A.C.: Today's full of updates, happy?
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Pain...
Then nothing...
Horohoro slurped his milkshake loudly as they all sat around a small restaurant trying to find a way to get Ren back. Well, almost all of them. Anna and Yoh had refused to show up, Tamao informed them nervously.
"In his words... 'A traitor not worth getting back' ..." the effect was instantaneous, Horohoro spat out his milkshake on to the face of Manta who in turn dropped the hamburger he had nibbling on moments before. Ryu knocked a cup of water off from the table and Faust looked rather calm about all this.
After much confusion and everyone calmed down very much intact and clean Horohoro said quietly,
"We should get him back." Manta looked hysteric wringing the paper towel in his hands.
"But we don't even no where he is, we don't even know what happened that night, how will we do it without Yoh!"
"He has a point... but we do know where he is..." said Faust slowly fingering the fries before pushing them away. Everyone looked up. "Well we don't..." Faust looked around, the bags under his eyes distinctive against the pallor of his skin. "But I know who does..."
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The mission was simple, Tamao would distract the household, Manta goes as an additional distraction while Horohoro and Ryu would try to sneak into Ren's room. Faust would be on a stand by outside and out of view. Pirika was out shopping and wouldn't be back till later.
The blue haired shaman crept along the halls, his socked toes hovering above the wooden flooring as Ryu pasted himself on the wall when a crashing sound from the kitchen came.
They opened the door to Ren's room feeling a vague sense of dejavu and the fact that the Chinese shaman might come bursting out of the closet trying to shred them to bits. But Ren was gone now, and they were here to find out where and why.
Faust had suggested they look for Bason, if anyone knew where Ren was, it would be the ghost of the Chinese general. Needless to say everyone agreed.
Another crash, Manta, or perhaps Tamao was dropping one too many dishes on the floor. They could almost hear the curt voice of Anna drifting towards them.
The room was inhumanely clean or rather empty, not even a speck of dust in the purple haired shaman's absence. Quickly, Horohoro and Ryu shifted around Ren's belongings looking for clues or rather Bason's memorial tablet.
They worked in silence, every now and then muttering random words.
The whole day went by and they met again all at the same restaurant, in the same seats, ordering the same things.
Ryu drank a cup of water,
"I'm telling you there's something weird going on." Ryu pulled out a mirror examining himself in it. "If Ren wanted to disappear, or he got captured, why would he come back? Furthermore..." Ryu slumped on the mattress covered only by the thinnest of sheets. "who would capture him? Who needs him that badly?" a crash, Horohoro had dropped a clock.
Ryu looked up and saw the ghastly whiteness spreading across the ice shaman's face.
"H... Hao..."
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"So it's true then," they had gathered in a cemetery, they were less likely to be disturbed there. "Asakura Hao is indeed alive." Horohoro looked hysterical at the confirmation.
"If you knew why didn't you tell us!" Ryu held him back, Tamao was still at Anna's and Manta was trying to see Yoh.
Pirika wandered off a bit noticing the depressing aura surrounding her big brother and the others.
Faust lowered his eyes.
"I had always suspected, we all did in some ways... Asakura Hao is too powerful to be defeated like that." Horohoro stopped but emotions threatened to break out behind his eyes. "Hao has always wanted Ren believe it or not."
"But why?" Horohoro's voice was no more than a whisper, they all had to strain their ears to catch it. Pirika had come back carrying something.
"Ever thought..." started Faust looking up at the sky, "that Hao is only trying to gain back everything that he's lost in the past?"