Mikau: Hello! I'm back. Unfortunately I don't feel any better… Oh well. Happy early birthday to Andrea Nefisto in case I don't get another chapter up by the 6th.

Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King.

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Demons and Witches

"The clock never stops never stops never waits. She's growing old. It's getting late. And so, he forgot he forgot maybe not. Maybe he's been seriously hurt. That'd be worse." The tune was hopelessly stuck in my head as I walked along the dirt road in the rain. My expensive orange boots were getting wet, and my meager clothing wasn't keeping me warm or dry. The stupid umbrella I had been carrying wasn't doing its job well either.

But still I walked on to the graveyard. Hardly anyone was out on the street because of the rain, and I was taking full advantage of the solitude that the weather offered. I hardly ever got to go out without getting catcalls from horny men, and I was enjoying the peace and quiet.

"Tweet. Tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet." My guardian ghost, Chip the sparrow, fluttered lightly at my side.

"Yes. I'm to visit the grave again. No. I didn't bring flowers. This wasn't a planned trip, and I don't have any money on me to buy any flowers." I answered my guardian absent-mindedly. It had taken me the first five years of my life to understand the bird, and now that I could freely converse with my friend, I took my gift for granted.

"Tweet tweet?"

"I don't think so. Thorn's a tough chick. She should be fine. Besides, as long as everything keeps going according to plan, everything will work out." We walked the long path to the graveyard, making pretty good time, considering that I was wearing those God-awful orange boots that were so hard to walk in.

When we reached the graveyard, I hopped the fence as was the custom. The lock had long since rusted shut permanently, and there was no opening it even if I had the key. Chip flew around the place, perfectly comfortable with his surroundings. He had been there so many times before that the place had become like yet another home to him.

"Tweet!" 'Look!' He said, pointing out the figure standing atop the hill.

"It's that same man again." I replied, referring to the man that often visited my mother's grave. He left flowers for her when he visited, so I could always tell when he had been there.

I made my slowly up the hill as to not alert him to my presence. I was able to sneak up behind him without him noticing me. He was talking to himself…well, in a sense, but really he was talking to her, the ghost of my mother. Even if she wasn't at her gravesite anymore.

"I hope you can forgive me Ivy; I really don't mean any harm with my plots, but there's no way to get around the girl getting hurt this time. I promise not to let her suffer."

The man looked like he was in his mid twenties, perhaps 24? I couldn't tell, but he looked familiar. He looked a little like my father with his long hair, but Hao had a lot of brown mixed in with the crimson of his hair, and this man that stood before me had completely auburn hair, a dark coppery crimson. His eyes were the same as Hao's though. The same two deep vats of dark chocolate. Maybe I was wrong…maybe his eyes were a different color than my father's. This man's eyes looked, perhaps, darker than my dad's. His two crystalline orbs were blacker than the darkest shadows of Hell itself. The more I looked at him, searching his face, the more I felt something nagging at me in the back of my mind, something telling me that I had seen this person before. I was so captivated studying his features that I didn't notice that he had stopped speaking. It was only when he spoke again that I snapped out of my daze.

"You know, you'd think that your father would have taught you that it's rude to stare." He turned on me and glared pleasantly at my shock. "But then again, Hao is probably a horrible father, so why would he teach you anything?"

Suddenly his name struck a cord in my mind and I remembered where I had met him before. "Lucifer. You're that man that was at our house that day a couple months ago." I glared back at him; Chip hovered at my side, waiting to see if he would be needed to protect me.

The glare left his eyes, but not his face. His eyes were now vacant of emotion. He looked liked the ones he over saw: dead. "Correct. Sorry if I insulted you when I was visiting. I did it for your father's benefit; I didn't mean it. You really are very pretty, and I wouldn't mind marrying you if you'd have me. Hm?" The glare left his lips, and a teasing smile filled his eyes and face. "What do you say Hosh?"

"Don't call me that!" I snorted. "Only my sister calls me that…well sometimes my other family members do, but I reserve that privilege for family only. You are to call me Hoshi or Miss Asakura."

"Fine. Hoshi. You didn't answer my question. It's not like you'd get any other marriage offers given your line of work." That sly smile still painted his lips.

