Chapter Text
Anna is cold. She doesn’t know what happened to her coat. She doesn’t know how she got here. She only hears Oh-oni’s voice at it calls her mother for giving life to it, and she hears the thoughts echoing from the town as they grow more and more passionate as midnight draws near.
She shouldn’t have ventured out. She should have stayed in and gone to sleep or watched the New Year being rung in on the TV like every other year. She was stupid to think this year would be different. Stupid to think the strange enigma that hung around Yoh and made his mind and heart untouchable would extend to anything in his presence. She was stupid to think he had been a sign from the gods telling her her curse was almost over.
“You actually came,” Oh-oni’s voice speaks, surprised. “I thought you’d leave Mother behind like everyone else at the first chance you got.”
Anna fights to keep her eyes open, to keep her vision clear as it threatens to blur and swim. Yoh is there.
“You idiot,” she mumbles through her chattering teeth.
“You aren’t a very good son,” she hears Yoh say, “you’re leaving her to die. She’s cold and your sucking all her power for your own.”
“What would you know of being a good son?” Oh-oni challenges as if he sees something Anna can’t. Yoh’s parents are both very much alive. She’s met them both when they’ve paid visits to Kino.
“You’re right,” Yoh shrugs, “I’m not.”
Anna must be hallucinating. It’s the only explanation she can come up with for why Yoh’s words don’t make any sense.
“But enough talking. I’m here to send you back to where you came crawling from. Say hi to your friends in hell for me. Tell them I won’t be seeing them again.”
Oh-oni takes a step back afraid, and if her vision wasn’t swimming she’d say Yoh looks downright sinister right now. She knows that impossible. Yoh can look impossibly bored and uncaring, but he's never appeared as if he could be cruel or uncaring.
Matamune morphs into a sword and Yoh charges. It takes only one blow before Oh-oni is disappearing and hands are steadying her. She feels a coat being placed around her and she grasps it between frozen fingers bringing the warmth closer.
“I see what you did there, but a promise is a promise,” Matamune states, and Yoh sighs.
Matamune walks closer and Yoh shifts so he’s only holding her close with one arm while the other reaches out towards Matamune.
“Take care of this idiot for me, Anna. I think you can both find what you’re looking for,” Matamune states, and Anna realizes this is the first words they’ve ever exchanged.
Anna nods as her eyelids refuse to stay open. The warmth is so inviting after the cold and she just wants to sleep for a year.
She doesn’t hear Yoh mutter troublesome or see the way his outstretched arms trembles as he places it atop Matamune’s head. She doesn’t see Matamune’s image disappear as furyoku rushes back into Yoh. She doesn’t hear as something plops into the snow or see as Yoh reaches down and loops it over his fingers.
She does feel as the arm holding her shifts as another arm comes below her knees lifting her up and close. She can feel the soft jostle as they begin to make their way down the mountain.
“It’s quiet,” she mummers, fighting to hold onto consciousness.
“Oh course it is,” Yoh answers, “It’s only me.”
“No,” Anna corrects, “The town is too.”
She doesn’t notice the stumble in Yoh’s step, or see the confused gaze he shoots down at her. She doesn’t notice the way he stands still and seems to be really listening, and she doesn’t hear the unbelievable that falls from his breath as he continues walking.