The Destiny

The music store was on a slightly run-down street in the suburban areas. Trash was littered on the streets; McDonald's containers, bags, newspapers, local grocery plastic bags, food wrappings from other grocery stores, and an occasional broken bicycle was abandoned on the streets where old, rusting cars were parked. Several of the stores had bars on their tainted, unclean windows with a bright red and blue neon sign that read 'Open', which did more discouraging of potential customers than attracting innocent eyes.

No one on these streets walked by themselves unless if he was homeless. People walked in groups with suspicious looks and questionable attire. Sometimes, there would be a shooting and the store owners would calmly dial 911 on their phones as they were used to dialy shootings in this part of the city. The murderers were never interested enough to even think about robbing one of those 'thrifty' stores on this street.

This street was called 'Esperanza Boulevard' but it was nicknamed 'Hell'. The police visited this street as often as the gang shootings were. Nothing about this street made it great and the boy who lost his way didn't care. He was one of three customers in the music store of used CDs. Most of the CDs had cases that were cracked, rusty , or broken and some had no cases at all. Fortunately, he found several old CDs that he couldn't find at other stores but they either had no cases or dealt with terrible scratches. The boy took three CDs to his liking to the counter where a middle-aged man who had deep wrinkles on his face and a sense of lost hope and optimism on his face long ago indifferently typed several numbers into the register.

"Four dollars."

The boy placed four dollars in quarters; the man did not bother to count as he collected the coins the table and tossed them into the cashier.

The boy answered peacefully, "Have a nice day," and left the store. The man watched the young man exist the store and felt inspired. He had not met a child with a life defied the very nature of this neighborhood. For the rest of the day, the aging man was in peace. Several of his deep wrinkles that seemed inherent were gone.

One week later, the boy stood in the midst of the forest, the sand, the dusty air, and the rolling waves in the distance. He sat alone in the open space where he was surrounded by the gates of a thousand trees, a million blades of grass, and a trillion crumbles of dirt. He pulled out his CD player and played an old Led Zepellin CD. He turned the volume as high as he could to block the world around him from intruding on his degenerating world.

There was no smile on his face. His eyes were hollow and he spent only five days at most at this place. The heaven of earth was substituted from a spiritual realm of perdition. There was something he could not place his hand on and his thoughts were continuously distracted from the environment of psychological hell.

To anyone's surprise, his name was Yoh Asakura.

For some unexplained reason, he felt that someone was watching him. He ripped the headphones off of his head and looked around. His reaction brought attention to his spirit when Amidamaru, a samurai, materialized into the atmosphere with a feeling of wary and caution. Someone's oversoul was present but it was too large for it to be worth a target on any specific area.

Soon, they felt the oversoul died—probably it detected that they sensed its presence. Perhaps it was the Patch. Perhaps it was an enemy contestant who realized it would be utterly stupid to attack them while they remain aware.

Yoh, without looking at Amidamaru, broke into a smile.

"That power..." Amidamaru froze. "It..."

The boy smiled again. "At least they weren't after my mind."


A/N: This is somewhat an Alternate Universe of the actual Shaman Fight that is kind of configured to the message I want to get out. Any plot holes will be explained later. Any comments? Suggestions? Don't "flame" unless if you having something PRODUCTIVE to say (note that I didn't say 'nice'). Read and review :)!