I resisted the urge to kill him. "You must be joking." I shrugged off the unwanted amorous attention I was getting from him.

"Actually, you're right, but it appears that you don't have much of a sense of humor. You really are no fun." He took a seat next to the grave and set a single red rose at the base of the ivy-covered cross. A sad smile adorned his face. 'You don't even get angry with me like your mother did.'

I ignored his thoughts. Pretending that I couldn't hear him gave me the upper hand. He would guard his thoughts carefully if he knew I could hear. "Oh really? So now I'm no fun. I know thousands of men who would argue with you."

"That really is sick, you know?" He smiled at me again, a mischievous grin unlike the sad shadow of a smile he had shown before. He titled his head at me when I didn't respond. I was too busy studying his facial features.

He looked nothing like my father. Lucifer's face was slightly paler, and definitely thinner. His nose was smaller, and his eyes slightly bigger, but like my father, he used his eyes to show what emotion he was truly feeling. I loved his eyes. I had always had a weakness for beautiful eyes, and his were gorgeous.

"You're staring again."

I blinked rapidly to clear the glazed look from my own eyes. I quickly made an excuse. "You'll have to forgive me; I'm curious, that's all. This is my first time being so close to a demon."

"You've been closer before." He didn't smirk. He presented the information as fact and fact alone. I raised an eyebrow in a questioning gesture. He quickly supplied an answer to my unasked question, "All the men you entertain; your customers could all be classified as demons if you think about it."

"You're right." It was a hard statement for me to admit.

"Are you going to sit down?" He gestured to the other side of the tombstone. He wanted me to sit on the opposite side of the grave and face him. "The ground is perfectly dry."

I bent slightly to feel of the ground. He was right again. I sat and tucked my legs underneath me, looking somewhat like a cat curled up beneath the old tree. "How?" I restricted myself to few-word sentences.

"Rain doesn't dare touch Ivy's grave. It's sort of like how a pampered dog doesn't dare bite its master. There's about a five foot range around the grave where the rain doesn't fall."

"I see." I nodded absentmindedly as my fingers nimbly traced the 'December 25th' death date on the headstone.

"You know, you're really…the way that you plot and scheme, playing people the way you do…like they're your chess pieces. Well, I think it's cute." A sincere, bashful smile played upon Lucifer's face

I checked his face for any sign of taunting, teasing, or dishonesty. He was speaking the truth from his heart. I wasn't quite sure what to say to that. The devil had just called me cute. "I…" I tried not to let my speech falter too much. "I wouldn't expect something like that from someone like you." I decided a relatively generic statement would be best.

"'Someone like me'? You say that like you know me. You really don't know anything." The laity in his voice disappeared and a sullen tone replaced it.

"Hm…you're right again. Three times in a row…perhaps I should stick around and let you explain yourself. But really, you can't blame me for stereotyping with all the stories of you betraying God and the angels. There're so many rumors against you. Plus, you've probably got some preconceived ideas about me that aren't necessarily true. I think we owe it to ourselves to not make up our minds about what kind of person a person is until we know that individual. Personally I'm not interested in getting to know you, and am content to live in my little delusion that you are pure evil."

I got up to leave, but he stopped me with his voice. "I've never had a girlfriend before."

I blinked. What kind of an answer was that? I turned and looked down at him, casting him a quizzical gaze.

He looked back at me with truly innocent eyes. "You think I was the one who raped you and stole your virginity, but it wasn't me. I've never had a girlfriend, I've never been married, and I've never raped anyone. Do you think I really am a perverted creep like that? That's just who I pretend to be…to cover up the fact that I've never actually slept with anyone…"

I sat back down. "Then I think I might have just framed you… This Detective Lyserg guy has been snooping, and I left him a clue with your name on it. Diablo, 'devil' in Spanish. I left it for him on a piece of paper in the coffee shop where he works. That is…if he ever finds it and understands the meaning behind it." I felt pretty badly framing an innocent man even if he was Satan.

