Growing Pains

10: Throwing the gantlet

Auteur : Rain

Disclaimer : Shaman King…. Doesn't belong to me! How surprising! I am only playing with borrowed toys.

Notes :

To win; to fail; to comfort.

Hello everyone!

This took a long while. I had a lot of ideas for this chapter, for this fight. I had to pick and choose what could or could not happen. I must have reread the X-I first match act - all the beginning of volume 14 tbh - at least five times, with various degrees of focus. I feel like I understand it pretty well now. Unfortunately that meant not a lot could change from the canon events. In this fic I've mostly had flashes of things I wanted to see through the prism of this soulmate 'light' which means that... they've got to happen first!

It also turns out thought-sharing when you have both thinkers' povs is insanely hard. I hate it. Tamao, Hao, stop this immediately. Do not pass go.

This chapter might be kind of a change of pace. What did you think? Let me know in the comments! Thanks 3

The first match of that second round feels a lot less satisfying than it should have.

This is one of Hao's handpicked teams, and it is humiliated. Quite the sight, really: Hao's own chosen knocked out by children. By nobodies. She could not watch the match, but she sees the stretchers.

Now, does this mean Hao's chosen were weak, or that the children aren't actually nobodies? Who's to say. She cannot, in either case, rejoice earnestly. She knows what's ahead of them.

Marco and the men pretend to celebrate Hao's humiliation. It is only pretense. They, too, know what's ahead, whose trial is yet to come. Since the matches were announced there has been silence among them; a dark, smelly cloud that hangs around the X-III. The mark of sacrifice. The mark of death.

Jeanne hates it. She hates it so much to see John suddenly quiet, Chris taking his distances, Marco and Meene straight-up unable to look at each other. She hates it so much, in fact, that she decides she will ask them to forfeit. Tonight. At dinner. Yes, she will do exactly that.

"My lady," Marco asks, "are you ready?"

And she is.

As they come out into the fire, she can feel, beyond the fortress of faith, a gaze burning her Iron Maiden. There he is, the enemy. But she will not give him the attention he seeks. She decided. He is dealt with.

She focuses on Lyserg and quiets her other thoughts.

They chose ahead of time to let him handle this fight. Furyoku-wise, it is a reasonable match-up, but that is not the main reason. Marco suggested it because they need proof that Lyserg has come to terms with his own conflicted feelings. It is a trial and it is a challenge, and he is happy to meet both.

What neither she nor Marco expected was that he would address people in the audience. It is clear he knows these people. Is this the famed Yoh who protected one of Hao's in front of Marco? Risking his own life for the damned?

And Lyserg is his friend?

This is new to Jeanne. She wonders who that Yoh is, and how Lyserg was with them. She doesn't wonder why he left; Lyserg's soul is exactly like the rest of her soldiers. But she listens.

His first strike is fast. Precise. He breathes like Porf taught him to, moves like John taught him to, uses the kind of taunting that she just admonished Marco for using.

"Only a fool frees a captured enemy," Lyserg says, and a bell tolls, somewhere in the distance. "I'm sorry, Yoh. Being kind has never saved anyone."

Where does this come from? She doesn't know. She wasn't there. Is this Marco? He was meant to –

It is a fake-out. Just like what was planned. It was just such a good fake-out that she fell for it. Jeanne is relieved, and confused, but she lets it play out. Lyserg continues to speak, a mix of intimidation and truth. He's not good with his spirit control, he says. He could really hurt them. He's not the strongest here by any means! They all know what it is to lose loved ones. Don't you have families?

It's a strange but true way to put it. They're all here because they have nobody. These three men aren't of their ilk. But Lyserg sees that, and it hinders him; he sees the hurt he needs to do.

And he can't do it.

You only get one fake-out. You can pretend you will kill and then spare the people drowning in their own obliviousness, once. This is your one chance to convince them. The one hand you are allowed to thrust into the waters and help them climb out. But Lyserg is… Lyserg is going for a second one.

Jeanne realizes how much of the path he's yet to walk. She made her choice, thought he made his; he is still deciding. Marco is tense at her side; he sees it, too. He, too, worries for their Lyserg. But she is the one who chose the boy. She put him in their team, she took the responsibility. And if she does nothing, beautiful golden feathers will slit his throat and leave him bleeding out, drowned by his own kindness.

