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R2096 WEB SITE: http://qlink.queensu.ca/~4cw6/2096a.htm
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Author's Introduction:
Why a reboot of R2096? I was reading through the side-stories and
episodes in preparation for the end of the series, and noticed that
the episodes stood out as being incredibly... well... bad.
Episodes one, two and four were in script format, the
characterisation was superficial, and there were details that were
downright incorrect. For instance, Childra and Skeride were
introduced with black hair and black eyes respectively, whereas the
fact that the first dyes her hair blonde and the second has lilac eyes
are crucial to the plots of some of the later stories. There were
also a lot of things, written later, that had to be taken into account
- most notably Jeff Hosmer's 'Gisei'.
The 'Special Edition' will replace the episodes currently
available (which have already been labeled 'unofficial'). Though I try
to keep the same beginning and ending points for each ep, I've felt
free to change the story (in some cases completely) in the middle.
Several major changes have also been made to the characters, and
to their order of introduction. These will become most apparent in
episode two, but already in the story below, Shampoo and Kim have been
completely reworked.
Well, that's enough ranting from me...
Enjoy the story!
-Chris Willmore
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PROLOGUE
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[JUSENKYO, 2096]
I squint in the moonlight, trying to find the marks I scratched
into the floorboards during the daylit hours. Jusenkyo, never one
for electric lighting or amenities, is nevertheless ruthless in its
demands for exactitude. A few feeble silver rays trickling through
the roof slats are my only illumination as I finish inscribing the
wards. I thank the gods for the centuries of careful Amazon breeding
that have blessed me with good sight.
This is the last time I will have to face the dark. I have lived
in it, gone mad, bathed myself in the spiritual murk of the cursed
pools for almost a century, and my penance in almost done - in just a
few moments, it will give way to my Ra-
My redemption.
Jusenkyo demands a price - that phrase is burnt inside my head
through force and pain and a thousand proofs, but it has TAKEN what
was owed it, and still more - my youth, years of my life and all of
Ak... None of that. Not now.
I have paid overfull, and am owed at least THIS in return. The
spell is not perfect, it has its faults, but it will have to do. It
is all I can do.
The candles before me are needles, the carefully drawn symbols
and lines are the thread. With these tools and my clumsy hands I
will try to mend the broken pattern... but I was never a good
seamstress. I know that the stitches will be visible, and crude, but
at least the cloth will hold together and the tear in the fabric, the
tear in my mind, the tear in our shared REALITY will have been
patched.
"Fire." I speak the word, then close my eyes and visualise his
death. A laugh, a flash, a blinding beam and then he's burnt, his
silk shirt charred and smouldering upon his carbonised flesh. The
'red' he is affianced to wraps her arms around him, cries, and-
Flame. My mental offering is accepted by whatever minor deity
oversees my spell, and one of the candles erupts in a tall crimson
jet.
"Air." The soul that haunted my beloved is roused from dormancy.
As it stretches, yawns and rises, so does the corpse it once
inhabited, and when it leaves, the shell of a warrior falls on to a
similarly-coloured asphalt with an unworthy, organic thump. There is
room in my mind's eye only for the smile on the face of the wakened
spirit, for the upwards tilt of her red-haired head as her eyes meet
that of HER betrothed, and the two complete a pact they'd made long
before I thought of mine. The phantom assassin and his bride the
parasite then slink away and disappear. They do not see or mind the
the soul that's left behind, that screams then falls into a forced
sleep on its rocket-quick trip across the ocean to a clear and
shallow pool...
A flash of white. I've thought enough.
"Earth." His cremation. A closed-casket affair, for one whose
looks and charm captured the heart of any maiden foolish enough to
come near him. The coffin rolls into the incinerator as his loved
ones say goodbye, but what they burn is a husk, nothing more. It is
a product of the rice and prizes which the spiritual host commanded
its mortal symbiote to eat while the two were yet together. They
burn a thousand meals, and call it a memorial rather than a culinary
failure. The flames close around the box and devour the offering,
while the pile of ashes grows, and spreads, and falls through the
grate into the collecting tray...
Yellow flame to my right.
Now for the hardest part.
"Water." Jusenkyo. Akane - both of them. Too many memories,
too many feelings... a threat of madness, but I can't afford that;
not now. I must FOCUS. For him, for me and for those I've
sacrificed to bring this night to be; I must.
