DISCLAIMER: I do not own Shaman King. I only own my own OCs.

One: Tori

When the star did finally come, it all began.

The day started normally. Shima tied my hair back into a ponytail with a gold ribbon that Silva had gotten me for my last birthday. My mother loved to do my hair for me, since it was red rather than Patch black. I didn't feel particularly close to Shima, but I let her have her comforts whenever she could. I was treated like a blessing in the village, but I felt like a curse to her, not that she felt the same way…I think. Sometimes, at night, I did hear her crying.

She was a widower and would probably never marry again. Even if she did, I made all of my mothers infertile, so she wouldn't be able to have another child or know the true bond of a mother-child relationship. I would never know it either.

After breakfast, she began her usual day of baking goods for the tribe (everyone went through a rotation during the week so she wouldn't end up being overwhelmed). She didn't have a real job, per se, since her official title was actually to just be my mother, so she filled her time by doing little things for the other Patch members, like cooking and sewing.

I left her and headed out into the village. Lately, it had been getting busier; everyone was making the village more presentable, since part of the Shaman Fight would bring all the participants here. That wouldn't be for months, though.

"Hi, Nichrom," I said suddenly.

"Aw, you always know it's me," he said, suddenly appearing from around a corner a little ways ahead. He smiled. "Morning, Cat."

I bristled. "Don't call me that."

"But cats are cute."

Nichrom always said stupid things like that, but since the puberty hormones had started kicking in (Great Spirits, I hated puberty more than anything), those kids of comments made me blush a little. Though I would never ever like Nichrom like that, if anyone—especially Goldva—saw him make me blush, we could get into huge trouble. I wasn't allowed to have romantic relationships, not that that wasn't fair. Besides, I didn't want one, anyways. Why the hell would I?

"But I'm allergic to cats, you nitwit."

He shrugged, then changed the subject. "Rutherford has a feeling that tonight's the night. I'm not sold on it, though."

"What makes her think that?" I asked, walking past Nichrom.

He turned and kept up with me. "She says she just knows, like she had a dream or something."

"Well, I'm more inclined to believe her rather than you. Oh hey, did Chrom say he'd let you come?"

Nichrom frowned. "No, since I'm not a full priest like he is. Ugh, it isn't fair. I mean, you and Rutherford both get to go and I'm older than you."

I actually laughed; since I couldn't speak on my own, the sound was breathy and awkward. I stopped quickly, since I was embarrassed by the sound, but Nichrom was used to it and didn't comment.

"For one, I'm way older than you, and it's tradition for me to go. And Rutherford's…different from you."

He huffed. "Still doesn't mean it's fair."

I rolled my eyes and didn't dignify him with a response. We walked together around the village, helping out those we passed with preparations. The shamans of the world might not be coming for months, but the Patch prided themselves on hosting such an important event in the world's history.

To be honest, the everyday life of the village had been boring me for a while. I couldn't wait until I went to Tokyo with the priests. I hadn't been born in Japan in several lifetimes, and I really wanted to see how much it had changed and how many shamans were going to gather. The Patch priests, plus me, would be scattered all around the area, and I was becoming impatient to have a higher level of freedom than the one I had here.

()()()()()

The day inevitably passed, and night fell. There was a certain excitement in the air, and everyone kept glancing up at the sky expectantly. I could sense it coming, too, so I hurried home and climbed up the side stairs onto our flat roof before lying down. Nix materialized and nestled on the ledge beside me, and together we stared up at the sky.

We waited for a while; I wasn't sure how long. But the sight of Rahu shooting across the sky, its huge, magnificent white tail streaming behind it…was definitely worth the five hundred-year wait.

I grinned. "You ready, Nix?"

"I always am, Catori."

My smile faltered for a moment, but I wasn't sure why.

()()()()()

We left at dawn.

"Remember, my priests," Goldva said to us as we stood literally out in the middle of the desert. "You are all to remain impartial and must judge participants fairly. Oracle Bells are to be handed out to all shamans who pass our test. Our job is sacred and more important than anything else, so take it seriously at all times and do your best. I will come to join you when the preliminaries are over. May the Great Spirits be with you all."

