"Oh yeah... I got stabbed." Mayumi blinks a few times and sighs. She stares longingly at her body. She walks over and sits down, trying to lean back into her slumped body, but just goes through it. She sits limply and stares up at the hole in the roof with an exhausted expression. "Guess i'm a ghost. What a stupid way to go."
"You got it! Ding ding ding!"
Chapter 2: Surprised To Be Dead!
A high pitched voice suddenly rings out those words. Mayumi flinches and shoots up, standing up on the wall and looking over to the voice on her side. A woman sitting on a floating oar is there with a big smile, waving happily. She has long and bushy dark purple hair. She has brown eyes, and a long black dress that accentuates her hourglass figure. Strangely, she has a red bandana with the word "Death" written on it in yellow around her forehead.
"You're dead! Congratulations! Good for you!" She claps her hands together, saying "You caught on so fast, I didn't even get to tell you that you died! Bummer, even if I like telling guys they're dead more."
Mayumi just looks at her for a moment and sighs quietly. She relaxes her body and looks down at her corpse. "You must be some spirit here to drag me down to hell or something." She waves her hand back at the woman on the oar, "Stop being so annoying and just get it over with." The woman's eye twitches and she has a very fake smile on her face, her voice a little more annoyed sounding. "Wow, you're just like the book said you'd be!" A book pops into existence in her hands, and she flips it to a page with no effort, "Matsui Mayumi, 16 years old, extremely rude, has no filter, picks lots of fights, gets along with no one, and is in a gang! And then for all your crimes! You smoke, illegally gamble at pachinko parlors, and steal constantly! You make sure nobody has any amount of respect for you! What a great girl you are! Bet you're super popular!" She slams the book shut, giving a big smile with her eyes closed.
Mayumi has a very unamused expression on her face. She walks over and gets in the woman's face, talking in a low pitch. "You're pissing me off." The woman talks in a high pitched happy voice, saying "I wouldn't stare down the messenger of the underworld like that! You must really want to burn down in hell if you keep talking to me like that! And here I was to give you some news about your death."
Mayumi steps back and keeps an exhausted expression. "Look, today's just been a lot. Let's try to just restart. You said you're a messenger from the underworld right? I guess I wasn't far off." The woman has an actual smile this time and nods. "Wow, an actual mature response. Nice to meet you, Mayumi. You're correct, i'm Lena, the Angel of Death! There's plenty of spirits like us, and we all have lots of names. Most of them just mean Death though. I lead souls through the River Styx and help them move on to living in Spirit World. Any questions?"
Mayumi takes a second to process it all. "Well, I guess it was kinda self explanatory. You're here to guide me to that Spirit World place then? Let's just make it quick. I don't want to be here for when everyone finds my body." She sighs and looks at her body. Lena floats over and inspects her body. "Wow, a stab wound! Must've hurt! At least there's no loss in this! I don't think anyone really care-" Mayumi cuts her off, her eyes closed tight and her expression annoyed. "Stop saying shit like that. Can we go make sure Kumiko is alright at least if were going to sit around? I'm worried they hurt her. I don't want to see her finding my body, so let's make it quick." Lena turns and sighs, pouting a bit. "No sense of humor. I'm surprised you even care about her. Come on, grab the oar." Mayumi walks over, and inspects the oar for a moment. She grabs the paddle at the end. "Like this?" She says, as she's instantly flown through the roof of the warehouse, passing through it with Lena into the sky.
Mayumi is freaking out as she breathes heavily. "Oh my God, tell me if you're gonna go!" Lena looks back and smiles, sticking her tongue out a little. She turns around again. "Calm down, not like you can die again! Let's see... Kumiko... There she is! Hold on better this time!" She says this and begins to fly quickly again, Mayumi yelling and holding on for dear life again. Lena flies for a few seconds and stops. They're right above the abandoned lot. Mayumi looks down and is still freaking out, "Damnit, are you going to help me up!?" She yells, but Lena just smirks and flicks Mayumi's fingers so she falls. Mayumi promptly yells multiple obscenities before realizing she's floating. She looks around and then down. "Oh... I can fly. I am a ghost I guess." Lena smiles at this, "Duh. You don't like to think a lot do you?" Mayumi glares at her, but changes the topic as she looks back down.
"I don't see Kumiko down there. Just my group." Mayumi says quietly. Lena responds saying, "She's on her way. Come on." Lena flies down, and Mayumi moves around a bit to get used to floating, and follows her. Mayumi squints as she floats near Youko. She's back to sitting in the circle with the rest of the group, playing cards again. Mayumi squints, "You're really productive, Youko! I think I'm doing more with my life and I'm dead." Youko's eyes widen and she turns back, squinting. Mayumi flinches a bit, "You can see me!?" But Youko just stares. "I swear I just felt someone saying something to me." The other girls look at each other and whisper, "There she goes again... always talking to nothing. She always gets like this after being near Mayumi..."