I think. I need that which touches upon HIM, not _me_. *That*
comes later. I toss away my solitude, my third and second losses,
all my self-owned pains and think only on what HE would want to know
about, and that which HE would like most hidden.
Water.
A bridge, late at night. A young girl in a soft-coloured dress.
A splash, desperate grabbing, a search for something that is in
ANOTHER puddle, far away, and then...
A death.
She follows him to the grave after a valiant and inadequate
attempt at vengeance. The girl dies a warrior's death, and when her
corpse is dredged we see the battle scars; the bloated limbs, the
fish bites and jellied tissues...
Enough. Blue flame.
Only the tip of the pentacle is missing, and though it has been
burning in me for a hundred years, I must wait for the body that's
fated to arrive before I may light *that* fire.
I must rehearse. I must prepare my vocal chords.
"At last," I manage to croak. The enhanced candle-light warms
me, making the tears coming down my cheeks seem as cold as graveyard
soil. "So long, and now..."
I feel a tremor. The spiritual sensors that I've built can feel
my quarry coming closer. There is no time to waste in remorse or
memory; I dry my face with my edge of my cloak and speak the final
incantation of the cycle:
"Soul." Mine to resurrect him, and another's to bind him. I
think of his smile, of the lightness in my chest that it once caused,
of his tricks and kindnesses, and even of his snubs and our first
battles. I go back to his death, to what it did to ME and to my
perception of HIM. I think of my madness, my passions, my loves and
my child and the pools that took them from me. I think of the life
I've spent on the reversal of his demise, and I scream. I tear my
hair, letting my body do what it has yearned to for hours. I let out
the pent-up anger and hate and jealousy for the other three, and then
the happiness... He will be here, with me. I will be here, for him.
"Wo ai ni."
Green flame.
The pentacle is complete, and its fiery tips bend to join in its
centre. For a moment, the room is lit as if by a midsummer's sun,
and then a pillar of pure white breaks through the roof. It blinds
me, it seems to reach to - no, PAST the heavens, and so it must; it
will be a beacon, bait and trap for no other prey than two souls.
I smile, and speak to he who slumbers still.
"Tonight we'll be together."
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| \ | \ /\ | | /\ /\ | \ / /\
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| | \ \ | | \ \ .| | | |.| | | | \ \ / \ \ /
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| |/ / .| ___ |.| |.| |.| |.| | | | | ___ /\ \/ /
| |\ \ | | .| |.| |.| |.| |.| |.| |.| | ./ |\ /
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|_|. \__\ |_|. .|_|.|_|...\/..|_|.|_|.|_|.|_|. \|_| \
/\ \ /
Created by Christopher Willmore. / \ \ /
<4cw6@qlink.queensu.ca> / / \/
Based on a story by Rumiko Takahashi and /
Developed by C. Michael Schumacher / /
\ /
R2096 pages: http://qlink.queensu.ca/~4cw6/ \/(Logo:Armakuni)
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R2096 EPISODE ONE, SPECIAL EDITION: RESURRECTION
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For the two lady members of Ctrl-A who met me at a physics conference
and wondered what the heck I was going on about.
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"... when I woke up everything had gone. I'd slept through the
blast, the conflagration, the whole death typhoon."
-Martin Amis
=====================================================================
I should have known better than to go on a scavenger hunt with
Hibiki Reiraku, especially right before midterms... But the poor boy
is so cute! I don't know whether it was the way he moved his hands
around, or the helplessness in his voice, or just the way he tossed
stray locks of hair back over his bandanna, but his charms won me
over in the end.
And now we're lost.
Of course.
Were it any other handsome boy, it'd be a pleasure to be alone
with him under a moonlit sky, hugging him tightly and pressing my
chest to his back while the ends of his bandanna flapped in the
wind... But this isn't some other guy. This is Rat, the boy who
stranded his last girlfriend in Ethiopia on his way to the local
park.
"Rat, are you SURE this is the way to Tokyo Station?"
He lifts his right hand from the steering bar to cup the back of
his head, and do that little 'a-heh-heh' of his.
"Sure! It's.... um... um..."
"Right over the next boulder?" I sigh. Last time I checked, no
place in downtown Tokyo looked like a giant's rock garden. "I
suppose those little gnarled trees are really skyscrapers in
disguise." No answer, but at least he's steering with both hands
now. "Look, I HAVE managed to schedule a small break to do this with
you, but I HAVE to be back by dawn! I have a thermo mid-"
"We're out of range of the navmap."
