Shaman King Fan Fiction ❯ Home Repair ❯ Home Repair ( One-Shot )

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To say the mansion was decadent would be exaggerating. A hundred years ago, maybe. Now, it
would be a complete lie. Paint was half-peeled off of the walls, stains and dust of unknown
origin lay around the place, and there was a hole in the floor of the kitchen as well as on the roof. It was three stories, but looked like it might collapse back down to two any moment.

"Ah, home sweet home!" said Shirona lovingly.

"...it's a dump," Ally complained, closer to reality.

"We could probably fix it up," Lily offered.

"Or knock it down," replied Sally with a maniacal grin. Her hammer spirit floated near her,
ready."

"...what are we destroying again?" asked Milly, still jet-lagged.

"Nothing," Shirona said curtly. "Okay, maybe it needs a little renovation, but we'll have time.
Besides, this is my dream! Living in a peaceful mansion in the French countryside, spending our
days without a care in the world, becoming society's queen bees! What could be better?"

"...a house that's not *about to fall apart*?" sniped Ally.

"It's either here or home," Shirona returned. The others grumbled and agreed reluctantly.

"I suppose it's not such a bad place," Sally said, leaning her back against the wall of the
hallway. A few rooms away, a painting fell off the wall and shattered with a loud crash.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------
Home Repair
A Shaman King One-Shot by Amor

The following is rated G for scenes of fluff and the Ly-Ly Five.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------

There were five bedrooms on the upper levels--two on the second floor, two on the third, and a
loft which Shirona had "called" before the other girls knew it even existed. All of them were
fairly large, but not incredibly impressive, particularly with the peeling paint and cracks in
the wall.

"Why do I have the smallest room..." Lily asked the air as she flopped down on her single bed.
*I mean, really it should be Milly who sleeps here...but it's kind of my colour...* Indeed,
the walls were painted dark green, and the floor was hardwood. The only piece of furniture in
the room other than the bed was an old wood desk.

Seeing no sense in wasting time, Lily began to unpack. She actually had quite a few clothes,
though some were hand-me-downs, and none of them would pass Ally's "good fashion" test. She
methodically sorted them into the three drawers she had in the room, sneezing a bit from lint
accumulated during travel.

She then removed her few personal belongings from her bag--a few books, and a laptop computer.
*Does this place even have electricity?* Lily wondered idly. Nevertheless, she set the computer
down on the desk and piled the books beside it. Having read them all a million times already,
she sat down on the bed again and stared out of where she thought a window should be.

*"Chuu"* chirped her hamster spirit, Sandy. The animal seemed to suit Lily's personality well,
being reserved and rarely appearing. As a pet, it had been one of her true joys in life, but
it had died of disease when she was twelve. After a long night of crying, Lily woke up the next
morning to find the astral form of Sandy comforting her. It was her first real awakening to the
supernatural, and ever since Sandy had been her guardian spirit.

"Hi, Sandy," replied Lily, rubbing her pet's spiritual form affectionately. "This is our home
for now, at least until Shirona runs out of rent money. Fancy place, huh?"

The hamster shook it's head. "No, I don't think so either. But, you know, there's lots of room
for you to run around in. And if we work on it, we could probably get this place looking
respectable. What do you think?" Sandy nodded eagerly and began mock eating out of Lily's
cupped hand. Old instincts died hard.

Lily stared up at her ceiling for a few minutes.

"I'm bored," the green-haired girl decided. "I need to find something to do." She thought for
a couple of seconds. "Something intellectual..."

* * *

Milly, on the other hand, was steadfastly refusing to do anything. She hadn't unpacked, in fact,
she hadn't even thought of it. The group had been travelling around so much throughout the past
year, going from one hotel room to another, she was used to living out of a suitcase. Not
literally, though. Even she couldn't fit in a suitcase.

This was because Milly was *angry*. No, scratch that, she was *infuriated*. She didn't want to
move to this stinky old place, in this rainy country in Europe, where everyone spoke a foreign
language and turned up their noses at you, with a bunch of girls she really didn't like anyway,
so that stupid Shirona could live out her dream. It wasn't *fair*.

And how come she got the smallest room, anyway?

In any case, at least the room had a view--a window running along the wall her bed was up
against. Not much of a view, mind you, as they were in the middle of the countryside, and it had
rained recently--it was like everyone dumped a pail of water over the world, making it all wet
and soggy and grey.

But still, watching the occasional car go by was more interesting then the wall, so Milly sat by
the wall, her knees curled up to her chest. This was a good thing to do for a mistreated child
like her, she decided. She would just sit her in the room, moping, looking out the window for
the whole day. She was holding a personal filibuster on Shirona's regime of French-ness. She
might not even come out again.

About five minutes into it, she got bored and wandered downstairs.

* * *

Unlike some of the other girls, Sally had relatively few belongings. She had her trusty hammer,
of course; about three outfits; and some memorabilia like a portable training dummy, the teeth
of her defeated enemies (a sadly small collection), and a copy of Sun Tzu's Art of War that she
only ever managed to get five pages into before losing interest with the lack of face-smashing
going on.

The red-haired girl was now contemplating what to do with her time. The Shaman Fight was over,
and there wasn't much pretext for violence any more. They were even living in the countryside,
so it was unlucky that she could find any gang activity. Or if she did, they would be some sort
of lame country gang, who ran around with straw in their mouth swapping sisters and laughing as
they stole cattle. No wait, a French country gang. They would do the same stuff, but laugh
funny, and steal lots of pastries that they still would not get fat from eating. Total pansies.
She would have to teach them a lesson with her mallet.