Somehow Lucifer seemed to find this mildly amusing. He chuckled to himself. "Diablo, hn? Hehehe…. That's something else I was about to tell you about." His tone returned to a serious one. "The other reason I put up this jerky, perverted façade is because I'm trying to escape from my elder brother's shadow. We look almost identical, but he's several hundred years senior to me. He was the original 'devil'. As you may know from your rumors and stories, I used to be an angel, but then I was accused of rebelling against the boss and trying to replace God as the ruler. Truth is, I was framed. My brother pretended to be me, and he let me take the wrap for him. I was thrown out of Heaven and condemned to roam the earth in chains for eternity. Ten years later they finally sorted the whole matter mess and my brother was tossed out of Heaven too, but they wouldn't give me back my wings even though I was innocent. Heaven is really screwed up that way. You don't want to go there. Go to Limbo. Lots of nightclubs, Karaoke on Wednesdays, Spring break in the Bahamas, Ski trips in the Alps, the best international buffet ever invented, and limbo competitions on Fridays. I figure with a flexible body like yours, you should have to problem claiming the title. Anyway, I was furious with Heaven's screwed up system, so they gave my brother and I domain over a burning wasteland in the earth's core. They called it Hell and sent all the extremist sinning humans there when they died. My brother took over the place and nearly exiled me. Our mother had a fit. I was her pet, and I was to be treated with some respect. My elder brother was always the favorite though. I was always trapped in his shadow when we were young. Even now I still haven't managed to get out of his cold silhouette. My brother ruled for the first couple thousands of years, but I took over about a thousand years ago when he got sick of being 'The Devil'."

I knew what he meant, being trapped underneath the favorite child. Thorn was Hao's favorite, his little angel. I was the perfect representation of his failures and shortcomings. I could never measure up to Thorn. I could then easily identify with Lucifer, and somewhere deep down I sort of pitied him. He was like me; we had something in common.

"My brother still watches me and monitors me all the time. He hates it when I come up to the surface to mess with humans. He especially hates it when I visit Ivy. He wants her, but can't have her. That's why he raped girls that looked somewhat like her and marked them with that 3 scar. Diablo is obsessed with Ivy. He wants to wipe out all humans, dominate the world, and take Ivy as his bride. Of course he would be semi-satisfied with an Ivy look-alike as his personal slave, but don't worry, he's not very smart or well informed, so he doesn't know a thing about your little sis." Lucifer seemed to stop in mid thought. "You know, no one has ever gotten me to volunteer that much information of my own free will without torturing me before…. How did you do that? I told you all that because I was afraid that you thought I was a rapist, and I didn't want you to think badly of me…. Why do I care what someone like you thinks?" Lucifer tried to puzzle it out, but I cut him short.

"What do you mean 'a person like me'! I let you explain yourself, now you let me explain!" My temper flared at the demon.

"Cool your jets little witch; you don't need to explain because I already know. You got tricked when you were a kid. My brother Diablo raped you and marked you with that little 3, and after that you just kind of broke down and started acting out. You figured you were ruined anyway, so why not make some money. The money, your father's bad habits, living up to your mother's reputation, getting out of your little sister's shadow, they were all contributing factors to your down fall. You played the part of the sluty ditz well, but I know that's not really how you are. I was just teasing with the 'people like you' thing. It's not your fault that you have to keep up that charade to feel safe. It's society's fault for not protecting you in the first place. I'm sorry that you're life is so messed up, but maybe there's hope for you still." Lucifer smiled playfully as he rustled my damp hair.

Suddenly he looked as if he remembered something. He looked down at his watch, and for a split second, I swear I saw his eyes widen in mild surprise. "So late already… I have to go Hosh." He winked at the unauthorized use of my pet name. "We'll speak later, but I have to get back below ground before Diablo notices how long I've been gone."

I nodded. "Maybe you're not as bad as I though…Lucy." I quietly mocked him and his girly nickname.

