Well here I am again with a new chapter, this one'se set on the last few episodes of the anime so when Hao and Yoh fight I didn't have a good op to put in much of a description, bit dissappointed by that.

anyway the start of this chapter, well pretty much... Hilda needs more depth so yeah... and no this isn't the last chapter of my story I should have 2 to 3 left now depending on the size of each.

Dear Father,
I can only hope you actually opened this letter and didn't throw it in the trash after all I've done. I should start by tell you why it is I ran away at first I thought it was because no one took me seriously nor thought I was responsible and I was thinking so much back in the past and how things were I all but forgot it was in the past. I heard about this shaman fight and as irresponsible of an idea it was I decided to check out who was participating since the chance to get in it was over, and that's when I also decided to run away. I know you haven't been looking, I understand why. I wanted to write you to tell you weather you cared or not that I am alive, I'm not a hooker, I'm not on drugs after all that's all mom asked anyway… I should be back not too long from now from the looks of things, at least for a visit I'm still needed here, but when I do come home I can only hope you'll accept me.
-Hilda

Hilda quickly sealed the envelope and slipped off to mail it, she wasn't sure is she was more worried about what her father's response was or worried there wouldn't be a response at all. Either way she did plan to at least visit home after the shaman fight and face the music, she wouldn't bother her big sister Ana to come with her and protect her if her father went off on her, Ana had always helped her in the past and it was time she did something on her on without her help.

Hilda didn't bother her friends with such worries, her problems should stay her problems, sure she had helped the others and she knew she could count on them if she needed anything after all what are friends for, but she didn't feel right doing such a thing to them. She was always strong and dependable usually for them she wanted to stay that way. She was usually one of the toughest of the group as well but it all did come from her own experiences and things she never wanted to tell a soul.

Hilda was a fairly well behaved child, always did as she was told made good grade, any parent would be proud. Her manners and grades were really remarkable for a girl going through what she had been going through, no one knew this so no one expected her life to be how it was.

Her parents had the picket fence dream home; her dad had the high paying job, mother volunteered at the local church, for a lot of people on the outside looking in things seemed wonderful for the Wilkes family, they had what most people couldn't have. From the inside looking out however, things could have been a lot better.

"Ana, why does dad hit us?" at six years old Hilda would ask her sister this question

"Dad's not well, because him and mother are fighting, they're worried about losing the house because things cost a bit more because they have kids, he'll be fine tomorrow, he'll be happy again for a few days, why don't we work on your math to pass the time?" her older sister by 3 years answered.

Ana like her mother was very pretty, she had golden blonde hair and green eyes, she made all A's in school and would help out often in the nursery at the church their mother volunteered at, she also sang very well. Ana's burden was her responsibility to take care of Hilda. She knew all too well of their father's temper, there wasn't much their mother could do to help it either, the least she could do was help Hilda learn ways to ignore it and stay on his good side.

Often times the two would pass the time by studying, or reading when their father was mad, he would yell at their mother and she would yell back things would be broken and usually the fights lasted long into the nights the two girls would try their best to stay out of them but sometimes they would end up right in the middle. Since Hilda was so young she didn't know better about things she would often end up being hit and when Ana would come to get her away from it she would sometimes end up being a target as well for not watching Hilda.

The outside world didn't know of these things, all they saw out there was the picket fence and the big white house, brilliant children good income, the American dream family. Because no one ever saw anything but glowing perfection from the family no one would ever even begin to think of what happened behind closed doors.

And because no one asked, no one told, Hilda had been told by Ana every family was like this, it was just something no one told anyone. Ana knew that not every family was like that but Ana also knew there had to be a lot worse things out in the world.

Their parents weren't always fighting sometimes the family would go a few months without any problems, leading up to their mother's untimely death in a car accident things had gotten much better.

The town was filled with nothing but sympathetic feelings for the family, and grief of losing such a citizen as the girls mother really was, neighbors offered to baby sit and would bring cakes and such by, soon it all ended and they were left to do their own thing.

