[FIC][Shaman King] Complications

I think I just like twins. ^^; I blame her and her, because now I've got other ManKin fans close by who ENCOURAGE me.

Not that they know I'm writing this, but that's okay. It's still their fault. XD;

Some Hao-spoilers, up to volume 16 of the manga, and references to Yoh and Anna's first meeting. Yoh, second-person (and something of a pun, though a rather weak one). Whee.

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It is no special thing to be a twin. It is no special thing to be a shaman.

You are always one-half, and wherever you go, you are not alone. The world comes to you in faded colors, like the aged lines of watercolor, and the ghosts who pass you are no stronger or weaker in appearance than still-living people.

They watched you speaking to the air, unable to see what was so clear to your eyes, and, according to human nature, they whispered behind their hands and feared you, the oni's child. And maybe it bothered you, in a distant way, but you were still never lonely: the voices of the dead followed you everywhere, the comfortable roar that kept you from being nervous at night, the lullaby that sent you to sleep.

And in the back of your mind, softer than the cacophony of the dead, but so much clearer: the voice of your twin. You were always aware of him, though not necessarily of what he was doing; if you reached out with your small hands and gave that silver thread a tug, there was always one that came back in answer.

In that cold night, when you stood in the snow and watched Anna destroy the oni she created, you thought you felt him there, almost like a solid presence by your side. He said nothing, even when you pressed, and when Matamune faded away, so did he: not completely gone--never completely gone--but back into the background, where he usually remains.

Neither of your grandparents like to speak of your twin, the first child who disappeared so suddenly from their lives. Your mother, the rare times you see her, acts as though he were simply dead, lost in an accidental miscarriage. It hurts her too much to remember her failure as a parent, and you don't wish to put that burden back on her thin shoulders. Your father, when he appears, only speaks of him as the ancestor, the man-that-was, and not the child-that-is. You have not told any of them about his presence in your head, or the occasional sound of his laughter when you are completely alone.

For a long time, that was fine. That was what you knew, steady as the movement of tides. You were yourself, working towards an easy life, and wherever you went, you were not alone.

And then there was Manta, the first person outside your family, outside of Anna, who could see the same ghosts that have always kept you company. And like Anna, like your family, he was different from everyone else: he was drawn vividly, his outlines sharp against the faint fuzzed halos that surrounded the rest of the world. You gambled your trust on that solidity and were rewarded.

Ghosts and spirits have always been your friends. It is no special thing to be a shaman, and to see them, and to talk to them, because they were once alive and solid, just like you. It *is* special, however, to have a "real" friend--a solid breathing separate figure that has no promises to you, no prior agreements or bonds, who still remains close to your side. Through him, you realized that perhaps your own weaknesses lay not in what you could not do with the spirits, but what you could not do with other living people.

It still hurts, like a sore tooth, when you think about Pirika's anger. It is never easy to be disliked, but it became worse when Manta came to you, because you learned how much better it is to be liked. And he is not weak, but he is not *strong*, either; it is not his fault that his body cannot match the power of his will. Because of that, he looks to you, depends on you.

It is nice--it is special--to be depended on. Anna is strong; even as a child, she carried herself with the cold regality of a queen. Even when the oni took her, even when she flung rocks and cried, she was strong. Just as she knows to believe in you, you know not to worry about her. The world could fall to pieces, and Anna will pick herself out of the wreckage and move on. She is like you, already halfway existing in the other world, and half-uncaring of the events of this one. Marriage seems like a strange thing, because she is already so much you, and you are so much her, that it is peculiar that the flimsy vows of the living are needed for others to understand the permanence that is the two of you.

Manta, however, is grounded here; his feet are on the ground, and even if he can see ghosts, they are not completely part of his world. He is not a shaman, who by nature is a connecting bridge and a gateway--he is a marker, the last stop back into the world of the "normal." He is your friend who joined your side late, but since that moment, has rarely swayed from your side.

This is why you hated Faust, the first time.

But this is also why you forgave Faust, the next time.

He hurt Manta, so badly that for a few stilted crazy moments, you thought he might die. A small part of you will forever be angry at that, though perhaps the anger is more towards yourself, for failing to protect that first precious person. But Faust has suffered as well: for him, his "Anna" and his "Manta" were one and the same, and in one instant both were lost. You remember the slow realization that dawned in his eyes at the promise of Eliza's true voice, the almost animal hopefulness, and you cannot hate him.

You do not even hate the X-Laws, though you do not *like* them. You did not watch when the three who died were eaten, and were thus denied the shaman's comfort, in knowing that the end of the physical living body is not necessarily the end of the unique personality. You hope that they ended up somewhere nice--perhaps the "heaven" they idealized so much, that they believed their Iron Maiden could lead them to--and you hope that Lyserg is not too badly hurt. He is your friend, but he has chosen his own path: and if there is anything you have learned, from your life apart, is that being allowed to make your own mistakes is the only permanent way you learn things.

You wish he could be with you now, to hear this--because he deserves this knowledge, too. You will just have to make sure, the next time you see him, to let him know. Perhaps he has already guessed: now that you have looked your twin in the face, you are surprised no one has made the straightforward connection. Horohoro is beginning to guess, but none of them followed it all the way through--not even Manta, though perhaps that is just as much from self-denial as anything else: because Manta depends on you, he looks up to you, and even if his eyes notice how your two faces look alike, his mind does not register this.

But you have decided--and Anna has agreed--that it is better to tell this now. Anticipation of something pulls in your veins, even as you let yourself relax; there are moments where you think you can hear Matamune's deep voice speaking with the other ghosts, echoing from the necklace you always wear. Sooner or later, it will come to direct confrontation, and at such a moment, to be the only one on your side who understands everything will be a serious disadvantage. Even if Anna has them cowed, you feel dishonest in relying upon her strength alone.

You do not have the force of her personality, or the strength of her utter unshakable belief--but you have your honesty, and truth is a powerful thing.

The words come with surprising ease. You can even smile a little, because giving them voice is like lifting weights off your chest, and now you're certain that it's Matamune's voice you hear, rising above all the others that whisper and hiss in your ears.

Overhead the seagulls croak. In your head, through the bond between you, your twin chuckles, his voice husky, but he says nothing. There is amusement in the brief contact between the two of you, shared both ways; it seems he was not the only one who has inherited your grandfather's sense of the dramatic.

"When he went on a journey one thousand years ago, the place he returned to was the Asakura household.

"That guy-- is my older brother."