"Only Ivy can call me that." Lucifer automatically bristled like a cat having water sprinkled on it. "Hao just does it to be annoying, but usually I only allow the women I love to call me by such a floofy pet name. I suppose I can let it slide this once. By the way, have fun with your little chess match. You think you're the one moving pieces around, but keep in mind that Anna thinks she's the one in control. But of course Hao thinks that he is the mastermind of the game…then again, Ivy is clueless that her life is being manipulated. Thorn is even worse than Ivy, Akira, Hana, Makoto, and Ivory know nothing, but at least Hana knows that he knows nothing, and that is why he is the most informed. He is aware of the plotting and multiple levels of planning that are going on. Several games overlap, and many players come in and out of power and control so fast. No one knows everything except the grand orchestrater of it all. No one seems to know who that is though… One thing I must question though, is 'are we the players or the pieces on the game board?'" There was a taunting in his voice that was not directed at me, but at the entire human race. His tone held connotations of amusement at the foolishness of the humans scurrying around thinking that they were in control of their lives when in reality, an unseen force was pulling all the strings.

Before he disappeared, Lucifer kissed me quickly on the cheek. "I meant it when I said I thought that you're cute."

My heart jumped in my chest. My hand automatically flew to the offending organ. 'That shouldn't have happened. I'm too far-gone to be effected by a whisper of a kiss on my cheek. That shouldn't have happened.' I repeated my mantra several times in my head as I walked home in the storm as it picked up. I was too dazed to even open my umbrella. (Not that it would have worked anyway. It was not as water resistant as the makers would have you believe.)

My guardian, Chip, flew right behind me, twittering some sort of something, trying to communicate with me. I completely tuned the sparrow out. My mind was whirling in circles, and I couldn't devote any brain cells to listening to my little bird friend or anything else unnecessary at the moment.

'Why did he kiss me? Is he trying to confuse me? Is he trying to get to my sister while my guard is down? Is he trying to trick me into trusting him so that he can backstab me later or use me as he wills in his twisted extended chess metaphor? He wants to gain my trust so he can trick me, right? Do I trust him? What danger does he pose to Ivy? To Thorn? What about my plans for Thorn and Akira? Is he using me, or does he really just want a friend? Or maybe he wants more from me. He is a man after all. I know all about that subject. I know too much about that subject. I've been tricked before, and I may be walking straight into another trap right now. Do I want to risk it? Is he being sincere? Is he warning me or trying to help? Does he want me dead? Was he just feeding me those lies in the graveyard to get me off my guard? Were they really lies, or am I just talking myself in circles because I don't want to admit that I've finally found someone who understands me? Could it be that…I'm falling in lo—'

My face made a sicken SMACK as it connected with the floor. I had miss-stepped and fallen on my face. I had been lost in my thoughts, and I had absent-mindedly walked home, opened the door, and tripped on the steps going into the Asakura Inn. My foot had slid right off the step, and my knee slammed was battered and bruised as it hit the edge of the stairs.

I was slightly disoriented at least. My knee was bleeding, and I didn't even want to look in a mirror to see the facial damage. My father came running from the kitchen to see what had happened, but my Aunt Anna, who was stationed in the living room, got to me first.

Anna inspected me and offered me a hand up, if I could stand. "Are you all right Hoshi? Nothing broken? Any cuts? Bruises? Scraps?" She clucked her tongue lightly when she caught sight of the blood. "Had a bad spill didn't you…best not to move you around too much."

"What going on?" Hao rushed into the room, but was less keen to be filled in when he realized that Anna was in the room. "Oh…Hello Anna." He stiffened, but tried not to be too awkward.

"Hello Hao." Anna too had gone rigid. As if it had been rehearsed, they looked away at the same moment and blushed. Something had happened between them, I was sure of it. Too bad I was too disoriented to say anything.

When my father noticed my condition, he rushed to my side. "Hoshi! Are you okay! What happened!"

"She had quite a fall." Anna's cold voice returned to a professional tone, losing the awkward teen crush behavior patterns. "She's a bit dumb-struck now, but she should be fine once Faust fixes her up."

"I'll go get Faust now." Hao offered, returning minutes later with the German doctor and his beautiful nurse of a wife.

"Ah…just a little blood and a slight daze. No major head injuries, and the knees should be healed up and scarred over in a day or two." The German couple rushed off to their bedroom to do god knows what after they had finished wrapping me up and diagnosing my condition.

"How do you feel?" My dad loomed over me, looking worried like a mother hen over her eggs.

