Back In The Clouds

by Imaginos1892

Keiichi Morisato was an unlucky guy. He seemed to work twice as hard to get half as much as everybody else. He always thought there had to be something wrong, but could never have imagined the cause until he had a vision of meeting a goddess in the sky. Then she told him it wasn't a vision, and she would grant him one wish. What could he wish for, that might improve his luck?

1. Dream A Little Dream

What if Keiichi Morisato found something while cleaning out his closet? Something important that fell out of his pocket and got kicked into a neglected corner through sheer bad luck?

A couple of years ago, somebody posted a short story called 'Up In The Clouds' on the Goddess Relief Office web site. It was an alternate version of Keiichi and Belldandy's first meeting in which she summoned his spirit to the Astral Plane, but they got to talking and then he woke up back in the mortal world before she got around to offering him a wish.

I got a some for a follow-on story taking place a few years later, after Keiichi graduated from college and got a job, still plagued by his persistent bad luck and having forgotten his strange dream about having tea with a goddess in the sky. I posted some partial scenes there, and got good feedback about them.

Sadly, the site went offline around April 2021. I fear it was because the sysop died. The domain name goddess-project has been re-sold to what looks like some Asian gambling site. It's a shame; the site was a great place for fans of Oh My Goddess! to get together. A light has gone out, and the world is a little darker. Now I can't even look up the story to find out who wrote it. My posts are gone too, but at least I kept copies.

I've gathered up the fragments, filled the gaps between them with more material, and gotten the first chapter together enough to publish.

---

Dream A Little Dream

Cleaning out his bedroom closet was a chore Keiichi Morisato tended to put off longer than he should. Of course, the longer he procrastinated, the worse it was when he finally confronted it, thus the greater his inclination to keep putting it off, until it took something quite out of the ordinary to spur him into action.

Something like his sister Megumi's impending visit. She would notice his messy closet, she would give him that look, and surely cluck her tongue in disapproval, and the prospect made cleaning out his closet this afternoon eminently worth the trouble.

He spent almost an hour digging out mismatched socks, slippers not quite worn out, fallen shirts, and a veritable treasury of half-forgotten odds and ends. Most people wouldn't understand why he kept any of this stuff, but it seemed that no matter how long he hung on to something, when he finally threw it away, he wound up regretting it a few weeks later.

He finally got the last of it out and pulled up the closet's tatami mat, raising a generous cloud of dust and two prodigious sneezes. The mat went straight out the window for a good whacking before he would allow it back in the apartment.

Another hour saw him through to the putting-things-back part of the operation, starting with the mat. As he was setting it into place something caught his eye, a pale sliver where none should be. He crouched down to investigate and found a whitish edge sticking out a couple of millimeters from under a wall panel, which defied all his efforts to drag it out with his fingernails.

He grumbled something most naughty, fetched a small pair of pliers and pulled the thing out, surprised to find how much of it there was, jammed under the wall. What was it, and how in hell had it gotten itself wedged in there? He took it to the window for a better look and froze, stunned with shock. His dream came back to him then, clear in every detail, as if minutes and not years had passed. How could he have forgotten?

At first it had felt like waking from a dream, rather than being in one. Aside from finding himself standing on an invisible surface miles above the ground and then meeting a goddess, having tea with her, sitting on invisible chairs at an equally invisible table, anyway. They had discussed his seemingly limitless bad luck, until somehow the conversation stretched and wandered through most of his life. They had seemed to talk for hours, and yet it hadn't felt like a long time at all.

Of course, all dreams must end. The goddess had conjured up a remarkably high-tech control panel and flown their magic platform to Japan just in time to see sunrise over Nekomi — at which point he woke up, for real this time, and the dream swiftly faded away. Soon even his memories of having the dream were gone.

Now Keiichi gazed in wonder at the flawless ivory-colored business card, with the name 'Belldandy' printed in an elegant, flowing script. He'd forgotten about her handing him this, too. He must have absently stuck it in his night clothes at some point while talking to her, it had somehow stayed with him through moving out of the Nekomi men's dorm and into this apartment, fallen to the floor of his closet, and got itself stuck almost out of sight, and nearly irretrievable.

So then how could it be real? It had been given to him in a dream! Yet here it was, every bit as tangible as the pliers he still held in his other hand. And, although he'd been too frustrated and harried to clean the jaws, or take much care about how he grabbed the obstinate mystery edge, there was no sign of either grease or grip marks on the card.

