(A/N: Man, castrating this chapter is going to eliminate some of the coolest stuff in the early parts in the fic… sniff, sniff I'll manage… No blood & gore sucks…
I don't own anything here, and not even the big monster. Though I do own a 3" replica, I have no copyright over the pieces I made it with.)
Chapter 2: Creeping Scouts
Yoh, Morty, and Tamara stand outside the door to the indoor segment of the spa, all three wearing the same white bathrobe (Manta's robe being a trimmed-down one so he doesn't trip over it), getting ready to take a bath as Anna had previously instructed.
Taking the first turn, Tamara meekly enters into the steaming spa room.
Anna shuts the door after Tamara enters in, and then glares down at Morty. "Hey, half-pint, go get my cell phone! I need to make a call to the doctor on what to do next."
After recovering from a frozen state due to Anna's killer stare, Morty backs away slowly and around the corner, not wanting to give Anna any fodder to yell at him about. Morty disappears around the corner.
Yoh glances back to see that Morty has gone around the corner, and then returns his stare to Anna. "Okay now we can talk. So what's really going on here? It's too early in the week for your 'Shaman King's Hygiene' lecture, " Yoh comments.
Anna shoots a piercing stare at Yoh. "Is it too much to ask that I require you to keep clean? You were just outside, playing in the rain of a typhoon, and you could've caught a cold. Now I want you to take a hot bath. It's only a logical fever-reduction treatment," Anna explains.
Yoh only grins back at her with his signature goofy grin. "Anna, you can tell me. What's really going on?" Yoh asks. "Everybody knows enough about a fever without having to call a doctor to know what to do…"
Anna lowers her head and sighs. "I want you to know…" she begins meekly. She then tilts her head around to shoot Yoh a fatal glare. "I want you to know that playing out in a rainstorm this powerful is a stupid idea!" Anna shouts.
Almost blasted away by Anna's shouting, Yoh backs away a few steps in recoil.
The two remain in this position, with Anna snarling at Yoh, and Yoh trying to back away, where they remain in a frozen silence, until...
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" a girl's voice screams from inside the spa room.
Yoh stares at the closed door in concern. "That was Tammy's scream!" he says as he strikes a defensive posture, half-expecting something monstrous to pop right out of the door. He grabs his sword, which he leaned against the wall as a safety precaution, and unsheathes it quickly.
Anna stares at Yoh. "You doofus, put that away! You carry that thing all the time, and use it for everything, like just this morning, when you used it to cut your bagel!" She stares back at the door, showing the slightest hint of concern as to what made Tamara scream. "I'm gonna' get rid of whatever that thing is that spooked Tamara here and now. And don't you dare try to follow me…" Anna declares as she takes her prayer beads into her hands and walks into the spa room. She shuts the door forcefully after entering.
Yoh holds his sword tightly in his hands, ready to spring into action. "Amidamaru," he calls.
Amidamaru suddenly appears beside Yoh. "Master Yoh, something is indeed in there. I can sense it. Why do you not go in to assist Anna?"
Yoh bites his lip. "What! Do you honestly think that I'm going to go against Anna's instructions?" he responds uncomfortably.
Amidamaru is perplexed. "It wouldn't have been the first time…" he says.
"I know," Yoh responds as he stares at the wall on the other side of the hall, where several hooks hold up several bathrobes of similar color scheme.
Anna walks through the humid room with her prayer beads held out. She occasionally shakes them to attempt to track any spirits hiding in the thick steam. She looks around the room nervously, as if she can feel something that is neither a ghost, nor visible to the human eye. "Ponchi, Konchi, did you two learn a new trick?" Anna questions, sounding confident that nothing threatening was in the steam. Her prayer beads shake themselves towards the right, and Anna shoots a glance in that direction. Though unable to see anything, she can spot 'cuts' in the fog as something is apparently moving through it very quickly. Something huge…
Anna continues walking through the steam, towards the direction of the movement. Having come to where the source of the moving came from, she can feel something on the ground at her feet. She stoops down on one knee to try and find whatever was on the ground. As her eyes adjust to being able to see through the dense humidity, she can make out the object, and gasps.
Tamara lays facedown on the stone floor. She appears to have fainted at the sight of something that startled her.
