.
As quickly as it comes it disappears, leaving her alone. Was that – was that the Great Spirits? Or is this a power from on high, commanding her on this choice? She couldn't hope to tell.
It feels right.
She chooses this.
ꙮ
It doesn't matter. It shouldn't matter.
Try as she might, though, Tamao still feels absolutely horrible about her drawing pad.
Everyone was really kind about it! Ryû and Manta walked down every street in the village with her. They asked shopkeeps; they asked passers-by; they asked spirits. Ryû even went back into the maze of Mesa Velde, just in case she lost it on the way. All of that for nothing. They had to give up after a full day searching for the book.
"We're sorry," Ponchi says.
"We should have watched it better," Conchi continues.
"It's okay," she tells them, even if it's not. "It was my fault."
It is. It's her notebook.
She walks out to the laundry lines carrying a big basket and that is when Ryû appears, a little bag in his hand.
"Here," he says, holding it for her. She cannot quite take it with her hands full and he seems to realize it just a tad too late. They fumble with the basket and the bag, and at length they manage to get the first situated on the porch, and the second in her hands.
"T-thank you," she stutters.
"No worries just… open it," he says, taking the basket and turning his back to her. She hesitates.
"It's not very good," he says, as he hangs a pair of briefs in the entirely wrong way. "They don't have any real drawing stuff here. But I thought…"
"Thank you." As she unwraps the drawing pad and she struggles to breathe. It's thick and it's bound the same way hers was, and she watches Ryû with tears of gratitude in her eyes.
There's no way she can tell him he doesn't know how to do laundry.
"Thank you."
He stops, scratching his head. He can see she's crying, and he's uncomfortable. Stop it! Stop crying!
With a sigh, he comes to her side and pats her head.
"Just… just be careful. With it, alright?"
Tamao freezes.
He's spoken to her before. It's not him. She knows it's not him. She hasn't flared, she knows she hasn't, she is still alone. It's not him.
And yet. And yet.
Does she wish it was him?
"Just be careful," he repeats, and he's off.
…
She is hanging the laundry when she hears a commotion at the front of the house. So, naturally, she sneaks up to the corner. A group all in white is passing in front of the house. The first man is pushing some sort of statue as tall as he is, and the wheels of whatever he is using to push it get stuck in the dirt. That is the commotion.
She doesn't quite understand why she stares unmoving but she does. This is clearly a group of Shamans participating in the tournament, one that is a lot more organized than she is used to seeing. But why lug around a statue so heavy it sinks into the unpaved streets? Two of the men are carefully lifting it out of the hole while the rest stand watch. There is a woman amongst them, as well as a young boy; Tamao doesn't know enough to recognize Lyserg.
The woman catches her eye and shifts, ever so slightly. Tamao ducks behind the corner.
"Is there a problem?"
This voice is female, but too high, she thinks, for the woman she saw. Not loud enough if it were calling out to her. It sounds like someone her age, with an accent that is charmingly strange. She doesn't dare breathe. Something tugs at her navel, something that wants her to move, to peek, to see. She shouldn't, but…
"Nothing of import, Lady Maiden. We are ready to move again."
Tamao peeks out just as the statue's head snaps shut. Snaps shut? There's somebody in there?
She stands transfixed by the sight until they disappear down the street. Then, feeling like she was just whacked over the head, she sits down on the porch. Her new notebook is right there but doesn't feel real. She feels faint.
She's so out of it she doesn't realize someone is sitting beside her until she hears: "Hey."
Tamao jumps so high she almost falls right off the porch Yoh, ever quick on his feet, catches her just in time.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you."
"N-no! I'm – This is my fault! I should have paid attention!"
She knows how bright she is flushed right now, and she knows what it must look like, to him, to Anna, to Manta who knows. She hates it.
"I'm sorry," he says. "Do you want some?"
He is holding an orange. She nods, and watches him peel it. The smell of citrus chases away the living statue in her head, and leaves only the melancholy associated with sitting next to Yoh.
"I'm sorry for your notebook. I know how much it meant to you."
He doesn't. He can't. He has no idea how often he appears in her pages. But the thought is comforting, and she nods. It's hard to speak.
"I also wanted to say thanks for coming with Anna. It means a lot that she didn't have to make the trip alone."
She blinks. Of course she didn't! Of course she came with Anna. She wouldn't leave her alone. Is this pride? It feels out of place, ugly. So instead, she says: "Manta really wanted to come. He worried for her and for you." A pause. "He's a great friend."
"You're a great friend, too," and the way Yoh says it, fiercely almost? It makes her heart swell.
"I hope so."
He smiles at her, and she catches the subtle movement of his hand, sticky with orange, brushing against his collarbone. It reminds her of what Manta told her; before the matter of the notebook erased everything else. "Why do you do that?"
He stops, surprised. "Do what?"
"That." She gestures, and he stops, and, honest-to-gods, blushes. Is – is her question rude? Did she overstep? She needs to explain, quick.
"I – I am wondering because – I think I will meet mine here." One, two? She doesn't know this. She just might. Is that enough? She wants it to be enough.
Yoh looks at her with something she refuses to be pity.
"And if I do! Even if I'm not… If it's not like you two, I want to be good to them. I want to be able to comfort them, even if they're not. Our friends."
The tournament is full of scary faces. Imagine being bonded to the woman with the cold stare from the group in white. Tamao feels like she could make someone wither with a glance.
Suddenly Yoh cracks up, and she flushes. Did she say something wrong again?
