Halfway Across Hell and Turn Left, The Toilet's There Somewhere
A Halloween special from our crew, consisting of Apocalypse Alchemist, Beyond the Bounds, Apocalypse Alchemist, Zenithos, Apocalypse Alchemist, Eternity Incarnate, and last, but certainly not least, Apocalypse Alchemist.
Keitaro and Kanako send half the Hinata Sou population to hell by making a deal with the Jigoku Shoujo, Shinobu Maehara, who makes a slight blunder and sends the other half of the Hinata Sou population down as well. Watch as the Hinata gang bring hell to hell.
Dark Knight Gafgar has been extremely generous in letting us amateurs use his idea as part of our fanfic plot. Thanks a lot, Dark Knight Gafgar. We couldn't have done it without you.
Zenithos also takes credit for a part of the plot idea, especially everything appertaining to the jigoku shoujo. This fanfic wouldn't exists without him either.
Note: Jigoku Shoujo hell girl
Disclaimer: We don't own Love Hina, or Hell in general. We don't own Jigoku Shoujo either, which makes up a very small part of the story plot. Don't worry if you've never heard of it before.
Proofread by one another.
Chapter 1: I'm Not a Lawyer…
The clock on his dresser glowed on the edge of the pool of light cast by the computer's blue black glow, showing the time to be 12.06 PM. The screen itself was still casting light, despite the fact that the screen was pure black. In the middle of it was a single text field. Under it was an icon labeled 'submit'. Way under all that, in dark violet letters, almost obscure and invisible against the black background, was minuscule writing in ineligible cursive.
Keitaro Urashima, constantly abused manager of the Hinata Sou, had spent a good half an hour trying to make heads or tails of the text. So far he had deciphered 'Disclaimer: Our Agency is not responsible for any decisions made under the effects of alcohol, medication of any kind, insanity, anime and mangas, or anything else that might inhibit reasoning power. Also, if you happen to be already eligible for hell by default, e.g. lawyers, political leaders, fanfic writers, etc. then good for you.'
Keitaro had also spent a good portion of that time trying to decide whether or not he should go ahead with this.
For one thing….the girls were certainly evil to him….but did they really deserve hell? Then his mind went back to what had happened today…or rather, the day before.
Hell….
He hardened his will and typed in 5 names into the field on screen. He started with 'Narusegawa Naru' (tapping the letter 'u' never felt so good) then 'Aoyama Motoko ' (he tapped the last 'o' with a vengeful flourish), followed by 'Konno Mitsune' (another vengeful hammer on the last 'e'), Kaolla Suu (his finger hung on the 'u' but, tapped it anyway), and Sarah McDouggal (no regrets here. That 'l' made a really satisfying 'tap').
He sighed and sat back, looking at the 5 names. He wondered about it for a moment. The other side of the deal, was, off course, that he had to surrender his soul to be taken to hell when he died. He shook his head, chuckled to himself a bit, before reaching out to turn off the computer. Quite accidentally, he knocked over a small figurine of Bill Gates that sat atop his computer. It fell.
Hell….
Just as toast always fell on the buttered site, Bill Gates fell on his head on the 'enter' button. Keitaro flinched and shrieked.
Meanwhile….on the other side of the Hinata Sou….
A small compact laptop flashed on of its own accord. A happy sing song voice chirped 'you have mail'.
A timid hand reached out for the computer and looked down at the little teddy bear announcing the e-mail. It slowly, with all the skill of a computer illiterate caveman, maneuvered the touch pad towards the announcement and clicked.
The girl gave a little gasp as a blank black screen (which had 'Hellmail' TM written at the top) replaced the strawberry littered desktop. She yelped and gagged herself with a nearby handkerchief as she read the names written on the screen.
Her eyes went twirly as she wobbled about the room, before smashing into a bookcase which sent a shower of story books and dolls down on her.
Then she rolled across the room, emitting her characteristic 'awawawawawawawa'.
What was an average teenage girl to do in such a situation anyway? She was, after all, your standard issue teenage girl….well….with the exception of one minor thing…
She was a jigoku shoujo, a hell girl, and whichever authority chose her as hell's agent clearly needed a demotion and some strong coffee, and possibly electroshock-therapy as well.
She hadn't had a job for quite a while, not since 9/11 when half the world had typed in either one of two quite popular names. The only thing that had prevented her from wiping out half the world population for it was the fact that not even hell was equipped to handle such a population surge (not to mention they weren't ready to handle the two said popular people). So, due to newly agreed population laws and other bureaucratic things agreed on by the authorities, about 3 million send-to-hell requests were cancelled overnight and people just dismissed her website as pure crap.
