NeriMAn DIStortion
a Boogiepop Phantom/Ranma ½
fanfic by Zorknot
DISCLAIMER:
Boogiepop Phantom is owned by Kouhei Kadono, Mediaworks, and the Right
Stuff International. Ranma ½ is owned by Rumiko Takahashi, Fuji TV, and Kitty
Film.
“Pone,” created
by Rei Harakami; “Penalty Taker,”
created by Audio Active; and “Happy End,” created by Flare are all copyrighted
for the Boogiepop Phantom OST by Mediaworks.
~~~~~[BEGIN]~~~~~
NABIKI TENDO-a
girl on a mission
AKANE TENDO-a
girl possessed
TOFU
ONO-a man searching for himself.
~~~~~yami~~~~~
In a dream, you pass them one after
another...these blurry lights overhead in the darkness. You hear a sound, but
it seems blurry somehow too. It’s vaguely human, only there’s something wrong
about it...in fact maybe it’s panting, like someone running... someone running
away from something... and those lights overhead...yes. They are street lamps.
A green and white sneaker splashes into a
puddle in an alley way, sending a chaotic crown of water into the air along
with a soda can and several paper wrappers that until this moment had lain
undisturbed. The owner of the sneaker, a young man with black hair maybe in his
late teens, is scrambling toward a parked white minivan when he slips and falls
backward into the gutter. As he gets up, he watches the alley in front of him,
panting, his eyes and mouth wide open in abject horror.
In the alley, amid the refuse next to an old
heating duct, a phantom fades into being. It is female, wearing a strange,
somewhat cylindrical cloth hat and a dark cloak decorated with two floating
bands of black and white triangle patterns. It has pale blue eyes locked in a
menacing half-lidded stare. One side of the mouth rises minutely as if in mild
amusement.
Gasping in fright, the young man stumbles to
his feet and runs down the side walk along the street. He runs...and he seems
past the point of exhaustion already, pumping arms and legs haphazardly by the
strength of his fear alone, as the street lamps shine watchfully, sentinels of
the night.
It’s a strange dream isn’t it?
~~~~~Vol. 02: Light in Darkness~~~~~
Where am I?
I’ve just been running... trying to get away...all
this construction...even if I’ve been here before I wouldn’t know it...
~~~~~Scene001:
I need to rest. I can barely see a thing
here.
That ghost...was that Boogiepop? No that’s
just a urban legend right? It can’t be real. I need to
sit down. Get a grip on things...
Sitting isn’t helping. But I need to catch my
breath. That was just an illusion earlier. It had to be. Boogiepop wouldn’t
come after me anyway, I’m too weak. Frail. I’m not a
hero like Ranma was. It would make sense for Boogiepop to take him, but me? No
it’s not her.
But then what was it?
It doesn’t make sense! None of this makes any
sense! Fairy tale fox spirits out to get me, bugs that only I can see...I don’t
understand! Why is this happening to me?
~~~~~
~~~~~Scene002:
Elementary School~~~~~
I remember...
Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a
hero.
When I was in grade school and I saw some
bullies beating on some kid, I’d fight them. Even if they
were bigger, older or tougher than me.
This one time a sixth grader was giving us
fourth graders all sorts of trouble during recess. Terrorizing
us really. He’d make us give him lunch money and push us around. I wasn’t
having it and so I beat the bastard.
“This is our playground!” I said, kicking him
while he lay in a heap on ground, “Don’t bother us anymore!”
I let him up, “Okay okay
damn it!” he said, his arm across his eyes. “But, I won’t forget this!” and he
ran off.
“You made a sixth-grader cry!” the other kids
cried.
“You’re the best, Dai-chan!”
Yeah. That was me. And that’s what I always
wanted to be.
~~~~~yami~~~~~
I’m laughing out loud it’s so damn funny. I’m
such a wuss now...such a weakling.
I feel so crappy inside. “Shit,” I say to
myself.
It’s not simple like it was back then. It’s
all twisted and weird...
I hear a sound and turn to see a fat white
caterpillar with red spots crawling on the ground next to some pipes leaning
against the wall. I edge near it, feeling that need I’ve been feeling well up
inside me. I pick it up. It feels all squishy and smooth. It excretes some kind
of sticky fluid on my hand. I’m laughing again, because I can’t help myself. I have
to do it. I have to!
I bring the thing closer to me...and I bite
off its head with my teeth. I shove it into my mouth, tearing into it, letting
its juices roll around my tongue before swallowing. But it’s not sweet like the
spiders were. It’s...bitter. I start to choke.
