Mikau: Hello! Mikau's back! This is a very important chapter, and I think it turned out really well. I would just like to apologize to my readers that haven't read Ivy, Shaman Runaway; some of this stuff won't really make much sense, such as the concept of Judo. Oh well…on with the chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King.

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The Truth About Ivy

A cute looking little girl with her brown hair done up in three spikes (if she would have let it down, it would have hung just below her shoulder blades) stood on tiptoe to see what I was messing with on the laboratory counter. Her hairstyle closely resembled her sister Jun's, and her pants were almost an exact replica of Ren's battle pants. Her little bright yellow tube top was barely held up by her almost non-existent chest. A black choker with a ruby-red heart pendant hung around her neck. Her left calf was heavily wrapped in bloody bandages. "What'cha doin'?" She batted her dark brown eyes at me.

"Same thing I've been doing for the past couple months." I vaguely alluded, picking up a human heart and placing it on the counter.

"Oh." The little Tao girl quickly lost interest. She hoisted herself up on top of an invisible wall and pulled out an orange to eat. "I'm bored."

A teenage girl with shoulder length brown hair looked up from her Shakespearian literature. "Please Judo, there's plenty to do. Listen to music or something; that's what I do. Hey, can you toss an orange over here?" The teen wore a knit black skirt that came down to mid-thigh, a tight red tank top/belly shirt, and black leather boots. Around her neck was the same choker that the little one had. Her lips were painted a disturbing bright red, her favorite shade of lipstick, and a strange backwards '3' was drawn with eyeliner in the bottom corner of her right eye.

"Oh, go get your own orange, Ivy! You're too lazy." Judo snipped.

"Well, maybe I will!" Ivy retorted from her post, sitting atop one of my laboratory counters. "Don't get all uppity with me; I'm older than you!"

"Don't be ridiculous! We're all 33! You just look 15 when I only look 10. You're no older than I am!" All hell broke loose when Judo stood up to her older self. They were like siblings caught in a catfight.

"Children!" I yelled at my younger selves. "Stop fighting!"

"We're not children!" Ivy challenged.

"Oh really, then why are you acting like it?" I bit back at the saucy teenager.

Fire instantly welled up inside of my verbal-jousting opponent. "YOU'RE acting more like a kid than we are. Why won't you just tell him!"

"She can't. Anna-onee-chan said no." Judo stood up for me.

"Since when have we listened to Anna?" The fifteen-year-old bit back at the ten-year-old.

"Well…" Judo couldn't come up with an answer, so she instead switched sides of the argument. "Ivy's right Val, you need to tell Hao before he falls for Valerie and completely forgets about Ivy!"

"Relax. You're both being ridiculous and childish. There's no way that Hao could forget Ivy." I pick up a scalpel and made an incision in the heart. "He's too in love with her. He always will be." I shrugged off my other consciousness' worries.

"Judo's right, you know." Ivy took a seat up on the counter behind me. "He's slowly falling for you and forgetting me. I mean he totally pounced on you this afternoon when you were cleaning the Onsen."

"Don't be foolish. He was making out with you. I remind him a lot of you." I tried to quell my younger self's anger.

She would have none of it. "I disagree. I want you to get your paws off my husband, and work on making us a new body so that we can straighten this whole, stupid Valerie mess up, and I can get back to my marriage."

"Technically he's not your husband yet." Two inquisitive sets of eyes turned to Judo as she peeled her orange. She blinked twice at the unexpected attention. "Oh, so you guys are listening to what I have to say now? That's new. Anyway, as I was saying, Ivy married Hao when she was sixteen going on seventeen, and this Ivy that we have right here is only fifteen. So, technically Hao would still be this Ivy's fiancée." Judo blinked again as we kept staring at her. "That's all I had to say; you can go back to arguing now."

"Anyway," Ivy rolled her eyes at Judo's observations and continued verbally assaulting me. "Keep your mitts of my fiancée! And his brother for that matter! Yoh is married to my sister, and I don't want you messing up their marriage, slut!"

I ignored her. What could I say to that? 'When you grow up you're going to turn into me'? Truthfully, it had really hurt me, what she had said. I felt like I had failed myself. It made me feel like I had betrayed and let myself down.

