A/N: (blink, blink) Why am I still here? Wasn't I supposed to be flamed to death by a horde of YohXAnna fans? Come on, people! I mean, I built a damn trench, for God's sake! ...Actually, I'm really glad I didn't have to use my trench (...that I spent an hour and a half digging, then another hour piling up sandbags, and then another hour weatherproofing...). I'm glad you're all so accepting of the fact that I hate RenXPirika and YohXAnna! (flinches) Anyway, thanks a ton to Dreammistress Jade and SGCred for beta-ing this! (Funny, one day I'm beta-less, then the next day I've got two... Almost like Yoh and his fiancée-problems, ne?)
Warnings: Mild language, a severe hatred of RenXPirika, a less-severe but still present hatred of YohXAnna, some sex-related humor, a very naughty authoress, and probably some violence later.
Disclaimer: Once again, nothing is mine, though I seemed to have staked my claim on Yoh-kun last chapter.
Note: Read this chapter with a light heart; it's meant to be humorous, but I can see some people confusing my odd sense of humor for drama when I'm acting so...dramatic.
Rag Doll
Part II: Of Untrue Stories and False Tears
Poor Yoh; he looked just like a deer caught in the headlights as Anna stalked toward us. Her blue beads clinking against each other was an all-too-familiar sound for me; and one that was strangely comforting. Usually when something bad was happening and Yoh was getting a rather intense butt-kicking from someone, Anna and her beads would appear and save the day by summoning some spiffy ghost, and that would be that for a week or so. But not this time; the one time I get to see Anna in real life, she's mad enough to bite my head off. Great... Just great.
"What's going on out here?" Anna demanded, looming over Yoh and myself. I was beginning to get a bit afraid of her, though I didn't know why. In all honesty, if worst came to worst, I'm pretty sure she'd get completely owned in a fistfight. But if she actually tried to hex me, though... I'd be pretty screwed. Upon giving up my Christianity for Paganism, I learned a few minor, teeny-weeny, not-powerful-enough-to-help-me-out-if-Anna-got-mad spells; mostly ones for good luck or good health. Nothing even close to being as strong as I was giving the impression that I could do.
"H-Hi Anna," Yoh said, quite possibly trying to extend the calm before the storm as long as possible. I wasn't sure if it was the fact that I was trying to demonstrate to Yoh that he belonged with me instead of Anna, or whether it was out of actual fear of the scary itako, but I attached myself to Yoh's upper body, and I was not letting go anytime soon.
"Hello Yoh," Anna said calmly. Then she fixed an icy glare on me. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Anna; Yoh's fiancée." Oh man, I could practically see the anger radiating off the girl, and pretty darn near all of it was directing itself toward me. But I couldn't let myself get fazed that easily; I had a fiancé to win back!
"Liar," I spat, clinging even tighter to Yoh. "You're lying and we both know it!"
"What are you talking about?" she barked. "I think I'd know who I'm betrothed to, little missy!" Oh, she did not just call me 'little missy!' Out of all the sexist insults there are, 'little missy' is the one that gets me every time. Every single time, and I don't know why! Anyway, now I was pissed beyond reason, and resisting the urge to fling myself at Anna and cram her into a Campbell's Soup-At-Hand can.
"You know what I'm talking about, Kyôyama," I said venomously. "You stole my fiancé, and now you're making it look like it's the other way around!"
"I'd do nothing of the sort!" Anna yelled, not completely understanding what was going on.
"That's such a lie!" I yelled, loosening my grip on the Asakura beneath me for the first time since Anna arrived. "You hexed Yoh-koi and made him lose all his memories of me, and now you're claiming to be his fiancée!" Anna gaped, still not entirely sure of what was going on.
"You're insane!" the itako screeched. "You have no idea what you're talking about! And quite frankly, neither do I!" I gasped, feigning a look of absolute shock, then another of somewhat impressed-ness.
"You're not as dumb as you look," I said, then I turned to Yoh and Manta (who, by the way, had hidden himself behind the well for safety). "She put the curse on herself so that even she'd forget me!" I paused for a moment, allowing Yoh and Manta a moment for a gasp-then-gape routine, then I continued. "And I'll bet she did the same to everyone back home in Izumo, too!" Anna looked completely taken aback for a few moments, and I get the feeling she believed me the tiniest bit.
