I loved the idea, and was super into it, and then it would just not come out. It felt like pulling teeth. I like how it turned out, but this took so long for this fic and I am worried I got too out of character. Let me know what you think.

Also before posting I was rewatching magiranger, and I noticed there was a monster that pulls itself together and is bone like… totally forgot about that, so this monster that does that is completely unrelated. Lol.

Anyway, I don't own sentai or characters, etc.

Thanks for reading!

"Thank you Tsubasa," Makito told his little brother.

"Yeah," Tsubasa replied in short response. Makito wanted a potion that would act like a fertilizer and make his plants grow even better than with his earth magic alone.

"I think I found one," Tsubasa opened a dusty old book that looked like it hadn't been touched in ages.

The two brothers heard Urara gasp as she was staring into her crystal ball.

"See something Neechan?" Makito asked.

She didn't respond, she just kept watching the crystal. She saw a yellow light, suddenly surrounded by darkness, and then the sight vanished. She shook her head, "Nothing is clear." She looked at Tsubasa and wondered if he was the yellow light she had seen. She wanted to talk to Hikaru-sensei about it but he had just left for a trip with Smokey and Mandora.

After a while Tsubasa finished the potion, "Here, this should work."

"Thanks again! Maybe I can grow some more vegetables for us and make some different types of soup," Makito suggested.

"Soup?" Houka asked as she walked in, "I'm hungry."

"We aren't having soup today, but maybe tomorrow," Urara informed her.

"When can we eat?" she asked.

"As soon as Kai gets home from soccer," Urara said moving from the desk to the table still thinking about what she saw.

"Tsubasa, are you ok?" she asked quietly. He was looking through that book to see if there were any more useful recipes.

"Yeah," he said quietly staring at the book, "Why?" he looked up.

"No reason," she got up to go make dinner.

"What?" Tsubasa asked. He knew he was dreaming, but he also felt like he was awake. A ghost, with a human figure, white and glowing was talking to him.

"I'm granting you new powers. You can heal others, you just focus on what you want to heal as you touch them," it told Tsubasa.

"Why would you give me powers?" Tsubasa wondered.

"Just trying to help in the fight against N-ma, but I am long gone and cannot fight myself," it disappeared and Tsubasa woke up in a cold sweat. Writing it off as a weird dream, he was quickly back to sleep.

"Niichan!" Kai had just been knocked down by Wolzard.

Tsubasa bent down to help his brother up, when he felt a pain starting in his arm. He winced in pain but finished helping Kai up. They continued their fight and soon were returning home.

"I thought he sliced my arm up pretty bad," Kai mentioned, "but there isn't any mark here."

"Yeah, it looked like it hurt, but maybe he didn't hit you as hard as we thought," Houka replied.

Tsubasa felt his arm and realized it was in the same place as where Kai thought he had been hit. He went to his room and took off his jacket and noticed a wound which was slowly scabbing up.

'What's going on?' he thought to himself as he dressed the wound and took a few sips of a healing potion he had been practicing making lately.

"You can heal others," he flashed back to the dream from the night before.

He shook his head, still not believing it. He put his jacket back on and went out to help Urara make lunch.

"I got a huge bruise on my leg," Houka complained.

"So?" Kai replied.

"I wanted to go on a date tomorrow and wear my new skirt! No one will want to date me if I look bruised up," she replied, "Tsubasa, can you make me a potion?"

'Maybe I can try healing her in her sleep, just to make sure it's just a dream,' Tsubasa thought to himself as he cut some cucumbers. He nodded at his sister, "It'll be ready by morning."

That night he waited until everyone in the house was asleep. He got up and walked quietly to Houka's room. He opened the door and heard her lightly snoring. He got close enough to her, and lightly touched part of her leg that was sticking out from the covers. Tsubasa focused his energy and felt slowly a small stinging in his leg. After a minute or so, he snuck back out, closing the door behind him. Once he got to his room, he lifted his pant leg and saw the bruise that Houka had.

"This isn't healing, it's wound transferring. How does that help against N-ma?" he said out loud to the ghost in his dreams. With no response, he fell asleep.

