Shaman King Fan Fiction ❯ Ivy, Shaman Runaway ❯ Black Leather Boots ( Chapter 68 )

 

Black Leather Boots

“We'll start here.” Gabe stated in his usual unfeeling voice. “Yoh and Anna had a wonderful time making out under the stars, they went to bed and didn't wake up until around ten o'clock. By that time, Ren had set off to kill Hao. It is now three o'clock. Ren is on his way back to the house to tell Yoh that Hao has drown himself, and Yoh is up in your room going through your things.”

 

“But Hao didn't die.” I protested.

 

“Ren doesn't know that.” Raphael pointed out.

 

I looked around the room and my eyes fell upon three suitcases at the foot of Ivy's bed. She hadn't really bothered to unpack since she had come back to live with us again. Two suitcases were still full, and only her clothes were put away.

 

I sat down next to the bags and opened them up. Nothing really interesting was in the first, just a bunch of weapons and shamanic charms and stuff. I moved on to the second bag. It was full of all her material possessions.

 

She had a lot of Shakespearian literature ranging from Romeo and Juliet to Much Ado About Nothing. A various selection of CDs were scattered at the bottom of the bag. A few stuffed animals, mostly dogs, were thrown in there too. She had a small jewelry box, which contained simple gold and silver bracelets as well as a few different sets of earrings.

 

`Ivy never wore earrings.' I blinked several times, but on further inspection found out why the earrings hadn't been worn in months. They were all stars. Little stars, medium stars, big stars, dangly stars, and hoops with stars all over them. `He probably gave them to her.'

 

I put the jewelry box back where I had found it and moved on to the next item: a scrapbook. It had a cloth cover made to look like Chinese silk, and was tied shut with a faded red ribbon. I undid the ribbon and flipped through the pages. There were pictures of Ren and Judo training, there were pictures of Jun doing Judo's hair, there were pictures of the whole family, there were pictures of just Judo, and some of just Jun. There were even some of Judo with a cocker spaniel.

 

I remembered that dog from the day that I had first met Judo. Tae Kwon Do (often shortened to Ty) had gotten lose in the park, and Judo was looking for her lost dog. The dog came right up to me and followed me around until I bumped into a pretty little girl sitting on a park bench crying her eyes out for her missing puppy.

 

I flipped forward a few more pages, and found a drawing of Ivy. `Ivy doesn't have any pictures of herself as Ivy…so she drew some…' I smiled fondly at her art skills. The rest of the pictures in the photo album were sketches, like the one of Ivy. They were all of Hao's followers. Each picture had their birthday, their age, blood type, height, weight, astrological sign, where they were from, a short list of powers, and their name listed at the bottom of the picture.

 

I briefly looked at the pictures of Blocken, Zen, Ryo, Han ZanChin, Peyote, Turbine, Mari, Macchi, Kanna, Boris, Kouji, Bill, Luca, and Opacho. Then I came to the last page. The picture was of someone I knew all too well, but some of the most pertinent information about him wasn't filled out. Birthday: May 12, Age: 14? 15? 16?, Blood type: A, Height: 5.6-5.7?, Weight: ?, Astrological sign: Taurus, Origin: ? Japan? America? Looks half and half, Powers: teleportation, mastery over fire…?, Name: ?

 

`He hadn't told her his name…Why would he do that? Wait…I remember her telling me something about this…Something about tricking her…' It was no use. I couldn't remember what she had said about her experiences with Hao and how exactly he had tricked her into becoming his fiancée.

 

She must have spent hours on just that one picture alone. She paid such great attention to detail, especially on his face. The eyes, mouth, and nose were set perfectly into place, and even the folds in his pants were done with great care. It was a picture of Hao, sitting in the branch of a tree near a pond, staring up at the night sky. A pleased smile was evident on his lips, his eyes were directed towards the heavens. His poncho was tossed lightly over his shoulders, and it billowed out behind him in the wind. My older brother looked absolutely amazing when Ivy drew him.

 

I noticed that something was written on the back of the drawing, and I flipped it over to look at it. It was the letter `H' over and over again drawn in many different styles. It was as if Ivy had been trying to think of something that started with that letter. I skimmed the page, and there among the `H's were some names. Names all starting with the letter `H': Hana, Hinode, Hachi, Hi, Haru, Hinoiri, Haku, Hane, Hiei, Honda, Hikage, Hoji, Howe, Hoshi.

