More Fantasies

Fantasy 02: Curiosity Almost Killed the Ren (Jigoku Shoujo)

"This is my last warning, if you do not stop bothering me I will kill you," Vincent Valentine was angrier than he ever remembered being.

But Reno only looked disappointed, "kill? Is that your revenge? Fine, be that way!" The redhead stomped away.

As a Turk, Reno had already eliminated everyone who ever annoyed him, which meant that he had no one left to curse; hence why he was trying to push Vincent into taking a sort of revenge that would push Reno to hate him, using the hate to summon the famous ferry girl of legend.

Of course, Reno would refuse the contract and take care of his own vengeance, but he needed to summon Enma Ai because he knew of no other way to contact Ren and there was something important he needed to ask about. However, Reno only wanted to summon the ferry girl, not ride her boat, so getting killed was out of the question.

Then an imaginary light-bulb lit up above his head. "Cloud!" and he rushed to call Strife Delivery Service.

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"You want me to deliver this letter to a sword turned human called Ren," Cloud repeated.

Reno nodded, "right, all you have to do is try to use the cursing website at midnight, enter a name and click the button. Then you can ask the ferry girl to give that to Ren if he's not there when she appears. You don't need to curse anyone, just summon the ferry girl."

"Right..." Cloud was starting to doubt Reno's sanity more than usual.

"Everyone I could really hate is dead so I can't summon her." Reno never thought the day would come when that was a bad thing.

Cloud shrugged, he wouldn't lose anything by attempting to use that Deegle search engine to find the cursing site. It would be fine since he didn't actually need to send anyone away; he just needed to speak to the ferry girl to deliver the letter. Besides, it could all be just a legend anyway. Then Cloud realized that he would be unable to do this for similar reasons as Reno. "I don't have anyone to hate either. If hating someone is a requirement, then I can't do this."

"What about Sephiroth?" Reno asked.

"I dislike him very much and think he became a terrible man. But he wasn't always that way before he went insane." Cloud explained. Besides Reno wasn't sure if it would work for someone who was in the life stream rather than the world of the living.

"Then use yourself emo boy, go on one of those I hate myself guilt trips and write your own name!" Reno was getting impatient.

"I can't!" Cloud argued, "I promised Tifa I wouldn't do that anymore!"

"Where's an emo when you need one?" Reno pouted, so much for Strife Delivery Service.

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"So if you type the name of Rufus Shinra in the little box on the website that appears at midnight, you can curse him and a ferry girl will come and take him away!" Reno finished his explanation.

Barret's expression remained unchanged; it looked like it took everything he had to stop himself from shooting Reno there and then. "You expect me to believe that?"

"It's the truth! I'll be there when you try to send Rufus away so if it's a lie you can shoot me," Reno was confident this time his plan would work.

"Fine, if I can't get rid of Rufus, at least I'll get rid of you," Barret agreed.

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It was midnight at Shinra HQ and the computer screen showed the Deegle search engine with the Hell Correspondence keyword. The enter key was pressed and the cursed site appeared. Barret entered the name of Rufus Shinra and clicked to send it; then a strange girl who looked like Vincent Valentine appeared, accompanied by a woman in a kimono and an old man.

"It worked!" Reno cheered, he would finally know the truth which would save him or destroy him, but he had to know, or the doubts would drive him insane.

"When one is cursed, two graves are dug..." Enma Ai spoke. She extended her hand holding a blue straw doll, which Reno took before Barret could.

"I lied," Reno had actually told the truth before, but not the entire truth. Now he was going to lie to get himself out of the mess he created all to gain a little information. "This won't make you send Rufus away, it will send you away," the first part was a lie, as it would send Rufus away immediately. But the second part was half true, as the one who curses will also be cursed, but only after death.

"I knew it!" Barret aimed his gun arm at Reno.

"Wait a minute! Aren't you giving me any credit because I stopped you?" As usual Reno didn't consider all the possibilities and counted on things turning out as he expected. But if they didn't, this time he remembered to bring his electrorod and materia.

Barret thought about it, remembering Tifa's speech about moving on and leaving the past behind. "Fine, I'll let you go this time just because it looks like you do have a guilty conscious after all, I hope it tortures you!" Barret left the Shinra computer lab.

"Finally, everything went as planned!" Reno looked at the blue straw doll.

"Do you intend to use that?" Enma Ai asked. "If you truly wish to eliminate your enemy you will pull that red string. However-"

"Why would I want to eliminate the one who signs my paychecks?" Reno interrupted.

"Then return that to me," Ai pointed at the straw doll.

"In a minute, I need some answers." Reno set the straw doll on the computer desk and pulled a printed picture out of his pocket, it looked like the photo of an old painting. "Ren, you said I was the descendant of your owner. I was curious so I had someone do some research for me and found this. But this guy, he's also the ancestor of... We can't have a common ancestor even if it was so many years ago... Tell me the truth!"

Ai nodded and Ren returned to his human form. "I said you were the descendant of my original owner, a samurai mercenary. Samurai and mercenary, that doesn't go well together, it makes little sense so there is no record of his existence. That man in the picture was one of the many who wielded me when I was a sword, but not my original owner. You are not related to the descendant of that man in any way."

Reno breathed deeply, allowing himself to fall into one of the chairs. "That's a relief, me and him distant relatives, that would have been horrible. That's all I needed to ask, you can go now."

"Let's go home," Ai announced.

Ren laughed, "you're always doing things the complicated way, just like him."

Onna shook her head, "I don't really understand this guy."

Wanyudo was the last to leave, "curiosity can kill, but I suppose doubts are worse."

End of Fantasy 02

Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII or Jigoku Shoujo. Who was it that Reno didn't want to be related to by a common ancestor? I'll leave that up to you.