Woah. This chapter is nearly ALL flashback. Well, the next chapter I think IS all flashback. I'm sorry for hurting your eyesight with this fiction. Please rest your eyes for a while half way through. I don't want you to be injured.

Thank you so much for your encouraging reviews. Each time I get one of your lovely reviews I feel like I've really done ok after all. Thank you! Group hug! So to Emily, Hao Asakura (himself? Thank you sir!), Lady girl and Hao's girl thank you very much! Please continue to review. I hope this story continues to live up to your expectations. Hao Asakura, eh? I didn't think you'd want to read fanfiction about yourself! Joke! Ha, ha! Thank you for being my first reviewer.

My comment on this chapter. I think if you conquer your fear of someone it's a good thing. If you and someone are comfortable with each other to sit in silence I think this is good. It shows a good relationship. However if you never call someone by their name it also shows distance at the same time. Maybe?

Anyway, my beta Alteng/Leslie! I love you so much for helping me out on this story! Your comments after you'd read it all really gave me heart and confidence. I hope I edited it to your standards that you encouraged me to write to. Thank you! I will send you an email after I publish this chapter

Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King.

She had been to visit her grandparents for a week. It had felt good to get away from the inn for a while, and Mai had enjoyed everyday with only a passing longing for home before it was swallowed up by relaxation and recreation. She hadn't even thought about him all that much, except maybe how her mother was dealing with Hao. Mai hadn't told him she wouldn't be able to serve him or even that she was leaving. He'd told her to get out with the squid and she had. She just hadn't gone back.

Still, after a week of not thinking about him, she found her bus journey back seemed to be all about him.

Now as she walked up the long drive to the inn after getting off the bus, she felt that it was probably a safe bet that he was gone. After all, who'd stay this long? And he'd said she annoyed him, and he didn't seem to like anybody at all at the inn. So why would he stay?

She frowned as she pottered up the gravel, she had wondered if he would be all right though. He was so young even when he was being scary and angry. Growling that she was even concerned over such an arrogant brat, she swung her bag over her shoulder and started humming.

Although, she had been wondering on the journey back what he had said when he found out she wouldn't be his maid this week. Would he have been glad that she wouldn't be there to 'wear' him out? Or angry? Or indifferent? Mai snorted. He was the one that was tiresome. Behind that pretty face was a boy who acted like a toddler, tantrums or moods and hurt you when he got upset. He seemed calm, but when you got under his skin, he'd hurt you.

But then, he had moments when he seemed world wise and older than his years. Like that day with the radio. Days when he was almost likeable.

What was his obsession with hating humans? Sure he said he was a Shaman and sure it seemed he had a spirit but…why would that mean everyone else wasn't good enough? If there were other Shaman in the world, did he like them? Were they better than humans? Humans weren't bad, Mai knew. So, he was the one with his nose in the air. And he couldn't treat people like dirt, it wasn't right.

It was a good thing he was gone. It was great. Now she could relax at home.

Mai kicked a stone. Why was she even thinking about him? He was long gone, of that, she was sure, as she pulled open the door to the house and yelled "I'm back!"

The entrance hall was quiet as she took off her shoes, until she heard the thudding of sock-clad feet along the wooden floor from down the corridor, and her mother swiftly moved out to meet her. She looked flustered and relieved at the same time. Her hair falling out of it's holding as if she hadn't bothered to do it up properly.

"Mai, you've got to come quickly," she burst out.

"What?" Mai asked looking up at her mother, "Is something wrong?"

"It's that guest!"

Mai felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"He hasn't eaten since you left. He hasn't bathed! He won't see anyone; he won't let anyone go near his room! He's like some sort of demon, when we try to go near the end of the house, it gets so hot we can't go on! Like an invisible fire!" her mother gushed, her eyes frightened and her face strained, "I have no clue what to do! I don't know whether to evict him or call for an exorcist"

Mai climbed up and grabbed her mother's arm. "Why didn't you call me if you had trouble?"

Her mother smiled grimly. "If something had happened, I wouldn't have wanted to place you in danger with the rest of us."