The ten priests and I bowed to Goldva, and without further ado, Chrom created an oversoul of a small plane, which we all quickly stocked with our supplies, much of which were the Oracle Bells. Speaking of which, we'd all already been assigned our own Oracle Bells, and I particularly liked my red one.

We wasted no time and were soon headed to Tokyo. When Chrom started to tire out, we all teased him a little before Kalim took over with his own oversoul. The process of switching was a bit jarring since Kalim had to make a slightly bigger plane, which meant that we all fell a couple of inches when Chrom deactivated his oversoul.

Rutherford feel asleep, so I spent most of the time looking out the window, even though I couldn't see the ground from so high up. I really liked to look at the tops of the clouds; I was able to fly up this far with Nix's oversoul, but I wasn't allowed to while we were back at the village.

Because, you know, I could hit a plane so far up here. Or run out of oxygen. Or be seen. Those sorts of shitty things.

"You excited?"

I turned to where Silva sat across from me. "Yeah, actually. I live for the fights! You know that."

He smiled a little, but it didn't quite meet his eyes. He nodded slightly, a signal we'd developed long ago, and I extended my senses to him a little more.

"Kalim and I are the ones officially in charge of you," he thought. "I'll let you have some freedom, but don't make me regret it."

"Of course I won't."

"I won't let her," Nix added from where he was perched on my shoulder.

I rolled my eyes at the bird. "I'll be fine," I insisted. "I'm way older than you, Silva, remember? I know how to take care of myself."

"I know. But you can't blame me for worrying," Silva replied. "It's you we're talking about."

After that, the ride didn't take that much longer. A few hours later, we found ourselves in a rather secluded part of Japan, many miles from Tokyo, but if a group of people had been seen flying into Tokyo "by no real means," our mission would have been jeopardized.

We had already changed out of our Patch robes into more everyday-wear; I wore a thigh-length, white summer dress with flowing sleeves that went to the elbow, and black tights. As usual, my hair was tied up in a simple knot with a gold ribbon, and two locks of hair framed my face.

Rutherford had managed to tame her massive amounts of hair into a braid, and wore a long-sleeved blue shirt and jeans. In fact, all of the priests had decided to wear jeans. Silva wore a leather jacket, too, and it actually had tacky-looking tassels on the arms. I kind of wanted to laugh at him.

Kalim came up to me. "Mind keeping a lookout?"

"Aye-aye, Captain Kalim," I replied, extending my senses to the surrounding area. I nodded to Kalim when I couldn't sense anything but local wildlife.

He led the way through the woods, using his Oracle Bell as a GPS. The rest of us trudged along behind, shouldering our backpacks. None of us spoke for hours, and by the time we finally emerged from the undergrowth, my arms were covered with scratches and all I wanted to do was find somewhere to sleep. But when we finally came out of the trees and onto a ridge overlooking part of the city, all of the hours of travelling were forgotten.

Tokyo was a lot…brighter and bigger than I remembered it being. Of course, I hadn't been in Japan for over a century, so it obviously looked different. I was suddenly very thankful that Goldva had made us all study modern Japanese so we could fit in better while we were here.

Kalim turned to all of us. "Okay, everyone, we—"

"Oi, oi," Radim said. "We already heard everything from Goldva about what we need to do. You don't have to tell us."

Chrom elbowed him. "Oh, let Kalim have his fun, Radim. And Great Spirits know you'd forget what to do.

We all laughed, and Kalim cleared his throat. "Everyone needs to spread out and set up camp somewhere decent—but cheap. We don't want to waste any money. Keep a lookout for shamans but try not to fight them in broad daylight. We don't need the police causing us trouble. Speaking of which, don't get arrested. We can't afford to bail you out."

There was some muttering, and someone said, "That means don't go drinking, Brom."

There was more laughter and Kalim said a few more things, mostly common sense (like messaging at least one other priest on a regular basis as a way to enforce the "buddy system") and all of the rules that had been jammed into our heads since we were in diapers. When he was finally finished, everyone sighed in relief and hurried to be on their separate ways before he had the chance to remember something else to say.

As he left, Chrom patted my head. "Stay outta trouble, Tor." He winked at me and added in a whisper, "Come find me and we'll have some fun around here."

I laughed and swatted his hand away. "Okay, Chrom."