*Yes,* thought Sally enthusiastically. *I will smash the lame country gang to smithereens!
...except they don't exist.* Her dream deflated, Sally sighed and sunk back onto her bed.

This sucked. She had decided to stick with Shirona after they lost, but it was looking like the
wrong decision. The blonde just didn't think the same way she did (neither did many people,
which is probably a good thing for humanity.) On the other hand, as she had previously thought,
there weren't many other options.

Sally's logic kept circling around, and she got irrationally angry. She always did when she
thought too much. She didn't like close spaces, and she had been given the smallest room in the house. *I need to find something to do.*

* * *

Ally didn't *hate* Shirona's idea. Truth be told, she rather enjoyed hanging out around the
other four girls, and France wouldn't be a bad place to live. At least it was away from home.
But why, oh why did it have to be out in the country? Nothing ever happened out in the country,
and she expected the French countryside was even boring-er than usual.

Nevertheless, she supposed she would have to unpack. Her three bags of clothing, filled with
various outfits and cosmetics, lay on the bedroom floor lazily, as if only half willing to be put
away. Ally had already made the room hers by putting up posters of her favourite actors and boy
bands, so why did she need to do more to it?

Besides, there wasn't much to do. It was the smallest room in the house, after all.

The brown-haired girl stood by the window, looking out at the scenery. Dark green leaves blew in
the wind, but to a generation raised on TV, it was hardly exciting. She needed action. She
needed adventure. But presumably not something that would take too much effort. Or that would
get her clothes dirty.

* * *

Shirona, in contrast to the other girls, was on top of the world. Or at least the house.
Finally, she could show her true self:the famous star, living in a mansion in the French
countryside, dating gorgeous male models, making lots of money, living a life of luxury, and having the largest room in the house to boot. All of the people who rejected her in her hometown would have to turn their heads and say "Wow, that Shirona's really great."

So what if everyone she asked--talent agents, private tutors, the high school drama teacher--
rejected her out of hand? She would become a model, or an actor, or a singer, or something else
that would make her famous. It was a shame she didn't have the backing of her rich parents, or else she would have the easy road to fame and fortune.

But such obstacles didn't get Shirona down. Really, it was almost a good thing their team had
lost the Shaman Fight--Shaman Queen was a great title, but among average folks, it meant either
zip or "Chief Freak". The only reason she had got into the shaman thing was because she was
good at it...at least that's what the old guy had told her.

~~~ripple effect...IT'S FLASHBACK TIME!~~~

The old Chinese man stared at the teenage Shirona as she tried to fold and bend herself into
intricate positions. In general, she wasn't succeeding. "Damn Oriental torture... don't know
why it's so trendy..."

"If you don't like it, you may leave this class," the old man reminded her.

"No," Shirona said as she managed to unroll. "Too popular."

The teacher sweatdropped. The blonde girl was taking the yoga class purely because of the hype,
and she didn't seem to be getting any spiritual benefits out of it. Then again, she didn't need
any... he could sense something from her aura.

In half an hour, the class ended, and the various yoga students got up and walked to get their
coats on shaky legs. The Chinese man rested a withered hand on Shirona's shoulder. "Miss...
Shirona", (he had forgotten her last name), "may I have a word with you?"

"All right," the blonde said, blinking. "What about, sensei?"

"I am Chinese," the teacher reminded her.

"And?"

"Never mind," the master sighed. "Shirona, I must ask you...are you or do you think you might
be... a shaman?"

"What?" she replied slowly. "Listen, sensei--" (the master's eye twitched) "--I thought you said
when we started this class we could do it without getting into all the history and mythology and
that claptrap."

Trying to shove his annoyance down, the master spoke again. "Well, this is not mythology.
Shamans are real, though they are little like what is usually depicted. They make bonds with
spirits, and use them to fight and do other tasks. If you want proof, my nephew is a shaman
himself, and interested in entering the upcoming Shaman Fight."

Shirona was dazed "...wait, what are you talking about?"

The Chinese man sighed and began to explain things more slowly.

~~~END FLASHBACK!~~~

And so, after the old guy had explained it to her a couple times, Shirona got it--and knew that
she had to at least try to win the Shaman Fight. Otherwise, she would be quitting. She had met
her spirit, Elna Elna, at a festival shortly after and hit it off almost instantly with the fairy.
Of course, to others it looked like she was talking to herself, moving her firmly into the
"reject" category popularity-wise, but that wasn't a big side effect anyway.

Not like anyone cared about her stupid small town anyway. The blonde shook her head, shaking
off the reminiscences. She needed to find something to do, to make her famous. She wondered
what the other girls were doing...

* * *

"Hi," Shirona said.

"Hi," the other four members of the Ly-Ly Five said monotonously. They were all sitting on the
couch, watching TV.

Shirona sighed. "Good times...say, where did you get that TV anyway?"

Ally shrugged. "Found it in our neighbour's garbage. We get two channels on it, but that's only
if Milly stands on top of it with oversoul activated." The picture on the screen was a fuzzy
one, with some French newscaster talking about recent developments on the stock market.

"Say, why are you watching this, anyway?" Shirona asked after a minute of speaking. "You guys
don't even speak French."

"Actually, I think if I listen to enough of this I can roughly decipher the language, but it
would take me a while," Lily said.

"I was bored," the other three girls chimed. Shirona nodded, and joined them.

* * *

It was that eerie time right before a storm, when you knew something big was about to hit, and
just wanted to say to the world "get it over with!" The winds were howling, trees swayed in the
wind, and sleep became a lost luxury.

*This is probably at least my fifth trip to the bathroom tonight,* Ally thought cynically as she
wandered downstairs, careful not to let the stairs creep too much as she moved to the bathroom.
She wasn't used to the new bed, or the stormy weather, or sleeping alone--she had always shared
a room with Milly at home, and they had camped out together on the road.