"Aw, Ivy…don't you think you're being a bit harsh?" Judo scrutinized. "And a bit of a hypocrite?"

"What precisely do you mean by that!" Ivy glared heavily at the little Tao.

"Well, nothing I guess…except for maybe: look at me everybody! I'm Ivy, and I'll let any random guy stick his tongue down my throat, but God forbid, if my fiancée tries to get into my pants, I'll run off and almost marry his brother!" Judo openly mocked Ivy.

The look in Ivy's eyes was murder. "Oh. No. You. Didn't. You did NOT just call me a slut!"

The Tao smiled smugly back at the younger Kyôyama twin. "You said it, not me."

"Really? Well at least I'm not fickle like you are." Ivy retorted. "I'm Judo, and one minute I think Hao is dreamy, but the next I tell my older self to marry Hao's brother Yoh cause I have a huge crush on him too!"

Insults and bad impressions flew back and forth between the two. I smiled out of the corner of my mouth. 'Was I ever that young and stupid?'

"WE HEARD THAT!" Before I knew what had hit me, I was included in their miniature war. Oranges were thrown, chemicals were carelessly knocked over, and things got broken. The tests I was doing on the heart were almost completely forgotten as I got lost in fighting childishly with the other two facets of myself.

I was surprised when they suddenly both stopped almost simultaneously. Judo shrunk in fear and clung to Ivy's arm. "He's coming."

"That bastard…What does he think he's doing? Shoot…" the anxious teen gave me a warning gaze. "I make my dislike of you no secret; don't mess my life up…or else." With that she disappeared.

Judo looked me over quickly, clearly panic-stricken. "Gotta go. Get rid of him fast, and don't do anything I wouldn't do." The little girl started to fade back into the corridors of my mind, but reappeared fully at the last second. Judo pulled my top up and adjusted the rest of my clothing to cover more skin. "Be careful."

I was left wondering what the hell was going on after she disappeared—well, up until he appeared in a short puff of flames.

"Hello Ivy." Lucifer greeted happily.

"Hello." 'No wonder those two split….' "Can I help you?" I picked up some of the vials that had been knocked over in Judo and Ivy's little fight and cleaned up some of the spilt chemicals.

"Umm…Yeah…You have a date tonight, right?" He picked up some broken shards of glass and tossed them into the trash. His voice was hesitant. That wasn't really like him at all.

"Yes." A bright light filled his eyes; he smiled happily, but the light dimmed and the smile evaporated with my next words. "Hao asked me out to dinner tonight when he woke up this morning." I halted my cleaning and looked quizzically at him. "Why?"

"Oh…um…no reason. Really it's nothing. I was just hoping that maybe you had remembered. I was kind of just kidding myself to think that you would…I…well have fun." A kind of choked up look adorned his face. He slowly backed away from me, picking up some small pieces of shattered glass.

"Wait…what did I forget?" I placed a worried hand lightly on his shoulder.

"No, it's nothing…really. I forgive you. It wasn't that important. I had just hoped…but that was really stupid of me wasn't it?" Lucifer seemed to be talking to himself more than to me. "Why would you remember? I should just quit fooling myself and accept that you don't love me." The devil broke free from my grasp and cleared away more empty vials that I had left out on the counters.

"Lucifer…" I looked him over quickly thinking that maybe something about his appearance would trigger a memory. Light brown hoodie, green pants, long mahogany hair pulled up into a ponytail, and dark chocolate eyes. Sure he was dressed a little differently, but there was nothing to clue me in to what I had forgotten. "Please, just tell me…I really can't remember, and I have a feeling it's more important than you say it is." I started to put away some chemicals and solutions that were carelessly left out.

He shrugged and reorganized the various vials and bottles I had left sitting in random positions around the lab. "Really, no. It's not important to you at all."

"But is it important to you?" I countered, accidentally brushing my hand up against his when reaching for a bottle containing Sulfur.

This question seemed to get to him. Lucifer paused and looked up at me, his eyes full of sorrow and well-contained lust. "Actually, to me, it's more important than my life."

"Then TELL ME!" I shrieked. I was sick of him suffering silently.

