Besarki: It's been a while, huh? Wellllll, I return! Muha! Past conversations are in italics. Present conversations are normal so don't be irked by the format. It's not all like that.

Almost forgot this...Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King or anything relating to Shaman King. I also don't any of the songs used. There. I said it. SO DON'T BUG ME ABOUT IT!

For every chapter, I'll have a little portion of a song at the bottom of the first author's note. This one is Everyday is a Winding Road by Sheryl Crow.

Jump in, let's go
Lay back, enjoy the show
Everybody gets high, everybody gets low,
These are the days when anything goes

Why the heck is it so hot out here?

Even as I thought this, little droplets of sweat were dripping down my face and soaking my wild blond hair. Heat is no friend of mine.

I'm Hana.

I'm seven years old and I'm a shaman. I won't bother explaining what those are, because, as far as I'm concerned, everyone knows what a shaman is. At least, everyone in my life does. Though that's beside the point.

What isn't is that Japan is definitely not supposed to be this hot.

My mother says that it's hot like this because the Spirit of Fire is still on the loose, but I know she's lying.

When I say my mother, I'm talking about my real mother, and not Tamao. I figured that one out a while ago. Confused? I'll explain.

You see, a few months ago, I found a box of old pictures. Well, I guess they weren't all that old since I was able to recognize Tamao, Horohoro, Pirika, and Ryu in a lot of them. Anyway, the pictures themselves featured a group of people that I now know to have been a bunch of shamans. At first, I thought they were just old friends of Ryu and my "mother," but if that were the case, I wouldn't have recognized anyone other than the four I mentioned earlier.

But I did.

In almost every picture, there was a man who looked a lot like me, only he had black hair and his eyes were different. (AN: I'm assuming that Hana has his mother's golden eyes. Edit: He actually does have Yoh's eyes, but since this is a semi-plot point, I'm not changing it ;). Okay, another edit: Turns out Hana DOES have Anna's eyes. Takei just can't make up his mind) I guessed early on that he was my father, Asakura Yoh. "Yoh, Horohoro, and Ren - 1999" which was written in black marker on the back of one of them cemented that notion. However, even though I recognized his face because of my own, that didn't mean that I remembered having seen him before.

The blond-haired woman who stood with him in a few of the pictures was a different story.

I couldn't remember where, but I had definitely seen her sometime in my life. Sometime in the past, she was a part of my life. Which part, I wasn't sure of. That is, I wasn't sure of until I asked Ryu.

The day after I found the pictures, I confronted Ryu with a picture of the blonde lady and my dad.

"Hey, Ryu! I found this picture yesterday of these old friends of yours and I'm trying to remember this lady's name. You don't remember who she is, do you?" Bokuto no Ryu, being the airhead he is, instantly blurted out that she was Asakura Anna, my okaa. Of course, he realized that he shouldn't have said that pretty much the instant he answered. Then he blew his chances of claiming that he mistook her for Tamao because a second later, he slapped his hand over his mouth and his eyes widened to the size of saucers.

That's Ryu for you.

I tried to play dumb and act all confused, hoping that he wouldn't realize that he'd just fallen into my trap, but he wasn't that oblivious. I had a feeling that he'd fallen for this many times before.

"That mother of yours did that all the time!" He had yelled.

"Did what?"

"Trap people with words! Whenever she couldn't find out what she wanted from the ghosts, she'd trick either me or Horohoro into telling her!"

"So a lot, then, cause Ponchi and Konchi are kinda useless."

"Not those ghosts! The other ghosts! The ones that had already departed and could see everything!"

"What the heck are you talking about Ryu? For one, that doesn't make sense. If the ghosts could see everything then she wouldn't need to ask you, but that's kinda irrelevant. Mom can't call spirits that already departed. She's no Itako."

"Don't play me for a fool, little mister! I know exactly what you're doing!"

"...?"

"HANA!"

"RYU!" And then I had laughed.

After a long conversation and a lot of finger-crossed promises not to say anything to Tamao, I said goodbye to a jittery Ryu and headed for home. Though it was a few miles back to the onsen, the walk didn't take particularly long, but it gave me some time to think.

I won't deny that I felt pretty betrayed at the time. My parents went somewhere far away and left me behind. Yeah, I was probably pretty young then and would have been a pain in the butt to carry around, but then why couldn't they have just waited a few years? Surely I wasn't that much of a burden...was I?

