Growing Pains

06: Mercy by any other name

Auteur : Rain

Disclaimer : Shaman King…. Doesn't belong to me! How surprising! I am only playing with borrowed toys.

Notes :

To protect; to freeze; to care.

Sorry this one took a little more time! The moving process is taking its toll.
Hao is finally starting to think about what might happen to him! And Ashil doesn't die, because I'm the writer here and I say so.
Also, second half-meeting!


They have taken shelter in one of the higher buildings of Mesa Verde. Intel says Hao's group is hovering, and they want to know why, and hopefully intervene before they slaughter more innocents.

John and his team survey the area. As they wait for them, Marco and the rest are discussing potential leads around a table that may, at some point, have been round.

Now it's just broken.

Jeanne sits among them, her dress covering each inch of her skin that isn't hand or face. The heat is affecting her, a little, but she doesn't admit it.

Under the table she has her thumbs in vices and absently she tightens them. She's found it helps keeping her candles dark. Gives her something to balance the void on.

"There is this," Kevin admit in that gravelly voice of his. "Some records mention that only complete souls could hope to be crowned Shaman King. It isn't easy to determine what is meant by 'complete'. We do not have records of former Shaman King's skin markings, nor their flared status."

"It could mean a non-marked individual," Marco says doubtfully. "Wouldn't that be the most 'complete' a soul could be? No impurity, no reliance on other souls."

"That is an idea."

"Making our Holy Maiden the ideal candidate."

They glance at Jeanne who smiles dutifully. It isn't only her marks she has learned to hide. She hopes, behind her smile, that they are wrong.

"Let us not be hasty," she reminds them. The topic does worry her now that she is aware of it. Another sign that this is a complete travesty. Another sign that she should not lead them. "Is that your working hypothesis, Kevin?"

"There are other possibilities. It could reflect the state of someone fully flared, or someone with a mutual bond, or, more worryingly, someone who had absorbed their soul partners."

"Oh." It's Christopher who lets out the sound, but Jeanne feels like it came from her. They all know of one person who has consistently been absorbing souls. If that is what he is doing, then...

"That can't be," Marco interrupts. "It would be properly monstrous to base the requirements around that. The tournament is not about finding the worst monster alive."

Isn't it, though? Jeanne wonders and says nothing.

The silence then is long.

"In any case," Meene finally says, "it would probably be a good idea to try and track down Asakura Hao's partners."

They know he has at least one. Hao doesn't care about hiding, and they've caught sight of his naked arms at least once.

Jeanne wonders what that would be like. To be bound to a beast; to know that somehow destiny –

That wouldn't mean anything, she instantly knows, and it's a rebellious thought. Luchist said that destiny was a choice. That the words were a door but you still had to turn the handle and step through. He stepped through. He made his choice and the silver on his hand did not force him to.

She still feels the frustrating desire to understand. To have it make sense, even as she shushes her candles again and again.

"Do we know if he is flared?"

Her question surprises even her, and everyone turns to look at her again. "It would let us know if he has made contact," she continues, when she feels the need to explain.

Kevin rifles through his files. "We can't be sure we know of all his marks." And isn't that further proof of his degeneracies, is thought but not said. To have so many different people etched on her skin. Jeanne has heard Marco and John when they were scoping out people at the base; one man apparently had so many the color of his arms was functionally black-and-gold, and they shuddered at the thought.

She doesn't think of her shoulders, because she doesn't have marks, see?

"But of those that we've seen, none was flared," Kevin continues. He looks at her curiously, as if about to ask her for her thoughts, but he doesn't. It would be too direct.

"If we locate one such partner," Meene says, with the practicality of a soldier, "what should be our protocol? If they are key to the throne –

"Such taint could not be tolerated," Marco immediately says. "Even the partners themselves would understand and would demand it of us. A quick, quiet execution would be mercy."

Jeanne glances at him. He isn't looking at her. His fists are tight and it takes Meene's quiet touch, through gloves, to quiet his energy. They don't speak, but for a second it looks like they do, and Jeanne wonders how it feels to have the confidence it takes to reach out and touch Marco.

She thinks of the silver on Luchist's wrist. She looks at Marco, who is silent and sullen. She knows he doesn't like the concept of marks and partners and siblings-from-another-mother. It is too subjective, too emotional for he who likes to dwell in black and white. Is that why he hasn't connected the dots?

She has. She could say it. It's not like they plan on sparing him anyway.

She doesn't say it.

A secret for a secret.

"I can show you around here."

Everything is happening too fast.