~~~~~omedetou~~~~~
It reminds me of the celebration dinner I had
after graduating out of grammar school into Junior high.
“Congratulations, Daisuke!” my mother
exclaimed after setting my plate down in front of me, gracefully.
Mom was
a wonderful cook, the meal she prepared for me then was worthy of a medal,
garnished with parsley and served on rice...strangely enough though, it looked
a lot like a large caterpillar...I never got to taste it. Not that night
anyway.
Dad was beaming “You did great!” He was the
star player on his High school’s wrestling team. He always was so energetic
back then, even though he was a heavyset man. He was a little intimidating to
some people. But he was cool, you know?
“But you’re going to a new school now,” Mom said, setting Dad’s
plate down, “aren’t you going to miss your old friends?” Mom was beautiful I
remember. She had a kind face and she was always so nice and pleasant, but she
seemed to have this hidden power.
I miss her. I wish she were here right now...
That night, Dad chuckled at Mom’s comment.
“You’ll be fine, right Daisuke?”
“Yep,” I agreed.
Mom sat down with her own meal. “Well, let’s
eat!”
“Down the hatch!” I
said happily...only when I brought the chopsticks with the morsel of food to my
mouth, an excruciating pain jangled the nerves all the way up my arm. It was so
sudden that I fell out of my seat. I cried out and cradled my arm.
“Daisuke!” Dad cried
Mom was out of her seat, squeaking, “Daisuke,
what’s wrong?”
I couldn’t respond. The pain was...too much.
~~~~~Scene003:
“A malignant bone tumor?”
My mother asked the
woman doctor Kisugi-sensei in the same worried
squeaking voice the next day.
I was laying in a hospital bed overhearing
her conversation as Dad looked over me. They had one of those oxygen tubes
sticking in my nose and an IV sticking into my arm. I watched Mom and the woman
doctor as they talked under the glowing X-Rays that spelled out my doom.
“Luckily,” Dr. Kisugi
said, “we found it in its early stages. But even after the operation, he’ll
need therapy for at least five or six years.”
It wasn’t until she said that that I realized
what my illness meant. For five to six years, I’d be weak. Too
weak to train. Too weak to save anyone. Too weak to be a hero.
“I see...” Mom almost whispered, bowing and
walking over to me. She brushed her fingers through my hair, trying to comfort me,
but the life that I knew was over, and for some reason, I couldn’t look at my
mom. I could only watch Dr. Kisugi as she looked
straight at me, eyes cold, half-lidded. Her mouth was straight, emotionless.
Still, sometimes when I remember it, I can almost swear that she smiled...just
a little, as if she thought the whole thing was funny.
~~~~~Scene004:
Junior High School Spring~~~~~
I could hear them talking about me behind my
back when I started Junior High. Anytime I heard laughter I always thought it
was about me—that weird Freshman that’s sick all the time...who’s always
leaving class early to go to the hospital. Now, I figure I was being a little
paranoid, but I was right enough times for it to be depressing.
All through
summer break and a good portion of school I was too weak to do anything. I was
thirteen, and while other kids were coming into their strength, I was sick in
bed most the time. The only real exercise I got was when my parents took me to
the hospital.
~~~~~biyoin~~~~
Totsuyama General
has a large waiting area, with many seats lined up in rows, like in an airport.
Only there aren’t so many windows and at the front is the window where you make
appointments or get prescriptions for medication. One day, as I sat with Mom
and Dad, I heard a girl laughing while I was sitting in there and I listened in
as usual to see if it really was about me or not. She was two rows behind me
and talking to some guy.
“So what do you think, Sensei?” The girl
asked her companion in a more serious voice.
“I don’t know,” he responded, “Not many
people can do what they want to do.” I looked behind me. The girl was about my
age and had her hair in a style that looked sort of like a helmet. It didn’t
seem right for the girl to call the guy “Sensei.” He was kind of young to be
teacher or doctor but then again, he was definitely college age. He wore
glasses and what looked like a brown martial arts gi.
“But still,” the girl said, “that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t think about what they
want to do with their lives!”
The guy smiled. “So tell me, ‘Sensei’ Tendo
Nabiki, what would you like to be?”
“I don’t know just yet, that’s why I was
asking you! Have you ever wanted to be something else other than a Doctor?”
“Let’s see,” he said rubbing his chin,
“probably...a defender of justice.”
“Surely, you can’t be serious.” Nabiki
smirked.
