The bounding 33
"Look up…" As both sat on their wooden porch, Youki leaned back on his partner's chest, "Isn't it beautiful?"
Ranma blinked after embellishing in the saturated skies, the marred stars painted with jade and alabaster over a black canvas that upheld an unblemished revel for their eyes to relish. Ranma's bandaged hands went around Youki's wrapped waist before him.
It was the first night that the skies weren't opaque by the dousing clouds since the winter arrived. The violent thunderstorms became an unrelenting problem for the village since they welcomed the New Year.
Ranma couldn't recall another nightfall without having to welcome a rain that overcame the last one as the days progressed. Little by little, the weather condition obligated some villagers to flee, leaving a trail of solitary thoroughfares and a silent ghost town almost for himself. A couple of traders and merchants remained, but Ranma realized he didn't miss the overpowering noise.
"The rain is coming."
"You think?" Youki asked almost despondently.
"See," Ranma made a sly head-gesture upwards, his low voice remained peaceful "the clouds are mounting."
Youki's attention focused on the skies that darkened with each passing second. He suddenly flinched, surprising his partner at the moment he reincorporated from where he was resting "Damn!" He cussed, "I forgot to go errands."
Ranma's eyebrow raised and he stared taciturnly at his partner, it didn't surprise him that Youki would forget something "What is it that you didn't do?"
Youki's eyes lit up as he turned to face Ranma, "Come with me?" He tightened a black obi around his waist as he stood up "I forgot to go downtown for some Ponzu and I also needed some bamboo regales for the mats inside."
Ranma sighed lazily, "Isn't it too late Youki?"
"It isn't raining and we have lamps, I don't see a problem."
"It will rain."
"Hats? Plus I really need to go, otherwise tomorrow's food will get spoiled and the bathmat will get ruined."
Ranma chuckled, "It tastes bad already."
"What was that?"
Ranma who was sitting with his legs bended, jestingly dismissed him as he placed his sword inside its case. In a hasty hurdle, he was back on his feet.
"I said I'll do, but let's try to come back before dawn."
Youki smiled and handed Ranma a conical rice-hat for the upcoming storm, before leaving their house, Youki snapped his fingers to ablaze a kerosene lamp outside their wooden home and with his other hand, he grabbed one for themselves, Ranma almost forgot Youki wasn't a human being "We will Ranma."
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Their walk downtown was quiet, the rain started pouring a couple of steps away from their home, it occurred to Ranma that he never felt uncomfortable with their silence, even if Youki decided to break it, the small talk was always fitting for their commodity.
Though none-relative to his previous thoughts, Ranma noticed his own lack of understanding when it came to their union and how did they end up being so hopelessly in love with the other. Ranma reached outside the dry circle his rice-hat created, his hand-wrap immediately soaked but coldness never grasped him as his fingers intertwined with those of the young demon.
"Have you ever thought about our lifespan Youki?"
Youki's train thought stopped as he disjointed Ranma's question for full understanding. He found himself not too staggered and he knew where Ranma was impending to go with it "I find it sternly terrifying…" He smiled contemptuously, "Can we not talk about that?"
Ranma smiled within his stoic seriousness, "We should actually. And It shouldn't be scary. The day we finally separate shouldn't be overwhelming, I cling to the idea you'll outlive me for more than a hundred years."
Youki's heart tugged, "I reasonably don't hope so."
"Don't be stupid." Ranma was expressionless but firm, "That is something you shouldn't chose or argue. I can't trust your life to your own hands so I might make you promise me something."
"Don't…" Youki's hand tightened on his, "I just… can't seem to try to induce myself otherwise. It feels overpoweringly dense when I try to."
"But I needed to speak this with you. I still need to."
Youki turned slightly at him, "I'd prefer not to."
"Why not? It's inevitable. Death is inevitable for the likes of me. I was taught that my future was dying before my eyes. Death is something I shouldn't bat an eye for."
Youki lowered his gaze, "But that's you…" his outbreath could be seen as white smoke, "We have always been so different."
"Differences sometimes are disguised by lack of understanding. If I explain you my views upon death then-"
"It's not that. I… I'm afraid Ranma…. I'm afraid because I understand what it means to you and what you expect me to understand about it."
"Then don't be. Reality is what it is, I can't embellish everything that's crude. Death is only part of having being here. Alive."
Their sandals soon reached the end of the paved dusted road, Youki was still holding the red paper uplighter when they were stopped by a lake that seemed black and startlingly endless at night, "There is the boat." For them it wasn't an obstacle, both knew this lake separated their secluded village from the noisier town, "Help me in. Please be careful with the lamp."
Ranma nodded and detained to look at Youki's darkened expression, he sighed as he pulled the feeble demon closer "I don't want to scare you."
"No it's…" Youki closed his eyes as he wrapped his arms around him, careful not to drop the lamp "It is just that… I don't want to die after you."
Ranma just said what he wanted him to understand. It was that one thing that he said before helping him inside the boat. Though at the time distant, they held a powerful reality that would carve through Youki, for the rest of his life.
"You are a demon, I am a human. I will always die before you."
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There is an old sage that sings the story of a relegated creature, a beautiful demon who once fell in love with a mortal Samurai; the tale says the finite being had strong cobalt eyes and deliberate hands, the Sakuras had to bloom twice to bring their souls to union. Despite of his relative fragile lifespan, the human showcased strength and an unbendable sense of honor, one so powerful, the demon could not help but fall weak on his arms. Enchanted by the willful creature, the demon decided to travel from coast to coast aside of his one true love. For years and years, both could easily admit that they found the evermore in the arms of the other.