He read her name once more. Belldandy! Literally, the woman of his dreams. He would give anything to meet her again, talk to her, even for a few minutes, but how? The card showed no address, no phone number, no E-mail, no contact information he could recognize. Just her name, and below that, 'Goddess First Class, Second Category, Unlimited' in smaller, less fancy letters. Below that and to the right were four lines of strange symbols unlike anything he had ever seen before. He thought of the word 'runes' but deciphering them was quite beyond his grasp. The upper right and lower left corners were decorated with green curlicues, tiny leaves, and white flowers, like blossoming vines that seemed almost to be growing right out of the card's surface. The edges were embossed with an intricate pattern, and the back side was blank.

That made no sense. Business cards were supposed to help you contact the person, weren't they? Even if they came from a dream? Maybe those runes, or whatever, were some equivalent of an address and phone number? If so, they were of no use to him since he was unable to extract any meaning from them. And why were the few words he could read printed in English? You couldn't get through life in this world without seeing words in English, but he'd never been able to read them so easily before.

Clearly, this was no ordinary business card. Maybe it worked…differently? He concentrated on the card, focused his will, and said, "Belldandy."

Nothing happened.

"Belldandy, Goddess First Class, Second Category, Unlimited."

Nothing.

"Belldandy!"

Still, nothing.

He took another breath to try again, then let it out in a long, dejected sigh. Of course it hadn't worked. It could never work. He'd have to be the luckiest man in the world, rather than the unluckiest. The card remained inert in his hand, mocking him. He got a sudden impulse to crumple it up, rip it to bits and hurl them out the window, but that passed too. He sighed again. It wasn't the card's fault, or Belldandy's either. He was just unlucky.

Keiichi ran one finger across the surface, feeling the raised letters, and whispered, "Belldandy." It was almost a prayer, even though he knew it wouldn't be answered. He went on staring helplessly at her name.

He had no clue where the idea came from. His stomach fluttered nervously as he strode into the next room, sat beside the table and picked up his phone, an old American flip-phone he'd fixed by re-soldering the battery connectors, with those three foreign letters on each number button. His hands trembled as he painstakingly matched the business card to the keypad.

B, E, L, L, D, A, N, D, Y.

2-3-5-5-3-2-6-3-9 was not a proper phone number, but maybe, just maybe…

He pushed the CALL button. A normal-sounding ringback tone burred in his ear once, twice, and then there was a click.

"Hello. You have reached the Goddess Help Line. How can I assist you?"

He gripped the phone convulsively, crushing it against his ear. That's her voice! He would recognize her sweet voice anywhere, any time. He struggled to say something, anything, but his throat was choked shut.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

In desperation he managed to force out a strangled croak: "B— Belldandy?"

He heard a gasp from the other end, then, "Keiichi Morisato-san?" She sounded worried, relieved, and excited, all at once.

"Y-yeah, that's me…"

"Don't hang up! I…I'll see you, very soon."

He barely felt himself falling, or his head hitting the stiff tatami mat. Instead of turning dark, the world faded out in pure white light. He found himself standing on a nothing that was something, just like the last time he'd been here. The light before him dimmed until he saw blue sky and a few puffy clouds through a tenuous, bright mist. It thinned out and swept away as he emerged from a wall of fog. He looked around and saw that he'd been inside another cloud, which extended behind and below him now. Beyond it he saw snow-topped mountains, with forests and meadows between them. He didn't recognize any landmarks which might tell him where he was.

The scenery was entrancing. He felt a light breeze, neither warm nor cold but…comfortable. After a time that could have been fifteen seconds, or five minutes, he heard, "Keiichi Morisato-san."

He turned towards her voice. "Belldandy!"

She looked exactly as he remembered. So did her smile, and the odd blue marks on her face. She wore blue and white robes edged with yellow triangles, like saw teeth, the same as before. He smiled in return, unable to think of anything else to say.

The silence stretched out until she said, "It is good to see you again. I was beginning to fear I never would."

That confused him. "But…you're a goddess. If you wanted to see me, why couldn't you just do it?"

"Because this isn't twenty thousand years ago. We used to meddle constantly in mortal affairs, saying we were helping you, but we were only deluding ourselves. We were making you what we wanted you to be, instead of allowing you to decide who you are for yourselves. Even when we didn't mean to, our actions had that effect. The greatest among us realized what we were doing, and laid down laws to stop us from interfering. One of those laws is, we are forbidden to intrude into the mortal realm except in strictly limited circumstances, when invited by one of a very few carefully selected mortals. You are one of them, but your invitations kept going off track."

Keiichi was still looking at her, and still confused.

"Do you remember our discussion about your bad luck, the last time you saw me?"