“I am and don’t call me ‘Surely’” the doctor
said smiling a little himself. He sat down next to Nabiki. “I’m first and
foremost a doctor, but I am also a student of the Art. Sometimes, I would like
nothing better than to wander around the countryside helping those in need,
defending the weak...As a doctor, you can only help those that come to you,
after whatever’s been done to them has already happened, and you sometimes
can’t use something that you know will help somebody because it isn’t covered
by insurance. I’d like to not have to worry about insurance. I’d like to just
fight evil head on...a defender of justice. That’s what I want to be.”
“Then be one,” Nabiki said. “I’m sure you
could do it.”
The doctor laughed, “It’s not that easy!”
Nabiki giggled until Dr. Kisugi
came to remind her of her appointment. Nabiki said goodbye to the man and left
with Kisugi.
This was the first time I’d ever ran into Nabiki. She was so positive and up beat...it made
me sick. Many things changed in that year I know. By the time she was in High
School I began to hear rumors of her being cold and heartless. Of how she would
even sell out her own sister if the price were right. I still didn’t believe
them because of that day at the hospital. Of course after I started High School
and Ranma came I would run into Nabiki more than enough times and I’d learn to
accept nearly every rumor about her. But I still remember that conversation...
Later, I found out the other doctor was Dr.
Tofu. A real friendly guy. Just a chiropractor and
general practitioner but very good at what he does. I guess he must have taken
Nabiki to the hospital. He was pretty close to the Tendo family back then. He
left like, two years ago though. I don’t think anyone’s seen him.
At that moment in the hospital, I hated his
guts. He could still help people. He could, if he wanted to, be just the sort
of hero I had always wanted to be, but he was a doctor instead. Meanwhile I was
sick, weak.
I clasped my hands together so hard they ached several hours
afterward.
~~~~~biyoin~~~~~
I sat in Dr. Kisugi’s
office, alone. My parents still sat outside in the waiting room. The office was
a brightly lit place, sunshine filtered through Venetian blinds covering large
windows that took up almost entire walls. You could see the trees waving
outside and it should be very pleasant, but I hated going to that office just
the same. After giving me a short physical, Dr. Kisugi
said that I was getting better, and that it would only be a little longer
before I could stop the therapy.
But every martial arts master or athlete that
I ever talked to said he had trained since he was a baby,
that every spare moment of his life was spent perfecting his form,
learning new techniques... There was no way I would ever catch up. “It’s
already too late,” I told Dr. Kisugi
“Eh?”
“No matter how hard I try now,” I said
punching the air and imagining that I was fighting a bully, a kidnapper, or
anyone... “I’ll never be good enough to be a master of the Art. I’ll never be
able to be a hero.”
“Jonouchi-kun,
listen...” Kisugi said, “The human body’s abilities
are not limited to only the physical...”
“I know, I know. ‘Study hard and use your
mind to help people.’ Is that what you’re gonna say?
My mother says the same thing.”
Kisugi held her
head up with her hand, her elbow on the counter behind her where she kept her potted
plants. “You’re so weak, but your mother is so strong.”
I frowned, saying, “I already know.”
“Yes... but cowards live longer than most
people, hmm?”
I looked at Kisugi-sensei
in surprise. She was smiling lazily, and again I got that paranoid feeling that
someone was laughing at me.
“It’s when people are full of fear that the
death kami comes, and she prefers it when strong
people get scared; they taste better. Weak people taste terrible.”
It was a very strange thing for a doctor to
say. Strike that, it was an unbelievably freaky thing for anyone to say. Even now, I wonder if I maybe misunderstood her
somehow, but before I could ask her to repeat what she had said she continued.
“If you want it,” she crossed her legs and
turned her swivel chair more toward me, “I have a special medicine I can give
you, but I don’t know if it will work for you, understand?”
~~~~~yami~~~~~
I stagger and fall against a pile of pipes. I
feel sick to my stomach now after eating that damned caterpillar. And I still
feel the hunger...the need. The caterpillar didn’t help at all.
Dr. Kisugi’s
medicine didn’t help at all either when I took it. I had a high fever and was
in bed for a week.
~~~~~Scene:005
Two years later I started High School. I still had to go the
Hospital for check ups every now and then, but I had a different doctor from Kisugi.
I was pretty miserable most the time. My Mom...she wasn’t around
anymore. It was just me and Dad. And we weren’t living, just coping. And then
something happened that I had never expected.
Ranma came.
I gravitated to him so strongly I was worried
for a while that I was gay. And when I found out about his curse...There were nights
I wished he would stay female so I could be Ranma’s boyfriend. But the
attraction wasn’t really sexual. I mean girl Ranma was a hottie,
there’s no denying that, but that’s not why I hung out with him. Ranma was just
everything I ever wanted to be. Ranma was a hero. Ranma had adventure every
single day. Ranma had all sorts of people that admired him. I just was hoping
that somehow the tinniest fraction of that would rub off on me.
