[Episode 227427] [Episode 227427]The blow came out of nowhere. One moment, walking. The next, on his back, his jaw screaming in pain, confused and disoriented. He had just managed to notice the figure standing over him when a blow came to his side, sending him rolling to the far wall. Face down in some slick, slimy material he did not care to contemplate, he wondered how he had missed the person when he first entered the alley.
A third blow, he could feel the leather boot compress his intestines and the contents of his stomach joined the unmentionable substance decorating his face.
I am going to die, he realized.
"No, you are not," came an answering voice. Androgynous, with only cruelty as its distinction, its calm certainty was somehow more terrifying than the promise of death.
When the fourth blow came, Gosunkugi realized why death would have been preferable. In too much pain even to whimper, he had no choice but to suffer in some twisted parody of stoicism.
Black leather was the dress of the day, bloodsplatter the favored decoration. He was long past caring that the blood was his. Thigh-high boots, leather panties, a corset with red lace, elegant gloves, a few whips that were clearly decoration given the sadist's hands-on approach, and...Gosunkugi retched again when he saw the facial markings. A DEMON! A classed demon! Death was looking better and better, but he wasn't at all sure now that the hellbitch couldn't follow him! The terror of an eternity of suffering motivated his larynx to function one last time. "Who...who are you?" Oh please don't be a demon I've heard about.
"You may call me Mara," came the maliciously bemused answer, along with a sharp kick to his temple.
Crap, was Gosunkugi's only thought before he felt his skull cave in. But, as before, his body was whole, and he was still alive. I've heard of her. Mara, as she called herself, was generally considered the court jester of Hell's elite, and the only one a mortal had any real chance of containing during a summons. And not that great a chance, and without any of my tools, I'm only alive because she wants me to be.
Mara looked down at the quivering boy. She had only been tormenting him for a minute and a half. It was time to end the farce. Calmly she reached down and methodically crushed his body. His ankles shattered, the knees dislocated, his crotch caved in, his wrists separated, his elbows reversed, his spine cracked, his shoulders twisted, and finally she snapped his neck and ripped his soul from his body.
Gosunkugi managed to stop screaming long enough to notice the changes. He felt numb, instead of pain, save for his neck which burned. The demon Mara was no longer human but a burning pillar of fire shaped like a woman, one hand around his neck. The world around them was washed out greys, blurred and indistinct, and beneath his dangling feet...was the shattered corpse that was his mortal shell.
"Gosunkugi Hikaru." Mara said calmly. Her voice echoed like a pronouncement from on high, shaping the world with its power, defining reality to better please the speaker. It was a thunder that could shatter eardrums, if poor Hikaru had actually had any left.
The name resonated deep inside Gosunkugi. Instinctively, he locked eyes with the being that held his immortal soul like a plaything and found that he could not look away. And where before he knew pain, now he knew fear.
"You have enacted service from those who are bound to me. The debt has come due."
"What service?! Who?" Gosunkugi exclaimed.
"The imp whose name you did not even bother to learn, to spy on the one known as Ranma!"
"But...but he never completed his task! How did I run up a debt!?"
"You deny calling him to your service!?" Mara raged. Almost there.
"No! No never! Please, I'll do anything!" Gosunkugi knew the words were a mistake the instant they passed his lips.
The world faded back into color and focus, and Hikaru found himself alone, in an alley. His body was whole, he felt no pain. Stunned, he brought his hand to his neck, and fainted when he felt what was there.
A collar of black leather, iron bands worked like tiny fingers clutching his throat, inset with brass in a motif of fire.
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(Posted Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:00)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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