Shadow Hearts: Lines of Destiny
Disclaimer: Ranma ½ belongs to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan Inc., Kitty-Fuji TV, Viz Communications Inc.; Shadow Hearts belong to MIDWAY, Azure Group, and Nautilus; Lunar Legend Tsukihime belongs to TYPE-MOON and J.C. Staff; Characters from Sailor Moon belong to Takeuchi Naoko, Toei Animation and DIC; Call of Cthulhu belongs to H.P. Lovecraft, Chaosism, and Wizards of the Coast; Dungeons & Dragons, Shadow Chasers, Urban Arcana belong to Wizards of the Coast.
CHAPTER 1: "All That Has Gone Before"
1915 Takamagahara, in its final moments
"Kato…" Yuri, the 'God Slayer', went to the side of his friend, Japanese Special Agent Kato, who lay dying on the stony ground of Takamagahara, after soundly defeating him in his 'god-thing' form and stopping his plan of reshaping the world in the way he saw fit.
"I'm glad it ended this way," said Agent Kato, his breathing becoming labored.
"Don't talk; you're going to be okay…"
"Heh heh heh. You were always a terrible liar, Yuri…Anyway...I must tell you…once you get into Takamagahara you could never get back to the present world."
"Yeah, I kinda figured it looks that way…" Yuri looked around. Signs of Takamagahara beginning to deteriorate were evident. The ground trembled more than often now and the strange swirly weather condition – becoming erratic and the lightning strikes becoming more violent.
Kato motioned for the 'God-Slayer to listen to what he had to say. "Yuri…you and friends must pray…"
"Huh?"
"Pray for the best world you could ever wish for…only then can you escape this place."
"…I…understand."
"Goodbye…friend…" With his mystic link with the Takamagahara broken, Special Agent Kato body began to glow, slowly transforming into hundreds of tiny golden motes, drifting away and fading into the void of time and space.
"Goodbye…Kato…"
"Yuri…" It was Karin's voice. Turning around he saw her and all his friends, worry and concern written on their faces over their fate at this crucial time. Yuri can see in their eyes the look of trust, trust in his leadership, the trust in him that got them this far, the trust of getting them though this kind of situation. They were all counting on him and he plans no to let them down.
"Everybody, gather around," he motioned to everyone to form into a circle. "Let us all pray. Pray for a world that we could wish for - for ourselves. I know we can do it if we concentrate. If all goes well, we might just get out of this place. Are you all with me?"
"You've have lead us to thick and thin, so far, Yuri" said Gepetto. "I say lets do it!"
"You can count on me!" declared Joachim, his demeanor seemingly sincere for the first time.
"I know we can make it, I can feel it," said Lucia, almost sounding prophetic.
"Awooo!" Blanca vigorously barked in his support
"For our future…" Anastasia clasped Kurando's hand; Kurando answered the Russian princess by holding it tightly and dearly.
"…And for the future of the world."
"Yuri…"
"Karin…"
"Let's go…let's pray for a better world…"
"Yeah…Let's pray…"
Their efforts were rewarded as their prayers were answered, so to speak. One by one each of Yuri's party magically departed – lifting off of Takamagahara surface and slowly fading – transported to where their wishes and prayers would take them. First to go were Gepetto and Joachim followed by Blanca who whimpered in lament – saddened to leave Yuri for good who has been his friend the longest. Lucia smiled and waved her goodbyes; next to come after her were the love tandem of Kurando and Anastasia who held each other like true lovers; Anastasia sighed in contentment, happy for being with her Kurando and knowing that she has the blessing of the Oriental Harmonixer's mother.
"Take care of her Yuri!" said Kurando referring Karin.
"If he becomes trouble for you Karin, just show him whose boss!" teasingly added Anastasia before she and Kurando finally disappeared out of sight leaving Yuri and Karin as only living souls left on Takamagahara.
Yuri suddenly clutched his chest, feeling a strong power emanating from within, threatening to burst forth. Karin gasped as she saw shafts of white flashing light piercing out of Yuri's chest.
"Time's up." Yuri said. "The mistletoe's curse, it's finally taking effect. I knew I was living on borrowed time…"
"Are you scared?" ask Karin, showing great concern and worry for the curse-succumbing Harmonixer hero.
"No."
"Will you lose your memories too?"
"Never."
"Yuri."
"Hey, don't look at me like that? I'll see you soon."
"Please promise me! I don't know what to do if I lose you."
"I promise."
And with that Karin levitated off of Takamagahara joining her friends in the same fashion of departure.
"Karin!" It was Yuri as he took hold of the German girl's hand one last time.
"Thank you, for everything…" Karin smiled at Yuri, tears of joy running down her face. She didn't want to say goodbye for she felt deep in her heart that she and Yuri will meet again. Both finally decided to let go.