Throughout this whole encounter with Anna, I don't think Yoh moved a single muscle to remove my being from his. There was a tiny part of my brain that wondered why Yoh wasn't being loyal to Anna and throwing me off to rush to her side and place a possessive hand on her waist or whatnot. It was the tiniest bit satisfying in its own sick way to know that Yoh didn't have quite the same feelings for Anna as some authors seem to think he does, but then again, she'd only come to Tokyo a month ago apparently, so no feelings had had a chance to blossom.
Upon realizing this, I knew some sort of smug smile formed on my face. I don't usually enjoy altering peoples' lives so much, but corrupting Anna was possibly the most fun I'd had in a long time. As if she'd heard me say that out loud, though, I saw her right hand come flying toward my face. Now, I'm no martial arts master, but after five years of watching Dragonball Z, I'd learned that when someone's hand is flying at a high speed towards your face, it might be a good idea to duck.
So duck I did.
I might just be the one of the only people on record that could evade one of Anna's killer slaps, but with a selfish prize such as that, there is always a price. Just as I had gotten my face out of the path of that pain-inducing hand, I heard that sickening crack of skin against skin; more precisely, Anna's hand against Yoh's dazed-looking countenance.
"Yoh-koi!" I wailed, instantly pulling Yoh's reddening visage into a crushing embrace as I shot Anna a cold glare. In the past, I'd once playfully hit one of my guy friends on the arm, only to have his newly-acquired girlfriend come and try to kick the shit out of me for touching her boyfriend. It never made sense to me why exactly she'd gotten so angry with me, but now that I was madder than a hornet because Anna had hit Yoh. My Yoh, to be exact. I wasn't gonna take that crap, was I!
"Anna..." I heard Yoh murmur. He pulled his head out of my grip and rubbed the hand-shaped mark on his cheek, gazing up at his fiancée. "Is what Kitty-chan said true? Did you really...do what she said you did?" I didn't think Yoh could bring himself to believe that Anna would really do something as horrible as to erase his memories. I wouldn't have believed she would do anything that bad, either. I was suddenly feeling rather guilty when I saw her eyes begin to shine with the first traces of unshed tears, and if I hadn't been defending my current position on Yoh's lap with the boldness of a mother badger protecting her young, I probably would have come clean and said I'd lied.
"Yoh," Anna said, looking her fiancé straight in the eye. "Why would I lie about something like that? Tell me." Man, if she hadn't been two inches from tears, things on my Ren-wanting, self-satisfying side of life would have been looking so much better at the moment.
"I...don't know..." Yoh said, shaking his head. I could tell that my foothold in Yoh's brain was crumbling quite quickly under Anna's influence, and I had to get it back as soon as possible. So, I let my own tears flow once again.
"How can you not believe me?" I asked, taking Yoh's face in my hand, careful of the throbbing handprint. "I walked here all the way from Izumo just to see you and make sure you were okay. I missed you." I fingered the thin scarf at my neck for a moment. I loved that scarf more than any of my others, with its yellow stars and moons set upon a deep navy-blue night sky. "I even wore the scarf, Yoh. The scarf you gave me for my thirteenth birthday." Ooh, no one can deny that whole thirteenth-birthday thing.
Without Yoh, Anna, or myself noticing, Manta had begun to sneak away out of the yard. Just as he reached the gate, Anna took notice.
"Manta," she barked, completely ruining that long-lost-lover mood I had going. "Where do you think you're going?" Manta froze, mid-step, drops of sweat breaking out all over his face. He laughed nervously.
"I think this is...a little beyond me," he said, laughing again. Good for him! He finally realized he was almost completely useless in a situation involving Yoh!
"Stay here," the itako commanded for a reason I'll never know.
"O-Okay," Manta stuttered, quietly sneaking back into his place behind the well. I was a little miffed that the mood had been broken, but I had to keep trying!
"Yoh-koi," I sniffed, taking his hand in both of mine. Physical contact is a must when you're convincing someone of something love-related! "This scarf...when you gave me this scarf for my birthday...that was the first time you told me you loved me." Yoh and Manta once again proceeded with their gasp-and-gape routines, while Anna looked to be on the verge of screaming "Bullshit!" right into my ear.
God, Yoh was so close to believing me now; I could just tell! And Woman's Intuition is never wrong! Just a few more sappy lines from me, maybe a few additional tears, and possibly a flashback with heartbreaking piano music in the background, and I'd have this puppy in the bag!
"Don't you remember it?" I asked Yoh, who silently shook his head. If I told the story of it, that'd surely win him over. "We ran away from my party because you said you needed to talk to me about something. So, we went and sat on the roof of that abandoned temple near the edge of the woods; it had started to snow when we arrived, so we were both freezing. It was getting dark, and I was mad, because you'd dragged me out to the middle of nowhere, remember?"