"You'll just feel guilty if I do tell you. I won't bother you with my problems. You really don't need to worry though. I'll be fine; I really do forgive you, it's nothing too major." He was lying. I could tell he was lying.

"Lucifer! What the heck is your problem! Just tell m—" He placed a finger over my lips to shush me.

The finger was replaced the next second by his lips. I didn't give in very much to his fiery passion, but I did kiss him back some. He pulled back and gave me a somber smile. "Today is Wednesday in case you forgot. Have fun tonight on your date." He started to disappear in a thin fire-like film, but he stopped when I grabbed his wrist.

My eyes widened as I finally got what he had been hinting to the entire conversation. "Lucifer! I am soooooo sorry! I completely forgot! I was so busy with Hao being in the hospital and everything that I forgot about our date tonight…"

He sent another sadistic smile my way and nodded. "It's okay. I already said I forgave you. I'm glad you remembered though on your own without me having to come out and say 'You forgot that you promised to remember our date tonight.' I'll see you Ivy."

"No! I'll go tell Hao that I can't go with him tonight. Technically you asked first, and I did promise that I wouldn't forget, and I owe you a date, so—"

"—Really, it's OKAY. You and I both know that you would rather go be with Hao than me. Don't inconvenience yourself because of me. Really, I'm in no position to be asking you out anyway. Thanks though."

I grabbed at him again as he turned to leave. "Wait! Tomorrow at seven o'clock, you and I are going to get breakfast. Meet me down here in the lab at seven."

"Really?" Hope returned to his eyes.

"Really. Look, I'm writing it down on my hand! I swear on my grave that I won't forget this time." I took out an ink pen and scribbled on my hand.

His smile was still sadistic as he grinned fondly at me. "I'll be here. We'll see if you will too."

I opened my mouth and was about to say something when a voice echoed down the stairwell. "Valerie!"

Lucifer rolled his eyes at Hao's voice. "Living with him now, are we? Tell me Ivy, what's it like for your body to be having an affair with your husband?" He disappeared just as Hao walked into the room.

"Valerie?" He paused in the doorway, looking puzzled. "I thought I heard someone in here with you."

"I…I talk to myself…whenever I'm doing experiments, that is." I suddenly felt like I had to hide things from him. He would probably be upset if he found out that his X-wife was going out with the devil. 'Why am I so jumpy all of the sudden?'

"Oh…I thought…Never mind; Anna wants you to come up to dinner." He took a step past the threshold into the actual lab part of the room.

"Really?" I hastily made an effort to look like I was doing something important with the heart lying on the countertop. "I thought that we were going out to dinner."

"About that," Hao hesitantly closed the gap between us and came to stand next to me, "Anna says we're both under house arrest until further notice….Neither of us can leave the house unless we run it by her first."

"What! That's insane!" I couldn't believe the nerve of my sister. How was that helping anything! I whipped out my little scalpel and cut into the heart.

"That's what I said—by the way, what are you doing?" Hao looked a bit paler than usual as I dissected the human organ.

"Research." I replied quickly.

"Oh…and where exactly are you going with this research that you're doing?" He looked over my shoulder in disgust at the cold mass of tissue lying lifelessly on top of the counter.

"I'm creating artificial life. Got a problem with that?" I held my breath and awaited his disapproval.

"That depends."

"On what?" I held the scalpel just above where I had first made the incision.

"What you're trying to make. Are you, like, trying to make artificial human life? 'Cause I don't really think I approve of that." Hao leaned up against the counter and shuddered as I sunk the knife back into the heart.

"No, I'm not making an actual person. That would be cruel. I'm just making a working body. I've got all the body functions and everything down so far except that I can't make a heart beat or blood flow through the veins. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong…I've been stuck for awhile now, almost a year, on making the blood and heart work. What I'm doing right now is going into the heart and checking out how it works. As soon as I can make the heart and blood work I can finish the body. Then all I need will be a soul."

"So theoretically speaking, could you use the soul of someone who's been dead for awhile now?" He suddenly showed more than just a vague interest in my work.

"Yes. Actually, that's what I plan to do. My main goal is to bring back someone from the dead." I was careful not to specify who incase he got any ideas. I picked up a small vial filled with a thick green substance.