"I'll see you all some day." Yuri was all alone now.
"My journey is over. I've lost a lot. In the end, was it really all worth it? Will the new future be any better? Anyway my story is over. I could feel the Mistletoe's Curse overshadowing my soul. And even if I do get to see my friends, it won't be me anymore. But if it means living my life in peace then there is nothing else I could ask for…"
1981 Somewhere in Japan
Three women, in pastel-colored kimonos bearing wicker parasols, were enjoying their Sunday leisure walk in Cherry Blossom Park, doing what women do best – gossiping.
"…Have you heard? Gihdo has proposed to Hikari, they plan to get married very soon."
"Really, how soon, Sanae?"
"I don't have the details yet, Aki. But you know I've heard that they plan to elope after the wedding, just like in those dreamy gaijin stories."
"You're the one who's dreamy, Sanae. If I didn't know better, you've just made that all up."
"No! No! No! It's true I tell you! I swear. . . sigh. . .I how I wish I could have such a true love relationship with someone. . .What about you, Nodoka? You're fast becoming an 'old maid'. When do you intend to find a man and settle down?"
"Huh? I'm just nineteen, Sanae…"
"Yeah and nineteen soon becomes twenty-nine, then thirty-nine and before you know it you're forty-nine."
"Okay, okay, I get the picture Sanae. But even if I wanted to, it's still not possible.
"And why is that, pray tell, hmm?"
"Well Aki, I am after all the heir to my clan and all of its responsibilities will soon fall on my shoulders. Besides, even if given the choice of getting married, I have yet to find the right qualities of the man I'm looking."
"What qualities are you looking for in a man, huh, Nodoka?" peeped Sanae.
"Let see. . .has to be strong, handsome, and of course my favorite trait of all: manly."
"That's. . .it?" snorted Aki, "Geez Nodoka if those are what you're looking in man then why not settle for Shintaro? He fits your bill quite perfectly."
"I think not. True, he does seem to meet my criteria, but I must consider if I have any feelings for the man I choose, and I feel nothing toward Shintaro.
"I don't get you, Nodoka. You can be so complicated sometimes."
"Hey look, over there! That guy. . ."
"Who? That man standing all alone?"
"Yeah, that one. . .he's a hunk and a looker."
"He looks more like a gang member to me. What's he doing, starring up in the air?"
"Probably, he's admiring the Cherry Blossoms. Hey, Nodoka! No fair! I found him first!"
"Nodoka what are you doing? Don't go to that man. There's something strange about him. Nodoka!"
"Excuse me sir. . ."
"Huh?"
". . .But are you lost, or something? Can I help you?"
"Who are you?"
"My name is Nodoka, Nodoka Nanaya. What's yours?"
"I. . .I. . .Don't remember. . ."
"Hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya..." A small balding man in Shinto robes fervently chanted before the central fire pit, currently ablaze, of the Hino Shrine, praying for a augury for a couple – who were present at that time, awaiting for an answer. The diminutive shrine priest suddenly stopped chanting but still remained in a meditative pose, eyes still closed shut.
"Umm. . .Grandpa Hino. . ." The lady guest mustered the courage to speak out, worried over the state of the priest and a bit anxious for the answer she seeks, not for her sake but for 'him'.
"Hush my child. . ." The response was both a confirmation and admonishment. Nodoka kept quiet.
"Strange. This man. . .I see nothing that could tell me about him. . .as if he were a clean slate. . .Wait! I see something. . .A name. . ."
"Tell us Granpa Hino."
"Yuri. . ."
"Yuri?"
". . .I see no more. . ." The small shinto priest finally broke from his meditative stance, blinking his eyes in bewilderment over his surroundings. "Did I do it?"
Nodoka looked at estranged man sitting beside her, whom she found a few days ago in the park, suffering from some amnesia-like illness. 'So his name is Yuri.' Since that time Nodoka couldn't help having some unexplainable feelings toward the strange foreigner, feelings that threaten to bind her heart now moreso after knowing something about him.
1983 Yokohama
A man in white gi collided with a couple of trash bins in his haste, overturning and spilling the contents onto the sidewalk. The man stumbled but quickly picked himself up, resuming his sprint as fast as his bare feet would allow him. Craning his white bandana-covered head almost one-hundred eighty degrees, he curses his misfortune for having his pursuers hot on his trail and closing on him.
'What rotten luck. To be chased off over all things - food. I mean, what's the big deal, those guys were loaded with oodles and oodles of chow, most of it would have probably be thrown out – wasted. I was just relieving them of some of their excesses. It's that evil gnome's fault, he is a slave-driver – making me and my friend do his dirty work and for what so that we would take the heat, to take the fall for his evil deeds? Well no more for me, from now on I'll look after my own welfare. I wonder if Soun is fairing far better than I."