As he speaks the words, I feel the body I'm holding onto heat
itself to an almost painful temperature.
"Rat, calm down! You're having one of your anger fevers, and I'd
rather not have to explain second-degree burns on my chest."
"Didn't you hear what I said?!?"
"You said we're out of range of-"
Oh.
Uh-oh.
"Don't those things," I ask, "have a thousand-K radius?" A shift
in the red of his bandanna tells me he's nodded. The cloth between
his stomach and my hands begins to singe. "And we..."
"Are out of that radius."
"REIRAKU NO BAKA!"
Oops. Didn't mean to squeeze him that hard... nearly toppled us
both when he swerved. At least he's cooled down, now - but *I*
haven't.
"You DO realise I have four midterms left."
"I have six."
"How're we going to get back?"
A shrug.
How DOES he manage it? Like everyone else, at first I laughed at
his tales of ending up in Siberia while looking for the bathroom,
but when he started bringing back souvenirs...
"A shrug. Is that the BEST you can do?"
"Until we're in comsat range, ye-"
He's cut off by a pillar of light rising in front of us. It
blinds him, and the hovercycle tilts over. I manage to avoid a
wipeout by acting as a counterweight.
"What was-" I begin.
"Rocket," he answers, predicting my question. "Probably
military. I've seen enough desert tests at USE."
Right. I keep forgetting that his parents own the largest
security and military supplier in the country.
"Do you think this is your... your parents'?"
"Let's find out."
"And if it isn't?"
"I'm sure the guards will tell us WHERE to scram to."
I smile, though he can't see it, and rest my head in the hollow
made by the base of his tilted neck. The wind whistles by us, and I
enjoy the feel of my leather jacket against my arms, of his soft hair
upon my forehead and his stiff but padded stomach throbbing gently
against my hands with his breaths and exhalations. If he gets us
back home, I might not even have to get mad at him for having landed
us in... in wherever we are.
"Rat?"
"Hrm?"
"Do you have ANY idea where we-"
The white beam disappears as quickly as it came, and to our
light-adapted eyes the moonlight is as good as total darkness.
"I can't see!"
"It was straight ahead."
"A military project should have lights..."
"Maybe it wasn't a-"
The sound of stone against metal. The hovercycle stops, but we
keep going. For a while, anyway. First I hear a thud, then a
splash, and after that I find that there are things darker than
night...
All light is gone, and so am I.
* * * * *
He's here. Even if I hadn't heard his arrival, this alertness,
this wakefulness would have told me that the spiritual tingling I
feel is the presence of the sought-for host.
But where?
Light must be born from darkness, says the spell. I dare not
light an unrequired match, lest all my work should fall apart in the
final hour. Besides, Jusenkyo doesn't like to be trifled with. Its
edicts must be followed to the letter.
So I walk through the dark, barefoot.
The ground is grainy, moist and cold. Even my too-slight weight
leaves impressions in the soil. Let it be. It makes it that much
easier for me to find my way back.
I let my witch sense guide me, but grab a bamboo rod from one of
the pools to serve as a cane. I do not fancy falling into yet
another spring.
Progress is slow, but the way is short. Not fifty paces from my
house I find a flying motorcycle. It is overturned and empty, with
all the lights still blinking. No matter. This is not the end of
the trail.
I turn left, putting my cane before me and...
Hrmph.
I prod, then bend down and touch what the bamboo has found. Soft
flesh and a small trickle of sticky blood.
My host.
Strangely, I still feel a pull, almost a yank, to somewhere
beyond where the body lies, but in that direction there is nothing
but a group of closely-spaced pools...
I must be truly old, if even my witch's sight is going.
A quick tug shows me that my strength is also fading. I fail to
lift the host onto my shoulders, and find I must drag him...
Wait. There, beneath the jacket.
Not a him. A *her*.
I look at the moon, and shrug. Not much time left. It's not
what I expected, but it's not as if air... as if HE weren't used to
sharing body space with a female, after all.
I move to the head of the body and take one of the girl's hands
in each of mine. I'm careful to keep her head above ground and her
torso out of the pools as I drag her back across my footprints: brain
damage and extra curses are two things I can ill afford.
