Shaman King Fan Fiction ❯ Hurricane Yoh! ❯ Chapter 4: Acute Hysteria ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman king, any characters, or even the background story, but I own the story I write here, of course.

Anna was drinking tea in front of the TV. She had prepared a new batch for herself and Tamao. After all, she would not have it said that she was a bad hostess. Guests are rare. But then, the only guests we ever had were Tamao and the Asakuras. Yoh's freeloading friends on the other hand… Plenty of those.

Hmm, It is strange that Tamao would come here today, on the date that I've erased from the world, but does she know? No, coming here through a hurricane... she'd only even consider that for Yoh.

The sound of a sliding door pulled Anna from her thoughts. Hm? Yoh's back. Even the "freeloaders-come-to-visit" would have knocked. It was a smug thought, but only mildly smug (Anna can be quite mild when not yelling, slapping, or summoning shikigami).

Yoh was leaning against the door frame smiling goofily with a well and thuroughly soaked box of batteries in-hand. Scratch marks, (did he meet a cat… outside in a hurricane?) bite marks, (…and a dog?) scrapes, cuts, and small pieces of foliage adorned him. His clothes were muddy, his hair… (why… is there a crab? And how… did it get into his hair?) Every breath was a visible struggle. His eyes looked like they wanted to close, and his body looked like it wanted to collapse. Anna took the sight in stride.

“Are… the (wheeze) Ch- (cough) Ch- (wheeze) Cheese… burgers done?”

And that is all Yoh managed to get out before his weight-seals kicked in, increased the weight oppressing Yoh, and sent him face-first into the floorboards.

Soon after, a frantic, still towel-clad Tamao rushed onto the scene. For various reasons, Anna typically didn't crash things unless Yoh was around.

“Yoh-kun!” Seeing a mud-covered, waterlogged Yoh's back that didn't seem to be moving underneath the rubble of floorboards he had crashed through, Tamao's frantic-ness increased to even more drastic heights. If Anna had been looking anything other than characteristically stoic, Tamao might have completely lost it.

“Hmm, the fall stunned the crab. I'm going to put it in a pot.”

“Wh-what! What about Yoh-sama!” The crab was so unimportant.

Yoh comes first

Yoh had always come first.

Anna was already heading for the kitchen. Tamao was over-reacting. As long as Yoh was home, he would survive. Why? He just would. It had always been like that. It was only when he got out of sight or onto some “help the friend, or stranger, or enemy, or animal, or unspecified” escapade that he somehow managed to get himself into strange, borderline-ridiculous situations that often included mortal-peril.

Anna came back to the scene of Tamao having just given up trying to pull Yoh out of the hole he made in the floor. Somehow becoming even more frantic than before, Tamao moved on to desperately trying to heat Yoh up. Anna tried to keep calm. She's not thinking straight. She'd never normally rub there anyway but… damnit, that part's mine! (wow, Anna mental-swears) Must… not… kill. Anna had never used an animalistic, menacing growl before in her life, it was undignified, and far below her, but Tamao just wasn't stopping and she suddenly didn't care.

Tamao was crying, why wasn't Yoh waking up? He hadn't moved, and she'd burned what was left of her furyoku without budging him so much as an inch. She was trying to rub heat into Yoh now. He's so cold. She tried to remove his soaked clothes, but she couldn't budge those either. Distantly, her frazzled mind pointed out that she needed to get Yoh dry. And so her mind switched from repeating “warm Yoh” to repeating “dry Yoh”. Some corner of her mind registered Anna's animalistic growl, but that didn't factor into helping Yoh, and was thus never brought to fore. Poor, hysterical Tamao.

In accordance to her new mission of “dry Yoh”, Tamao utilized the most classic of classic drying tools.

Her towel.

Really, if her mind was in the state to recognize the repercussions of rubbing Yoh's body vigorously with a towel, while herself being naked… she probably would have screamed her lungs out and fainted. (at least he fell into the ground face-first, can you imagine if she were rubbing his front?) Advanced Hysteria is a funny thing.

Anger had been a useful tool for Anna, but very rarely would she actually succumb to rage—to let it control her actions. But after Tamao took that towel off…

If Anna had any less restraint, Tamao would have been dead right there.

Tamao's mind, frazzled and disjointed, was not capable of much. But then, her entire mind was focused on Yoh and so, a concept formed. Yoh was still cold, Tamao was still warm. Tamao could give Yoh her own warmth until she was the one icy cold and not moving, and Yoh was the one still warm. It seemed like a wonderful concept.

Travelers die in hurricanes all the time. The part of Anna that had been violently restraining herself from killing Tamao had stopped cold when the guest threw her body on top of Yoh and proceeded to… rub. That previously resisting part of her joined into the bloodlust without second thought. Anna didn't even know she was snarling, or moving, she just was.