The man who wore wired-rimmed spectacles, stopped in tracks, starring at a wall – a dead end. Somewhere along his personal recollection he unconsciously made a sharp turn toward an alleyway which leads him to his present conundrum.
"We've got you trapped like rat you sneaky food-thief bastard!"
Turning around, the man in white faced the pursuers who've had him cornered. They were tall as they were broad-shouldered, taller and bigger than any man he'd seen. All wore dark business suits, ties, polished shoes and all, not to mention the dark shaded glasses that complete their gangster look, but they're no Yakuza for they were neither Japanese.
"No one crosses Mr. Corsone especially from riff-raffs who spoil the Mister's Gala with local investors."
"Stay back! I warn you! I know martial arts and I'm not afraid to use it, especially against the likes of you!" The 'wise guys' halted their advance upon seeing the guy going for a fighting stance.
"Let's kill this idiot already so that we can get back! I'm starving."
"Why the rush, we can have our dinner right here."
"More like a late night snack."
"What? What are you saying?" muttered man, having a bad feeling about what 'they' said.
"Behold human! Our true forms, may it be the last thing you see before we devour you!"
The three men in blacks' forms shifted, like that of a mirage. They grew taller, two feet more to be exact, towering to become nine-footers. The clothes they wore seem to vanish with the transformation, leaving their molted green wart-covered bodies exposed to the Yokohama night air. Their arms and legs grew longer, with the arms almost reaching for the ground, each of their limbs ended with either a wicked clawed hand or clawed foot. Matted mossy locks topped their monstrous visages which sported yellowish catlike eyes, tapering below them was a foot long beaklike nose and underneath a mouth rimmed with sharp rows of vicious looking teeth.
"Aaaahhh! Monsters!"
With drool dripping from their mouths the monsters lumbered on to advance for the boxed-in victim, who had no where to run and no one to help him.
"Excuse me, fellows! But me and the missus are kinda lost and would appreciate it if you guys could kindly give us directions." All four heads turned toward the voice of the newcomer. It came from a scruffy, red-haired man, clad in outlandish brown leathers decorated with hardcore motifs, a distinctive dull-blue, tear-shaped pendant hung on his neck.
"Oh Yuri. . .you're embarrassing me. . ." blushed his woman companion who accompanied by his side. She wore a kimono, cut in a couple of places to allow her mobility, a katana slung on one of her shoulders, safely sheathed within its scabbard.
"What! More humans! They've seen us. . ."
"It doesn't matter! They'll soon be fodder, the more the merrier!"
"Hey there are three of them! Let's take one each!"
"My thoughts exactly. . ."
But before the three monstrous humanoids could do anything, the man called Yuri made a transformation of his own. After a couple of seconds of wracking pain shooting throughout his body, Yuri whole being gets enveloped in a blinding flash of light, dazing momentarily all those who viewed him. When their eyes finally adjusted, there before them was a being that could only be described as demonic.
"Yuri, these are trolls, they've got regenerative powers, and their only weakness is fire!" Nodoka anticipated for anything but did not draw her blade yet.
"These two are no ordinary humans!" said one of the Trolls, understanding the kimono-garb woman's deduction.
"Let's kill them first!"
Yuri, now Amon, bull-rushed and clothes-lined two of the three trolls, catching one on each of his massive arms and slamming them onto the alley wall, the very wall where the man in white stood, fortunately he had long side-stepped from the said spot avoiding possible serious injury or even death. Now staying by the sides, the spectacled-eyed man scanned for the third troll spotting it making a succession of high jumps for wall to wall, made possible due to narrow nature of the alley, climaxing by executing a high death from above attack aimed at the katana-wielding woman.
"Look out!"
The swordswoman seems not take heed of the man's warning as she merely stood still on her spot waiting for her opponent's attack.
"Ha! Ha! Ha! DIE!"
What happened next seemed surreal. The troll right taloned arm was about to connect with woman's head threatening to tear it off her shoulders, instead it was the troll's arm that got severed and tossed to the side by some unknown force, striking the nearby wall and eventually coming to a rest on the concrete ground. The woman appeared to not have moved from her spot when all of this happened in a fraction of a second. Being a creature with regenerative abilities, the troll was only mildly annoyed by its predicament, the troll backed leaped a couple of feet away from the enigmatic woman; it then look from its stump to its detached limb on the ground. The troll fumbled for its severed arm while glaring at the woman who in turn glared back at it. It finally grabbed its missing member and went about in reattaching it to its stump. To its horror, the ruined limb did reattached itself but merely fell off lifeless back to the ground.
"MY ARM, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO IT!"
The troll's consternation severed to lower its guard, giving way for Swordswoman to go for the offensive. With lightning reflexes, the woman stabbed the troll with the point of her drawn katana at more than a dozen points all throughout its body, many of which weren't deep enough to draw blood. Recovering from the shock of the sudden attack, the troll assessed its body, from arms to torso, from lower body to its legs, for any damages.
