It is only a matter of time
Oh I'm so mean; I left it on a cliff hanger!!! Sorry about that, but I couldn't help myself. I love writing cliff hangers! Anyway hopefully this one is slightly better than the last one which I think is totally sh…. And in answer to a question raised in my reviews, (I love you guys!!!! You Rock!!!) HoroHoro and Pilika's aunt is like a step aunt, sort of like an aunt that isn't blood related, it's just polite to call her an aunt! Sorry if that wasn't clear but like I said earlier, that chapter was dodgy! On with the story!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Shaman King I'm just borrowing them for a bit of twisted fun.
Summary/Blurb: What if HoroHoro and Pilika had a tougher past than Ren? And what if that past came back so soon?
Warning: This is my first fan-fic on shaman king so excuse all the ooc-ness…oh and there's a few bad words…not much else really so I'll leave ya to it. Enjoy!
Ch-4, Old habits die Hard
Ren woke up slowly, pulling his hand to his head as he did. It was then, that he remembered what had happened.
"Pilika!" he yelled and bolted upright. Two strong arms held him down,
"Is gone, they took her last night." Yoh said as he sat back on his haunches.
"So now they're both back in that dreadful place?" he said more than asked, but his tone was bitter and resentful. "And I let them take her."
"Well now we both have something in common." Yoh said quietly, not accusing but not defending Ren either. There was a pause while Ren thought back to when HoroHoro had been taken, when he had a sudden thought;
"Yoh?" he asked gaining his friends attention.
"Yeah?" Yoh answered still staring out in to space.
"Back in the field, you said that you'd promised HoroHoro something. What was all that about?" he asked curious as to what he'd promised HoroHoro.
"I…I promised him that I would never leave him alone." He said not really answering Ren's question.
"Why? What happened?" he asked feeling a painful headache approaching.
"I don't know why," he replied, "I mean, back when we all first met, I woke up one night and heard him screaming in his sleep, so I woke him up and he threw his arms around me holding on to me as though his life depended on it." He shivered as the scene ran through his mind again. He'd never seen HoroHoro act like that, he was usually so…optimistic about everything, even shaman battles.
"Then he started pleading me not to leave him alone, and that he was always alone and he'd had enough of it." He sighed, restlessly. "But the next morning when I spoke to him about it, he said he couldn't remember waking up that night." Yoh explained.
Ren listened only half heartedly. He was too busy beating himself up for losing Pilika to fully focus on anything else. Then another thought hit him; it was stormy last night!
He jumped out of bed, ignoring the wave of dizziness, and ran to the window, revealing a clear day outside.
"Yoh, how long has the weather been like this?" he asked urgently.
Yoh, startled by Ren's quick outburst followed him to the window. "I don't know…a half hour maybe." He replied confused. "Why? What's wrong?"
"Nothings wrong! For once something's right! They couldn't have travelled in the storm last night; it would've been too dangerous! So they must have stayed someplace nearby. Now that the weathers clear, they're able to travel and…"
"…They can't be that far ahead and there'd be fresh tracks in the snow!" Yoh finished finally catching on. "Get dressed. I'll go get Ryu and the others." Yoh said as he ran out of the door calling to everyone.
Ren stood there thanking every god he knew, that he'd finally been given a chance to prove, to himself, that he hadn't failed his friends. Then he rushed around to get ready for the pursuit of his goal.
The chase is on!
Pilika woke early that morning to howling winds and a bitingly cold floor on her side. She tried to move but had found that she was bound at her wrists and ankles. She made several attempts to free herself but failed badly. Instead she resigned to just listening to the sounds around her.
At first there was nothing but the afore said winds howling, then someone spoke;
"I believe our little friend is awake." The voice sounded male and old; either that or he was very cold which could be the case being in the north an' all.
"well, as long as she behaves herself she can stay awake." Another, more intense voice replied. Pilika found herself shivering at what he'd do if she didn't behave herself. Being in that camp, she had seen these men do many terrible things to the other children and didn't want to have anything done to her that couldn't be healed or reversed.
Then she heard what sounded like a door being opened and footsteps moving away from her. 'they're gone' she sighed as she went back to discreetly trying her bonds again.
