The Sands of Time
A Shaman King Story
Written by Satine89
Faust VIII was rather mad. Not only had he lost his third match in the Shaman Fight– no, there was more. Some pinheaded idiot with a huge pompadour had defeated him on his way to his hotel. He hated life at the moment; just one loss away from being eliminated from the Shaman Fight... but life suddenly seemed worth living after he took a few more steps.
Standing and staring at the stars was none other than Tao Ren, looking very secluded. His black hair fell into cat-like yellow eyes as he looked into the deep blue majestic sky. On another note, about his hair – it was very… erm… pointy. But anyway, his school uniform billowed slowly in the wind, the tie slowly lifting with the steady rhythm of his chest. Ren's hands were in his pockets, obviously fiddling with something.
Faust VIII smiled wickedly. He could salvage what was left of the day. He ran his fingers through the shoulder-length blonde hair lying on his shoulders and flipped a large metal chain silently out of his coat. Attached to said chain was a human skeleton, rattling eerily.
Tao Ren wasn't paying any attention. He just stared blankly at the stars.
Faust VIII placed his hand near the skeleton's skull. It was filled with a strange glow.
"Attack, my dear," Faust VIII instructed. The skeleton freed itself of the chain and crept slowly towards Tao Ren.
Ren turned a little too late. He was blasted into a nearby wall; a small splatter of blood was left behind. Faust VIII giggled.
"This is great," he murmured as the psycho skeleton did his bidding.
Tao Ren, however, did have a reason for fiddling with his pocket, as it seemed. He removed a memorial tablet from it, swinging it around his hand expertly.
For those who don't know, a memorial tablet is – for some – a shaman's most important tool. It contains his or her guardian ghost, which the shaman will precede to 'integrate' into his own body and gain its powers. (Yes, it sounds confusing, I know, but you'll figure it out.)
A shaman (for instance, Tao Ren) is a person who takes a ghost's powers and uses them, whether it be for battle or for heroic deeds. In this case, Tao Ren is using his ghost to protect himself.
Tao Ren jumped out of the way of the skeleton and placed his free hand on the memorial tablet.
"INTEGRATE! BASON!" Ren yelled. At once a vapor-like ghost entered Ren's body, and Ren's eyes flashed red. Ren summoned a spear from seemingly nowhere and slashed at the skeleton.
However, Faust VIII's warrior was very powerful, and was not only able to avoid Ren's attack, but also slashed Ren in the chest. It wasn't very serious, but the steady trickle of blood shocked Ren.
"So maybe today will turn out okay after all," Faust VIII mused happily.
"Doubt it," said a voice from behind Faust VIII. He turned – like Ren – a little too late, for he was smashed in the head by a nunchaku.
Tao Ren dared to look at the person who saved him. He was rather surprised when the person flipped her boyishly short hair when she turned around.
"Might wanna stare at the stars somewhere else," she said. Her voice was stable yet oddly startling. "Maybe you would've remembered to use an Over Soul if you hadn't been so spaced-out."
"Thanks," Ren replied. He watched the girl flip the nunchaku into a hip strap. She smiled, noting the blood that had stained his school uniform indefinitely.
"Y'know, you should try to stay alive for the Shaman Tournament," she snickered, then walked into the darkness.
??
Kimaguire just scoffed at Ren. Kimaguire Okono had beautiful brown hair and large green eyes that were constantly glittering. Right now she was clearing off the table and placing dishes in a white porcelain sink.
"Really, Ren?" Kimaguire sneered oddly. Since she lived with Tao Ren, Ren was Kimaguire's surrogate brother, but that hadn't stopped Ren from liking her. They were on better terms now.
"I'm not kidding, Kimaguire," Ren countered. "She saved me from Faust VIII."
"I have to agree with Kimaguire," sighed a girl with green hair in the corner of the room. This was Tao Jun, Kimaguire's legal guardian and Ren's older sister. Her floor length dress was black and adorned with a dragon pattern. On the top there was a little morbid-looking panda head. Jun was currently scrubbing a rice bowl from inside the sink. "It's rather odd that a passing ninja would save you – from Faust VIII, no less."
"I'm not lying, Jun," Ren groaned.
"There are other ways of getting our attention," Kimaguire smirked.
"Shut up," Ren said through gritted teeth. He was near the boiling point.