Once we're back, I move her into position and try to ignore the
sizzle as her blood hits the force field. I don't need moonlight to
tell me that the drops turn black.
I make a quick trip inside the shack to retrieve my candles and
replace them, this time around the girl.
"Fire. Air. Earth. Water." It goes faster, this time. The
candle-light falls upon her face, and I hiss.
A Westerner. And a plain one.
Nothing to be done about that now.
I drive her visage from my mind, and finish the enchantment.
"Soul."
This time, the candle-flames twist and turn to form a spiralling
cocoon around the host. When it's complete, I turn off the force
field, trusting the spiritual energy to keep the girl above the
exposed pool.
It works.
She floats above his captive soul, waiting for me. There is one
ingredient yet to be added to complete the awakening; one final gift.
Even now, the pool demands a sacrifice before it will let forth its
prize: spirit for spirit, and I can not kill. It would be so easy,
if I could...
I close my eyes, and think of how I hate Jusenkyo.
I give it that, and more. I give the pool my grief, my madness ,
offer unto it those years of work I've spend beside it, and my
apprenticeship with my predecessor. I add my warrior self - a bogus
gift, since that side of me has been dead since my exile. I will my
panics and my crazed passions into a separate entity, and cast all
but the memory of it into the shimmering water.
Goodbye, Xian Pu.
Now there is only his Shampoo. Again.
A column of virginal white rises from the spring, surrounded by a
corkscrew of foaming water. My offering has been accepted.
I sink to my knees and cry, barely noticing the diminution of
chest and hair taking place in the luminescent cage. All I see is a
blinding flash that dries my tears, and then the girl is gone. I
summon enough coherence to switch the field back on before the
cocoon completely disappears, then greet the one for whom I've
traded a part of my self.
"Nihao, Ranma."
* * * * *
I feel nothing. I mean that. No floor, walls, clothes or skin;
just my mind floating in an insensual dark... No pain.
I open my eyes. There's no blur, or period of adjustment. The
unaccustomed crispness of the scene before me reminds me that I need
new contacts.
But someone has already provided them for me, haven't they?
Two figures, lit by candlelight and apparently unaware of me. I
remember falling off thee ho...
Rat!!!
I turn my head, finding surprisingly little resistance from my
neck muscles. He's nowhere in sight. Just a table, stools, stove
and pans, wax candles, scrolls... Am I in some farmer's hut? I
don't REMEMBER being rescued...
I try to speak, to let them know I'm awake, but nothing comes
out. I can't even move my lips. I try my hands and feet. Nothing.
Great. Just great. I must've broken my spine in the fall. That
would explain the lack of feeling and movement, but oh those things
cost a fortune to fix.
Nothing to do but wait, watch, and hope they notice the identity
card in my wallet.
Rat, where are you?
The larger figure is cloaked, and has been silent for some time.
Its raiment now ruffles a bit, and it - she - speaks in heavily
accented Japanese.
"A lot can change in a hundred years. Places go... people
die.... and there's nothing we can do about it."
"The dojo?" asks the other. A shake of the head is his reply.
"Pop?" Silence. "A... Akane?"
"I'm sorry."
The young one sounds like Rat when he cries. He sobs in spurts
which he tries to suppress, presumably to preserve his image of
manliness. If only he knew... it only makes it worse.
"But... you... you're alive," he manages. "How did-"
"The women of my village are... Amazon women live long. Or have
you forgotten great-grandmother?"
"Forget? FORGET?!? How CAN I forget? You tell me this story, and
it must be true, 'cause you're... you're... not like ya used to be,
but... for me, it isn't LIKE yesterday... it IS yesterday!"
"You still think this a dream?"
Another shake of the head. From the young one, this time.
"I believe you." HE punches a wall. "This ain't no dream. It's a
nightmare."
"You want go back in pool?" The old one is angry. "You want go
back to be soul stuck with no paradise, no damnation? Be grateful!
Shampoo make you ALIVE! Before today, you just spirit world
equivalent of vegetable!"
"Yeah, you brought me back, but the way I see it, you've...
you've gotten rid of everything I-"
Tonight is a night for tears. The young one turns his face away
from the elder's crying, and notices my open eyes at last.
"She's up."
He walks closer to me, and I realise he's dressed in a famil...
Wait a minute. Aren't those MY clothes?