I wasn’t alone of course. Hiroshi hung out
with Ranma just as much as I did, though he seemed more interested in Ranma’s
fiancées then Ranma himself most the time. Hiroshi and I became friends through
Ranma.
I remember I sat next to Hiroshi during that
match girl Ranma had with Kuno’s sister. Hiroshi was
putting all the girls on a scale from one to ten. He was saying that Kodachi
was a nine and I said, “No way she’s a nine! She has to get negative points for
being psychotic!” Before I knew it, I was comparing other girls to female Ranma
and Akane based on breast size, cuteness, shapeliness...I’m telling you,
perversion is contagious.
At the time of that match, neither of us knew
that male Ranma and female Ranma were one and the same. Hiroshi roped me into
confronting Ranma about the girl that shared his name. We heckled him about
keeping the cute redhead to himself, but he got out of it somehow.
I was the one who found out first. I went to
Nabiki for information during lunch one day, and of course she wasn’t giving it
unless I paid a sum of money no mere human could possess. But then I had an
idea. No one knew anything about Nabiki going to the hospital. Maybe it was
something she didn’t want getting around? So I took a chance and said that if
she didn’t tell me about Ranma’s connection to girl Ranma I would mention
Nabiki’s visit to Totsuyama General. Nabiki got this
sharp look to her eye and peered right into me, and I knew that if she said no
I wouldn’t do anything. I knew that I had potentially made a very bad enemy.
But then she gave a smirk. “Ranma got a curse in
I got Hiroshi to help me and we did test it,
using a fire bucket to splash Ranma as he left the building for Gym.
Neither of us had ever come so close to
death.
Thankfully, I told Ranma where I got the
information before he pummeled us into pancakes, and I think he actually opened
up to us more once we both knew about the curse and didn’t totally freak or
anything. Some of the other guys in gym found out about it too,
and from then on Ranma had to take his showers in the coach’s private shower to
keep the would-be pranksters at bay, but after that day he never mentioned it.
Ranma just didn’t hold grudges. At least not back then. He was still friendly
to Hiroshi and me even when things started to get bad...
~~~~~happy
end~~~~~
Over the next three years. Hiroshi and I
still followed Ranma around like puppies, catching whatever scraps of adventure
or exposed female flesh we could get. But both of us could tell something was
up with Ranma. Last year especially, there were these times when he’d get real
quiet. We used to cheer him up by teasing him about his fiancées but more and
more that became a sore subject with him.
Of course I guess I really can’t blame him.
He had a lot of things pressing on him. First there was Ranma’s mom, who kept
saying she’d kill him if he wasn’t manly, then there was that stupid wedding,
where Shampoo and Ukyo went psycho and started throwing bombs at the guy.
Things just went downhill from there. Even
Then last year, Hiroshi had to go away for a
few months because his grandfather was dying. Looking back on it, I think that
I was maybe the only friend Ranma really had at that point. I mean, he had
other people, but they weren’t exactly people he could talk to. Not that he
talked to me either. I mean you can’t just tell a guy all your problems. Not
unless he’s a shrink or something.
I tried to get Ranma to train me a little,
and that seemed to cheer him up a bit, but he was still moody. I keep on
thinking about his most frequent complaint at that time, that everyone wanted
something from him.
I hate thinking about it...but if you had to
not want anything from Ranma to be his friend...then I really wasn’t his friend
either. Because I wanted his power, his strength, his
fearlessness...and when he stopped being powerful, strong, and fearless...I
didn’t hang around him as much.
I would almost talk to him during lunch when
I saw him staring out of the window forlornly. I would think about visiting him
at the dojo when I passed by. I would consider maybe giving him a call. But
each time I thought about seeing Ranma, I would think better of it. Or worse of
it I suppose. Ranma was depressing to be around then, and without Hiroshi’s
boundless enthusiasm, I just was not capable of dealing with it.
When the news leaked about Ranma and Kodachi,
I wasn’t that surprised really. Kodachi was after all, an extremely proud
person who didn’t give a damn about what other people thought, and I think
that’s what Ranma wanted to be.
I never really believed the part of the rumor
that said he was dealing drugs. Taking drugs yes—maybe wanted whatever Kodachi
was smoking—but dealing drugs...not Ranma. Even as down as he was, I didn’t
think he’d ever do something so...ugly.
Things got real tense after the school found
out about Ranma and Kodachi. He showed up to class a few times, wearing all black.