"Okay, Ren, whatever," Kimaguire shrugged. "Just so you know, it's a little too early for you to be losing your mind -"
Ren had, evidently, had his fill, and was now pointing his kwan dao at Kimaguire's neck. Kimaguire carefully slid her right hand down her boot, out of view from Ren.
"Ren, you must learn to control that nasty anger of yours," Kimaguire sighed. "If your attitude was even just a hair closer to Yoh Asakura's, just maybe –"
Kimaguire had said the wrong thing, because before she knew it, Ren had swiftly knocked her off her feet. She lay sprawled upon the floor, looking Ren directly in the eyes.
"Don't say his name," Ren breathed. Kimaguire knew she had reached a touchy subject, for Ren and Yoh Asakura – her secret boyfriend – were rivals, not only in the Shaman Fight, but in the love department as well.
"All right!" Kimaguire growled. She pulled herself up and began to clean the table off again. "Don't have a cow, Ren…"
Kimaguire stared at her cherished box. A glamorous silver rectangular treasure, embedded with tiny diamonds, glistened at her. The box was her parent's sole way of protecting their precious daughter – no one except Kimaguire quite knew how this box worked. Even though Tao Jun had asked many times, Kimaguire never told.
But inside the box were even greater treasures to Kimaguire – a weathered picture of Yoh Asakura, given to her by her father. He was the one that Kimaguire had always spied on from her perch near Mt. Azuba while he trained. He was the one that Kimaguire followed to Tokyo, with that little box to guard her. He was the one that her parents wanted her to marry.
Tao Jun walked into the room as Kimaguire looked at the old beaten-up picture. Kimaguire was very tender with the photo, handling it as if it were sacred.
"Looking at your picture, Kimaguire?" Tao Jun asked. Kimaguire turned red.
"Don't tell Ren. He'll... flip out," Kimaguire whispered.
"Don't worry," Tao Jun reassured Kimaguire. "Ren will never know, okay?"
"If you say so, Tao Jun," Kimaguire breathed. Kimaguire and Tao Jun were more than girl and guardian. They were like sisters, understanding and helping each other every step of the way.
"Lights out," Tao Jun instructed Kimaguire. Kimaguire put the picture back in her special box and placed it gingerly into a special drawer. Kimaguire plopped herself into bed, and Tao Jun smiled.
"Good night," Tao Jun called.
"Good night," Kimaguire yelled back.
Ren said nothing. He was already asleep.
-
Her black trenchcoat flipped in the wind surrounding the dark alleyway. Her brown hair, in a boyishly short style, was hidden under a simple baseball cap. She was thinking about the dark teen she had just saved.
Was that Tao Ren? she wondered innocently. Is that the one?
She shrugged, for she knew that she'd know if that was Tao Ren by the end of the week. She'd also know why he had assigned her to such a powerful yet bleak teenager.
As she walked the streets of Funbari Hill, she saw a burned-out Chinese restaurant. There was a light on, and her stomach grumbled. She was very hungry.
She climbed the back stairs and knocked on the door.
Tao Jun pulled herself away from Ranma ½ to answer the door, and found the woman at the doorway.
Immediately the woman turned pink with embarrassment.
"I'm so sorry – I saw the sign for the restaurant… I'm very sorry, miss… I'll go now…"
"Wait," Tao Jun urged, just as the woman was about to leave. "Do you need some food?"
"If it won't trouble you terribly… I just moved here…"
"Well, come in, I don't mind," Tao Jun smiled reluctantly.
...
"I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself," the woman said after Tao Jun had heated her a heaping bowl of rice. The woman politely ate with a special pair of chopsticks, extracted from her coat. "I'm Tan Myu."
"Tan Myu… one of the elite shaman bodyguards, the Tans?" Tao Jun stammered.
"Yes, I'm a Tan," Myu smiled. "I don't like flaunting it, however. It's a name, not a title."
Tao Jun was amazed at Myu's modesty.
"I'm Tao Jun," Tao Jun responded. Myu looked amazed.
"You're a Tao?!" she gasped. "Wow… you guys are the best of the best…"
"I wouldn't say that," Tao Jun said humbly.
"But the Taos… they're amazing shamans… all of them are, like, Shaman King material. Especially that one, Ren Tao. D'ya know him?"
"I've met him," Jun lied.