He seems taken aback, as well, for he lowers his eyes once in
candlelight range, and blushes. I follow his gaze, and see the
reason why.
Funny. I didn't know I body-blushed.
Shame and embarrassment share space in my mind. I'm mortified.
Naked in front of a teenage kid and a crone...
Deity, what if I'm NOT paralysed?!? What if this is all some
twisted sexual trap by a pair of deviants who-
I open my eyes wider than I thought possible, and even the young
pervert takes time off from staring at my hips to stagger backwards
with a surprised 'Yah!'.
I seem to be... growing a set of clothes. I'm still blushing,
but the blush shapes my skin into a pallid jacket, shirt and jeans -
my favourite outfit, which I left behind in Tokyo. I must be
hallucinating. They've fed me some paralytic drug, and it's playing
with my mind.
I don't want to go like this. I don't want to go at all, but
drugged and raped is on the top of my 'to avoid' list.
Rat!!!
Never around when you need him.
The elder one comes closer, and I see her face. Clearly aged,
but the only wrinkles are crows' feet around her eyes, and her
sky-blue hair has only a few gray streaks in it. She nods. A
signal?
"I take ward off mouth now, but you no scream, okay? And no try
move, please. You still weak. Take time to get used to get soul
knocked out of body. Like tooth extraction." She looks at her
still-spooked companion. "Take time for both of you. So," she says,
addressing me again, "nice girl promise?"
I nod.
She crouches and puts a hand to my mouth, removing a slip of
paper I hadn't noticed before.
I can speak, now, and I do.
"Where am I?"
"Jusenkyo."
"And that is in...?"
"China."
China?!?!? I'm going to KILL Rat. If I find him. It's not as
bad as Ethiopia, but... geeze.
"What do you want of me?"
"That... that take more than one word to explain." She pulls up
a stool, and sits on it before telling me. Everything. She tells me
the story of Jusenkyo, and of a boy who was cursed there a century
ago. She speaks of his murder, of her efforts to reverse his death
and of his soul's entrapment. It's a tale full of ghosts and magic,
spells and gruesome vengeance. I don't believe a word of it. Until,
in anger, she picks up the stool she's sitting on and throws it
THROUGH me. That's pretty convincing, and my absolute
clear-headedness, more than I've ever felt before, rules out the
possibility of drugs.
"So, you're... dead?" I ask the boy who wears my clothes and has
been listening as attentively as I.
He nods, and puts his right hand behind his head while feebly
'aheheh'ing. Just like Rat.
"I'm Ranma Saotome. Or was. Or, I mean..." He sighs. "Sorry
'bout all this."
"Kim Thompson. You should be."
* * * * *
I've read enough about ghosts to know that I can't see them, but
everything else about her matches what I've learned. The instant I
remove the wards from her hands and feet, this 'Kim' is free to move
- and she does. She tries to walk, then gives up and glides
phantom-fashion across the room while Ranma watches. What's that in
his eyes? Interest? Pity? Mistrust? I can't read him as well as I
used to. And the girl... I feel less guilt at what I've done when I
see how she enjoys her new form, poking at everything around her to
see how hard she must push before going through it.
It appears that disembodied spirits can affect the material
world, but only if they're gentle. Ranma's Akane would not have made
a good ghost. Her violent tendencies would have sent her spiraling
through everything in her path, until she left the very world-sphere.
This one can learn. Already she is picking up small bits of
string, toppling scrolls... Small things, but admirable progress.
She stops.
"Somethin' wrong?" Ranma's question.
"Just a sec," she says. "I wonder..."
Her eyes close and her clothing changes. Her body too, I see.
Appropriate areas expand and contract, and in the end I can no longer
call her plain. Her smile, once she opens her eyes and looks down at
herself, tells me that she thinks the same.
I glance at Ranma. He is transfixed, dumbfounded. If her were
not bonded to this girl, and were she not bodiless, I would be
tempted to disfigure the competition.
But I am not mad.
Not now. I gave that bit of me away, remember?
Right.
I start to clear my throat, but the all-too-nice girl speaks
before I draw the attention of my beloved.
"Rat would drown in his own blood if he could see me now," she
grins.
"Rat?" My question.
"Hibiki Reiraku, the boy who drove the hovercycle I arrived on.
Rat's his nickname."
Ranma leaps up, and my interest, too, is piqued. When magic is
involved, such things are not coincidence.