"So once you're alive again are you going to go back to your husband?" The vial in my hand broke when my grip on it tightened. Glass shards stuck into my skin.

"Yes. If he'll take me back after I've been dead for so long." He had figured it out so easily. 'I'll have to be more careful from now on. Anna will kill me if he finds out. He's smarter than I thought.'

Hao took my hand in his and pulled out the embedded particles of glass. No blood came out of the wounds. "So you really don't bleed?"

I shook my head. "And my nerve endings don't really work very well. I didn't feel that at all."

As if it had suddenly occurred to him, he looked suspiciously at me and asked. "That's not your heart that you're looking at is it?"

"Hmm? Oh! No, no it's not mine. Mine is still in my chest; I do take it out from time to time and try to fix it so that it will work, but I can't get it to beat without blood, and I can't get the blood to work either so…." I shrugged my failure off.

"Good…that would be kind of creepy if that was really your heart that you were chopping up." Hao shivered as chills ran the length of his spine, and the blood drained a little more from his face.

"Squeamish Hao?" I tried to control my fit of giggles.

"Well yeah, when you've got this random human heart just sitting out on your table poking it with a knife!" He shuddered at the thought.

I just laughed all the more. "I can't see how you can murder so many people with your bare hands and then get upset so easily by my bad habit of leaving body parts lying around."

"Hey! I can disembowel a person with no problem, it's when other people are cutting up organs that I have trouble." He defended.

"Right." I rolled my now-green eyes.

"So is that why you have so many scars on your body? From taking out different organs and messing with them?" Hao started a somewhat different subject.

I stared blankly, trying to think of when he could have seen the scars from the many operations and experiments. "How did you know about my scars?"

My x-husband suggestively eyed me, and was probably in the middle of some dirty thoughts he shouldn't have been having considering that we were no longer married. "I saw them when you were striping for me in the bathhouse."

My face turned bright red. "I was NOT stripping for you!"

"Then who were you striping for?" He was still the same fifteen-year-old pervert after sixteen years.

"I—! I wasn't stripping for anyone! I was only getting my wet clothes off! You're taking this out of context; why would I strip for you anyway!" There was no fighting him. If he was convinced that I was trying to seduce him, then there was no changing his mind.

"Suuuuure….Deny it, but I know you were coming on to me. I didn't show any signs in wanting to undress you, so you stripped in front of me to see if I'd take the hint. I don't think I'm doing anything tonight if you want to…well you know." I couldn't tell if he was messing with me or if he was serious.

"Hao!" I was blushing again.

He interrupted before I could say more. "What! You've already slept with my twin! What's the difference!"

'Is that all he wants…to sleep with me?' I remained quiet. 'I guess we really are back to square one with our relationship...'

"Well, whatever, that was the sexiest thing I've seen in a long time. It really makes me miss Ivy…."

'Maybe sex is all he wants from Valerie, but he definitely still has feelings for Ivy!' I drifted off into my thoughts.

"Um, Valerie?" The fire shaman tentatively tried to get my attention.

"Yeah?"

"Close your eyes." I did as instructed. "You said that your nerve endings didn't really work well, and I was wondering…can you feel this?"

I gasped as his fingers nimbly caressed the upper inside portion of my legs. "YES!"

"Just wondering!" He ducked as I threw a punch at him.

"Pervert!" I took another swing at him. That missed too.

"Sorry! I just…. Just sorry I guess." He smiled sheepishly.

I rolled my eyes and turned my back to him. "Whatever. Just…don't do it again, okay?"

"How did you die?"

The question took me by surprise. "W-what?"

"How. Did. You. Die?" He repeated slowly, looking me in the eye.

"I…" 'Think of something quick!' "Impalement."

"Really." He wasn't buying it.

"Yeah, a sword almost right through my heart." 'Well…the first time anyway. This will never fly.'

"So it was murder then?" He humored me by going along with what I had said.

"I suppose so." 'That was weak. Who supposes that they were murdered? You either were or were not.' "Look, can we not talk about this?"

