Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ At the End of the Tunnel ❯ Delirium ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 and everything in it is the property of Takahashi Rumiko. Sandman and everything in it is the property of Neil Gaiman.

At the End of the Tunnel

Chapter 3 - Delirium

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"Okay. You can come in now. Just don't step on the doggie. He bites. People. Lots."

So said, the crazy swirl of shapes and colors that was Delirium's sigil began to expand beneath Dream's hand. It grew taller and wider, but not uniformly as Ranma would have expected. Instead, it spread out in the air like a puddle of water might, flowing randomly outwards until it was big enough for a person to step comfortably into. Ranma found that staring at it too much left him dizzy; something about how the colors shifted and melted into each other made his head hurt.

The martial artist started to step forward, then paused before the gateway, turning to face Death. "You sure this is safe?" Drawing closer to the portal, he had discovered that it smelled like a mixture of sickly sweet perfume and paint remover.

"You said the same thing about the way to Dream's place, remember?" she replied. "And that turned out just fine.

"Want me to hold your hand on the way in?" Coming from anyone else, the question would have seemed mocking, condescending. But Ranma found no scornful tone in Death's voice, and heard it only for what it was: an honest, simple question.

"No, I think I'll be fine," he said, though he couldn't keep the doubt from seeping into his words. He turned to face Dream. "Uhh, thanks for the juice and all," he said awkwardly. "See you." Having said his goodbye, Ranma closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Opened them again. Having found his center, he stepped firmly forward, disappearing into the stain in the wall that looked more like an oil slick than a doorway.

Instead of following Ranma in directly, Death sighed, her cheerful demeanor suddenly seeming to fade slightly. A hint of stress appeared on her face as she turned to face her brother. "Our brother was better at this kind of thing than I am. Do you think he'll be alright?"

For a moment, Dream said nothing, his eyes shadowy and dark. One white, slender hand grasped the emerald hanging from his neck, his fingers running absently over its surface. At length, he said, "If you had asked me before I had talked to him, I would have said no, my sister. However..." He paused again. "Now, I am not so sure."

The Dream King smiled. A true smile. "Whether he succeeds or not, I wish him the best of luck."

Death grinned back at her brother and said, "I'll tell him you said that." Then, without a backward glance, she walked into Delirium's realm, leaving the Dream King alone in his gallery.

He stood still for a moment, his black eyes roaming slowly across the portraits in his gallery. His gaze finally came to rest on his own pale face, staring back at him from the depths of a mirror. He stayed there for a long while afterwards, his thoughts very far away, indeed, from what his eyes saw.

"The dream of humanity," he said to himself. The smile left Dream's face as he turned and strode from his gallery, his white robes whispering softly against the floor.

---

You know how I said Dream's house was the weirdest place I'd ever been? Guy with a pumpkin head, scary guy with teeth for eyes, talking raven...

I take it all back. This place is like what it'd be like if you took all the weird in the world and dumped it into a big room. Hell, I don't understand half the stuff that's going on. My ki sense is going crazy... my eyes are going crazy. There's a sun hanging in the sky that don't look so much like a sun as a giant pizza. Someone took a big bite outta the edge, and green light's kinda leaking outta it like egg yolk.

It's starting to rain water apples. And by water apples, I mean apples made outta water. One hits my head and splashes open, turning my hair red. I shrink a few centimeters and grow a nice rack while I'm at it. I have to fight the shiver that shakes my body; I'd almost forgot how much I hated changing. Looks like Death was right; my curse ain't gone after all.

Speaking of Death, she ain't coming through. Wonder what's keeping her. I got a few things to ask her; mostly about just why I'm being dragged around to meet her family. I ain't dumb, though a lot of people I know think so. I'm pretty sure that Death don't treat everyone she meets to this kinda grand tour. There's gotta be some kinda reason, and I get the feeling that something's being kept secret from me. Hang around Nabiki long enough, and you get a feeling whenever it happens.

Then the ground caves in under my feet.

---

Ranma landed softly, her knees instinctively bent to absorb the impact. The place she'd arrived at had a bright blue ceiling, which was unbroken despite the fact that she must have fallen through it on her way in. Two beanbag cushions sat around a merrily burning fireplace. Ranma blinked in surprise as she noticed that the "fire" was, in fact, composed of thousands of tiny burning sprites, dancing in the air. A German shepherd lay warming itself next to the flame, giving Ranma a calm, almost human look.