The next morning he woke with a start.

"Tsubasa, wake up, a new Hades beast is attacking," Makito knocked on his door.

He rolled out of bed and almost tripped trying to put his pants on. He got his pants and shirt on then threw on his jacket as he was closing the door. He met his siblings in the magical library and where they morphed and flew off toward the beast.

"Magicians, are you ready for a bone crunching?" the skeleton looking monster laughed.

"You'll be the one getting crunched!" Kai replied as he ran toward the monster. The group fought and he exploded into multiple bones.

"We did it!" Houka smiled.

"Uh, guys," Tsubasa pointed out the bones were forming together again.

"How can we destroy bones permanently?" Urara questioned.

"I think if I can heat him up enough with my fire, the bones will turn to ash," Kai suggested running at the monster.

"Bone cruncher!" The monster yelled shooting out an attack. Kai tried to dodge but got hit in the arm.

"Ahhh!" he hissed as he fell to the ground and unmorphed. He held his arm to his chest.

"Kai!" The siblings ran to him.

Acting quickly Tsubasa jumped into action, "No questions, Kai, it has to be your fire that destroys his bones. Let me see your arm."

Kai tried to hold his arm up toward his brother. Tsubasa took a breath in and focused on Kai's arm. He felt the bones in his arm crack a little at a time.

"How's that?" Tsubasa tried to keep his voice steady.

"The pain is gone," Kai replied.

"Go get him then," Tsubasa told him, 'this is how the healing can help N ma, it works faster than a potion when we really need it,' he thought to himself.

"How did you heal him?" Houka asked as Kai ran off, morphing once again, to destroy the monster.

"A ghost gave me healing powers," Tsubasa replied, not telling them the whole truth and hoping they wouldn't question it further.

Urara stared at Tsubasa through her helmet, 'this has something to do with that vision, I'm sure of it.'

"Kai did it," Makito exclaimed behind them.

"How did you do that?" Kai came up to Tsubasa putting his hand on Tsubasa's shoulder. He was glad he was still morphed so they didn't see him wince.

"Apparently a ghost gave him powers," Houka replied.

"Cool, we can be unstoppable now," Kai laughed.

"Yeah," Tsubasa replied, the pain getting to him.

When he got home, he locked his bedroom door and wrapped up his arm. He took some pain medicine and healing potion. Even with the potion, it would take a couple of days for the bones to fully heal.

'At least we beat the monster,' Tsubasa said, falling asleep.

He knew he was dreaming, but he couldn't stop the pain he was feeling. Visions of his mother dying, visions of his siblings getting injured, nightmares of himself bringing up all of his insecurities, nightmares of his siblings hating him, N-ma taking over, anything that would bring him mental pain was brought up in his nightmares.

"You'll never be a good magician," a dream version of himself told him, "You couldn't even keep your own mother from harm."

"Your potions don't work," dream Urara pointed out.

"You are a terrible student," dream Hikaru informed.

"You aren't responsible enough," dream Makito mentioned.

He started trying to not sleep entirely because every time he closed his eyes the nightmares began. He began making energy potions to keep himself awake to get through the day.

Over the next couple weeks, the siblings would ask Tsubasa to heal them. He obliged, not wanting his siblings in pain, even though with his potions they could be healed pretty quickly. Urara refused to have him heal her, and opted to just take a healing potion he made. He never asked why she refused, unsure if she knew the truth or had other reasons.

He had been taking the healing potions almost daily, along with the energy potion, which mostly healed the wounds he received, but he was starting to gather a collection of scars across his body. He couldn't find a potion to get rid of scars, but luckily all of the scars he had were easily coverable with his shirt and jacket.

"How was your trip? You were gone quite a while," Urara asked.

"It was only a day in that world," Hikaru replied.

"It was over a month," Urara informed him in a stern voice.

"Time moves different," Smokey popped up.

"Anything new happen?" Hikaru asked.

Before anyone could answer, their phones went off.

"Hades beast, let's go," Makito told them.

