Disclaimer: I do not own Shaman King, this is purely for leisure purposes.

Title: Antipathy

Summary: He has always considered Yoh Asakura's existence as a thorn to his side - a catastrophic mistake. First and foremost, his soul was split into half when the body in Keiko Asakura's womb unexpectedly divided into two resulting in him having a greatly diminished power. He then had to replenish his furyoku in an extremely short amount of time before the Shaman Fight. Thereafter, he was constantly bombarded by the other's righteous proclamations about that useless thing called friendship which he never cared to understand. And now, this -

"Hao, by any chance, are you… Asaha Douji?"

This is getting ridiculously and utterly hopeless. A cosmic joke by the insufferable Great Spirits that is disgustingly lame.

Yoh started seeing fragments of the memories the Great Onmyouji Hao Asakura had buried deep into the recesses of his soul. Needless to say, Hao was not pleased. Takes place after Ch. 141/ EP 25 of 2021 Remake. Twin-centric. YohAnna.


Prologue

It started on a Wednesday.

Yoh felt a comfortable feeling set within him as he came out clean to his friends. After witnessing the fateful fight - if one could even call it that - between X-III and Hoshigumi, the sword-user could no longer hold back the emotions overflowing him. He was already upset with how his family looked at his life as if it was already casted in the stars - the Asakura heir destined to kill their ancestor who also happened to be his twin brother, in a bid to put a stop to the latter's diabolical plans.

This time, however, Yoh was furious and the subject of his displeasure was the said older shaman. Yoh felt his bones tingling with a foreign sensation and it wrapped its ugly hold around his heart, almost rendering him breathless. At first, Yoh didn't know what to make of it and something within him felt burning red but the endless blackness draping over his heart consumed almost the entirety of him. It was seeping through his soul and corrupting his meandering thoughts.

And when Yoh's insides twisted and turned as his stomach continued to plummet, he finally understood.

He hated Hao Asakura.

He hated how powerful the other was. Yoh was entirely certain that what they had witnessed in the stadium earlier that day was nothing but the surface of the fire shaman's capabilities. But notwithstanding the superficial display of power, it was already more than enough to suffocate all of those who were present thereat...including him.

He hated the hopelessness blooming inside his heart. How can they defeat something as majestic as catastrophic as the Spirit of Fire? He felt terrified and it was pathetically terrible.

He hated - fucking hated - how, without any effort whatsoever, the onmyouji masquerading as a teen managed to challenge every belief system Yoh had religiously followed in his young life. Prior to all of these chaos, Yoh could confidently claim that everyone who could see a spirit was a good person. Granted, each one had their own versions of truth and followed a different path in achieving what they maintained to be correct, Yoh had firmly believed that no shaman was inherently evil. The gift of being able to bridge this world to that of the other was too precious to be given to someone who had nothing but darkness within them. But, after everything, Yoh felt that it would be nothing but an insult to all the souls sacrificed to achieve such power if he dared to call Hao Asakura a good person.

Yoh hated Hao Asakura and he hated him even more for making the younger shaman realize that he was capable of feeling something as disgusting as that.

And so, before he could catch himself, words started spilling from his mouth like sand flowing through clenched fist. "He is my twin brother," he explained, "after all these years, he chose to be reborn back to his own family… but my mother had twins, and so his soul was unexpectedly split into two."

As he waited for the betrayal that would never come, Yoh found himself enveloped by something dreadful. He knew for a fact that he was his own person and shared nothing with Hao, but did his friends know? Would they believe that he was nothing but a small fragment of a thousand year old vengeful spirit that knew nothing of the latter's machinations?

For a moment, melancholy settled within him. He was always alone growing up, and now that he knew what it felt to have people stand beside him and not away from him, he really didn't want to go back to how the way things were before. He was terrified of losing what he had since they were everything he has.

When he felt his body free-falling towards the ground as Horohoro launched his entire weight into him tackling him, Yoh felt his whole being relax as he berated himself for doubting them and going so far as to think that they would leave him. Of course, they would understand, they were his friends after all.

And all was well again, in Yoh's world...as well as things could be.

Until, he saw them.

Yoh saw himself standing on a hill, somewhere from what he could surmise as the countryside. The surroundings were unusual. It was an endless vast of green, the grass fluttering with the chilly wind. Yoh unconsciously wrapped his arms around his form as he surveyed where he was.

From where he was standing, he could make out a small hut. Yoh was confused because there was something peculiar with the scenery, but he could not put his finger on it. The hut was in the middle of nowhere but he presumed it was occupied because there was smoke coming out of its chimney. There was a small pathway connecting its front door to the main road but there was nothing around it. The hut was sticking out like a sore thumb.

Yoh looked around him and he realized he was alone. He briefly wondered where Amidamaru was but his attention was caught by a laugh - it was a child giggling.

Yoh turned his head as he tried to locate where the sound was coming from and his sight settled upon a woman with long golden locks passing beyond her waist, almost ending above her ankles. She was holding the small hand of a child with an equally long hair, tied into a neat ponytail. He couldn't make out their faces but he took note of their unusual attire. They were wearing traditional clothing - something he had worn when he and Anna visited the festivals in the mountains where his grandparents lived.