"Yeah…"

"What you have is not simple bad luck. There is a flaw in the system, a consistent tendency for events involving you to resolve to a negative outcome, pushing your life off course at every turn. You should have gotten many opportunities to contact me, and invite me into the mortal realm so I could try to help, but none of them have ever been realized until now. I have to admit, I was beginning to lose hope."

"But, I did see you," he protested.

"I got permission to bend the rules, just once, and bring your dreaming spirit here to the Astral Plane." She made a sour face. "And then I blew it. I spent so much time enjoying our conversation that your bad luck struck before I ever got around to telling you why you were here." Her smile returned. "At least now I can correct that failure. Keiichi Morisato-san, I have brought you here to grant you Heaven's Grace. In other words, I offer you a wish."

"A wish?" he echoed, wary and suspicious. "What kind of a wish?"

"Any kind you want. Your wish is an expression of your free will, which I am forbidden to interfere with. I will grant whatever wish you choose. Wish for money, and I'll make you rich. Wish for fame, and it will be yours. Wish for love, and I will do my best. I can't alter anyone's free will, but I'm certain there are many women who would love you, if they got to know you properly. The only limit is you. I must grant any wish you make, so long as it is your heart's desire."

"Any wish?"

"Yes. Any wish you truly desire, good or bad. If your heart's desire is for revenge, you will have it. You can wish to rule the world, or you can wish for me to destroy it."

"You'd destroy the world?"

"Doing so would tear my heart out, but I would have no choice. I promised you a wish. As a Goddess First Class, I can never lie, and a promise becomes a lie if it is broken."

"Then, wh- why would you tell me those things?"

"How can you exercise free will if you don't know what your choices are? All of your choices. If I failed to inform you I would be lying by omission, which I am also unable to do in a situation such as this." She smiled again. "I never expected you to make any of those choices. I don't think you're that kind of person."

"I don't even want to think about it!"

"So I believed. You are a good man, Keiichi Morisato-san. That is why I'm so glad you found my card, and it helped you reach me. I will be pleased to grant your wish."

"Any wish I want," he reiterated, still suspicious.

"Yes. But bear in mind," she held up a finger for emphasis, "I can only grant you one wish. So please consider carefully, and choose wisely. I want you to be happy with your wish." She lowered her hand and smiled beatifically. "Be of good cheer, Keiichi Morisato-san. Your heart's desire can be yours for the asking."

My heart's desire…

The possibilities were dizzying. A hundred enticing choices lay before him, opening up a multitude of alternate futures.

I could be rich, live in a mansion, buy the fastest, most exciting bikes in the world…or be a famous motorcycle racer, surrounded by fans and groupies… I could get back at Aoshima for all those years of abuse…

Any of those futures could be his, but only one of them. Which one did he want? They were all so tempting…

Belldandy stood watching him patiently, smiling. She was unlike anyone he had ever met before. How could he have forgotten her, and their previous sojourn in the sky? Was that his bad luck at work? He'd found talking with her so easy, so satisfying. He found that ease returning, just from being in her presence, and remembering.

"Have you really been waiting for me all this time?" He hadn't meant to ask her that, but the question just seemed to come naturally.

"Yes, Keiichi Morisato-san. I made a mistake, and let you down. I…" Her expression became troubled, then cleared again. "I'm sorry. That was a partial truth, and beneath me. I'm relieved that I can correct my mistake, but there is more. I wanted to see you again. I've waited more than three of your years, hoping for another chance."

"That would be a first," he grumbled.

"What do you mean?"

"Girls never notice me." He was still grumbling.

"Why would you say a thing like that?" she asked, mystified.

"Because they don't!" he snapped. "Just look at me."

"I am looking at you. I still don't understand."

He stepped close in front of her. His eyes were level with her chin. He looked up defiantly. "Now do you see?"

"I'm afraid I don't."

"That's because you're not looking down far enough!" His frustration burned itself out and he continued glumly, "Nobody does. Especially women."

"You're upset about your height?" she asked, still puzzled.

"Well, yeah, of course!"

"Because I don't measure up!" he snarled.

She regarded him critically, but with sympathy. "If you were taller, would that make you a better person? Would you be kinder, or more honest, or a more skilled mechanic? Would you work harder? Do you really believe, in your heart, that you're not good enough simply because you're not tall?"

"I…" he lowered his eyes. "…I, guess not. It's just…" He looked her in the eyes again and snapped bitterly, "It's not fair!"

She gave him a rather sad smile. "You're right, it's not. It's terribly unfair that people judge you, not by your actions and accomplishments, or your kind and generous nature, but by a feature as irrelevant as your height. I can understand why you resent the way you have been treated, but that is a failing in other people, not in you. I can see that you are a good and worthy man, and that is why you are here. That is why you are one of they very few mortals who qualify for a wish. You are special, Keiichi Morisato-san."