"Yeah… I've always wanted to be the one lucky enough to be assigned to him… it'd be an honor for a teen like me…"
"You're a teenager?" Jun stuttered. She was sure that Myu was older. Her appearance was very mature.
"Yeah… only fourteen… heh, my mom got started when she was seven," Myu commented. "It's my first time outside of my home."
"Wow…" Tao Jun smiled. Myu was definitely more amazing than she would ever be.
A flush briefly interrupted their conversation, followed by a crash and the grumbling of Kimaguire as she returned to her room, injured but now with an empty bladder. It was, apparently, just a slight upside.
"Who's that?" Myu asked. "If it's not prying, I mean…"
"Oh, that's Kimaguire Okono. I'm her legal guardian," Tao Jun explained.
"I saw her in the Shaman Fight… she's extraordinary… especially when she faced Faust VIII. That was nothing short of amazing…" Myu stopped her stream of praise. "But I don't see your name in the Shaman Fight documents, anywhere."
"I didn't enter," Tao Jun said stoically. "I had no reason, with another Tao in the contest."
Myu nodded. "I see your point. I didn't enter the Shaman Fight either. Personally, I had no desire to. I just need to perform my job."
Tao Jun shrugged. It sounded reasonable to her.
Tan Myu set down her chopsticks. Her rice bowl was empty and – very strangely – there was no trace of the slightest crumb. "I best be going."
"Are you sure?" Tao Jun asked.
"Yes, I have a room," Myu prompted. "Thank you very much."
And just like that, Myu had left. Tao Jun shivered.
"There's something wrong with her," she thought aloud, picking up the spotless rice bowl and inspecting it closely.
-?!
Evening at the Asakura household was a very noisy affair. Usually the first thing that happened was a giant argument between Yoh's friends Horohoro and Wooden Sword Ryu. Then, once either Yoh or Manta had managed to cook something edible, Anna Kyôyama would start some sort of off-handed riot. Once everyone had finished eating, there was always a quarrel over who would clean the dishes.
Yoh Asakura sighed. Today was a similar day. He pulled his hand through his disheveled black hair and put his trademark pair of headphones behind his ears. Two long bangs poked out of the rest of the hair. He was covered in Band-Aids from his special intensive training program, but that's not what irritated him.
Horohoro and Ryu were at it again. Horohoro was an elemental shaman with a very short attention span. His blue hair was spiked and held back by a headband, given to him by his Ainu tribe. His emotions were always changing. Ryu was a high-school semi-punk with a huge pompadour – or at least, had a huge pompadour, before Yoh and Ren cut it off. He was also very easily lovestruck.
"No! That is so not true!" Horohoro yelled.
"Yes, I'm telling you, Faust VIII lost the last match to Kimaguire Okono!" Ryu yelled back.
"Yeah right! That girl couldn't squish an ant!"
"Are you nuts? Her oversoul is an early 20th century assassin!"
"So what?"
"Just shut up," Anna moaned. She was an ice queen, and that's an understatement. Her brown-blonde hair fell onto the pages of the book she was reading, and her red bandana tie fell down her black dress limply. Her prayer beads tinkled on her neck.
"Yes, Boss Anna," Ryu responded immediately. Ryu felt a certain attachment to Anna.
"But Kimaguire couldn't have defeated that bloodthirsty killer!" Horohoro protested.
"Oh, she could have if she wanted to," said another person, who was curled up in a comforter. His blonde hair was considerably more normal-looking than Yoh's. His short stature was obviously no big deal to anyone around him, and by the figure was a large dictionary/encyclopedia.
"How'd you figure, Manta?" Ryu asked curiously.
"She did beat up her half-brother," Manta reminded them.
"Well, I would have done the same!" Horohoro protested.
"You barely know Kimaguire, Horohoro," Anna claimed. "I'm her best friend. And I know that Kimaguire could beat someone like him."
"But Yoh didn't manage to beat him!" Horohoro screamed.
"Kimaguire is… different," Yoh finally commented. "…Faust would be no problem for a person like her… if Faust wasn't so psycho, I could see those two being good friends…"
Horohoro was completely blank.
"How do you know this?" Manta asked.
"Hey, yeah," Anna murmured angrily. "How do you know that?"
"Tell us everything!" Horohoro exclaimed nosily, no longer blank.
"Something's up here," Ryu commented.
