[FFML] [R1/2][Horror/Supernatural]White Clouds in the Blue Sky: Chapter Four

Undoubtedly, a strange chapter, which should be read only by those with a strong stomach.

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White Clouds in the Blue Sky

Ranma 1/2 and its characters are the creation and property of Rumiko Takahashi.

Thanks to Claude Angers, Elistran, and Brian Randall.

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"My mind's a wasteland," said Ranma, to himself.

Sitting in the sunlight, he didn't feel any heat from it.

"What do I do now?" he asked. An awful question, he knew, but it was all he could ask.

"I wonder if I'm going crazy?"

He could feel something in his back, shifting about, as though it wanted to roar and rip out from his body.

Maybe that was himself.

Just tear and break all he could get his hands on. And start with himself.

"Ranma? Are you okay?" asked that girl, Rei. She sat down beside him, and looked at him, sadly.

Ranma didn't look at her. "Yeah, I'm alright," he said, after a bit. He leaned forward, trying to block out the girl.

However, she leaned forward as well, and tried to look him in the eyes. "You look down, Ranma. Are you sure you'll be okay?"

"Yeah," said Ranma. Why was Rei bothering him? It wasn't like he needed anybody to speak with him or anything. He'd be okay, after a while, if just left alone by everybody.

Beside Ranma, on his other side from Rei, sat the dead boy.

Ranma wanted to ignore the dead boy, but every so often his eyes would move in that direction, and he'd see the dry, sun-scorched skin, barely hanging off the boy's ribs, where there was nothing inside.

"Go away, please," said Ranma, to the dead boy. "I wanna be alone."

Soon, it was only him.

The sunlight he'd been in had gone with the sun to the school building's other side, where he should've been in class.

"You shouldn't be here," said a man, suddenly.

Ranma looked up, and saw the two faces of Mister Kurohoshi.

There were no longer two images to the man, but just one ugly, hideous form, overgrowing his old human body.

"Go to where you're supposed to be," said Mister Kurohoshi. He had used his other, new mouth, not the old one. Four eyes blinked at once.

All the pain Ranma was feeling in his back began to gather. He could feel it begin to form into something like a spear, as though pointing at the man.

"I'm going home," said Ranma. Screw the freak, and to hell with school. Standing, he quickly dodged the man who tried to grab onto him. Running away, he could hear the man shouting at his back.

"Saotome! You can't run away forever!"

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Chapter Four - Wasteland

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"Heard you skipped school today," said Mister Urameshi.

Ranma didn't look at the man. He owed the man better, but there was no excuse for his behaviour. He kept his eyes lowered, looking at the floor.

"I don't know what I should do, Ranma," said Mister Urameshi. "You're troubled but you don't open up to no one. I'd say maybe school's not for you, and tell you to get out and get a job, but you're not in any shape for one. Get fired for sure."

There was time scuttling around on the floor so Ranma watched it, hoping Mister Urameshi would stop staring at him.

"It's hard, Ranma," said Mister Urameshi. "We're in the slump, me and the missus. Times are tough, and there's no money."

Ranma felt like saying, 'Sorry', but kept himself from moving.

"Ranma, please, help us," said Mister Urameshi.

'Help, Ranma.' A voice from back then.

'Ranma, help me.' Another past voice, almost as if something was deliberately returning them from his memories to his present.

'Oh, please, help.'

Ranma took a step back, stunned. He could even smell 'back then'. "No... way," he said, shocked. He wanted to collapse, and for all his bones to disappear so he could just become a jelly. Maybe slip between any cracks he could find, and keep going down.

Go where, though?

Anywhere.

He felt Mister Urameshi's hand on his should, as though trying to assure him everything was okay, so he shook it off because everything really was fucked.

There was a spinning sensation in his head, and Ranma knew it'd never again stop.

He couldn't be in this house of the Urameshi's anymore cause he kept polluting it with his worthlessness. He had to go....

He turned to the house's exit, and was questioned by Mister Urameshi, "Where are you going?"

Out. Home. Hell.

"I...." Ranma wanted to say, 'Don't know', but he was trying to open the door, and he had so little energy he was surprised he was even standing, still. "I just need to be alone," he said, finally, after managing to get the door open.

Where could he go? Back.

Maybe he could.... Find something?

Find what? A reason? An excuse? Definitely not an answer though, cause he'd been looking for that forever, it seemed. And that was despite his never asking a question. Not wanting any question answered.

He shrugged off Mister Urameshi, who was trying to hold him. "Don't do this, Ranma," he said.

He then left the man behind.

-----

Where was he? In a field of grass, alone.

This isn't where he had wanted to go, yet he didn't want to go there either.

The dead boy stood in front of him, so Ranma reached forward, and knocked the boy down, scattering him about.

There wasn't much to hold the boy together, so he fell apart, landing in a pile of bones and leathery skin.

"Leave me alone," said Ranma, desperately to the bones. "Why do people wanna help me? What the fuck is the reason? Don't they see I'm fucking up in everything? Life, school, home. There's no point trying to help me."