"I can't say that I do," Yoh said. I could almost hear the rusty gears beginning to turn inside his head as he strained as hard as he could to remember my little spur-of-the-moment story. Anna still looked furious, but seemed the tiniest bit interested at what I'd "done" with Yoh two years prior. "But keep going; maybe I'll remember something." I cleared my throat, trying to keep the tears in my eyes without letting them spill out down my cheeks.
"Anyway, right as I was about to go back to the party, you took me by the hand and sat me back down next to you on the roof. Then you pulled the scarf out of your jacket and... And..." I was pretty sure that my fake tear supply was coming to an end, so I had to crank it up a little. So I began sobbing hysterically, clutching at the soft fabric I had around my neck and staring as hard as I could at Yoh.
"Y-You told me th-that this scarf-f... You told me th-that it was a s-symbol of our love... And that w-we had to remember that moment f-for the rest-t of our l-lives... And if-f we didn't f-forget it, w-we'd both end up in H-Heaven when we d-died, and s-stay there together for the r-rest of eternity..." Then I buried my face back into Yoh's chest and fake-sobbed for as long as I could take it.
Now, I don't know whose expression was the most priceless when I'd finished my little story. Anna's jaw was about an inch and a half from the ground, and she was shaking with suppressed anger. Manta had come out from behind the well, huge waterfall tears streaming from his eyes and his pale cheeks sporting a slight blush. And, last and most certainly not least, my victim, Yoh, had his mouth hung open the tiniest bit, and his brown eyes were huge and shining. If I could actually make him cry with more of my thought-up-in-three-seconds fake memories, well... that'd be a new experience. I don't think I've ever seen Yoh cry before, and it's one of those things that'd just...y'know...be really cool to see. Unfortunately, though, my supply of corny things was running a bit low at the moment, so I needed to wrap things up quickly if I wanted them to sound believable.
"Kitty-chan..." Yoh said as I pulled my face away from his body. I wish he'd have something more interesting to say than my name. "I...I don't know what to say...Except..."
"What?" I huffed, hiding my face in my hands.
"I'm really sorry," Yoh said miserably. "But I don't remember any of it. I want to, I really do, but I just... Can't."
"So who are you gonna believe?" Anna cut in. I'd almost forgotten she was there; she'd been in so much shock that she hadn't been yapping for once. "Me or this melodramatic lying vixen?" Uh oh, Anna was making things harder than she should; time for the tiniest bit more acting before this could end. I looked at Yoh, giving him the saddest stare I could muster.
"I wouldn't lie about something like this, Yoh-koi," I said quietly as a last ditch effort. "How could I lie about something as serious as love?" Quite easily, thank you very much. Just as long as I got to meet Ren, I'd do just about anything.
"I think she's right, Anna," Yoh said with a sigh. What's this? Did I just convince Yoh that I was right and Anna was wrong? Why yes, I believe I just did. "No one would lie about something as pure as love." Yoh seemed to be quite the naïve one, because I think I just did that, too.
"Oh Yoh-koi!" I cried, flinging my arms around him, partially from acting, and partially because I was so glad I'd acted well enough to convince someone of something. Take that, Mr. Mean Old Drama Teacher! "I knew I'd make you see! Anna's always been so mean to me, and it was horrible to think that she'd almost stolen you from me by making you forget! If you didn't believe me when I told you that I was your fiancée, I think I'd just have died!"
Well, while I was celebrating my minor victory and small step towards meeting Ren by glomping Yoh, Anna honestly looked mad enough to kill me with her own bare hands. I really couldn't blame her, though; if some freakishly overemotional girl with a waist, hips and a bosom appeared one day out of nowhere and just stole my fiancé from me, I imagine that I might be a little angry, too. I mean, Yoh's an adolescent boy through and through, and when it comes to girls with adolescent boys, nothing, not even a wonderful personality or the ability to make fabulous chocolate cake, can beat a bosom. Anna seemed to be painfully aware of this fact from the moment she set her eyes on Yoh and myself, and it only seemed to make her even more angry.
So, as I gushed to Yoh about what I wonderful fiancée I would be, I failed to notice the fuming itako approaching. Just as I caught sight of her in my peripheral vision, it was too late to do anything about it. She'd grabbed a fistful of my hair and was yanking it upward with possibly all the force her skinny little arm could muster. Not just any hair, but the little three-inch-long baby hairs that grew near the base of my skull. You know, the ones that hurt like hell when they get pulled on. Yeah, those...
