Shaman of Emerald Flame

Chapter Five: A Change in Appearance

Disclaimer: Shaman King belongs to Hiroyuki Takei. I only own the original characters and some original concepts.

Flamers: I have yet to be flamed for a fanfic, but anyways I don't really care if you flame me or not. I certainly won't like it since I think it's very rude to flame people. If you have constructive criticism or ideas for me I will accept them gladly and with politeness. Flaming is immature and rude and any flames will be ripped to pieces and fed to my kitties and my dog.

Author Notes: This is a rewrite of the series , meaning plot changes. I'm also going by the manga because I have no access yet to the anime, and five seconds of the dubbed nearly killed me.

Couplings: Yoh x Anna, Amidamaru x OC, Ren x OC, there are other couplings but I'll state them when the story gets further along.

Warnings: original characters, romance, cursing, insanity and, once again, plot changes. There also might be a bit of out of character-ness.

Also if you would like to use Koneko or any original characters please let me know. I want to thank Just a Little Disturbed for beta-ing my story. She saved you all from the terror of my awful grammar and spelling.

Italics and {}- flashbacks

A note from the author:

Yes I'm alive, it's been a while since I updated anything. I have two reasons for not updating. One: my right wrist popped out of place and as one can imagine, I was pretty much useless for quite some time The other major reason was the way my grades were dropping. I have two weeks left of school and in that time I still have tons of work to do. Yes, I know; a bit late, but whatever. Once I'm out of school, I'll have summer school, but I will have --hopefully-- loads more time, less stress and no more injuries, so I will be able to update more frequently. Gomen nasai to all for not updating in like forever.

I hope you be able to forgive me.

Green Flame Kitty

Koneko slowly opened her emerald green eyes. She groaned, sitting up and holding her head with one head. She gave a wince, her head hurt like hell. Glancing around quickly told her she was in a bedroom, and pure utter logic told her she was sitting in the bed. She felt a sharp stab of pain and looked down at her stomach; there were bandages tightly wrapped around her small waist and entire stomach area, dark red blood staining the pristine white of the bandages. Koneko blinked and then remembered.

Ren and Yoh had fought.

And she had been stupid enough to get in the way. Well, she hadn't exactly been stupid. In fact, had her ghost, Midori, not have pestered her about interfering, the concept would never have crossed her mind. She silently cursed the ghost for being such a worry wort, her long messy hair unbound and falling over her shoulders and into her face. Koneko paused for a long minute realizing that she was wearing different clothes.

She raised her head sharply as the door opened to reveal Ren. A very irritated Ren who also happed to be wet and shirtless. The small red-haired shaman mentally thanked all the gods in existence that she knew of for her ability to keep light blushes down.

"You're awake?" he stared at her, realizing she was staring straight into his face. There was a very awkward long pause.

"Obviously.." Yoh had once told her that whenever she first awakened from sleeping after being injured that she was a very scary and rude person. She was about to test his theory of how polite she could be when her head was pounding violently.

Ren's eyes narrowed at her rude reply. " Girl, you are the one who got in the way," he responded now, just as rudely as she had been, if not more so.

"I'm aware of that." Another awkward long pause. "Who changed my clothes?"

"My sister." Koneko relaxed and calmed down slightly at hearing that. Had he said that he had changed them, he would have meet a very pissed-off and painful force.

"Ah." Another even more irritating long pause. "Sorry about getting in your way of killing my best friend. It was kind of a pressured reflex."

Ren, instead of remarking rudely, sat on the edge of the bed. "Would you really risk your life for your friend?"

"I don't know. For Yoh and his family, definitely." Koneko paused closing her eyes. "I would give my life to protect them. They are all I have."

"Because your mother died?" he prompted, looking at her seriously. She had two reactions; one was just plain shock and the other was an attempt to avoid the subject all together.

"How the hell do you know about that?!" Glaring at him, she crossed her arms over her chest.

"You were having nightmares and were muttering in your sleep," he told her. "So, if I know, it's entirely your fault."