I approached him once to ask him if he wanted to train me some. Real stupid I
know, but I didn’t want to just ask him the same stupid questions he was
laughing at the other people for asking. All the same, he just said “Get the
fuck out my face,” and walked on.
This one day a new girl showed up. She had
straight pitch black hair with two white streaks. Her face was as pale as a
corpse, and adorned with a good seven piercings, heavy black eye shadow, and
black lipstick She wore fishnet stockings with her
school uniform which was ripped and ragged. The girl looked like she was
cosplaying as American McGee’s
When the teacher called Ranma’s name, she
raised her hand.
She was laughing the rest of the day. It was
Ranma’s laugh, not nearly as bone rattling as Kodachi’s,
but it had some of the same mania, and just knowing that it was Ranma and not
Kodachi made it even scarier. She came up to me that day. She asked me if I
wanted to have sex. “I’m offerin my virgin pussy. One time only!”
I refused. It was just wrong...but now I
wonder...maybe if I went with Ranma even then and just talked to her...And
Ranma was dead serious. After I declined she called me a limp dick and asked
where Kuno was. She said she figured she might as well keep it in the family.
Kuno never showed again after that. No one
even saw him. I guess he took “the pigtailed girl” up on her offer.
She showed up in the same get up all that
week. One time, Ukyo splashed her with hot water and she didn’t change. She
smiled and said “I’m pregnant.”
Then a week later Ranma showed up as a guy. I
asked him what happened. He smiled and said “I got an abortion.”
That was the last time I talked to him. I
could have maybe understood if he gave some indication that the decision was
hard for him, really any lame excuse for not having the baby would have worked
for me, but he just didn’t care. It was like he got the abortion on a whim,
like he could have just as easily had the baby and tortured it to death. He
wasn’t a hero anymore. No, far from it.
I avoided him after that. It wasn’t that hard
really; he only showed up in school once or twice a week and sometimes not even
that. I’d sometimes see him talking to girls in the hallway. Those girls never
came back to school. I kept telling myself that they just quit, but...
Then about a month ago...
~~~~~screaming~~~~~
I was standing on the second story terrace of
my house, watching the cars as they traveled under the street lights, as if
nothing was happening, as if everything were still normal.
I heard it before I saw it. This terrible inhuman sound of pain, anguish that somehow carried
through the night. Then there was the light coming from Furinkan
shooting up into the clouds and the sound was even louder, a mix between a
pulsating crackle of electricity and a haunting moan, like from a ghost. It
resonated with my insides like the bass line of a rock concert. Then I saw this
ball of energy come from the beam directly toward me...and through me, jazzing
my nerves like a high voltage caffeine pill.
I turned around to see the energy pass
through the rest of the house without affecting anything. I looked at my
shaking hands for a moment not sure of what just happened. Then I went inside
through the sliding glass door, suddenly feeling violently ill.
Once again, I had a high fever and was laid
up for a week. It felt almost as bad as when I took Dr. Kisugi’s
medicine. But this time, after the fever broke, something happened.
~~~~~asa~~~~~
After waking up for the first time without
throwing up, I got dressed and walked downstairs, sliding the wooden door to
the den. Dad was on his knees on the tatami, praying
to Mom’s shrine. Hearing me enter, he looked back to me. Judging by the bags
under his eyes he had been up all night. “Are you alright?” He asked wearily.
“Yeah,” I looked at the picture of Mom. She
was smiling in the photograph, but it was a sort of Mona Lisa smile. I could
see the sadness in her bright eyes, the frown in her gentle smile. It was taken
after I got sick, a year before she died. “I’ll be fine.”
He got up creakily to his feet, “I was
worried about you, it’s been almost a week.”
There was something on his chest. A giant green spider, right over his heart. I gasped in
shock.
“What’s the matter?” Dad asked.
“Dad, there’s a bug...”
“Hmm?” he walked over to me and felt my
forehead with the back of his hand. “No, your fever’s dropped.” He sighed as he
walked past me, “I’ve got to go to work now. How do you feel? Do want to take
another day off?”
“N..no,”
I said. “I’m going today.”
“Good.”
I thought I had to be hallucinating or
something. Why couldn’t Dad see that giant spider? Still, I went to school. On the
subway, on the street, everywhere I saw people with spiders on their chests,
walking around completely oblivious. Then, for some reason...I started
salivating...the spiders began to look tasty.
~~~~~kurasu~~~~~
“Oki?”
“Yeah.”
“Tamura?”
“Here!”
~~~~~Scene006:
Omo-sensei was
giving out test grades in history class. Of course he wouldn’t be calling my
name, because I had been sick. I just watched as the other students got their
grades.