Lena looks intrigued by this. She looks at Mayumi and asks, "Does your friend here have a good sixth sense?" Mayumi looks over at Lena and replies, "I guess. We always just thought she was a little crazy. Looks like there's truth to it though. Guess she's got at least one thing going for her." As Lena and Mayumi are talking, panting and quick footsteps come into hearing distance. Everyone looks over and the opening to the lot and sees Kumiko running like her life depends on it. She gets over and everyone stands up, with worried expressions as they see her lightly beaten up. Before anyone can say anything, Kumiko starts talking frantically, "The Nagoya guys are fighting Mayumi! S-she told me to come get all of you! Please Youko, help her..." she begins to sniffle and cover her face as she cries, hunching over from running so long.
Youko quickly shakes Kumiko, "Where the hell is she!? The hell is her problem!?" She yells in her face. Mayumi instantly tries to hit Youko in the back of the head, but floats right through her. "Hey, don't be so rough with her!" She yells out, but no one can hear her. Kumiko stammers out, "T-the warehouse! I'll take you there!" She turns around as she says that, beginning to run again. The entire gang follows. Mayumi and Lena stay put, floating and watching them leave. "You don't want to follow them?" Lena asks, and Mayumi just sighs. "No. Like I said, I don't want to see them looking at my body. Just... knowing Kumiko is alright is enough for me." Mayumi crosses her arms and looks over to Lena. "Alright, Lena or whatever. I got no regrets. Take me to hell or wherever you all got me pinned for."
Lena stares at Mayumi with a small smile, like she's holding in a laugh. Mayumi squints, "The Hell's so funny?" She asks in a low tone. Lena laughs, "It's funny! You know, you really died for no reason! We in Spirit World have it written down how we know everyone will die, and you somehow went against it completely!" Mayumi just stares blankly in response. "What?" She asks, and Lena smiles, responding "You see, if you didn't intervene, Kumiko would've been let go by those guys after a few more minutes with minor injuries still. They would've just roughed her up and gave her a warning. You rushing in and getting yourself killed made everything way way way worse! You have to be the dumbest person I've ever had the pleasure of talking to in this job!"
Mayumi falls over and slams into the ground. She makes a variety of annoyed and depressed sounding noises and yells, "Why did you even tell me that!? You're a serious bitch, you just love making fun of people who die!" Lena grimaces and yells back, "You have such a foul mouth, stuff like this is exactly why we can't bring you back right away!"
Everything freezes. Mayumi's mind registers it. "Bring me back...?" She stammers out. Lena nods and smiles, "Yes! You see, we don't exactly have a place for you. You died when you weren't supposed to, and it'll just be easier to get you back and let you die when you're supposed to later. We could run a thousand tests on someone with your personality and credentials and they would never sacrifice themselves for anyone!" Mayumi looks stunned. She looks annoyed too. "So let me get this straight," she blunty asks, "You Spirit World people only give basic judgments on people and decide whether or not they go to hell for eternity based only on that!? You don't look any deeper!?"
Lena smiles gently, "Of course not. There's too many people for us to do that. It's why your general character is most important. Enough of that, you should focus on what I said! You can come back! You just have to take this test and you can come back. Sweet deal, right?" She sticks her tongue out a little in a playful way.
Mayumi stands up. She is too tired to argue anymore. Everything about this is so stupid to her. Nothing about it seems fair. Nothing in her life ever felt fair. She's tired of it all, and doesn't care anymore.
"I'll pass. Thanks for the offer though."
Notes: Hello! I'll leave some authors notes at the end here. Just some fun facts about the chapter if I got any. Which I do this time!
Lena is actually a character from the Yu Yu Hakusho manga only! In chapter 28, on page 15, there is a panel labeled "single-panel characters" and Lena is the one featured! She only shows up in that one panel, with a very basic description. She's the Angel of Death and friends with Botan, who she is substituting for in this story since I'm not using Botan.
It says she loves finding hot guys and telling them when they're going to die more than anything, which is a bit confusing considering the Grim Reapers and such only talk to the dead and guide restless souls to spirit world. Maybe she does it in their sleep? I'll see if I can work that into the story somehow.
Another thing is she had no official coloring until a mobile gacha game only released in Japan for YYH came out! There she had an event, and we saw she had purple hair for the first time. Neat! I thought she was blonde for the longest time. But it makes sense that she'd have an odd hair color, since Botan does.
Anyway, that's all for now! See you next chapter!