"Hibiki?!?"
Kim nods.
"He's probably halfway to Guatemala by now. That boy gets lost
in closets."
I'm forced to chuckle. Some things never change.
Ranma prods her and she speaks more of her black-haired friend,
focusing on his intelligence, speed and lack of navigational skills.
She goes on about a scavenger hunt, and their deviation from their
planned course of travel. When her story reaches its end, I freeze.
The last thing she remembers hearing is a splash, and in
Jusenkyo, a splash means...
I curse myself. My witch's sense was right all along; the yank I
felt towards the pools was telling me that the chosen host, the body
fated to hold Ranma's soul, had fallen into one of the cursed springs
by accident. In my foolishness, I ignored it, and now...
Now my poor groom and this girl are bound in a union of error.
Oh, that I could kill, and try again... I should have tossed my
conscience into the spring with all the rest, but now all chances at
a remedy have flown away.
Or have they?
They might have just... flown in.
Never before tonight had I seen a creature so intent on breaking
into my home. When magic is involved...
"Excuse me." During my reverie, Kim has moved on to matters of
her academic life. I think she said she studied... physics?
Probably, for airen looks pale.
I stand and move towards the stove.
The pot I left upon the range is shaking violently. Funny. I
didn't think I'd left the fire on.
The bat I'd clubbed and captured soars out of the vessel, sending
the aluminium lid clattering across the floor. The ghost and Ranma
turn around in time to see it grow and melt into a very angry, very
wet and very naked young man.
Falling to the floor doesn't help his disposition any.
I jerk a thumb towards the youth.
"Is your friend, yes?"
* * * * *
So it turns out Rat's a vampire. If I'm a ghost, why not? All
we need now is a unicorn to come along and give us a lift back to U
of Tokyo...
I always DID want to see what Rat looked like beneath his
turtleneck and jeans. I just didn't think it'd be this soon, or that
he'd be covered in mushrooms and herbs. Ah, well, never look a gift
horse in the mouth, they say. Not that it's his MOUTH I'm staring
at. Geeze, I hope I'm not doing that pink glow thing again.
Wait a sec. That slice on his chest....
"Isn't that garlic?"
Rat snarls, the garnishes upon him sizzle, and the garlic becomes
roast garlic.
"Towel," he growls.
The crone grabs a rag and tosses it to Reiraku, who's all too
prompt in wrapping it around his midsection.
Ah. There. He's noticed the garlic. He reaches for it and...
eats it?
"I thought vampires didn't LIKE ga-"
"Vampire? You think I'm a VAMPIRE?"
Well, yes.
"But you... the bat..." My, I feel foolish.
"Haven't you been LISTENING, Kim? I know *I* have. Bats have
excellent hearing, and you wouldn't believe the acoustics in that
kettle. No, I'm not a vampire, Kim. It's only thanks to your
friends," a hand wave shows that he means Ranma and Shampoo, "that I
have seen the INSIDE of a POT!"
"Spring of drowned bat?" offers Ranma.
"Guess again. Spring of attractive drowned female fruit bat."
I'm not going to laugh.
But I do.
"You think it's FUNNY?!?" Yes, actually. "It's the tail end of
Jusenkyo's fruit bat mating season, and guess who's the only
available female in the area?"
This time, all three of us find it impossible to contain our
mirth. The crone looks like she's going to lose a lung or two.
"Ah, yes, NOW you laugh. But what happened when I tried to come
in? Miss Cannibal tried to turn me into stew!" He must have been
heating up during his story, because all the herbs on him now
spontaneously flambe.
"Flying fox soup is Shampoo hometown specialty!"
I must give the woman credit for saying that cheerfully and with
a straight face. Rat, however, isn't impressed. I can tell by the
way his loincloth starts smoking. Fire in his loins, indeed...
"Your family name's Hibiki, right?" Ranma defuses the Rat-bomb
before his fig leaf burns away. Reiraku turns to him and nods,
calmer and cooled down. Honestly, the boy has more mood swings than
Childra at mid-month. "Know a guy called Ryouga?"
"Y... yes. By reputation. He's my great-grandfather."
"Figures. So the ol' coot actually married. Huh. Never would've
guessed... Who was it?"
"Who was what?"
"His wife."
Rat frowns, and Shampoo looks away.
"We... my family doesn't like to talk about her."
"Why not?"