“Sasaoka?”
“Yes...” this one said quietly as she got up
to and walked to Omo-sensei’s podium.
“You scored the highest with a 98” Omo-sensei informed her.
She took the test with her head bowed and
started walking slowly back to her seat. She was fairly pretty, with her rich brown
hair curling all the way to her shoulders, she seemed depressed though.
“You did great Yuka!” Akane praised her
friend as she passed several rows ahead of me. “Just like always!”
As Sasaoka Yuka
approached me, I saw it though. A purple spider, right over
her heart. As Omo-sensei called out the other
students’ names, I kept my attention focused on Yuka as she sat in the back
row... I remembered she usually sat in the front.
~~~~~soto~~~~
I talked to her after class and asked her to
meet me at the back wall of the school during lunch. She was a little late. I
almost thought she wouldn’t come, but she did.
“What do you want?” she asked,
her voice barely above a whisper.
I lifted myself off the wall I’d been leaning
on before I spoke. “About the test...”
Yuka’s eyes widened and she let out an
involuntary gasp.
I stepped in front of her. I was almost
certain now of the answer to the question I was about to ask but I asked it
anyway. “Did you cheat?”
Her fists tightened on either side of the
blue skirt of her uniform and she started sobbing, tears streaming down her
face. I look at her chest. The spider grew to twice its original size, speckled
now with red spots.
I couldn’t help myself! I undid her tie and slipped
my hand underneath her blouse and grabbed the spider.
I held it out in front of my face for a
moment. It felt warm on my hand; it smelled vaguely of vanilla. “You may go
now,” I told Yuka, who had collapsed into a sitting position by the wall.
She blinked and stood up. “Yes, you’re
right.” She said and started to walk away. “Daisuke,” She stopped and turned
around, looking at her feet, “I don’t know why but,” She looked me in the eye
just then, “Thank you.”
Once she was gone, I bit into the spider with
gusto.
It tasted... pretty sweet.
~~~~~yomichi~~~~~
The next spider I ate was yellow, with red
spots. It came from a woman on her way back from work that night. She was
wearing a black skirt and blazer with a maroon blouse. She had just given her
boss a blow job so she could get promoted.
The spider was large and messy, but it tasted
so good, so sweet, I wolfed it up, tore into it. Its legs dangled from my mouth
as the juices from its body ran down my chin.
Regret...guilt...remorse...Those feelings
turn the knots in one’s heart into the spiders. I’ve removed these bugs from so
many people...
~~~~~delirious~~~~~
Just a few days ago, I went to the Martial Arts
Rhythmic Gymnastics Tournament. It was held at Furinkan this year, and it was
actually a lot more interesting to watch than I would have thought, but still I
was restless. Those spiders tasted so good...I wanted more. I got out of my
seat after this one fight between Ukyo and another girl I didn’t know. Ukyo was
really intense and she somehow learned a weird ki technique...The spider on her
chest almost covered her leotard. It was frightening...but it made me hungry.
I left the Gymnasium and I wandered around
the halls of Furinkan, trying to find someone with a spider by themselves so
that I could take it from them. I saw the school nurse heading to her office.
She had a big one on her heart. So I followed her inside.
She looked up at the ceiling, sitting on her
chair as a grabbed her spider. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I had to have the
abortion...I had to!”
I didn’t really care what she said though. I
just tore into the red and green spider, ripping off it’s
legs then its head than finally eating the rest of it.
~~~~~penalty
taker~~~~~
Then she blinked, got up, and asked me if I
could watch the office for a little while.
I stood there for a while looking out the
window, thinking. Something was nagging at me about the woman but I couldn’t tell
what.
Then I heard the door slide open and shut
again and a quiet female voice say “Please excuse my rudeness.” I looked behind
me. The girl who came in wore a Hebereke High jogging suit and had her hair in
large pigtails that fell on her shoulders and seemed somehow conservative. They
looked a little like the collar of a coat turned up. I realized this was the
girl that had fought with Ukyo in the last match I saw. And then I saw that she
had a spider of her own on her chest.
She threw a tissue or something into the
trash and looked up. She seemed a little surprised to see me there; so I said,
“The nurse isn’t here.”
That was all, and then I went for the spider
without really thinking. The girl stepped back though, then she seemed to want
to get past me but I advanced on her again, knowing that once I ate the spider
she wouldn’t remember anything I did. I had her pinned against the medicine
supply cabinet. “Don’t move!” I said, reaching for her chest.
She stepped back, startled, into the
cabinet, knocking over two bottles of medicine. One crashed into the floor, the
other hit and rolled toward my foot. The sound seemed a little louder than it
should have been...distorted.
