[Shaman King] Hoshi ga Hoshii desu * chapter 44: Patch

[lucathia]

Title: Hoshi - ga - Hoshii - desu
Chapter: 44/45

Author: lucathia_rykatu
Email: rykatu@yahoo.com
Series: Shaman King
Rating: PG
Genre: General
Feedback: will be highly appreciated
Spoilers: end of anime
Disclaimer: Shaman King belongs to its rightful owners (which does not include me!)
Archive: livejournal / fanfiction.net

Summary: "I want the stars" -- An amnesic Hao only remembers that the word "Hoshi" is special to him. Found unconscious in America, Hao takes on the name of Hoshi and eventually returns to Japan. This is his story after the anime.

-----chapter 44: Patch-----

Hoshi was greeted by a short, aging woman who looked too cranky to be anyone’s kind grandma. A group of men dressed the same way as Kalim and Silva were sitting behind her in a circle around a huge pile of...

He took a closer look.

Parchment? Paper? No wait...they were letters.

The men were sitting around a huge pile of letters. Every so often, one of the cloaked men would snatch an envelope, rip it open, read it through and throw it behind them without replying. He noticed that they made three stacks of letters. The left stack was huge, the middle stack somewhat less huge, and the last stack almost non-existent. It made him wonder how they were sorting the letters.

The old woman jumped straight into business without even introducing herself. “Since the process for you to become the Shaman King was almost completed last year, all you have to do this time is ask the Great Spirits to become your primary spirit.”

Hoshi furrowed his eyebrows, a million questions springing to mind, like why the heck those men were crowding around a pile of letters instead of a campfire and who the heck was talking to him. He didn’t even know her name. Instead of voicing these concerns, however, Hoshi just retorted, “What, am I supposed to just waltz up to the Great Spirits and say “Oh, Great Spirits! Become mine?”

Instead of laughing or ridiculing him for what he said, the old woman just shrugged. “That might work, actually.”

Hoshi stared at her disbelievingly as she ushered him towards the location of the Great Spirits.

-----0-----

It was utterly quiet, standing there in front of the blinding light that was the Great Spirits. The old woman had left him alone, telling him this was a task that was not meant to be witnessed by anyone, except perhaps the future Shaman King’s loyal spirit. Hoshisuke was Hoshi’s only source of companionship at the moment.

He brought his hands up to shade his eyes from the blinding light, but his hands didn’t seem to block the light at all.

The light was still blinding him.

It was eerily reminiscent of his last dream.

Feeling a bit overly cautious, he glanced around, as if the other Hoshi was going to jump out at him any moment. When he didn’t see any sign of anyone else, Hoshi began walking.

He tried approaching the light, wondering if he was getting any closer. The light didn’t seem to get any brighter, but Hoshi suspected that it probably wasn’t able to get any brighter. When he felt that he was close enough, he whispered, “Great Spirits, I'm back.” Somehow, it felt wrong to shout in such a quiet place.

Once those words left his mouth, Hoshi immediately threw his hands in front of him as the Great Spirits proved his earlier thought about not being able to get any brighter wrong by blasting his eyes with the brightest, most glaring light he had ever seen. The light whirled around him, enveloping him in the eye of the storm. His hair, tied in a loose ponytail, unfurled, the strands dancing crazily behind him, rising with the light. Hoshi took his hands away from his face, watching the light swirl around him in wonder.

It didn’t feel blinding anymore.

The light pulsated around him, feeling oddly warm to him, until a silvery figure broke away from the light, floating towards him.

Hoshi blinked, unable to trust his eyes. “I’m not dreaming, am I?” he asked finally.

The silvery figure shook his head, exasperated. Even though the figure had always appeared as dark and sullen in his dreams, he was anything but dark and sullen at the moment.

“I see that you finally came to your senses, haven’t you?” asked the silvery figure sarcastically.

Hoshi gulped before nodding. “Is this what you meant by ‘my duties?’ When you told me that before, I thought that you might have been referring to Sora and Tsuki.”

