A/N: I have this bad habit of posting things before they've been beta'd because I wanna know what you think of it, but then I go in and touch it up once I get the changes. Thanks again (though in advance, right now) to Dreammistress Jade and SGCred for beta-ing. You guys are life-savers. Okay, maybe just fic-savers, but I really appreciate you both! And thank you to all who've reviewed so far! It's wonderful knowing people like this! (Review responses are at the end, in case you wanted to know.)

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: For the moment, I own nothing and no one; not even Yoh. I'm just forced to spend every second of my life with him at Funbari Onsen, for the time being.

Rag Doll

Part III: Of Two Different Kinds of Training

As it turns out, living at Funbari Onsen without Anna there was possibly one of the most boring things I'd ever experienced. After bidding Anna farewell, Yoh and Manta had immediately called in for Chinese take-out to celebrate not having to shop or cook before eating. I, however was feeling mighty guilty for what I'd done, and I almost wished I'd just popped in saying, "Hi, I'm Kitty! Do you wanna be my friends?" It would have been so much easier for me, and definitely less...cuddly.

Over the first few days staying at the Onsen with Yoh and only Yoh (though sometimes Manta had a tendency to spend the night), I learned quite a few things. The first would be that there is no one, and I repeat: no one, on this entire damn planet that desires more physical attention than Asakura Yoh. Now, I'm a fairly (though not sexually) amorous person. I mean, I was the one who introduced the idea of kissing-friends to a fair share of people, so I wasn't necessarily ill at ease. But God dammit, Yoh was just plain suffocating! I practically had to pry him off me with a crowbar if I wanted a trip to the bathroom!

Which, by the way, brings up another issue: bathing. I never realized that I took the prospect of having a shower for granted. I mean, that onsen is pretty nice in it's own sense; it's warm, relaxing, and just another way to escape the iron grip of Yoh, but it's not an actual bath. Oh no, if I'm going to actually get clean, I've got a bucket of water, a scary-looking loofa sponge, and wooden stool. It's not exactly my idea of a good time to have to sit, naked and exposed, in a big, annoyingly drafty room and pour water on myself when I wanted to get clean. I also really didn't enjoy the fact that it was an open-air room, as in if you were to climb the suspiciously short fence-wall around the onsen, you could see right in and observe whoever was in there go about their business completely nude.

Along with showers, privacy is something else I was deprived of when I took up residence at Funbari Onsen. Ghosts floated in and out of anything and everything they could find, and they had absolutely no respect for solitude. Whatever I was doing when one found me, it would drift around and around and cause a huge distraction. Amidamaru was the only one that seemed to have any authority over the spirits in that house (probably because he had a sword), but he was rarely ever around to help me shoo the problematic specters away; he was always either chilling out in his memorial tablet or trying to get Yoh to train.

After about a week of eating nothing but Chinese take-out and trying to pry Yoh either off myself or off the couch, I was about ready to bite his head off. He had done nothing; nothing but eat, sleep, listen to music, and try to cuddle. For an entire week! Manta stopped by quite often, and I was beginning to think he lived here, too, but he didn't prove to be any help with motivating Yoh, either. His visits were mostly long, long periods of time in which he and Yoh sat around and talked. Of all the boring things they could chose to do, they'd talk! I'd join them sometimes, but their topics were most definitely less than interesting. ("How many marshmallows do you think Kitty-chan could fit into her mouth, Manta?")

I spent a great deal of time worrying during that week. Yoh should be training, for God's sake! And what about that whole Lee Pailong incident? Or Tokagero coming and almost cutting Yoh in half? Or that ninja-chick sent by Ren's distant relative to take Amidamaru? Man, if anything like that happened anytime soon, Yoh would most likely be killed! And what about Anna! When she'd gone away, I'd forgotten that she had a few ghosts to summon in order to keep Yoh alive! Oh man, I was so far up Shit Creek, and I couldn't even find anything even resembling a paddle!

After quite a long time of fretting over all that, I came up with three options. I could:

1.) Write to Anna and tell her the truth about me not being Yoh's fiancée and say she had to come back and help.

2.) Become an itako, then train Yoh myself and hope for the best.

3.) Buy a gun.

Quite frankly, Option 1 was out of the question. There was no way I could deal with Anna glaring at me and grabbing my overly-indulged-by-John-Frieda hair. And I get the feeling that she'd slit my throat while I was sleeping, so... no Anna yet. Not unless I was desperate.

I didn't figure a gun would help me out too much against ghosts, so that was a no-go as well.