They arrived and went to attack the monster.

He looked ridiculous; they had no idea what he was even supposed to be. He had parts from all kinds of animals on him like a Frankenstein monster.

He had multiple attacks, some basic, like hitting, some specialized, like biting with shark teeth, but his strongest was a clawing attack, with super-fast speed like a cheetah.

After they were all knocked down and struggling to get back up, the monster laughed and said, "Let's finish this!"

His claw arm posed for the strike and looked like it was aiming for Urara. Tsubasa jumped up just in time taking the hit instead of her.

Claw marks ran down his suit, as he screamed out in pain, he unmorphed and fell to the ground.

"Niichan?!" The group got up and ran to him. Urara who was next to him bent at his side and shook his arm, "Niichan?"

"He's knocked out," she informed the group standing up and preparing herself to get revenge.

Tsubasa remembered being hit, and then he found himself in a black room, with no light in sight.

A light approached him, "Who's there?"

"You have been using your healing powers well," the ghost approached.

"Who are you really?" Tsubasa got to the point, his suspicion had been growing by the day but didn't know how to contact the ghost.

The ghost gave a cruel smile, "You are smart, aren't you? I am Anep, a demon of pain. I've been using your pain to gather energy. Your healing potions don't help, but I have been gathering a ton of energy thanks to you."

"What do you plan to do?" Tsubasa asked.

"I just need a bit more pain and I can take my own form again," Anep informed him.

"I won't give you anymore, I won't heal anyone else," Tsubasa told the demon defiantly.

"Well, at this point you can't stop it," he snapped his fingers and chains appeared around Tsubasa, "You are a prisoner now. I will control your body and gather the pain that I need."

Tsubasa struggled against the chains to no avail.

"Have fun," Anep walked away leaving Tsubasa in the darkness of his own mind.

"Tsubasa?" Houka tried to wake her brother.

Anep awoke in control of Tsubasa's body. He felt stronger with the fresh wounds Tsubasa's body had just received.

"Come on, let's get you home," she helped him up.

When they got home Kai asked, "Can you heal yourself?"

"Yeah, I'll go do that," he went off to Tsubasa's room, glad to have a quick escape.

"Heal himself?" Hikaru asked.

"A ghost gave him healing powers," Houka smiled.

"It really has been helpful," Makito informed him.

"A ghost?" Hikaru questioned.

"Something about a dream," Kai mentioned sitting down.

Urara sat down and stared into her crystal to see if she could see anything.

"I saw something I've been wanting to talk to you about," she informed Hikaru, "I thought maybe I was just seeing things or imagining it, because nothing was coming out clear, but it was a yellow light being covered in darkness."

Their sensei had a look of concern on his face, "Most ghosts can't give people powers. It has to be something else."

"Remember what happened to Miyuki?" Smoky popped out of his lamp, "Maybe Blagel didn't destroy the demon."

"Demon?" Makito asked in wonder.

Hikaru nodded, "Years ago, your mother had randomly received healing powers as well. She talked to Blagel about it and he found that a demon had entered her. Anep feeds on pain. If this is who Tsubasa is dealing with, he must be hurting a lot."

"Why hurting?" Houka wondered.

"Anep doesn't heal people. He transfers the wounds to the host, the host commonly thinks they are doing good helping others so they don't question it. Anep then feeds on the pain of his host, until he can get enough pain to escape with his own form. He was trapped in Magitopia for centuries until he was accidentally released. We all thought Blagel fully defeated him though."

"He was defeated in this library," Mandora informed them, "he could have been hiding, maybe in a book or something."

"Tsubasa was going through a lot of books looking for a potion for me," Makito remembered.

"Why would something that feeds on pain heal things?" Kai questioned.

"It only heals others to gather the pain to the host, after he escapes the host he causes pain to everyone and then gets stronger feeding from there," Smokey remembered.

"Should we talk to him about it to make sure it's this demon thing?" Houka asked Hikaru.

"I'll go see if he's ok, his wounds need patched anyway," Urara told them.

She walked to his door and knocked, "Tsubasa, are you ok?"