"Sure. You don't have to talk if you don't want to. Talking about death is hard. I've been through several deaths." He smiled and took a seat on the stool on the other side of the counter. I continued my work on the heart. "I really miss her…"

"Hmm?" My eyes looked up and locked with his gaze.

Hao's eyes became glazed over as he talked freely about what had been tormenting him for the years I had been gone. "There were supposed to be three of them…triplets, two girls and a boy. We had the names for the girls: Hoshi and Thorn, but we were still debating what to call the boy. Ivy wanted something like Sora, but I wanted to name him after a friend of mine a thousand or so years back, Yukio. We didn't decide up until it was time to put the name on the death certificate: Akeno. I have no idea where she came up with that.

"Apparently she had known she was going to die if she went through with the pregnancy…during one of the tests Luca had done, he had found something wrong. He told her that if she aborted the pregnancy then that she would save her own life, but she would be unable to have children. She didn't tell me, and I assume that she threatened Luca into not telling me either.

"On Christmas Eve she went into labor; right around midnight Hoshi was born and Thorn soon after. Then she told me that she wasn't going to make it. I really didn't understand at first, but she explained that she had known and had gone through with it anyway. She didn't tell me because she knew I wouldn't take it well. She was right; I was pretty devastated. She gave me a few instructions for taking care of the kids and 'what to do if'. I remember I was crying the whole time; she was pretty torn up too. I also remember she was in a lot of pain. I held her hand to entire time. It didn't end quickly…I sat and watched the life drain out of her. It was about an hour before it was finally over. Neither Ivy nor the third baby made it.

"After she died she didn't go directly to Heaven; she intended to stay behind and help me raise the kids as a ghost. I could tell that she wasn't herself though…she was already so detached from the world even after having just died. She wanted to stay, but…I just couldn't let her stay and deteriorate like that. I told her to go; she put up some resistance at first, but eventually agreed. She said she would come back, but I know better than to hope so. Once a soul goes to Heaven it can't come back.

"Thorn grew up hating her mother because Ivy wasn't there. She was convinced that Ivy didn't stay because she hadn't wanted children in the first place. Thorn convinced herself that Ivy could have stayed if she had wanted, but instead 'left' us. I still don't think Thorn understands that Ivy would have withered away if she had stayed with us as a ghost. Ghosts just aren't meant to linger on in this world. Hoshi, on the other hand, grew up in love with her mother. Ivy was everything that Hoshi aspired to be. Hoshi had read her mother's diary and had tried to model herself after Ivy. Along with some bad influencing by me, that's what led Hoshi to be so sluty. She didn't really understand Ivy's motives, but instead only saw Ivy as this 'sex goddess'. She tried too hard to be like her mother and wound up messing things up for herself. Thorn actually turned out more like Ivy than Hoshi did, and Thorn was trying desperately NOT to be like her mom. It was really stressful for me to watch them screw up their lives and know that I couldn't do a thing to stop or at least help them.

"I started drinking again, and that eventually lead to waking up next to random women in the morning. There were some times where I had it under control, but recently it's gotten really bad. I guess it took waking up in the hospital for me to take a hint to stop. I've been a horrible father and a dishonest husband.—Hey…why are you crying?" Hao halted his speech when his eyes refocused on me, tears running steadily down my cheeks.

I couldn't speak, but I knew he didn't expect me to. I knew he could tell when I did and did not feel like talking. That was one of those times when words weren't needed. I rested my head on his shoulder and let him wrap his arms around me, our tears mingling together. "I think you're a wonderful father…and an amazing husband." I softly whispered into his ear, my voice shaking.

He let go of me and sat down on the floor with his back against a counter. "You think so do you? Well thanks, but I'd have to disagree."

"Don't deny what is true." I sat down in between his legs and snuggled up against his chest. "You know I'm right." I must have fallen asleep listening to the quickening beat of his heart, for I only stirred a little when Anna came down into the lab and put a blanket over us, and the next morning when I woke, we were still in the same snuggling position.

