It was morning when Horohoro's phone suddenly rang. He was in the middle of a rather unenjoyable breakfast; he was horribly lonely. He shoved his bowl aside and hurried to the phone, picking it up and answering the call.

"Hello?" he grunted with his mouth still full of food.

"Hey, Horo. You free today?"

"Oh, Yoh. Hi." Horohoro blinked, pleasantly surprised. It had been such a long time since had had spent some time with Yoh, his best friend, and he seized the oppurtunity at once. There was no way he was going to pass this up. If someone was to take his mind off of his constant worries about Ren, Yoh would be the only one able to.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go for a walk with me? You know? I was going...I was going to go see Anna at the cemetery, and Tamao and Pirika, too..."

"Yeah, I'll go with you."

"Great. I'll come by your apartment in a few minutes and knock on your door, okay?"

"Sounds good."

"See you then, Horo."

Horohoro sighed. He hadn't visited any graves in a long time. He felt guilty, after all, Pirika was buried there. He wished he could see Chcolove and Lyserg as well, but there corpses had yet to be found by anyone.

As promised, Yoh stopped by the apartment and rang the bell. After he pulled on his coat, the Ainu joined him outside on the Tokyo sidewalk. As they made their way down the street, the snow began to fall softly once again.

It didn't take long to arrive at the cemetery. Despite the morbid atmosphere, Horohoro didn't feel any different as they pushed open the iron gates and entered. Anna, Tamao, and Pirika were buried very close together, so visiting would be very convenient.

They crossed the cemetery, manuvering through endless rows of bleak and somber-looking graves. After a few moments of silent searching, Yoh spotted the tombstone with the words Kyouyama Anna carved across the stone surface.

"Hi, Anna!" Yoh exclaimed cheerfully, sitting down next to the grave and patting the headstone. "It's great to see you."

Horohoro was jealous of Yoh. How could he act like he was talking to someone who was alive, and feel that way too? With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he knew that there would be a time when he would visit Ren's grave. But he wouldn't be able to take it as carefreely as Yoh.

He turned away, feeling tears sting his eyes. He couldn't stand the thought of visiting Ren and not being able to see him, just the cold gray stone. His eyes darted to the left, and he spotted Tamao's grave not too far away. He turned to it, sighing and silently thanking the long-dead, shy, pink-haired girl who had opened his eyes to how blind he had been to treat Ren so cruelly.

Next to her grave was Pirika's.

He rose to his feet and moved towards it, sitting down next to the gravestone in a fashion similar to Yoh's. "Hey, Pirika," he said softly, following Yoh's example. "It's been a while, huh? I have so much to tell you...about everything, and everyone...and Ren..." He swallowed hard, staring blankly at the stone. "Pirika, Ren's dying. It won't be too long before...before...he...he starts living with you up in the clouds."

The blue-haired boy furiosuly wiped the tears that threatened to fall from his eyes on the back of his sleeve. "Can you do your big brother a favor? Promise me you'll keep him company 'til I get up there, too, okay, Pirika? Please? You'll do it, won't you?"

He glanced back at Yoh, who was still cheerfully conversing with Anna's grave as if she was actually there to hear everything. "Guess what? Hao got some weird doctor dude named Faust or something like that to bring me back from the dead! I look great now, don't I? Don't worry, Anna, I'm still training really hard, just for you. I'll be Shaman King, you just wait and see."

"Yoh...we should leave." Horohoro looked down. If he stayed in this place any longer, he was sure he was going to embarass himself by starting to cry.

"Oh." Yoh blinked. "Okay. Sure." He waved at Anna's grave, grinning. "Bye, Anna! See you later!"

They left the cemetery, talking quietly.

"So...uh, where's Hao?" Horohoro inquired.

"Oh, him?" Yoh looked up. "He's at home. He's...he's sort of mad at me, I think."

"Really?" the Ainu asked. "Why?"

"Oh, I dunno, he's just stubborn like that. He wanted me to help him with something, like making sure that the doctors wouldn't be able to help Ren or something, but I said no 'cause I didn't want you to be upset."

Horohoro's eyes widened. "Really? So the doctors really can find a way, but Hao's just trying to prevent it?"

Yoh's expression saddened. "No, it's not that way, Horohoro...I'm sorry...Even if he did do something to stop them...then they wouldn't be able to help him anyways. It's inevitable, I really wish it was that way, because then I could make Hao get out of the way..."

"It's okay." Horohoro sighed. "It's not a problem, Yoh...It's just that I'm gonna miss him so much when he's gone."