Ranma stared at the dog. The dog stared at Ranma. This comfortable status quo lasted for roughly half a minute, before Ranma opened her mouth to speak.

The dog beat her to it.

"Strange," he commented. "You look almost normal." Ranma forgot to close her open mouth, staring blankly at the talking canine. Seeing the martial artist's failure to reply, the dog sighed an incredibly human sigh, and then placed his paws over his head in an exceedingly doglike manner. "I don't know why I even bother," he grumbled. "They never talk back in a language I can understand, anyway."

Part of Ranma noted that the dog was the first being she'd met in this strange realm that seemed even remotely sentient. Another part realized that the dog assumed her to be a part of this crazy world, just as she had assumed the dog to be. Which meant that there was a good chance that the dog was a resident, not a construct, of the place she had found herself in, and was probably a great deal more knowledgeable about the surroundings than she herself was. Having made several brilliant deductions and leaps of faith, Ranma gave a mental shrug - Got nothing to lose - and said, "Hey, dog. D'you know where I can find this chick named Delirium or something?"

"Oh, goody," the dog said dryly, looking up at Ranma with what was perhaps the most unenthusiastic approximation of excitement that the martial artist had ever seen. "The girl can speak."

The reply came automatically. "I'm a guy."

The dog merely nodded once in acquiescence, his voice somehow managing to convey equal amounts of polite interest and amused disbelief. "Then I must inform you, good sir," he said, "that you are endowed with the most impressive pair of breasts which I have ever had the questionable privilege of seeing on a male of your species."

Raising a paw to stave off Ranma's angry protest, the dog continued. "But belay that kind of talk. My name is Barnabas, not dog, and the one you're looking for happens to be my master."

The martial artist's eyes lit up. Bingo. "So d'you know where she is?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Barnabas said, watching Ranma deflate visibly. "She comes and goes as she wills, although she mentioned she was expecting a visit from her sister and her companion." He looked up at Ranma. "I take it that said companion is none other than yourself."

Ranma nodded and said, "How'd you know?"

"Those who come into this realm of their own accord are rarely coherent enough to hold intelligent conversations with anyone," replied the dog. "So you must have been escorted here." At Ranma's nod, he continued. "Where's your guide?"

Before Ranma could do more than open her mouth to reply, a lilting, skewed voice sounded from beneath him.

"You promised you wouldn't turn into a pretty redheaded girl," the voice said accusingly. A door opened up from the floor and the owner of the voice walked out of it. She had neon pink hair in a long ponytail, and was dressed in an oversized trench coat, unbuttoned. Underneath the coat, Ranma could make out a frilly lace vest and a short blue skirt. Her eyes were differently colored. One was a startlingly bright shade of emerald green; the other was pale blue. Silver flecks floated randomly in the iris of her green eye, like goldfish in a tank.

Ranma blinked, nonplussed, as the girl continued to glare at her. "Uh... Sorry?" she offered weakly, raising her hands up beside her head.

Surprisingly, the girl accepted her apology. "Okay." She turned to face Barnabas, completely ignoring the pigtailed martial artist. "Doggie, am I forgetting anything? Because I forget things sometimes. I think. I forget."

"You were going to meet your sister and her companion, who I believe is standing there next to you," "Doggie" replied, apparently used to the nickname. "Your sister is nowhere to be seen."

Delirium turned and looked at Ranma again. "You promised you wouldn't turn into a pretty redheaded girl."

"I believe you already said that," Barnabas said, amused. He laughed in his doglike way, and sauntered out of the room through the ground-door, closing it behind him with a flick of his tail.

"Oh."

Ranma, who had been fidgeting nervously, finally found her voice. "Death said I was supposed to talk to you."

"She did?" said Delirium, sounding curious. "She says lots of stuff, you know. Once she said something about keen peaches, except it wasn't in that order. And there was that one time she told me lots of good things about me to make me feel better." The girl paused, her oddly mismatched eyes focussed on nothing. "But I wasn't myself back then."