The silvery figure, otherwise known as one Asakura Hoshi, mind you, the ACTUAL Asakura Hoshi, the one who had been slain by one Asakura Hao, rolled his eyes. “I was referring to them, yes, but also to your duty as the future Shaman King.”

Hoshi paused in thought, before asking yet another question. “Why are you here?”

The other, older Hoshi glared at the future Shaman King. “Because of you, obviously.”

“What?” asked Hoshi sharply.

“I got eaten by the Spirit of Fire,” replied the silvery figure glumly. “Now, I’m only one of the millions upon millions of spirits that make up the Great Spirits.”

“...oh,” replied Hoshi numbly.

“We’ve all been waiting for you, for over a year at that. You merged with us last year and we all decided that you were the only one with enough power to merge with all of us, yet you wouldn’t have been able to do it because of other reasons. So we threw you out, hoping that you would be able to overcome that. We’re all quite impatient for having to wait so long for you to come to your senses. Did my last visit finally wake you up?” asked the silvery figure snidely.

Hoshi didn’t answer, still mulling over the silvery figure’s earlier words. “Who else is in there with you?”

The other Hoshi shrugged. “Some spirits go way back. They’re ancient. I don’t know half of them. But among the newer ones, there are a few people who call themselves the X-Laws and some other people that I don’t know that well.”

Hoshi felt chilled. How was he going to be able to face so many dead spirits of people who used to be just as alive as he was?

Seeing the doubt on Hoshi’s face, the silvery figure grabbed Hoshi’s arms. When Hoshi tried to resist, the silvery figure snarled. “What are you waiting for? We've already had enough waiting to last us a few lifetimes.”

Hoshi bit his lips. Was it really worth it? What responsibility did he have to the world? What obligation did he have to the Great Spirits?

His mind flashed back to when he had stumbled out of Macchi's co-worker's car in front of Sora's rented house. The nameless , overly-friendly co-worker had waved at him cheerfully, wishing him best-of-luck. He had then stepped on the accelerator and zoomed out of Hoshi's view, leaving Hoshi alone in front of the dark house. He hadn't thought much about the house being dark, since his mind was more worried about how Sora and Tsuki were going to react to him. Despite his worry, he finally made himself walk up to the door...only to find that Sora had left him a note on the door.

We're waiting for you at Funbari Onsens.

It was a simple note that explained nothing yet everything at the same time. He tore the note off of the door, and began running in the direction of the inn without another thought. It felt as if all that he had been doing that day was run. First it had been running towards the station after that blond-haired girl, and now it was running towards Funbari Onsens. Running was tiring, but he wasn't complaining about it because he knew that at the end of his running, if he were to collapse, Sora and Tsuki would be there for him.

When he finally opened the door to Funbari Onsens and was led in by a timid pink-haired girl, his stomach had growled embarrassingly. Sora, amused that the first thing she heard from Hoshi wasn't a greeting but rather his stomach growling, had quickly served him dinner with no words exchanged between them.

He smiled at the memory.

He would rather just stay at Funbari Onsens with his family...and forget this whole thing about being the Shaman King.

But Sora had made it clear that she hoped that he would become the Shaman King.

The idea of becoming the Shaman King stirred two different kinds of emotions in him. The easily identified one was anger. He was furious that the Great Spirits had toyed with his memories, sealing them away without his approval. The other emotion he was confused about. What was it? It was a feeling that made him want to fidget, even break into a small smile. It was a feeling that ignited a tiny spark of warmth in him, a tiny spark that spread through him slowly and gradually. It was a feeling that stirred up his inner turmoil, mixing them, making him even more confused. It was...gratefulness, merging with content. That seemed sort of right...he did feel grateful. He was angry, that was true, yet at the same time, the Great Spirits had helped him discover a family in Sora and Tsuki, and that was one huge favor that he would never be able to repay.

Why couldn't things ever be easy?

Nonetheless, he tried to clear his mind as he let the silvery figure pull him into the whirling light.

-----0-----

When he stumbled back into Patch village, he vaguely noticed they had finished sorting the letters into piles, the used-to-be-non-existent pile had grew a little bit, but not as much as the huge pile to the left. With nothing to do, most of the Patch men were waiting for him to say something. When his eyes landed on the old woman’s, he raised a hand in greeting.