She glared, not as violently as before, but she was glaring none the less "I have no control over my subconscious." Hell, she couldn't even remember having 'those' nightmares, but then again she had no idea how long she had been out for. She decided to answer his question anyway. Anything to stop him from asking it again or something deeper about her past.

"My mother died when I was very small. The Asakuras are a family friend. They took me in and trained me," she said, hoping that would be the end of his questions. Unfortunately, fate wasn't that kind.

"What about your father?" Ren asked.

Koneko drew back this time as if she had been hit, a look of utter pain and turmoil crossed her face. A particular expression that she had tried to stop from showing, but it was one job that she had failed miserably at.

Her father was a subject that was not often questioned and she avoided it like the plague. He was an asshole, a cruel monster, that had in the end tried to destroy her mother and her. In the end, he had been her mother's murder, and the cause for so many awful things.

She blinked and gasped when she realized Ren was shaking her. She stared up at him, almost trying to recoil even though he was holding her shoulders in a grip she couldn't break. Finally she snapped out of it.

"I understand," he said, his voice soft and honestly, at that moment, she felt he did understand. More then anybody ever could have or ever would. "Forget I asked, okay?"

She nodded slowly, "T-thank you,...Ren-san?" she started slowly, unsure of how formally she should address him. "Thank you for tending to my wounds, but may I go home, please?" She felt the urge to cry.

DAMN IT!! How had with one single innocent question had he reawoken so many awful memories, her mother's death flashed before her eyes. She faintly could hear Ren cursing and then felt a warm hand on her cheek which really snapped her out of it.

"Don't cry." He sounded almost helpless, almost. No, that wasn't right, he didn't sound helpless. He sounded like he had never encountered females younger than him crying, so he was confused and no knowledge of what to do.

Koneko blinked at him. She hadn't even realized that she had started to cry; it was a strange feeling. The last time she had cried in front of someone was when she was around three. The nightmares that she remembered made her cry but that was always alone. There was no one to witness her not being her usual self. She felt the automatic response to say "I'm not", but what was the point of denying something when it had already happened?

She was crying, sitting on Tao Ren's bed, and he had just wiped a tear away from her face. It was probably one of the strangest things that had happened in a long time. She heard Ren exhale deeply, as if he were about to do something hard.

"Do you want to cry more?" he asked softly and gently. It was hard to believe that this boy and the one that had recently tried to kill her best friend were the same person. Then a thought occurred, was he pitying her? Her pride and mind screamed to tell him no. Her body was working faster and with far more logic than her mind was. It had already openly said yes, her face now buried in Ren's chest tears pouring down her face.

Tears that she had fought not to let anyone see.

How in the hell had this happened? She had never let anybody that close in her life, and now within a few days time, this Chinese shaman had brought something out of her that no one had ever managed to. Something disturbed her even more about that fact.

She liked it.

He had gotten her to open up and she was liking it. She wondered if maybe she had hit her head a bit too hard recently. 'Stupid mind, you think too much,' Koneko scowled at herself mentally. Finally she pulled back from Ren, wiped her eyes, and regained her composure.

She gave respectful bow of her head. "Gomen nasai, Ren-san." She paused and swallowed. "...and thank you."

He blinked at her. "This is strange."

"Agreed. VERY strange," she voiced her second opinion on it. Ren having agreed with her, had given her some courage. "I almost like it."

"Yes..." He had agreed with her again, though he still looked weirded out by the whole scene that had just happened. "You're different, and by that I mean..." he paused looking as if he weren't sure exactly how to voice his thoughts.

"I'm not the average person or shaman," she offered, though really wondering what he was thinking.

"That much is obvious, but I mean there is something else different about you."

Koneko made her decision there. "I've had enough strange experiences for today, Ren-san. I think I should go home before Yoh kills himself with worry."

