Chapter Text
Fourteen year old Yukino Yorokobi sat quietly at the table of a diner located somewhere in the middle of America. Her fork poked at the remaining strawberries on her plate while the group around her chattered. She was still a bit awkward when it came to socializing. Especially after going through yet another stressful day in a foreign country.
The young girl’s eyes scanned over the group of boys who sat around the table with her. There was the tall one, Ryu, who was good natured despite his tendency to be overwhelming. Ren, the Chinese boy with the pointy hair and prickly attitude to match. Horohoro, the Ainu boy who was friendly, if rather excitable. And Lyserg, the troubled boy they seemed to have picked up along their way.
Lyserg was to blame for the chaos earlier in the day. He had suddenly attacked the group outside of their hotel, leading to several injuries and a hospital visit. Yukino herself had stayed out of the skirmish, but it was quite the frightening display. The British shaman had calmed down, however, and seemed genuinely regretful of his actions. He sat beside her now, looking deep in thought about something. Yukino couldn’t say she minded his addition, at least.
As for her, she was no one special. In Yukino’s mind she was as average as they came, right down to her looks; with short, straight beige colored hair- her bangs usually pinned to the side with a pink hair clip- green eyes, and a petite build. No one notable in every aspect other than that troublesome little ability of hers.
Or curse, as she always thought of it. The ability to see spirits was something Yukino was convinced she alone carried until just a few months prior, when she met Yoh Asakura and her entire world changed.
Yoh was missing from the table currently. He was the one who was almost infuriatingly laidback, almost certainly off taking a nap someplace. He was the reason she had come all this way in the first place.
It had been a strange, winding road leading up to the current moment, sitting amongst several almost strangers in an American diner. Some days she found it difficult to believe she wasn’t back in Funbari, wandering the halls of that dreadful middle school.
That was how it all began, wasn’t it?
For Yukino, it had been an average day. Back then she kept her nose buried in textbooks and kept as much distance as she could between herself and her classmates. Shutting herself off from the rest of the world made the days bearable, if mundane.
So when the strange boy with the orange headphones approached her during the lunch period, she was taken off guard.
“Hey!" was his all too casual greeting.
The short haired girl looked up from the red bean bread she’d been about to bite into. For a moment she stayed silent. She was not used to being approached by strangers.
"Can I help you?" she replied coldly.
Yoh's smile did not waver. "I just saw you all alone here and thought you might like to sit with my friend and I."
Her eyes shifted to Manta, who had been trailing a few feet behind Yoh. Nervously, the short boy stepped beside his friend and gave the female student a cautious wave.
"H-Hi there.."
"Oyamada, right?" she asked, though her expression retained its coldness.
"Yes, that's me.."
"I don't know either of you. I don't see why you'd want to eat lunch with me," Yukino said, and shot Yoh with a suspicious look.
"I know.. But you looked lonely, so I thought I'd ask. It's no fun to eat all by yourself, " he replied. "I'm Yoh Asakura! It’s nice to meet you."
Yukino was quiet again as Yoh put his hand out to her. Instead of reciprocating the handshake, she stood up and walked past the two boys.
"Leaving so soon?" Yoh asked.
She did not look back at him. "Who I eat my lunch with is my business. I am none of your concern. If you'll excuse me."
With those last words, the distant girl walked off. She could hear Manta release a sigh of relief as she did so. Of course he was afraid to be near her, he surely knew all of the rumors about the girl who knew “black magic” and “summoned demons”. Everyone either feared her or ridiculed her, there was no in between. It had always been that way.
Yukino left the odd conversation with every intention of putting it behind her. But the strange student approached her a second time once classes let out for the day. She had been the last one to leave her classroom, but when she opened the door to exit she found herself face to face with Yoh Asakura once more. He was greeted with a cold stare.
"You again? What do you want?"
"I just want to talk to you for a bit," Yoh replied.
"Why? I don't know you."
"Well, you'd see if you talked to me for a minute."
"I have no desire to. If you'll excuse me, I need to be getting home.."
With that statement the girl attempted to walk past him, but he stood in front of her.
"... What do you want from me?" her tone had turned aggravated now.
"I have a question," Yoh began, his calm smile still present. "You can see spirits, can't you?"
Yukino's eyes widened in surprise at the sudden accusation. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she said.
"Is that so?"
Suddenly, Amidamaru appeared above him. Yukino twitched, but tried to refrain from making it obvious she could see the large samurai spirit.
"You can see him, can't you?"
"You're crazy."
"This is my good friend, Amidamaru. He'd be your friend too, if you let him. Lots of others like him would, too."
"This is ridiculous!" she snapped. "Leave me alone!"
"I want to help you," Yoh continued. "You don't know what you are, do you? It would be good to be around others like you. We know what it's like growing up with these powers. You can be understood on a level that a lot of normal humans can't reach."
"You have no idea what you're talking about! You don't know me.. You know NOTHING about me!" she narrowed her eyes at him.
"I know more than you think," his tone turned more serious now. "I want to help you, Yukino. I want to be your friend."
"Shut up.." she muttered. "I don't know you. You don't know me."
"Why can't that change?" he raised an eyebrow, confused by her logic. "People like us should stick together. It's less lonely that way, right?"
"Just leave me alone!" she yelled finally, before pushing past Yoh and running out the door.
