THE WANDERER
For Skerides real and imagined
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Sors immanis et inanis ...
obumbrata et velata
michi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris"
-From the 'Carmina Burana'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Tokyo Graveyard Autumn, 2096
Cobwebs and trapped spiders brush through me as I levitate through stone,
changing the penitential black that is my day for the sombre tones of mortal
night. For I am Dead, and it is from this not-slumber that I rouse myself,
rising through layers of soil and roots to trade the humid stagnant air found
underground for the moonlit night, and the biting autumn wind...
At least, I THINK it's biting... It moves the leaves so crisply, and the
sound it makes when howling through the trees suggests it, but...
It's all a guess. I can't feel it anymore.
I can't feel ANYTHING... Not with my skin, at least. I suppose it's
fitting. My cadaver rots within a cold stone coffin, decomposition and
bacteria providing the only warmth... Meanwhile, my personality is housed in
an immaterial body that feels nothing physical, but gains strength with
emotions... A proper punishment for the heartless way in which I... In
which...
In which I forfeited corporeal existence.
No longer do I have a heart to beat, or blood for it to pump. Instead, I
have my soul, and guilt, and regret... When alive, I sensed with cells, and
did not use my heart to feel... Now the situation is reversed.
Touch is gone, but SIGHT remains. Perhaps, even enhanced?
Yes, I can see. I see the pain I've caused, when I visit the university
housing projects and look in on my husband and child... Not during the day...
I... I couldn't bear to view them then, in the sunlight... It's bad enough to
see their faces as I do, by the moon's illumination. They have tear-marks on
their cheeks, and their pillows are always wet...
Because of me.
Oh, deity...
Did I think that? Old reflexes die hard. Heaven will not help me now.
I'd better go, and get it over with. It's like a drug, you see. I try to
isolate myself from the world which I betrayed; try to hide within my mortal
remnants during the living day, perhaps in an unvocalised half-hope that I'll
join them in decomposition...
It's fear that draws me nightly out. I'm addicted to life - theirs, and
whatever remains of mine. I must stay, to check on my family, to help in what
small ways I can... I can't do MUCH, but little things...
Yakume never WAS good at housekeeping. I sweep the dust from the house,
put the clean pots away...
Little things.
My child - my girl, poor thing, attributes it to sprites.
She's right, in a way...
But, I procrastinate. I must go now; the sunset was two hours ago. Where
was it, again?
The moon shows me the path. Its beams shine hard upon the crypts and
stones and obelisks, casting long straight shadows. Tonight, they all point
towards the university.
I look up, and utter a quiet thanks to Diana. When you are dead, any
favour is welcome, even from a lump of rock far in the sky.
Out of mortal reflex, I inhale, then take a few steps.
A voice stops me.
"You don't belong there."
Cold, sepulchral, more than that of any ghost should be. It echoes,
reverberating off the monuments and dying out so gradually, so naturally that
when it's gone, I wonder whether it was in my mind.
I shake my head, letting the wind go through it, and start my pace anew.
"I won't warn you again."
Unmistakable, this time. Female, yes, but not mine... Young (as if that
meant anything in the Necropolis), cold and... Determined.
But who?
I turn nervously, seeking a source, but all I find are graves and
memorials, one behind the other, and the spaces in between are filled with
shadow...
Wait.
I see it. Something appears, under the incline of a tilted tombstone.
They blink into visibility from the darkness, two lilac orbs, rimmed with
white and shining by virtue of some unnatural power.
Eyes?
I force myself to glide back a metre, but can do no more. I'm paralysed-
though not with fear! Something is holding me.
Someone?
The shadows melt from around the globes. They slip off like the silk dress
from a lady-by-the-hour and reveal a form, perfectly lit. It's not that it
glows, it's that it's decided that it no longer needs to hide, and so casts
the darkness from itself like an old cloak, replacing it with a mantle of
moonlight.
It is a female, crouching under the grave marker's slant. Her left hand
is on the ground, and her right forearm is draped across her knee. She's
dressed in a black-and-red body-suit with a leather jacket, and a white streak
runs down the middle of her long brown hair.