Having nothing better to do, Ranma nodded dumbly. A part of her mentally noted that she was doing that a lot lately, but she ignored it. "So..." She trailed off, finding herself beset by the awkward situation of talking to someone she didn't have the faintest idea about. Inwardly cursing herself - the same thing had happened with Dream, damn it - she blindly opened her mouth, trusting it to do the talking for her while her brain came back from its impromptu vacation. Never mind that that trust had gotten her many a righteous fist to the face in the past, when her foot came up of its own accord and lodged itself in said mouth.

"Peachy keen." Delirium said, a smile lighting up her face.

"Huh?"

"It's what my sister said once," the girl explained. "Peachy keen. Not keen peaches. Peaches aren't keen. They're kind of mushy, except when they're not ripe and then they're hard but still not keen." In Delirium's world, apparently, things like "making sense" only happened to other people.

Ranma found herself completely and utterly lost. Making a gamble, she employed the time-honored Saotome secret conversation technique of Changing the Subject. "Your brother was a pretty cool guy, once I got to know him," she said, thinking of the pale Dream King. "Made some wicked juice."

"His beard was scratchy." Unfortunately for Ranma, her opponent was an unparalleled master of Changing the Subject, having had over ten billion years of experience to polish her skills in the art. "It tickled when he kissed me on the cheek."

Ranma gave up and flopped down onto the beanbag nearest to her, ignoring the faint titters of the fire sprites. The girl was living up to her name; Ranma hadn't the faintest idea what in the world she was talking about.

The ceiling changed to a murky, rolling grey that reminded Ranma of thunderclouds on the horizon. Delirium sprawled haphazardly on the beanbag next to the redhead, idly creating winged poodles that sunk slowly into the ground. "We went to look for him," she said slowly, staring at the floor. "And we found him." Her hair changed color and shortened to come to an end just below her shoulders, flame red and frizzy. "But he didn't have a beard anymore."

Ranma didn't quite understand what the girl was talking about (to be perfectly honest, she hadn't had an inkling from the moment that disembodied voice had mentioned statues with chocolate clothing), but such things had never stopped her. "Dream had a beard?"

"Nuh-uh," Delirium said. "He never liked beards. Said they got in the way and stuff."

"You're not talking about Dream, then?"

Delirium blinked and shook her head. "Yeah I am. I told you he never liked beards."

Ranma suppressed the urge to scream through a great effort of will. "Then who had a beard?"

"Oh. You should have said that in the first place. Lots of people had beards. Abraham Lincoln had one," Delirium said, matter-of-factly, ignoring the fact that Ranma was now doing a remarkably good impression of a red-haired puffer fish.

"My brother Destruction had one."

Ranma stopped on the verge of shouting. The girl was finally making sense! "So your brother Destruction had a beard."

"He did. Umm. Five hundred years ago, I think. But he didn't, two hundred years ago." Delirium nodded to herself. "Have a beard, that is."

Deciding that resistance was futile, Ranma just followed along. "This Destruction guy don't have a beard no more, right?"

"I don't know."

"Eh?"

"I don't know," Delirium repeated, as the ceiling changed color to a dark red. "He's gone now. He didn't come back with me and make me laugh and dance with me. I asked him to. But he didn't, and I couldn't make him. There're sharks in the water and they'll eat you if you aren't careful."

"One other could also be said to be lost, though my elder sister did not take him," Dream had said, and Ranma remembered this suddenly. She pieced together what she'd learned from the disjointed conversation, discarding what she thought she didn't need. Delirium had another brother named Destruction, who she had gone looking for once, presumably two centuries ago. Another conclusion was that this Destruction was none other than the "lost one" Dream had referred too.

"You haven't seen Destruction in two hundred years?" she started, slowly. Delirium nodded.

"I thought he'd come back, but he didn't. He left, and I don't think I can find him again, even if I wanted to. I don't want to. Not anymore. Not really." She bit her nails nervously. "He gave me a doggie, though."

"So... where's he now?" asked Ranma cautiously, remembering Dream's short answer to a similar question.

Delirium replied, "I don't know. I do. I know but I forgot, like the way you always forget that you're not wearing anything but your underwear in dreams, and then you suddenly remember halfway to work. Except I haven't suddenly remembered yet. Some things are better off that way."

