Disclaimer: I only own Tami, Lady Kite and Kentaro. Everything else is NOT MINE!
Yup, folks, this is my last chapter of this. Maybe I'll write another Shaman King fic someday. I have to get an idea for it first, though!
I wanted to update today because it's Friday the 13th! I'd be weird to go "Oh yeah, I finished New Shaman on Friday the 13th of February 2004." I've got issues, yes, I know. Thus my penname: Disturbedvixen
*~*~ EPILOGUE: training sessions ~*~
"Get your ass moving! Run, Yoh! Faster! All of you!" Anna yelled through a megaphone.
Yoh gritted his teeth and ran faster. Weights were already tied to his wrists and ankles. All together, he must have weighed about 300 pounds. That was nearly 3 times his body weight.
"All she needs is a whip and she'll have something going, wouldn't she?" Manta panted, his short, chubby legs churning as he tried to catch up to Yoh's longer, more graceful strides.
"I heard that, shrimp! You won't get supper tonight! Keep this up and you won't get to sleep, either!" Anna snapped. She crossed her arms over her chest and pushed the bricks out from under her. The edges were cutting into her shins.
Manta moaned and looked up at Yoh who ran with a passive face. "Yoh? YOH!"
Yoh blinked and pushed his headphones back a few centimeters. "Oh, were you talking to me?"
"How can you stand doing this?"
Yoh shrugged. "After you've been doing this everyday for the past year, you get used to it. It helps if you listen to some music. It takes my mind off the fact that my chest is feeling numb."
"Yeah, you do have it worse than me," Manta panted thoughtfully. He glanced back at Anna who sat in a red-rider wagon that had wood tacked up to the sides to hold more than it was made for. Under her was a pile of small boulders and bricks. She had strapped a pillow down and was sitting on that. She had created a sort of seat belt to keep her from falling out. Tied to the handle were lengths of rope that had been tied around Yoh's chest.
He glanced at his other side was Tami. Her face was devoid of any expression. She ran with her hair flying behind her like a kite. She wasn't even panting nor did she show any signs of being tired. Manta wondered if it was because she was in perfect shape or if the guilt had taken over her conscious awareness of pain.
He turned his head far enough to see Anna's expression. As usual, her posture was relaxed but strict. Her eyes flickered to Tami, narrowing as she noticed that she wasn't griping. She looked at Manta and met his gaze. She glared at him.
Manta flinched and snapped his gaze straight ahead just in time to dodge a tree that seemed to come out of nowhere.
When the sun was beginning to go down, Anna pulled back on the bunch of ropes. Yoh jerked to a stop and fell flat on his back as his momentum suddenly reversed. Tami stopped and gazed silently at Anna. Manta fell flat on his face, relishing the moment. His feet throbbed painfully in response.
Anna stepped delicately out of the wagon and stretched. "That wasn't good enough. I got cramps from sitting there for so long."
"Why don't you pull it yourself, then?" Yoh groaned, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. "I've got all these weights tied on and you're not exactly the lightest thing in the world. Give me a break! I'll try again tomorrow if this means so much to you."
"What's the point of this anyway?" Tami asked, watching as Yoh stumbled to his feet.
"The point? There doesn't have to be a point when I'm telling you to train!" Anna snapped, placing her hands on her slender waist.
"She's doing this to help," Yoh explained. "It helps with faster integration and helps us get used to all this tear and wear on our bodies when we get in a Shaman fight. I think me dragging Anna's ass ten miles carrying a ton is supposed to help me move faster."
Anna smiled. "You're finally getting some wrinkles in that cerebral cortex of yours," she replied with a nod.
"That what?" Yoh asked.
"The cerebral cortex is the outer layer of your brain. The more wrinkles you have supposedly means that you use it more for thinking and judgment. See, an alligator's brain doesn't have any wrinkles because it only uses instinct and follows it stomach," Manta said, flipping through his dictionary slash encyclopedia to point at a picture.