"I don't feel very special," he grumbled. "I'm short, I'm practically broke, and I've got a completely forgettable face. Almost nobody knows I exist. Or cares."

"No?" She regarded him archly. "Out of the more than seven billion mortals living on your world, how many do you think I meet with personally?"

"I don't know, a few thousand?" Her disappointed look led him to correct himself. "Uh, a few hundred?"

She still looked disappointed, and shook her head slowly. "No more than a few dozen a year. Some years, not even that many. We screen our candidates very, very carefully, and pass on almost all of them."

He found that a little confusing, so he went back to the main issue. "You said any wish. Could I wish to be tall? Taller, anyway?"

"You could, but I fear you would be would soon be disappointed with the results. I think that would be a trivial waste of such a rare gift, and I do not believe it is your heart's desire. It does not feel right to me."

"But you could do it?"

"If your heart's desire truly were to be two meters tall and bulging with muscles, I could grant you that wish. I just don't think such a superficial change would make you happy. You would still be you, and your luck would not improve."

"About that. Do you know why I've got such rotten luck all the time?"

She shrugged and spread her hands helplessly. "Not even our best analysts and seers have been able to identify a cause. No one knows what to do about it, either. I'm hoping the right wish will at least do you some good."

"Can I just wish for better luck?" he tossed off casually, half-joking, then became more serious. "Not super-great luck, just, like, regular, average luck?"

This amused Belldandy, too. "If only it were so easy. Do you really believe that you have immediately found the obvious solution to a problem that has confounded the gods themselves?"

"I guess that was sort of silly, huh?" he admitted sheepishly.

Her smile was kind. "Just a little. If it were that simple we would have corrected the problem years ago, and you would never have been aware of it. A vague wish for better luck would merely be rejected by Yggdrasil."

"Ygg…drasil?" he repeated, slowly and uncertainly.

"The World Tree, Yggdrasil, which sustains, regulates and monitors all of the Nine Realms; also the computer systems we use to interface with it. Yggdrasil alerted us to your situation, years ago, and then routed your call to me today."

"Yeah, how did that happen? I never knew you could just pick up the phone and call a goddess."

"Usually you can't. It only worked for you because you were thinking of me, wanting to reach me, while holding my card, which is imbued with my magic. Very much like a wish, in a way."

That prompted him to take notice, and panic a little. "What happened to your card? It's gone!"

"It's still with your body, back in the mortal realm," she reassured him. "You've used up some of the magic, but that's all."

"Oh. Good. I wouldn't want to lose it. I mean, lose it again." He looked at her, a little guilty. "It got stuck under the wall in my closet, almost out of sight. I don't know how that happened."

"I suspect it was another manifestation of that flaw in the system. My magic kept my card near you, but your bad luck made it inaccessible, or nearly so. There must have been a most peculiar battle raging, between the two forces, before you tipped the balance by rediscovering it."

He couldn't help but chuckle. "So, your magic and my bad luck have been duking it out ever since I moved in here? I mean, there. My apartment."

"In a sense. Each one affects what you would call quantum probabilities, in different ways."

"Okay, you can stop there. I barely understand anything about quantum theory, and even that much makes my head hurt."

"It is a little esoteric to the mortal mind," she acknowledged.

"That's one way to put it."

Now they both chuckled.

When they stopped, he mused, "So what should I wish for?"

Belldandy smiled ruefully. "If I knew that, I would have solved your problem myself. The wish is yours; make whatever you can of it. If I were to make the choice for you, it would be wrong in every way, and would all but guarantee that your wish would do you no good."

"That's not a lot of help," he grumbled.

"I really would like to advise you, but only you can know your heart's desire. Look within yourself, and try to find what you want most in all the world."

"What I want most…"

I want a lot of things, but how do I pick just one? Some of them I wouldn't want to mention to a goddess as kind and understanding as Belldandy, or a woman either. A few of them would probably make my life worse, instead of better.

Another thought occurred to him. "Whatever I wish for, it will affect my family, and everybody I know, won't it?"

She nodded. "Changing your life will influence the lives of everyone around you, yes."

"Then there are a lot of things I can't wish for. Making life harder for the people around me would never make me happy."

"Some people would wish for exactly that." Goddesses don't gripe, exactly, but she sounded quite displeased.

Keiichi was still thinking. "Suddenly getting rich might solve some of my problems, but I'm sure it would cause others. Starting with taxes, and the government wondering where I got all that money."