"She went insane and destroyed half a district with her spatula.
It's still held against us."
"Spatula?"
Sounds bonkers to ME. But to HIM... Ranma's face; it's so...
sad. The news hit him hard. Friend of his? You'd think a dead guy
would be hard to phase. But there... that's not just one tear moving
down his face and neck. In the sunlight, it almost looks like -
Sunlight.
It's tomorrow.
I know I don't have one in my current state, but my heart beats
faster, anyway.
"Sh... shouldn't we be going?" I ask.
Rat laughs.
"Where to?"
"Well... BACK. To the university."
"You're going back into res with that jock attached to you?"
"I don't have a choice."
"And I don't have clothes. And you KNOW how the KF LOVES
indecent exposure..."
"Well..." I blush a bit, but manage to get it out. "I don't find
it all that indecent, truth be told."
And the dear boy nosebleeds, as expected. Yes, I cheated by
manipulating my neckline while he watched, but I take my victories
where I can get them.
"You're... looking nicer than usual, too..." Ah. So he DID
notice. "But you're not quite all there. If your curse works like
mine, couldn't you just... switch and let Deadbeat stay with Madame
Mim here?"
A good idea, but before I can say so, Shampoo vetoes it.
"It no work. Wandering limited."
"What?"
"When ghost form go more than one width of Jusenkyo from body,
get transported back, like rubber band."
"How wide is Jusenkyo?"
"Eight hundred metre. Maybe thousand."
"Geeze. Isn't there ANY way to change it?"
The crone shakes her head.
"I try. This all I can do. Second best is bound to pool width.
This better, no?"
I have to agree.
"So... I have to drag this boy with me to Tokyo."
"Yes."
"And we have to... coexist."
"Yes."
"For how long?"
She looks me in the eye.
"Life."
"Please tell me you're joking."
Another shake of the head. It seems to be her favourite word in
body language.
"Shampoo sorry."
"And Reiraku feeling a draft. Don't you have a spare cloak, or
something?"
"In closet."
Rat starts off. Towards the door.
"Wait! He'll get lo-"
Ranma chuckles.
"Skip it. I know the drill." He calls to Reiraku. "Hey, bat-boy!
The closet's THIS way."
I smile, and notice that Shampoo smiles with me.
* * * * *
They don't realise what's happened. The laws of heaven and
biology have been repealed for them today, and they behave as though
they were watching a clever sideshow at a carnival. Kim treats her
ghosthood like a toy, the Rat's anger is that of a spoilt child, and
Ranma... Ranma is withdrawn. He's retracted into a turtle-like
shell. He does not know, and does not WANT to know, how his death
has changed me and the others. Ever carefree, he cannot imagine
taking responsibility for the consequences of his demise; he refuses
to enjoy the life I've patched together for him, for that would imply
acknowledgment of not just one, but of a flood of debts.
He always was ungrateful, but in this... If I had wanted a body
with vacant eyes, I would have stuck to squirrels.
Then again, who am I to talk? I never thought 'til now of what
would happen AFTERWARDS; of what he would do, of how he would cope
with a new world. My planning always ended at this moment, when a
part of me assumed that everything would be set right, and all the
toil and grief and pain and forfeited experience would be revealed to
have been worth it.
Guess what.
That isn't happening.
They say they're going to Tokyo. I could go, too. Mousse's
children are always asking when I'll visit - this is my chance to
take them up on the offer. Legally, I still hold title to the
Nekohanten, so if worse comes to worst...
"I'm going with you," I pronounce, forgetting to accent my
Japanese. They don't notice.
"Where?" one of them asks.
"Tokyo."
"Where will you stay?"
I tell them. Kim and Ranma nod their agreement.
"Now that that's settled," says Reiraku, "what if we go find my
hovercycle?"
"Who gets the seats?" Kim.
"What do you mean?"
"There's four of us and room for two, but-" she grins in a way
which I don't entirely like - "two of us can change to take no space
at all."
"Fine with me," says Ranma. "I'll do the ghost thing, an'
bat-boy can go in the pot."
"What?!?"
This one's dangerous. Before he can complain, I douse him with
water from the sink and stuff his bat form into my pressure cooker,
vicing the lid into place and leaving the steam valve open so he...
so SHE can breathe.
*SQUEAK!*
I shrug in response to an odd look from Kim.