There was nothing at all in the field to batter or destroy, so Ranma had to do all that to himself. "Why? I couldn't save nobody back then. So I don't deserve to be saved myself."

The dead boy stayed silent. Maybe he finally realised he was no longer alive.

"Maybe you're right, and you deserve to go to hell," said a man.

Ranma looked, and saw Mister Kurohoshi.

"Maybe you deserve Heaven," said Mister Kurohoshi. "Either way, you don't deserve to continue this pitiful existence." The man was instantly at Ranma, clutching the young man's throat in one hand, and he began to lift Ranma off the ground. "When you're dead, you have to find that out yourself."

With his other hand, he tore open Ranma's shirt. "Your scar. It runs through your whole body, out through your back. How could anyone believe they'd survive a fucking spear through their heart?"

Ranma looked into the man's eyes, his pale, swirling, yellow eyes, and felt sick to his stomach. There wasn't anything but a thousand deaths in there, each one witnessed, from hopeless beginning to bitter conclusion.

"Why do I have to spell this out for you, you moron? You're dead," said Mister Kurohoshi. His free hand glowed with darkness, and he then placed it over Ranma's heart. "See for yourself."

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The flame being lunged at Ranma, the spear too quick to dodge.

Why wasn't it like in movies? Everything would slow down then, but here, he had seen the spear coming, aimed at his heart, and he knew he couldn't move in time.

It went right through.

He didn't die instantly though. Something kept him alive. He looked at the flame creature, and saw underneath the being was the dead boy.

He could hear laughing, and he looked around seeing Mister Kurohoshi.

And behind him, he heard Akane say his name.

The spear was pulled out, forcing Ranma forward.

He took this chance, cause he knew there'd be no other, and grabbed at the dead boy.

The boy's head in his hands, he then began to headbutt the boy, until it felt like the head was nothing more than pulp.

And then he himself fell backwards.

Onto Akane, who was dead.

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"I have a simple job, Saotome," said Mister Kurohoshi. "I attend people's deaths, and then escort their souls to the next destination. I enjoy my job. Your death was especially wonderful. You saw me laughing, didn't you? But there was one small problem. You continued to believe you were alive. That is completely wrong. The living are alive, and the dead are dead. If every-dead-body went around believing they were alive when they are really dead, then we'd have one hell of a mess." He thrust his hand into Ranma's chest, and out through his back. "That'd mean I'd have to go around killing everybody again. I'd have to convince you of the truth. And I hate hard work."

"No...." said Ranma.

"Yes, you idiot," said Mister Kurohoshi. "My hand is through your heart. I showed you what happened with the fire and the spear. What more do you need? You're dead. She's dead. They're all dead. Stop making my job harder than it should be."

Ranma tried to grab the man's hands, but couldn't hold onto anything.

"Stop. It's useless. Anything you try is useless. Everything you've done since you died has been pointless." Mister Kurohoshi scowled. "And what is up with this world you're dreaming about? It's so completely close to the real thing that it's disgusting."

"I'm not dead...." said Ranma, quietly.

"There's no point in suffering anymore," said Mister Kurohoshi. "Give up. Pass on. Quit being annoying."

"What is life?" asked the dead boy.

Ranma could see the dead boy's body, from where the question had come.

"Maybe life is suffering, so in this case, Ranma must be alive."

Mister Kurohoshi looked to the dead boy skin and bone pile. "You too. You're coming with me."

"Not... real," said Ranma. "Dream." He could feel pained - the air being choked out of him - flaming, fierce, and screaming hell where his chest was destroyed.

"You're so completely right that's it's damn near funny in a pathetic sort of way," said Mister Kurohoshi. "No, it's not real." He gripped Ranma's face with his hand, and suddenly, Ranma felt through his head pain, as though his face was being pushed off, and his skull splintering. "Now you have to choose, loser."

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He woke, his face covered in vomit. The smell of it, and the feel of it dried to his skin.

"Real?" he said, but really wanting to scream it out. "Real?"

There was barely a trace, but the pain - memory of it all echoed through his mind. The torn face.... His broken head.... And the empty chest.

"What?" He looked around. The field was empty. No Kurohoshi. No pile of bones of the dead boy.

"Real!" He pounded the ground, and then screamed into it.

A burning enveloped his chest where the scar was. And the scar itself pulsated with life as though something were to at any moment rip from it, laying destruction to everything it touched.

One moment, dying from Kurohoshi, and the next, alive in the field, alone. Nothing to say it had been real but the pain, living on, coursing through his body like electricity.

He took in a deep breath. He had to get control. He wasn't dying, and there sure as hell wasn't any Kurohoshi trying to do him in. Also, the dead boy was dead, and couldn't bother him.

Control. The ground was real. So was his body.

And that was enough to lift him to his feet, and then find his way to....

Doctor Tofu's?

He stood in front of the door, his hand half-raised to knocking on the wood.

The door opened though, despite Ranma not making any effort to let the man inside he was there.

However, the friendly and worried greeting Ranma expected was instead replaced by a show of surprise and perhaps even horror.

"Ra... Ranma? But.... You're dead!" said Doctor Tofu.

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