Author: well what do you know I managed to update early, hope you like the chapter if you do please REVIEW!
Chapter 10: Join Me
"What did Haru mean when he said that you've changed?" Anna asked Zahra curiously
"What? Oh well I suppose he meant that I was getting soft; when he was younger I wouldn't even have given him a count of one I would have just sent Leo after him and then see how far he would get.
Just then the front door opened again and Yoh and the other shaman walked in looking bewildered.
"Anna you're not going to believe what we just saw" Yoh began
"Yeah Haru was being chased by this Huge Lion!" Horo cut in waving his arms around frantically as he described what he had just seen.
As Horo was talking Zahra took in each of the shaman analysing the way they walked and how they spoke, trying to get an idea of their personalities. As she was doing this her mobile started beeping and everyone turned to look at her, Zahra blushed slightly and apologised and then pulled out her phone to answer the call.
"Yes its Zahra this better be good…. What do you mean he's quitting? He can't quit he still has to finish the investment, I'll be there as soon as I can." Zahra finished speaking and put the mobile back in her bag and then turned to face the rest of the group.
"I'm sorry I have to go now something's come up" Zahra turned to Anna and continued speaking "Thank you for inviting me, it was good to see Haru again, if he ever gets out of hand just give me a call" As Zahra finished speaking she collected her briefcase and left the house at a quick jog.
"Who exactly was that?" Ren addressed his question to Jun
"Her name is Zahra she's Haru's sister"
At this statement the whole group turned round to watch the tall figure disappear around a corner. Then they started muttering to themselves
"That's the evil older sister?"
"She doesn't seem any worse than Anna"
"She sounded more polite though"
"I wonder why Haru thought so badly of her"
At this statement Pilika cut in, "Well if you remember back about five minutes I think you were telling us you saw a Lion" The group of Shamans nodded at this but still looked confused.
Pilika sighed and realised that she would have to spell things out for them, "How often do you see a Lion in Japan?" she asked them. The shaman though about this for a while before they replied that you never see a Lion in Japan.
"Then where do you think this one came from?" Pilika asked trying to get them to come to the conclusion themselves. Still there was silence and eventually Anna snapped.
"Oh for god's sake Yoh use your brain! You were telling me yesterday that Haru said his sister use to have a Lion chase him and now when both Haru's sister and a Lion show up you have no idea! You had better win the shaman tournament because if you don't you'll be too stupid to do anything else! As of tomorrow Yoh you will wear the weighted shoes and armbands all day and I'm increasing the weight of each armband and shoe to 20kg"
"But Anna that means I'll be carrying 80kg! Yoh cried out in shock at the amount of work he was going to be forced to do.
"Well get used to the idea! Did you know that Haru's coat weighs over 100kg and your going to have to face him sooner or later in the tournament so your going to start working to beat him right now!"
As Anna continued to bark orders to Yoh the others decided that they should try and get away very quietly before Anna noticed them as well
Haru kept running, he didn't know how far or how long he had been running but all that mattered was that he stayed ahead of that damned pet his sister kept. Haru eventually saw that he was coming up to the main part of town. He decided that it was probably a good thing that it was about midnight because he was sure that regular people weren't use to seeing Lions run down a main street after a teenager.
Haru took a quick glance behind and noticed that Lion had disappeared. He stopped running and turned around fully making sure that he was right.
"Where the hell did it go? There's no way it would give up on me so easily"
"Master…" Zhou began staring behind Haru his eyes widening
"Not now Zhou I'm looking for my sisters stupid pet"
"Master I really think that you should…"
"Zhou what part of 'not now' did you not understand…" Haru stopped speaking as he felt warm breath on the back of his neck. Haru didn't even turn round, he just sprinted down a side road to his left leaving behind a confused Lion that blinked for a few seconds before realising that it's prey had gotten away, it roared and charged down same side road after Haru
Haru was now running through the back alleys of town and the Lion was hot on his tail, Haru was tired now, he wasn't sure how far he'd run but it was definitely more than 10 miles.
"Hey over here!"
Haru looked up and saw Yoh waving at him from a side alley, without a moment hesitation Haru dived in after Yoh as the Lion went charging past him.
Haru just lay on the ground for a few seconds trying to catch his breath and then got back on his feet. He turned round to thank Yoh, then he realised that the figure in front of him was not the person he had come to know over the past few days. Although he looked identical to Yoh the stranger was wearing a grey poncho and brown trousers, he also had a dark aura surrounding him, which was far stronger than Yoh could ever hope have.
"Your not Yoh" Haru told the figure
The brown haired boy in front of him laughed, "How perceptive of you, no I am not Yoh, my name is Hao, I suppose you could say I'm a relative of Yoh."