The figure brushes a stray lock from her forehead, then stands.
"Gosunkugi Skeride," she announces, with a smirk and a mock- bow. Not
that she has to.
Every spirit knows the name of the killer of the dead.
Now, it IS fear that I feel.
"I've heard reports of you." The assassin smiles while speaking. "Pots
flying, dust swept... You had me going there, for a while. I almost thought
you were a poltergeist." The panic I feel is enough to cause beads of
ki-sweat to form upon my brow. All legal recourse is lost with one's life,
and if I'm her target... She takes upon herself the task of jury, judge and
executioner, and in her law it is a crime for the dead to be with the living.
There is no reprieve, and the penalty is oblivion. "ALMOST," she continues as
she advances, "but not quite, Minnako."
"What... What are you going to do to me?"
As if I didn't know. In fact, I knew the details all too well.
"Get rid of you, of course. The land of the living is no place for the
dead."
"Please; I was just trying to help them, I -"
"By killing yourself?"
My eyes widen, and she notices.
"Don't be startled. I speak with your husband often; he cleans the floor I
room on. He's scared of you, you know." A pause. "He led me here."
"NO!" It CAN'T be true! Yakume wouldn't... He... The beads on my forehead
turn to streams of tears, and I try to bolt, but find myself unable to move
beyond the slightest twitch.
"Don't strain yourself. Your soul is weak, and I've had a long time to
practice mind control. You're fortunate I've allowed you to speak. Now,
let's see..." Her eyes narrow, and her grin widens. "How to dissipate you...
Hmm..." The eyelids close, her arms are raised before her, and her lips
tremble slightly.
I watch in horrified fascination as Skeride begins to glow a shade of
lilac. This is it. I've heard of it. Once that aura's seen, the exorcism
does not fall long behind.
I'd make a final prayer, but who'd hear it?
Maybe she's right. Maybe... Maybe I DON'T belong in this world any more.
Or in the next.
A few more futile attempts to release myself, and then I resign myself to
my fate. What else can I do? An instinctive gulp, a nervous shudder, more
sweat, and an unbelievable depression. To think that YAKUME, my HUSBAND, to
think that HE betrayed me, when I was trying to make up for what I'd done...
Just as I come to the conclusion that perhaps it's best that this is
happening, the glow subsides, and the Gosunkugi turns her back to me. Have I
been acquitted?
I reach to her - or try - the bonds on me have not been lifted.
"I have decided," says the exorcist, "Not to use the bubble."
"I... I'm free?!?"
A brief laugh.
"I didn't say that." She pivots to face me. There is something in her
hand that wasn't there before. "It's been a while since I've used the
P'ur-bu, and you'll make a perfect training target."
She lifts it before me, taunting me by letting me view what is to be the
instrument of my destruction. Every detail is absorbed, in only seconds,
indelibly engraved upon the slate that is my memory.
It is a dagger topped with a copper lion's mask, demonic and leering. The
bronze grip is intricately carved with a pattern of intertwined snakes, and...
other things, half-hidden by her fingers.
She sees me looking at the weapon, and leads my gaze further down with a
movement of her own eyes - there I note the two crossed triangles in cold grey
iron that form the blade, topped by a ring of three boars' heads. The metal
glows with green, white and yellow flames. This was never meant to tear
through flesh, but to pierce a soul.
"Run," says Skeride. "You have five seconds of grace."
She nods her head, and I can move again. Surprise and bewilderment waste
half of my sparse time, then I recover and float as quickly as I can, away...
But not quickly enough..
She raises the mystical dagger, takes aim and throws it.
Perfect shot. It heads towards my chest in a straight line -
And falls to the floor with a hiss, and a flash of emerald fire.
"What on earth?!?"
Who helped me? I have few friends, and none of them would dare to come
between this predatoress and her prey...
I follow Skeride's angry gaze to the top of a nearby obelisk and see a
dark silhouette against the moon. I can't make out details past a male
physique, and a yellow (or is it orange?) tinge to his long cloak. He'd...
Thrown something that stopped the weapon...
His intervention saved my afterlife, but who is there to stand for him?