She paused outside of the bathroom, to empty her bladder of whatever could possibly remain and
then get a cup of water to fill it up again, when she heard a small cry from behind her. She
turned around and saw the closed door of Milly's room, and frowned in concern.

"Hey Mill, quiet down, okay?" she greeted, poking her head into the room. Milly still hadn't
unpacked, and was now sitting on her bed up against the wall. She held her knees to her chest
and sniffled.

"Aw, now what are you upset about?" Ally asked, sitting down next to her. She didn't like to
admit it, but her little sister really *was* adorable.

"I'm scared," Milly confided. "I think there are ghosts outside."

"Well, duh," Ally replied. "They're our ghosts, remember?"

"Oh yeah," Milly replied, sweatdropping. In the backyard, Kamaitachi (Ally's spirit), Onibi
(Milly's fire spirit), Kosuta the hammer spirit, Sandy the hamster, and a waving Elna Elna,
sat there diligently.

"You're such an idiot, Milly," Ally remarked playfully. The younger girl sighed but didn't move.

"I'm still scared, Ally," she insisted. "It's dark out, and I can't get to sleep, and..."

"Hey, you know what?" Ally said, putting a comforting arm around her sister's shoulder. "As I
see it, we really don't have any reason to be afraid, if you think about it."

"Really?"

"Yeah!" the teenage girl said with a dramatic flair. "I mean, if you think about it, we're
shamans. We have, like, super powers. And, we've never lost a shaman fight match together!
So, if anything bad happens, you just have to call upon Onibi over there or one of us, and we'll
kick their ass. Get it?"

Milly chuckled, and relaxed. "Yeah, I suppose we're pretty cool after all."

"Yeah, we are. Well, I'm cooler than you are of course, but that goes without saying."

"As if," Milly huffed. "But, um, Ally...could you stay with me? Just tonight?"

Ally smiled. "You know, I was about to ask you the same thing."

* * *

"I don't like this place," Sally complained. "It's too quiet. I couldn't get to sleep."

"Really?" Lily asked. Four out of the five girls were sitting around the kitchen table, having
a coffee, complaining about their new house. "I found that the storm outside made it too loud."

"You scare easy," Ally said with fake bravado. "But I was still mondo uncomfortable last night."

"Good morning, everyone," Shirona said, bounding down the stairs with entirely too much energy.
"So, how did you enjoy the first night of the rest of your lives? I dunno about you, but I got
lots of beauty sleep!"

"..." Lily, Milly, and Ally non-said.

"Can I kill her?" Sally asked idly.

"Oh, don't be so grumpy," Shirona said. "This could be fun! Besides, the cost to stay here was
trés cheap, for such a big place. All we need is to fix it up."

"Well," Lily said with a sigh. "We'll probably have lots of time to do that, seeing as how there
aren't many jobs around here in the countryside. All right, let's think up a plan to make this
house nice. What do we need to fix?"

"The hole in the floor," Ally said.

"The paint on the walls," Shirona suggested.

"The front porch," Milly added in.

"The leaks in the roof," said Sally.

"The tree that's growing into the basement."

"The door to my room."

"The mould in the cellar."

"The shower head in the washroom."

"The broken glass behind the couch."

"The cabinet."

"That stain on the hardwood."

Lily smiled. Finally, they were getting a good train of ideas going. She had taken down a list
of all the things the girls had suggested. "Good, good! Now, let's start at the top. Who wants
to take the hole in the floor?"

Dead silence.

Lily sighed. "Well, somebody has to do it."

A bird chirped in the background.

"All right, we'll work together on it, all right?"

A tumbleweed rolled by.

"Okay?"

"Okay," mumbled the other four girls, not eager to be doing any work.

* * *

With no car or other form of transportation, the girls were forced to walk up to where the
hardware store was. They didn't even know for sure that it was there, but an elaborate
conversation in pantomime with a neighbour had given. The sisters looked about to give up,
and Lily felt the same but didn't whine about it nearly as much.

"Oh, stop your complaining," Sally muttered. "Look, I'll send Kosuta out ahead, and he'll see
if it's around. Kosuta!" The hammer spirit appeared, nodded, and floated off into the distance.

"Hey, good idea," Lily remarked.

"No biggie," the violent one replied. "I just felt like doing something shamanic." Ten seconds
later, it appeared back into view, it's single eye lazily tracing the side of the road. "Hey,
Kosuta! Is it close by?"

The spirit looked up, genuinely surprised to see Sally. The redhead facefaulted. "I should
have known. He went around in a circle."

"Not that smart, is he," Ally remarked.

"Meh," Sally shrugged. "We work together well." She began to think of a previous instance, and
the air rippled as she flashed back to "better" times...

~WE HAVE FLASHBACK SIGN~

Sally landed on her feet, but only barely. The man she was fighting was unlike any she'd ever
faced before...another shaman. He was of Native American descent and claimed to be of the Patch
Tribe, whatever that was. All Sally knew was that if she defeated him, she would be entered
in some tournament or something to fight other shamans.

And she wanted to. The thrill of battle really riled up the old adrenaline, shot energy through
her body, brought her up to new highs... Against a worthy opponent like another shaman, it
would be even better.

But this guy was winning. He kept summoning oversouls to block hers and attack back, which were
apparently animal ghosts. It wasn't fair--five spirits against one--but Sally didn't care about
the odds. *I have to win* she thought as she gripped her hammer, pouring more mana into her
oversoul. She was almost out.

"Well, what's the problem?" asked the official. "You have one minute left to score a hit on me.
I recommend you strike soon."

