Hi all,
After another long while of Real Life distractions and writers
block, I'm finally back at this thing. Hearts of Ice Part 24 is
rapidly falling into place, so here's a 17K teaser, for those of
you who like this sort of thing. ^_^
Thanks to my all my regular pre-readers, and the late-night
(early morning?) FFIRC gang. They caught some truly awful typos
for me. ^_^;
C&C is welcome and appreciated.
Previous chapters can be found at:
http://www.akane.org/heartsofice
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The voice of the Ancient One filled Ranma's mind, quiet, and
yet infinitely commanding.
"*Go, now, to your place of eternal rest.*"
The liquid fire bled from his limbs, out his fingers and the
soles of his feet, and suddenly he could move again. He turned
to Akane, even as it seemed that he was moving away from her...
"Akane..." he called, and his own voice was loud in his ears.
He was moving without moving, and she was running after him,
her hands outstretched. But even as she ran towards him, she
seemed to fade away from before his eyes, as if a thick veil of
mist had risen between them. "Ranma," she called, her voice
dwindling. "Ranma, I love you..."
"Akane!" He tried to move towards her but the gesture meant
nothing as the mists thickened before him. "I'll come back, I
swear..."
And then, he heard the sound of rushing water behind him,
and he turned...
...and saw nothing but shimmering pale blue, filling his
entire field of vision so that he saw nothing else, even when he
turned back the way he had come. All around him, above him,
beneath him, as far as he could see. Pale, shimmering blue, like
a washed-out desert sky.
"Where--" he said, and then choked as his mouth filled with
water. It was only then that he felt the cool, wet pressure of
it against his skin and his open eyes; felt the mild currents
flowing around him, lifting and tugging at his clothes and his
dark hair.
Several realizations struck him at once. He was under
water. Under water, and he could *feel* it, and it was
wonderful, after the near-complete sensory deprivation he had
just experienced during his brief stint as a hungry ghost on the
Ancient One's mountain.
Another realization. He was under water -- cold water at
that -- and he was still male.
Also -- and this was on the rather negative side of things -
- his lungs were starting to burn from lack of air.
Some rational part of him that wasn't buried under the
sudden flare of panic that gripped him wondered how he could
drown if he was already dead. But if he was dead, he was dead in
a place where he felt incredibly, vibrantly alive with the
restoration of his sense of touch, as well as the apparent need
to breathe, and if the dead could die twice, he didn't want to
wait around to find out.
He began swimming instinctively upwards, though there was no
way to tell if all this water that he found himself submerged in
even had a surface to reach. The water looked the same in all
directions; pale blue, no distinguishing light or shadow to let
him know if he was swimming in the right direction. His single,
surprised word had not even created any air bubbles for him to
follow to safety.
*Maybe the dragon screwed up,* he thought with a mixture of
annoyance and fear. That was the way his life, and death, went,
apparently. One big screw-up after another. *I was supposed to
go to the Japanese afterlife, but instead I ended up in some
crazy water dimension.*
His swimming became more frantic and determined as the
burning in his lungs increased. He cursed mentally, thinking
about how, less than five minutes ago, he hadn't been able to
breathe even if he'd wanted to. That particular nuisance would
have been a blessing in this current circumstance. On top of
that, he was just getting used to not needing to breathe! It
wasn't fair to change the rules on him like this, dammit!
His lungs were on fire, the strength was leaching from his
limbs, and his fingertips were turning blue when he finally saw a
wavering light far above him. Or maybe it was just an illusion;
a hallucination caused by the lack of oxygen to his brain. He
didn't know, didn't care. Spurred on by the sight, he pumped his
legs furiously and felt a twinge of relief when the light seemed
to grow closer through his effort. And then he could actually
see bright sunlight filtering down through the water, see it
rippling across the surface, and he pushed himself for it. After
an infinite moment, his fingers straining upwards, he broke
through the surface into crisp, clean air that he eagerly took
into his aching lungs with a heaving gasp. Before his weight
could pull him back down, he kicked his legs to keep his head
above water...
... and felt his bare feet touch down on something soft and
silty, that pushed between his toes, and yet stopped him from
sinking further.
Ranma, still gratefully gulping air, blinked in surprise and
looked down. The crystal clear water only came up to his mid-
torso. Below the surface of the water, he could see that he was
standing on a bed of gray sand that sifted and swirled around his
feet with the current.
"...the hell?" he said, thoroughly confused and irritated at
this point.
"Oh, you don't want to go there," said a voice, and he
looked up, startled, to see a young woman, wearing a deep red
summer kimono with an intricate pattern of green leaves,
kneeling, poised and graceful, on the nearby grassy bank. She
smiled at him, and he saw that she wasn't as young as he first
thought, for there were laugh wrinkles at the corners of her
dark, glittering eyes.
"Who are you?" Ranma asked.
"Just a dead soul, like yourself," she answered casually.