Glaring at the intruder, the Assassin takes her dagger from the ground and
wipes it clean on the side of her trousers.
"Who are you?" she asks.
A pause (for thought?) and the shadow-man answers her.
"Just a passer-by." His voice is strong and gentle, but the outline of his
limbs suggests he's tensed, and ready to spring into action if need be.
"This is none of your business."
"The persecution of my kind is ALWAYS my business."
"Your... Kind?" For once, my foe and I speak in unison.
The one who saved me turns his head to face my own.
"You may know me as the Wanderer."
The Wanderer...
I have heard of him... And... It makes sense... I never dreamed that he
existed, though... He's more of a myth, a legend - a kind of wandering Jew...
They say that centuries ago, his spirit had been cursed to walk all lands
until he had atoned for the evil in his life... He'd been a selfish, lazy lord
who paid no attention to his subject's pleas, sacrificing their comfort for
his luxury, and never leaving his palace walls. After death he was compelled
to go from place to place, staying nowhere longer than an evening, and helping
those he could...
By luck, he has found me tonight.
Apparently, the Gosunkugi also knows the story - not surprising, for
someone in her line of work.
Startled, she looks over her adversary, and steps back a few confused
steps.
It's not long before she regains her composure and leaps toward the
avenging spirit, P'ur-bu in hand.
I scream, but by warning is unnecessary. Supernaturally-enhanced reflexes
kick in, and the man propels himself from the obelisk just in time for Skeride
to miss and tumble over it, flipping onto her feet on the other side.
"Stay away," the Wanderer hisses at me. "I've already saved you once; I'm
not sure I can do it again."
I want to help, to protect him, but I realise my frail constitution will
only harm his chances, so I nod and hide behind a crypt. From that vantage
point, I can safely watch the battle.
Seeing him distracted, Skeride charges with her dagger foremost. With
lighting speed, the man unsheathes his own weapon from a back-held scabbard
and swings at her when she comes close, knocking her against a gravestone and
sending the blade flying out of her hand to bury itself in the ground between
them.
That, at least, bodes well. Both combatants seem to realise that if the
Assassin tries to take it out, the time she wastes will allow the Wanderer to
win the battle.
Which would be... Awkward, to say the least. Dying in such a way, the
exorcist would join our ranks.. An amusing thought, and a situation she would
not find... Pleasant.
The two begin to walk around in a circle, with the P'ur-bu as its focus.
They never take their eyes off each other, and I can see them as they go by
me...
Skeride's still illuminated by that unnatural not-darkness I first
noticed, and her face is drawn, pale (but for the dark-ringed eyes) and
determined.
As for the Wanderer.. I try to make out features, but when I think I have
his face in focus, the image flows, and blurs, so I can't see anything
clearly other than the crop of hair covering most of his forehead. As much as
the other is luminescent, he is bathed in shadow.
Though... Not for long... A few moments, and my champion begins to glow in
the blue of the spirit-light. He seems to be drawing the energy from the
graves around him... The very stones yield up their death-essence and channel
it into him. The netherworld knows its avatar, and tries to strengthen him.
Unfortunately, he also faces its greatest foe.
The Assassin herself is now surrounded by an aura, hers being the same
dull purple as her eyes.
She's going to exorcise him!
I must do something, so I jump towards her, but too late. She cups her
hands, and with a shout of "Tamashii wana awa!" forms the fatal lilac globe of
ki, which she sends hurtling towards him.
The warrior is ready. He closes his eyes and the blue flames about him
grow, as do those of his surroundings... They pour power into him at an
alarming rate, and he, too, releases it with a battle cry:
"Shishi Houkodan!"
The aura leaves him in a solid column of azure fire which rushes upwards a
few metres before cataracting back onto him The ground beneath the Wanderer
rumbles, and coils of dust are sent flying by the impact. The rest of the
spiritual energy erupts in a ki-shock-wave at the height of his chest which
spreads outward as a growing disc...
The monuments which fed the blast also absorb unharmed its impact, but I'm
knocked down, and the Assassin with me.
When I rise, the 'Soul Trap Bubble' has dissipated, and a spent-looking
spirit stands erect, hands at his sides and head hung low.