They just landed on American soil and there was a lot to take in: the heat, the colors, the sheer… expanse of world that is nothing like she is used to. But Tamao didn't have any time to process it, because already someone has found them.

That someone, it appears, is Hao.

She watches in the sidelines as Anna talks to him. Well, is talked to by him.

He's not – he's not like she expected him to be. In the paintings at home he always looks sullen, dark, ancient. The boy who stands so close to Anna is young and he smiles and it almost looks like Yoh, except it looks nothing like Yoh.

Tamao can't feel her legs. She's not sure what she would do if things escalate – there's Manta and his employee to watch out for, but she wouldn't leave Anna – she wouldn't… She holds her hands against her mouth and stands stock still. She can't speak.

It doesn't exactly feel like fear. It's more like waiting for a breath that refuses to come.

"I'm so very glad to meet you, Anna. The new mistress of my shikigami and the bearer of Yoh's mark! Quite the combination."

Anna is so brave. Tamao doesn't know how she's so unabashedly hostile. She stands her ground, talks to him like he's not the monster Yohmei told them about. (Admittedly, he doesn't look like one, though the air is heavy with power).

"But do ask if you need help. I'm always available," he says, and it sounds like flirting, and how is this happening?

Anna, predictably, lashes out.

Hao, unpredictably, catches her hand.

Tamao stifles a scream as he leans over her, caging her against rock. "Oh, really? Well, that's not very inspired," he muses, and it takes her a second to realize he's talking about Anna's mark. The one she's never read.

"That is really none of your business," Anna hisses.

"Ah, my bad. I see that you like it. I wonder if it will transfer when I absorb his soul… Or if I will have yours on me, then. After all, you are meant to be the Shaman King's wife. Wouldn't that be fun?"

Whatever is holding Tamao immobile suddenly lifts, and she takes a single step. She wants to say something, though she doesn't know what. She will say something. Help Anna.

As if he heard, Hao turns, and looks at her. She freezes again. It still doesn't feel like fear. It feels like the world itself is holding its breath, and her legs feel numb, and…

And Anna backhands him with violence Tamao has never seen her unleash on Yoh.

"Of course I'll be the Shaman King's wife. Yoh is sure to win. Come on, Tamao, Manta, we don't have any time to waste."

And Tamao doesn't let herself look back.

Nothing is going the way it should.

Don't engage, Hao said. Your job is simply to watch. I trust you to gauge Yoh's level accurately.

Except no one seems to have the braincells necessary to do as he asked!

Boris and Damayaji were meant to act together. Try Yoh, try his friends, kill the weak, kill any other Shaman trying to go through. Simple enough.

But somehow the little group of teenagers gets Boris riled up. They imply that Damayaji is twice the vampire Boris could ever be (and they're right) and Ashil sees in slow-motion the moment where Boris loses it.

To be fair, it has been a long time coming. To be fair, he has always hated being ribbed on for his mark, for having a little nobody as a soulmate. To be fair, how does it look, really, for the heir of the infamous Vlad the Impaler to be tied by a mutual bond with someone like Damayaji? To be fair, they hated each other's guts, hated having the same (atrocious) tastes, hated finishing each other's sentences, hated, hated, hated.

Ashil doesn't care about fair. What Boris does next is overdramatic and completely unnecessary.

And to make this worse, the moment Boris stabs Yamada, he clutches at his chest, gasps like a buffoon or a fish out of water. They both fall to the ground like limp noodles. And Boris. Doesn't. Get. Up.

For a second, Ashil is as flabbergasted as the teenage boys below their observation spot. How did that happen? Why is Boris on the floor? What...?

None of that matters, he remembers a second after all of that.

"If you want something done well, you better do it yourself," he sneers. Zang-Ching tries to hold him back, but he's already jumped into the fray.

Siegfried lands and blooms under his feet, and he grins at the idiots below. "I'll be your opponent!"

He cannot let them humiliate Hao like this. If Boris cannot be trusted to do his work correctly, he will. He has the power. He's sized all of them up, the Tao heir and the green-haired boy and the barely-Shaman and of course Yoh. He's not afraid. He will kill all of Yoh's little companions, and, well, if Yoh interferes –

The green-haired boy jumps to meet his first hit with a yell. A straight-up yell.

"I don't care," he roars. "I'll go through all of you if I need to!"

And then the green-haired boy attacks, but Ashil doesn't parry. He doesn't parry because at the brat's words his shoulder burst to life. Instinctively, he grips his arm and stumbles back, biting in a yell.