I smiled weakly at him, my head feeling like it was going to burst. "I'll be fine. I just need to lie down. Can you carry me to the couch?"

Hao looked at Anna, and Anna nodded before looking away like an embarrassed schoolgirl. My aunt left my father and me alone as she hurried up the stairs, and Hao carried me over to the couch. "You can't go to sleep though. People with head injuries that go to sleep end up with concussions and comas and all sorts of bad things." He smiled gently as he set me down.

"All right Dad. I won't go to sleep as long as you sit with me and make sure that I don't." I tried to smile back, but my headache was not receding. In fact, I think it was getting worse.

"Sure." Hao took a seat next to me on the couch, let my head rest in his lap. He played with loose strands of my hair and just smiled down at me. "I'm sorry."

It was a shock to hear my father apologize. He normally didn't, and he hadn't done anything wrong. "For what?" I mumbled back up at him.

"For being a horrible father. I feel guilty for never being there for you. I should have put more effort into raising my daughters than what I did feeding my obsession with women and beer. It's my fault that things are such a mess…"

"Dad, it's not your fault. Things just happen, and you can't do anything to stop them." I wondered silently in the back of my mind if he knew what all had happened to me. I had never told anyone, not even Thorn. But then I had to think that, of course, he knew. He was the greatest telepath on the face of the earth. He could read my thoughts like an open book. It was only natural that he found out about the rape and how I had gotten pregnant. My first and only time, and I had wound up with a kid. I panicked and got an abortion. I knew it was wrong to kill such a little baby who had done nothing wrong, but I had only just turned 13, and was nowhere near ready to have a child. Something went wrong with the procedure, and I wound up unable to ever have children. Lucifer was right, I had sat down, sobbed, and decided since my life was ruined anyway, I might as well make a business out of it. I was such a naïve idiot.

"Hey, what's up?" Thorn tentatively entered the room and sat down on the opposite side of the couch from me, on our father's left. Her face was tear-stained, and her eyes were red and puffy.

"You've been crying?" Our father inspected my younger sister's face.

"Mmhm." Thorn nodded, still sniffling.

Hao took Thorn in a one armed hug, and laid her head on his shoulder. "My poor girls. Sorry that I couldn't protect you from the real world."

"It's not your fault." My little sister sobbed, letting out all the tears.

I sat up and took our father's other shoulder. "Sooner or later we would have had to deal with the real world anyway." I too started sobbing.

"It feels like someone took a sledge hammer and crushed my heart." Thorn's tears continued to flow steadily down her cheeks.

"That usually comes with heartbreak." A new voice from the bottom of the stairwell echoed in the room. I looked up and Ivy was standing there crying softly along with the rest of us.

"It hurts so much though." Thorn whimpered.

"I know…. I know." Ivy came over and sat at Hao's feet, laying her had on his lap. "Having your heart smashed to pieces…it's all part of growing up."

"Sounds like you've had a bad day." I mumbled to my mother.

"Yeah, it's been pretty lousy. I'm getting nowhere with my stupid, pointless research, a couple of my concoctions blew up in my face today, and someone that I thought cared about me is having an affair with my sis—cousin, who happens to be married." Her voice rung hollow. "Plus I'm sick. I think I'm coming down with the flu or something. It's enough to make someone jump off a cliff." Ivy smiled, but the emptiness in her green eyes told other wise.

"I—Valerie..." My father made a paling attempt to explain. "Anna and I…we didn't—"

"—You're having an affair with Auntie Anna!" Thorn jerked her head off his shoulder and looked incredulously at our father. "How could you?"

"Thorn, no I'm not I—" I cut him off next.

"—So that's why you were so awkward around Anna. I thought that there was something going on between the two of you." I too lifted my head off his shoulder.

"It's not like that!" Hao pitifully tried to convince us that we were wrong.

"Then would you mind explaining what it was like?" A cold voice and a murderous glare in the direction of my father came from the damp form of Yoh Asakura. He had just gotten back from wherever he had run off to, and he was soaked to the bone from the heavy fall of rain caused by Allure tears. My uncle looked half insane as he stood there in front of the couch, waiting for his older brother to answer.