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Mikau: Well there you go. Smiles widely now, who saw Ivy's death in childbirth coming? Better yet, who knew that Ivy had been dead for the sixteen years she was away from Hao? I kind of alluded to Ivy being dead back a few chapters in Hao's flashback where they were in the hospital naming Akeno. Did you notice that the nurse never acknowledged Ivy's presence in the room? (ex: "Excuse me, Mr. Asakura?") I really liked that part. You might want to go back and reread that flashback in Chapter 17: Ivy. It'll make soooo much more sense now…well, hopefully. I like the part with the nurse being kind of afraid of Hao. Since he was talking to Ivy before the nurse came in, and since Ivy was a ghost, and since the nurse wasn't a shaman and couldn't see Ivy, she thought that Hao was crazy for talking to himself. Wow…I ended up talking more about a previous chapter than this chapter…Oh well. This chapter was fun to do. So now Ivy has three different aliases: Judo/Ivy/Valerie. Hey, I just noticed that 'Valerie' has seven letters, and if you add the number of letters in 'Ivy' to the number of letters in 'Judo', you get seven! So in all logic, Ivy plus Judo equals Valerie! LOL! Wow…I'm really acting silly today….Well, more plot twists to come, and a super surprising/shocking ending is only ten or so chapters away. (HA! Watch me make up the number of chapters I have left like I know. Seriously, I have no clue how many chapters are left. There could be ten, there could be twenty. There could be five for all I know! I have no clue how many more chapters it will take until I get to the final chapter.)

Thanks To: HAO-Addictive, Touch of the Wind, Hemila-Rose, MaiValentinefan, KaZuYa MiNeKuRa, DarkPisces33, Andrea Nefisto, Sonseray, yo wuz up, Katie-juliett, haoxivy 4eva, Firebane5, Strawberry, LisaTheHedgehog, IvyAsakura13, and Danny.

To Andrea Nefisto: Hello! I'm much better, thank you. I'm glad that you enjoyed the chapter! I have to make the reviews quick (it seems like I'm always saying that…), but sojourn is a fancy word for a short journey. Also, Hao is aware that Val is Ivy, but is waiting until Ivy is ready to tell him. On a final note, I SHALL NEVER LIKE PINK! NEVER! Ahem…Lol! Thanks for the review!

To Firebane5: Thank you so much for your huge reviews; I really do appreciate them, though I'm not sure I deserve all the compliments. That thing you said about Anna wanting to get freebooters out of her house was hilarious and so true! That really does seem like something Anna would do. About the Judo fic, the sad part is that you're probably right about the amount of chapters. LOLOLOLOLOLOL! I'll probably end up with about 50 chapters on this fic too. I sat down and outlined the rest of the fic, and I had 21 main headings with several subtopics each. Man I was sooooo wrong when I said that this fic would only have 20 or so chapters. I'll probably add the wedding one-shot at the end of this fic, but I'll probably post it a week after I post the Epilogue to this fic. Which of Shakespeare's plays did you see! I loooooooove Shakespeare! So sorry about you being so overworked with school; Hugs you I know what you're talking about. I get my first quarter grades next week, and on Tuesday I start my new courses. I lose my free period, and gain a PE course and a History course. I hate PE (because the teachers make us run, and I don't know about you you're probably some dreamy track star, but I was NOT made to run. I just don't have tolerance for torture. I could do sit-ups or jumping jacks no problem, but I just cannot run long distances! Sorry for boring you with my rantings.), and I'm going to have tons of junk to do for History. Sigh…oh well. Looks like the both of us are going to be super busy. I hope your load gets lighter my friend because mine looks like it might just double. Good luck with getting to work on your story! I'm patiently waiting for the next chapter, but I can't wait too much longer. Thank you so much for the review!

To LisaTheHedgehog: Hello! Glad to have you back! Sorry if things are a bit confusing, but Hao knows that Val is Ivy, but he's playing dumb because he heard Anna's little conversation with Ivy when Anna told Ivy not to tell Hao anything. So basically Hao is suffering and waiting until Ivy's ready to tell him. There will be some more HanaxThorn (just a little), lots of HaoxIvy, and maybe a bit of YohxAnna. Thank you for the review!

Mikau: Well, I sat down and outlined the rest of the fic today, and I have 21 main headings with several subtopics each. That means that there might be a lot more story left. I'm really no good at guessing how long one of my stories is going to be.

PLEASE REVIEW!