A/N: Please, hold your tomatoes! I'm sorry, so very sorry to have taken so long. O.o; I got horrible Writer's Block. But I'm writing now, ne?

…Okay, you can throw your tomatoes now. ;.;

Disclaimer: I have a number and two words that prove that I do not own Shaman King: 4Kids Entertainment. :: Nods, shuffles papers together and walks off set::

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Broken Circuit

Chapter 6

By Amethyst Bubble

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"…And then I came home," Hao finished.

Yoh was silent for a minute, staring at his brother with a 'you-have-to-be-kidding-me' sort of look. "Oniichan," He began in a strained voice. "You are an idiot."

"I agree," Ren replied, looking up from his book. HoroHoro nodded, still trying to read over Ren's shoulder.

"You went to visit Anna?" Yoh glared at his brother. "Anna, Anna Kyouyama, THE Anna? OUR Anna?" He ranted, beginning to pace. "Do you know how idiotic that was? You know she's a detective now! And you know that she's almost positively been sent to track us down! You complete moron!"

Hao winced, "You don't have to be so mean about it." Honestly, didn't Yoh believe that he knew what he was doing? Sometimes he swore his twin had zero faith in him.

And if Yoh didn't have zero faith in Hao before, he did now. "I can't believe you did that." He sighed, collapsing onto the floor, "Well, that's it…we're going to have to move to Antarctica. They'll never track us down there." He declared, closing his eyes.

"I'll go pack in a couple minutes," Horo muttered, propping his chin up on his palms. He muttered a mild protest as Ren turned a page. The Chinese boy closed the book with a snap, sat up and hit the Ainu over the head with it.

"We aren't moving to Antarctica," Ren said, ignoring Horo's sniffling.

"You're so cruel," The blue-haired shaman pouted. Ren ignored him again.

"But Ren," Yoh whined. "I don't want to go back! They're going to take me away from Hao! I don't want to be apart from him!"

"You're sweet," Hao purred reaching over and tucking a strand of Yoh's brown hair behind his ear.

"I'm still mad at you." The younger twin glared, slapping Hao's hand away.

Hao mock-pouted, crossing his arms over his chest.

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"Anna-sama?" Tamao timidly knocked on the door. She bit her lip when she received no answer, knocking again, a bit louder this time. "Anna-sama, is everything all right?" Still no answer.

Biting down on her lip, Tamao slowly pushed the door open, peering inside, "Anna-sama?"

The room was dark, all the lights were turned off. A window was wide open. Tamao's eyes widened, her hands flying to her mouth. Anna wouldn't, would she? She shook that thought from her mind. Anna wasn't suicidal, and even if she was, jumping out a window would be too crude a method for her.

Finally, she spotted the figure she'd been searching for. In a corner on her knees sat Kyouyama Anna, sheets of paper spread around her in a circle. In an almost frantic manner, she pawed through each and every one as if searching for something.

"Fire…Building…Not possible…Wouldn't…Could it…" Tamao strained to catch the words Anna muttered to herself under her breath.

The pink-haired girl chewed nervously at her lip. Anna was pale, with a blank look in her eyes. Tamao was worried; was she all right? She certainly didn't look like it. Slowly, putting one foot in front of the other, careful so as not to loose her nerve, Tamao crept forward.

"…No…" Anna tossed a sheet of paper behind her, reaching for another. "No…" That paper joined the last in the quickly growing pile of what Tamao could only guess as rejections.

"Anna-sama?" Tamao crouched down, trying to make eye-contact.

Anna didn't look up, quickly scanning a paper as if Tamao didn't exist.

Summoning her courage, she reached out and placed a hand on Anna's shoulders. Being yelled at was better then being ignored, Tamao decided. She had to try to snap Anna out of her current state.

Placing her other hand on Anna's other shoulder, Tamao gently shook the other girl. A mumble was her only response. Anna's eyes still held that blank look. Tamao tried again, shaking her a little harder. That time, Anna looked up.

"Anna-sama?" Tamao said softly, giving her boss another shake.

Anna gasped, looking up. "Ta…Tamao?" She said. Tamao nodded, feeling extremely relieved. Anna looked around, "What am I doing on the floor?"

Tamao blinked, "I don't know." She answered, "I entered because you weren't answering and you were on the floor."

Anna shook her head, "I remember now…After…" She trailed off and started gathering her papers together.

Tamao tilted her head to one side, "After what, Anna-sama?"

Anna straightened up, combing her blonde hair with her fingers. "It's nothing," She said, placing the papers on her desk and lowering herself into her chair.