"Who asked your opinion anyway?" Sally bit back, before turning to her guardian. "So whaddaya
want to do, Kosuta?"

"Smash," the hammer spirit said slowly.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Sally replied with a nod. "Haaah!" She charged the official with
the hammer over her head, ready to swing it at her enemy like a Whack-a-Mole. The judge sighed
at her obvious attack and blocked it with his tortoise shield.

There was a smash, and the Patch tribesman realized too late that Sally had smashed her way
through his shield with sheer force. The pieces of the silver shield fell to the ground, and
her enemy staggered back as the mallet carried through and bonked him on the right arm.

He smiled. "Very well, young lady. You are officially qualified for the Shaman Fight."

"Awesome," Sally said simply.

~THIS FLASHBACK TO BE CONTINUED, ONLY NOT~

"The store is about a hundred metres away," Shirona said precisely.

"What?" Sally asked, snapping out of it.

"I sent out Elna Elna to look for it since your spirit was too dumb to find it," the leader
explained.

"Hey, don't you know it's rude to interrupt someone when they're reminiscing?" Sally said, but
the group continued walking on and didn't pay attention to her.

* * *

The hardware store oddly resembled Home Depot, only instead of orange everything was in a dark
bluish tinge. One thing suggested a problem for the gaggle of girls: all of the signs were in
French. Thus, they had been wandering for a half hour and had yet to find the first item on
their list. On the bright side, they had found about three things that were also on the list
on their way.

"Where are we?" Sally asked, bored. They were now in the light fixture section, and the redhead
couldn't seem to think about anything other than the number of shards the bulb would fly into
when smashed.

"Oh, hush, I know where we're going," Shirona said. "I just...forgot what was the next thing on
the list! Isn't that right, Milly?"

"Nails," the small girl said mechanically, perched on the handlebar of their shopping cart.

"Right!" she smiled. "Now, the French word for nails is...um...nailes!" For some reason,
Shirona's version of French consisted of English, but with an "e" stuck at the end of every
word.

"We're *never* going to get out of this store," Milly whined, falling into the cart.

"Excusez-moi. Peux-je vous aider?" a masculine voice said. The girls turned their attention to it
and saw a youngish French store clerk, with blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a
ridiculous-looking vest but still managing to look cute.

"Uh...oui, oui, oui!" Shirona exclaimed. "Je suis le Shirona, et c'est mes quart amicos! Noz
chercherons pour les nailes. Peux-je vous aider?"

The store-clerk looked confused and slightly frightened. "Excuse her. We're looking for some
nails, please," Lily said.

"Je ne parle pas anglais," the clerk admitted.

"Oh," Lily's face fell. "Well, does anyone here speak French?"

"Oui oui!" Shirona noted, waving her arms. "So, monsieur clerke, ouvrest les nailes?"

"Ach!" yelled the store clerk and exited stage right.

Ally sweatdropped. "Maybe we should have given this more thought."

* * *

It was late at night by the time the girls reached home, with only half their intended purchases
in hand. All of the girls, even the typically perky Shirona, were exhausted.

"...I hate the French," Sally exhumed.

"Now that's not right," Shirona replied, but didn't really spend much effort.

"Okay, how about next time you actually learn French, okay?" Ally said to Shirona viciously.

"Unnngg," the blonde defended herself.

"...say, does anyone know where we're going?" Milly asked.

"Of course, back home..." Lily replied, trailing off. She looked around and noticed that they
were walking down a dirt road, but they weren't sure where to. There were no streetlights
round, and the new moon in the sky hardly provided enough illumination. The five girls were
enshrouded in darkness.

"Hah..hah...we're...lost..." the green-haired girl choked out.

"Nooo!" cried Ally dramatically, falling to her knees.

Milly pouted. "If only Lyserg was here!"

"Oh, will you get over that guy already," Shirona muttered. "Look, we're not lost. We're just
momentarily displaced and... uh..." She also fell to her knees sobbing dramatically. "Oh no!
We're lost! We're never going to be found again! Why must the good and beautiful die so young?!"

"I knew nothing good would come of this," Ally wept, as she and Shirona supported each other.

"I knew my death would come of hard work!" Shirona complained similarly.

Sally's eye twitched. "Idiots..." She tapped Shirona's hovering ghost (Elna Elna was crying,
to match her master's emotions) on the shoulder, and whispered something in her ear. With that,
the pixie was off like a rocket.

"Even my own spirit is abandoning me!" Shirona blubbered.

"No," Sally said flatly. "I only sent her off to find the house and come back. If you want her
so bad, you can call her with your powers, and she'll come calling. All right?"

The girls sat in dumbfounded silence. "...sounds like a plan," their leader said finally.

* * *

Elna Elna still hadn't returned, but no one was worried--if she had ran into trouble, or was
lost, she could have communicated that to Shirona through their bond. Unlike most others, the
shaman and spirit had a powerful psychic link that let them read the other's emotions, though the
fairy's were fairly simple. The bond was an oddity, though Lily had hypothesized that it was
because of the high emotional levels of both.

The five girls were now squatting around a small flame on the edge of the woods (Milly and Onibi
had helped to start it), huddling close for warmth. "Your spirit is too slow," Ally said to
Shirona. Her feline spirit nodded, baring its claws.

"Actually, that was a good idea," Lily said, adjusting her glasses as the fire's light flashed
in her eyes. "I'm surprised you were able to think of it, Sally."

"What, you think I'm dumb?" the redhead asked gruffly.

"No, no," Lily said, anxious to avoid a fight (Sally didn't seem serious, but she would take any
pretext or "practising" with her hammer). "I mean, you were able to think calmly and figure out
how we could best use our abilities to fix the situation."