It wasn't her fault either.
Being a grim reaper who had just got fired for inexcusable blunders (such as the death of Elvis Presley. Seriously, nobody wanted to see him go), she had wanted to start off a freelance death agency so people wouldn't have to go through all the trouble of euthanasia. But the authority had other plans….
And so she joined the ranks of the jigoku shoujos as…well, technically, the first. The authority told her she was joining, rather than starting, to make sure it seemed like they had authority. Oh well. The pay was good. So were the working conditions, though she had to work the graveyard shift, literally. Then there was all the trouble with her inbox clogging up every night at 12.
Why she was only allowed to have her website open at 12 was anyone's guess…just another thing the authority thought up to make her life difficult, probably…
Half the requests were always housewives and mother-in-laws (and, at times, their respective children-in-laws), who would cancel the deal the very next day, after the grandchildren finally arrive.
The other half would usually be readers trying to kill fanfic writers for bashing the wrong characters…which never works cause pen names don't count.
At least she got an assistant to take care of such things…
At that very moment, the said assistant went 'myuu' as it tapped her on her shoulders.
The little girl sniffled, nodded, got up, bumped her head on the table, got up with a bit more care, got dressed, and scrabbled out of the window.
At the same time, another mail arrived.
This one said 'Bill Gates'.
"WAAAAAH!" Maehara Shinobu wailed as she banged her little fists on the bar top.
"So….you've got to go and send all your best friends to hell…wow…." The bartender shook what was left of his head, putting the glass of milk in front of her. He was a very understanding bartender, and in his line of work, it was best to have a heart in the right place. He knew that. That's why he kept his heart in a vault twenty stories underground inside a concrete bunker.
Not that it helped. This was that kind of world after all…
At the other end of the bar, Anubis and Hades were throwing peanuts at a plasma screen TV showing Bleach.
On a table on one side sat the writers of the 'Underground Comedy Movie', talking over their next diabolical plan to destroy the universe.
"You know….perhaps you should skip the dilemma scene, cause there are readers out there waiting to see the hell part of the story…" the bartender suggested to Shinobu, serving the three Fates who were tossing their only eye to one another just to see the menu. Shinobu looked up and gave him a dirty look. "Hey….the thing is, this whole weeping on a bar counter thing is just too cliché. In my opinion, just get it over with. You can make new friends. Besides, you don't really have much of a choice, do you?" The bartender said. "Also…the readers might start condemning more fanfic writers to hell for this…"
A fight broke out between the customers and the live band over their sudden choice to sing a particular Back Street Boys song. Since it was this kind of bar, they were now officially no longer a live band. They were, in all definitions, a dead band.
"I'd hurry if I were you." The bartender said to Shinobu, handing an Okinawan woman a glass of watermelon punch.
"Why?" Shinobu moaned. "These are my friends I'm talking about…"
"With the bill I mean. Happy hour ends in 5 minutes." The bartended whispered. The bar suddenly went dead silent as all the eyes (dead or alive) turned to the bartender.
"err…a round of drinks on me?" The bartender hazarded.
Keitaro looked at the screen thoughtfully, shrugged, and yawned. There was nothing else to do. He'd probably go to hell anyway for all the stuff he had stashed under his bed. He had no regrets.
His phone suddenly rang. He jumped, knowing this must be the phone call from beyond the grave.
"Ummm…Anou….oh, I'm supposed to stay silent…." The voice on the other side said.
"Shinobu-chan?" Keitaro asked.
"Oh…no…I'm not Shinobu…" The voice on the other side panicked.
"But this is your number…" Keitaro said, puzzled.
"Really? Oh…I'm sorry sempai, I pressed the wrong button. Goodnight!" The voice said, before hanging up. Keitaro looked down at the phone, puzzled.
It rang again. This time, the number was unknown. Keitaro picked it up and listened. The one on the other side was silent. Ah, yes, the voice from beyond the grave…
Suddenly, someone knocked on his window. There was a scuffle, a light curse, before someone screamed.
Keitaro rushed over to the window and opened it. There was nobody.
"Down here…" A little voice said. Keitaro obediently looked down.
A small cloaked figure was dangling on his window sill. Keitaro immediately reached down, and, with some difficulty, pulled the figure in.
"Err…anou…ummm…..mortal….ummm….you have requested my services…." The figure said in a deep, ethereal voice, trying its best to keep its face concealed under the dark hood. "Here is a straw doll that marks our contract…." She took out a small teddy bear with a red ribbon tied around its neck.