Thinking quickly, Anna turns Tamara on her back so that she faces up and then pats her lightly on the cheeks to attempt to resuscitate her. "Tamara, what happened here?" Anna grills her. After getting no response, she then strikes Tamara across the cheeks in what would be more Anna-like of a cheek-slap. Tamara does not come to. Building frustration, Anna raises her right hand high into the air and then slaps her across the face with an even stronger follow through.
Tamara finally regains consciousness, but struggles to keep her eyes open. "It's here… it's here…" she whispers under her breath.
Anna looks up frantically to see the 'cuts' in the fog moving in a direction that closes in on her position. "Yeah, yeah, it's here, I could've figured that part out by myself. What's here is what I want to know. Did you see anything?"
"It's here!" Tamara squeaks. She nearly faints again, but Anna strikes her on the cheek once more for good measure. "Ow! …I… I don't know… it-it-it all happened so fast… I just blacked out, and that's all I remember…" Tamara squeaks softly. "…Miss Anna… please make the big animal go away…" she cries weakly.
"That's Mrs. Asakura to you!" Anna shouts at Tamara. She then glares up, her eyes fixed on where she thinks the attacker is by which way the steam moves. She hears a light clicking, similar to the noise made when horse hooves trot on concrete, but softer. She continues staring straight ahead, but the steam suddenly stops moving, like whatever was moving in there had stopped. As far as Anna could tell, the thing stopped right in front of her, though she still could not see it. She can barely distinguish between the flow of air in the room and the exhaling of this invisible creature in front of her. The feeling of the moving air on her neck becomes slightly more noticeable, as the beast apparently approaches closer.
"Celestial Slash!" a voice declares loudly. A flying red sword slash moves through the air and makes impact with the creature that approaches Anna, and the creature hisses and snarls.
Immediately after impact, the creature flickers in visibility, then disappears again. It apparently slams into a wooden pillar.
Anna takes her glare off the monster and looks behind her, where the red slash originated. "Yoh! What are you doing in here! Didn't I tell you to stay out!" Anna shouts.
Yoh walks through the fog. "Is that the thanks I get for rescuing you?" Yoh remarks. His silhouette comes into more detail as Yoh approaches. Yoh had taken a black sash from one of the robes outside the room and tied it over his eyes like a blindfold. He holds up his sword, sporting full Spirit Control as he grins widely. "I can't see you from behind this blindfold anyway, if that's what you're worried about," Yoh adds.
Anna frowns. "You're just lucky I'm preoccupied right now, or I'd beat some sense into you right here and now for disobeying a direct order," she says with an ominous calmness.
"Master Yoh! Master Yoh!" a voice says. "Master Yoh, my apologies, but I lost track of the beast," Amidamaru continues.
Yoh turns his head around the room pointlessly, forgetting that he had a blindfold on. He turns his nose up at the air and takes a whiff of the humid air. "Whoo-weee, what's that smell!" Yoh complains as he places a hand over his nose. Suddenly, he is sent hurtling across the room and crashes into a wooden pillar. Yoh's Spirit Control breaks as Amidamaru appears beside him.
"Master Yoh, be careful!" Amidamaru warns. "This creature is too silent to track with auditory means, it is invisible in body, and by the time you can feel it, it's too late. Do you have any ideas?"
Yoh gets up off the ground, and then channels Amidamaru back into Harusame with his free hand. "Well as far as I can tell, its breath smells worse than my gym socks, so that's a start," Yoh notes. "If you see anything suspicious, let me know," he adds.
Amidamaru's face appears on the furiyoku-enhanced scabbard of the sword Yoh holds. He opens his eyes and glances around the steam-filled room. "There is too much steam in this room, and the fact that the assailant is invisible really doesn't help the situation either…" Amidamaru states.
Anna carries Tamao off the ground and throws her arm around Tamao's shoulder to try to get her to walk. She continues to stare at Yoh and Amidamaru as they stand in place, looking for the creature in whatever means they can.
Tamara is only barely conscious at this point. "I'm scared… It's gonna' get us… There's nothing we can do to it if we can't even see it…" she drones on, still dazed from having fainted.
"Oh, grow up! It's only a wind sprite! It may be a bit on the big and muscular side, but it's still only a sprite," Anna yells at Tamao.
Tamara smiles as she begins to fall unconscious again. "Thanks Miss Anna, I could really go for a Sprite right about now myself," she drones on drowsily.