Sally shrugged off the compliments. "Well, it was pretty simple. You would have figured it out
eventually."

"No, I probably wouldn't have," the green-haired girl admitted, staring down at the dirt.

"What are you talking about?" Milly asked, a drowsy tone impinging on her voice. "You're really
smart, Lill."

"Well, in a fashion, but there are different kinds of smart," Lily said clinically. "I can
crunch numbers like a machine, or recite off the state capitals by heart, but I can't really seem
to put it into context and use it correctly. Plus I can't figure out people to save my life."

Sally laughed. "Of course. That's what you're here for. We can't all be as strong as me, and
we can't all be as strong as you. That's why we work together. You're the brains, I'm the brawn, Milly's the mascot, and...the other two do whatever they do."

Lily blinked. "Sally, that was almost poetic."

"I take offence to that!" Ally said. "We do lots of things, and it's you guys who just fill up
the ranks."

"Oh yeah?" Sally responded, manifesting her oversoul. "What would a preppy cheerleader know
about it?"

"Well at least my criminal record isn't longer than my arm!" Ally snapped back. Kamaitachi took
its oversoul form, a pair of claws on Ally's wrists.

"Um, this is a bit sudden..." Milly pointed out.

"Well, let's see who's best!" Sally bantered back, raising her hammer over her head. Ally
squatted before rushing her redhead team-mate with great speed. The two looked set to collide...

...before they stopped their charges halfway through, and passed out where they stood.

Lily and Milly both sweatdropped. "That happens to my big sister all the time," Milly added.
"Say, what did Shirona do? Where is she?"

"Same thing," Lily sighed, pointing to the blonde shaman lying in the dirt snoozing as well.

It was then that Elna Elna returned, looking visibly tired herself. Chittering, the ghost drew
an approximate map in her hand, that Lily took down on the back of their shopping list. "All
right, Milly. Let's go get those girls back, and head on home. It's been a long day."

"I'll say," Milly commented. "I mean, it's way past my bed... time..." With that, the small
girl's droopy eyelids finally shut, and she began sleeping quietly.

"Oh, for goodness sakes," Lily complained as she found herself surrounded by four sleeping
girls. "What did I do to deserve this...well, I suppose I'd better wake them up...probably
aren't going to be happy, but I'll do it."

She walked over to Shirona, a bit wary, and kicked the wannabe French girl lightly. No
response. She kicked a bit harder, but Shirona stayed like a lump of potatoes. Lily reached
down and started to tickle, only to have the blonde almost roll onto her. "Oh Jacques..." she
muttered in her sleep.

Lily sighed. She was beginning to get tired herself, but she refused to go to sleep in the
woods. How to wake them up... in wracking her brains, she thought back to her first shaman
match.

~Hey, it looks like she gets a FLASHBACK now.~

It was her first battle, and she was getting nervous. Thankfully, the "In Tokyo" part was
really just a moniker, because it wasn't far out of town. The two combatants were standing in
a desert battleground, with a judge dressed in white monitoring the fight close by.

Her opponent was a strange one, though Lily supposed there were destined to be a lot of psychos
in this tournament. This guy, who went by the name of Leroy (adding to his weirdness), was
dressed up like the ringmaster of a circus, and was literally using three rings as the focus of
his over soul. He had three spirits to match.

As was inevitable, Lily was losing ground. He had the ability to attack three times at once,
and his oversouls weren't weak either. She landed on her feet, a bit bruised, and digging her
palm into the lose dirt of the countryside. Leroy advanced, catching the flying disc and adding
it to the two in his hand.

"I won't lose," Lily insisted. "Eye Ray!" Her spirit shot a long beam of energy from her
glasses, with Lily herself aiming it at the clown.

"Blimpo, the elephant spirit, block her attack!" Leroy announced theatrically. He took one of
the discs in his hand, and a grey oversoul surrounded it. He intercepted her attack with the
shield, and wasn't harmed.

Lily gritted her teeth as her opponent raised the second disc. "Bobo, the clown spirit, strike
her now!" A frightening looking ghost of a clown appeared, before forming a colourful oversoul
that was heading straight for the bespectacled girl. She froze up--she was always afraid of
clowns.

The attack struck her, causing Lily to yelp in pain and stagger backwards. Leroy saw his chance,
now that she was off balance. He threw the final disc in the air, and a large spirit over her.
"It's time for the final attraction! Carnivale, spirit of the circus, Big Top attack!" He
threw the disc, and it sailed towards her and paused directly over her head.

With the help of her spirit-enhanced glasses, Lily could see the attack's form seconds before it
actually struck, and knew she couldn't dodge. She let out a whimper as an oversoul circus tent
formed above her, and smashed down.

It actually didn't hurt as much as she thought. But then Lily noticed the strands of spiritual
energy around her arms, legs, wrists--just about every part of her body. She realized suddenly
that she couldn't move, and whimpered. Then the oversoul big top blew apart, but she was still
held by the strings.

"Brilliant!" Leroy laughed, and Lily noted that he was definitely insane. "Now, behold our new
attraction:the nerd shaman! Move!" To her shock, Lily found her arms moving on her own. She
was being pulled like a marionette by the spirit strings. "Now dance!" She busted a few over-
done moves against her will.

"And look!" Leroy said to his phantom audience. "She can even sing!"

Lily's mouth opened, but she didn't find any notes waffling out of her mouth. Then she felt
the threads tighten around her feet. "I *said*, she can sing!" Leroy snarled.

"Uh...right," Lily said. She was totally at his mercy, and she suspected he could kill her if
he wanted to. The thought sent shivers up her spine. On the sideline, the referee gritted his
teeth--he didn't like what Leroy was doing, but the girl still had her oversoul engaged, so the
match wasn't over yet.

