Chapter VII

The Start

It was a strange morning. Yoh was enjoying the last day of freedom, or maybe the last minutes, as he left quickly enough before Anna could give him some 10 pounds weights and make him run for at least 20 km, now that the Shaman Tournament has officially begun. It wasn't a shame though, as the stars showed up a few days before the beginning of school.

As he was walking down the blossomed path spreading the breeze of spring break, he stopped at the sight of a short guy running towards him. Manta had that kind of expression when he would unintentionally infuriate Anna, so Yoh was preparing for the collision as well.

But instead, behind his friend was a strange girl with her short hair all ruffled because of her eager temper, even though her expression looked more like one of the sociopaths willing to kill everything that simply exists.

"Come back here you little-! If you are running so fast, then why did you stalk me in the first place?"

It wasn't stalking, or at least it wasn't intended to be. This girl attracted Manta's attention for the second time simply by her nature. She didn't seem to compel with the crowd, and she was also emanating a strange amount of furyoku. But only this time, she caught his staring and went so straight to him, that all he could do was listen to his feet. At first it was just curiosity for her, but then it became dangerous eager mixed up with fury because of the continuously running.

"Yoh! Save me!" he said desperately hiding behind Yoh's back, or feet more exactly.

The girl suddenly stopped as she noticed Yoh's familiar figure. Rilury couldn't decide herself if there was a universal paradox or a doppelganger.

"You…look exactly like him…" she said not holding herself to point at him.

Yoh remained with an unchanged calmly surprised figure.

"Erm, do you mean my brother?" he knew exactly that it was him, as people would always react the same in the ST.

"What?! You are Hao Asakura's twin brother?"

She asked with emphasis mostly to shut up her inner reproach of not thinking of such a plausible answer in the first place.

Manta stood there as he watched the girl agitating herself. Now was his chance of making a more imposing impression to save himself from the trouble he's brought himself into.

"More exactly, was. This boy, defeated him long ago in the Shaman Tournament. If it wasn't for him, then Hao would have conquered the world and would have destroyed the human race!"

Rilury watched him in shock.

"Um, not really, Manta…"spoke Yoh a bit embarrassed. "I was just planning to tell you…"

"What?!"

"Hao came to our inn this morning to announce his return…I guess I kind of failed and we'll still have to put up with him, huh?" he said uselessly trying to give this discussion an amusing tone.

Manta entered in a shock state as his pupils were suddenly no more visible. Then he had a panic attack, not only because they were screwed once again, but also because of the strange calm Yoh had when saying this calamity announcement.

But more shocked of this outturn was Rilury, continuously asking herself:'What have I done?'

It wasn't until the boys noticed her when she perplexingly said:

"Umm…I-I need to go now, um… sorry for chasing you all over the town…uh-Bye!"

Then she would rapidly walk away but not before the twin asked her:

"Wait! What's your name?" he said with a warm greeting smile that made her confused and answered right away:

"Rilury. My name is Rilury Takahashi."

"Nice to meet you Rilury. My name is Asakura Yoh, and my friend is Manta."

She nodded and then ran away, thining about his welcoming and warm expression, that contrasted so much with the other twin's when they last saw each other…

In the evening, at the inn, Anna was bored and watching television while Yoh was trying to keep his chair position for three hours. He luckily was saved by the doorbell, as Manta was paying a visit to debate the actual critical situation they were in. Because of his concern he didn't observe a quiet stalker that was returning him the favor from this morning.

"IT'S THAT GIRL AGAIN!" Manta screamed, as he was preparing for another panic attack.

"Calm down little guy, I'm not here to beat you up." she said annoyed by his reaction, even if she didn't intend to do that in the morning.

After all, it took a lot of courage to even show up at their place. It was a tough decision she long debated before coming here. First of all, her old grandpa, even if he had a lot of knowledge of her techniques, wasn't actually a proper shaman. She needed a complete intensive training program, and Yoh was a strong shaman she sensed and could really help her. She did a huge mistake indeed, but she needed to fix it and the chances would rise if they would ally in defeating Hao. They could also hate her instead for bringing him back, but she could at least try to win their trust first.

"Oh, haven't been expecting you here, Rilury. Come in!" Yoh said smiling again so calm that made both her and Manta to have their doubts.

She bashfully entered the house and hesitated even more to make a move when she saw a blonde girl eating her chips in front of a TV.