So, that meant I'd have to train Yoh myself; a task I doubted I could excel in. And if I wanted him to survive the fight with Pailong I knew was fast-approaching, I'd need to gain some itako-skills as quickly as possible. But first I needed to get Yoh up off his lazy butt.

"Yoh-koi," I began one morning upon emerging from the bath (err...stool-loofa-and-bucket-arrangement). Yoh was sitting on the counter, eating beef teriyaki straight from the little white box with his fingers. "Weren't you training for the Shaman Fights when I got here?"

"Yeah, I think so," he said, hopping down off the counter. "But now I'm taking a little break." I tried to think of what Anna would say in a situation like this, but failed miserably. My mind wasn't made like hers; it couldn't think of clever-but-mean ways to tell someone to go do something.

"Don't you think your break's been long enough?" I asked. If I could get him to train on his own, then I'd be a happy camper. I could call the building contractor and arrange for a shower to be put in without having to keep an eye on Yoh the whole time. "Ren might come back and try to hurt you again." I momentarily wished for the Chinese shaman to appear and save me from this lazy, cuddly nightmare known as Asakura Yoh, but then remembered that thinking about something as wonderful as that would only make things in reality seem worse. "What would happen if he really killed you this time?"

"I dunno..." Yoh said, pulling the last bit of beef from its wooden skewer. "But I like not having to run twenty miles every morning." He giggled; I didn't know it was possible for a boy to giggle, but now I knew the truth.

"I think you've been slacking off enough lately," I said, dropping my big-eyed looks and innocent tone of voice. If he wasn't going to push himself to train, then I'd have to. "What did Anna have you doing each day?" Yoh grimaced, then began to list off near-impossible numbers, times, and weights of all the things he'd been doing before I'd arrived. I almost felt sorry for him. Keyword: almost.

"...But I'm plenty strong enough with my own training," Yoh concluded, posing enthusiastically and almost dropping the container or beef teriyaki.

"I want you to follow Anna's training schedule again," I said with a hint of authority. As the waterfall tears began to flow from Yoh's eyes, a wonderful thought came.

"Kitty-chaaaaaaan," he whined, this time actually dropping the beef teriyaki. "That's so meeeeeaaaaan!"

"No, scratch that idea," I said thoughtfully. Yoh brightened up instantly, and I grinned, trying to keep my happy disposition in place. "And double everything."

"HUH!" Yoh looked so upset, but it was all for his own good, I supposed. Anna would have tripled her schedule if she'd heard that Yoh had taken a week to lay around the house, so I figured that I was the lesser of two evils.

"If you're going to make up for the week you took off, I'd suggest you get going. Ren could come back any day now, and if he kills you, I'll be really sad," I advised. I was trying to sound as un-Anna-ish as possible, but that just didn't work when you're ordering people around.

"But Kitty" I cringed as Yoh managed to attach himself to me yet again. No matter how many Yoh-obsessed fangirls I'd hear (okay, fine; read) screaming, 'Kitty-chan! You're so lucky!' when I got back home to the real world, there was this part of me that just didn't want to be cuddled by Yoh; or anyone for that matter. Okay, maybe Ren would be a nice cuddling-partner, but only because I get the feeling he wouldn't try to squeeze the life out of me yet.

"Get going," I interrupted, gently prodding Yoh away from me. "You haven't left this house since I got here, and quite frankly, neither have I." It was true, neither of us had even thought about leaving the house. I'm sure that if someone with a sick mind had been watching the house for the past week through a pair of binoculars, they'd suspect Yoh and I were up to something rather honeymoon-ish, with the occasional company of Manta. I felt my eye twitch at the thought of something that vulgar, and I swore to myself to never entertain such a thought again.

"What are you gonna do without me here?" Yoh asked sadly, staring at me with huge eyes.

"I've got work to do, too," I said, referring to myself trying to secretly learn how to be a shaman from the books Anna had left at the old inn. "Now go." Yoh began to sadly walk off to go do whatever he did before training, possibly change clothes or something like that.

"What's for dinner tonight?" he asked suddenly, wheeling around to face me.

"I dunno," I said upon realizing that I actually had no idea what we were going to eat that evening. "Can't we just order more take-out?"

"But Kitty-chan," Yoh whined. "I'm sick of Chinese. Can't you cook something for me?" I sputtered, trying as hard as I could not to laugh. Yoh thought I was going to cook something! HA! I'd burn the house down, and there'd be two new spirits haunting the property.

"I can't cook," I laughed, running a hand through my hair. It had begun to dry after my bath (err... trip to the stool, loofa, and water bucket), and it was only now regaining some of its body. "Who cooked when Anna was here?" I asked, completely knowing the answer.