Closing her eyes, the green-haired girl just sang what first came to mind. "Oh say can you see...by the dawn's early rise..." Her notes were so off they weren't even on the same scale, her voice sounded like nails up against the blackboard, and she had all the rhythm of a doorknob.

A few verses later, and the tables were turned. Leroy was on the floor, clutching his ears in
pain, while Lily (still held up by Carnivale's oversoul) was warbling her way through the
national anthem. "Please...make it stop..." he begged the Patch official.

"Do you want to forfeit?" the Aboriginal asked with a bit of a smirk.

"Yes! Just get me away from that!" the circus shaman balled.

"Very well," the official said as Leroy released his oversouls and ran away. "By forfeit, Lily
is the winner!"

"Huh?" the nerd asked, confused but happy.

"Hey, what was that awful noise?" a familiar voice asked. Lily gulped. She didn't know who,
but it was one of the popular kids... they always picked on her.

Ally rounded the corner, her brown hairdo staying still in the wind. She looked over the
defeated clown, the humoured referee, and the hamster ghost who was just now popping out of
Lily's oversoul. Even Ally was able to put two and two together.

"Hey, nerdy girl!" she said brightly, unable to remember the glasses-wearer's name. "Don't
tell me you're a shaman too?"

"Um, well, yes," Lily muttered, staring at her shoes. She supposed she would be picked on
even more now that they knew she was involved with the supernatural... wait a minute... had
Ally said "too"?

"That's great!" the brown-haired girl beamed, grabbing Lily by the arm. "I've been so alone
since I became a shaman! Now I've met another one! We can be shaman girlfriends! Now come
on, let's get to the mall to celebrate your victory!"

Lily trembled, but did as she said.

"By the way, was that your singing or circus freak's? Because it was really something awful."

~End FLASHBACK, Rolando!~

Lily smirked. She had been a bit wounded at the time, but then again, everything you had was an
asset. So, the green-haired girl took a deep breath and began to sing.

* * *

"Augh!" Ally cried, grasping her ears. "It was like a banshee's cry, full of remorse and
horror! I can't believe the trauma I had to go through!"

"It was twelve hours ago," Lily reminded bitterly. "You were asleep. You can stop talking about it now."

"But you sung really, really badly," the teenage girl contended. The Ly-Ly Five were sitting
around their kitchen table, wishing they had some coffee, while talking about last night's
events."

"Yeah, it was pretty awful," Sally added in. "Oh be quiet. Now, who wants to make breakfast?"

"Ooh, I will!" Milly volunteered. "Let's see, I can make eggs, waffles, toast, French toast,
scrambled eggs, hash browns, omelettes, toad-in-the-hole, or cereal."

"Better go with the French toast," Ally decided. "When in France, do as the Americans do."

"Wow, she can make all that?" Shirona asked. "I didn't know Milly was that culinary."

"She's not," Ally whispered over the table. "She only knows how to make pancakes, and we just
call it whatever she wants."

"Oh," Shirona responded, then shrugged. "Weird."

"We're almost out of eggs," Milly informed, still cheery.

Ally nodded, taking a strangely serious expression on her face. "That's right. We need money."

"Not for rent," Shirona contended. "I bought this house on cash, using the last money I got
from my parents."

Lily's jaw dropped. "You *bought* this place?"

"Yeah," the blonde responded. "It was cheap, and I just wanted to get rid of the money... I
hated carrying it around, made me keep thinking of them..." Shirona bit her lip, her voice
turning angry in the last bit of her speech.

Ally looked across the table in a bit of sympathy. Shirona had been the eldest daughter of a
wealthy family, and was on her way to becoming a full-blown dilettante. She had been spoiled
as a child, but when she revealed to her parents that she was a shaman, they had disbelieved her
and ultimately kicked her out of the house. Shirona didn't talk about it much, but the other
girls knew it weighed heavily on her.

"Well, we have all the really necessary bits of our supplies," Lily said. "At least to fix the
glaring problems. We'll need to do some stuff like fixing pipes or re-painting the place later."

"And we need jobs," Ally continued, eager to bring the topic of conversation off Shirona's
depressing path.

"Perfect!" Said lady shaman began to get into it. "I'll become a gorgeous French supermodel!"

Sally sweatdropped once again. "Except we're not really French."

"Minor details," Shirona dismissed with a wave of her hand.

"French toast is ready!" Milly said. She walked back towards the kitchen table, dressed in a
chef's apron that was absolutely adorable on her, carrying a tray of pancakes. Ally went to
get the plates, as the other three licked their lips in anticipation...

...before Milly seemed to drop suddenly, let out a high-pitched scream, and disappear.

"What?" Shirona asked.

Lily walked around and poked her head downwards. "It finally happened," she commented dryly.
"Milly fell down the hole in the floor."

"I'm okay!" the youngest member's voice could barely be heard to say from the basement.
"...gurk."

* * *

Another day passed, this one mostly spent loafing around the house and making attempts at
unpacking/cleaning up/working on the house before getting distracted and ending up watching
French soap operas for three hours. (This is how Shirona typically spent her time, actually,
but usually they had subtitles.)

Now, the night was dawning, and Milly was watching the sunset from the back porch (sagging,
but still mostly functional), twirling a lollipop in her mouth idly. It really *was nice out
here, when you weren't judging it against Shirona's hyperbole.

Ally walked up, careful to avoid the "trick panel" Milly had discovered the hard way earlier
(it always seemed to be her who discovered the house's various flaws in that way.) She sat down
on the steps next to her younger sister. "Hey Mill. Sorry about the whole floor thing this
morning. I should have warned you."