"Who are you?" she asked, not removing her eyes from the screen.

"Oh, Anna, meet-"

"I wasn't talking to you" Anna said to Yoh categorically.

By her posture and attitude it was clear who was the boss around this house.

"Um, I'm Rilury Takahashi." she said a bit shy.

"Rilury? This name sounds invented." Anna said crossing her arms.

Rilury felt awkward but not ashamed of her name.

"It kind of is. I don't know what crossed my father's head when he gave it to me, and I'm even more clueless about my mother when she accepted it, but at least it sounds nice."

Anna had a short light amused smile.

"You are a shaman and you want to train in this house. Kind of suspicious reasons for you to come here, but I suppose Yoh could use this light competition to improve himself."

Rilury didn't know what to say anymore, as all of her plans have been spoiled. But at least she had an approvement without embarrassing herself too hard. Neither Yoh wasn't bothered by this unexpected wish of hers. He just cried a bit inside, as he knew that Anna would make the training even harder to test her determination and therefore make him put up with her or else he would be killed before the first fight.

One week of intensive training had passed. It was harder than Manta expected it to be, as he would always see Yoh wasted whenever he would meet him. The strange thing is that Rilury, as exhausted as her body was, always maintained her determined look and was asking Anna for extra hours and poor Yoh was obligated to do them as well. But Rilury would suddenly stop her training whenever she would notice him and go home, thing which she always did at the end of the day.

One day she came with her eyebags more purple than ever. As everybody was curiously looking at her, she smiled victorious and showed her oracle bell. Of course, after battling all night, she ended the training session earlier, thing which was a bliss for Yoh.

Yoh and Rilury didn't talk much in their training, as she was always concentrating on something that gave her a strong impulse to continue. Only at the beginning, as they would do the morning 35km running, they would usually have short talks from which they would learn different things about each other's lives, except of the ones Rilury preferred to keep a secret. This is how Rilury meet Yoh's friends as well.

First it was Tao Ren, a boy coming from a high ranked family but seeming to leave his superior attitude behind whenever he would talk in particular to Yoh. When she met him there was only silence after the introduction and a suspicious look hidden in his golden eyes.

One day the three of them were running alongside, as Ren wanted to discuss something quite important to Yoh. Actually, everybody was doing that if they wanted to talk to talk to Yoh more than 20 minutes.

"Now that Hao is back, I think we should deeply considerate taking high measures this time an establish a plan, or else our chances of becoming the Shaman King would be null." Ren said with a serious and hidden worried tone in his voice.

"Hmm...I don't think we could do anything right now.." Yoh said seeming not to give importance to this matter.

"It amuses me that you sound completely calm, as if nothing ever happened." said Ren ironically.

"It's not that...but all of our plans have failed before, and the only solution that worked came in the last moment. I think we will figure out what to do when time comes. Making ourselves worries right now, like all the other people burden in thoughts, won't change the situation. After all, everything will work out in the end." he said stopping for a moment and looking at the sky while stretching his back.

"You haven't changed a bit, Yoh." said Tao Ren crossing his arms and smiling a bit inside.

Rilury also stopped and realized that if she would tell her secret to Yoh, he wouldn't react so bad after all. As for the others, she still was unsure...This purple-haired boy didn't seem to have the same indulgence as him, especially with the people he's just met.

But on the whole, he seemed to be a normal person especially when they would have lunch together. Then it was Horohoro, a carelessly guy with blue spiky hair and Ryu, her first admirer ever who exposed his bursting admiration for a brief second before being punched by Ren.

All in all, that house had sort of a family atmosphere, something that was never present in her home. This usually made her spend her time with them more often, even is she actually was kind of an introvert type whenever she would enter a new group and it will defiantly take a while before she would accommodate herself and leave her shyness behind.

*Ring* *Ring*

Rilury's oracle bell rang. Of course, because she entered the Tournament for the first time, she had to go through the first round as well. Everybody from the table was staring at her, but she hesitated a bit before checking her opponent. She only had to win one fight, as by beating randomly chosed shaman that was already in the tournament would be enough to demonstrate her strength.

She picked the oracle bell and then dropped it on the table.

*Ring* *Ring*

The cracked display of an oracle bell suddenly brightened. The light could only illuminate in the dense darkness an outlined smirk.

Her first opponent was Hao Asakura.