How could humans be bad when this was how they thought? Mai squeezed her mother's arm and moved towards the hall that went around to Hao's room; her mother grabbed her arms back again "Where are you going? It's dangerous!"

Mai shook her mother off "I know" she said "But someone has to deal with him"

"Mai!"

She ignored her mother and continued down the hallway. If Hao thought he could bully the household because she wasn't around to pick on then…she breathed, the nerve of him. What was he up to in his room? Mai rounded the corner to Hao's corridor and stopped in surprise halfway along the stretch of floor.

Where was this heat that was supposed to occur? Mai walked forward carefully. Nothing. She continued gingerly, placing one foot slowly in front before following it with the next and placing her hand out in front of. Surely his demon would have acted by now? Soon she was a meter from Hao's open screen door and was met with silence and the cool air through the open door. She steeled herself then strode into the room and froze, before covering her nose instinctively.

"Yes, that's what tends to happen when you don't have a bath for a week in the summer."

Hao was lying on his side, head propped up, in his usual pose, on the opposite opening to the garden. His back was away from her, he was clad only in the dust coloured trousers she remembered he had arrived him. His hair coiling around him like a series of small snakes. The room smelled and the futon and blankets were strewn across the tatami mats, the small table pushed to one side. Hao's normally glossy and perfect hair was now dull and looked knotted.

"Where have you been?" he demanded. Mai jumped; his back was still away from her so she couldn't judge his expression "It's been a week since my room was cleaned, and there was no one to prepare my bath."

Mai clenched her fists suddenly. "Why didn't you let someone else do it then? You're the one who kept everyone away with your stupid fire. You could have hurt my family! Why didn't you let them come?"

He waved his hand "I sent the old hags away; they hurt my eyes and stank up my air." He bent his head back to glare at her upside down. "Besides, I had guests. And where were you? You're the one who ran out on me, my little maid"

"I was at my grandparents' house." Mai hissed "I don't have to tell you everything, do I?"

"Selfish. You are made up of human selfishness, just like the others" Hao said, turning back to the garden. "Doing everything for yourself and not even having the courtesy to share your plans when they directly concern me."

Mai felt a wave of anger. "You told me to get out. And what about you?"

She almost felt chills from his coldness. "And what about me?"

Mai scoffed "Oh forget it" and turned on her heel "If you hate it so much then leave" and made to go

"Stop right there"

Mai turned around and faced Hao. He clambered up to his full height, his unclad muscles adding more power to his outlined image against the door as his hair dangled loosely. He crossed his arms and glowered at her. He was taller than her by two inches but it seemed like miles.

"I'm hungry," he stated

Mai couldn't believe her ears. He was fighting with her and now he was expecting her to wait on him again? Who did he think he was? She was ready to refuse when Hao continued "You are to sleep in here from now on and do only my chores for the duration of my stay."

"What?" Mai asked incredulously, "You can't be serious."

"I am." Hao narrowed his eyes. "I'm fed up with half-hearted service from you humans, so while I am forced to live among you I insist upon certain issues"

"If you hate humans so much," Mai threw "Why do you stay here and want me, a human, as your maid?"

"Because," Hao said with a small smile that seemed to lift his features "You are not a human"

"Excuse me?"

He sat down on the tatami mats and looked out onto the garden again. "You, dear maid have the true identity of a thorn in my side, and thus, perhaps for a time, I will have to be in close quarters with you, no matter how much I hate it."

Mai sighed "And if I refuse?"

"Let's just say that fire barrier your mother reported will expand. With everyone in it."

"You'd kill us?"

"I've murdered before," he replied simply, with no emotion on his face or in his voice that betrayed any feeling about that fact other than indifference.

"You're a killer?" Mai whispered at his back.

"I've been called many things and that is merely one of them." Hao waved his hand. "Go tell your mother the new situation, draw me a bath, and get some food for me; I've had a tiring week"

Mai breathed slowly. How was this happening? Now she was being blackmailed into being his slave? She groaned as she turned out of the room. Hao was going to kill her one of these days, she was sure. He seemed like several different people in one. Which character was his true persona? What a mystery. Mai felt a headache coming on.