After their mother's death for a few years things were very good their dad hadn't gotten very mad or anything, things had settled down, Ana started learning to cook and clean and do typical house work when she was 12. Because of how things had changed Ana no longer volunteered at the nursery of the church she was too busy being like a mother to Hilda. Now the only time the two usually left the house was to go to school and to shop, otherwise they didn't have much free time to do some of the things they had done before, Ana didn't sing publicly like she used to, the two managed to keep their grades up.

Things were very good until Hilda was 14, their dad's company's stocks were starting to plummet and that was making his pay checks smaller and smaller, of course he didn't bother most people with this and it wasn't something he could tell his daughters, his only escape to his troubles was a bottle of beer.

Things got worse now, he started to get abusive again but he had gotten worse now than he used to be, the next two years were a living hell for the girls, it was all stopped by Ana one night she was seventeen and sick of it all.

"That is it, dad I'm calling the police, you can't keep treating us like this!" Ana screamed

"You aren't calling the police, you don't know what's out there in that world, I'm all you have left no of the other family members would take either of you!" their dad yelled back taking a grip of Ana's left wrist

"Don't think I won't father! You're running our lives, we try and try and nothing works for you, I am sick of seeing Hilda get beat, and getting beat we're both shamans grandmother taught us the basics and the basics would be enough to kick your ass 70 times over, no I don't have to call the police I can kill you right now!"

"But you won't because I'm your dad without me you wouldn't live; I own you and everything to do with you."

"You don't own me I'm seventeen I can move out now, the only reason why I'm still here is Hilda, it's my responsibility to make sure she's alright, I'm going to leave now but I'm going to make sure the rest of the family knows what's going on here and if you so much as lay a hand on Hilda I'll have them and the police on you!"

After that night their dad never did so much as lightly tap Hilda, he knew all too well he needed to stop, Ana would visit regularly and would ask Hilda if anything was going on, the answer was always the same, he had stopped completely but Hilda just started distancing herself more and more from him and since Ana had left Hilda stopped caring all tougher about how she did in school, she stopped making friends and started losing friends because of the way her attitude had gotten.

Most of the townsfolk could only see Hilda in a bad point of view, from what they knew her dad had given up a lot for her and Ana and she was being a brat who was only looking for attention and going through a phase. No one bothered to ask her for the real reason of why she was like that because she never bothered to talk to many people.

When she caught wind of the shaman fight she packed up a few belongings and left without a word, she was seventeen now and she could leave, she didn't know what she wanted to do in life but maybe finding out things about the shaman fight could help her figure out what she wanted to do, her intentions weren't to ever come back or ever get in touch with her father again, she did call Ana and tell her she was leaving but that was it.

Her father didn't send anyone to look for her; everyone in the town figured her being gone would be good for him.

Hilda's outlook on many things had changed since she left, she had made friends and had some good times, now for some strange reason she had a completely different out look on things, she wanted to tell her father she was sorry for acting in such a way even though it was probably only normal for her to act such a way, after all he was her father and no matter how bad of a person he had been even he deserved an explanation. Hilda didn't care about love she didn't want to get married, she had been on a few dates with Charger Chester before he died but it hadn't become anything serious.

When he did die and she heard Hao say something about his spirit she looked around until she found it, she wasn't very interested in having a relationship with him nor anyone but figured he would at least make a good partner.

Things weren't always peachy with the shaman fight and such matters but Hilda couldn't help but to let herself be happy with how things were.

"Since this cake will be worthless by the morning I'm going to take it home as long as it's cool with you." She said to her manager

"Sure."

She made her way back to the hotel, she couldn't be around her friends and not be in a good mood, today was Christine's birthday too, that weird person who had been writing her notes was supposed to show up, Hilda didn't want to miss that and she was pretty curious of what Blake had gotten Christine, the two always amused her when either blushed.

