[FFML] [Ranma][Bleach][Fanfic]Reaping the Souls of the Cursed Chapter 1: Retrospective (Complete)

[Peter Gallagher]

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Reaping the Souls of the Cursed
By Ellf
Chapter One: Retrospective
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Disclaimer: Insert standard disclaimer here: Slot A goes into peg B,
and all that jazz.

She ran.  That thing was following her, and she didn't know the
reason.  What the hell was it?  She needed to get to the seer.  She
knew that he/she could help her.  Damn, how was it following her?
Wouldn't someone help her out?  She couldn't let it eat her.  The seer
was likely at the school at this time, and all she had to do was turn
down this street and then he/she would be able to stop this monster.
He had helped her before, when her grave was disturbed.  There! There
he was, in his glory, the seer!

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Ranma knew something was off that day.  For one thing, the fiancées
seemed to be avoiding him, and Akane wasn't even insulting him.  Of
course, their discussion after the wedding blew up could have
something to do with that.  It was only the Monday after their parents
had attempted that foolish thing anyways.

Something was off though.  What could it have been?  Ranma continued
his musings as he continued to walk alongside Akane, on the fence on
their way to school.

"Hey Akane, I'm going to run ahead to see if Kuno is planning anything
stupid today."  Without even waiting for Akane's acknowledgement,
Ranma dashed off.  As he approached the school, something tugged on
the edge of his senses.  What was it?  Looking to his left, he could
see the shape of a little girl he had helped the week before Kiima had
shown up.  This girl appeared to be about ten years old at most, and
she had a chain sticking out of her chest.  The chain had a few links
left on it, but it signified one thing to Ranma, she was indeed a
ghost.

He didn't know why, but ever since he learned the Mokou Takabisha he'd
been able to see ghosts clearly.  And he didn't mean the ghosts that
wanted to be seen, but rather he was able to see the ghosts that
weren't usually able to be seen.  It was like a second sight, but not
quite.

"Ranma-niisan, I need your help!"  Oh, that was right, she had taken
to calling him big brother.

"What's wrong, kid?"  Ranma never asked her about her name, he felt he
didn't need to know it.  Hopefully she'd move on to heaven soon.

"It's horrible, this big monster is chasing me and-" Her quick speech
was cut off by what sounded like a terrible roar that reverberated
throughout the area near the school.  Ranma glanced ahead towards the
school and saw that Kuno had reformed the Hentai horde, but for some
reason they turned tail and ran as the roar resounded through the
area.  Whatever it was, it didn't sound like Taro, nor did it sound
like the Orochi.

Then he turned to see the source of the roar, and paled in shock.
Whatever this thing was, it was nothing like he had ever seen before.
It was a big misshapen humanoid creature that was wearing a pure white
mask.  The hole in its chest was where its heart should have been, but
he could see right through it.  Somehow he felt like he had fought a
creature like this before, but he couldn't remember where or when.
Regardless, as his father said, it was a martial artist's duty to
exterminate monsters, and to protect the weak.  The weak this time
happened to be this little ghost girl.  Even if he was the only one
who could see the girl, it just meant he was the only one that could
protect her.

Ranma smirked.  "It'll be alright, kid.  Run off somewhere safe, I'm
takin' this thing down!"

The creature glanced down at Ranma.  "Pitiful Human, you have so
little spirit energy that you'll barely do for a snack."

"I think you'll find that I have more than enough to deal with you,
bakemono!"  Ranma took his traditional stance, letting his opponent
take the first move.

"Your overconfidence will be your death, boy! Take this!" The creature
swung its arm at Ranma, who suddenly was hard pressed to dodge.  It
kept swinging, faster and faster, until finally it struck Ranma,
sending him into the school's outer wall, causing it to crumble around
his body.  "How do you like that, boy?"