 

The last name, Hoshi, was circled. `I suppose that's what she took to calling him…It suits him.' I closed the scrapbook and was in the process of returning it to its previous location when a key fell out of one of the pages. I gently set the photo album down and picked up the key. It was a small silver key on a simple silver chain. The only thing special I could see bout the key was that it had a little heart engraved in it.

 

I shrugged. “Wonder what this is to…hmm.” I searched the suitcase for anything with a lock on it. There was nothing. I slipped the chain holding the key around my neck and packed everything back into the suitcases. I got up and was exiting the room when I tripped over something and fell flat on my face.

 

“Ow….huh?” I looked down to glare at the object I had tripped over: Ivy's boots. I picked up one of the tattered black leather boots and inspected it. `Why were these shoes so important to her?' I didn't see anything special about them. I ran my fingers over them again and again as I studied them. My fingers touched a rough spot in the center of the sole, and I held it up to the light to inspect further. I poked and prodded the rough spot and to my amazement, a little door like contraption opened revealing a keyhole. It was as if the thing was there to hide the keyhole. I took the key I had found off my neck and prayed that it worked. The key slid into the hole without any resistance, and I held my breath as I turned the key. A soft click sound met my ears, and the heel of the boot fell off, revealing a secret compartment. The heel of Ivy's boot was hollow!

 

A bunch of papers fell out of the compartment, and I picked them up to read. `Her diary…it wouldn't hurt to look at it since she's dead.' The pages dated back to when she was little Judo. There was a lot about her training and family and things that she did to amuse herself. I was mentioned quite frequently for the time that she knew me. There were also things in there that I didn't want to know. Her thoughts…she had been a very logical and down to earth person even from an early age. At least her thoughts were that way; her actions were a different story. She was a foolish little troublemaker. The only thing that surprised me was that Judo's diary was kept in Ivy's boot, but Ivy had never made any diary entries after she left the Tao compound to find her blood family.

 

A thought hit me: check the other boot. I smiled at my stupidity and picked up the left boot. There was, as I had thought there would be, another keyhole on the sole of that boot. I opened the boot's secret compartment, and read Ivy's half of the diary. What I read shocked me. This girl had been through things. Unspeakable horrors; there was also some pretty unspeakable things in there about Hao too. All the things he did to her and what he had said to her. Ivy had been through a worse Hell than I ever thought imaginable. What also surprised me was sometimes she wrote of secret longings she had for him. It made my cheeks burn bright red just reading it. The parts about me were milder, but still made me blush.

 

“YOH!!!!!” a loud bellowing voice brought me back down to earth. “YOH ASAKURA!!!!” Ren was calling for me. I hadn't seen him all day, and I hadn't bothered to ask where he had been.

 

“COMING!!!!” I yelled down the several flights of stairs to my friend. I stuffed the papers back into Ivy's boots, locked the compartments back up tight, and dashed down the stairs into the kitchen.

 

“Yes?” I burst through the door, out of breath, looking expectantly at Ren and the others who had gathered there in the kitchen having dinner.

 

Ren approached me calmly. “Today I went out in search of Hao so that I could kill him for murdering my Judo, but…then I realized he really was in love with her like you said. I didn't kill him, but as I was leaving he…he wanted to die, and so he drown himself.” Ren looked me in the eye and waited for my response. “Are you okay Yoh?”

 

I looked straight into his eyes unblinkingly. I stared blankly at him. “W-what?”

 

Anna came up beside me and put a strong but delicate hand on my shoulder. “Yoh, Hao's dead. He killed himself.”

 

“I…W-why would he do that?” My mind felt numb as I tried to process the information that was being thrown at me. `H-hao…My older brother…my aniki…' “Hao…Why?”

 

“Yoh, he was really depressed about Ivy.” Ren started. “He wanted the person responsible for her death to be put to death as well; unfortunately he was the one responsible. He wasn't in his right mind. I'm sorry Yoh.” Ren had a hard time looking me in the eyes.

 

“Hao couldn't live with the guilt of what he had done, and so he chose to take his own life. I suppose it couldn't have been helped. If not drowning, he would have found some other way to kill himself.” Anna lightly hugged me.

 

“I…I'll be back later.” I tore off out of the kitchen, ran upstairs to get Ivy's boots and the key, and dashed outside off into the desert.

 

Cries of `Yoh!' were heard behind me, but I didn't stop or look back. I wouldn't stop until I reached my brother's campsite. I couldn't believe that he was dead. I could still feel him, somehow, inside of me. I could feel that he was still alive, and it would take seeing his dead body to convince me otherwise.