When he was gone, I turned back to Kalim and Silva. "Shall we?"

The two nodded, and we set out.

()()()()()

It was morning by the time we found a rather dingy, cheap little motel, and we piled in, shut the blinds, and fell asleep…

…only to be awoken several hours later by the incredibly humid heat.

Well, I wasn't bothered that much by it. I didn't like the humidity, but so long as it was warm I was perfectly fine. But Kalim and Silva muttered and cursed and were basically wishing hell upon Japan by noontime.

If I wasn't so annoyed at being woken up, I would've laughed at them. Instead, I rolled over and ducked my head under the covers, trying to go back to sleep, but they were too loud for that to happen anytime soon.

"There's nothing but Japanese soap operas on right now," Silva muttered.

"Wait—what's that?"

"Just one of their animes," Silva said.

"But why is that suit of armor empty?!"

I finally emerged from my cocoon and looked to see that Kalim had taken the remote from a frustrated-looking Silva. But I noticed that on the screen, there indeed was a walking, talking, empty suit of armor in some anime, and it (or was it a she?) kept spouting out "nii-san!" or something.

"Remind me why you guys aren't out looking for shamans," I said tiredly, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

"We start that tomorrow. Today's a recovery day," Silva said, and Kalim shushed him.

I rolled my eyes and wandered to the tiny bathroom to take a shower. When I was finished, I came back out to find Kalim still glued to the TV while Silva was eating out of a fast-food bag. He pointed to where another one sat on my bed, and I quickly ate the contents. Since there was nothing better to do, I watched the TV. Apparently the show was called "Fullmetal Alchemist," and I supposed that the armor kid was the title character, but I couldn't be sure. Whatever episode it was seemed to be filler and didn't really interest me.

"Well," I said, standing up once I was done eating. "I might as well go out if you aren't."

This managed to pull Kalim's attention away from the TV. "What? You're not going out alone."

"I'm never alone," I replied, and Nix appeared on my shoulder, looking a little miffed at being brought up like this. "And I can take care of myself. I've been around the block a few times, if you hadn't noticed."

Kalim didn't look convinced, but luckily Silva came to my rescue. "She'll be fine for one day, Kalim. Let her live a little."

After a long moment, he sighed. "Fine. But keep that out of sight," he said, pointing to my Oracle Bell. "Shamans aren't supposed to have that until we start handing them out tomorrow night. And keep in touch."

I grinned. "Of course! I'll be back later," I promised, hurrying out of the room, but not before pulling a black shoulder bag out of my backpack and sticking my Oracle Bell and wallet inside.

I nearly jumped for joy as soon as I got out of the motel. "I'm free!"

"Don't get too carried away," Nix warned. "If you get in trouble, they probably won't let you out of their sight. Not to mention that I won't let you go anywhere, either."

"Oh, be quiet," I said, but not meanly.

I look around for a moment at the rather boring surroundings before I decided to head toward the more urban sections of the area. I was amazed by the huge buildings and sounds, the people, the cars and shops and everything. I must have spent an hour just wandering and looking around. I'd been to cities before, but never in this lifetime.

Since I was so distracted, I didn't pay attention to where I was going, and I ended up bumping into someone.

I lost my balance and ended up falling flat on my butt. I grimaced in pain, then looked to see that the person I had run into, who seemed to be about my age, had fallen on his behind, too.

The first thing I noticed about him was his outfit: mustard-yellow jacket, black shorts, shiny brown shoes. Definitely expensive.

The second thing I noticed was his purple hair; it was spiked into a tongari, and it looked like he could potentially kill someone with it. However, his bangs looked normal and non-threatening.

To be honest, I was about to consider him attractive, but then he glared at me with the third thing I noticed: his golden eyes. And they were narrowed in a pretty pissy manner.

"Watch where you're going, bitch," he snapped, shooting to his feet and walking away.

I was stunned for a moment before I jumped to my feet, ready to pummel the bastard, but he was long gone. I let out a huff of frustration and took out my anger by kicking a small pebble, but I missed and fell onto my butt again.

"Well, fuck."

"Language, Catori," Nix scolded from where he nestled in the feather tied around my neck, almost as if he were oversouled. "Did you notice the aura of that Chinese spirit with him?"