"So what did Blake get for Christine, that's what everyone's wondering." Hilda asked not too long after getting in "And this time I am staying up all night hopped up on caffeine, no doing anything this time!" she quickly added

"But we didn't do anything last time I swear!" Blake said

"Then you won't care about me and my caffeine." Hilda said laughing

"So anyway what'd you get her?" Remington asked

"This…" Blake said sliding a small box towards Christine, inching his body under the table

"Aww, that's so cute he got her a locket!" Hilda said

"Blake stop going under the table and hug your girlfriend!" Aaralyn laughed, lately the others liked to tell Blake to do such things because they all found it funny when either of the two blushed or acted in such a way.

"Ok well that's it for stuff, I managed to get a cake off the café, I wanted to grab one for Blake's birthday but this other idiot I work with claimed it and ran off before I could beat him up for it." Hilda said

"Wow Hilda you sure can…" Remington started to say something but stopped himself he figured life was still worth living.

"I sure can what?"

"You, you sure can get stuff huh?" he started to laugh nervously

"Yeah that's what you were going to say isn't it?"

"Christine, you're doing that spacey thing again…" Koncho said

"The what where?" Christine said confused

"That, that thing where you start staring off randomly then ask what I was talking about because you were too bust staring off to realize I was speaking." Koncho explained

"What?"

"Never mind."

"I know what could keep her attention." Blake said grinning a bit

"What's that?" Koncho asked

"Yeah, what could possibly help a hopeless case of A.D.D.? She has all the classic signs, god I love modern day medical books." Manny chirped

"Trying to throw ice down her shirt." Blake said

"There's no way you seriously think you'll be able to do that…" Christine said

"Yes way!" Blake threw a piece of ice at Christine but it only hit her shirt and then the floor

"See Blake, I'd need like double D boobs for something like that to work." Christine laughed a bit

"Christine's wrong." Hilda said

"No she's not." Christine started to back herself up until she hit the wall

"YES SHE IS!" Hilda said struggling to pull Christine's shirt back to stick a piece of ice in it, which she succeeded

"Hilda it fell into my bra!" at this Hilda and everyone besides Aaralyn couldn't help but laugh

"Maybe Blake should get it out." Charger said between laughs, at this Blake stopped laughing and he and Christine both started blushing, even Aaralyn had to laugh at that.

"That was perfect; man Blake the look on your face was priceless!" Remington said

"Well, now that the ice seems to be gone, that or I went numb from it… it's Hilda's turn." Christine said

"Hey Aaralyn's got to be in on this to." Hilda said, somehow the two managed to get Aaralyn to go along with it, Hilda had managed to get some beers out of the café along with the cake Remington didn't drink but about half a glass and Aaralyn only too a few sips but the two had a good eye view of things, they got to see everyone else drunk, and they would actually remember the embarrassing things the others would do.

The night was pretty fun then again since team Zeal won their fight things had really lightened up a bit, Blake and the others still trained but they did take more breaks, even Hilda seemed a bit more carefree. They could all get pretty used to this.

It was about 9 at night when there was a knock on the door

"Go away! There be sweaty fat drunk men in here!" Hilda yelled laughing a bit

"Hilda that could be that guy you know…" Blake laughed

"Who cares?" Christine started laughing

"You will when you're sober." Remington said opening the door

"You see this is why you mom should have given birth to you around the morning time, then you would have been 14 then, Stella really didn't have to make me go by the time the date was long enough, the things I do for the dead I swear." A man standing in the door frame said, he looked to be in his late 20s to early 30s, he had black hair that was fairly long and wore a long black coat, which along with his hair made his green eyes stand out.

Hilda started to snicker "So are you like, the stalker guy?"

"They're all a bit drunk…" Remington said

"Figured that, just can't leave teens these day alone with access to beer and not expect them to get drunk."

"You can leave boxers in the ally and they'll be there the next day 9 times out of 7!" Blake said

"I don't even think I should ask how you found that out." Christine said "Well you probably already know my name is confused and I swear I'm not at all Christine about this."
"Christine, you got your words mixed up there." Koncho said

"What she meant to say was…" Remington said

"It's not that hard for him to realize that!" Hilda said

"Well I should introduce myself but I figure I'll be introducing myself all over again once everyone sobers up, my name is Kennard, Weathers, yes Weathers, yes I am related to Christine, I would explain how and where but she's a bit drunk for such a long story."