"Yoh…" Hao breathed. "There's nothing going on between Anna and me. I swear. Nothing happened—"

Ivy let out the breath she had been holding and stood. "Oh really? Hao, I know what I saw, and God, that was a hell of a lot of nothing going on between the two of you." She raised both hands defensively and took a step back. "But hey, if you want to have an affair, go right ahead. It's not like I care anyway." She turned her back to him and started to walk away. "I'll be locked in my room if anyone needs me. Try not to bother me unless it's really important though. I'm not in the mood for frivolity." And she was gone.

Yoh didn't wait for his explanation, and instead made his way to the kitchen.

Hao stood to follow his brother. "Some days love just doesn't seem worth it." He murmured softly to himself.

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Mikau: another depressing chapter…I'm beginning to see a pattern. Why are all my chapters so depressing now? I have no idea…maybe this is just a depressing story. Oh well. I hope you all are enjoying the story and aren't too bummed out by all the depressingness. Sadly I feel that the next chapter might not be any better. Yoh and Hao are going to have a little talk.

Thanks to: Firebane5, MaiValentinefan, HAO-Addictive, Addi-Lee, ivyxhao 4eva, Kiva Kyoyama, and knux33.

To Firebane5: Hey! It's okay, whenever you find time to review. I completely understand. It seems as if everyone is falling behind lately. I think I'm sort of picking up a little speed though, since it didn't take me a week or two to finish this, and I think I'm almost done with another chapter, so maybe that will be up on Monday or Tuesday. I really think that being in the musical slowed me waaaaaay down, but now that I don't have all those hours devoted to rehearsals and shows, I have free time. Of course then I have homework and projects and reports, but whatever. I'm trying to get into two other plays right now, so maybe I won't have as much time anymore, but it will be sooooooo much fun! I really loved Beauty and the Beast, so I'm really looking forward to Into the Woods if I make it. Again, I hear it's a very difficult musical to learn the music, and the staging and everything, and I don't know how we're going to make a house collapse in the second act, but it would be amazing to be a part of that show. Most of the parts are going to go to juniors and seniors, so since I'm only a sophomore, I'll be extremely happy if I get the part of Milky White the cow. No lines. No dancing. No singing. Just moving and being on stage. Sure, it's not the most glamorous part, but it's a whole lot better than not being in the musical at all. Plus, the cow gets to die on stage and then gets brought back to life. Someone has to take the little parts, and I'd be honored to…unless I get to be Little Red Riding Hood. Those are my two preferences, but it would rock my socks if I got cast at all. If I don't get cast, then I'll do crew. I'll still to hang out with actors some, and I'll get to be a part of the production. The other play I auditioned for (they still haven't put the cast list up yet) on Wednesday, was a creative project called Mothers and Daughters. It's a big collaboration of poems, songs, and little scenes pieced together all revolving around the relationship of mothers and their daughters. I have no idea how it's going to turn out, but I hope I get cast. On the 12th are the auditions for Into the Woods. Anyway, enough about my theatre obsession. Um, I think the Chronicles of Narnia comes out sometime this week…or around Christmas…hmm…I really don't know. I do know that Memoirs of a Geisha comes out on December 23rd though. I read that book for summer reading for my school, and it was pretty interesting, so I'm planning on seeing the movie. It won't be as good as the book (they never are), but it will be cool to see the movie of it. Both the movie and the book have their good points and bad. Speaking of bad, I feel bad for Hana. It's hard to be so mean to him and have him depressed, but we can't have incest going on. Poor guy never gets any breaks. -Hugs Hana- Well, things are getting more fun to write as I slowly start to unravel my well kept secret plans and plots. Wow this fun! LOL! Sorry for the randomness; thanks for the review!

To MaiValentinefan: Wow…good luck on opening night…if you guys make it that far…Are you having fun at least? It's only worth the frustration and long hours if you're having fun. You'll have to wait and see what all Lucifer and Anna's plans are, but it's going to be wrought with secrets and it will sometimes seem really drastic. It's going to be a pain to write, but I just know I'm going to have fun writing it. Thanks for the review!

PLEASE REVIEW!