Now that I thought about it… "Oh, yeah. I suppose I'll get to see that bastard again…! Next time, I'll—"

"Oi, you okay?"

Startled out of my mental rant, I looked up to see a boy standing in front of me. Like the last one, he was about my age, but his ebony eyes were kind and concerned. He had spiky blue hair held up with a headband and wore a blue ski jacket and shorts with basic sneakers, and carried an encased snowboard over his shoulder. His headband, jacket, and snowboard were decorated with Ainu markings.

In response, I scratched the back of my head sheepishly and tried to smile. He looked a little confused for a moment before he grinned and held out his hand. "Here, lemme help you."

I gratefully accepted the help, and he pulled me to my feet. He blushed slightly, and held my hand for a second or two longer than was necessary.

What a boy.

He pulled away quickly when he noticed what he was doing. To try to cover it up, he jerked his thumb at himself. "Name's Usui HoroHoro. Nice to meet ya."

HoroHoro waited for me to reply, but I was wracking my brain, trying to figure out how to answer him (I didn't want to just walk away and be as big a bitch as that other guy was). I didn't know if there was a Japanese word that at least sounded like "Catori," but then I realized that maybe giving out that name might not be the best idea.

But then, it hit me.

I started miming, putting my hands in front of me, palms facing me, and interlocked my thumbs and started flapping my fingers.

HoroHoro looked like he'd stumbled into a freak show, and I couldn't say that I blamed him. "…Tori?" he said after a moment, saying the Japanese word for "bird."

I nodded, relaxing in relief. He still looked confused as hell, so I pointed at my throat and opened and closed my mouth.

He blinked, then balked. "O-oh…you can't speak?"

I shook my head.

HoroHoro didn't say anything for a few moments. Then: "So…your name is…Tori?"

I nodded.

"Um…"

I smiled and decided to save him from his suffering. I bowed politely (they still did that in this country, right?), and made to leave.

"O-oi, wait!"

I stopped and turned back to HoroHoro, who suddenly looked embarrassed and sheepish. "Uh…see you around?"

I smiled and nodded, giving him a wave before I left.

()()()()()

"Well, that guy brightened my day," I said to Nix.

"Mmm," he muttered. "I hate boys."

I laughed, as much as I could without a voice. "Ah, let him be. I'm not gonna let a guy do anything to me, and neither are you."

"Of course not. Anyway, have you messaged Kalim and Silva yet?"

"Oh, right." I stopped walking and stood out of the street traffic, pulling out my Oracle Bell. I had a few messages from Silva, all of them rather recent, and I quickly responded to them, saying I was all right and that I had noticed a couple shamans already. In fact, if I expanded my senses a little, I could feel the auras of several shamans in the area.

After a while of standing there, watching the people go about their day, I headed out again. By this time, it was late afternoon, and I was starving. "Think I should buy us all some dinner?"

"The motel has a kitchenette," Nix reminded me. "Go buy some things to cook. Great Spirits know what was in that bag you ate out of today."

I smiled and took his advice, wandering around until I found a grocery store. "I guess it's instant noodles for all of us, though," I said, seeing the prices listed for some of the items on display. I ignored my growling stomach and grabbed a basket, going around the store and picking out whatever looked cheap but edible.

I was looking at instant miso soup when a couple of people entered the aisle; one was incredibly short, and the other had brown hair, wore orange headphones, and looked incredibly lazy. A samurai spirit floated behind them, not worried about being noticed.

There was one other person in the aisle already, and he seemed to recognize them. "Good afternoon, Oyamada-san, Asakura-san."

I dropped the can of miso.

"Ah?" It had rolled away from me, and headphones-boy picked it up and held it out to me. "Here you go," he said with a carefree smile.

For a moment, I thought of Asakura Yohken—their hair color was about the same and there were other definite physical similarities—and then I thought that this kid had to be Hao, reincarnated back into his own family, smiling like an idiot because he could.

But whoever this kid was, his eyes weren't the same as Hao's.

I accepted the can and nodded my thanks. He just grinned and chuckled.

"So, Yoh-kun," his short friend said as they continued on, "Anna-san said she wanted…"

I watched them for a moment, then decided that I wouldn't say anything about this "Asakura Yoh" until I could find Hao and figure out what was going on.