"Hey, don't like pull anything because I have reflexes like a cat, even now as sober as I am… wait, did I say sober?" Hilda said

"Well yeah, this is awkward." Remington said

"Drink and explain stuff when everyone's over the hang over tomorrow!" Hilda said tossing Kennard a beer

"Well, wow teens and beer really doesn't mix, you're really all making yourselves vulnerable to attack, and ok screw trying to be a responsible adult…. blue haired kid, what's you name?... Remington you and Aaralyn are now the responsible adults!"

"Um… ok." Remington was only able to get that out of his mouth, in all the letters the man seemed so, not like this and different… things were going to be really weird the next morning.

Actually no one woke up the next morning besides Remington and Aaralyn; otherwise everyone else was pretty much sleeping where they passed out until the afternoon.

"Good god boy, you act like a hangover doesn't even bother you." Kennard said to Blake

"That's cause it doesn't."

"How…You are human right?"

"I should be, no I just have a way of sleeping I guess all I get is a small headache."

"Well so I guess now you have to explain stuff to me." Christine said

"Yes I guess that would give all this a point." Kennard said "Ok well Stella was worried about stuff, you were like 9 then, she was concerned about your well being and I suppose somehow she knew she didn't have long left in the world. She had trusted me very well and asked that if anything were to happen to here that I look after you but give you the freedom to do things on your on and not be discovered by anyone even you for your own and my well being. I convinced her to let me reveal myself to you when you were 14 rather than 18 but I promised I wouldn't reveal myself any sooner."

"And you said your last name was Weathers?" Koncho asked

"Well yes, I'm a member of the Weather's family only not the line you distended from your uncle's oldest son, but very much astringed from the family, left when I was seventeen for reasons I probably don't need to mention. They didn't even consider having Jenna until I was 12 and they figured they wouldn't be able to get me to do as they wished. When I left I wanted to meet one of the family they all seemed to despise, and I was able to find Stella and she helped train me as a shaman, goal of getting the family back tougher, as of now I'm the last male Weathers air unless father and mother decide they want to have more kids at their age."

"Oh god, mental image!" Koncho cried

"So that's how Christine managed to live." Blake laughed

"Well there is a limit on things a kid could easily and not so easily do alone, Stella was trying to be realistic."

"But where were you when Christine was living in that hell hole with your parents?" Koncho asked

"And why wasn't any of this told to me?" Elizabeth asked

"Well, I had to keep a low profile around them, I did have ghost scouts around and of course I couldn't reveal myself to anyone but I did plan to bust her out when mother and father were making plans to kill her but she had already done that herself before I could come up with a plan. Stella didn't tell you Elizabeth for the same reason Christine wasn't told, we couldn't risk anything getting out at all."

"If this is some kind of trick, I do hope you know we won't take it lightly." Drotoro sneered

"No trick at all, actually I've a good bit of money for Christine, when you got your mother money half went to you and half went to Stella, when she died only half of her money actually went to you, the other half was split into two chucks half of which was entrusted to me and the other half, close to a million American, well to say the least that's missing, along with valuables form her home which survived the fire."

"Couldn't the others just have easily have gotten it?" Christine asked

"I don't think they did, they've been lacking a bit of money lately, pampering Jenna in every way possible, but she is a skilled shaman and she does have rebellious tendencies, I guess it might take a good bit to keep her on their side."

"So umm, are there other Weathers family members like you?" Christine asked

"Yes, actually they're all over the world, probably at least fifty on either side of the family, some aren't shamans they can't all be after all. The ones that are, I am in contact with seven of them, but it being that way, both sides of the family, the feud is getting worse, we're almost expecting a small war."

"War?" Christine asked

"It's that thing were two groups of people face each other over a reason…" Manny said

"I know what a war is Manny…" Christine sighed "But what's the reason, other than Hao."

"The shaman fight and a lot of events that brought old wounds back to the surface, and if a war does strike, either side is going to recruit more shamans to join them, if that happens innocent bystanders might end up getting hurt and we can't have that, yourself and I are the only ones now not trying to strike up stuff with any family members."