"Err…straw doll?" Keitaro asked. He gave the teddy bear a careful look-over.
It was made in China.
"Anou…anou…we just ran out of straw dolls…but this doll will do." The cloaked figure explained, panicking. "Anou…just pull off the red ribbon and the contract will be sealed….we'll send the ones agreed on straight to hell….ummm…that's all…"
Keitaro gave the ribbon an experimental pull. Then he gave it an experimental tug. Then he gave it an all out tug-of-war.
"Err….I can't pull it…" Keitaro said, pointing at the knot. It was knotted into a jumble of multiple dead knots.
"Additional security. We only provide the best." The figure explained, before turning around and leaping out of the window. "IYAAAAAAAN!" It cried, before a flat thud came back up to Keitaro's ears.
Keitaro shrugged, put the teddy bear down on his dresser, turned off his computer, and went to sleep.
Unbeknownst to him, Urashima Kanako was on the other side of the door, and she had listened to every single little word.
That night, the jigoku shoujo went to sleep, comfortable with the knowledge that she had followed the instructions in 'Knotty Naughty Knots Not for Normal Knotters' to the letter. There was no way in the world her sempai could get through those knots.
A bit later that night, Urashima Kanako too went to sleep, comfortable with the knowledge that she had followed the instructions in 'How to Unknot Knots from Knotty Naughty Knots Not for Normal Knotters' to the periods.
Early the next morning….
Narusegawa Naru yawned as the tutor read out a physics thermodynamics question. "Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with proof."
Most of the students wrote their answers using Boyle's Law as proof (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some other variant.
Naru herself had written something along the lines of Energy conversions. She knew she'd be right anyway.
One student, however, wrote the following:
"First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So, we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Narusegawa Naru during my first day, "That it will be a cold night in Hell the night I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then 2 cannot be true, and so Hell is exothermic."
The answer was definitely a straight A retarded answer for a straight A retarded question, which meant the boy who answered it got all the marks.
It was Urashima Keitaro, whose answer was read out to the entire class.
Everyone laughed.
"Narusegawa Naru has never been wrong, therefore, following her postulate, Urashima Keitaro's answer must be correct….but as today she has gotten her answer completely wrong, then we have a very interesting logical paradox, class…" The tutor said, eyeing Naru.
"What is this retard talking about?" Naru sighed. "I must've woken up in hell…"
"Is this the best you could do?" The bartender asked, pointing at the small globe floating in the middle of his bar.
"I…I'm trying my best…" Shinobu mumbled, looking into the globe as well. She herself wasn't too impressed with her handy work…though she found that theory about hell quite impressive. "Wait…This won't be very pretty, but I think I can work something out…"
"NARU!" Keitaro stood up and shouted, looking around at Naru. "What is 1 plus 1?!"
"Ah…" Naru's head went blank…the answer was there somewhere…but she had forgotten it somehow. Oh no…this was really really bad…
"Oh God…this is lame…you call yourself a jigoku shoujo?" The bartender threw his six hands in the air and caught them again.
"I'm still…trying…." Shinobu said, her eyebrows knotting in concentration.
"Naru! Since you've failed these simple questions, the school will prohibit you from taking the Tokyo U examinations until you've cleaned up the entire school!" The tutor shouted.
"WHAT?!" Naru shouted, turning pink with incredulity. If this was a story, someone had had much too much vodka. "What's the reasoning there?!"
"JUST WORK!" Keitaro shouted, throwing a bucket and mop at Naru. "Get moving!"
"errr….is it just me, or is this a bit too random?" the bartender asked.
"I dunno….I can't think of anything…" Shinobu sighed.
Naru was suddenly suspended from the top floor over a busy street by nothing more than a thin rope.
"HURRY UP AND WIPE THOSE WINDOWS!" the tutor's voice shouted from above.
"WH…WHAT IS THIS?!" Naru screamed as she dangled to and thro in front of the cram school building.
"You've failed…Tokyo U…" A voice said from underneath. Naru looked down in horror as a gigantic sheet of paper with the word 'rejection' scrawled all over it flew up towards her. "And…Brother will be mine…." The contours of a gigantic face flew out of the piece of paper, opening its mouth as it reached up for Naru.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Naru screamed.
"Man…..the finishing wasn't bad…" The bartender nodded with approval.
"Thank you…" Shinobu sighed. "But…I thought I had made the knot impossible to untie…sigh, what I have to do for a living…"
On one side of the bar, Anubis and Hades were now fighting over the right to throw the last packet of peanuts at the screen which was now showing DeathNote.