"Don't trouble my kind any longer," he softly intones.
Skeride simply glares at him. She's been defeated, but refuses to admit
it. I am safe, for now. She crouches, huffing, and wipes blood from her face
where she's been cut by her fall, but she does not move towards me.
The Wanderer then walks to where I am, head still lowered slightly, just
enough so that I cannot see his face.
"You don't have to leave until you're ready," he assures me. The voice is
soothing by its mere presence... But the words puzzle me.
"Ready?" I ask. "Ready for what?"
"Until your business is settled. We spirits all have unfinished business,
now, don't we?" He chuckles. Does he find it funny?
I wonder whether to answer, but am stopped by a shadow of light rising
behind him.
"Wanderer! Behind-"
With a single graceful stroke, he once more unsheathes his weapon and
points it at the Assassin's chest. Its tip glows blue, and by that strange
light I can see it clearly. No sword, or bokken, but-
A bamboo umbrella?
"Don't mess with me," he growls. These words are threatening, just as
those to me were comforting. "My people are unhappy as they are, and if you
try to add FEAR to their lot," The glow around the umbrella intensifies. "I
am prepared to use that depression to avenge them."
"You don't frighten me," she claims, but the cold sweat glistening on her
forehead betrays her.
"And I'll make sure you cannot frighten HER." The Wanderer nods in my
direction, and Skeride raises an eyebrow. "I cannot stay," he continues, "but
I'll make sure THIS hunt, at least, ends here."
The Gosunkugi closes her eyes and begins to tremble in expectation of
having the umbrella run through her heart.
Instead, the spirit jumps and somersaults onto the top of my headstone and
thrusts the tip of his weapon onto it.
"Bakusai-ten-ketsu!"
The cry is soon drowned out by the sound of stone shattering and
fountaining upwards. When the shrapnel falls, the Wanderer has disappeared,
and I am left alone with Her.
The Gosunkugi stands and looks in silence at the pile of rubble, then
draws her dagger from the ground and wipes it clean before re-sheathing it.
"I'll be seeing you again," she tells me with a smirk, "once you've had a
proper burial." I watch quietly as she turns back and begins to walk, melting
invisibly into the shadows from which she'd come.
Now I am by myself.
And free, for the moment, to... Settle unfinished business?
The moon is yet low in the sky - there's time.
Smiling, I set off towards the university; towards my husband's home where
I can be of SOME use, even if it be in housekeeping...
I'll be quieter, this time.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Fate - monstrous and empty,
Shadowed and veiled
You plague me too;
Now through the game I bring my bare back
To your villainy."
-From the 'Carmina Burana'
Translation (c) 1984 The Decca
Record Company Ltd., London
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BETRAYAL
"O Fortuna, velut Luna statu variabilis
Semper crecis aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis nunc obdurat et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem..."
-From the 'Carmina Burana'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Watching the sun set reminded him of when his own life-light had been
extinguished... It had been a long illness. Long, and painful. He'd come
to cherish the spasms, though... The constant bashing of his head, the
churning of his gut, the messages from all his limbs telling him they
couldn't hold on for long... He'd MADE them keep on going. He'd used his
almost supernatural endurance to survive; to force himself to go through
this, because it brought atonement, and the very agony would take his mind
away from the REAL pain - the knowledge he'd betrayed his friends... And
more.
First had come Ranma. It wasn't so bad that he'd died; Ryouga had
always known his foolishness would get him killed, but to drag AKANE with
him...
If only for that, he should have been there... He would have been
able to help, and if Saotome would have lived, then she... She would have
also.
Why dwell upon that now, though? He'd chewed on the topic for
decades, and it's not as if it was his ONLY misdoing... In time, he'd
found his outward lack of navigational skills to be only a pale reflection
of his soul - Whenever anyone he cared for needed him, he found it easier
to be away, to be lost...
Ranma had only been the beginning. It hadn't sufficed to let his
first love and his greatest frie... Rival die.
He had to make it worse.
No use delving into what had happened with Nabiki. They'd spent a
night together, then he'd abandoned her, and she had also died.
Blown to bits.