"But what could we actually do about it?"

"Not much, the members from your bloodline I know all say my bloodline is starting it, the members I know from my bloodline all say members from your bloodline are doing it. But this really isn't much to worry about, for the moment however. Your only concern right now is to keep doing as your doing, if somehow we can convert a few more members of the family to join us then we might have a chance at ending it all."

"You might want to take a look at this…" Remington said looking over at the TV which kept flickering "It's only right that I have a bad feeling about this… right?"

Charger came zooming in "There was an explosion at the patch headquarters this morning!"

"You think Hao might…" Aaralyn asked

"I hope not…" Blake said

"I don't know, I'm going to go look around." Charger said

"I'll go too." Hilda walked towards the door

"Well, since you two are going I guess I should." Christine said

"So basically, we're all going so lock up right?" Blake asked

"Pretty much." Remington replied

The group walked around patch village which seemed like a ghost town almost until they found a part of town literally lined with other shamans, all looking towards a large white funnel looking thing

"That's the holy ground of the stars…" Kennard said

"Anyone mind filling us in on what's going on?" Blake asked

"Hao, Yoh Asakura and his friends are facing off over there." A girl's voice said Blake turned around to see Jeanne and Marco standing side by side

"Iron maiden-sama!" Blake said happily "and Marco." He added a bit bitterly Christine put her hand on his shoulder

"I know what you're about to say Blake so save your words breath, you were right, you weren't giving information to Hao and I knew that all too well, the real reason why I said that was because you were a kid, a kid who didn't need to be caught up in the x-laws and you were so reckless you would only end up getting hurt, and Meene was too attached. I discussed it with Jeanne-sama and she agreed that that would be the only way the other would accept you leaving. Besides, from the looks of things, you've done pretty well on your own." Marco glanced at Christine

"Dose Meene know that?" Blake asked a bit hopefully

"Meene didn't make it." Jeanne said

"What?" Blake asked, he didn't want to believe it, she really wasn't dead, she couldn't be

"She was facing Hao and she was already weakened, I know she was like an older sister to you." Jeanne

"I didn't get the chance to tell her, I intended on tell her eventually and before the fight earlier I was about to, I was going to tell everyone they all deserved the truth but everything happened so fast." Marco said

"Either way, Meene knows now, she knows because she's looking down from heaven." Jeanne said smiling at Blake

"That's true." Blake said

"I'm going to go give some people so hope now, see you late then Blake." Jeanne said

"See ya later, and Marco…"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

Jeanne hadn't been gone long until someone yelled

"LOOK AT THAT!"

"That's Hao!" another person said, this drew attention to the white funnel like thing, sure enough they could just spot him.

"Do you think it means?" Blake looked over at Christine

"that bastard can't have won…" she slowly said

"It's not over, look, other oversouls." Remington said

"And look at that explosion…" Hilda said

the group watched silently for a while, sometimes there would be an explosion, Christine really wished they could actually be close enough to really know what was going on, there were rumors going around that Hao was going to try and take the great spirits.

"Crap, the spirit of fire's huge now!" Hilda said

"Shit… Hao must have gotten the great spirits…" Remington said

"Could this be it?" Christine asked

"It might be we're done for I think…" Blake said

Christine started to squeeze Blake's hand, she was scared and hell he was scared too anyone in such a position would be and everyone was.

"Pray for the light of Hope." He heard Jeanne say to some other shamans

"Well, you heard the girl…" He said looking at Christine

"G-gotcha Blake." Christine said

there were more explosions, every time someone got one hit on Hao he always had about three to counter it.