"Anyway-" Ranma started to say, but stopped, her mouth snapping closed with an audible click as Delirium continued.

"But now you're here instead and I'm all confused."

I'm here? "What do you mean by that?" Ranma asked, suddenly disoriented. The "instead" that Delirium had said had not gone unnoticed, and she didn't know what to make of it.

"Well, Destruction left his realm behind. And now that you've come here, things are changing. Like guys who change into black piglets when they get hit with water, except different." She would have said more, but she was interrupted by the sound of an impact on the ceiling, as if someone was knocking. "Come in."

A door opened and Death walked through, shaking water off of her umbrella. "So there you are," she said, her tone somewhat exasperated. "I thought you'd gotten yourself lost and I was looking all over the place for you." The umbrella vanished, off to wherever umbrellas go when not in use. The pale girl looked over at her sister and said, "No offense, Del, but your realm could use a little cleaning up."

Said sister pouted, puffing her cheeks out. "I like it this way. The fishies are always where I don't want them to be."

"Something the matter, Ranma?" asked Death, turning to look at the martial artist. The redhead had a brooding expression on her face, her normally crystal blue eyes clouded and confused.

"Not that I'm not grateful to you for showing me around like this after I died and all..." Ranma started, standing up to face her guide. "But I wanna know about this Destruction guy, and what he has to do with me," she finished firmly, letting a hint of iridescent ki flicker behind her eyes. She'd had enough of blindly doing what other people wanted when she was alive; she had little intention of doing the same in death.

To her surprise, Death just sighed and massaged her forehead, as if to stave off a headache. "Del, just what were you two talking about before I got here?"

"Umm. Lots of stuff," the younger Endless said. "Keen peaches and juice." She slumped on the beanbag, twiddling her thumbs and refusing to meet Death's eyes.

"And?"

Unable to withstand her sister's steady gaze any longer, Delirium blurted, "And we talked about Destruction and how he left and Ranma and I really didn't say that much so don't get mad at me please..."

Death waved her hand once, saying, "It's nothing. Had to come up sooner or later. Don't worry, Del." She cracked a wry grin as Delirium relaxed visibly, seeming to deflate into her beanbag seat. The pale girl turned to face Ranma. "Sorry for keeping you in the dark like that, Ranma." Surprisingly, her voice didn't sound as worried or angry as the martial artist had expected. "I was going to tell you later, when you'd had time to adjust to things a bit more, but it looks like Del let the cat out of the bag."

"So are you gonna tell me what's going on?" Ranma asked doubtfully.

Death nodded. "Mhmm. No use crying over spilled milk, after all. Desire will have to wait; we'll have to take a side-trip to my place first." A black hole appeared silently next to her, looking much the same as the one she had made next to the ruined school building. She looked over at Delirium and said, "Sorry for leaving so soon, Del. Take care, little sister."

The girl nodded absently, her attention captivated by a pair of crying, purple hours that were busily running up and down her legs. "Uh-huh. Don't be sorry. I used to know why you shouldn't be sorry, but I forgot it a few minutes ago. I'll tell you if I ever remember."

Ranma stared at the black gate warily; it hadn't looked very appealing the first time around, and having been through it once didn't make it look any friendlier. "Where's this one going to?"

"I told you," Death said, already halfway through. "My place."

Inwardly thinking very uncharitable thoughts about her afterlife, which so far had consisted mostly of meeting weird people and walking through strange doors, Ranma heaved a huge sigh. "This kinda thing always happens to me," she said wearily, and turned to face her host. "Sorry about this. Nice talking to you." The martial artist twitched as she noticed that Delirium wasn't listening to her at all, apparently absorbed in the sight of the fire sprites, who had all turned a frighteningly bright shade of blue. "Umm... I'll be going now."

Still looking back over her shoulder, Ranma followed Death through the black gate. Delirium remained as she was for a few minutes, then flipped over, staring at the ceiling.

"He was nice, wasn't he, doggie? Even though he was a girl. I don't know whether I like him more than my brother yet, though." The silence made her get up, looking around. "Doggie? Did I lose you again?"

A moment later, Delirium left through a door in the bright green ceiling, leaving the room behind her empty.

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Next chapter: Desire