"Let me guess you're the clichéd evil twin" Haru asked darkly
Hao smiled as he heard this, "Yes I suppose I am something like that"
"What do you want?" said Haru with an edge to his voice
"What makes you think I want something from you?" countered Hao
"I really doubt that you came here just to talk" Haru replied keeping the edge to voice
Hao smiled again at this statement before responding, "Very well, I do require something from you, I want you to join me and my followers so that I may become shaman king in the tournament"
"And I would want to do this because…." Haru let the words hang in the air
"I can give you more power than you can ever dream of" responded Hao
"I already have power, besides I was planning on winning the shaman tournament my self, I don't see why I should help the competition" this said Haru turned and started to walk back out of the alleyway but before he had gone five paces was stopped by a towering wall of fire.
"I'm afraid I can't take no for an answer" Hao told the black haired shaman casually
Haru turned and stared at the Yoh look-alike in front of him, he was starting to get annoyed. "Drop the fire wall"
"Make me" Hao replied with a smirk. Haru took six paces and then stood right in front Hao and grasped the collar area of Hao's poncho and lifted him off the ground. Hao didn't struggle, he just laughed and the two of them vanished in a burst of flame.
Mia was having the best time of her life; the shopping mall in the town was better than she could have dreamed possible, it had virtually every clothes shop known to man/woman. Not only that it had her favourite fast food places and it had a cinema, Mia was in heaven. She'd visited five of the shops and had bought as many clothes as she could afford, the problem now was she hardly had any money left and was looking for something to eat but most of the stuff was too expensive.
Mia stooped walking suddenly as she noticed one of the huge shops was having a special closing down sale the poster on top of it read "80 OFF ALL ITEMS! EVERYTHING MUST GO!" The place was full of teenage girls all around Mia's age pushing and screaming as they tried to get the clothes they wanted. Without any hesitation Mia charged in, she'd had experience in these type of matters; the trick was to be as ruthless as possible, don't let anyone get in your way and don't let yourself get distracted.
Despite Mia's small size she managed to shove her way through to where the clothes were on display and grabbed whatever she could find; she could look at them later first she had to get them. Abruptly she reached for a low cut black short sleeve shirt that had a silver lighting bolt on the front, as she did so another pair of hands grabbed the shirt as well. Instinctively Mia started tugging on the shirt hoping to pull it out of the other girl's hands, but to no success. Mia glanced over to see who the hands belonged to and saw a girl that looked slightly younger she was. The girl had red hair which was done up into two pigtails and had earrings designed to look like skulls.
The two girls stopped struggling for a minute and glared at each other.
"Let go it's mine" Mia told the newcomer
"No it's not" replied the new girl
"Yes it is" Mia answered defiantly
"I don't see your name on it"
The two started struggling again for possession of the shirt and eventually the shirt ripped in half. Both girls stared at the shirt for a moment then at each and laughed.
Both girls managed to grab some clothes and then escape the shop without being trampled by the other customers.
They headed down towards the restaurants and fast food places and Mia started talking to the red head and learned that she was a shaman as well, she had just asked the red haired girl her name but before the girl could respond, two more girls came round the corner and started talking to the red head.
"Where has Macchi been?" asked a slim blond haired girl, she had a bored look in her eyes and was carrying some type of doll.
"Yeah Macchi where were you? I've been looking everywhere for you. Hao found what he wanted so we have to go meet up with him" The girl who said this was taller than the other two and had long blue hair that went down to her waist.
"Aww have we got to leave now Kanna? There are some really cool stores here besides we never get a chance to go shopping" Macchi asked the tall blue haired girl
"Are you arguing with me Macchi" Kanna asked the younger girl, as she said this Mia noticed a spirit that looked like a suit of armour hover above the blue haired girls head and look threateningly down at Macchi.
"You're a shaman" Mia blurted out loudly. Several turned towards Mia to see why she was making so much noise and the girl named Kanna scowled at her as if seeing her for the first time.
"Who are you?" Kanna asked while glaring at Mia
"Her names Mia" cut in Macchi hurriedly "we met in one the shops and I was sort of hoping that she could come with us" Macchi gave Kanna a pleading look
Kanna shook her head at this and replied, "No way Macchi, Hao's the one who picks who gets to join. Anyway I seriously doubt he'd be interested in her, I mean come on she's a weakling" Kanna pulled a cigarette out of her pocket and lit it, ignoring the glare she was getting from Mia
"I'm no weakling!" Mia shouted in outrage, "Come on! I'll take you on right here!"