So she asks Marco to throw her.

…

What comes next unfolds like a dream.

Her words are true to her heart and her faith. She talks to these half-drowned men, but really, there is only one person who needs to hear it. Who needs to know that whatever Luchist told him was wrong. She is not a child and she is not weak.

She is not weak.

"Be not afraid," she says, to the public. But Anatel should be afraid, and with him the great evil she reveals herself to. "This blood is merely proof of my determination. The world is in darkness. Cruelty and lies abound. Humans cannot stop themselves from hurting one another. The strong pick on the weak, and who is there to stop them? Only the rest of the strong."

She is of the strong and she will stop him.

But Anatel is not of the strong. These three men are like her people, unable to see what they face. It would be cruelty to stomp on a fly, and it would be cruelty to stomp on these men who believe in their dreams, and refuse to back down not because they are stupid but because they are blind. She does not need to take a deep breath, or even pause. She registers this fact, and adapts.

"I thought, if I can, I wish to do something for this world. If I can, I want to rid this world of pain. So I swore to God that I would take all of the suffering and sins on myself. I will banish evil from this world. Let there be peace on earth."

The eyes of fire are on her. She could look up at him, make this about him; she does not. She focuses on the man before her and his magnificent gold wings. An angel, of sorts; not hers. Does he understand, now?

"There is no need to sin further. Though you have tried to kill my messenger, you have yet to truly hurt anyone here. Simply back down and no harm will be done to you. Mercy is something we all need to show to one another."

Her brain filters out the awestruck murmurs in the crowd. It filters out the crying from Marco and Lyserg. It even filters out Hao. It focuses, only, intently, on Anatel. Their eyes meet, and she throws out her whole soul in this moment. Back off, she wants to convey. Let me prove to the world and to me that kindness is not a sin, and that perhaps mercy works.

The air shakes with her power. Anyone sane would understand the balance of this fight has shifted; Anatel does not.

Anatel persists, and Jeanne realizes three things:

Mercy is no longer an option. She needs to finish this match, now. If she doesn't, Marco will, and she just said she chose to bear the weight of the world's anger and sin. She won't let him tarnish his white wings. This is the one chance she gets to tell Hao to back off from her people ahead of their match.

So she moves for the kill, and it is a lot easier than she thinks it should be.

ꙮ

This should have been a day of celebration.

Tamao baked and cooked all night. She knows a lot of food can sate the hungers of victory like that of loss, and it is all just about ready when they come back from the arena.

They are still high with the rush of the fight: everyone is talking over each other, praising Chocolove's jokes and power, marveling at Ren's performance, recalling how creepy Peyote was. Watching them win was exhilarating; watching Ren challenge Yoh was scary. But scary-nice; scary-empowering.

When she comes back in the room carrying the first steaming plate and sees how everyone's faces just fall, it isn't scary-nice anymore. It's just scary. Ryû looks like death. Manta and Yoh seem shaken; Ren and Anna are cold.

Ignoring the lead in her stomach, Tamao moves to put the plate down on the table in the middle of the room, and then asks: "What's wrong?"

"One of the teams up next," Anna explains tersely. She does not feel concerned about whatever it is, Tamao can tell. But she is tense, and it's because of Yoh. Which makes little sense. It cannot be Funbari Onsen's team, can it? They would have been warned in advance, they're supposed to be in the third match!

"Remember the boy they were looking for in Patch village? The one they were unsufferable about?"

"You don't get it," Horo-Horo cuts in. "He's with the X-Laws and these dudes are crazy! They killed someone right in front of us!"

The worst thing isn't Horo-Horo's raw tone. It's that Yoh is entirely silent. He so rarely decides to actively dislike somebody; whoever the X-Laws are, they earned this face he's making.

"Everyone could see this coming," Ren snarls, and it is clear that he did not. "He was always yapping about how Marco was right."

"What do we do, Yoh?"

It is Horo-Horo who asks, but the rest of the room falls silent. They aren't a family, exactly, aren't one team, but they are something, and Yoh is the heart of this something, whatever it is. The heart struggles, and so the body falls quiet. Waiting.