"Um...Manta," Yoh confessed. "But he only did it because Anna forced him to!"

"Well, we should get him back here!" I giggled. I had no idea where this good mood had come from, and it was a bit creepy. "I'm sure he'd help his best friend out if you'd ask him." I gave Yoh what I hoped was a meaningful go-bond-with-your-friend-some-more look, and he grinned.

"What if he refuses?" Yoh asked with a smile that hinted he was about to do something cuddly to me. Even though I was in a relatively good mood, it wasn't exactly a cuddly mood. It was a get-Yoh-to-go-train-no-matter-what-it-takes good mood.

"I'll cook something tonight, just in case he refuses. But just tonight, though," I said, trying not to get too generous with myself. The less time I spent in the kitchen, the less of a chance there was that I'd catch it on fire. Instead of responding with an answer, Yoh just laughed in that slightly confusing Yoh-way of his as he scampered off to change into his training clothes.

Even though I wouldn't admit it to myself, I liked Yoh. Not in the I'm-gonna-try-to-make-out-with-you-every-chance-I-get way that he seemed to be approaching me with, but in that odd friendly way that people usually mistake for flirting. If I ever got the chance to renounce our "betrothal," I'd probably try to set him up with someone who'd be as amorous as he was; Tamao, for example. He didn't seem to be quite as happy with Anna as I could imagine him being with someone who'd actually show her feelings for him. But if I even tried to do that, I'd have some horde of diehard YohXAnna fans after me. Again. I resisted the urge to smack my head against the wall, then I went off to brush the newly-forming tangles out of my damp hair. I had a quite a task ahead of me, and I knew that I'd never learn to become shaman if I was fretting about my hair. (So typical of me...)

After six hours of pouring over old books and practicing basic shaman spells over and over, I was completely exhausted. I was trying to use mana I didn't have, being a regular human being, and the most I'd achieved was to get a tiny shred of paper to inch itself along a tabletop. I knew how desperate I was to replace Anna and her super-itako abilities, and I was sure that the desire to keep Yoh alive long enough for me to get to Ren was the only thing that was keeping me from collapsing entirely.

Meanwhile, I was sure Yoh was in no better condition than I was. Being as honest as he was, he wasn't about to skip any of the 30-mile run I'd almost unknowingly set him up with to do each day. When I was in such a good mood that morning, it hadn't occurred to me that if Yoh was to run Anna's fifteen-mile run twice, he would have gone 30 miles. I've had my fair share of blonde moments before, but that was just pure idiocy. (Might I point out that in the Shaman King world, the blondes are the smart ones, while everyone else seems to have the IQ of a used teabag.)

Anyway, after six hours, Yoh had only just finished his running, and he still had quite a number of strengthening exercises left to do in the yard. He seemed to have run into Manta while on his run, and now Manta sat on Yoh's back as said Asakura did some uncountable number of push-ups. I'd given up on shaman training that day for the solace of the kitchen, where I knew I'd make at least some sort of visible progress. I really had no idea of what I was doing, but I found a handy-dandy cookbook that looked to be from about 1956. But a cookbook was a cookbook, so I followed whatever recipe looked both easy to do and edible.

After a few trial-and-error typed attempts, I finally managed to get something together that, though it bore little resemblance to actual food, smelled fairly safe to eat. I'd have to remind myself to by some already-made stuff if I ever found myself in a grocery store. Just as I was trying to figure out if the little bottle in the cupboard with the jalapeño-and-crossbones picture on the label was hot sauce or rat poison, Manta and Yoh entered, the latter stripping off his t-shirt. Now, I get the feeling that he was trying to show off how toned and well-defined he was compared to his best friend, but I most definitely wasn't as impressed as I'm guessing he'd hoped. To me, Asakura Yoh was just a skinny little thirteen-year-old who happened to be in relatively close terms with me, given how long we'd actually known each other. I didn't get the feeling he'd be the next Mr. Olympia anytime soon. I smiled at that thought, giving the impression that I wasn't exhausted from my first day of secret-and-independent shaman training.

"Kitty-chan," Yoh began, though I could tell he was as tired as I was. "You cooked." I smiled for real this time.

"Yep," I said, proud that Yoh had recognized that odd-looking mass in the pan for food. "Because you wanted it." If that was not the biggest mistake I'd ever made, I don't know what is.

"Thank you," Yoh said happily, throwing his arms around me. "Anna never cooked for me!" Being as tired as I was, I really wouldn't have minded that Yoh was trying to hug me. But, he was shirtless and literally dripping with sweat, and by golly, when he didn't let go of me, I thought I'd just about die from the grossness of it all.