When Naru finally woke up, she found herself falling, fast yet gentle, in a spin. As her brain hazily tried to work out what happened, reality ran into her…in the form of the ground.
"Wow, Sister…what's the rush?" A tall man with a red face asked. He took out a microphone, tapped it to test it, and shouted out. "Hello, everyone! It's another pleasant day here, the weather's dark, hot, and dusty, with temperatures as low as 5.000 degrees. We owe this rather low temperature to the fact that Britney just had another baby despite her colossal investment in birth control. We might be expecting cooler temperatures should Sheffield ever score a goal, though the chances of that are significantly lower. Anyway, I'm the devil, and as you can see, this is hell. You can call me Toby. We like keeping things informal here…as well as infernal…" Everyone waiting outside the gates of hell looked at one another. "I'm just joking…" He laughed. "I tell that one to all the newbies. It never gets old." He laughed again.
"Very well…as you can see, you are standing in front of the gates of hell." He continued, gesturing at the great iron gates, which, obviously, had been constructed by the lowest bidder. "Every year, we receive colossal amounts of 'visitors'…" He gestured at a gigantic billboard beside the gates that said 'Welcome to Hell' in over 600 different languages, with the population meter down below.
The population meter, as Naru noticed when she got up, was spinning rapidly upwards, so fast that the ones, tens, and hundreds meters were a mere blur.
She slowly looked around at the scene around her. The sky was a rather dark shade of pink, though some of the colours definitely bordered on ultra-violent and infra-dead…hardly fashionable, but you never know these days. There was smoke and billboards everywhere. It was crowded too. If Toby hadn't told her this was hell, she'd have thought this was downtown Tokyo or New York.
This was hell…
What was she doing here?
On one side, a bespectacled man was asking questions to another devil in charge. "Yes, yes, you did make a lot of contributions to the world in the field of technology and information, but you also gave us Windows 95 and Windows Millennium…" The devil said, signing something on a clipboard. "Tell you what, go to the judge again and ask if they'll wave that fraud you did with the X-Box. I might be able to fit you in somewhere slightly better."
Naru swooned slightly.
"This has caused us to start using a new and improved sorting system to help speed up your check-in to hell." Toby continued, gesturing at the gates, which had a few thousand queues ranging across it. "It's simple. Liars, thieves and looters, if you could please go and form a queue there….and murderers and homicidal maniacs, over here if you please….adulterers and traitors, over there…..oh, and if the lawyers amongst you could form a line over here. Politicians and bureaucrats, if you could please join the liars, thieves, and looters?!" He shouted out at the general audience. "Miss…" He said over to Naru. "If you'd be so kind as to join this queue here…"
"But…I'm not a lawyer…" Naru said. "Besides…I don't even know what I'm doing here…"
"What's your name?" Toby asked. Naru noticed that he had a smily face pinned to his suit which bore the universally unhelpful words 'Can I help you?'.
"Narusegawa Naru." Naru answered, slightly hesitant.
"Oh, you belong in that queue over there." Toby gestured at a line at the far end, which was half full.
"Huh?" Naru looked over at the queue. "What queue is that?"
"The queue for females who continually harass the living daylights out of their dorm managers, sending them into the upper stratosphere a few times daily, and never remembering to pay their rents on time." Toby said, all in one breath. "Oh, and if you were sent down here by the jigoku shoujo, then you have a separate form to fill out." He said, before moving off to sort out a couple of boy bands scuffling out at the other end of the gate.
"What the…?" Naru looked around at the queue.
"Join the club, sport." One girl said, half sighing, to Naru.
"But…but…I swear…I never sent him flying any farther than the lower troposphere." Another girl argued at the toll booth at the gate.
"Oh God…." Naru shook her head as she reluctantly joined the queue. "What have I done to deserve this?"
"This queue already has a specific name." The girl in front of her said. "If you still don't know what you've done to deserve it then…we can't help you…"
"…I always pay my rent on time…" Naru grumbled. "Well…almost….ok, maybe not…"
To be continued….maybe...
If you have the time, please do take a look at other Love Hina works by members of our crew, Sister Princess by Zenithos, Forevermore, Soul Requiem, Love Hina Alternative, and New Mobile Suit Gundam Hina by BeyondTheBounds, and My Perfect Little Wife by EternityIncarnate, all here on FanFiction(dot)net. Thanks. Our crew wishes you a Happy and Insane Halloween!