"Just who do you think you are?" Anna demanded, pulling me up closer to her face. "You can't just come in here and"
"Anna, stop!" In an instant, Yoh had sprung up from the ground, and now had Anna's wrist held in a tight grasp. Said itako froze, staring at her fiancé.
"Yoh," she hissed, but I wouldn't let her say any more in defense of herself. I welled up the very last fake tears into my eyes and let them spill out over my cheeks.
"Make her go away, Yoh-koi," I whined, sniffling a bit. I felt like the biggest wuss on earth, but if I was going to keep Yoh as my fiancé until Ren made his next appearance, I needed some defending from that cruel, heartless fiend that was jealous of me because I got what she wanted three years ago. "She's so mean to me! Can't you make her go back home to Izumo where she belongs!" All fell silent for a moment, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Manta sneaking around the well, possibly trying to get away from Anna before she tried to use him as a human bowling ball on me: the human bowling pin.
"Anna," Yoh began, then stopped, not knowing how to phrase what I was hoping he was trying to ask. The itako's iron grip on my hair lessened and finally disappeared altogether, dropping me back down into the grass next to Manta.
"I know what you're trying to ask me, Yoh," Anna said quietly, her eyes being hidden by her hair. Oh yes! Go back to Izumo and let me try to stalk Ren in peace! Please! "And even though it's the last thing I want, I'll do it because I know it will make you happy." Yoh, Manta, and even myself were so taken aback by Anna's sudden change in personality, that we practically stopped functioning as human beings. I was the first to recover from the shock, but I gasped silently as I saw (from my low vantage point sitting in the grass) a single tear drip from Anna's eye and down the bridge of her nose, only to suspend itself from the tip of her nose until another tear joined it and they both splashed onto the grass as one hot, salty mass.
"I'll be ready to go in an hour," she said, then sulked into the house from the door she'd first appeared in. Yoh and Manta stared after her, both looking confused and depressed at the same time. If I had any tears left in me, I'm sure they'd be joining Anna's in the grass, instead of mingling with sweat on Yoh's t-shirt. I didn't like making people cry, but making Anna cry... Gosh, I felt like a criminal.
I made up my mind then and there that if I was going to stay in the Shaman King world as Yoh's new fiancée, then I was most definitely going to want to acquire a diary.
End Part II.
A/N: Okay, that was plenty weird enough for me, thank you very much. But that's what happens when you try to end something too quickly because you're falling asleep at your computer. (Note to self: Write During Daylight Hours.) Leave me a (nice) review, and tell me what you thought! And since I've got all the time in the world right now, here're the responses to the reviews I got last chapter!
Dreammistress Jade: Thanks, but I'd rather not die, if it's all the same to you. I've got a few fics to finish before I (and I quote the badly-done-but-better-than-the-dub Shaman King sub) "become buddha," so to speak. By the way, thanks for beta-ing! It's a boring job, but I hope it wasn't too boring!
Akio the Dragon Master: Exactly my point! Now go! Run to one of those inter-dimensional, inter-reality travel agencies to book a trip to the Shaman King world right now! Hurry! Before I screw it up beyond repair!
soccer-cutie67: Yeah, if I was smart I'd be pretty pleased with myself for getting a cuddle with Yoh and just leave it at that. But, if I hadn't mentioned it before, I'm not exactly the brightest crayon in the box when it comes to things like that. Plus, the one I'm really after is Ren, right?
AinuPunk: lol I didn't think anyone would catch the 'perfect-tush-having' remark. Just one of my subtle observations that makes me Kitty-chan! ...I don't know how Ren could hate Horo, but that was just an example to emphasize the point that Ren's and Pirika's conversations with one another have no depth or substance. (pulls out a lighter and burns a random RenXPirika fic)
Sakura Mitsu: Thank you! I'm glad you found it funny. Though I'm surprised no one's flamed me yet...
SGCred: Aww, don't worry about Anna! I'm a tough girl; I can take care of myself! (enthusiastic pose) But I don't know about Ren, though... He seems a bit out of my melodramatic, excessively-spazzy, just-plain-too-happy-around-him league, don't you agree? By the way, thanks for beta-ing! Sorry for dumping this chapter on you at the last second!
WiNdScArBaBe: Thank you very much, m'dear! But convincing people that I was Yoh's fiancée is kind of the point of the second half of the first chapter, and of this entire chapter. But it's really nice to know I was convincing. And by the way, the word 'wowishness;' that's pure genius right there. Now I'm going to be forced to use it all the time.