A little flying person (with short black tresses) that had been following Horohoro cooed happily.
"Kororo says that Yoh's been holding back!" Horohoro grinned. Kororo cooed again.
Yoh clunked a memorial tablet onto the table. "What are you trying to say?"
As the argument went on, Tan Myu sniggered from her hiding spot by the window.
So they're all connected to Kimaguire Okono, she thought. Perfect… they'll all be mine.
XD
Horohoro took to wandering around the city while Anna, Yoh and Manta were in school. Wooden Sword Ryu had completed high school and was training (for what, Horohoro had no clue), and besides, Horohoro didn't really like hanging out with him.
A figure trudged down the street behind him and Kororo (who was floating gently over Horohoro's shoulder), following him ever so precisely. Horohoro flipped himself around, but he saw no one. Horohoro shrugged and turned, only to see the person who must have been following him.
"Oh, you must be Horohoro," the girl said. Her hair was very short and brown, a baseball cap flattened on top of her head. She was wearing a trenchcoat that looked very comfortable in the wintry weather. It was Tan Myu.
"Um, yeah…?" Horohoro replied. He wasn't so sure about this person.
"It's an honor to meet such a qualified shaman like you," she stated. Myu placed her hand out for Horohoro to shake. Horohoro, albeit rather suspiciously, shook it.
He felt something start to drain at his very mind, and his eyes immediately closed from a blinding pain. Horohoro groaned slightly as Tan Myu sealed Kororo into a small glass vial. Myu let go of Horohoro's hand.
Horohoro didn't realize he had lost Kororo until Tan Myu had left. He opened his eyes about three minutes later, finding himself down on his knees on the sidewalks of Funbari Hill.
"Kororo?" Horohoro asked in a whisper. His head swung around, looking for his beloved nature spirit. "KORORO!!"
!!
"Horohoro, what on earth are you doing?" Ryu asked, watching Horohoro search frantically through the Asakura's backyard. Ryu's spirit, Tokagero the bandit lord, hovered a few feet over Horohoro.
"Perhaps he buried something, Ryu," Tokagero thought aloud. Tokagero had pallid skin, black hair in thin strips held together by a hair band, and a full set of bandit's armor. Tokagero was so thin that you could see his ribcage through his skin. (Creepy, no?) Tokagero also resembled a lizard, an image displayed on his helmet of sorts.
Horohoro scowled. "She was a pretty strange girl, to run off with –"
"Pretty?" That was all it took for Ryu to run out the door with Tokagero.
Horohoro sighed. "I meant really strange, you dip…"
"Well, you can't stop him once he's off," said a droll voice from over the fence.
Anna Kyôyama was obviously off school, and had ditched Yoh, Manta, and Kimaguire in favor of dissing someone, her favorite pastime.
Horohoro jumped when he saw Anna's watery eyes glaring directly at him.
"Where's Yoh?" Horohoro asked immediately.
"Him and Kimaguire and Manta are hitting the books at Kimaguire's place." Anna noted the look of horror on Horohoro's face and added, "Ren's not there."
Horohoro growled inaudibly then turned to Anna again. "Have you seen Kororo anywhere?"
"Kororo?" Anna repeated, for the first time in her life caught by surprise. "But she's always hovering over you…"
"I fainted in the street and she was gone when I woke up…" Horohoro sighed, his eyes closed in worry.
"Too bad you didn't hit your head. It would have done wonders," Anna snapped, back to her usual laconic self.
Horohoro winced angrily at the verbal abuse then searched through the bushes again.
...!
"I still don't get it," Yoh announced finally. Both Kimaguire and Manta were at wit's end.
"It's not that hard, Yoh," Manta said with great irritation. Manta wasn't the kind that got annoyed easily, but Yoh was acting very indifferent to his math homework.
"The Pythagorean Theorem only works if you take the square root from x squared and the other number," Kimaguire explained for the fifteen thousandth time.
Yoh focused on his paper again. X squared 64 glared at him. Suddenly a lightbulb went off in Yoh's head.
"You take the square root of x and the square of 64! The answer's 8!" Yoh yelled. "I did it! I did it! I did it!"
Yoh continued to chant while Manta looked over the problem again.
"It appears he did it correctly," Kimaguire stated.