Anna tossed a rock at him. "You didn't need to get into that many details, short stuff! You get five minutes to break and then we'll go through the hell totem-poles."
"Five minutes?! That's great!" Yoh exclaimed.
"Great? It takes the human body like ten minute to be rested up completely," Manta exclaimed.
"Not me. Five is plenty." Yoh grinned and hugged Anna. "I don't know what you've been smoking, but keep it up!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Anna pushed him away, afraid that her blushing was giving her away.
"You're being nicer to everyone all of a sudden!" Yoh turned to Manta. "Usually when things like this happen, I only get like ten seconds to rest. It's like she wanted to kill more or something." He nodded. "Yep, but now I know that she actually cares for my well being."
"Don't get carried away here. I'm not doing this without a personal gain, you know. I do expect for you to win the Shaman King competition so I can be Shaman Queen." Anna said haughtily.
Manta stared at the two of them in awe. Yoh was just lazy and carefree, no matter what happened. Only when his friends were in danger would he do things seriously. Even training was just taken seriously because he wanted to be strong enough to protect the people he loved. Manta swallowed, his eyes shining bright. He jumped to his feet, forgetting for a second that his feet were begging to be relieved of his weight.
Anna blinked and backed away involuntarily from him. His eyes were practically headlights, sparkling with a newfound meaning of life. "What's wrong with you?" Anna asked.
"Anna! Give me the same treatment as Yoh! I want to be as strong as Yoh so I won't be a scrawny nerd anymore! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!" He fell at Anna's feet.
"You're going to be a nerd your whole life." She sighed. "Fine, fine. Get away from me, then." She set her glare on Tami. "I guess you're going to get the same treatment too. I'm not going to go easy on you just because you're a girl, got it?"
Tami nodded slowly.
"Good. Not that we have that under control, we're doing the hell totem-poles right now." Anna pull out three sticks and pushed a button on them. She staked them into the ground and backed up. They sprouted into a pole over 9 feet tall.
"Do we climb up those?" Manta asked meekly. "I've never been good as this kind of thing."
Yoh patted him on the back. "Don't worry, buddy. This helps you get up really fast. I'll go first and show you." He stood in front of it and looked warily at Anna.
Anna held a stopwatch. "Your record is 20 seconds and. . ."
"To get to the top of that? That's a little slow." Tami said.
"Eh hem. Shut up, I'm talking here! Anyway, Yoh, your record is 20 seconds to get up and down 15 times before you got stabbed. Can you beat that?"
Yoh shrugged and stretched. "Maybe."
"Ready? GO!" Anna started the stopwatch. Instantly, sharp spikes poked out in odd intervals and retreated. Yoh started immediately, circling up the pole, grimacing as a spike grazed his shin.
"Manta, you go to the next one. When you get stabbed, that's your time you have to beat next time. You too, Tami," Anna said, pulling two more stopwatches out and hung them on her neck.
Manta gulped and started on her back. The second he began to climb up the pole, a spike prodded his foot. He screamed and fell to the ground.
Anna smirked. "Feh. Two seconds. Number of times up and down: NONE! If you want to be as strong as Yoh, you have to use your sixth sense and feel out where spikes will go. Then you can dodge them."
Manta tried again, managing to go up and down twice before falling to the ground. "Wow! That's a personal record!" he exclaimed. "I've never even gone up a pole without getting stuck at the top!"
"Good job. Now lets see how you do when the spikes will be longer and will go faster."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Manta moaned.
"You said you wanted to be as strong as me," Yoh said. "To do that, you have to go through hell."
Manta groaned and tried to mentally make himself disappear.
"Manta! You already aren't getting supper! Do you want to having food all day tomorrow too?" Anna snapped.
"Why did I open my big mouth?"
Yoh smiled and watched as Anna chased after Manta who tried to run for his life.
~*~ OWARI ~*~