After no response she asked again, "Tsubasa?" She knocked harder.

"Houka come here," Urara sounded urgent.

"Yeah?"

"He's not answering, can you turn into a key to unlock the door?" Urara suggested.

After Houka transformed, Urara swung the door open. The window was wide open and Tsubasa was nowhere to be found.

"The Magic mirror!" Mandora gasped as it started showing Tsubasa.

He was at the hospital healing those who were coming in. Though they could not see any wounds on him with his jacket on, they could tell his body was weakening. Suddenly he fell, and after a moment, a figure rose out of him with a sinister smirk.

"Well we were right," Smokey mentioned.

"Come on, we need to save Tsubasa and the people in the hospital," Hikaru spoke quickly grabbing Smokey.

When they arrived at the hospital, they helped evacuate as many people as possible. They got Anep's location, the ER waiting room.

"Magirangers, I've been expecting you," Anep laughed coldly.

"How did you survive?" Hikaru distracted him while the others got out the patients.

"Oh you know, particles of my being were dust in a book, breathed in by this poor sap. He really was a good host, lots of pain to feed on," he hissed, "You guys helped too, of course, he'd never say no to helping you, even if it hurts him."

"Shut up!" Kai ran at him to attack. Anep blocked easily with energy bursts.

"You know, he really does have a lot of problems. I'd almost feel sorry for him, if I wasn't feeding off of it. The dead parents is one thing, but falling in love with a dead girl he can never be with? I couldn't even make that kind of thing up. He was really easy to give nightmares to," Anep laughed at their angry expressions.

"He's feeding off our pain too, think about positive things," Hikaru informed the siblings.

"We are going to destroy you," Makito yelled going in for an attack.

In an instant, Anep was holding up Tsubasa in front of himself as a shield.

Makito stopped in his tracks not wanting to hurt his brother.

"If you want to stop me, you have to go through him. I will take over this world and there is nothing you can do," Anep laughed and disappeared with Tsubasa.

Makito stomped on the ground in anger.

"What can we do?" Urara asked worried.

"Let's see what we can find in the books at home, and try not to worry too much. He might get hurt, but Anep is still feeding on Tsubasa's pain, he would be useless dead," Hikaru tried to calm the siblings a bit, while trying to calm his own worry.

"You know, I don't know what would help more. Your siblings pain when I point out it's their fault you are here, or their pain when I kill you," Anep laughed as Tsubasa came to.

Tsubasa glared at the demon.

"Be happy though, I can't hurt you too much more or you'd die and we don't want that just yet, do we?"

Tsubasa coughed as he tried to talk, "Hurt me as much as you want, just leave them alone."

"I would," Anep responded, "but you know they won't leave me alone."

Tsubasa sighed knowing it was true. He knew he needed to escape while Anep was gone, because he didn't think he had the strength to win a fight.

'I thought it was weird that he gave me powers randomly, and now look where it got me. I should have brought it up with Kai and the others,' he zoned out thinking about everything, 'I still would have healed them though, and Anep would have escaped anyway.'

After a little while Anep disappeared, so Tsubasa looked around noticing he was in an empty warehouse. He looked for an exit but from his current location he couldn't see one.

He moved a bit to see if his magiphone was in his pocket. He found it, flipped it open and morphed which made him feel a bit stronger. The room was spinning as he stood, he tried to shake the fogginess from his brain, while the rest of his body was stiff but numbed to the pain.

He slowly looked around the corner to see if there was a door. He spotted one, and didn't hear any noise, so he walked slowly across the room. As he swung open the door, he was pushed back by an energy burst.

"Did you think I would be gone long?" Anep sneered.

"I was hoping," Tsubasa joked back, trying to pick himself off the ground.

"This time I will tie you up so you really can't escape," Anep laughed.

"That's not going to happen," Kai said through the doorway.

"We could track him once he used his magiphone," Urara added.

Anep laughed, "There is no way to destroy me. You get hurt, I'll get stronger."

"Then we just won't get hurt," Houka mentioned.