As the Ranma pulled his mostly unharmed body out of the wall, he
smirked.  "You hit like a girl.  Now it's my turn!"  The pigtailed
martial artist quickly jumped at the creature, launching an Amaguriken
speed barrage of punches at its abdomen.

"Your punches have no spiritual force behind them, boy.  You'll have
to do better than that to kill me!  Now I come!"  The creature and
Ranma soon became engaged in an exchange of blows and blocks. Ranma's
skill was obviously far above that of the creature, as for every blow
that he blocked, Ranma managed to get two to three punches or kicks in
on the creature.  However, the creature showed no signs of faltering,
but the young martial artist began to tire.  After one mighty blow
connected with Ranma's chest, sending him into the wall once more, the
creature began to speak with its deep, echoing voice, taunting him.
"With pitiful reiatsu such as yours, I'm surprised you can see me at
all. No matter, it's time to end this battle, and I will snack upon
your soul."

The creature pulled back its fist, preparing for a punch at the tired,
panting Ranma.  Ranma instinctively raised his arms as if to block,
but his arms were placed wrong for blocking a fist with just arms, but
rather as if he were holding a katana.  It threw its jab, aiming for
the obvious opening between Ranma's arms...

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"Hey look at Saotome; he's out on the yard doing some strange kata,
not even fighting Kuno."

"I don't know, it looks more like he's fighting something to me."

"He IS fighting something, but I can barely make it out."
"Quit making stuff up."

"Look! Saotome collapsed!"

Indeed, Ranma's body had fallen to the ground as the random student
had mentioned, his body bouncing off the ground like a lifeless doll.
However that was only half the picture. As the creature had swatted at
that open space between Ranma's arms, it was stopped with a resounding
clang of reverberating metal.  The pigtailed martial artist's physical
body indeed fell to the ground, but Ranma's self still stood there in
front of the creature, holding a katana in place to block its punch.

Taking a look down at himself, he found he was dressed in a black
hakama, tabi covering his feet, and he was wearing straw sandals.
Attached to his side was the sheath to the katana, and what's more?
He felt revitalized, not even tired in the least.  Ranma was unsure of
why his clothes changed, but he wasn't going to waste this second
wind. Preparing to attack the creature again, he glanced up at the
monster, a look of cold calculation coming over his eyes and a smirk
finding its way to his face.

"A Shinigami?  How?  No matter!  Your pitiful existence will end soon
Shinigami or no!"  The creature pushed harder on Ranma's katana with
his fist, causing dust to come out as the pigtailed boy slowly was
pushed back.

"Really now, try this on for size!"  Ranma wasn't one to usually use
weapons, but when given something that made it so he didn't have to
touch the creature; he was quite prepared to use it.  Jumping back, he
disengaged from the creature's fist only to bound forward and strike
its mask with a cross-slash, grazing it.

Another horrifying roar resounded through the area as the creature
swung at the pigtailed boy again with its meaty fist, only to miss
once more and get slashed across the arm.  It moved forward with its
mask, hopeful to take a bite out of Ranma before he could cut again.
Ranma dodged gracefully and horizontally slashed through the mask, all
the way through.   The creature roared once more in pain, and its mask
shattered.  It began to dissipate into nothing but particles and Ranma
sheathed his sword.

"Well, that was interesting..."  The pigtailed boy heard the school
bell ring and then shouted, "Oh crap!  Hinako-sensei's going to drain
me again."  Ranma then ran inside, leaving his unoccupied body on the
school lawn.

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Ranma entered the classroom just as Hinako-sensei began to call roll.
He took his seat and waited for his name to be called.

"Saotome Ranma?"

Ranma raised his hand and said strongly, "Hai!"

"Saotome Ranma?  Is that boy going to be late again?"  Hinako's
childish face contorted in confusion.

"I'm right here, Sensei." Ranma spoke to Hinako, waving his hand in
front of her face, hoping to catch her attention.  Unfortunately, it
was to no avail, the small woman acted as if she was looking right
through him.