Everyone had assembled in the lounge ready for battle, armed to the teeth. Well sorta. Everyone had what they needed at least anyway. They stood to attention as Yoh gave out orders for each of them.
"Ryu!" he said loud and clear. Ryu straightened, doing his nest impersonation of a soldier about to go on a deadly mission. "You are to search all the old warehouses and closed down areas." He said dismissing him with a salute. It carried on like that until he got to the last person; Anna.
"Anna!" he yelled, and immediately regretted it as she scowled at him with a 'Do-that-again-and-I'll-kill-you' look. "Er, sorry…er…C…Could you please take the shops and local areas please?" Yoh asked changing tactics immediately.
"Of coarse Yoh all you had to do was ask me nicely." She smiled sarcastically and walked out of the door to carry out her task. Leaving Yoh and Manta to go around knocking on the doors of his friend's neighbours.
Oh yeah! This meant War! No one messes with this lot! (A/N; Sniff, my friends wouldn't do that for me, they'd be the ones doing this to me!!!Lol!)
Pilika had managed to free her wrists and remove her blindfold in the space of 15 minutes. Nobody had bothered to check on her in that time and she feared that they;d come for her soon.
She had found her self in an old basement, with a load of old machinery and tools. She untied her ankles quickly and looked around for an escape route. She found none.
She sat down and silently watched the shadows move across the floor as the sun began to rise.
'Wait a minute, shadows? The sun?' she looked around one last time and found a small window, 'a window! 'she silently prayed to who ever it was who was watching over her and managed to slide her small frame out of the window. She ran in to a surrounding forest, further away from the shack, deeper into the undergrowth.
Slowly everything looked vaguely familiar as she continued her trek forwards. 'I know where I am!' she thought as she recognised a jutting rock in the ground. 'There's the fallen tree, and there's the cave, there should be….yes! there it is! The village!' she jumped up and down triumphantly, and ran all the way home ignoring the cold, and the scrapes she'd acquired in her trek through the forest.
She ran through the front door and straight in to Yoh who had just come back from searching for her.
"Pilika!" he yelped as she landed on him.
"EVERYONE UP!" came an accented voice over the loudspeaker. HoroHoro woke instantly, wondering for the second time where he was, before it all came back. He found himself on the bottom bunk of a 3 bunk unit. Someone had obviously tried to make him comfortable, 'But who?' he wondered offhandedly. As he jumped out of the bunk and walked over to the cell door where everyone was waiting in a line. 'And since when did this cell get bigger? He noticed that the room he was in was slightly different to the one he originally found himself in. another change was that his clothes been taken from him. In their place, he wore a brown tattered shirt and some small blue trousers that came down to his calf. His feet were bare and his headband had been taken.
Once again he was stripped of his heritage and dignity, and placed among other 'unworthy' children who knew nothing of their history or people.
God he hated this place, but at least they didn't know he was a Shaman. 'Let's keep it that way' he thought as he pictured the Grande director's face full of surprise when he demonstrates his power to free himself and as many other kids here.
The door opened, interrupting his thoughts, and a big burly man charged in with his 5 cronies behind him. The cronies set to work on sorting through the children leading them to their designated places while the big burly man made his way to HoroHoro in an intimidating manner.
"So, you're the newbie." He said grinning evilly as though he was going to do something terrible to him. "You don't look so tough." He said peering at HoroHoro like he was inspecting a piece of meat.
"Oh yeah?" HoroHoro replied raising his eyebrow. Watching the door with new faith in that these people had nothing to hold him with; last time Pilika was with him and they'd used her to get him to do as they asked, but now he was on his own, the worst they could do was kill him and that was fine with HoroHoro, if he didn't escape before hand that is.
"Ooh you got spunk kid, I'll give ya that. But ya see; spunk can get a kid killed around these parts ya know, but I suppose I'll let you off seeing as you're new and all." The 'tough guy' said mockingly.
"Hardly! I've been here before, escaped before, and I'll do it again." HoroHoro replied, quick to jump down this man throat, "You can't keep me here forever, you know why?"