"You seem to be forgetting about my host," Anep laughed. Tsubasa was standing behind him when an energy burst shot him back against a wall unmorphing him and knocking him out again.

"Niichan!" the siblings yelled.

"You will pay," Makito said determined.

Anep laughed, as they came at him. They avoided getting hit and started to wear him down.

"Get ready Kai," Hikaru told him.

He nodded in response as he pulled out a bow and some arrows. Tsubasa had learned when he was younger and had taught a little bit to Kai.

"What do you think you can do with those?" Anep laughed again.

Makito, Urara, Houka, and Hikaru kept attacking while Kai got his aim down, "Now guys!"

They jumped out of the way and Kai hit him in the chest with an arrow.

"What is this?" Anep tried to pull at the arrow. He felt himself weakening.

"We might not be the potion maker or the archer of the family, but we came together and made this, which will finally destroy you," Kai informed them.

"No, I can't be destroyed!" Anep said desperately as his body started to turn into an ooze. Finally after his whole body melted into the ooze it vanished into thin air.

"Niichan?" The siblings and their sensei ran to Tsubasa.

"Come on, Tsubasa," Houka shook his shoulder.

He knew he was hit by Anep again, and then he was floating. He had heard Rei's song, and started moving toward it.

"I died, didn't I?" he said aloud to himself.

He kept walking toward the sound of her song, until he could see her, and then he ran to her, embracing her.

"Tsubasa," she whispered.

"Rei, I didn't think I'd ever see you again," he said, putting his hand gently on the side of her face.

"It's only been months, yet you've grown so much," she observed.

"It's been crazy," Tsubasa admitted, wishing to never let her go.

"There will be more craziness, I'm sure. Don't worry though, you have a good team behind you."

"I did," he agreed.

"I'll always be waiting for you," she told him, "but now is not your time, you still have a future ahead of you."

He looked at her confused, until he heard the sound of his siblings calling for him.

"Remember to live, learn to love again, and be happy," she gave him a small kiss on his cheek.

"Thank you Rei," Tsubasa said, sad to leave her, but knowing she was right.

"Be more open from now on, it'll make your team stronger," she let go of his hand.

He turned after one more look at her and ran toward the sound of his siblings and found a door. He opened it, and found himself opening his eyes. His eyes had trouble focusing, but finally he focused on Kai's face, who was smiling.

"We destroyed him," Kai told his older brother.

Tsubasa just stared at him a second, trying to clear the fog from his brain.

"Tsubasa?" Urara asked, wondering if he was even really awake.

"Yeah," he finally answered.

Houka gave a sigh of relief, "I thought you died," she admitted.

"Me too," he said, his brain still focused on his meeting with Rei.

"Let's get you home," Makito suggested.

"We need to get your wounds patched up," Hikaru told him.

Tsubasa nodded, 'my whole body is a wound,' he thought to himself, but didn't want to say anything in case they'd send him to a hospital.

They flew home quickly and he got in the bath, with thanks to Makito, to clean himself up and relax a little. He had taken the last of his energy potion to keep himself up for his bath.

The siblings and sensei sat around the table quietly.

"Should we talk to him about this?" Urara questioned.

"He might not be comfortable bringing it up," Houka replied.

"We don't know the full story, it could be a lesson to learn from," Hikaru mentioned.

"I feel bad that we hurt him," Kai admitted.

"If I hadn't been wanting that potion, he never would have gotten Anep in him in the first place," Makito said sighing and putting his head between his hands, "When I helped get him into the bath I noticed he is covered in scars. I guess the potions healed the wounds, but left a lot of scars. Plus, all of the new wounds will leave more."

"Did he say anything while you were helping him?" Urara replied.

He shook his head, "Just thank you and sorry. He seemed kind of out of it and distracted though."

"I don't know why he's sorry, we hurt him," Kai responded.

"He probably feels responsible for bringing Anep back to life," Hikaru said objectively.

"I wish he had talked to us," Houka whined.

"I should have asked him again if he was ok, or if anything was going on, I thought something could be happening but I wanted to wait until I got a clearer vision," Urara mentioned.

