Here

Summary: Dark alternate universe; post-series. What the world might be like if Yoh had stayed dead.

Author's Note: Been a while since I updated. I hope you'll forgive me, for all that this was only ever an experiment, and intended to stay a curious little one-shot. But it occurred to me, and I couldn't help but write this next segment.

The chapters are not chapters, but disjointed segments of them, for I am far too lazy to write large chunky chapters at once. Once the fic is complete, I may go back and sort them all into proper documents, but for now, prepare yourself for a mess of Chapter 1: Part I, Part II, Part III, etc.

Also, 'Here' is a working title. I had a better one, but it vanished into dreams when I woke.

Experimenting with a new writing style. What do you think?


Chapter One

Six days passed in numbness, without count or understanding, and a routine that touched upon mechanical. Each day she would wake to the silence of the house, realize that the whispers of the ghosts were only slight shimmers at the edges of her vision, and wander downstairs in search of something to occupy her thoughts.

It was difficult not to remember him; his brutal smile and careless arrogance, as if he ruled her actions. As if he'd thought he'd won, and that was an intolerable thing – the idea that she might have lost to the boy who had stolen away her Yoh and called it not theft but the restoration of a lost piece to complete the puzzle.

Anna hated smugness, buoyancy. There was no such thing as the best if you were not alone on the planet, though evidently he did not think so.

The garden was an inadvertent entity, an event that had ensnared her mind as she had passed its seeds in the form of a free sampling envelope shoved through the slot in the door, and had dragged the rest of her down when she had gone to free herself from its grasp. She had never grown plants as a matter of pride, but then, she had never lived in a world bare of spirits, where the only sound in the house was the creak of her own feet, up and down the steps in constant monotony.

There were first times for everything, and it was a better first time than most when she went down into the stiff, tiny plot at the back of the house, knelt awkwardly and began to comb the dirt out into furrows. The sun had tossed only a few light rays over the horizon when she had come out of the house, but by the time she had arranged the channels to her liking (this had taken several hours, debating how to organize the seeds and where to plant them), the heat had swelled into a force like the heart of a flame.

The seeds were placed neatly in the hollows, the soil pressed carefully over them (a mother embracing a child) and she spent the rest of the morning methodically pulling out the weeds that had grown in the backlot. She had never noticed before the collection of wilderness that had assembled like an invading army in her backyard – had taken the little, scrawny lot for granted, and never looking after its upkeep. But she did now, and though she drew out the clinging plants, ignoring the stinging of nettles against her fingers, it occurred to her that the battle might wage on into eternity. They had the backlot now, and they would not give it up as easily as that – the war might be futile, her hopes useless.

Her fingers scraped against the earth, and the arid crumbs fell away from her hands as she brushed them absentmindedly against her skirts, pulling the last weed from the plot with a determined tug. Something blurry shone at the corners of her eyes. Touching the edges, she felt the dampness and wondered vaguely if it was raining.

She turned her back on the garden then. Head bent, eyes blank, she went back into the house, shutting the screen door with a sharp clack.

-

On the seventh day, she woke to the sound of wood, shouting in muffled bursts against the assault of fists outside it.

That she could hear muffled curses behind the solidity of the wood did not encourage her to answer the door, but something like familiarity and intuition prompted her, and she bent her fingers over the cold metal of the knob and twisted it open.

The boy standing outside had not changed, though when she had thought of him, she had been certain that he would have. Nothing could stay, after all, in a world that sketched life for all to see in a brief moment before carefully marking all traces of it away. But he did not seem to have changed; the same gleam to his eyes, the same set to his shoulders, taut and angry – a predator belabored with movement.

"Where the hell have you been." It was not a question, and neither was the abrupt, quick movement he made as he strode past her into the house. In the gloom of the dusty shadows his eyes seemed to cast light snapping with flames against the walls, a conflagration kept barely under control.

"Where do you think I've been?" Her voice was not nettled, but vacant of annoyance - without menace or hatred or anything save a slight twinge: I washed those floors. It should not have been me washing them, but someone else, and now that he's walking over them, I shall have to do them again. When he did not reply, she said, simply, "Here, of course."

"Stupid." He turned and snarled at her openly. "Of course I've known that."

"Now, Ren." A shadow echoed over the threshold, and she swiveled, sharp with instinct, to see Faust leaning against the doorway, smiling wanly. "He's not feeling very well." The doctor explained courteously to Anna, inclining his head in a curt bob of civility.