Then Yoh smiles, and the body moves again.

"The stadium's a ten-minute walk from here. Let's run over and cheer for him!"

So they do. Tamao and Anna walk side by side behind the rambunctious boys. She sees the itako touch her mark and does not mention it. It is a comfort, now, to know that Anna shares what is happening with Yoh ever so intimately. That she can help, without even having to say anything out loud. Still, fear is thick in her stomach, makes it hard to walk calmly. It does not have a name, or a shape, yet, but her board burns under her fingers, and the world seems, once more, to be holding its breath.

Tamao only recognizes the boy when they are in their seats. She does not mention that, either. What could she say, anyway? Nothing even happened the day the group in white came by the house. They never even spoke.

But her attention quickly moves to the statue. The moment she sees it, she can't look away. It is really a person, then? The pull is there again, the need to get closer, to see whoever is inside; her hands are tight on the railing, trying to keep her feet on the ground.

Her fear does not ebb, even with her being so entirely focused on the statue. She can tell Yoh is still worried, though he pretends to sit quietly. When the blond man – Marco, it's the voice from inside the statue that says his name, the voice that reaches Tamao powerful and perfect in spite of the distance – speaks, he is worrying. What Lyserg parrots is frankly terrifying, second only to the speed at which he unleashes his power on his opponents. He moves so fast she barely sees him. There is blood, and her stomach lurches.

He went for their mediums, she notices in spite of the nausea welling up in her gut. He broke the pyramid; he shattered the sarcophagus; he took the masks from the false gods and begged them to see the truth of the fight. Drew blood, yes, but only some. Only enough.

What a gentle soul.

She should be scared, but the thought distracts her. There is something to see here. He's trying to scare them off. He's bluffing. And it seems to work: two of the Egyptian men take steps back, beg their leader to back down.

Their leader. He's the only important piece of this bout left. Anatel, that is his name. He looks rough. His chest is bleeding, and his arms don't seem to move right. But he does not back off. What now, child?

This is not her thought, and she frowns, but she does not have time to question it.

The living statue moves.

The living statue pushes Lyserg out of the way, and her voices reaches Tamao again. That soft, melancholy voice that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same second.

"I cannot allow one who hesitates to fight on our behalf."

How can she hear her so clearly? The voice is so soft it could be a whisper, and yet it tears Tamao's heart right out of her chest. She does not hear Lyserg's body flying, Anatel's protestations. Fear comes then, like a volcano exploding, and she slumps over the railing. She does not feel the hand that holds her back.

"Silence, scoundrel." Ooh, feisty.

Not her thought. A strange shiver courses through her, a cold rabbit that gallops over her thoughts and threatens to tear her mind to shreds. Why is she so afraid? There is no danger for her here. Not even for Lyserg. He will not kill today. The statue is no one to her, and whatever she does will not impact her in any way.

So why is she afraid?

She feels like a very small rabbit someone is desperately trying to soothe. It is not working so well: her throat dries up as Marco rights the Iron Maiden and draws out a key. How slow is this? Why aren't their foes doing anything? Simple souls, really. Fools that do not deserve this amount of fear.

She wishes she could focus on these strange thoughts that aren't hers, but her eyes go blurry with strange tears as the lock clicks open, and then she is here.

The leader of the X-Laws, in all her glory.

Tamao's breathing stops dead in her throat. Beside her, someone yells that the Iron Maiden is naked, and Anna covers Yoh's eyes like a mere hand could hide divinity. She barely hears the commotion, let alone process it. It all feels… so small. Who cares?

The Iron Maiden speaks. Her every word is an arrow that hits true. She says be not afraid, and Tamao is not, for one precious, single moment. She says I want to do something for this world, and Tamao knows her terribly, violently serious. Fear rises again, not for herself, but for this child-woman bathed in her own blood.

Why, for a stranger? The way this person steps out of her torture instrument is so casual it might as well have been a closet to neverland. She is in control here. She knows what she is doing. Or does she?

"What arrogance," Anna says. Is that it? Mere arrogance?

No, it is not. It is yet something else, and Tamao wishes she could think, wishes her whole soul didn't feel paralyzed by this cocktail of fear and awe. And something else, too: something that she can only call recognition.