Kanna shook her head at this and looked at Mia with a faintly amused expression on her face, "You got guts kid I'll give you that, all right you can follow us but Hao still has the final word and he's not the generous type"
Haru stumbled forward and then straighten up. Where the hell was he? A second ago he'd been in the middle of a town, now he appeared to be in some sort of grassy valley; there were no houses or buildings anywhere that he could see, the place seemed totally untouched by civilisation.
"This is an interesting trinket"
Haru turned round to see who had spoken and saw Hao a few feet away from him looking at something in his hands; it was a gold amulet on a silver chain, it was the kind of amulet where you split it in half and then give one half to someone you know, but this amulet had both halves reattached.
Haru looked down at his own neck quickly, his amulet was gone!
"Give that back" Haru growled quietly
Hao looked up apparently surprised "Oh have I made you angry?"
"Give it back" Haru repeated and grasped the hilt of his dragon blade.
"Are you going to fight me for it?" Hao said with a laugh, "All right then how about this then; if you beat me I'll give you your little trinket, but if I win you join me" As Hao said he tossed the amulet to a smaller figure Haru hadn't noticed. "Opacho will look after it while we fight and give it to the winner, now then do you agree to my terms?"
"No deal" Haru muttered quietly, "I'm just going to take you and your little friend out then take my amulet back. Hao frowned at this but didn't have a chance to reply because Haru chose that moment to attack with his green Aura Blade.
"Shadow Strike"
Hao sighed as he saw the arc of black light hurtle towards him and diverted it with a wave of his hand.
"I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that, especially if you want to beat me" as Hao finished speaking the ground between Hao and Haru rumbled and split open, a geyser of lava erupted from the fissure and the Spirit Of Fire (SOF) rose slowly from the opening. When it stopped Hao leapt nimbly onto it's shoulder and looked down at Haru, "Come on then what are you waiting for?"
Haru looked up at the giant spirit in front of him and sensed the amount of power it had, Shit he thought, he raised his head to look at Hao and said in what he hoped was an unimpressed voice, "You do know it's quality not size that counts"
"I think you find that I have both" Hao replied, he nodded his head and SOF left arm surged towards Haru, who swerved to his left and brought his blade down on the spirits arm. The blade bounced off without doing any damage.
"Okay this is not good, Zhou any advice would be welcome"
"Try using a different blade, you are fighting a spirit not a human"
Haru smiled and ran his left hand along the blade changing it from green to blue, Haru then gestured for Hao to attack again.
Hao looked quizzically at Haru for a moment, "I don't see why your getting so cocky, you haven't got a chance" The SOF right arm surged forward, Haru stood his ground this time and at the last second pivoted on his right foot so that the spirits arm crashed into the ground right next to him, he brought his weapon down with all his force and the blade cut cleanly through the SOF arm leaving it lying on the ground. Haru looked back Hao with a slight grin on his face, "You were saying…"
Hao looked mildly interested at this twist of invents, "Well done, even the X-laws would have a problem doing that however…" Hao snapped his fingers and the SOF arm reappeared in a burst of flame, "…you still haven't got a chance" Hao told him with a smirk
Haru scowled at this but was unable to reply because the SOF started attacking and he was forced to concentrate on evading its attacks.
"Any more bright ideas Zhou?"
"You can't beat the spirit it's too strong, go directly for the source of its power"
"You want me to attack the shaman? Wouldn't that be what you call dishonourable?" Haru answered with a tone of surprise
"You haven't got a choice right now, besides he doesn't look the honourable type"
"Well said Zhou" Haru looked up at Hao and realised he was too far away to attack, I'll just have to do something about then. Haru waited for the SOF to attack again and swerved to his right letting the spirits arm crash into the ground beside him again, this time though Haru jumped onto the spirits hand and started sprinting up it's arm towards Hao.
Hao looked slightly surprised at this course of action but made no attempt to stop Haru as he ran towards him. Just before Haru reached Hao the black haired shaman leapt into the air above Hao's head brought his sword crashing down in a diagonal slash; clearly attempting to slice his opponent in two.
Hao simply raised his arm and caught the blue blade single handed with no apparent effort. Haru's eyes widened in surprise, "Impossible"
"I think you'll find that the word impossible does not apply to me" Hao told the cold eyed shaman in front of him who was struggling to free his weapon from Hao's grasp. Hao chuckled to himself and raised his other hand and placed it on Haru's chest and summoned a fireball, which sent Haru flying through the air before he eventually landed on the ground creating a huge creator.
Hao jumped off the SOF shoulder and walked over to the still smoking creator. He cleared the smoke with a gesture of his hand and frowned as he saw that the creator contained only Haru's weighted training coat.