"Kisama." The boy growled. "Anna's not a fool, though she's acting like one. She knew that already."

"Of course." Her tone was distinctly noncommittal. "Why else would you tread your dirty feet across my floors, and not consider the fact that I would have you wash them afterwards?"

His lips drew back in the silent beginnings of a scowl before he appeared to think better of it, settled his teeth behind his mouth again in a gritty, speaking look. "Your floors," he said, speaking in staccato clips of syllables, "are the least of your worries right now." His eyes narrowed as he glanced over the house, golden eyes appearing to take note of something that she could not see in the shadowy ceilings, the walls that seemed as fragile as paper. "Has Hao been to visit you yet?"

She hesitated a moment, but a moment was all Faust needed.

"Ren." The man said softly, and after a moment, the violet-haired shaman's glowering subsided into his usual dark stare.

"So he's been here." Ren snorted, kicking at one of the walls as he spun his spear in one hand, staring moodily at its whirling gleam as if he thought that he might divine the future's secrets there. (Anna made a mental note to have him clean the walls, too, when the visit was over) "I should have guessed. You should have guessed." His gaze swung accusingly towards Faust. "We could have gone to one of the others, rather than coming here."

"I had thought that Anna would need us." The shaman said gently.

The Chinese boy put his shoulders back and sneered again. "We're not going everywhere to heal people, Faust." He snapped. "We're going to find the people who can still stand with us against damned Hao."

"You mean you yourself cannot?" Anna inquired, and he turned upon her, his teeth drawn out in fury, the spear snapped out as if he thought he might impale her with it.

"I assume Hao stole your furyoku too." Faust said, his voice carrying over Ren's low and baleful mutters. She looked at him; his eyes were smudged around with black as if he had touched soot to his eyes – or as if he had not slept in years. "I have studied the matter; it does not appear to be something that will last for longer than a few weeks. But Ren—"

"Does not plan to let a kisama rule the world for more time than he needs." The boy barked. "We're going to find everyone now, and we're going to gather them before Hao can get to them."

"If Hao can't find them," The doctor reminded Ren gently, "he will go on looking for them, which does not suit the purpose."

Ren made a low, rough chuckle. His mouth slid from its snarl to curve in deliberate malice. "He can find them," he told Faust, "and be welcome to them if he can get past the pointed end of every weapon I have with me."

"He must have done that already," Anna pointed out calmly, "if you don't have furyoku now." She returned his glare with perfect equanimity, her gaze not reflective but dull, the shine of it worn away in fatigue. "Do you want to kill Hao or yourself?"

"I'd like to kill you." Ren snapped, but abated.

"That," said the itako, "will have to wait. If you can kill Hao and you still want to kill me, you may; provided I see his death first."

The boy glanced away then, and made mutters about how he didn't truly think her to be worth killing – that she was safe, but Hao was not.

Faust, however, raised his head and his brows to glance at her. His watered blue eyes were shot with crimson lines that made it difficult to match his gaze, and so she did not. "Then you are coming?" The words were not so much a query as a test – but of what, she did not know.

She pulled in a breath, stared at the empty ceiling, thought of the sounds of ghosts and weeds underground, twining about the seeds that she had planted to choke the life from them before they had begun to grow, and said, simply, "Yes."

.to be continued.


Review Replies:

Thank you, as always, for the encouragement.

Chibi-Ra-Chan: No Hao yet. :) I anticipate seeing him soon, however; if only because he rules the world at the moment. Literally.

asn water: And in this segment you see the beginning of what Hao did to the others. –grins-

Isiri: Thank you. –smiles- Probably this is not what you anticipated in seeing Anna without furyoku, but I had to take into account Yoh's death, though it wasn't given any mention – I was trying for subtlety. You think it worked? Feel free to ask questions; it usually gives me ideas. –guilt at leeching off of reviewers-

Xbakiyalo: Well, not soon, but still – better two months late than never, right?

neoKOS-MOS: I was going to write her some sappy birthdayfic about Yoh attempting to make a cake and causing small explosions by falling asleep in the middle of making one, but then I realized that I'd already tried Winryfic that was far too similar in concept to it, so that was scrapped.

What can I say, I am far too fond of figurative language for my own good.

Unfortunately, the state's transient – although I'm looking forward, myself, to seeing the main characters decimated. Ah the wonders of fanfic…

It's about to become my favorite fic-in-progress (-guilt-) so I expect a fair amount of updates for this one.