She is doing exactly what Lyserg did, something whispers to her. And what Marco did, at the very start. She scolded him for taunting their opponents! And then Lyserg did it, too. And now her. Going at it the exact same, wrong, way. Showing off, hoping to avoid the confrontation, trying to scare present and future opponents. Somehow the thought is amusing.

Amusing? That is strange enough to tear her eyes off her, for a second. She looks around the stadium. Sees the emotion in the stadium, the magnetic pull the girl has.

Not a girl. The Iron Maiden, that is her title.

This… these words, this speech, it all feels genuine and rehearsed at the same time. Worked on for the longest time, and imagined just at this moment. Told to Anatel, sincerely enough, she is sure, but… it's not intended for him. It hasn't been until now.

She is speaking to Hao. Who else? She struggles to think clearly, things are happening too fast. She is lacking context. But there is something here; a different path, etched in the smile of the child-woman bathed in blood.

Different, you think?

When Anatel persists, he is instantly wrapped in iron, held at perfect eye level for their upper floor seats. There is no hesitation in the way she moves now, and Tamao understands enough to shield Manta's eyes when it happens.

The axe falls cleanly; head and body are separated in a torrent of blood. It does not feel real. Neither does the parody of mercy she then offers his teammates. It feels… stilted.

This is the first time she's ever fought, Tamao realizes. Even as she is fast when she moves, she is slow, waiting for a reaction to her every action. The other two Niles have no chance to avoid her attacks when they come, but they could have walked off. She would have let them.

This is a baby with power unlike anything you've ever seen.

She needs to stop her, she immediately realizes. The girl does not understand what she is doing. What she is destroying, here and now in this stadium. Innocence, clean hands, the right to oppose Hao – it is all at play here, and it will never come back to her.

Her hands touch the railing as if to test its strength. She feels her legs half ready to jump. And then what? She'd be in free fall, headed straight for a girl wielding murder like a second skin. For a second, she sees it, feels just intoxicated enough to try it. Running around would take too long. She heard how Yoh did it, she could do the same. It's not even that far…

Stay put, the presence in her head says, and Tamao's feet lock into place. She can only watch the rest of it from her balcony seat. Who is that? In her head? She tries to think, but her body refuses to move; she can only watch as the girl marches back into the Iron Maiden.

Only once the statue is closed once more does the presence fade, and she can move again. Glancing back to realize…

"Manta fainted!"

ꙮ

From his lips falls a deep sigh. Clearly this day is only going to get more boring before it gets better.

Tournament matches are not all that exciting the third time around. He's here mostly because he likes to make other people nervous. After Peyote's disappointing performance, and before Yoh's hopefully exciting one…

Is them.

He is here for entertainment; unfortunately, the most interesting thing is shaping up to be his brother's friends. Lyserg Diethel he remembers, alright, but there is nothing exciting about the kid. If anything, his presence makes things worse, because now his brother is soured and Ashil is going to seethe during the whole fight. The witches needle him like a cornered dog. Never smart enough to recognize a biter, are they?

"So that is your soulmate? A whole X-Law?"

"He's not my anything. Shut up, some of us are trying to pay attention."

"Oh? To X-Law prattle? Fuck, he did you good, didn't he? You are positively smitten."

"Get out of my face."

"Children, calm down."

Turbein reacts more to his annoyance than anything else, and Hao cannot muster up the will to be grateful. The stadium is loud with thoughts and bread is not enough to distract him. Odd that Luchist is not the first one to react…

Or perhaps it is not all that odd, considering.

Diethel is trying to get his opponents to back down. He couches his hesitation in gentle, noble dresses, and pretends to be ready to go for the kill, if necessary. But he is not. Will never be.

What a gentle soul. He is bluffing, and it draws a terrible hungry smile to his lips, because this is no fairy tale; because Anatel does not back down. What now, child?

What now indeed. He sees the hesitation break Lyserg's Over-Soul, and before he even falls to his knees violent, raw panic washes over him. Him. Like a small rabbit wreaking havoc in his thoughts. Luck has his binoculars hiding his face; nobody sees the frown spreading over his features.