“Yo, Goldva. Long time no see.”

The old woman raised her eyebrow. “I don’t believe I told you my name?”

He shrugged, not exactly answering her question as he sat down and grabbed the bowl that one of the Patch men had offered him. He was famished.

As he ate, he asked them what the piles of letters were for.

They hesitated, as if unsure whether or not they wanted to answer him, but when Goldva muttered “it’s his problem,” they reluctantly began explaining it to him.

One of them pointed at the extremely small pile of letters. “These are letters that are congratulating you on becoming the Shaman King.” Those, no doubt, were from Hao's old, loyal followers.

They then pointed to the middle pile. "These are letters wondering how you are even alive."

Lastly, they pointed to the pile of letters that was humongous. “These are letters...um...condemning you for becoming the Shaman King. Some are pretty violent, asking us if we’re all out of our minds...some aren't very open about it...but we still see their opposition...”

He waved his hand, indicating for them to stop. “I think I get the general gist of it. I’m glad to know that I’m so welcomed,” he commented sarcastically. He was surprised that so many people were actually daring enough to send letters of complaint. They probably thought that he would never get to see them. Eyeing the pile of "complaints," he grabbed one to read as he continued eating. He unfolded the parchment in front of him. It was written in silver ink in narrow, cursive letters. Contary to the somewhat elegant handwriting, the words crowded into the margins of the paper, almost falling off the page. The writer must have been in a hurry.

Greetings to those of Patch Village who sponsored the Shaman Fight.

I trust that all of you are doing well. The past year has been very peaceful for me. I have started up quite a business, so I am fairly well off. That is, until the Oracle Bell started ringing-he could see the bold writing waver a bit here-the Oracle Bell's ringing wasn't that big of a deal, but what I saw next on the screen confirms my deep suspicions that all of you are smoking crack. Are you...ARE YOU ALL OUT OF YOUR MINDS? MAKING HAO THE SHAMAN KING? IT'S UNACCEPTABLE! HE'S THE VILEST SHAMAN OUT THERE, A HEARTLESS MURDERER, THE VERY IMAGE OF THE DEVIL! AND YOU ARE MAKING HIM OUR SHAMAN KING? I CANNOT ACCEPT ANYONE OTHER THAN JEANNE-SAMA BEING CHOSEN AS OUR LEADER!

With all that out in the open, I apologize for my rudeness, but I am being nothing but honest and straight-forward with my beliefs. I believe that this is a mistake and that once Hao receives the power of the Great Spirits, our world as we know it is forever doomed. I-

The letter continued, but already bored with the redundancy of what he had read so far, he tossed the letter over his shoulder, back into the huge pile of complaints. He didn't even have to look at the signature to guess who that letter was from.

When he finished eating, he handed the bowl back to one of the men. When their hands touched, he raised his eyebrow. The person in front of him was more of a boy actually. Someone he recognized, no less.

He raised his eyebrow. “Nichrome? I didn’t think that you were still alive.

The cloaked boy almost dropped the bowl. “Ha-Hoshi-sama, you still remember me?”

The Shaman King leaned back, stretching his arm, before he replied off-handedly, “Oh, I remember everything.”

Now Nichrome truly did drop the bowl.

The shattering of the bowl was the only thing that could be heard in the silence that had suddenly engulfed Patch Village.

All of the Patch men plus Goldva stared at him, a few even took a step backwards. Finally, Goldva shook her head slowly, “I guess that wasn’t entirely unexpected.”

“Yeah, becoming the Shaman King does have its ups and downs doesn’t it,” replied the boy whose appearance showed nothing of his true age. “When I said I remember EVERYTHING, I meant everything about myself and everything about everyone else in the entire world. It’s all in here.” The Shaman King tapped his head.

He found Nichrome staring at him warily, wearing a similar expression as all the other people in Patch.

He smiled wryly. What he was about to say was probably only going to scare them more.

“I hate to say this, but I think it would be more suitable to call me Hao from now on. I am the Shaman King after all, as much as I fancy the name Hoshi.”

-----to be continued-----

Next chapter: finale