Torn to pieces by his neglect, when she needed him MOST, after
Kasumi's accident. Where was he? Where he always was. Somewhere else,
lost and depressed, too buried in his own angst to even think of bringing
comfort to others.
And finally... Ukyou. They hadn't married for love; both of them had
known that. It was more for... Spiritual convenience. They needed each
other, for comfort. They'd both lost their goals in life. She had no
Ranchan to betroth, he no opponent to beat or Scarlet heart to win...
Yes, they'd been more or less happy for a time, and had even had a
child. They'd named him 'Kioku', 'Memory', after the only link that held
them together...
Then, what had he done? Withdrawn again into his own dark world of
self-pity and loneliness, leaving her alone. She'd gone mad, of course.
Ucchan died in the Sanatorium, after spending years in a straight-jacket,
eating institutional okonomiyaki from soft rubber plates...
Yes; the spasms helped to stop his thoughts on that. The pulsing fire
through his fibres stopped his dwelling on the past, and linked him to the
present, to the house, the room, the GROUND, while Kioku's hand upon his
own reminded him that he was dying a coward's death, and not one of a
warrior.
It was better that way.
That evening, so long ago, the thoughts had passed much the same
through his mind... He'd thought they'd be his last before oblivion, and
so he had endeavoured to remind himself of all his crimes, of all that
he'd betrayed...
"Akane..." had been the last word from his lips.
And then, the unexpected.
The room grew dark, and a column of white light tinged with blue
descended on him - a Shishi Houkodan reversed, the pillar being of joy,
not depression... He felt his essence being lifted from the aged framed,
the pain released and just as he'd been promised by theology, his beloved
was there to greet him.
"Akane..."
She was beautiful. From his vantage point, her yellow-and-blue pastel
dress almost glowed...
But she was on the other side - not within, but without the bright and
beautiful light...
As he looked on, she turned around, and bowed her head, and walked out
of the chamber with the doctors and the nurses.
He was leaving her, again.
He tried with all his might to shout, but he could make no sound that
she could hear. He resisted the warm suction pulling him upwards and
battled the force, clawing, forcing, pushing until when She was just
beyond his line of sight, he made it past the white barrier, and found
himself-
Somewhere else.
He'd gotten lost on his way to the Afterlife.
That's when it had begun; the journey that would end tonight.
Less than half an hour, now, until the twilight gave completely to the
canopy of starts, and the moon took over from the sun...
Only half an hour, and it'd be over.
He had resolved, back then, to never be intentionally lost again: all
his travels would be with a single purpose. Some kind deity above had
allowed him one last chance for happiness, one last chance to atone for
his crimes, and to live a true Heaven on Earth.
He saw it all so clearly...
Ranma had never TRULY loved Akane; even in Death he had forsaken her.
Ryouga would not do the same... He would find her, no matter how long it
took, he had promised to himself, and when he did, he would protect her,
care for her... Now free of their mortality, they could ALWAYS be
together...
To seek her out, and serve her as Ranma never had - that had been his
vow.
That first wrong turn, at his deathbed, had landed him in Africa...
After that had come years of wanderings and painful journeys. At every
point in his travels he would come across more of his new people, the
restless dead - each of them had its own sad story of unnatural death and
unfinished business...
His love for Akane was always foremost in his mind, its brilliance
like that of a Holy Grail. It was the object of a quest that promised
Salvation at its conclusion - always his beacon, always his ultimate goal,
but in the meantime...
He hadn't been able to pass the others by. There were so many tales
of suffering, so many people who needed him... He couldn't pass THESE
by... Couldn't bear repeating the mistakes of his life in this new
existence...
So, he'd helped. In a slightly altered form.
Hibiki Ryouga, for all intents and purposes, was gone. The geriatric
millionaire who'd lived and died a bitter hermit turned to dust along with
his cadaver. He... He didn't want to be remembered as a sickly man who
had betrayed all he had loved... He had been granted a new beginning in
Death, and so he had gone back to where the Ending had begun.
Ghosts can change their appearance as they please, and he'd set his
back many years, to his youth - to the time he'd spent with Ranma.