"I did it!" Yoh continued to yell. "I did it! I did it! …"
"Wow, I thought he'd never get it," Manta sighed happily.
"Let's go get shaved ice to celebrate!" Yoh cried.
"Well, now that we're done with our homework…" Kimaguire grinned happily. "Shaved ice! Shaved ice!"
"Oh all right," Manta moaned. "Sheesh, you two never give up…"
A large crash was heard outside. Yoh, Kimaguire and Manta immediately looked out the window in Kimaguire's room.
Wooden Sword Ryu had, apparently, been thrown out a window. He was bleeding badly, and Tokagero was, evidently, gone.
"Ryu…!" Kimaguire gasped. She covered her mouth with her hands in shock while Manta looked on with wide eyes.
?!
In the shadows stood a woman with short, boyish, brown hair, narrow coal-black eyes, and a terrible grin looked on. Tokagero had been imprisoned inside a memorial stone, wrapped with chains, a hand dangling it before Tan Myu.
"Myu, my sister-in-law," the voice stated without any fear or detachment. "All we need now are the ghosts of Asakura and Tao. Once those distractions are gone, we can kill Okono and revive her... it turns out Okono is connected to Tao after all. She'll do fine."
"What do we do with the ghosts after that?" Myu asked, the same wicked snarl playing across her face as she watched her brother-in-law suspend Tokagero before her.
A smile was barely visible in the mire-like shadows. "We do the only thing we can."
"Send them to Heaven," Myu finished. The chains shook as Ryu bled on the nearby sidewalk and the pair walked away from the scene.
oo--!
"So… the womanizer is in critical…" Ren read off the newspaper's front headline. He looked over the paper at Kimaguire. "Rather strange… he was pelted through a window, it says."
"Ryu's not the kind to get in a brawl," Kimaguire bit her tongue. Ren could tell she was very worried about her friend.
"It's not like he threw himself through the window…"
"No girl has ever beaten him, no matter what kind of off-kilter comments he utters…" Kimaguire lowered her eyes to the ground. Ren continued to read the paper.
"The eyewitness says someone in a trenchcoat did it to him…" Ren cocked his head slightly as Kimaguire shuddered.
"It's too weird, Ren," Kimaguire breathed. "First Horohoro loses Kororo, now this…"
Ren looked up from the paper. "Isn't Horohoro that blue-haired idiot?"
"Yep, that's him. But Kororo and him are inseparable…"
Ren's yellow eyes flashed determinedly after a moment's reflection. "What about Ryu's spirit?"
"Tokagero… I don't know…" Kimaguire understood Ren's train of thought. "Maybe Horohoro's and Ryu's problems are connection." Kimaguire felt her eyes water.
"Then… there's only three more to get through…" Ren murmured.
"What?" Kimaguire asked. She didn't understand completely what Ren meant by 'three more to get through'.
"The only ones with guardian spirits left are you, me and Yoh," Ren murmured. "I mean, the only ones left of our friends."
"They're after us," Kimaguire whispered, her voice trembling, her back to Ren.
"There are a ton of shamans in Tokyo, with the fight and all," Ren breathed. "It could be coincidence."
"They're after us." When Kimaguire turned, Ren saw that the pupil in her eye had become jagged and the corners of her mouth were twitching. "And if we go down… if we go down…"
Ren had made up his mind. He was taking Kimaguire with him to the Asakura household to warn the other remaining shaman, before it became too late.
"We're going," Ren stated firmly. Kimaguire nodded and went into her room. She grabbed a black shoulder bag and put her special box inside of it.
I hope we aren't too late… Kimaguire thought desperately as she and Ren ran into the night, with their guardian ghosts, their weapons, and the special box going for them – and who knew what going against them.
x-x
Anna gazed out the window, a glazed look on her face. Yoh was sitting with his back against a coffee table, Manta by his side. Both of them had the same solemn expression. Horohoro was still searching for Kororo, but now he had proceeded to the Tupperware cabinet. The occasional clank of plastic on tile was all that could be heard.
"…I don't understand it," Yoh finally whispered. "Why would someone attack Ryu in broad daylight?"
"And why did that someone steal Tokagero?" Manta asked in the same almost inaudible tone.
"Where's Kororo?!" Horohoro yelled for the umpteenth time.
"Why is there someone in our backyard?" Anna inquired, eyes widening. She stood up and opened the paper screen door.