"Heh, was that suppose to tickle me? Hey! Don't you turn your back on me you retched cow!"
"You're dead. . ." The woman sheathed back her sword into the scabbard.
"What?" The troll suddenly burst into a gory mess, dismembered into more than a dozen pieces and settling into a pile of blood and carnage.
Yuri in the mean time finished the last troll, using Fides' second form and fire abilities to burn its twitching body into ashes. He then turned to woman, checking her up. Upon seeing her handiwork he impishly smiled at her.
"I could never get used to that, no matter how many times I see you do it, Nads."
"And I could never get used to your referral to me with that Westernese slang."
"Hey don't get upset, besides it somehow suits you, in psycho-bitchy sort of way."
"Really," purred Nodoka, "My, you sure do have a strange way of complimenting me, Yuri."
"Perhaps we should discuss it. . .in a more private setup," said Yuri, taking hold of Nodoka in his arms.
"Yes. . .perhaps we should. . ." Their eyes lock on to each other; their faces hovered close, "should call it a night. . ." Their lips were very near.
"WAHHH! YOU TWO…ARE ALSO MONSTERS! WAHHH!"
Disappointed, and slightly annoyed, that their making out was disturbed abruptly, Yuri confronted the wailing man in white gi who cowered by the side, his fright over his ordeal finally getting the best of him and his bladder causing a stain and smelly liquid to flow out of his white pants.
"Sorry man, we almost forgot about you," said Yuri, trying to disguise his disgust. The guy just continued wailing like a mad man; moreso with the supposedly 'monster' crouched before him.
"You're a monster! I saw you turn into one! Stay away from me!"
Yuri gently grasps him by the shoulders, he could feel him cringing away, but Yuri asserted himself. "Hey man, get a grip of yourself," he lightly patted the man on the cheek, trying to get him to his senses.
"Would you rather prefer monsters you probably have eaten you already. Or monsters who just saved you life?"
"Ah. . .you have a point. . .I-I'm sorry…"
"Well, just to show you that we mean you no harm we'll be on our way, right Nads. Nads"
"Are you hurt sir?" Nodoka touched the man, examining him for any injuries, "I'm trained a little in the Healing Arts. . ."
"No! I mean I'm fine." The man's face turned red, startled by woman's warm touch. He folded his soiled-stained crotch area in embarrassment.
"It's alright; your conduct is quite understandable."
"I'm sorry, it's just that I'm ashamed that a beautiful woman such as yourself examining a pathetic coward like me who wetted his pants in fright."
"Well, at least you called me beautiful and I appreciate it. Unlike someone I know who wouldn't say such normal things in front of a woman."
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Whatever."
"Tell me, Nodoka. That is your name, right?"
Nadoka nodded.
"How did you do it?"
"Did what?"
"That. . ." The man pointed at the minced troll scattered on the ground. "How did you do that to the monster? Huh?"
The three noticed the remains of the trolls, raw and burnt, fading off, turning into shadow-stuff like essence until no sign of the slaughter remained within the alleyway.
"What just happened?" asked the man.
"They've gone back to the Shadow," Nodoka explained, "Trolls are not natives of this realm. When creatures from the beyond die or get killed on this plane of existence, their remains and essences return to where ever they originally came from, at least that's what we have been told."
"Huh?"
Nodoka smiled and chuckled. "Forget what I said, you must be exhausted by your ordeal?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right."
"In any case it's best you get indoors, the streets are not safe at this time, who knows what other baddies lurk within the shadows, waiting to strike. C'mon Nads."
"Wait! I owe my life to the both of you. I'm not sure how I could every repay you both."
"It's alright," said Yuri, "busting those ghouls' butts was a pleasure."
"Allow me then to at least to formally thank you." The man went on his knees and prostrated before his saviors. "I Saotome Genma, thank you. . ."
"Genma. . .Please take care of Nads and Shiki for me. . .wilya?" Yuri stared at the humongous amorphous form of Yog-sothoth slowing engulfing a large portion of the harbor district of Yokohama and it seems 'it' won't be stopping there. ". . .And also. . .Ranma. . .How I wish I could see you come to this world. . .Promise me, Genma. . ."
"I promise. . .Yuri. . ."
"Alright. . .Happo, Yog-slothie, or whatever your stinking slimy name is, let's finish this once and for all!"
"SO BE IT...'GOD-SLAYER'…PREPARE TO MEET THY OBLIVION!"
"LET'S DANCE!" Yuri lunged forward, transforming into Neo-Amon. Spreading his great bat-like wings, he launched himself on a suicide approach with the Cthul-ish aspect of the evil martial artist/sorcerer Happosai.
"Yes, Yuri," said Genma, a devious smirk forming on his face, "I will take very good care of them…"