"That delinquent! I'll drain him as soon as he gets in!"

"Anou... Sensei?" A quiet girl spoke up as she was looking out the
window.  "Isn't that him out there on the lawn?"

Ranma looked dubiously at the girl before exclaiming loudly, "I'm right here!"

"They won't hear you, you know."  A voice resounded through Ranma's
skull.  It was calm, feminine, familiar, and held a lilt to it that
was almost humorous. "They can't even see you right now.  Not even
your precious Akane-sama can see you, Ranma-kun."

"Who's there?  Show yourself!"  Ranma started looking around the
classroom, trying to find who was addressing him.

A light giggle echoed through Ranma's head.  "Ranma-kun, I'm hurt.
You don't know me?  How can you not know who I am?  I am a part of
you, after all."

A cold chill went down Ranma's spine, the voice couldn't be... "How
dare you insult me by calling me a curse, Ranma-kun?  Just for that, I
won't tell you my name until you remember it yourself!"  The voice
sounded miffed, but then it turned playful again.  "You better get
back in your body before they declare you clinically dead."

Ranma looked over at where the class itself had gathered.  They were
pointing out the window at something on the lawn.  He looked in the
direction that the pointing was in, and saw it.  "Holy shit! That's my
body!"

"Tsk, tsk, Ranma-kun.  Get in it before they come and get you."
Ranma heeded the voice this time and leapt from the window to find he
was much lighter than before.  After all, a spirit has very little
mass, and as such is less affected by gravity.  Normally he would have
had to jump to the ground and then run to his body, but instead he
managed to land directly next to it.

Glancing down at it, a few questions rose to his mind.  Was he really
dead?  Who was that voice?  How the hell did Ryoga show up wearing
that pink tutu last week?  More importantly, how was he supposed to
get back into his body, as the voice told him?

Never one to do anything halfway, Ranma jumped onto where his body lay
and was quickly sucked into it.  Blinking a couple of times, he stood
up, glancing around at the students who had gathered, ready to take
him to the nurse's office.

Scratching the back of his head at the base of his pigtail, Ranma
chuckled nervously before posing incredulously and stating with false
bravado.  "Yeah, yeah.  I'm fine.  Don'tcha worry 'bout me.  After
all, I'm the best, ain't I?"

Akane looked on with not just a little anger, but a bit of worry as
well.  "Ranma! Don't make like it was nothing, you were unconscious
out there, you jerk!"

"I said I'm fine, Tomboy.  Nothing to worry about." "Insensitive
little Ranma-kun.  Insulting your Akane-sama like that."  Great.  The
voice was back, he'd think it would be gone after that little
hallucination.

"Nope. I'm here to stay.  You can't get rid of me that easily."  For
some reason Ranma had the image of a super-deformed Ranma-chan giving
him the red-eye and sticking her tongue out at him in his mind.

"..listening to me? Honestly, I don't know why I try."

"I'm sure Ranchan's alright, Sugar.  He looks like he's deep in thought though."

"He's deep in something."

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A cold wind blew as Happosai made his daily rounds, causing him to
pause just long enough for the group of angry women he was being
chased by to catch up with him. As the women began to stomp on him and
steal his liberated silky darlings away from the old ecchi, Happosai
glanced in the direction of Furinkan High School.

It seems like a Hollow's presence was just purified.  Happosai grinned
as the women took his beauteous silky pleasures away from him.
Hopping up from the ground, he bounded across the rooftops towards the
Tendo Dojo. "I best get prepared... Nodoka's going to need help
training that boy."
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(End Chapter)
Author's Notes: Well... there you have it, Chapter 1 of Reaping the
Souls of the Cursed.  Yet another chapter that has been sitting on the
backburner mostly complete for a while.  Hopefully I'll be able to
release the second chapter soon.


-- 
"Evil is merely a perspective, one which is no longer of concern to me."