Anna anime-sighs deeply. "Why me?" she says to herself.
"Master Yoh, can you sense anything?" Amidamaru asks.
Yoh nods his head back and forth. "Nope. You?" he responds.
"I can see nothing," Amidamaru states.
Yoh snaps his fingers in frustration. "Aw man, that thing's probably long gone! We probably already knocked it down and then it started running scared like a… AAA!" Yoh falls on his back and is being dragged by his bare ankle towards the center of the room.
The creature finally comes to visibility. It has the appearance of a twelve-foot tall praying mantis-like creature. All but the most obvious details were a blur because the creature could move with such sophisticated reflexes. Two giant arms with curved claws come out of its shoulders and point up. Its middle legs are replaced by hand-like claws, one of these claws picks Yoh up by the ankle and lifts him into the air.
"Found it!" Yoh and Amidamaru both yell.
Anna carries a now unconscious Tamara out of the room, but stops as she sees Yoh being dragged by the now visible creature. She stares at the repulsive figure of the giant insect with a sneer. "Ooookay… that is the ugliest wind sprite I've ever seen…" she states as she carelessly tosses Tamara off her shoulders and takes hold of her prayer beads again.
The creature grabs Yoh by the torso and turns him right-side up. The creature holds Yoh over the now boiling water that would've been Tamara's bath water, but without the heater having been turned off, the water begins to boil.
Yoh tries to squirm out of the grip of the monster, but the creature overpowers him easily. He drops the sword to the ground and bobs his head to try and throw off his blindfold. The hot, steaming breath of the creature blows the blindfold off his head completely, allowing Yoh to stare up at the creature that is ready to dump him into the boiling tub. He attempts to weasel his head away from the creature's noxious breath. "Whoa, you are soooo smelly…" Yoh comments, nearly fainting from the stench of the creature's breath.
The creature rears back its scythe-like arms, ready to slam Yoh into the boiling water in an instant, but as it rears its claws just a little further back a blue necklace lassoes around the two claws and holds them back.
With inhuman strength, Anna holds onto the other end of her prayer bead necklace, pulling with all her body weight. With a sharp jerk, the creature loses its balance and falls backwards. The creature's grip immediately weakens and Yoh drops to the ground in front of it.
Anna leans over the stunned creature's face and wraps her prayer beads around its neck a couple of times. The creature hisses back at her as it slowly comes to. Anna stares into its primal, bloodthirsty eyes with unbelievable courage and sneers at it. "Listen up, you freak of nature! You don't get to lay a finger on Yoh, because punishing him is my job!" she insists. With her added leverage and volatile temperament, Anna violently kicks the creature in the jaw with her wooden sandal and its head snaps back. The creature's rapid motions and frantic squirming stop as it falls unconscious.
Yoh climbs to his feet and grins happily at Anna. "Hey Anna-chan, awesome kick!" Yoh comments.
Anna leers back at Yoh. "How could you let something so puny run amok?" she asks Yoh. "Oh and by the way…" she adds, then she whips Yoh in the face with a black sash, and then holds it up for Yoh to see. "It's not the blindfold that matters, but it's that you broke a direct order of mine!" she shouts as she throws the sash back at Yoh.
Yoh stares up at Anna in shock. "Er… well… yeah… I mean what would've happened if I didn't come in and distract the creature?" Yoh says in defense.
Anna glares back at Yoh with even more depth. "Nothing would've happened! I'm the one who knocked it out, and all you'd have to do is to dump it back in the forest where it belongs before it regains consciousness, so I don't think you deserve any medals for extraordinary combat," she says to Yoh.
Amidamaru appears at Yoh's side. "Mistress Anna has a point," he comments.
Yoh glances at Amidamaru. "Hey, whose side are you on anyway?" Yoh asks.
(A/N: AAGH! I can't take this! I'm perverting my own fanfiction for reviews! What low level of ignominy have I stooped to! Unconsciousness? Fainting? Boiling water? Please, you all know what that bug was going to do to Yoh… I had to practically rewrite the chapter just to screw it up enough so that more people will read it.
I beg of you that you not ask me to continue this horror of a fic in this way. If you want to see the rest of the fic, ask for it sent to you via email, where no one else can flame it.)