"It only way. He violent boy." Both Kim and Ranma nod. "So, when
we leave?"
"Any time!" The girl is positively beaming. Then her colour
scheme darkens. "Uh-oh."
"What wrong?"
"Well, the reason that we ended up here in the first place was
that lost boy over there," she points at the pot, "got us out of
range of the navmap."
"Navmap?" Navigational map, dearest.
"Tells you where you are at any time, within a certain range.
For Rat's cheapo model, that's only a thousand K from downtown
Tokyo."
"He certainly is a Hibiki..." Ranma echoes my own thoughts.
"You say you not know how get back?"
"I... I'm not sure..."
"Couldn't we hire a guide?"
"Let Shampoo take look." Ranma looks at Kim, who shrugs. I take
this as my cue to exit. In daylight, I see that the crash site is
only a few dozen steps from my hut. The lights on the hovercycle's
display are *still* blinking, and one of the backlit buttons reads...
Ah. So THAT'S what was wrong.
I flip a switch, and hide my smile as I return.
"I think I fix," I tell them. A slight understatement.
"WHAT?"
"I think I fix."
"What do you mean?"
"I push button, and map of China come on screen, with blinking
dot at Jusenkyo."
"Lemme see!" says the girl. And she does. When I lead her and my
betrothed to the 'cycle, she drags her hand over her face. "The
minute that fledermaus is human again," she vows, "he's going to be
SORRY you didn't cook him."
"What's wrong?" asks Ranma. Kim points at a button.
"See this? L-R-S. Long Range Sensors. The bloody thing was right
here, under his nose all the time, and the IDIOT didn't notice!" She
growls. "I THOUGHT it was odd that rich parents like his would put a
substandard navmap on his bike, especially considering..."
"Enough talk. We lose too much time already. You two want change
now?" Jusenkyo, never truly comfortable, is decidedly unpleasant
today, and I am eager to leave. To start again.
"Just a sec." Ranma looks back as he dashes back to the shack.
"There's something I gotta do."
Do?
Too late, I realise what he's planning.
"SHISHI HOUKODAN!"
I chided him, albeit silently, for keeping his feelings inside of
himself, and now he's let them out in the most explosive way
possible. Last night's pyrotechnics are reversed - a column of
white-blue fire falls from the sky onto the pool of drowned... what
WOULD I call it now? Drowned ME? Ex-HIM? A spiral of foaming water
twirls around the beam, dissolving into mist, then all is gone. Only
a hole in the ground with charred edges marks the site where once my
life, his soul and my cast-off emotions were held captive.
This is trouble. He's HURT Jusenkyo, and it will not forget. In
living memory, no one has dared destroy a spring. The place will
haunt him; it will demand satisfaction, and revenge, and unless I or
another can bend nature and destiny more than I have already managed
to, it will succeed.
I want to run.
"You ready to switch?" I ask again. I hope they do not note the
tremor in my voice. Not that I wait for an answer, of course. While
Kim opens her mouth, I uncork a thermos and splash the returning
Ranma with its contents.
The boy and girl switch places and solidities. Ranma's spirit
form is unconscious, just as Kim's was after her first change.
"He's..."
"Shampoo tell you already; it like tooth extraction. Get kicked
out of body big shock, little death. Take time to get used to it."
"What do we do?"
"Strap bat-pot to bike, get in driver seat and wait me to get on
in back. Leave Ranma here."
"But-"
"He warp back, remember?"
Kim nods. She does as she is told, and the minute I have my arms
safely around her, she starts the throttle.
I look behind me, and all I see is dust.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Soon the people will all be gone and I will be alone forever."
-Martin Amis
=====================================================================
END RESURRECTION
=====================================================================
Afterword:
A cheer to whoever spots the 'Captain Planet' reference. ^_^
Many thanks to the R2096 pre-read list, and particularly to Mercutio
for his helpful real-time comments.
As for the music listened to... I didn't have much of a choice,
really. It was Christmas break, all the rooms with CD players were
noisy, and there was only one tape of music in the house that I could
play on my walkman... By default, this story was written to about
fifty replays of Mannheim Steamroller's 'Fresh Aire V' album.
-CW
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__________________________________________________________________________
Christopher Willmore http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Bistro/2653/index.htm
"Every nice girl loves a psychopath." - Iris Murdoch
R2096: http://qlink.queensu.ca/~4cw6/2096a.htm