"Y-You're welcome, Yoh-koi," I said, remaining stiff as a board in hopes that he'd let me go. Manta seemed to catch on to the fact that I wasn't enjoying myself, and he began to laugh a bit. As a last ditch effort, I began to walk away towards the stove. Fortunately, Yoh let go of me, and I shooed him off into the dining room, myself soon following with a pan of God-knows-what.

As the days passed, I became less and less tired by my shaman training as I developed a tiny bit of mana. I was still nowhere close to being as good as Anna, but I was pretty proud of myself nonetheless. And though I could get the ghosts to turn into Spirit Flames when under my control, I didn't even humor the idea of trying Hyoi Gattai(1) with any of them. I'd never survive anything like that in my current state. Though I was quite proud of myself that I could rearrange the furniture in the living room without having to get up from the couch.

Yoh seemed to be fairing better than I was with his training; though he still came in tired each evening, he no longer fell asleep at the dinner table. I had Manta time him when he and Amidamaru worked on Hyoi Gattai, and though it still took them a little over a second to merge, I was relatively proud of what Yoh had achieved under "my" training schedule. But I had to be careful; if I wanted things to work out like they were supposed to, I had to let Yoh get strong enough to pass beat Horohoro, but lose to Faust so that he's need to go to the caverns of Izumo(2) for extra training. By then I figured that things would work themselves out and he'd tie with Ren like he was supposed to. By the way, I (unlike Anna) planned on attending that match.

But if either Manta or myself planned on watching that fight, first we had to make sure Yoh survived until then. I knew that Jun and Pailong were coming and we'd get those 'Fist of Wrath' movie tickets anonymously any day now, but I was at the brink of tearing my hair out. So what if I could move furniture around? I still couldn't summon spirits from Heaven like Anna could; I was no itako. Maybe I should write to her and tell her to come back and help me...

Just as this notion had come to mind like it had a few weeks ago, I had been retrieving the mail from the little wooden mailbox. As luck would have it, those damn movie tickets decided to turn up. I suddenly wished I'd been more affectionate with Yoh all this time, because without Anna around, I knew he wouldn't be around for more than another twelve hours or so. Damn.

End Part III.

Dub Changes:
(1) Spirit Form
(2) The Tunnel of Tartarus

A/N:Not quite as much humor as I would have liked in this chapter; I don't know what's wrong with me. Maybe I'm depressed. Or just tired. Yep, I'm probably tired. As I did for O-Tetsudai, I want some constructive criticism. Like, not flames or just you complaining about how Yoh and Anna should get back together. Anyway, here are the review responses...

Dreammistress Jade: You can't wait until I meet Ren? What about me? Do you think I'm actually living every Ren-less moment to the fullest? Don't think so, hun. By the way, thanks for beta-ing again. It's really helpful.

 can't wait until I meet Ren? What about ? Do you think actually living every Ren-less moment to the fullest? Don't think so, hun. By the way, thanks for beta-ing again. It's really helpful.

Sakura Mitsu: I take it you're not exactly the president of Anna's fanclub, either, huh? I'll try to keep her out for a little while, but there are a few things she might be helpful for at times...

SGCred: Of course Anna will be back; she's one of the three main characters of the anime/manga according to the little opening theme of the show. (In the Japanese version, of course.) I don't know if Ryu would be after me; he seems to be more into all the different kinds of people that aren't me. (i.e.- teenaged boys (coughLysergcough), little girls (coughMillycough), and grown men (coughBillycough).) I don't think Yoh's the right guy for me... Too cuddly... I say he belongs with Tamao. And yes, Jun and Pailong are next, along with Ren sitting on top of that billboard.

 Of course Anna will be back; she's one of the three main characters of the anime/manga according to the little opening theme of the show. (In the Japanese version, of course.) I don't know if Ryu would be after me; he seems to be more into all the different kinds of people that aren't me. (i.e.- teenaged boys (), little girls (), and grown men ().) I don't think Yoh's the right guy for me... Too cuddly... I say he belongs with Tamao. And yes, Jun and Pailong are next, along with Ren sitting on top of that billboard.

WiNdScArBaBe: Aww! Thank you so much!

soccer-cutie67: Oh poor Yoh! He'll be fiancée-less! Though it wouldn't hurt him to meet new people. Tamao's got my vote for being Yoh's new fiancée, by the way.

Akio the Dragon Master: Yeah, I know Anna was OOC, but I had to get her out of the picture somehow. And I think I was the only one who noticed; Yoh and Manta happen to be idiots when it comes to feelings. Oh, don't worry about your review being long and pointless; the more you have to say, the better! It makes me feel more important!