"It was a vague vision though, you can't beat yourself up over that, but remember, even little things can mean a whole lot," Hikaru smiled.

After a moment of silence, Houka remembered, "he said 'me too,' when I said I thought he died, I wonder if he saw anything."

"I did," Tsubasa limped into the room.

"You were supposed to let me help you dress your wounds," Makito jumped up at the sound of him.

"It's fine, I've gotten good at it," he winced as he sat down.

"How many broken bones do you have," Urara asked in a motherly tone.

"I don't know, 5 or 6, give or take. All of the potions I have will help though," Tsubasa said, not making eye contact with the others.

"We need to talk about this," Makito said taking charge as the protective older brother.

"Niichan, give him some time, I'm sure he's exhausted," Houka told him before changing the subject in her curiosity, "What did you see?"

Tsubasa zoned out in his thoughts of Rei, realizing how warm her hands were, compared to before when she was freezing.

"Tsubasa?" Kai brought his attention back.

"I saw Rei," he admitted, still not making eye contact, "We were talking."

"It could have been a dream," Hikaru offered.

Tsubasa finally met his gaze confidently, "It wasn't."

"What did you talk about?" Houka was still curious. Urara gave her a small nudge under the table, thinking Tsubasa probably didn't want to talk about it.

"We didn't have much time before I heard your voices calling," he replied quietly.

"Tsubasa," Makito started in a serious tone again.

"I know, I'm an idiot ok, let's just move on," Tsubasa said angrily, unsure if he should try to storm out of the room or not.

"Ok, you are an idiot," Makito laughed, "but, I'm proud of you."

Tsubasa gave him a quizzical look.

"You chose to help your siblings, at risk to yourself, and I am proud of you for that," Makito assured him.

"Let's agree though, if anything weird happens again, ghosts, dreams, or whatever, we need to bring it up with the others instead of hiding it," Urara insisted.

"And you," Kai laughed and pointed at Urara, "No hiding visions, no matter how small or insignificant."

"I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned from this," Hikaru commented, "but I think the biggest is what Urara said. We are a team, we need communication. I realize I was not here to fix anything sooner, but because of lack of communication, we almost lost a member of our team. If Tsubasa had told you of the powers when they appeared this could have been prevented. If Urara had mentioned her vision, this could have been prevented. If Kai, or Makito, or Houka, had questioned Tsubasa further than just finding out he got powers from a ghost, we could have prevented this. This is not on any single one of you; it's on all of you. We were lucky," he concluded, leaving the siblings looking like scolded puppies.

Tsubasa yawned and put his head down on the table.

"Tsubasa?" Urara told him, "The table isn't a bed. Why don't you go rest in your room?"

"Was still listening to conversation," he mumbled, "ran out of energy potion."

"Energy potion?" Houka was intrigued.

"Not been sleeping, nightmares," he mumbled again against the table.

Makito sighed, "Kai, let's get him to bed."

Tsubasa winced as his brothers pulled him up and put their arms under him. After they got him to his bed, Makito made sure he was covered and tucked in. It reminded him of when they were younger and Tsubasa would get sick, Makito would always stay home and tuck him into bed to make sure he got better.

"Thanks Aniki," Tsubasa muttered to Makito. By the time the oldest and youngest brothers reached the door, Tsubasa was sound asleep.

"You always were one to keep things hidden," Miyuki smiled, "but they are right, you need to communicate more."

"Kaa-san?" Tsubasa was confused, he found himself on a bench in a forest.

"I always knew when you were hiding something," she gave a small laugh, "so unlike the others, you feel so deeply, yet show so little. Try to show more."

"What is this?" he stared at her. It felt somewhat real, like the visit with Rei, but it also felt like he was dreaming.

"Dream. Reality. What does your heart tell you?" she smiled again before continuing, "I'm proud of the man you are becoming. Always remember I am with you," she kissed his forehead and the dream dissipated. He woke with a small smile on his face. He turned over as best as his wounds would allow and fell into the dreamless relaxing sleep he deserved after his long adventure.