I stopped and bit my tongue to keep from crying. No way was I that useless. Besides, if the rumors were true, I was the son of the Shaman King and the Shaman Queen, two of the most powerful individuals in existence. Surely, I had inherited some of that power so surely I wasn't useless.

A moment later, I returned with a vengeance. My sadness had turned to anger for their doubt in me. Who did they think they were leaving me behind like this? Huh? I should just march right up to them and demand to know why they did such things.

And that's exactly what I decided to do.

I ran the rest of the way home, formulating a plan for sneaking out undetected.

My "mom" was cooking dinner when I ran through the door, which worked out great for me. If she was preoccupied cooking, she wouldn't see me packing. Though, even if she had, it wouldn't have stopped me. My resolve had formed: I had to find my real mom and dad. I had a bone to pick with them.

So, the next morning, before daybreak, I grabbed my backpack, wrote a note saying how sorry I was for leaving, and set out on my quest. I was prepared to travel half-way across the globe, maybe farther, to find my parents, and, to be honest, I thought I was going to have to. No such thing happened. At least, not for one of them.

I arrived in the next town about a week into my journey. I was being an idiot and searching for clues around people who had never heard of a shaman before. It wasn't a very promising start.

I combed the entire town and ultimately ended up in the last place I wanted to be: a bar. A creepy bar, at that. Pretty much everyone in there was creepy--mostly scary-looking men and slutty women. Not a playground.

I was about to leave and try the next town when I heard two men talking about a lady in the corner with a bizarre-looking tree symbol on her dress. I, being a moron, got all offended because my family's symbol was a tree and started mouthing off to this scary dude.

He kicked me in the stomach.

At that point, I knew I was in trouble. This guy wasn't a shaman so my shamanic powers were utterly useless (AN: Too young to make an oversoul). A bunch of people yelled at him for hurting me since I was only a kid, but they all shut up when he ripped a gun out of his coat.

He picked me up by my collar and held me up in front of his face. I couldn't breathe. I seriously thought I was gonna die. And then he suddenly gasped and his face got all screwed up. He let me go, then, a second later, fell to the floor, revealing a cloaked woman standing behind him. I couldn't see much of her, only that she had blond hair and a black dress. Oh, and glowing blue eyes, but that didn't strike me as all that weird then since I was a shaman and all.

Anyway, you'd think that, at that point, I'd be prepared for anything. I'd now been held at gunpoint, thrown in jail, been abandoned by my parents, and all sorts of other outlandish things. In theory, I should have been ready for anything life could throw at me.

To be blunt, I wasn't. I don't think anyone would have been.

I expected a, 'You shouldn't be in here' or an 'Are you okay?' Sure. That would be perfectly normal. After all, some guy just attacked me and I sure as hell shouldn't have been in a bar.

The once glowing blue eyes should have been a big hint that this lady wasn't normal. Rather than help me up like anyone normal would, the psycho grabbed my sleeve and dragged me out of the building. I was vaguely reminded of my mom, er...Tamao. Shudder. Bad memories.

I kicked and screamed and demanded that she let me go, but I might as well have been speaking a different language for all the success that had. This woman was not about to be deterred.

It didn't take long for me to realize that this lady's behavior was screaming serial killer, but, for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to call for help. I can't say that she seemed somewhat serene because, believe me, she didn't. At all. However, she didn't strike me as dangerous. Okay, another lie. She did strike me as dangerous, only, not dangerous to me.

This cloaked woman was a shaman. I was sure of it.

And shaman were good people, right? That's what my dad used to say, according to Ryu, anyway.

I was pulled back to reality when the lady suddenly released my arm and let me fall to the ground.

"Ow! What was that for?!" I shouted at her. We had somehow ended up in a forest with me on the floor and her a few paces off, mumbling curses at the trunk of a nearby tree.

"For being stupid. You could have been killed, you idiot."

"I've been through worse than a little bar fight."

"Oh, have you? Ryu hasn't been doing his job very well, then."

That derailed me. "...Y-You know Ryu?"

"Of course."

"How?" I shakily asked her. "And how do you know me?"

"Now, you assumed that. I never said I knew you."

"Don't be a jerk, lady. I know you do."

A nearly invisible smile crossed her face after I said that, and she paused before answering. "Hmph. You've grown disrespectful, Hana," She confirmed.

"So you do know me!" I excitedly yelled back.

