Okay, so I have a bunch of fics I haven't been working on. I need to do so. Annyways... Late Bday prez to Ren, apology fic for maybe Satine89 (because I just realized that my PC proly would work on ffn...) and etc............... Actually a sort of intro to the ghost, but he'll be different in my next and coming shaman King thingy.

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Last minute birthday gifts

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Tao Ren is a shaman. A damn good shaman too, if you don't mind his saying. Good enough to be, say, Shaman King!

Bason was a chinese warlord. Was being the operative word. Bason is a ghost. He is Tao Ren's oversoul. He is a most powerful ghost. Without him, Ren wouldn't be so strong. He'd still be strong, of course, but Bason is the best ghost there is. Why did I talk about him here? It's not like he's a character in the story. (Nope, he isn't.)

Tao Jun... Now, Tao Jun is Ren's sister. She loves her brother more than... say, her guardian ghost/zombie Lee Pailong. She's very attached to Lee, so you can see how their bond is.

The brother-sister bond that can't break.

That's why, on December 31, Jun wasn't at the New Years party at the Asakura household. Nope. She was busy thinking of what to get her brother for his sixteenth birthday.

Jun wasn't normally such a late planner. She'd planned to buy Ren a car, however, Ren isn't a citizen of Japan, thus he wasn't at all able to, say, get a permit, let alone a liscense. Not to mention the fact that the car was totalled on a test drive the day after she took a look at it.

Nope, Jun couldn't get the car. And darn, Ren would've liked it too.

Now, Jun had about a million ideas, but it was hard to narrow down to just one. So she put it aside till later. Now later has come.

But what could she get? After all, it was New Years Eve. Stores were closed, right?

"What would Ren want?"

"Oh blow it. Just give him a candy cane."

Jun glared at some place in the room, the glare obviously intended for the Voice. "It's not Christmas."

"It's close enough," said the Voice.

"I think a Candy Cane is an invalid present no matter what the occasion."

"Relax. He's just your little brother. He won't care what you get him. Remember the one time you gave him that frog?"

"And he drowned it? Yeah, I do. But that was when he was six."

"Oh come on, he's only ten years older. Is it really that much of a difference?"

"Yes, it's that much of a difference... Wait a second, who the hell am I talking to anyways?" Jun stood up and looked around. She could suddenly feel a presence.

"No one," the Voice replied matter of factly. "I love your hair, by the way. So green."

"Lee!" From the hall way emerged Lee Pailong, her zombie. "Go find whatever I've been speaking to and detain it." Jun tapped her foot impatiently, as Lee instantly started fighting an invisible being right there in front of her.

"Got it!" Lee Pailong announced. In a headlock, he held a squirming... thing.

That was slowly becoming visable.

"Let go of me, you smelly corpse!" The Thing thrashed around as he became more so. "You don't want to mess with me! I'm the greatest fighter of all time! I'll kill you!"

"You look to puny to be Bruce Lee," Lee Pailong commented.

"I am not Bruce Lee!" the ghost grumbled. "I am Lam Lim! I am the greatest Kwan Do artist of all time!"

Jun's eyebrow arched. The name certainly seemed familiar...

"My parent's descendants started this Chinese Teahouse you live in now!" Now Lim was fully visable. She could see that Lim had plain black hair, that was spiked outwards in a poofish way. His clothing was old chinese, almost torn to rags.

Oh. So that's how the name sounded familiar. "Don't you think 'Lam Lim' is being a little repetitive?" Jun asked.

"I knew a girl who's name was Yang Yang," Lim offered.

Jun sighed. "What are you doing here?"

Lim thought for a moment. "I died when I got mauled by a tiger in the forest at the ripe age of nineteen or twenty, don't remember which."

Jun shook her head. That wasn't what she was asking for, but now she knew he'd be a teenager for life... "No, what is your reason for staying a ghost and not going to heaven?

Lim blinked. "Oh yeah. Heaven. Nice place. I was there for, oh.... a few years. Can't tell time there. Anyways, I learned all about the art of Kwan Do. I know absolutely everything that anyone could teach me! I even beat the Ghengis Kahn in a match!"

"That doesn't answer my question. If you were in heaven, why are you here still?" Jun prodded. Lee Pailong tightened his headlock on Lam Lim's neck.

"Alright then! Jeez. Just tell this corpse to get off'a me." After Lee let go, Lim straightened his out dated Chinese clothes. "Well, see, I got mauled at a tiger back in China. My sister's family mourned my death. While I was off training with Kwan Do in Heaven, apparently they moved out here to seek new life. The had my picture in the shrine. They left a picture of me here when they went back to China. Shows what THEY think about their dear old relative who died years ago... Anyways, some nosey Itako girl came in a while back, found my picture, and got me back from heaven for a chat. Apparently she wanted to know if I was a guardian ghost for the Tao family. I said, no. Then she tried to send me back to Heaven, but I used stealth to get away from that crazy girl! She's like, sixteen, you know. Acted all prissy. Grr.... make's me not like her very much."

"When was this?"

"A few days ago."

Jun blinked. "Then how did you..."

"Know about the frog?" Lim asked. He smiled cockily. "I over heard your brother muttering to his spirit ghost that he hoped you would come up with a better present than a frog this year."

Jun got a glint in her eye. "I'm thinking I've got a better present."

Lee Pailong nodded. "He'd do well with Ren's Kwan Do. Bason and him would work well together as well. And..."

Lim's eyes widened comically in horror. "Oh no. You're not planning to..."

Tao Jun contracted a memorial tablet out of nowhere.

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Tao Ren eyed his small present warily. It was the perfect size for a frog.

"Open it!" Jun urged.

If it was a frog, Ren swore, he would SO kill his sister. After all, everyone was here, including all the people he traveled with and Manta, Tamao, and Anna. Why was Hao here?

Gingerly, Ren poked the box. It didn't croak. Sighing in relief, the now sixteen-year-old opened the box. And stared.

"A... memorial tablet?" he questioned.

Jun nodded. Ren picked up the tablet, instantly surprised by a spirit rising out of it. Not that it showed. "A ghost? Jun, if I need to remind you that I already have Bason..."

"YOU!" Lam Lim had pointed at Anna the Itakao. "YOU!!!!!!"

Anna calmly whipped her beads around the ghost's neck, squeezing it tightly so he started choking. She didn't have to hold back, luckily, because he was a ghost and in no danger of dying.

"Cough. HAck... YOU..." Lam Lim's legs flailed around.

Ren laughed. "Anna, do you think it's curteous for one to kill another's birthday gift?"

"Only if it's already dead, a nuisance, and good for nothing," came the reply.

"I'M NOT USELESS! I AM/WAS THE GREATEST KWAN DO ARTIST IN HEAVEN!"

Ren arched an eyebrow. He smiled. He'd rather have THIS ghost than a frog to drown.

--Owari--

Okay, so that sucked. Feel free to flame me.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Shaman King