Disclaimer: I do not own Shaman King.

A/N: It might suck, a lot.

xxx

Hao jumped up and landed on the open palm of the Spirit of Fire.

"Well, I guess I'll be seeing you guys when you've have gotten stronger. Especially you, Yoh, since you have they cannot possibly comprehend." Hao smiled condescendingly down at the group before he began laughing. With a huge flash of fire that pushed them back from his followers, Hao and his group disappeared.

However, just before he disappeared, his cloak flew up from the force of the eruption, and his sculpted body was revealed for all to see. Unfortunately, because the Hanagumi were desensitized, the rest were men and Anna was… Anna, nobody really had any reaction to it.

Horo Horo was the first to begin screaming. "THAT HAO! Who does he think he is?" A glance around the other shamans showed that they all agreed with him, except Ren, who was perfectly cool.

Anna glanced at the ice shaman, before replying, "Only perhaps the greatest shaman to ever live."

As all the other shamans began to raise their voices to protest her proclamation, she merely pulled out the two shikigami and whacked the group, except Ren, before they could react. "I am not defending him. I am merely echoing what Yohmei-ojisama said. Also, I believe that what he says caries more weight than your feeble denials."

Throughout then entire ruckus, Yoh stayed silent.

Finally after much shouting and procrastinating, someone noticed. "What, Yoh. Do you fear Hao's power to such a degree that you're shocked to silence?" snorted Ren.

Yoh didn't give any indication that he had heard, except that he began shaking his head. After a few more tense moments, as everyone present turned to look at Yoh, including Mikihisa from the cliffs above who began to shake his head as well, but in disappointment, Yoh finally looked to the sky and screamed.

"I WANT A BODY LIKE HAO! YOSH!"

All the people present, with the notable exception of Anna and the spirits, face faulted. Mikihisa fell from his precarious perch on the cliff's edge. Of course, he was able to oversoul before impact.

Anna merely directed her glance at Yoh while the others stood up. "Yoh. Are you really serious about this? If you really want it, I can modify your training schedule to help you attempt to put on the muscle in the shortest time possible. However, training will definitely have to step up. And lean muscles like Hao's won't even begin to show for months. Unless…"

Yoh turned to face Anna, and in his eyes shone with a most unholy and determined fire the others had never before seen in Yoh. In fact, as long as Manta had known him (Which really wasn't that long at all.), he had never, ever before seen anything resembling it at all! In fact, such an expression would look much more appropriate on… Hao!

Yoh continued staring at Anna, and she almost… almost backed down from the staring contest. However, Yoh's split second of envy and inferiority complex induced courage wasn't going to stand up to years of experience from Anna, and it didn't help that using her reishi, Anna was able to hear that Yoh was thinking, "Crap, I think I'm losing power!" just as she drew upon her final reserves.

Yoh didn't have any outwards reaction, but he merely straightened up, put on that unassuming grin of his together with a thumbs-up, and said, "I wouldn't mind that, Anna! It's a great idea!"

Horo Horo and Ryu cringed. Chocolove was busy saying a joke so stupid that he didn't even get to finish. Ren was still standing around looking cool, but Faust merely smiled.

"Lets begin your modified training now."

"OK! Let's go, Amidamaru!"

"Yosh, Yoh-dono!"

xxx

Yoh was standing in front of Anna, quite a distance away from the main group, who were setting up camp and preparing dinner. Mikihisa, as usual, was spying upon his son. Manta wanted to stick with his friend to the end, so he decided to subject himself to tortu… training as well and stood next to Yoh.

Yoh looked down at him and smiled. "You don't have to do this, you know. I've gone through her training and come out alive before…"

Manta was determined. "NO! I shall go through her training as well. It can't be as bad as they say, anyway."

Suddenly the world went black and all Manta saw was the figure of Anna standing where she was with her eyes now glowing red. A bone chilling wind came up and wrapped itself around Manta, while at the same time leaving Anna untouched as she turned her gaze upon him.

"Are you… sure?"

The world came back to light and Manta blasted back to the camp.

Yoh grinned and rubbed his head.

"The training is simple. I will give you new exercises to do as you complete each. For now, just do 1000 vertical push ups."

Yoh immediately dropped down to do the exercise, but after the first 10 his completely muscleless body was unable to continue the punishment and he slumped to the ground. Anna was unsympathetic as she began to walk away, seeing that Yoh wasn't going to complete the exercise any time soon. "Also, no food for you until it's completed. This is so that even if you don't build up the muscles, the loss of your fat will make the muscles show up anyway."

Waterfalls of tears streamed down Yoh's eyes, as he smelled the food, however far it was, from his isolated position in the middle of nowhere. Zenki and Kouki appeared and stood in front of him, both to prevent him from joining the camp and to ensure that he did his exercise. With a sigh, Yoh pushed himself back up and continued his exercise.

Amidamaru appeared with a similar expression on his face. "I'm sorry I can't help, Yoh-dono!"

Yoh sighed while in the middle of one, and said, "Its alright…"

Of course, Yoh could have simply oversouled the spirit into his own body to draw upon the spirit's power, but it took him… rather long to figure that out.

xxx

The next day, Yoh woke up to find the shikigami gone and his body feeling completely slack. He tried to move his hands buy they wouldn't obey. He tried to twitch, but found that impossible too. The only part he could move was his neck, but it wasn't much of a comfort.

He looked straight and saw Amidamaru sprawled on the floor, too weak to even float.

He lay there for a few hours, but his body didn't recover much. He took the time to slowly examine his body, and he was utterly shock to find that his body was… exactly the same for yesterday's intensive exercise.

"Hey… I thought that in those shows a lean hard body was supposed to come after a day…?"

Anna finally appeared around noon and said, "I was informed that you had completed the exercise. Now you have to do 1000 crunches before you are given food for the day. I have slice of bread waiting after you run the distance to catch up with the group. We are moving on without you for the moment."

Yoh groaned, slumped, and gave up.