"Yoh, Yoh can't lose… after all if he dose then I won't get to try sushi one day, and we can't have that." Hilda said laughing a bit

"Yoh can't lose because Hao can't win, and Hao can't win because I enjoy life too much to die." Blake said

"Yoh…" Christine said, all of a sudden one by one everyone was sending their power to Yoh, it didn't take very long after that, everything flashed white, and Patch Village was gone, everyone was just standing in the middle of the desert

"Uhhh, so I take it, Yoh won?" Koncho said

"Guess so…" Kennard said

"He is… since we got to Patch Village there's usually been a small mumble I could only really hear if everything was very quiet, that's gone now…" Christine said

"HELL YEAH!" Blake yelled

"About time he's gone." Hilda said

"Couldn't this make things with the family a lot easier?" Christine asked Kennard

"Maybe, but it's still not going to be an easy task, hopefully your friends won't mind helping..." Kennard said

"Of course we don't, but what about the shaman fight?" Remington asked

"It's being suspended until we receive word from the great spirits, until then we'll be in touch." Silva had almost appeared from out of nowhere, he had always had this habit.

"With Hao gone then I don't have much of a job then huh?" Christine asked

"Well, it is always useful to have an extra shaman around, and there are plenty of trouble making shamans beside Hao and if and when the shaman fight starts back up, we'll probably need all the help we can get."

"So we pretty much just do whatever until or if the fight ever starts back up?" Blake asked

"Pretty much, see ya around." Silva said walking off

"Blake, Christine!"

"Makei!" Christine said

"I just wanted to say bye, mom and dad are waiting for me so I can't talk long, see you if and then the fight starts back up then?"

"Of course." Blake said

"Bye!"

"Well, I guess a lot of people are jut going to go back to their normal lives now..." Aaralyn said

"So, this leaves us with the question of what in the heck we're all going to do now?" said Blake

"Well first of all we have to tell Marina the news, and the thing with Christine's family, well we should try to help out with that, besides I'm not ready for the group to get spilt up just because of the stuff with the fight." Remington said

"I have a bit of business to take care of as well…" Hilda said

"So then we'll all go tougher right, so where exactly is it everyone needs to go, we'll just start by going whatever's closest." Blake said

"I'm going to go it alone, I need to do this on my own you all can stay tougher if you wish I'll stay in touch and when I've taken care of my business I'll re join you all." Hilda said

"Alright Hilda, but what is it you're going to do?" Remington asked

"Jesus, you're such a nosy boy it's a rather small issue shouldn't take me long to clear it up. I'll split from you all once we get to the next town, hopefully they'll have a bus station and where do you want to meet up at?"

"Well, I think Mead, Nebraska would be an ideal place, the only land mark I can think of in such a small town would be Morningside Cemetery it's not hard to find, lest say meet at the main gate on March 27th, unless you otherwise have contact to meet at another date time and place." Kennard suggested

"Sounds like a plan to me." Blake said

"Kennard can't you drive?" Christine asked "I mean, we're going to have to do a lot of hitchhiking if not."

"Well, I'm 32 I sure hope I can… well I can but there's the little problem of the car, that I don't have."

"Ah well, hitchhiking isn't too that bad, we've got time to waste for now right?" Blake said

"Yeah." Remington said

It didn't take the group long to get to a nearby town with Kennard around, he pretty much knew how to get around

"So Hilda, where ya' headed?" Remington asked

"Jesus, you are one of the nosiest people I've ever met, I'm going to Andover, Massachusetts, going to check out the home front." Hilda gave Remington a tap on the shoulder

"Well have fun I guess." Christine said

"Heh fun sure, don't fall in a random hole or anything while I'm gone."

"I won't" Christine laughed a bit

"See ya' around Hilda." Blake said glancing at Charger "See you too Charger keep her out of trouble

"My muse couldn't possibly get into any trouble." Charger smirked

"That's what you think." Hilda laughed a bit "Remember Blake, use the protection."

"Hilda, you know we…" Blake laughed

"For now you haven't"

"It feels weird and un adult-ly being an adult here listening to teenagers talk about protection, so I'm just going to act like I have absolutely no idea what's going on." Kennard started staring at the bus schedule.

"Well Kennard if you're going to hang around maniacs like us you should probably get used to it." Remington laughed a bit

"There's 23 B, well see you crazy kids… and the adult, Charger and I will be in touch soon don't go psycho without me, and try not to have too much fun either."

As Christine waved to Hilda she couldn't seem to shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

and that is all for now review please I don't spend my life-less life typing this for nothing.