"It's okay," Milly replied brightly. "I was just sad because all that French toast went to
waste."

Ally laughed, before taking out a spiral notebook and flipping the front cover open. Milly
looked at it curiously, and the older brunette explained. "This is my new project, Milly. I'm
going to sort out everyone's lives. Do you want to help?"

"I don't know," Milly replied, somewhat suspicious. "This seems unusually nice of you."

"Not really," Ally shrugged. "I mean, hey, it's a chance for me to boss people around!"

Milly giggled. "Now that's the Ally I know!"

* * *

A few more days passed. Lily and Sally actually attempted to try to get some work done on the
house, but between Sally's rough touch and Lily's clumsiness they didn't get far. On the plus
side, there was now a plank bridge over the hole in the kitchen floor, though nobody had
dared to tread on it yet.

Shirona had went out to get groceries once (and managed to have only a minor fiasco with the
store clerk, concerning the dollar-Euro exchange rate), but other than that stayed glued to the
tube and her bed, alternatingly. As for the two sisters, they hadn't been seen around much,
though they at least let people know when they went out to buy mysterious things.

Then, at last, Ally revealed the grand plan to the other three girls. She and Milly strode
in confidently to what was now becoming the routine sit-around-the-kitchen-table-and-gripe-over-
imaginary-coffee session. Carrying a stack of stuff, she plopped several books down in front
of Shirona, a list and a map of the town in front of Sally, and a stack of papers for Lily.

"...what is this?" Sally asked, a bit stunned.

"It's for the future!" Ally replied brightly, pulling out an economics chart. "See, I got all
of you guys well-paying (well, more like minimum-wage) jobs! According to these charts, we
would have gone broke and been forced to kill each other for food in the space of three weeks!
Now it's extended to six months!"

"And what are these for?" Shirona replied, backing away from the books like they were some sort
of filth.

"You're learning French," Ally put her foot down.

"But I already--"

"Real French. Enough to communicate with people, at least."

Shirona pouted. "I could communicate with the people on TV..."

Lily smiled. "I think this could work out. Well, let's see what jobs we have..."

* * *

"Le fromage!" proclaimed Milly. She was wearing a penguin costume which was almost too big for
her. The blue and white suit, without beak, covered all but Milly's face. It wasn't good
for movement, as Pen-Milly had discovered while trying to waddle with a tray of cheese samples
in one hand.

"Le fromage! Gratis!" A random teenager grabbed a piece of cheddar on a stick, swallowed it
whole (stick included) and walked by. Milly lamented her new lot in life--being a mascot/free-
sample-distributor for Le Fromage De Pierre was really not as glamorous as it appeared to be.
And it was technically child labour, but hey, it was better than school.

A hurried French businessman stopped by, and checked his watch only to find that it was an
indeterminate amount of time since the time he had left is watch at home. "Excusez-moi," the
man asked Milly. "Avez-vous les temps?"

Milly blinked. "Er... le fromage? Gratis?"

* * *

The two French teens chuckled, dumping the cash into their pockets. As they walked home through
the streets of their small town, they conversed with each other (including lots of French swears
that the author doesn't know), talking about the nerdy kid whose spare cash they had just...
"extracted forcefully."

The two teens paid it no mind when a shadow fell across their path. It was only when the
creator of said shadow blocked their way that they looked at it. It was a redheaded girl in
a black leather outfit, holding a mallet, and looking very angry.

"Uh..."

"HAMMER SMASH!" throwing Kosuta and all her force into the blow. It didn't even hit directly,
but the attack generated shock waves that bowled the two French bullies over.

Sally posed, handing over the stolen cash (and keeping a bit of the thugs' own money for herself)
to the French nerd it belonged to. She waved her hammer in the air, and Onibi posed above her.
"Warrior of justice Sally, reporting another good deed served!"

"Merci beaucoup," the nerd said, sweating like a pig. "Er...warrior du justice Sally,
sortiriez-vous une date avec moi?"

"Sorry, kid, jay nay parlie French," Sally butchered.

The French nerd's face fell, heartbroken. "Oh...donc, au revoir."

* * *

The green-haired teenage girl didn't speak, largely because she couldn't speak the
language. She never left her cubicle until long after everyone else did, getting her
nourishment from take-out that a benevolent co-worker happened to bring in. Lily just
sat at her desk all day and typed, staring forward at the monitor as though it were her
messiah. Few people in the small computers firm knew her name, or how she had really
been hired. They whispered about her around the water coolers, but rumours about the
American were never confirmed nor denied.

One thing was true. She could program like a fiend.

* * *

If Shirona and the other girls were fish-out-of-water in France, this group was so
far out of the water they were probably somewhere in the stratosphere. The American
tourists wandered around, wearing bright striped shirts, cameras around their necks,
gawking at the sights of the French countryside.

"Bonjour!" Shirona greeted, her blonde locks bouncing as sunlight reflected off of
them. "Welcome to the tour, where we'll show you this small French villa and the
luscious countryside that could only be found in Europe. We must ask for no flash
photography, and please stay with the tour. If you have any questions, just ask me
or one of the other guides. Allons-y!"

One of the tourists nudged his wife with his elbow. "See, look honey! It's a real
Frenchwoman!" At the head of the tour, Shirona beamed.

* * *

Of course, after all this, there was still one more thing to be done.

Milly staggered back and forth--not a good thing to be doing right now, as she was
currently holding a long stepladder. Shirona cried out as she tried to regain her
footing with the shifting ladder underneath her. Small drops of paint fell to the
ground, which Ally dodged carefully. "Hey, watch it!"

