Shaman King Fan Fiction ❯ Catacombs ❯ The Mystery Deepens ( Chapter 2 )

There was a sound behind Yoh and he looked round, slightly startled, but it was only Manta who was bringing out some fresh tea. The short boy looked round Yoh to where Amidamaru was now floating about an inch off the ground.

"Hey…" He began uncertainly. "What's wrong with Amidamaru?"

"I don't…" Yoh began, but he was interrupted as his guardian ghost suddenly sprang to his metaphorical feet with an inane grin on his face.

"HI, Manta! There's absolutely nothing wrong with Amidamaru! Not at all! No! Amidamaru is as good as he has ever felt in his death!" The young samurai was speaking as though someone had hit him hard on the head with a mallet. His voice was slightly squeaky, as though it had been sped up on a record player, and it sounded forced and unnatural.

"Er… ok…" Manta inched away slightly, not at all feeling secure. Yoh looked at his friend.

"Amidamaru?" He asked. Amidamaru tilted his head slightly to one side. "Since when did you start speaking in third person?"

The spirit did a backflip in midair.

"I dunno, Yoh, I always thought that I, y'know, spoke wossname… normally… wow, Manta, can I stroke your hair? Oh, look… a maple blossom… how strange…"

"We're standing under a maple tree, Amidamaru." Yoh pointed out. He was unused to seeing his spirit with an attention span of less than three seconds. It was beginning to scare him slightly.

"Hey, Amidamaru!" Manta said, having a sudden brainwave. "Why don't you go and sit on the roof for a while to calm down? Or…" he added hastily as Amidamaru gaped wide-eyed at him "play with the birds or something…?"

"Yay! Birdies!"

Amidamaru vanished. There was some startled tweeting from the other side of the house as both Yoh and Manta breathed a sigh of relief.

"What the hell is up with him?" Manta asked his friend. Faint frown lines had appeared on Yoh's young forehead.

"I don't know. One minute he was fine. Then after you went in he complained of indigestion."

"Indigestion?" Manta asked confusedly. "I didn't think ghosts ate."

"They don't." Yoh sighed. "Which is why it's so odd. And I didn't think ghosts felt pain, either, or any type of touch, but there you go. Then he said he had a chronic headache and then he said he felt sick and actually would have been sick if he had eaten anything in the past six hundred years."

"And then what?" The small boy asked breathlessly.

"Then he just kinda keeled over backwards. I… I stroked his forehead to… get the sweat off because I… forgot he was, y'know, not solid, but he seemed to feel it. He shuddered. Like I said, he's touched me before and never reacted, even with his eyes open but this time his eyes were closed and he definitely shuddered."

Manta looked at Yoh's face, but the shaman's expression was unreadable. Amidamaru's distant whoops of joy coupled with the desperate cries of some poor innocent bird rang from the distance.

"I want him back to normal, Manta. I'm scared, seeing him like this. He never loses control." Yoh looked towards the rooftop, watching a startled swallow wing away towards the maple tree. Amidamaru's pale hair blew in the wind. He looked so handsome…

Yoh shook his head. What, was he doing an impression of a hormonal teenage girl? Against his will, his head again turned towards the rooftop. He was just so worried…

---

Anna glared as Manta and Yoh both cracked up laughing at Horo Horo, who had again snuck over to their house to avoid the wrath of his rather tyrannical little sister.

"Guys!" the Ainu whined. "C'mon, guys, it's not funny!"

"You're right." Yoh wheezed. "It's not funny. It's damn hilarious!"

Horo Horo joined Anna in glaring as both other boys collapsed, wracked with fits of laughter. Anna caught Horo Horo's eye and the shaman gave a sound that can only be recorded as "meep" and lay down, playing dead.

Yoh slowly fell silent as Amidamaru floated in. The ghost looked tired and wan, and his eyes were downcast, almost closed. Manta, Horo Horo and Anna looked up to see why Yoh had stopped laughing.

"Amidamaru?" Yoh asked quietly.

"I am a fool." Amidamaru answered. "I am a blind fool and now I have a headache as a result."

"Sit down, Amidamaru." Yoh said uncomfortably. "Join the conversation."

Amidamaru shook his head.

"I am not fit to eat at the same table as you. I have dishonoured myself and proven to you all that I am unworthy."

"Nonsense." Yoh snorted, moving up so Amidamaru could join them at the table. The guardian ghost floated next to his shaman. Their arms brushed in the process. Yoh felt a disturbance in the air as Amidamaru again shuddered at the contact.

"So… what was wrong earlier? It was like you were on a high or something.."

"I do not know. All I can remember is the feeling of both great pain and acute sickness, and then there is a black void for a length of time, and I cannot recall anything from that void. I can assume, however, from your reactions and the fact that I seem to remember at one point sitting on the roof terrorising birds, that what happened was not good."

"Au contraire, Amidamaru, it wasn't that is was "not good", more that it was disturbing. I'm not used to seeing you with an inane grin and an attention span to match Rio's."

"That bad?" Amidamaru seemed quite shocked. "My apologise, I did not realise."

Something in the back of Yoh's mind was struggling to break free.

"It's ok, dude. No worries. Rice?" Yoh passed the bowl over to Morty, but it was intercepted on the way by Horo Horo, who emptied half the bowl in a matter of seconds. Even Anna raised an eyebrow.

"Doesn't Pilica feed you?" Morty asked, amazed.

"Yeah, she feeds me. With cat food. I'm amazed I'm still alive. Any more of that egg plant?"

Amidamaru watched his friends stuff their faces mournfully. Yoh's eyes shifted onto Amidamaru of their own accord and he finally realised what his brain had been trying to tell him.

"Amidamaru - you're flickering." He said.

Indeed, the ghost was flickering in and out of focus as though he was being shown on a poor quality television.

"Sorry?" He asked. Yoh watched in dismay as Amidamaru's outline grew fainter and fainter. A look of slight panic crossed the young samurai's face as he realised.

"What's happening?" He asked, a tinge of hysteria in his voice. There was a sudden bright light, a sound like a gunshot and Amidamaru's desperate cry of "Nooooooo! Yoh!"

Yoh opened his eyes against the light and struggled towards his friend. A freak wind had suddenly started to blow inside the house, and it was pushing Yoh away from his ghost.

"Amidamaru! I'm coming!"

There was one final cry of "Yooooooooooooh!" from Amidamaru and then the light cleared.

Yoh looked around frantically but it was too late.

Amidamaru was gone.