From the very beginning Yoh could see past the cold front she put up. His friendly attitude was off-putting and unfamiliar. The casual way he spoke about seeing spirits and summoning a ghost angered her, too. Yukino had dealt with this burden by herself for her whole life, and she had no intention of changing her ways any time soon. So she ran away from him, ran through the halls of the school without looking back. She didn't need explanations. Everything was troublesome with or without them. The only thing she needed was to be able to block the world out.
Yoh Asakura intended to make that task immensely difficult for her, however. From that day forward, it seemed she couldn’t turn a corner without running into the bizarre boy and his nervous friend. Each time he’d meet her with that infuriatingly carefree smile.
“Hey, Yuki!” He’d always greet her as if they were old pals. It drove her mad with frustration. And like an idiot, she’d yell at him to leave her alone each day, informing him that her name was “Yukino”. Not that it ever made a difference.
It wasn’t long after their initial confrontation that everything came to a head, though. And that night at the cemetery was one she was certain would remain burned in her memory.
That particular night she had gone out for a walk in hopes of clearing her head…only to run into the source of her extra frustration. She met Yoh and Manta with her usual sour attitude, but Yoh had beckoned her to stay. He continued to preach about ghosts, shamans, and friendship to her. In spite of herself, Yukino had listened. His words, in all of their warmth, infuriated her to her core. Such kindness and understanding was foreign to her. Her abilities had been shunned by everyone since she was a little girl. Her parents scolded her at any mention of a ghost and her classmates bullied her. No matter how she wished for it, she had never found someone who would reach out their hand and say, “I see them, too”.
Until now. But why all of a sudden? After being rejected for so long, Yukino couldn’t help but meet acceptance with anger. And in that moment, she yelled at the person trying so hard to befriend her.
“Why do you care so much?!” she had snapped at him. “Don’t you understand that it’s better to drop this?! No one has ever understood before, so I don’t want it now!”
As she lashed out, she could feel all of her negative emotions bubbling to the surface. Anger, frustration, loneliness, grief. They swelled in her chest and threatened to consume her. But instead, something worse happened.
A certain creature joined them in the cemetery. A vile, horned monster straight out of a nightmare. Yukino had not seen one in years, but she knew it well. That monster was more frightening and dangerous than even the most mischievous of ghosts. Yoh called it a demon.
She had begged for him to run, but he refused. Even Manta, terrified as he was, stayed by her side. Then, somehow, Yoh used Amidamaru to defeat the demon as if it were nothing. He explained that such a thing could be born from powerful emotions, and that he had encountered much stronger ones before. He never even flinched when facing it.
Afterward, she was left in utter shock. The thing that haunted her, the monster she always worried would appear again if her emotions weren’t kept under control…was defeated so easily. To her surprise, he didn’t treat her like some evil witch. He didn’t judge her. He simply held out his hand and continued to smile. The only thing she could do was break down and cry. Even then, Yoh and Manta were patient.
After that night the world around Yukino began to gradually change. A weight was lifted off of her shoulders, and the colors around her seemed brighter. Although she still struggled with fully accepting Yoh’s friendship, their interactions became less hostile. Bit by bit her defenses started to fall as she dipped her toes into his bizarre world of shamans and others like her.
And that might have been the end of her story. But to Yukino’s dismay, things would only turn more confusing with the start of the Shaman Fight. She had been approached by Silva, who she would come to understand was an officiant from a Native American tribe called the Patch. He had insisted that they had been searching for her. Which, of course, made no sense.
She had written him off as crazy until she watched Yoh’s fight to obtain his Oracle Bell. Such powers mystified her and left her with strange, uneasy feelings she could not explain. Silva had backed off after that, but eventually requested that she come along to this “Patch Village”. Knowing Yukino would not comply with him, he had entrusted Yoh to get her there instead.
In truth, she wasn’t certain why she agreed to tag along in the first place. She was not a formal shaman, let alone a participant in the tournament. Yet for some reason the Patch were adamant about her attendance. None of it made a bit of sense, but she felt compelled to follow Yoh and the others on their journey.
Going from a tiny step straight into a leap, her entire world changed almost overnight. Her home, her parents, and the rest of Funbari were all left behind as she embarked on this strange, uncertain new chapter.
Of course, being (literally) dropped into the middle of America and left to fend for herself with a group of boys hadn’t exactly been Yukino’s ideal travel plans. Every corner they turned seemed to bring a new twist, and she couldn’t begin to predict what the future held for any of them. Truthfully, it all made her highly nervous. She watched now as Ryu and Horohoro carried on an enthusiastic conversation, though paid little mind to what they were actually saying. They were all so fearless. Perhaps it came with the territory of being a shaman. A territory which Yukino still felt extremely wary of.
A feeling of dread began to overwhelm her again. Had she really made the right choice in doing this? She gripped her fork tighter, noticing her hand starting to shake a bit from the flood of anxiety.
“Are you alright?”
Lyserg’s voice yanked her from those racing thoughts. Yukino blinked and sheepishly turned to meet his gaze. He watched her with a soft look of concern, apparently noticing her shaking hands. Embarrassed, she dropped the fork on the plate and quickly moved her hands to sit in her lap.
“Yep!” She laughed nervously. “Just fine!”
Lyserg gave her a look that suggested he knew better, but seemed to decide on leaving the matter be. He smiled at her, and Yukino could feel her face start to grow warm. She responded with an undoubtedly awkward smile of her own before returning to stare at her plate. Smooth.
But sneaking another glance at the green haired shaman, she couldn’t help but feel those nerves start to ease just slightly. Maybe this wasn’t a completely terrible decision after all.