"Oh and why would that be then?" the man asked sarcastically leering at the boy who dared to step up to him, or even speak in his presence. The other cronies had stopped to watch the action and so had the remaining kids who were watching in awe and some with sympathy. HoroHoro could almost hear their thoughts;
"Poor guy, he won't know what hit him."
"Wow he's either got guts or is insane" he ignored their looks of wonder and carried on with his speech, and yelled at the top of his lungs;
"BECAUSE I AM AINU AND I AM FREE!"
"THAT'S WHAT YOU THINK!" the irrated man yelled before raising his whip high above his head and bringing it down on HoroHoro, but HoroHoro ducked down and swung his leg out, kicking the guy down onto his butt, before leaping over his huge mass and heading for the door. But the first crony blocked his view.
He jumped up high and kicked out at the first crony, knocking him down and out. The second, jumped into his path only to be caught by the wrist and flipped over to the other side of the room. But the third managed to dodge his attack and get a punch into HoroHoro's stomach. HoroHoro ignored the searing pain and grabbed the cronies shoulders in a firm grip, he then jumped high into the air and flipped over him landing hard in the fourths face, then he pulled the third crony down by his shoulders, cracking the cronies head on the cement floor.
The fifth crony however was watching all this and decided to be prepared to battle heavily. He pulled out a knife from his pants pocket and waited for the attack, HoroHoro was about to pull.
HoroHoro didn't even pause after he finished with the fourth and third cronies. He jumped back up and took a running jump at the final crony, flying down towards…towards…a knife!
The knife scraped a deep gash in HoroHoro's left thigh. It was deep, but nothing serious. Still HoroHoro didn't expect it and was thrown off guard as well as off balance. He was then pinned to the floor by the fifth crony. He was caught and would most probably suffer for this act now.
"Well, that was uncalled for now wasn't it?" the fifth crony said breathlessly in HoroHoro's ear, as he struggled to hold the wriggling Ainu.
"Coward! You used a weapon." HoroHoro yelled out, wriggling even more, as the fifth managed to put shackles on HoroHoro's wrists and ankles.
"All's fair when fighting for your life mate. And in case you hadn't noticed, I don't want to die." The crony said tossing the Ainu back into the cell. HoroHoro fell over losing his footing when he tried to balance himself but getting stopped short due to the shackles that now held him in a stubborn grip.
"You'll learn to obey orders soon enough boy." The crony laughed maniacally, but HoroHoro had secretly found his footing again. He jumped up surprising the crony and flipped over his broad shoulders, but his chain accidentally caught in the cronies chin.
It slid down to his neck strangling him as HoroHoro's weight pulled him down and the chain tighter around the crony's neck. The crony's neck snapped from being pulled back at such an angle, killing him instantly.
HoroHoro heard the snapping sound and turned around to see what had happened only to come face to face with a dead body. It's head askew in an odd angle. Bone poking through the flesh in the side of the neck.
He watched paralysed as the seeping blood took him back to when he was at the camp the last time. He relived himself killing innocent children, fighting for the same reasons he was; his sibling's safety. He watched the blood spurt out of the sliced throat of a boy no older than he was at the time.
Another memory was of a small girl, barely managing to hold her sword up. He'd watched her struggle with the sword then give up. HoroHoro had knelt down to the girl, held her in a hug, and asked her where her family was. She had said that they were all dead. He had told her not to be afraid and that she'd be with her family soon. She had hugged him tighter and thanked him, right before he had plunged his sword deep into her chest, straight through her heart. He watched again as her body fell limp against him, and he'd cried for her and every other innocent child he'd slain.
He was roughly pulled put of his flash back by 3 pairs of hands. He complied with no further argument, as they marched him down several corridors, and into another smaller, darker cell. His shackles were locked to a ring in the wall pulling his arms high above his head in an achingly position. Then they left him alone, in the cold room, pondering his fate and reliving horrid, suppressed memories of his past.
A single silent tear traced it's way down his cheek, longing for freedom, but never reaching its goal as it soaked into his shirt; dying a slow, degrading and unnoticed death.
A/N so what happens next? Will HoroHoro kill again? Or will he refuse, and save another's life by ending his own? Find out next time in "The First Fight"