At that moment Hao felt a cold breeze blow past him and smiled. Hao quickly turned round to see Haru appear in front of him with a scowl on his face; his clothes and hair singed from the force of the fireball.
"You're still standing, that is impressive" Hao told Haru offering a smile
Haru's scowl grew deeper and he raised his left hand "Sphere!" A large black orb appeared around Hao and started pulsing with blue energy. Hao felt the energy coursing through him but it gave him no pain. He smirked at Haru and snapped his fingers, instantly the black orb shattered into a million pieces which slowly dissolved into nothing. "Not bad but I've seen better" Hao told Haru casually, he raised his right hand and summoned another fire ball, Haru narrowed his eyes and swerved to his left barley evading the hot molten mass.
Hao raised an eyebrow at this "So your faster without your coat, but how fast exactly?" Hao summoned another fireball, again Haru evaded it and then turned to face Hao, "I'm more than fast enough for you" he panted
Hao raised his other eyebrow at this and replied, "Really, you think so? We'll just have to test that then" Hao summoned another fireball but it was ten times larger than the others, abruptly it split into four more fireballs and those four split to make sixteen etc.etc. Until there were well over 60 fireballs facing Haru. Hao allowed himself a small smirk at the look on Haru's face, it was priceless. "I suggest that you start running" Hao advised the other shaman but Haru simply stood his ground and raised his sword. Hao shrugged "It's your funeral" and he launched all of his fireballs at once, Haru's arm moved in blur deflecting most of the molten orbs but there were too many and eventually he was thrown backwards by the force of the fireballs.
Hao smiled as he saw the shaman lying on the floor unconscious, he was about to order the SOF to pick him up when somehow Haru struggled to his feet and raised his sword again. Hao sighed, "Why don't you just give up? I've already told you you don't stand a chance. I've seen all your attacks before, they're not going to work against me so there's no point in you fighting, you've already lost"
When Haru heard this he laughed, "You think you've seen everything I can do? Your not even close, you may be stronger than me but that doesn't make you invincible…" Haru raised his sword and ran his hand over the blade again, this time it turned into a deep black blade with blue lightning running along the edge "…I've been working on a technique for someone just like you, it will destroy you"
Hao looked incredibly amused at this "You really think so? Well than lets see this new attack of yours, tell you what I won't even move" as Hao finished speaking he raised both his arms leaving himself completely defenceless.
Haru scowled and surged towards Hao his new blade raised, as he got within striking distance he yelled "OMNISLASH!" as he said those words Haru vanished and Hao blinked, "What the…" before Hao could finished his sentence seven copies of Haru appeared, surrounding Hao and they attacked as one; each of them swinging their blade and summoning a black arc of light that crackled with blue lighting, each of the attacks hit Hao creating a devastating explosion and a huge smoking crater, as the dust fell Haru suddenly reappeared behind where Hao had been, his face was pale and he gasping for breath, hestaggered forward and looked for Opacho, seeing him he slowly made his way over and held out his arm and at the same time panted "Give me my amulet"
"No" Opacho replied in a defiant tone
Haru scowled as he looked at the young child in front of him, if that last attack hadn't completely wiped him out he wouldn't even have asked, he would have just knocked the kid out and taken it back, but at the moment he was having enough trouble just standing up.
"You heard your master, he said that if I beat him you were to give me my amulet" Haru panted angrily.
Opacho laughed at this and then told Haru "Stranger is much mistaken if he believes that pitiful attack defeated master Hao"
"Quite right Opacho" said a sinister voice right behind Haru, before he could turn round he wasstruck in back and wassent flying through the airbefore crashing back down to earth. He got up slowly using his weapon for support; he was having problems breathing now, his breathing was raspy and came in short bursts, he started coughing and saw that he was coughing up blood, that meant that at least one of his ribs had pierced his lungs. Haru managed to turn round and saw Hao walking towards him with a frown on his face, there was a single scratch on his cheek which was bleeding freely, apart from that the boy seemed unharmed"You should learn to stay down" Hao told Haru darkly and he snapped his fingers. A large shadow appeared behind Haru and he looked up to see the SOF towering over him. The last thing Haru saw was it's giant fist hurtling towards him.
Author: well what do you think of myintroduction of Hao? You will be seeing a lot more of him now so if i'm doing something wrong tell me. also i'm thinking of adding some romance to the story so if there are any couples you really want to see tell me and i'll try and fit them in.
To my Reviewer(s)
Mikauzoran + Matt: Glad you liked the long chapter although i don't think any of my other chapters will be that long. Glad to hear your feeling better and any advice you can give me about writing romantic scenes would be welcome as you seem tohave a lot ecperience with that genre.