"If you say so," Tamao said, slowly walking out of the room. With one last glance over her shoulder, she closed the door with a snap.

Picking up one document at random, Anna began reading again, scanning line after line of print.

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"Ren?"

The Chinese boy looked up from his book. A rather nervous looking Ainu stood in front of him, chewing on his bottom lip.

"What do you want?" Ren shut his book, placing it down beside him.

HoroHoro shifted from foot to foot before moving to sit down next to Ren. "I was just wondering… Are we doing the right thing?"

Ren raised an eyebrow, "To answer that, I'd have to know what you were referring to. That was an awfully vague question."

The Ainu rolled his eyes, "You know what I'm talking about! You just don't want to answer it!" He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the wall opposite him, "Fine. Be that way. Be an insensitive bastard. See if I care!"

Ren sighed, he absolutely hated Horo's pathetic attempts at guilt trips. They were just so sad he usually just told the fool whatever he wanted to know. It wasn't like the guilt trips worked or anything. No, absolutely not, the guilt trips did not work. Not at all. Denial is a sad thing, isn't it?

"You're referring to us helping Hao and Yoh, running away, not telling our sisters where we were going or even that we were going before we left, am I correct?" He didn't really need to ask, he already knew that he was.

Slowly, a spiky blue-haired head nodded.

Horo was being eerily quiet, Ren noted. Usually, the fool was such a loud-mouth. A hyper, ever-optimistic loud mouth. But…not tonight. Tonight he was quiet. Too quiet. Normally, Ren would have thought that the silence was nice, but…not tonight. Could it be he had grown accustom to Horo's senseless babbling?

"Ren?"

Ah, and now the silence was gone, but a fleeting memory. It was a shame really; Ren was just about to open his book again.

"What is it?"

"You never answered my question."

Realizing that he hadn't, Ren closed his eyes. This conversation was starting to give him a headache. "In all honestly, HoroHoro, I don't know."

"I…don't think we are. Doing the right thing, I mean," Horo said barely a whisper.

Ren stared at him out of the corner of his eye. Horo was certainly acting odd tonight. Not that he was worried. Why should he worry about Horo?

"We just left, without telling them. I never got to say 'Goodbye' or 'I love you' or anything nice like that to Pirika. I left while she was out grocery shopping. I think the last thing I said to her was 'bring back some good food for a change'." Dark eyes stared off into space as HoroHoro continued, "I didn't even hug her. I knew I was leaving, and I still didn't hug her or say something nice. I didn't even watch her leave the house."

A sigh, "That's because you're an idiot."

"HEY!" Horo exclaimed, swiveling around and glaring at Ren, "I bet you didn't say anything nice to your sister!"

"Wrong," Ren said, staring up at the ceiling. "I told her she was a good sister before I left."

"Oh," Horo said. Once again, he'd underestimated Ren. He seemed to have a bad habit of doing that.

The two sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts about the other.

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"'Niichan?" Yoh opened the door to his brother's room, quickly making his way to the bed and sitting down next to his twin.

"I thought you weren't speaking to me," Hao smirked, turning amused eyes on his brother.

Yoh shifted slightly under his brother's gaze, "Well, I'm not really," He paused. "I'm not talking to you." He nodded.

"Then what are you doing right now?"

"Not talking to you."

Hao raised an eyebrow, "Yoh…"

Silence. And then, "…Okay, fine! I'm done being mad at you! I give in! I'm talking to you again! Are you happy now? Are you?"

"Quite," Hao answered, grinning widely. "I knew you couldn't stay mad at me for long." He purred, slinking an arm around Yoh's shoulders.

"…You're going to make me not speak to you again," Yoh said, pushing Hao's arm off.

Hao raised one eyebrow, but did not put his arm around Yoh again, "Did you come in here just to torture me by insisting that I can not touch you, or was there another reason."

"Hao, I'm not you. I don't enjoy the pain of others," Yoh rolled his eyes, swinging his legs back and forth over the edge of the bed. "…Yeah, I kind of wanted to know…What're we gonna do if Anna does catch us?" He looked over at his twin with curiosity filled eyes. "I mean, you literally told her that you set the building on fire, 'niichan." He sent his brother a glare. "The one time you have to be honest…" He shook his head, short brown locks flying back and forth.

Hao shrugged, "She's not going to catch us." He said, "I'm going to make sure of it." Ruffling his brother's hair, he let out a light laugh, "I have my ways, Yoh dearest."

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::Picking bits of tomato out of her hair:: Yeah, I deserved that. Please, if you must throw something at me in your reviews, make it rotten fruit, and not heavy objects. O.o;;