What is this? It certainly does not belong to him. Too juvenile, for one. Try as he might, he cannot chase the trembling thing nestled inside him, so he at least tries to identify it. Who can be this scared? Not the Niles. They are not powerful enough to realize what is about to happen to them. In fact, they think their opponents at disadvantage. Not the X-I, nor their little friends, thick with their superiority complex. It is really hard to gather much more than just fear. But beyond that… there is focus. The rabbit is focused, so very… focused. On what?

The living statue, the rabbit breathes, and he redirects his binoculars, free once more to move. Oh. She talks.

Perhaps this fight would not be that boring after all. A rabbit in his head and the figurehead of the X-Laws about to reveal herself. If the rabbit – if he – wasn't this intently focused, he would look to his right, where Luchist grows cold and tense, but he can barely spare the thought

"Silence, scoundrel," she says, somewhere very far from the rabbit and him, but close enough that he can imagine she talks only for them. Ooh, feisty. Is there something to her after all?

How slow is this? Why aren't their foes doing anything? Simple souls, really. Fools that do not deserve this amount of fear, he tries to tell the rabbit as it focuses his attention on Marco and the key. For a second, he is getting through, and the rabbit notices him, but the lock clicks open, and then she is here, the woman who rises out of the maw of her iron monster.

There she is, the leader of the X-Laws, in all her glory. A child in pajamas, using scholarly English to sound wise.

Most of the stadium will be caught in her spell. It is a good show, and he wonders how much of this is rehearsed. Anyone with a modicum of understanding would have prepared for this, but he can tell these words are brand new. A gift to this stadium, a foolish gift of truth, and honesty.

This is for him. A declaration of war wrapped in pretty pink bows. He wants to snort, but the rabbit is too dazed to let him. It, too, is letting the pretty tears and the genuine sweetness overtake its brain. So small.

Fear is still bubbling up in his mind, that fear that is not his. Why, for a stranger? She stepped out of a torture instrument. She does not need to be helped; or rather she does, but there is nothing a little rabbit could do for her. She is doing exactly what Lyserg did. Going at it the exact same, wrong, way. Showing off, hoping to avoid a confrontation, trying to scare present and future opponents. The Iron Maiden, through Anatel, is speaking to him. Flaunting her difference.

Different, you think, little rabbit?

Perhaps he cannot expect intelligent analysis from a stray thought. The Iron Maiden, from her high horse, is trying to use her opponents to make a point. To scare him off. Isn't that selfish? Isn't that exactly what he does?

And it is utter nonsense. Does she truly think he will back off because of a few pretty words and a show of force? What an amusing child. If truth was enough to stop him, he would not be there.

The Iron Maiden is, for sure, devastatingly true. It only takes him a few seconds to come to his conclusions. This is the first time she's ever fought, comes the thought, and he grins. The rabbit is not as oblivious as it first appeared to be. The girl below has no doubt been able to do these things for a long time, but she has clearly never used them on a live target. She knows intimately how much blood can be taken from someone without killing them, and she is toeing this line. Still trying to show mercy.

This is a baby with power unlike anything you've ever seen.

Yes, exactly, he opines. A baby wielding a scythe so long it casts a shadow over many of the powerful faces in the audience. Not his, of course. But who knows?

The rabbit is getting upset. Its first sight of real bloodlust, he bets. Although it is not fear of the Maiden that comes through, but fear for her. Words come through, clearer and sharper, tinged with powerless agony. I need to stop her. She does not understand what she is doing. What she is destroying, here and now in this stadium. Innocence, clean hands…

He sees the rabbit's urge to jump, to somehow throw itself into the fight. Like it could even be fast enough to stop the storm of blood and metal below. And then what, little rabbit? Running around would take too long. Yoh taught me how, I can do the same. It's not even that far…

It would break its body against the Patch barrier and probably cause more ruckus. He has no desire to see Marco kill another stray rabbit just because they tried to jump in. Or perhaps he is feeling generous. In any case, he tugs on the link, and tries to freeze the rabbit in the same way it froze him at first. Stay put.

It works. He holds the rabbit as the Iron Maiden repaints the arena with blood that is not her own. There, there.

This too will pass.

He will make it pass. Take heart, little rabbit.