If I hadn’t just eaten a spider I might not
have notice it, but there was something different about this girl. Almost as if
she wanted her spider to be there.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I never had to explain myself before; so I just tried the
truth. “There’s a bug attached to your heart. I understand if you don’t want me
to touch you, but if you let it, that bug is going to completely devour you.”
The girl eyes went wide “Huh?”
I tried to explain: “It’s that knot you feel
inside your heart. I’ve been able to see these things recently.”
This made her more frightened though and she
started backing away from me, toward the door.
“You’ve been keeping your feelings bottled
up, haven’t you? For a long time now.” I smiled,
giving up. “I’m Daisuke Jonouchi, a senior.” I moved past
her, sliding open the door to go out. I turned back, though, to say, “Let me
know if you ever want me to grope your chest. It’s better than letting that bug
eat you up, right?” I chuckled and left her in the office.
Yes, I thought as
I left her there, I’m helping these
people. I stepped outside onto the stairs leading to the roof and looked
out across the city. I’m a savior to
them.
I was a hero, I realized. And I laughed in
joy.
~~~~~pone~~~~~
That night, when I got home, I ate the spider
in Dad’s chest. The sunset coming through the window onto the tatami in front of Mother’s shrine, I told him, “Dad,
you’re better now.”
He got up from his knees turned and, as if
caught in a reverie said, “Oh yeah, time for dinner...” and walked to the kitchen.
I glanced a my mother’s picture, thinking of
how proud she would be of me if she knew what I was doing, and then I tore into
Dad’s spider.
~~~~~sirens~~~~~
Five years ago, my mother was late picking me
up from the hospital; so I walked home. When I got there, I found a large group
of people standing around my house behind police tape. Lights from ambulances
and police cars flashed blue and red at me, and I knew something was wrong, but
I still had no idea what.
I pushed through the crowd to the police line
where an officer told me to stand back. I saw my father watching as the
paramedics wheeled a stretcher into the back of an ambulance. He turned, and
seeing me, said out loud, “Daisuke...”
Then I saw Mom’s car. The windshield was
covered in blood, the passenger window too, and her shoe...I saw her shoe on
the pavement blood splattered all over it, and I knew... “Mom!”
I screamed... “Mom!”
The next day the paper read “Afternoon
Murder: Serial Killer Strikes Again” The article explained how my mother’s
gruesome death fit the M.O. of the serial killer that had been killing people
in broad daylight. She was her way to pick me up from the hospital... My father
never forgave himself for letting her go alone.
We had a traditional Shinto funeral. Father
kept looking at Mom’s face during the viewing and crying anew. I knew, though,
that Mom would have wanted me to be strong and so I helped Dad remember his
duties to our guests at the viewing—greeting each one and thanking them for
coming and asking if they would like to see the body—even though I just wanted
to go to my room and cry my eyes out myself.
~~~~~higure~~~~~
I ate Dad’s spider. And I ate several spiders
the next day.
I remember I ate a woman’s spider underneath a
bridge on the canal. Outside, above the power lines there was the aurora that
had been there since that light a month ago...
That day I came home to find my Dad looking
at Mom’s picture again, only this time it was in his hands and he seemed to
have a confused expression on his face.
“Daisuke...” He said, “This woman...who is
she?”
I gasped. Something wasn’t right...
~~~~~kurasu~~~~~
I saw Yuka the next day, in Math class,
cheating on her practice exam...
~~~~~yomichi~~~~~
I went to the arcade that night and watched
all the people there, playing games, going on dates, trying to forget all their
troubles when the reality finally hit me. What I had been eating...was their memories.
“Isn’t better for bad memories to simply be
forgotten?” I asked one girl in an alley way when she thought I was molesting
her. Of course she didn’t say anything.
I was eating her spider that night...or maybe
it was somebody else’s...when a light shone on me in the dark. It was a cop. He
had a broad face with chiseled features. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing,” I said and walked off, but the
look the cop gave me...it was like he knew...
~~~~~asa no yamatedoori~~~~~
I didn’t go home that night. I stayed up
looking for spiders all along the city streets. By that morning I was weak,
worn out, exhausted. I needed spiders...bugs...
I leaned against the side of a building to
rest for a while, when I saw a girl sitting in the sidewalk in a very pink,
very frilly skirt. It was Shiratori Asuza, I
remembered her from the “Charlotte Cup” but she seemed even less coherent than
usual.
She laughed and smiled at me. She lifted her
hands up palms together with the tips of her fingers pointed toward me. When she
separated her hands there was a glowing butterfly that fluttered toward me.
