Tenchi Muyo: No need for paradise.
By Brendan O’Donnell Kiyone stood at the entrance to The Corridor.
She shuddered as she contemplated the meeting she was
being called to. She looked at the door just inside.
It was bright red with a black 1 painted at its
center. Taking a deep breath she entered the gray
hallway. She had no idea how long it would take her
to reach the black room 666. The office of the
fallen angel, the supreme ruler of Hell. The place
she had dwelt since she had died.
Kiyone walked foreword, trying to distract
herself from her reason for being here by counting
the doors as she passed them. By the time she
reached 600 she felt ghost pain throughout her entire
lower body. Ghost pain because she didn’t have a
real body anymore. She ignored the illusionary pain
as she pressed onward. At door 665 she paused to
stare at the next door, a dull orange door with a red
1 painted on it.
*I guess I’ve got a longer walk then I
thought.*
Kiyone pressed on. As she walked she found
herself unable to avoid thinking about her life and
her death. She thought about the afterlife she was
trapped in as well. It became a distraction from the
false pain in her phantom body as she kept up a pace
that her physical body would have killed itself
matching.
She thought of her death. Ironically Mihoshi,
who she would have bet everything she had to be it’s
cause, was over a hundred light years away when it
happened. The Galaxy Police had admitted that the
paperwork for three of their scheduled leaves had
been misfiled, and they were granted extended leave
with a bonus to compensate. She had managed to
insure that she and Mihoshi spent their vacations on
different planets, separated by eight hundred
parsecs. Three days later Kiyone had been walking
home from a bar with a guy she had picked up when she
managed to trip and fall over a small bridge and
suddenly she was here in hell.
Hell was something else that didn’t match here
expectations. She had expected perpetual torment,
but instead the torments occurred at seemingly random
intervals. The first time she had been reading the
instructions for filling out the form asking for
details on why she was in hell, and as she perused
page 98 she had suddenly found someone else’s life
flashing before her eyes. Specifically the life of
Kamageri, who she and Mihoshi had arrested for armed
robbery in their first year of partnership. Mihoshi
had always thought he was innocent, but Kiyone had
gotten tired of her actions and closed the case. Now
she could see his life clearly, could see his
innocence, and how the arrest had destroyed his life
so totally.
The rest of the time was a torment of a more
subtle nature. It didn’t seem too bad, but the
torment arose more from a lack than anything that she
had to deal with. There was no happiness, no
kindness, no hope. And of course the bureaucracy
that she and everyone she knew hated so much was
here, with even greater intensity and power. Agony,
emptiness, and frustration. Hell was worse than she
had imagined.
Suddenly the fact that she had passed a black
door with the number 645 intruded on her
consciousness. Looking up she accelerated her pace,
coming to a halt as she reached her goal.
She looked at the door. It was utterly black,
except for the red numbers proclaiming it office 666.
Kiyone raised her hand and fought down a wave of
fear. Reaching out her hand she prepared to knock.
"Come in Kiyone." said a deep voice inside the
office. Kiyone blinked a moment, then opened the
door and stepped inside.
"You wanted to see me..." What was the proper
title to call him, she wondered.
The fallen angel looked up from a desk that
looked like a red copy of her supervisor’s. In fact
the entire office looked exactly like her supervisors
only subtly wrong. "That I did. Using the Mortal
time rate as a reference, you’ve been here for six
years. I was reviewing your case."
Oh no... "My. . . Case?" She said, trying and
failing to keep the fear from her voice.
"Actually it was at a request from the opposing
realm, but looking things over I have concluded that
you can be released a lot sooner than expected, right
now in fact."
Kiyone blinked. She wasn't aware that she
could be released from hell. "Released?"
"To Heaven's care. In fact the angel who'll be
looking you over while you make the transition should
be at the gate really soon. If you'll just fill out
the forms."
Kiyone looked over the firms. *There has to be
some sort of trick.* She thought to herself.
*Should I go along with it? What am I thinking?!?
This is my chance to get out of hell!!* She picked
up a pen and quickly signed her name to the
appropriate places.
"Excellent!" He raised his hand and suddenly
they were standing by the gates she vaguely
remembered passing through when she had arrived. He
punched a sequence in a shadow in the air by the edge
of the gates and they silently opened. Satan walked
through the gates, and Kiyone followed.
"Heaven's sending an angel to look after you
while you’re adjusting." The dark one said. "She
should be here any minute. Or less." He added
stepping aside as a brilliant light suddenly appeared
from nowhere, and a white clad figure stepped up to
them.
"KIYONE!!" Kiyone froze as a figure in white
suddenly grabbed her. She was all in white, she now
sprouted wings, but the blond hair and that awful
voice were exactly as she remembered.
"Oh Kiyone!" Mihoshi continued. "It was so
awful after you died, I mean I tried to do my best
to make you proud, but the chief kept yelling at me,
and there were those partners who went crazy and had
to be locked up, and finally I wasn’t paying enough
attention and a smuggler managed to shoot me. But
the worst part of it was that when I got to Heaven I
couldn't find you. I looked all over and I even
tried to check with Hells records at a friends
advice. I can't believe that anyone actually thought
you belonged in hell. Well don't worry, I'm here now
and we'll be together forever!"
"F-Forever?" Kiyone slowly turned her head and
looked at the Devil, who was closing the gates of
hell behind him with a big grin on his face.
"Wait! I changed my mind!" Kiyone screamed
as she ran for the gates.
Satan smiled as he walked away from the gates
of Hell, listening to Kiyone’s screams. The mind is
it’s own place and can make a Heaven of Hell, A Hell
of Heaven. He chuckled to himself.