Up on the roof, Lily finished laying the boards into place. They had fixed the floor in the
kitchen, though they would have to hire a contractor to get that tree out of the basement. The
other problems were either ignored or solved, so now they were working on the roof. It was
mostly an easy process after they chased the squirrels out.

"All right, now just hammer the nails in, Sally," Ally directed from down below. "Not so hard,
this time!"

"Why doesn't she have to do any work?" Shirona asked bitterly.

"Probably the same reason she was the only one who didn't get a job," said Lily.

Ally heard them muttering. "For your information, I am the SUPERVISOR!"

"Whatever," Sally said, lining up the nails with a grin before raising her mallet. *WHACK*
*WHACK* *WHACK* *WHACK* *WHACK* *WHACK*

"Try not to wake the neighbourhood," Milly remarked, still struggling with the stepladder.

"We don't have any neighbours!" Sally yelled. "The closest house is half a mile away!" She
then slid out of the way (making sure not to slide all the way off the roof...that would have
been a bad thing) so Shirona could climb up, letting her off of Milly's stepladder of doom.
The blonde quickly applied a layer of red primer over the newly-hammered-in-roof. She would
be up there later, to complete the paint job, but that was good for now.

With that, the three girls slid down, and Milly finally put away her ladder. The five girls
then gathered again in the backyard, in which Ally and Lily had worked together in to plant a
nicely blooming garden. "This really is scenic," Shirona remarked, sitting back on a bench
and looking around the garden and up at the house.

"Well, I think we did pretty good on this wreck," Sally remarked.

"Yeah," Ally said. "And you know, as much as I hate to admit it, I couldn't have done it
without you guys."

Shirona rolled her eyes, but nodded. "You know guys, it occurs to me... after my family, and
that cute guy from the hardware store, and some other people... there's no one I'd rather be
living with than you four."

"I agree, I suppose," Milly said.

"Here here, to lukewarm sentiment," Lily saluted.

"You know, I remember our first meeting," Ally recalled, the traditional flashback segue.

~One last time around the FLASHBACK pole!~

It was the international convention, to start off the shaman fight. All of the shamans who had
made it past the preliminaries had earned a spot here and, miraculously, that included Ally,
Milly, and Lily. The halls of the Mata cemetery hall (the most convenient location, even if it
wasn't a big venue) were stuffed to the brim with powerful and bizarre shamans. Leroy had
nothing on these freaks.

"Personally, I'm surprised we managed to get here without knowing any Japanese," Lily said.
"Must be a touristy part of town."

"These people are scary," Milly whimpered as a gargantuan football player lumbered past her.
"Can we go hide someplace?"

Ally's mind, however, was far from being threatened. She had decided, in fact, that she was
really getting into this whole shaman thing, and she would need to associate herself with other
shamans besides her sister and Lily. This had naturally led (at least in Ally's mind) to
getting a shamanic boyfriend. And a big gathering like this was her best opportunity. So,
Ally was on the prowl.

"He's cute," she remarked, glancing at a view screen showing the last match in the
preliminaries. That was before her eyes fell on a long-haired young man in robes, walking by
with a dreamy look on. Hearts filled Ally's eyes, and she rushed towards him.

Unfortunately, she was not the only one with this thought, and she ended up colliding head on
with an incoming blonde. The two fell to the floor ungracefully. "Hey, watch where you're
going!" Ally fumed.

"You too!" Shirona responded, igniting her fan oversoul. "Engarde!"

"Hah!" Ally manifested her claws, and began to parry her enemy's strikes. "Come on, Lily,
Milly, help me out!"

"Er...all right," Lily replied, turning on her glasses oversoul while Milly tried to get a good
shot.

A redhead entered, and looked around at the confrontation. "Battle? MINE!" (She hadn't had
a match in three weeks, and was growing restless.) Seeing an unknown equation, Ally's allies
got confused and simply ran in there. As the five girls brawled, the object of their
affections walked on, blissfully unaware, dreams of genocide still flashing through his head.

Silva stepped in, oversouls on, and managed to separate the five girls by sheer force.
Fortunately, his five spirit animals each managed to hold a girl off. "Now what's going on
here?" the official asked.

"She started it!" all of the girls pointed at each other, except for Sally, who pointed to
herself.

Silva sighed. "Now, let's just sit down, stop fighting, and talk it over. I'm sure it's just
a misunderstanding. In any case, we don't begin the battle royale until next round."

And sat down and talked the five girls had. For hours and hours. It turned out they had more
in common than they, or anyone else, had thought. After that, with most of them lonely, the
five decided to join forces for the next stage of the Shaman Fight. It was the beginning of
a beautiful friendship.

~fin.~

------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------------

Author's Note:

*dies*

Well, that was interesting. When I started out, I wanted to make this longer than one of my
usual chapters, as it was a one-shot, but I had no idea that it would actually end up this
long... and it's probably not even that good. Oh well, at least I've written my fair share
of Ly-Ly Five.

This is kind of weird for me, actually, as a fluffy one-shot is so totally the opposite of my
usual style (serious action epics). But I wanted to do something before returning to SK2498,
and this plot bunny got lucky.

There are some obscure references and pseudo-cameos in there, but nothing that I think I need
to call out. The last scene, with the "shaman convention" was taken from the manga, and didn't
happen in the anime (which is ironic, considering I'm not sure if the 5 themselves were in the
manga, but whatever.) Also, I apologize for the French. I did most of it myself (and Shirona's
French is intentionally wrong, all right?), though I haven't taken French in about four months.
Stupid semester system...

I would also like to thank the website Northern Lights (I think that's the name) for supplying me with information, like the names of the girls' ghosts. (And some of theirs... I swore, I thought Ally was Nelly for the longest time...)

Well, that's another oddity out of my system. See you sometime in the summer!