"Some of those problems would be averted by the mechanics of the wish. The money would be provided from some legitimate source," she reassured him. "Taxes would be up to you, though. Sparing you from taxes would cause too much disruption."

"What sort of legitimate sources?"

"That would depend on how much money you wish for, and what is available. Sweepstakes and lotteries with large cash prizes are always convenient conduits, and simple to manipulate with a bit of magic. It might be necessary to adjust some financial records to account for a larger fortune."

"But in the end, you'd be taking that money from other people."

"For the most part, it would be very small amounts taken from a large number of people. Not enough to be noticed, in most cases."

"What about the people who were supposed to win those prizes?"

"Until the selections are made there are no winners, only unrealized potential, which can be resolved in any of a million ways. I would merely be adjusting some probabilities. It's not taking something from someone if they never had it."

"It still seems like cheating."

Belldandy smiled fondly at him. "Do you realize how few people would concern themselves with such issues? You are special."

Keiichi was embarrassed again. "Thanks, but…I'm still no closer to a wish."

When he didn't go on, she sighed. "I don't mean to pressure you, but our time here is not unlimited. Pulling your spirit out of your body and keeping it here for too long is not good for you."

"I'm sorry, I just can't seem to make up my mind. I'm trying to think of what I want most, but nothing feels right. A wish should feel right, shouldn't it?"

"That is generally the way of it, in my experience."

He struggled to think of a wish for a while longer, then asked, "When I do figure out the right wish, what happens?"

"I will grant your wish, you will return to your world, and I go back to mine."

"Would I ever see you again?"

"No. Not unless Yggdrasil detects a problem with your wish that I have to resolve in person. I think that has happened twice in the last thousand years, and never to me."

Her words opened up a hollow feeling in his chest. He had met quite a number of women, during his school years, and since, even dated a few briefly; but his luck with women was as bad as every other kind. Being with Belldandy, talking to her, felt completely different.

"But…why? It's…so nice, talking to you. You're not like anyone else."

She smiled again, wistfully. "I would like to spend more time with you, too, but even gods and goddesses don't always get what we want."

"I don't think that's fair," he grumbled.

"This solution is not ideal, but it's the one we've got. Unleashing my powers in the mortal realm is deemed too disruptive. The only exception allowed is for granting wishes."

"Meaning, I have to make mine. So we can both go back where we belong." His voice sounded dull, almost sullen.

"I'm afraid so." Her voice also sounded rather cheerless.

"See, you don't like it either!"

"As a Goddess First Class, I am unable to lie. No, I don't care for such absolute and inflexible rules."

"Then why don't you do something about it?"

"Because I am not certain they're wrong. I can understand the risks, and the reasons to avoid them. Some occasional unfairness and injustice may be necessary to prevent much greater tragedy. For good or ill, those rules work. The mortal realm is still intact."

"Don't they trust you?"

"It's not about trust. If my presence can endanger your universe, I should be kept out. No matter how I feel about it."

"Most people wouldn't feel that way."

"I'm not most people. Neither are you." She regarded him, head tilted to one side. "No matter how dearly you wanted something, you would never imperil innocent people to satisfy your own desires. I am certain of that."

"Of course not!" he declared.

She smiled. "You are a good man, Keiichi Morisato-san. That is why you deserve a wish."

"If I can ever think of one."

"I'm sure you will find the right wish. I have faith in you, Keiichi Morisato-san."

"I'm glad somebody does."

"You should have faith in yourself, too," she said persuasively.

He didn't look persuaded. He spent a couple more minutes deep in thought, then flashed a quick, quirky grin.

"You know, if I really could wish for anything at all, I think…I'd wish for you to stay with me. I mean, forever." He snorted derisively. "Yeah, like that's ever gonna happen."

When he didn't hear a reply he looked at her, feeling a little abashed at his impertinence, then alarmed by what he saw. She stood frozen in place, staring blankly into the distance. He became aware of a deep humming sound, growing louder, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Belldandy rose into the air until her feet were almost level with his knees, a nimbus of light shone around her body, and the markings on her face glowed bright blue. Her head tilted back and a brilliant beam of blue-white light shot straight up from the mark on her forehead into the sky.

Keiichi reached out and took a step toward her, shocked. "Belldandy?"

She did not seem to notice him, or anything else. After perhaps fifteen seconds the beam shrunk down to a fine, bright line and flickered out. The humming sound, and the light, faded away. Whatever force had lifted her let go, practically dropping her into his arms.

"Belldandy!" He caught her, tried to hold her up, but suddenly his feet were sinking into whatever-it-was he stood on, he felt them both falling, and now everything was going dark…