To anyone else, it might look like his opponent landed a hit. But he knows. And the other boy knows his pendulum actually swung large. He knows.

Fury engulfs Ashil like a ball of fire. "You," he spits, "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

Siegfried follows his commands, stomping brutally up to his opponent. His first blows miss; the boy is fast, as fast as his wire. But as he takes the time to wrap it around Siegfried's legs to shatter them (which they do, and it does not matter. They exist again in the very next moment), Siegfried's giant limbs backhand him right into the side of the mountain.

"Lyserg!"

There is a flash of hurt in Ashil's shoulder and it combusts into white-hot anger. He wants the boy dead. He wants –

"Hey, you! Stop! We won't let you hurt Lyserg!"

Yoh. Yoh and his friends are attacking from behind, trying desperately to distract him from his task. And if he was looking for an excuse to maim, to incapacitate, to kill the boy Hao is so interested in – here it is. He only has to take it.

Ashil doesn't take it. Siegfried lets the blows slice through him like butter and continues to march on Lyserg. He has one goal and one goal only.

"That's enough."

Even in his fury Ashil hears him. Ashil would hear him in the middle of a thunderstorm, in the darkest of oceans, in the void of space.

Siegfried launches him in the air, and then he is caught by Hao, as he always is. His master's power deposits him safely in the boiling palm of fire.

"Well, what happened here?"

Ashil straightens up, but one of the boys is faster. "Your stupid vampire-wannabe minions came at us, that's what! And then one stabbed the other and your two clowns fell right over!"

"Boris is not dead," Ashil adds in a whisper. He hadn't noticed before, but his furyoku is a dead ringer. Boris is actually preparing to stand, though he stays immobile and silent for now. "But he wouldn't do as you asked and I –

"You did good, Ashil. Now, Boris, are you going to sleep much longer?"

As if by magic, the vampire stands. He seems disorientated and weak and it makes Ashil sick.

"Master Hao. My apologies."

"None necessary. Now, do your job, will you? Ashil and I have other matters to attend to."

Ashil swallows wrong and half-suffocates. Ashil and I. It's so sweet he almost forgets his anger.

They move away from the boy who wrote I don't care in Ashil's arm, and Hao ponders.

Spirit of Fire towers over the ruined buildings of Mesa Velde. Now that he has formally met Yoh and his delightful fiancée, perhaps he should give a good scare to Luchist's former pack. He can sense their gazes on him from where they hide. But… no. It will be time soon enough.

Instead his mind wanders to the silent girl who stood with Anna. The way she stood, the twin spirits, he can smell some Mikihisa on her. And yet, such a quiet signature. Either she hid it very well, or Anna was really the only Shaman of note in that little group. Isn't that strange?

Their presence was not planned, he reminds himself. Perhaps they had no one else to escort his precious book. Still, to send the entire future of the bloodline doesn't strike him as especially sound.

"Master... I apologize for my outburst," Ashil pipes up at his side. "I got carried away."

"You did," Hao acknowledges, without passing judgment. "I thought you had no interest in the marks."

"I don't! Of course I don't!"

"So?"

"So that boy... He's got no right! How dare he? I don't want a connection to him. I don't want someone else."

That is, and has been as long as they have known each other, the truth. But there is something else, and Hao wants to tug it out of the boy.

"You know I don't care. Why so angry?"

There is a long pause as Ashil puts into words why he needed Lyserg dead immediately.

"I don't want to be weak," he says, at length, his cheeks slightly greener than they should be.

"Oh?"

"Especially after what happened to Boris! I don't want to be in the middle of a fight and incapacitated because I or you or someone else kills him. I want him to be dead now so he's not – so I'm not..." A liability. He doesn't say that, but Hao hears it anyway. And suddenly he wonders about that, too.

His wrists are not flared, but at least one of the sentences implies he will face them on the battlefield. And then – and then what? What if they burn, what if they die, what if someone else realizes...

"You're right," Hao says after a beat. He hadn't thought about that. He hasn't wanted to think about that, to care about that. And he has no idea when his own marks will flare. At least one of them he will meet in battle. And then…

"Ashil."

"Y-yes?"

"Have I commanded you for your wits, lately?"

It's a trick question because Hao never has. It still makes Ashil go beet red and he stammers. Hao didn't expect otherwise, but he still grins.

"You are most right – it would not do to find out something like that in the arena. I think we need to do some experiments."

He knows that 'we' will undo the boy, but considers it a small mercy. It will distract Ashil from his flared mark. And it will give him something to think of instead of the silent Asakura girl.