Tan Myu stood in the garden, watching Anna's every move.
"So someone does live here," Myu murmured appreciatively.
"What do you want?" Anna asked coldly.
"Actually, I wish to see the head of the household… I believe it's Yoh Asakura," Myu stated.
Anna dissected Tan Myu with her hardened expression, and she sensed a great evil.
"He's not here right now," Anna lied. Tan Myu sniggered.
"I believe you're mistaken," she said. Before Anna had the chance to run, a nunchaku knocked her clear across the backyard. She slammed against the brick wall on the west side of the house.
"That's been taken care of," Myu sneered wickedly before waltzing into the house through the open paper door.
Manta was the first to detect Myu's presence.
"What the –" Manta cried. Horohoro turned away from the cabinet. Yoh looked up.
Tan Myu stood before Manta, a saber ever so close to his neck.
"Manta!" Yoh gasped. Horohoro shuddered, eyes fearful.
"You're that girl I met on the street!" Horohoro yelled. "Before I lost Kororo!"
"I have the feeling I know where Kororo is," Yoh breathed, grabbing the sword Harusame from under the coffee table.
...?
Ren and Kimaguire burst through the door, but it was too late, as Kimaguire feared. Yoh was slumped on the floor, barely clinging to consciousness. Anna was still sprawled against the wall outside, Manta was unconscious as well, and Horohoro was stuffed into the Tupperware cabinet, yelling threats and expletives at the top of his lungs.
Kimaguire nearly died at the spot. It was obvious that Amidamaru was in the enemy's clutches, and that her friends were all going to be dead soon. She fell onto the ground, tears welling up in her eyes.
"We were too late, Ren… no… this isn't happening…"
Myu turned around from the cabinet that she had been kicking to look at Ren Tao and Kimaguire Okono.
"Oh good, you're here," Tan Myu sniggered. "I didn't want to track you down myself." Kimaguire shuddered, clearly disturbed.
"You're that girl who saved me from Faust…" Ren said emotionlessly.
"That was just a ploy, you stupid prat!" Myu laughed. Yoh opened his eye a sliver.
"Ren… Kimi-chan…" he moaned, even though a great pain circulated through his body.
"Kimi-chan?" Ren swerved over to see Kimaguire, grinning sheepishly, face bright crimson. He sighed but turned to Tan Myu again.
"What do you want with Yoh? And Horohoro, and Ryu?" Kimaguire yelled brazenly, before Ren even had the chance to open his mouth.
Tan Myu looked out from under the brim of her hat. "I just want my darling Eliza back."
Ren's eyes widened, Yoh shuddered (even though he was in obvious agony), and Horohoro stopped yelling cuss words. Kimaguire was the only one who didn't become speechless.
"Your Eliza…?" Kimaguire repeated.
"But how do you know Eliza?" Yoh managed to splutter out, a tiny dribble of blood forming at the corner of his mouth.
"Someone let me out of this cabinet so I can kick her sorry –" Horohoro started up once again, but Ren drowned him out.
"But you said you were a Tan…" Ren narrowed his eyes, the yellow pupils becoming all the more bloodshot. "You dirty liar."
Myu looked suspiciously at Ren. "How do you know that Eliza wasn't a shaman? That was one of the reasons she became sick… she was one of the blessed few, but her body was too weak to stand integration, and her parents were very determined…"
Ren sniggered. "Do you think I'm dense enough to believe that? I'm not completely stupid. Unlike some of us," Ren added, leaning his head discreetly towards Horohoro in the cabinet.
"You took our hospitality for granted, Myu," Ren continued. "I wasn't asleep when you visited our home… but now I know one thing. You took advantage of my sister. And now you try to kill my friends…" Ren hid his memorial tablet inside his hand as Yoh watched his every move with interest. "You will pay for this."
"But you hate Horohoro," Kimaguire said without thinking. Ren laughed nervously as Myu laughed maniacally.
"I don't want to kill them, no," Myu explained. "I only need their ghosts." Myu turned her pale face towards the only remaining girl. "Kimaguire's the one who needs to die."
"Too bad for her unfortunately," finished a voice coming from the open paper screen door.
Regrettably for our protagonists, this was Faust VIII. Dangling from his hand was a memorial tablet, wrapped in chains. Inside a belt was Kororo, stuck in a miniature glass case. Tied to Faust's pant leg was a large leather strap, tying down Amidamaru. Finally, by his side was the faithful lover's skeleton – Eliza herself.