"You already knew, didn't you?

"I had a feeling."

"Feelings can be bad. Don't rely on them too much."

"Whatever lady." For some reason, that made her laugh. It was a sound I very vaguely recognized, but I wasn't about to tell her that. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing. You just remind me of someone."

"You're not going to tell me who, huh?"

"Nope. Even if I did, though, it wouldn't make a difference. You don't know him. Not personally."

"Then why bring it up?"

"I don't know."

I frowned and crossed my arms. "You're really weird."

"I've been told that before, though for different reasons."

"Like...?"

"You ask too many questions!"

"Jeez, sorry for being curious."

"Curiosity can kill."

"How morbid."

"Morbid? Do you really know what that means?"

"Yeah, it's like gruesome, right?"

"I'm impressed."

I grinned at the strange woman who seemed so very familiar to me. I had to admit that I was proud of myself.

"I'm impressed with your vocabulary, but not so much with your survival skills."

"Hey!" I argued. How rude to turn a compliment around.

"Leaving home like you did wasn't smart, Hana. Especially alone."

"You're not the boss of me. You can't tell me what to do."

"On the contrary. I will always be in charge of you. I hold a position which isn't so easy to replace."

"Ha! Who do you think you are, my mom?" I demanded, trying to be tough. I thought it was a good argument, and would have run with it...had it not been for that knowing smirk on her face.

I remember staring at her with a confused expression for a few seconds before my face went completely blank. The next thing I knew, she was crouching in front of me, her hood down and her long blond hair falling over her shoulders.

"My name is Asakura Anna. I am your mother, Hana."

Okaa-san was in the next town over, mulling over how to apologize for ditching me. Turns out that she knew about Tamao's act and had even been to the onsen a few weeks before I left just to check on me. No one saw her of course, but I guess that was to be expected.

My mother told me everything that had happened the Shaman Fight, something that everyone else refused to spill. My father had become Shaman King and had, in turn, died, leaving my mom to raise me alone. For almost two years, she cared for me without complaint. Tamao and Ryu lived with the two of us in the inn, but they didn't really do much to help her. Tamao was really young and Ryu had no experience with children so mostly, they just observed.

Then, one day, my mother sensed a familiar presence somewhere far off. She wanted to go investigate, but, if it wasn't who she thought it was(AN: Meaning that it would be Hao, not Yoh), then she could have been killed, and, had I been with her, so could I. Not going didn't seem like an option, but with me around, things were complicated. She apologized profusely for not taking me and couldn't seem to find words for how hard it had been to leave me behind, but, ultimately, she did. I was left in the care of Tamao and Ryu who would act as my surrogate mother and uncle until she got back. If she got back.

About six months ago, she tracked the presence all the way to America where she ran into the remaining few of Hao's loyal cronies. They sensed the presence too and were sure it was their master, Hao-sama. Kaa-san kicked them around until they split. She was a lot stronger than they were, and they knew that. However, Kaa-san had a weakness that they didn't.

You got it: Me.

Those low-lifes were planning on sneaking back to Japan and kidnapping me. Killing two birds with one stone, Okaa-san told me.

And so she had to run alllll the way back to Japan to get me. Of course, go figure, it was all a trap to throw her off the trail. Seeing as how she was already in China by the time she realized this, though, she decided to just come back and get me anyway, just to be safe and save her from taking another trip back were the scenario to repeat itself.

And so here we are, sweating waterfalls as we head toward the edge of Japan. In a few days, we'll be preparing to leave for Europe where we'll undoubtedly meet all sorts of trouble since neither of us can speak anything besides Japanese or extremely broken English. That's okay, though. These things are expected and easily overcame. Plus, we've got bigger fish to fry and we've got a Shaman King to save.

We're on our way.

Besarki: Rushed the beginning cause I hate beginnings. Next chapter will be better. Hana seems a little Redseb-ish, no? And Anna's a bit on the OOC side in this first part, but...whatever. So, yeah, I kinda rushed this. Used conjunctions as starters and all sorts of other grammar taboo. I wanted to get it out before the finale for the manga premieres and everyone's all, YOU IS (yes, is) WRONG! I doubt anything even remotely close to this will happen. SO DON'T COME BACK IN A MONTH AND SAY, "HAHA! TOLD YOU THAT WOULDN'T HAPPEN!!" Oh, and my Japanese sucks so I won't be using it much :)