“I thought I recognized those markings,” said Kasumi, as she entered the room with a rather thick book. “Oh my, where is Nabiki?”
“Silly Yakuza girl play with box and get sucked in,” answered Shampoo.
“Well, that’s not good,” said Kasumi.
“You said you recognized the symbols?” said Cologne.
“Of course. I tried reading it in the languages you suggested, Elder. But Aramaic, Babylonian, and Ancient Egyptian only got me so far.”
“You can read those words, Kasumi!” said Akane in shock.
“Well, I was bored last month and wanted to expand my horizons, so I started learning dead languages.”
The others could only stare at her in shock.
“What?” she asked. “It does tend to get a bit boring here, what with only so many chores to do, and Father and Uncle Saotome preferring to stare at that damn shogi board instead of offer intelligent discussion.
“Anyway,” she started, setting the huge book down. “I believe it was created by the ancient Turtle Civilization.”
Ukyo sighed. “Somehow, the thought that turtles once ruled the world doesn’t sound as crazy as it would have before I came to Nerima.”
“Well, proof has been found,” said Kasumi. “I sometimes work on translations for Dr. Seto Noriyasu over at Tokyo University. And when I tried reading the box in Turtleese, I was able to translate both it and what it does.”
“Which is?” asked Genma. After all, he needed to know what it did before he could sell it.
“Well, according to the inscriptions and what is listed in some of the history files, it is known as the Shadow Prison, a place where the ancient Turtle civilization banished many of the dark and powerful evils of our world, thus allowing human civilization to prosper without the fear of being a giant demon’s lunch.”
“Maybe we can use it on the Master, Saotome,” offered Soun.
Genma nodded.
“But without the proper spells to both direct the influence as well as keep oneself from being pulled in, the item will suck in whoever is touching it when it is activated. I guess Ranma-kun and Nabiki-chan must have accidentally turned it on.”
“So we just need to find out how to open the prison,” said Akane.
“But Akane-chan,” said Kasumi, “were you not listening? That prison also holds horrors beyond description. If we open it up, then they’ll all be released onto the Earth again.”
“But ... but...” stuttered Akane.
Cologne shook her head. “I will start repair work on the Nanban Mirror as soon as I can get it from Happi. With lucky, these Turtle people will have crafted some sort of failsafe within their prison so innocents can’t be kept there. With any luck, they’ll end up deposited somewhere where we can go and retrieve them.” What went unsaid was that it also might become a mission to kill them. Cologne herself had heard of the Turtle civilization. Said culture had traversed the globe, so there was no telling which horrors and monsters from which regions had been captured.
Ranma floated within the strange realm, not moving.
But his eyes, they were wide open, as the sheer mental weight of the world he was now in pressed down upon him. If he knew the truth of the place, he wouldn’t be too surprised. The Shadow Prison was not a world that had been constructed, but a world that had been found. It was a place where great evils went after death.
The air literally reeked of evil.
He could hear names: Metallia, Sepiroth, Unicron...
And more poured in, all dark masses of ill thought that had yet to succumb to the ether of this realm, to meld into the dark and oppressing presence he felt.
But it was enough to act as if a huge weight had been placed upon his chest, if not his soul.
It was inside him, crawling around; he could feel it. It wanted him; it desired to consume all of him, even his soul.
He fought against it, bringing up his aura, trying to hold back the tsunami of evil that seemed to want to crush him.
The weight lessened, but only enough for him to move around, not enough where he would no longer be able to notice it.
A flash of light drew his attention, before he could ponder much more, and he turned to see what it had come from.
He spotted Nabiki, her eyes wide as his undoubtedly had been when he had arrived, before the weight began pressing on her as well.
Ranma rushed as fast as he could over to her, the atmosphere feeling more like water now than a solid block, as he grabbed her as quickly as he could, his aura extending around her.
She was shivering, her eyes wide. The inner strength he had had allowed him to hold off the worst of the effects. And while Nabiki’s mind was sharper, her shock had given the perverse will of this world the crack it needed to strike.
And it had struck hard, if her wide eyes were any indication.
We’ve got to get out of here! I can’t keep this sort of energy level up forever.
Ranma looked around, trying to sense an escape from this prison, before even he too was absorbed into it ... or driven mad beyond all sanity.
A faint light, a place where the darkness wasn’t encroaching...
He looked at it. It resembled a small rip, as if something had punched through at that spot. Forcing himself closer to it, even as his energy reserves began to wane, he noticed that the rip seemed to be shrinking. For how long, he didn’t know.
And he didn’t care. Where ever it led to, had to be better than dying in this dark Hell.
And with that ... he pressed through...
Hundreds of years ago, in this new world, nine demons banded together to breech a hole here from their prison, put there by the last remnants of the Turtle Civilization.
And on this world, they found freedom, sleeping for centuries to regain their strength.
But the most recent and well known of them became that of a giant nine tailed demon fox...
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(Posted Sat, 16 Dec 2006 13:22)
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