"I'm waiting for reincarnation."
Ranma took that in. "So..." he said slowly. "This *is* the
afterlife?"
"Yes," she answered patiently, as though she had dealt with
this sort of thing before. "You're dead. Don't worry, you'll
get used to it."
"It's not that." Ranma had had plenty of time to get used
to the idea of being dead, and he didn't want this woman to think
he was some sort of novice or anything. "I just thought I might
have gotten lost on the way here or something." Now it was the
woman's turn to blink in surprise. "I came from China, see," he
explained. "And I didn't think that almost drowning was part of
getting here," he added irritably. "Is that the way everyone
gets here? They die, and suddenly find themselves several
hundred meters under water?" Ranma didn't know if it really was
that far, but it had felt like it.
The woman was looking at him oddly. "You almost drowned?"
she asked, raising an eyebrow as if she didn't quite believe him.
"I was wondering why you made such a big production, coming out
of the river like that, gasping like a fish out of water."
Ranma frowned. "So it wasn't like that for you?"
She shook her head. "I was only under for a few moments.
Just long enough to realize that I was dead, and that the surface
of the river was just above me."
Ranma had a million questions then, but was struck with a
sudden morbid curiosity. "So... how did you die?" he said
carefully, hoping it wasn't some sort of taboo question.
But she just shrugged. "Car accident," she said. "I was on
my way to a festival. Found out too late that it's best not to
drive a stick shift wearing a tight-wrapped yukata and wooden
sandals."
Ranma blinked, not knowing what to say to that. He was
about to ask how long she had been sitting there waiting for
reincarnation, when suddenly the river bed seemed to shift under
his feet, and a strong current took hold of him, pushing him a
full meter downstream so fast that he nearly lost his balance and
plunged all the way under the water again. "Whoa!" he yelled,
and he struggled against it, trying to wade for the bank where
the lady was sitting, but the more he struggled, the stronger the
current became. "What the hell is this?"
"Don't fight it," the woman called out to him. "It's okay,
this happens to everyone. Once the river has you, it will send
you where you are supposed to be."
Ranma didn't like the sound of that. He wasn't sure where
he was supposed to be, but he knew where he wanted to be. He had
to find Emma-o, the Lord of the Hells. He twisted in the water,
trying to see where the river was pushing him.
His eyes widened as he got a good look at the river for the
first time. He hadn't realized that it was so... huge.
Or that he was not alone in its waters.
The river looked to be nearly a mile wide. And it was full
of people. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people. The more he
looked, the more he gradually became aware of them, their forms
slowly appearing before his eyes. Old people, middle-aged,
teenagers, children... even a few infants floated gently on the
surface of the water. Ranma stared at them all in amazement.
And yet, he noticed that only a few were looking around at the
others, like he was. Most seemed completely unaware that they
were not alone in the vast river, just like he had been moments
before, even as they were being pulled along by the same swift
current that he was caught in.
As he watched, feeling the current drag him down river,
several more people broke through the surface of the water,
looking a bit dazed, and perhaps even a bit frightened as they
looked around at their new surroundings... and yet their eyes
passed blindly over their fellow deceased.
"You don't see it all at once," he heard the woman say, far
off to his side. She had stood, and was following him as the
river swept him along. "It's too much to take in. And then, you
see only if you're looking closely." She paused. "You're seeing
a lot, I can tell by the look on your face."
Ranma could only nod.
He could see that the river downstream forked three ways.
The right fork, near the bank that he was closest to, wound
off into the distance, and he could see lush fields, and forested
mountains. And, as he looked closer, he thought he could see
houses, their gleaming tiled rooftops peaking through endless
groves of cherry trees, reflecting the sunlight, and people
waiting on the banks of the river, helping others out, greeting
them with smiles and hugs...
It looked... nice. Warm. Welcoming. Like family. Ranma
felt his heart twist inside his chest, and he forced himself to
look away. He couldn't allow himself to get distracted...
As he forced his gaze elsewhere, he noticed that other
people were washed up onto the bank before they reached the forks
in the river. Those, like the woman, who were to be
reincarnated, he guessed.
The middle fork was hard to see. It was obscured by mists,
and when Ranma tried to look at it closely, it didn't seem to be
there at all, which puzzled the hell out of him. It was like an
optical illusion, something he could only see when he wasn't
paying attention to it directly, and it immediately aroused his
suspicions. Was that where he needed to go to find Emma-o?
"Where does that middle fork go?" he asked the woman.
"Middle fork?" The woman sounded surprised.
So, she couldn't see it. That meant that it was a pretty
decent bet that she didn't know where it led, either. "Never
mind," he said, and he looked out across the river again,
wondering if there was a way to maneuver himself to that middle
fork...
But, as his gaze slowly raked past the masses of human souls
caught in the river... he could suddenly hear voices. The voices
floated to him across the surface of the water, snatches of
solitary conversation, faint and eerie...