She explained it to her mother as best she could and left out the threat of death to make sure her mother wouldn't worry. Although it was safe to say her mother was ready to murder Hao herself for the trouble he was causing for someone at his age. Mai agreed as she prepared the bath he had asked for and ordered the food he had wanted. She changed into her serving kimono, collected her own futon and placed it in the corner of her new room as Hao took a bath. She set about straightening the area and airing the blankets on a small line in the garden.

Returning to 'her' room she sat on the veranda and waited for her 'master'. Master Hao. It hurt, this situation, she felt upset that she was now being forced to do this, and it was upsetting that her family were in danger from a guest in their own inn. Would he really kill them? He didn't mean he was a murderer did he?

"That felt really good"

Mai looked behind her to see Hao, still in his beige trousers but looking cleaner and wetter, stretching and looking the happiest she had seen him since he had arrived. His smile really was beautiful as he rummaged in his small bag and sat down easily at the table, which Mai had placed back into the centre of the room again.

"First task," he held out what he had been looking in his bag for; a wooden comb

Mai crossed the mats and sat behind him on the floor, taking the comb from his hand and gathered his hair up between her palms before carefully beginning to comb the knots out from his scalp down to the ends. The water and matted it in some places and Mai had to be extra careful to tease out the strands from their groupings.

"You seem to think that this is worse than it actually is" Hao said pleasantly "If you just do everything I ask and stop being so argumentative nothing will happen at all to your family or to you, and I will leave when it is time. No harm done. You're just serving me like you were before, only this time a little more dedicated. It's all fine, if you work well, nothing will occur at all. You'll live happily ever after," he paused, "Well. I can't guarantee that at all…" he trailed off

Mai had tried to contain the sob that forced its way out unsuccessfully and as she combed tears streamed down her face and fell into the strands of hair she was holding between her fingers. The comb never stopped as all the weeks of stress and now her fear for her family, which had been pent up, released themselves. Her vision was blurred but she couldn't stop the tears now they were out.

Hao never moved, never looked around or said a word until his hair was completely finished, the knots combed out, and Mai handed the beautifully carved comb back to him.

"Thank you."

"I think I know who you're looking for" Yoh said softly, looking at the ground

Mai blinked and replied, "Really?"

Yoh grinned, "Well, there aren't that many Shamans in the tournament who burn people and" he yawned widely, "From what you said, sounds like he told you humans aren't worth the dirt they walk on. Sounds like one person to me"

"Don't say his name" Mai interrupted quietly, she glanced at the others "It's obvious you and your friends aren't anything like him and you're being so nice by looking after me, and it's also obvious from your friends that you don't like him at all" she took a breath "I don't want to cause trouble and if you say his name and someone hears then…people will want answers and it will cause trouble and…as I said" she smiled grimly "I'm sorry"

Yoh shrugged, "Well, all right" he lay down on his side, his head propped up on one hand "So why are you looking for him? Revenge?" he darkened "That seems to be the reason everyone we meet's after him"

Mai shook her head "I just…it's hard to explain. I just want to find him"

Yoh raised an eyebrow "You sure? I mean…he's not one for humans, as you can tell, you probably wouldn't get within a mile of his gang without one of them vaporising you. He doesn't seem to care Shaman's are people too…" his eyes lost their warmth for a moment

Mai nodded "I know there's no room in his world for humans"

"Well" Yoh closed his eyes and yawned again, "This is all great but I think we ought to go to sleep because we have a long day tomorrow and stuff so…" he trailed off and a moment or two later Mai heard a snuffled snore emerge from him as something tucked his coat about him

"Amidamaru…" Mai smiled "I wish I could see you and the other spirits" she whispered as she lay down and closed her eyes "Even for a moment"

She fell asleep with the stars as her scenery and the protection of five Shaman around her. Mai slept more easily than she had since she had left home.

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