Being too soon for him and for their world they cocooned, at the age of 33, and after falling ill to an odd disease, the samurai died at the hands of the unbendable fate. Devastated and miserable, the demon is known for having reached what denial could lend him.
The timeless demon, desperate to see him again, searched for Dark Tezuma, a forlorn, obscure mystic measure in the demoted forests near Fuji Mountain. He met the witch Ayako, a mistress in it.
"A dead men can't be brought back to life." She endlessly warned him. "That is something everyone who wishes to trespasses the forbidden threshold of Tezuma must know" Upon seeing the demon's heart-wrenching desolation, she diffidently resolved, "Nevertheless, a soul can be attached to this earth, as long as the remaining one is willing to piece himself apart."
"I would do anything in my power to see him again."
The adage says that after piecing his own existence for him, the graceful demon managed to bring the samurai back to life, but their memories were haunted to be lost. The demon would be doomed to find him in the seas of people, life after life, only if he wanted to feel him again.
"33 years", the old witch said, "He will live a thousand times, but he will live just a day after his 33rd birthday, after he dies again, your hunting to be with him goes back to zero."
The demon unstated, but wondered what 'piecing' meant. The witch willfully explained, "In exchange to forcefully bind his soul to this earth; your existence will become weaker, until one day you'll suddenly disappear and your soul will meander lost, forever and it shall not have another chance to reincarnate. After you die, he may or he may not reincarnate again, as uncertain as it naturally goes. He won't die at the age of 33."
It was a price, the demon was willing to pay.
"How do I know when he gets to be born again?"
"33 years after he dies, he'll reincarnate again. Look out for his eyes, look out for his hands, for them shall be the same, eternity after eternity. Lock the secret within the deepest chambers of your heart, for the Samurai shall not once know that you are bounded through more than flesh; if he finds out, then his soul shall go to where it belongs: Deep in the seas of the unreachable dead."
"33 years." The demon mumbled, his inquire felt too stated to be a question "What if he doesn't recognize me?"
"He will. But not in the way you think he will."
The witch didn't say any other word as she left and it is told that the demon was never able to find her again.
.
"I had found you time after time, waited in silence for your youth to reveal the eyes I know, every time I've ever so mystically met I pretended I was sixteen or in this lifespan, I told you I was fourteen. I've seen you dressed in different epochs and times, different experiences and different wombs have carried you time after time. It's funny how your temper never faded, how your name remained. Your face, your lips, your voice…. You. I am lucky to tell you I found you every time you lived.
But this have had its consequences. I once thought of getting over it and leaving your existence to meander without mine because it was too devastating to let you die each time. But I couldn't, I always crawled back to lurk through the places you went, only to have our story to restart. In a couple of lives, I saw you fall in love with someone else but I waited from afar, waited for your heart to take my direction and I always welcomed it. It never ceased to be pure.
I confess, as the time passed, my mind became ill and the modern world gave me a diagnosis that I figured rooted back to each desperation I endured when I tried to find you, when I had you and I was forced to see you die. It's not your fault, this whole scheme was my idea.
If you wonder, no, when you died, the pain never got better, it didn't matter how many times I saw it happen, every time that life left your eyes, it left me the bitter acrimony a dead one leaves. Love of my existence, not once have I felt relief or I've thought that it's unimportant because I was promised I would see you again later.
Between us, along all those years that I spent chasing you, both met people that I was obliged to forget, people that I saw become so dear to us perish as they naturally do, for this time, I hope Shippo lives a thousand years. It's strange how I never learned to cope well with the soul's slumber.
All in all, I wanted to have you and I did, and so I became weak. Put yourself in my shoes, I had to wait this god-damned number that I loathe, this number that condemns my sin for not having being able to let you rest.
I told you lies and I pretended that my mind was broken only because I missed a mother I left centuries ago, I'm broken because no matter how strong our bond became over and over again, destiny always managed to tear us apart when you got to that unholy age. You know, somehow you always came with that knowledge, the understanding that you would die at that age. Though this time, you are supposed to stay and retake the natural cycle I broke. This time, though you think you will, you will not die when you get to your 33's.
But then again, why did I agree to go through the grief of losing you over and over again?
I was ending myself slowly, I lived every time you kissed me, every life in which you claimed me as yours, every time you fell for me, though some lives more difficult than others, you always managed to be back in my arms. It was wistful, it was hurting but so flawless, we are just each other's halves. I can't think of a world without you in it. I never had it. I never wanted it.
I write you this letter because I know for certain, that this time around, my dear boy, I won't get through this specific lifespan. This, for once is the last time we meet. I've managed to wreck my existence. Wasn't for my borderline mentality, I'm sure we would have been destined to meet again. I really think you are my soulmate. I understand many things now and I'm sick of saying I'm a teen when the weight of the years goes beyond your comprehension.
For this, I hope I ring you the first time you loved me and make you notice that you were wrong, you were wrong that one time, you do not always get to die before me.
I'm writing this letter and I feel my limbs creaking, today I couldn't move, I know I'm dissolving, your call is ringing but I can't manage to tell you with my voice because it is trembling so much that you'll think I'm committing suicide, I don't want to scare you, it's just that I've reached the end of my deal with that witch.
This words may lay down as insanity, but today I understood that today is the day that I get to vanish, that I overdid my body and I overdid our bound. But I confess it was beautiful and I would do it again, just to see your eyes one more time. I love you, I loved you in every life, though my soul must now be crushed to infinity and condemned to never embody again, I will love you through the dust I shall forever become.
Ranma don't be afraid to let me go.
-Youki."
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AN/
Imagine if this was canon? This could fit lmao.