"...dead? I'm dead? But I was just..."
"...at last, finally, I waited so..."
"...god, oh god, I'm sorry, I didn't want..."
The faint garble of voices washed over Ranma like a wave,
far colder than the river itself. So much confusion, relief,
uncertainty, fear...
"...mama? Mama? Where..."
"...ooo! Nooooooooo! Help, someone, I..."
His head jerked towards the sound of that last terrified
voice...
The left fork.
For a moment, he couldn't see it. It was even worse than
trying to look at the middle fork. His eyes kept skipping past
it, almost instinctively, because each time he almost saw it, a
feeling of immense dread twisted his insides. But then, he grit
his teeth, and forced himself to stare, unblinking, until it
slowly came into view...
One look at it, and Ranma knew that it was where he needed
to go. The water streaming into that left fork ran thick and
blackish-red, like an open, clotting wound. The people caught in
its current clawed futilely at the bloody water as they tried to
escape its grip, their eyes wide, or clenched shut, their faces
tight masks of terror. In the distance, the sky was as black as
tar, and as Ranma listened carefully, he became aware of a thin,
high sound that drifted from that starless void. Faint, but it
chilled him to the core all the same.
That wasn't... screaming, was it?
"Like I said." The woman following him on the river bank
spoke again, and her voice was grim as her own gaze followed his.
"You don't want to go there." She sighed. "Lucky for you, it
looks like you're headed for your ancestors. I mean, life's
great and all, but I personally am not too thrilled about having
to live it all over again..."
But Ranma didn't tear his eyes away from the left fork. "I
gotta get over there somehow." And he began to struggle against
the pushing force of the river, forcing his legs to move against
the water pressure.
The river, sensing his struggle, fought back. Ranma found
himself suddenly in the midst of his own personal rapids. The
water frothed and churned with the sudden force of several tons
of water rushing around Ranma's body, pushing him towards his
eternal destination whether he liked it or not. He strained with
all his strength to stand, but the current was too much for him.
His feet were swept out from beneath him, and for a moment, he
went under. Immediately, the waters calmed, and Ranma stood
again, spluttering and angry as he felt the current once again
pulling him steadily downstream. "Damn it," he shouted. "Leave
me alone! I'll go where I damn well want to!"
The woman was staring at him, mouth agape. "What are you
doing?" she asked.
He ignored her, his eyes narrowed and calculating as he
looked around. There had to be a way to escape the river's
current. Any move he made in any direction other than the way
the current ran made the river react violently. He looked across
the river, where thousands of other human souls drifted
inexorably towards their fate...
He blinked. And grinned.
The woman's eyes narrowed, but he didn't see. "What are you
doing?" she asked again.
Hi didn't answer. Instead, he took a deep breath and ducked
under the surface of the water, curling himself into a crouch.
He opened his eyes in the clear water, waiting , letting the
current drag him along the bottom of the river bed...
...and then, he jumped.
The woman stared as Ranma burst from the river like a
trained dolphin. He flipped at the top of his arc, and landed,
feet first, on the top of a man's head.
The startled man, who was apparently on his way to meet his
ancestors according to the direction his current was pushing him,
didn't even have a chance to react, for Ranma had already leapt
to the next head, and the next...
The river did nothing, could apparently do nothing, Ranma
noticed, as he gleefully head-hopped his way across the river.
"'Scuse me! Comin' through! Whoops, sorry ma'am, you looked
like a guy from the back."
The woman in the red kimono on the river bank yelled after
him. "Wait! Where do you think you're going?"
"Where does it look like?" he called back. "I'm going to
Hell!"
The woman stared after him, wide-eyed. Indeed, he was
making great progress across the river, jumping from the head of
one astonished dead person to the next, until finally he reached
the black-red waters that bled into the left fork. At that
point, though, the people caught in the river's current were not
docilely allowing themselves to be swept along. They were
struggling frantically to get away, and the river was fighting
back, often dragging them under the thick, slimy waters until
their struggles ceased.
Ranma stepped on one river-slick head, and slipped.
*splash*
He went under. The river had him again... and it was
furious. There would be no reprieve or escape for him this time,
and the woman saw a brief flicker of panic cross Ranma's face as
the raging red waters dragged him under...
The woman held her breath, her eyes scanning the far bank's
violently turbulent waters. The moments ticked by with terrible
slowness.
Finally, Ranma resurfaced at the mouth of the left fork. He
looked bedraggled and afraid as he looked around, bloody water
streaming from his hair and down his face... but then he saw
where he was. The river had apparently decided to grant his wish
after his display of utter disrespect for its laws. He was on
his way to Hell.
And he was grinning in triumph.
The woman slowly passed a hand over her eyes. "Ranma," she
groaned. "You idiot."
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Hearts of Ice
Part 24: Phoenix
by Krista Perry
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To be continued.