Faust walked over to Kimaguire and grabbed her by the chin gingerly. Kimaguire watched with horror. "If only I'd met you before Eliza."
Ren whacked Faust with his kwan dao. Faust fell to the ground, allowing Kimaguire to kick him. "Don't touch her."
Faust sneered oddly. "What's she to you? She's not your girlfriend, she's not a relative…"
Ren placed the kwan dao's blade near Faust's head. "You're wrong. She's my sister."
Ren had made one crucial mistake when he threatened Faust with the spear. His movement allowed Myu to slip near his backside, with the nunchaku poised to kill.
Ren noticed too late. The nunchaku knocked him over before Kimaguire could integrate to help him. She began to cry uninhibited, free tears. Bason was imprisoned. She was going to die, no matter how strong a shaman she was. There was no one at her back this time.
-!
Yoh watched in horror as Ren was blasted into a china cabinet, the delicate porcelain shattering as Ren bled heavily. The glass had nearly impaled him.
"Ren!" Yoh cried. He couldn't move, or large gashes on the underside of his legs would bleed freely, and that would be the end of him. He had hidden these from everyone, so no one would worry more than they already had.
The endless stream of strong language had ended. Horohoro was being suffocated inside his cabinet, unable to get any fresh air.
Yoh himself blacked out as the language stopped, right about when Faust placed Ren's kwan dao at Kimaguire's neck.
"Your fate is lamentable," Faust stated. "I don't worry, however. Once Eliza is returned to me, you will become my new spirit guardian."
"Sick freak," Kimaguire breathed.
If I become anyone's guardian ghost, I'll be Yoh's. Or Ren's, for that matter, Kimaguire thought.
Faust began to cut, but he was doing it slowly, excruciatingly. The shallow cut began to bleed lightly down her school uniform.
Then something struck both Faust and Myu down at the same time. It was definitely a person, to be sure. The male figure looked down upon the two, his long bangs falling across the side of his face.
Kimaguire turned to Yoh. This person's bangs fell in the exact same way, the exact spot, with the exact limpness. Their eyes were the same determined amber-brown. His face, the same structure and shape.
The man let Horohoro out of the cabinet. He had blacked out, but his chest was still rising (Kimaguire could tell).
Kimaguire watched the man's long hair fall against his simple white poncho. It fell in the same pieces, the same places as Yoh's hair, except it was definitely longer. She stood silently as the person looked her over.
"Do you… are you related to Yoh…?" Kimaguire asked very slowly, so the cut on her neck wouldn't bleed too much. Tiny droplets of red traveled onto her shirt collar.
The man slowly and gently ran his finger across Kimaguire's cut. It disappeared in a small flurry of white light. "Perhaps."
"…?" Kimaguire blanked out as this other Yoh miraculously healed her wounds.
Kimaguire closed her eyes slowly, her eyelashes fluttering as she fainted. The person held Kimaguire in his outstretched arms and, very slowly, his lips met hers.
Once he pulled away from the mellow kiss, he took the spirits from Faust VIII and Myu, and somehow dispelled them using the same white light he had used on Kimaguire's wound.
But just as suddenly as he had appeared, he left, tenderly placing Kimaguire on the floor, near the now-healing Ren, Yoh, Horohoro, Manta, and the spirit mediums that this man had retrieved from Faust and Myu.
"Smile..."
"Kimaguire's asleep, Ryu just came back from the hospital, Horohoro's okay, Anna is ticked, and…"
Manta looked over the kotatsu at Ren. "…One of my worst enemies is calmly drinking milk in my best friend's house."
Ren's eyes gazed over the glass container, directly at Manta. "Oh shut up. I'm only here until Kimaguire wakes up."
"She can get home herself, you know," Manta pointed out. "Just because she's been asleep for three days doesn't mean…"
"I don't want her going alone," Ren stated flatly.
"You don't really need to worry," Manta shrugged. "It's not like any of us is ever walking the street alone again."
"I do see your point," Ren admitted coolly, taking another polite sip of the milk.
As he did so, Manta couldn't help but notice the large scars from the broken glass scattered across his arms – they were all over his body. Manta hadn't gotten beat too bad by the pair of creeps – just flung onto the kotatsu in the wrong place. Manta did feel a little remorse for Tao Ren.