“A bug...” I murmured hoping this would be as good as a
spider...but it wasn’t.
It wasn’t good at all.
I had tried to forget it, to erase it from my
mind, but when the butterfly touched me I was brought back to that night I saw
Ranma...
~~~~yomichi~~~~
The girl with the glasses was dead, bleeding
profusely from a deep bite mark on her neck. Cradling her, smiling predatorily
as she knelt on the ground, was Kodachi. Smiling exactly the same way...was
Ranma, standing over her...as if he were proud...
“What the...What the hell is this?”
~~~~~delirious~~~~
I was back on the street looking at Asuza sitting there smiling at me...
“What was that?”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I ran away.
I’m such a coward.
I ran to the business district, where strings
of people where coming and going. It started to rain, I was soaked and tired
and weak...I need bugs...but when I saw a woman with a spider and I called out
to her...
There was that cop, across the street,
looking at me...watching me...
The woman asked me what I wanted.
“Nothing.” I said
and walked off.
Night again and I needed bugs.
I found another woman with a spider and I was
eating it...eating her memories... when out of nowhere it appeared...no materialized in front of me.
The death kami. The Grim Reaper. The Black Hat. Boogiepop...But that wasn’t what scared
me...what scared me was the face it wore. The face I could not drive out of my
memory...the face of Kuno Kodachi.
“What the...? What do you want?” I demanded
as I started running, scrambling down the street.
The street light seemed to drift past me as a ran through the mist and then, right in front of me
Boogiepop materialized in a flash of light again, blocking my path.
That black shadow followed me everywhere. It
was Death!
And now here I am in the dark, not even sure
of where I am, trying to hide from what I thought until now was just an urban
legend. An urban legend that wore the face of Ranma’s seducer of the murderer
of so many girls that I did nothing to help...
Why would she eat me? I wonder I would taste
terrible! A coward like me...
“Is there anybody there?” The voice is sweet,
human, recognizable... And I realize that I am sitting between the kami of death and...
“Tendo Nabiki?” The apparition asks in an odd
voice that seems to come from several directions at once.
“Boogiepop?” Nabiki
asks in kind. She has longer hair now and she’s dressed in elbow and knee pads
and holding some sort of rectangular device in her hand. “No! You’re the Manticore!”
She reaches behind her and brings out a crossbow and aims it at the ghost-like
figure.
“No,” the figure says, “I am Boogiepop.”
Nabiki turns her head to me: “Daisuke, get
the hell out of here! Now!”
I do what she says. I run as fast as I can,
but I’m nearly out of breath after two steps. All I’ve had to eat for two days
are bugs, and I haven’t had any sleep and I’ve been running all night...
I trip and fall face down on the concrete. I
remember the conversation between Tofu and Nabiki:
“So tell me, ‘Sensei’ Tendo Nabiki, what would you like to be?”...“I’d
like to just fight evil head on...a defender of justice. That’s what I want to
be.”
“Then be one! I’m sure you could do it.”
I get up from the ground, chuckling in spite
of myself from the irony. Is Nabiki a defender of justice? It hardly seems
fair...
I feel a rush of air and an electric charge
as Boogiepop—or is it the Manticore?—
materializes in front of me.
“Have you been waiting long?” she asks coolly
in her strange, organically electronic voice. “It took me a while to get rid of
her.”
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask.
“I’m not going to kill you.” She points a
finger at my chest and I look down.
Every spider I’ve ever eaten is there. Ever
color, every variety, they’re all there eating me up inside...
~~~~~cathedral~~~~~
“I’m just here to take you there.” A brilliant light envelopes me and the apparition. Inside
the light I see...my classmates... from so long ago...when I was still
strong...when I was a hero.
“Dai-chan! Over
here!” they beckon.
I’m laughing now. Tears of joy stream down my
face. “Everyone’s here,” I say, and I join them...forever.
~~~~~kurasu~~~~~
You’re eating lunch when you hear the news.
“Did you hear?” a girl you know starts, “Jonouchi
from Class 1...He disappeared!”
“It’s been awhile,” another girl says.
“Since what?” you ask.
“Since anyone disappeared.”
You
pass by Class 1 on the way to the bathroom and you notice an empty desk. It
seems eerie, but...it couldn’t be the same person that was in your
dream...could it?
~~~~~[END]~~~~~
People who
accept the world...
In this world,
everything exists...
Anything can
happen...
And...
Everything does
happen...
All
the time.
Next Chapter:
Life Can Be So Nice
Thanks go to
Nemesis Zero for prereading.