lucathia

Title: Hoshi no Hikari (Star's Light)
Author:

lucathia_rykatu
Series: Shaman King
Character: Hao
Disclaimer: I do not own SK.
Summary: prequel to Hoshi ga Hoshii desu. They say that your life goes before your eyes the moment before death.... but what if it was your next life, instead? full summary inside. for Ryumasa the Ryuhaitou.

Edit:
fic requests!
/done/ for Ryumasa the Ryuhaito: HgHd prequel
for mankin_rp: how Macchi got her job as a waitress
for _silver_: how Hao killed Hoshi (Tsuki's real older brother)
for love_chibi: something w/ Nichrome...

for myself :3 (maybe)
various scenes during that year spent in America
reading letters of complaint + answering them

A/N: This might turn into a collection of sidestories to Hoshi ga Hoshii desu, depending on # of requests. If there aren't any, I'll just leave it at this. :) Anyway, first up is a request from Ryumasa the Ryuhaitou. I don’t think I did the request justice, since it was one awesome request (see bottom), but here it is anyway!

Beware of spoilers for Hoshi ga Hoshii desu! Especially for chapter 43. Reading this will make take the suspense away from HgHd, so I do not recommend reading this before HgHd. However, it will give you a taste of what that fic is about if you haven’t read it.

And of course, spoilers for the ending of SK (anime).

Disclaimer: I do not own Shaman King.

-----o0o-----

-----Prequel-----

-----o0o-----

He wasn’t afraid of death.

He had already died twice after all, and both trips to the fiery caverns of Hell had only strengthened his spiritual powers. Even if he died again this time, he would just waltz through the afterlife as if he owned the place. He would reincarnate 500 years later, participate in the Shaman Fight again, and retry at obtaining the Great Spirits.

Not bad, right?

But damn it, he was so close to obtaining the Great Spirits, even closer than last time when he had escaped with only the Spirit of Fire. This time, his Spirit of Fire consumed the Great Spirits. This time, he had already merged with the Great Spirits. The Great Spirits should have been entirely under his control, and it certainly felt like it. It didn’t matter that Opacho was quivering behind the pillar, scared of who she had entrusted her life to. It didn’t matter that his brother’s weak friends were all sprawled across the floor, watching him in horror. It didn’t matter that Yoh was staring at him with the determination to kill him.

Nothing mattered.

Nothing mattered with the power that coursed through him.

However, when Yoh came running at him with a single thought on his mind, he knew that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

I have to stop him!

Okay, that was Yoh’s thought and only thought.

But what the heck were all the other thoughts crowding his mind?

Do you think he’s up to it?

He’s strong, that’s for sure.

But he killed me and he killed you! Why should we accept him?

His eyebrows twitched as he danced around Yoh’s attacks. He was getting distracted by all these stray thoughts and he knew that they were talking about him. He disliked how they were talking as if he couldn’t hear them!

Do you see anyone else who is more suitable for the position? No right? He’s the strongest here.

Damn right that he was the strongest here!

But we can’t let someone like him become the Shaman King...

Hm...maybe we can do something about that.

Like what?

How about this?

How about what? What the heck were they talking about?

That might work.

What might work? What were they going to do? Suddenly, everything felt out of his control. No...everything was out of his control.

Let’s do it then!

He didn’t even have a chance to feel surprised when he became surrounded by light. The light was so bright that he couldn’t keep his eyes open. The light immediately blocked his view of Yoh. He suddenly felt himself being thrown backwards.

“Hao-sama has forgotten me?” Macchi whispered, her knuckles turning white from her death grip on the table.

What? Where did that come from? Why would Macchi ask that?

“What’s your name?” asked a young boy with dark hair and startlingly blue eyes. “Can’t you even tell me your name?”

Of course he could! His name was Hao. Asakura Hao, the great ancestor of the entire Asakura family...

He stared at himself in the mirror, briefly touching it. Why couldn’t he even recognize his own reflection?

What? He knew how he looked!

The little boy dropped a bundle of clothes in front of him, the clothes passing through the transparent spirit of a tabby cat. The boy picked out an extremely plain t-shirt, happily showing him the star pattern on it.

Was he...dying?

Didn’t people say that you saw your life flash before you right before you died? He knew that there was some truth to that belief. Being an expert at dying and coming back to life, he had already experienced pre-death visions twice.

Teenagers surrounded him, curious at how he was faring on his exams. Someone who was probably a teacher was trying his hardest to ignore him as he taught the class.

Something was wrong this time though.

These weren’t his memories.

He walked alongside a young man towards the Subway, making light conversation as they got on the train.

He wasn’t afraid of death. He wasn’t...

He struggled to stay awake, to keep the light from devouring him.

Do you wish to become the Shaman King?

It was those voices again, those voices that didn’t belong in his head.

The store clerk looked slightly perplexed as he told him how much he had to pay.

Damn it, of course he wanted to become the Shaman King.

Do you accept our test?

What?

A woman with her hair in a long, loose braid set another plate in front of him. After she did that, she sat down and served herself some food. She smiled at him warmly, telling him to start eating.

He gulped.

The little boy sitting next to him snatched away a piece of meat before he could. It resulted in an intense battle of chopsticks.

This life that he was seeing, this life that he knew wasn’t his, this life that was plain boring and uneventful, was one that was so strangely...comforting? What the heck? Where did that thought come from?

He struggled to stay awake, to stay coherent, to stop himself from descending into this deceitful life. It didn’t belong to him. He was Asakura Hao! He wasn’t some lowly student who would willingly go to school and take some damn test. He wasn’t some obedient kid who would sit at the dinner table with some motherly figure. Damn it, he was Asakura Hao, had been Asakura Hao for over a thousand years...

Despite how hard he tried to convince himself, it was a losing battle.

Against his own will, his eyes slowly closed.

The Great Spirits separated from him, leaving the boy alone underneath the wide expanse of sky, far away from the previous battlefield, waiting to be found and shown a different life.

Farewell, Asakura Hao. We look forward to the day you return to us.

And then, Asakura Hao as everyone knew him was no more.

-----o0o-----

The End

(or the beginning, however you want to think about it)

-----o0o-----

This is the original request from Ryumasa the Ryuhaitou: They say that your life goes before your eyes the moment before death.... but what if it was your next life, instead? What would the Hao of the final battle, in the moment before he received the final attack, think of the Hoshi today? How would the genocidal utopian architect feel, knowing that to become Shaman King would mean becoming a semi-normal, human-loving... well, human?

Wonderful request, ne? I love it! (grins)

Requests for HgHd side stories are still open... (hint hint)