Gone were the suits and long black kimonos, and back on came his
bandannas (now truly infinite in number), his long, coarse yellow shirt,
black trousers and leg-ties... The umbrella had proved a perfect shape for
channelling ki, and to finish it all off, he'd added a cloak..
Rough and brown, it symbolised his current state. He hid his features
with it, not letting himself take credit for the deeds he performed... His
need to prove himself, and to acquire a reputation had already caused
ENOUGH damage.
Now, he was known only as 'The Wanderer'. He only stayed in a place
long enough to help the spirits there and find his bearings, and then
would continue on his way. Stories grew up about him; legends, too. Some
called him the Wandering Jew, others said he was a shipmate's of the
Flying Dutchman's. When asked, he neither confirmed nor denied the
rumours... All that mattered to him was not to abandon those who needed
him, and not to lose track of his true goal. Again, his covering was a
reminder of this. It was the cloak which he'd torn off on his first
approach to Tokyo, so many years ago.
And now, it seemed, he would at last be able to toss it from himself -
Forever.
He was here, in Nerima, and with the first beams of the moon, She
would surely come...
If not before.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, drawing into him the energy from
his surroundings.
Stone by stone, the memorials poured their power into him; all their
stored depression, all their sadness filled his spirit-body, charging him,
energising him...
He was on blessed ground, where Akane's ashes lay, and to be on it at
last, yet immaterial was almost sacrilege. He channelled the ki into his
feet, giving them some semblance of solidity, so he could FEEL the dirt,
and leave an impression on it.
Ironic - the dark emotions would now pave his way to joy.
A smile crossed his face, for the first time in years, and he started
on the pebbled path to the Tendo tomb.
Just before reaching it, he stopped.
Two women, dressed in black, were kneeling at the monument next to it.
The taller one was blonde, and the other had-
Short black hair.
Could it be?
From behind, he couldn't tell, but he wouldn't dare to go in front of
them, in case-
He took the safe way out - going as close as he could, then hiding
behind a tombstone, and watching.
The dark-haired one was sobbing, but broke through her tears for long
enough to speak.
"Why did he have to die? WHY? He's gone, and I couldn't tell him
that... I... That..." The girl turned her head, and Ryouga saw her face at
last. It WAS Akane. Even in grief, she was beauty personified, but...
Why? It couldn't be that... Could it? "It's all my fault!" she
continued, green ki-tears flowing freely from her eyes in a manner that he
himself had seen too often. "If only I hadn't... I... I could be with
him, now!"
She might mean you, he tried to fool himself, she was at your
deathbed, and she saw the light come for you...
"Hush, lass. Wherever he is, I'm sure he's watching over you... He
can see you, and hear what you say... He KNOWS... You shouldn't blame
yourself."
I know, and I would NEVER blame you - not for anything...
"Who ELSE can I blame?"
Me.
There was silence for some time, then Akane's face twisted itself into
a grimace and her right fist glowed a slimy green. "Ranma no baka!" she
shouted, and threw a ki-charged punch at the name carved into the black
marble in front of her.
A millimetre before contact, the attack stopped short.
"I love you," she sobbed, lowering her hand and head while the blonde
gripped her in a careful, slow embrace.
Ryouga returned the borrowed energy to the graveyard; he had more than
enough dark ki to fuel him now. Too shocked to speak, or make himself
known, he backed away in silence.
This was no place for him.
His time had not yet come; he should never have thought that a few
years of desperation could make up for the lives he'd spoiled, the chances
he'd been offered and which he had declined...
He turned and ran full-speed but immaterial into the moon-rise, going
through wood and stone and grass like the will-o'-the-wisp he now was...
He no longer cared where it was he went. He'd seen the Grail, and had
not been found worthy of its bounty. When he'd set his goal, he had
misjudged, and forgotten one thing in his heart of love and hatred...
Ranma had left Her, but SHE had not abandoned HIM.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"O Fortune, like the moon ever-changing,
Always waxing, only to wane once more;
Hateful life now tempers, then heals,
mocking the mind's establishment..."
-From the 'Carmina Burana'
Translated by C. Willmore
--------------------------------------------------------------------------