“(cough) itai!(ouch/that hurts) Hot…” The burning sensation on his back was enough to startle Yoh back awake. (differences in temperature affect the amount of heat transferred, more details at the bottom)

Tamao stopped, but Anna kept going. Yoh being awake? So what? She never thought he would die once he reached back. All she saw was Tamao's impending death, and red… she saw lot's of red.

In rising, Yoh staggered forwards slightly. And this sudden movement proved to be enough to send his forehead crashing into that of his fiancée. The weight seals, still being on, meant that while this was a relatively small movement, it was uncontrolled and more than enough force transferred into Anna's head to knock her out. The laws of physics saved Tamao's life that day. (confused? Look to the bottom)

Tamao stopped what she was doing, Yoh-kun was awake! She cried happily and glomped him, crying nothing but “Yoh-kun!” and “You're awake!” She still hadn't noticed Anna, but her mind was slowly coming down from hysteria, and her vision would probably expand to notice things other than Yoh's health soon. Poor Tamao.

“Tamao? Hey... (cough) wh…(cough) where's…(wheeze) your clothes?”

Tamao stood stunned, her mind was finally fit to process that her towel was off, leaving her… and while pressing into Yoh's chest… Yoh always wore that shirt unbuttoned…

Tamao screamed her lungs out and fainted (ah, that was foreshadowed, actually).

“Huh?” Now Yoh was confused, cold, wet, hungry, injured, exhausted, and had two unconscious girls to deal with. Everything up to the unconscious girls was familiar territory… which has been blown to the extreme, but after that?

Being exhausted, Yoh wanted to get those weight-seals off but… that required Anna and he'd probably get slapped when she woke up. He'd worked too hard to have her not angry at him today to give up now. He also wanted some food, but waking a naked Tamao up (that situation still confused him) would, in all likelihood, probably also get him slapped.

He supposed he should at least cover Tamao, so he draped the towel on the ground over her, a difficult task with numb and unresponsive hands, and left to look for a change of clothes.

Explanation corner (OMG, I can't believe I have to make a whole corner for it)

Why did Yoh feel burned by just Tamao's body? Simply put, heat energy travels between objects more quickly when the temperatures are farther apart until the point where both objects have the same temperature. So you can get the same burning sensation from being really cold and touching something warm, as you can get from being warm and touching something hot (Yoh must have been really cold. How did he survive? He's a shaman, he… er… just… hmm, I'll get back to you on that). Similarly, this means that Tamao, would have to have been loosing heat at a similarly painful rate, but I suppose she was beyond caring at that point.

Next…

Why did a simple stumble have enough force to render Anna unconscious? Yoh's training weight-seals-things are active so, as the name implies, there is a weight that is constantly oppressing Yoh. Since this weight is “tagged on” to Yoh, we can consider Yoh's body heavier and harder to move. Therefore, even a small natural drop can have enough force to, for example, create a huge splash in a puddle, or knock an itako unconscious. It's the difference between hitting someone with a stick or hitting someone with a sledgehammer.

You know, this'll be the first fic. I've seen that gets an “M” rating because it requires at least rudimentary Physics… omg

Reviewer Corner (OMG x 2, I've invented two corners in just one chapter)

Thanks to rumia for the info on how Yoh and Anna get engaged in the Japanese version, as well as the info on where Yoh's hous is… sort of (It's Funbari Inn, so the city must be Izumo, I think)

Also, thanks to yohxanna4ever (nice name) for his/her view on what the Halo Bump actually is. (it seems like a topic of debate, actually) Perhaps Halo Bump is a flexible move? Maybe just an energy-charge-on-the-sword kind of thing? I'm still not completely sure… but it's a good idea, so I'll probably just go with changing it into that

And my first reviewer HaloGirl, and the only person to add me to their “favorites” list seems to have abandoned me, shame on her. Eaveryone! Point and Sneer at the deserter! (sorry, you see, humor is my way of dealing with rejection. I didn't mean it HaloGirl!)

Lastly... well, the review actually came in after I finished this chapter sooo... I'm only putting this in as I fix some errors...Thanks to pendulumxswing, whoseems to be an accomplished Shaman King author, and a vigorous supporter of Ren x Pillica(Pirika) for answering a whooole bunch of questions! Trully, thou art an accomplished Shaman King writer, for thy knowlage is vast and... knowlegable...

Author's Corner (OMG x 3 is it just me, or do the footnotes just keep getting longer?)

Phew! Well, let's see… with this one… I should jump straight up to 6000… hmmm...

AWSOME!