"Why?" Manta finally asked. Ren stopped mid-sip and put the bottle down.
"What do you mean?" Ren asked.
"Why did you risk your life for her?" Manta inquired.
Ren looked into his milk. "Oh, that." Ren's cat-like eyes narrowed as he focused. "She's… my sister. I don't want anything to happen to her. I would have done the same for Jun. You would have done the same for Yoh, I'm sure."
"Yeah," Manta answered, unsure of what to say. The words sounded odd when coming out of Ren's mouth.
A large banging and crashing could be heard from Anna's room. Ren was incredibly good at tuning out the noises typical of the Asakura's place, but Manta would never get used to it.
"I wonder how bad it is…" Horohoro noted. Neither Manta nor Ren had seen him taking up the west end of the kotatsu.
"How bad what is?" Manta asked. Ren looked above him, at the steady movement on the ceiling.
"I think Anna's really mad at Yoh," Horohoro explained.
"Mad, eh?" Ren sniggered. "Oh that's nothing."
Ryu stopped what he was doing after Ren said that. (Ryu had been reorganizing the Tupperware drawer.)
"Nothing?" Ryu repeated.
"It sounds pretty bad, Ren," Horohoro countered.
Ren stared at Horohoro. "How would you know, idiot?"
"HEY!" Horohoro yelled, but before it became an all-out brawl, Yoh came downstairs.
He was covered, head to toe, in small bruises and Band-Aids. Ren smiled.
"See, not too bad, Horohoro," Ren murmured before Manta hit him in the head with his giant dictionary.
"Kimaguire's not up yet," Yoh finally muttered. "Don't bother Anna."
"We figured as much," Manta responded.
"Why was Boss Anna so mad at you anyway?" Ryu asked.
Yoh downplayed his eyes. "She… I mean, I… er…" Horohoro was hanging on Yoh's every word. "I was secretly dating Kimaguire, so she got mad."
Ren sipped his milk again. "It's still nothing."
"Wait… what do you mean, 'I was'?" Manta asked.
"Yeah, you can still date her… you just have to be really careful," Horohoro suggested determinedly. "Take her somewhere!"
"Idiot," Ren mumbled. "If you are to date her in secret, usually that would mean that no one knew. You can't even really tell her. Then there's the matter of the location. Somewhere romantic…"
"What's up with you?" Yoh asked, in his usual slacker attitude.
"Yeah…" Horohoro smiled widely. "You've been holding out on us!"
"Huh? I barely know you –" Ren stammered, but Horohoro was too overbearing for even Anna to handle. It was a losing battle.
Kimaguire opened her eyes. All she remembered was a soft compassionate kiss. Was it Yoh who had done that, like in a fairy tale? Or was it the older boy, who had a striking resemblance to Yoh? Could it have been Ren, who was for some reason compelled to do so? Was it Faust (oh God, no)?
Kimaguire suddenly ran her arm down her boot. Her memorial tablet was still there. She rummaged through the bag near her bed, finding her special box. The entire ordeal came back to her.
She looked at her neck in the mirror. The scrape was gone. It hadn't been an illusion. The man was real. And Faust had lost.
She walked downstairs, still clutching the beautiful box with her Oracle Pager and her weathered picture of Yoh inside. Horohoro was interrogating Ren, Yoh was trying to pull Ren away from him, Manta was reading and Ryu had found interest in watching Ren and Horohoro.
"What is going on?" Kimaguire asked. Her uniform still had a few bloodstains on it from three nights before, and her lips (before being tan) were light pink. She looked different.
"Kimaguire?" Ren asked.
"Kimaguire?" Yoh repeated, turning away from the conflict.
"You're awake," Ryu said happily.
"Just in time to hear Ren's confession!" Horohoro yelled.
Ren punched him. "I think not." When Ren walked by Yoh, his calmly whispered, "I'll leave you two alone."
The other Yoh was watching from his spot in the sky, on a broom.
"There she is…"
He watched the scene playing out below him.
"…No harm will come to her. I'll be sure of it."
The End
DISCLAIMER: Come on yall! Then I saw their faces… and wrote a fanfiction… but I don't own the people… except for Kimi-chan… Shaman King is not mine! I'm a believer…