Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
Who am I?
I am Hao Asakura.
And today I shall end it. I shall finally kill my brother and his ragtag group of followers. For today is the long anticipated shaman fight between my brother… and me.
I have to admit, his furyoku had grown far beyond what I would expect from a person of his personality. But nevertheless, it is still but a fraction of the power being half of Hao Asakura had allowed him to access. If only he had worked slightly harder, Yoh Asakura could have tapped into a much greater amount of the 1250000 furyoku that half of Hao Asakura contains. Still, no matter what, Yoh, my brother, is fighting a losing battle. Even if he had maxed out his furyoku, still my own fighters would demolish his followers facing my team in combat, and in the meantime using my own experience and equal power I would defeat him, perhaps not easily, but decisively.
I had hoped that my constant encouragement throughout his journey; even handing him the Tome of the Shaman and subtly teaching him the power of the double medium, would have caused him to lose his lazy personality and work him into a powerful shaman rivaling myself, but evidently my efforts have been in vain.
As it is, with his current powers, I would crush him in combat.
And it is not something I look forward to doing.
Killing him would be the same as killing half of myself. Even after I absorb his soul when his is defeated and reform my own, half of me would have long died. Yoh Asakura is not a separate consciousness, an independent entity. No, he is simply a part of my soul that was ripped away when twins formed within his mother's womb. He embodies the weak, lazy side of me, but he also completes me, so no matter how weak it causes me to become I would not want to lose part of myself. I would constantly feel as if a part of me was empty when the original soul is reformed, because that very part was dead.
But it is inevitable. For if I allow him to live this time he would become shaman king, and that would truly be something unacceptable.
Opacho calls for me. It is time.
ooo
My brother stared at me defiantly from across the battlefield, while his teams, seemingly spurred on by their leader's courage, stand tall, with focuses at the ready.
Why doesn't he realize it is futile?
If only he had joined me… there probably would have been no bloodshed today. I would allow his gang to live, for they were powerful shamans. At least, I would have allowed them to leave until they rebelled against me in the shaman kingdom I would create, which I could sense them doing eventually.
I hear Silva, that descendant of mine, announce the commencement of the fight, and I order both my teammates to attack. I think they should do the job nicely.
Calling on their oversouls, they both rush towards the Funbari Hotsprings Team, but that guy with the weird hairdo and the descendent of Faustus hold them with great effort. Meanwhile, I focus onto Yoh, who is staring right back at me, defiance shining in his eyes. He brings up his weapons and his spirit, and a second later I feel his furyoku pouring in his spirit, while it merges with the Harusame, which in turn merges with his smaller blade. Then, I see him standing upright, his blue spirit of sword pointed straight at me.
The amount of furyoku in the surrounding is immense, but it pales in comparison with what I wield.
I summon the spirit of fire and as I poured my furyoku into it, I can hear the crowd gasp as the furyoku levels go beyond what they have ever seen.
But I noticed that that brother of mine suddenly starts grinning. Has he gone mad with fear?
I look at his spirit of sword. Suddenly, I feel my brother's furyoku spike, almost as if a barrier holding back much of his strength had suddenly been broken. His well of furyoku increased until it nearly rivaled mine, but then it stopped abruptly. Before I knew it, he had poured all of it right into the spirit sword, and the sword elongated until it came to a stop right in front of my face. I stared at it in shock, before carefully rearranging my features back into the calm and detached mask I usually wore in the presence of people. Even as I stare at the sword I carefully calculate the furyoku of my greatest enemy.
1000000.
Very good for him, but not exactly outside my expectations, as he was half of Asakura Hao after all. This was where I would have put his furyoku at if he had not slacked off. And so he didn't.
But 250000 furyoku is still a big difference. Huge.
Over at the sides, I see my followers fighting to a standstill against his fighters. Obviously, his followers had discovered some new way to train as well.
I order the spirit of fire to attack Yoh. But as my spirit attacked he was merely pushed back, not crushed. Slowly, he begins to stand up. As he is struggling against the might of my spirit, I command the spirit to push back against him again, this time sending a hug fireball in his direction as well. My spirit, forced my brother to the ground after a great effort, and miraculously his sword's blade morphed and changed into a shield and held up against the fireball, saving him from a fiery doom. Of course, I wasn't about to let up, so this time I ordered my spirit to fire a continuous jet of fire at the shield. After a few moments of the constant barrage I sense the shield starting to falter.
Minutes later, when every other fighter, friend or foe, have been long defeated by the intense heat and power of the flames, I visibly see the shield start to quiver. But it held.
Several more minutes passed, and by this time I was impressed at my brother's resilience, for the spirit of fire was start to run out of power as well. No one as yet had managed to last till this time. Not even that "Iron Maiden".
But seconds later, the shield collapsed.
I laughed. My spirit of fire stood in front of my brother, leering down at him. This time I saw fear flashing in his eyes, the defiance lost. I turned away.
In the end, it was all the same. He was just as cowardly as every other person would. I had thought that he had transcended fear, but apparently he had not. I had thought that he was worthy of being spared, but obviously he was not. He must be destroyed, like all the rest.
All of a sudden, I hear a roar and turn around just in time to see a sword coming my way. Teleporting away, I appear right behind Tao Ren and proceed to kick him in the back, when suddenly a claw comes at my head. That Chocolove, I gather, but I simply dodged it. A wall of ice moved towards us, but I merely commanded the spirit of fire to knock out the spirit summoning it, and the wall instantly melted away, back to the water vapor it had once been. Meanwhile, I had the Tao on the ground, so I merely stomped hard, right down onto his spine. Surprisingly, no sound came.
Another battle cry, and as I turned I saw my brother, with the spirit of sword acting as a rocket, blasting at high speed towards me. Instantly, the spirit of fire appeared and took the blow for me. It also slapped everything in the immediate vicinity away, including the idiots who had tried to attack me.
The idiots stood up, and charged, again. In the distance, I see the Itako, Anna, grab the 1080 beads. Taking out two paper talismans, I burnt them, and the two shikigami that had appeared turned back upon their summoner.
I command the spirit of fire to sweep the idiots off, and before they even neared the wind created by the swing blasted them back, right into the barrier constructed by the ten priests.
Deciding that it was time to end it, I commanded the spirit of fire to destroy everything within the barrier, my fighters included. Teleporting away to avoid the deadly flames of my spirit as they appeared, I left the fighters a final message.
Burn.
ooo
The fight ended.
I see my brother's soul burning in agony even in death, and I decided to ease his suffering.
Absorbing his soul, merging it with my own, I feel myself become complete again, yet at the same time I feel strangely incomplete.
All of a sudden I felt a flash of something changing, and all of a sudden I became the Hao Asakura I was a thousand years ago. All of a sudden I felt my power flowing once again through my veins. All of a sudden, I felt part of my power melting away. All of a sudden, I fall to my knees and laugh.
For all of a sudden, I realize that I am powerless against death.
ooo