Koneko groaned loudly as she sat down on a bench breathing heavily. It had been nearly a week since she had returned, and a very hellish week at that. Coming home injured, confused and weirded out to come face to face with a rather irritated, bordering on angry, Anna Kyouyama was not a fun thing.

Not a fun thing at all.

Anna was also the reason she was outside in the hot summer sun, running around all of Funbari Hill with Yoh. Yoh was to be the Shaman King, thus he had to participate in the shaman fight, so thus she had to, too... It made utterly no sense, but she was almost ready to give up on thinking. After all Yoh was right about one thing, thinking to much made your head hurt a lot.

"I'm hot!" Yoh complained when she had collapsed onto the bench. He had already crumbled onto the hard cement sidewalk.

"Yeah, well me too," she muttered, her long hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was dressed in a pair of old jean shorts and a green tank top. Yoh's ensemble consisted of way too much for the hot weather. How in hell he could even be alive in this heat wearing long pants, she didn't know. His brown-black hair was, at least, pulled back into a an amusingly spiky ponytail.

"How many more miles?" she heard him ask tiredly.

"Hell if I know. Thinking hurts."

"See, I told you that you think too much."

"Yeah, I know," she admitted, letting him have that victory. "I want to dive into an ice cold pool."

"Don't talk about water Ko-chan; it's painful."

She blinked, but decided against asking what 'it' was. She sat up her hair brushing up against her bare neck arms and legs, making her even hotter and sweatier than she already was. All together, the band holding her hair up in a ponytail was barely working. She had three extra on her arm as two had already broken this morning. She leaned forward and by the gods, her hair even tied back in a ponytail still managed to fall over her very sweaty shoulder.

"Hey, Yoh, when was the last time I had short hair?" she asked. He didn't reply for a long time. It was such a long time that she had almost suspected he had passed out from the heat.

"When I was six or seven I believe," he finally answered. Apparently it had taken him a while to remember. If he was six, Koneko thought, then that means I was five.

"Right. Continue on your training, Yoh-kun. I have something I need to do," she said, standing up and stretching her arms above her head.

He used his arms to assist him in the hard task of sitting up. "Anna will get mad if you don't run the whole thing. Besides, what is it that you need to do?"

She grinned. "I can handle her wrath for once." Despite what she said, she shivered at the thought of it. "As for what I need to do, it's a secret."

The redhead smiled at her longtime friend and then ran off into the business area of the city.

Yoh near ran back outside when he saw the look on Anna's face. "I don't know where she went so please don't hit me." He held his hands in front of him quickly, preparing to be hit.

The blonde haired itako glared fiercely at him. "She's supposed to be training with you."

"Anna-sempai, it's not Yoh's fault." Koneko's voice came from the door way. Anna whipped around to snap at her but ended up blinking and then raising an eyebrow in surprise. Yoh also turned to look at her however what he saw shocked him to the point that he fell backward landing hard on the wooden floor.

Koneko grinned at her two friends. Her once very long, messy, thick red hair was gone. It was now cut to the base of her neck at most. Longer strands fell loosely beside the part cut close to her neck, her hairline was now actually visible, and her bangs only falling slightly into her eyes. Longer strands came down to her chin and framed her face, a thick lock of red hair coming over each of her ears.

"Your hair. It's gone," Yoh said, staring with an open mouth.

"It's not gone! And stop staring! It'll grow back; you know how quickly it grows." She shrugged, "It was getting in the way of training and it was also starting to annoy me."

"Well, since it was for that reason, you won't be punished for skipping training." Anna said firmly . "It looks better shorter then that ridiculous length, anyways."

"Agreed. I just hope Manta-san doesn't screech when he sees me."

"Awe, come on, Ko-chan. It's Manta! Of course he will," Yoh reassured grinning.

"Koneko, dinner now. Yoh get back to training," Anna ordered.

"But..but... Anna?"

"NOW!!"

"Yes Ma'am." Both answered at the same time, looking equally as scared at what she might do if they didn't listen.

Well there finally updated, I hope Anna was in character enough…. I wasn't really sure how to write her.