"W-what? Is it stupid?"
"No!" He raises a hand. "That's just… So you, Tamao. It's very sweet." He's still laughing. "Okay. Well. I don't know the science of it but I can try to explain. So you know how everything has a frequency?"
She doesn't.
"It's kind of a secret… rhythm. Everyone has their own. Everything, too. A melody unique to them. I heard that if the wind hits a bridge at exactly its frequency, it can destroy it, just like that. Even if the wind isn't that strong!"
"Destroy it?" That's… scary. Does he mean that souls can do that to each other? Could Yoh and Anna…?
"With souls it's a little bit different," he says, like he read her mind. "If you manage to hit the right frequency when your soulmate is on it, you can… harmonize with them. Connect, even if you're not together."
He's using his fingers to demonstrate, twirling them together on the same invisible circle. He is, quite literally, twiddling his thumbs and Tamao guesses it won't be long until Anna comes after him.
"That's what Anna and I do. Touching my words, it helps. It's like… A signal? I tell her I'm here. I tell her she's not alone. I tell myself I'm not, either."
…
The words were soft when Yoh said them, and they still are now, in the dark of her bedroom. She sits in the quiet night hours, her hands on her ankles, just breathing.
This might not work. After all, she is not flared. After all, for all she knows her soulmates are on the other side of the planet, and the vision was just a coincidence. But she doesn't believe in coincidences. In fact, like she told Yoh, she believes they are so close she could almost touch them, and she intends to.
So she closes her eyes and focuses on the frequency she believes she found. What gave her the first vision, the one that left her lying on the ground grasping at something that she doesn't quite remember. Belonging. And she belongs! She belongs here, one step behind Yoh and Anna, supporting them even if destiny didn't tell her to. Soon enough the war will start but for now – for now? For now she is at peace, she belongs here, and it is this peace she wants to offer to her intended. (Intendeds?)
She belongs here.
This is where she should be.
It is then, at that thought, that she feels it. The slightest twinge on a distant koto string tied to her ankle. She cannot help the smile that blossoms on her lips then. There you are, she thinks, unsure whether it can go through at all. She wishes she could see them. Could wrap a warm blanket around them.
There is no response. Only the soft cry of the koto, distantly.
ꙮ
Hao keeps the notebook. Well, he lets Opachô keep it.
He could bring it back to Yoh's. It would make for an interesting conversation, as whoever drew this is clearly obsessed with his twin. In love? Maybe. With someone who is his mirror. It is a strange thought.
Someone who is not afraid? Of him.
That is laughable.
It is laughable because it is a lie. Everyone is afraid of him, up to and including his own. Only Opachô isn't, yet. And it's happening. He can tell the malady is spreading to her, too; sometimes she steals glances at him when he's not looking, and she knows he knows. But she can't stop it, and neither can he.
Everyone is afraid of him and to pretend otherwise is foolish.
But!
Bringing back the notebook would let him grow more familiar with Yoh and his people. It would be the perfect excuse to stay a while.
He lets Opachô keep it. She leaves the drawings of the other person mostly alone (well, she colors in a few. It rather improves them, according to them both) and so he gets to see more of those. This is, he suspects, the real reason he doesn't bring the notebook back.
He is so hungry for knowledge of his unfamiliar twin! These drawings feel safe in a way things rarely are. He doesn't even have to leave his stomping grounds to learn about him.
Here's what he learns:
- Whoever drew this didn't have access to Yoh these past few months. Every sketch is of him in a ridiculous school uniform, or almost.
- As a corollary, Yoh doesn't know how to button a shirt properly. Hao doesn't wear these often but bets he could do it better.
- Yoh likes oranges a lot more than seems reasonable.
- When he is truly relaxed, Yoh has dimples.
Practice sketches for what may have been a birthday present show him the importance of bright, blooming music for his all-too-human brother. What does color sound like? Part of him almost wants to find out.
When it gets too much they just go to the landscapes. Opachô really likes to stare at those. She will sit there, several minutes at a time, following a thread only she sees. He finds them rather disquieting, and it takes him a few times to understand why: although it seems empty, it is not. There, behind the lines of the drawing, hidden in the folds of the twisted buildings and spiky trees, is a focal point. A little… character. Barely a shadow, so small he is lost in the immensity of the page.
And yet everything feels like it is staring at this shadow. Poised to strike at him, and at Hao, merely for looking.
Now that he knows, he sees the shadow on the other pages. Always alone, small, stared at, dissected by forces resolutely inhuman. It would be disturbing, for someone normal, he supposes. And yet. What is he but not this inhuman force? This is the experience of someone who is resolutely afraid of the world. He is looking at himself through human eyes and the result is fearsome.
How can the same person be not afraid? Of him? Laughable, really. Amusing. Intriguing?
What other secrets are there in these pages? Opachô seems to relish in his slow discovery. She probably has found all the secrets already, but asking her, or reading her mind, would be cheating. She is careful not to 'tell' him, and he does not pry.
…
Night comes and he summons Spirit of Fire to stare up at his prize. The Great Spirits, in all their splendor. So close, and yet so far.
Standing there he doesn't quite believe it. Part of him wishes to reach out and steal it. Who cares about the tournament? This is his destiny. This is what he's been working towards for a thousand years. This is where he should be.
Is that a flute, somewhere down below? Warm hands wrap around him, and he smiles. He knows that feeling, that resolutely accepting warmth. At the end of everything, like it was always meant to be: her.
There you are.