The sword-user strained his eyes as he tried to make out the two figures' features. By now, he assumed that she must be the mother and the other her child, on their way home. Yoh took a step towards their direction intending to get a better view of their faces but then, the ground beneath him shifted and he was suddenly in the middle of a blazing inferno.

The hut was burning and its foundation was collapsing. Yoh's eyes widened and his body moved on reflex as he sprinted towards the destruction. There was a terrible sensation blossoming within him and his mind was filled with nothing but the image of the woman and the child.

It was extremely hot and Yoh could feel the fire licking his skin. He was sliding through the slope of the hill and the wind harshly passing him only made the heat more unbearable. As he reached the bottom of the inclined land formation, he made a run towards the house to check on the two figures he was observing earlier. The child's laughter echoed again and again in his mind and this would later haunt him in his dreams and in reality. He could feel his chest tightening.

And then, he heard it and Yoh halted in his steps.

It was small, a whisper, and barely audible but Yoh still heard it. For a moment, he actually hoped that he hadn't because his knees buckled as he collapsed to the burning ground with his right hand supporting his weight while the other was clenched into a fist banging on his chest. He couldn't breath and he felt extremely terrified and utterly devastated.

Then Yoh heard it again,

it was a tiny tiny voice.

"Okaa-san…"

Yoh jolted from the futon and he felt his hair sticking to his face. His body was drenched in sweat and his cheeks stained with tears overflowing from his wide-opened eyes. His heart was thumping and it was pulsating through his ears. The silence was deafening and his body suddenly felt really cold.

"Yoh?"

The soft voice strung him out of his reverie and the said shaman sharply turned his head towards its source. The pale moonlight illuminated Anna's form and her face was contorted into a worried expression. She was sitting on the futon lying next to him, probably roused from her slumber due to his predicament. There was a hint of sleepiness reflecting in her eyes, but it was overpowered by anxiety.

"What happened?" Anna made her way out of the futon and walked towards him, her gaze never leaving his.

"I… I don't know."

"You were screaming." Yoh felt the back of her hand on his forehead and he involuntarily flinched making her back away in surprise. An expression of hurt briefly passed through the itako's face but it escaped Yoh's attention as he was too preoccupied trying to catch his breath.

"I… I had a dream."

"And?" Anna prodded. By this time, she had made herself comfortable next to him, sitting at his side.

"It was… it was a woman and.. a child?" Yoh took a deep breath trying to recollect his thoughts. He looked at Anna once more and he could see Amidamaru towering behind her, a concerned look also etched on the spirit's face. "But… I couldn't see their faces and they were wearing traditional clothes..."

Yoh closed his eyes relieving what he had seen. He gave a sigh and continued, "they were on their way home and the child was laughing. Then, something happened and suddenly, everything was burning…"

He opened his eyes and met Anna's gaze for the second time. She looked solemnly back to him as she patiently waited for him to finish his narrative. As if feeling his apprehension, the golden-haired shaman squeezed his hand in encouragement.

"I think… I think... they burned the child's mother."

Thursday, Friday

'I'm sorry', Yoh had a feeling he should have said that.

The second time he had those dreams, Yoh only saw the child. Yoh realized that the child was a male but with a long hair similar to that of his mother. He was alone sitting against the wall of what Yoh had made out to be a historical palace. The walls were endless, stretching to both directions. However, that wasn't what intrigued Yoh.

It was the child himself which piqued Yoh's interest.

The child was looking ahead as he watched hundreds of onis littering the otherwise empty streets. He was unkempt, with his once neatly tied hair hanging loose and appearing to be tangled. He was in tattered clothing, and he looked emaciated. His lips were tightly formed into a straight line and if Yoh tried to look harder, he would have seen that the other's eyes were blank - almost glazed, and devoid of any emotions.

Yoh then saw another demon approach the child. The demon looked like a bastardized version of a rabbit crossed with a dog. He was bluish-white and holding a staff. There was a cloth hanging from his neck and something was written on it, but Yoh could not make out what it read, unfortunately. He figured that the demon was talking with the child but he couldn't hear what was their conversation. Suddenly, the child got up from where he was seated, leaving the demon behind. The latter called out to the child but Yoh could still not make out what they were saying.

He then found himself observing yet another scenery. It was nighttime and there was an abandoned and dilapidated house. There was a small light illuminating its steps and Yoh could make out two small figures. They were lying next to each other in their makeshift beds.

Yoh flinched when he heard a loud thump as the child hit his head on the wooden panel boards above them. He was protesting something but the demon gave only a laugh in response. Yoh took a few steps forward trying to hear what the two were talking about.

"Ohachiyo, I… I've become a bit tired of living."

For the second time that week, Yoh jolted awake with his clothes drenched in perspiration. It was Amidamaru who first came to his aid followed by Anna, but Yoh paid them no attention as his eyes widened in horror and realization.

He knew the child in his dreams.

The child with long hair and the ghostly rhythmic laugh...

He looked painfully a lot like Hao Asakura.

Saturday, Sunday

'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.' Yoh wanted to say that but as his larynx twisted, no sound came out.