Chapter 3: Hikaru Gosunkugi A Sorcerer's Dream "I read the News Today, oh boy." - Paul McCartney, _A Day in the Life_ Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band A small gathering of people stood around a small grave. Akane Tendo watched tearfully as dirt showered on the coffin that lay there. "Sleep well, Hikaru," she whispered. *** Cicadas buzzed in the humid twilight. Hikaru Gosunkugi strolled down a private memory lane. The rejections, defeats and failures--they weighed heavily upon his heart. The normally depressed and the least understood boy at Furinkan high was truly in a black mood. He was sure his true love would never notice him, now that her mother was back from the grave. He walked through a park in Nerima, his thoughts weighty and dark. Suddenly, Hikaru stumbled and fell to the ground in a heap. Suddenly, his thoughts came crashing down. He threw his hands in the air and screamed, "Why can't I be respected!? I wish I was a powerful sorceror!" The gods must have been listening to the boy cry for mercy for such a life. A crack of rolling thunder boomed, startling Hikaru. He looked up in surprise and drew his knees to his chest, hugging himself tightly. "Why can't I be powerful like Ranma. I wish I were a sorcerer, I would prove to Akane Tendo that I was more powerful than Ranma," he cried softly to himself. Something seemed to glow at his feet; he stopped to wipe the tears out of his eyes and leaned forward to look. He saw a locket and picked it up. "Your wish has been granted." Hikaru jumped back in abject terror. He stared at the luminescent figure that smiled at him, sadly. "But your wish holds more irony than you know, Hikaru Gosunkugi. Go now, you are a powerful sorcerer as you wish. You will find, however, that victory will be bitter." Hikaru jumped up and ran for dear life. He ran for what seemed like hours, and suddenly collapsed near his house to consider what had happened. Suddenly it became very clear to him. He was a powerful magician. What started as a giggle degraded into maniacal laughter. He laughed until his sides hurt at the delicious irony of it all. He did not realize how ironic his wish would prove. The next morning, Hikaru awoke on the ground he had fallen asleep on. He wondered if it had all been a dream. He pointed at a tree and concentrated. Bringing his hands together, he began incanting. Suddenly a flash and a ball of fire erupted from his fingertips, slamming into the tree, bursting into a fiery hell. He held his hands up and knew. He was a mage. What he had practiced before was a chicanery of jokes. This, this was power! He would show Ranma. He would win Akane's love by defeating him. In the reaches of the unknown, something else heard Hikaru Gosunkugi's cry for vengeance. It also felt its power, and hatred. "A delicious combination." It said and began its journey to find the source of this amusement. "RANMA SAOTOME!" Gosunkugi's voice boomed. "I have come for you!" Ranma looked up from his bowl of miso soup. "Huh?" "I will defeat you in combat!" Ranma Saotome looked slightly irritated. It was the second time this week someone had wanted him dead for some imagined transgression. Ranma was really sick of it. He peered at the man who challenged him. "Gosunkugi?" he said in surprise. "Yes, Saotome, it is I. I come to seal your fate. Akane will be mine!" With the word 'mine' the heavens crackled with the indignity Gosunkugi had suffered. "I don't know what you're talkin' about. Leave me alone." "I will not be ignored! For too long I have been ridiculed, and all because of you, Saotome!" 'Couldn't people just leave me alone?' Ranma thought. "Go away. I don't want to hurt you." A bolt of lightning crashed and struck the table Ranma sat at, breaking it in two and setting it on fire. "Fight me, coward!" Suddenly Ranma realized this was no game. It wasn't the lightning; he had dodged that easily. It was the look of pure hatred Hikaru Gosunkugi wore--seething, frothing hatred. Besides, no one called him a coward and got off easy. "All right! I'll fight you! Don't say I didn't warn ya!" 'What's up with him,' Ranma wondered to himself. Hikaru raised his hands, to call down lighting that would smite Ranma where he stood. As he began the incantation, a voice tore his concentration. "Hey, Akane! Ranma's going to fight Gosunkugi!" "That bully!" she yelled, frothing. "Hikaru!" she repeated. "Ranma! What are you doing?" Akane yelled furiously. "Wait! It's not me, the guy challenged me!" Ranma protested. "Ranma! How dare you pick on somebody weaker than you!" "It's not my fault!" "Yeah, right, Ranma ... Hey!" Akane stopped mid-sentence as the ground shifted under her feet. "An earthquake?" she asked, her voice cracking slightly. Inhuman laughter reverberated at Akane's question. Asmodeus had arrived. The three students were showered with dirt as death boiled up through the earth in the form of a black demon. Power sparked over its horns crackling with unearthly energy. A sound like the roaring of a mammoth furnace issued from it--a titanic bellows that issued a brimstone stench. "The earth," the grating voice boomed mirthfully, "has nothing to do with this." "Who are you?" Ranma shouted at the demon. "Death." It laughed again, sounding like rocks being crushed. "If it's a fight you want, you got it!" Ranma shouted defiantly. "I come not for you," it rumbled. It looked directly at Hikaru. "I come for the mage. Your power will be mine, boy." Hikaru stood like a rabbit caught in a headlight, frozen in terror. The demoniac arm lashed out to grab the pitiful human, cowering before it. "Such power, boy!" Akane saw the arm swing down to pluck Hikaru like a twenty ton wrecking ball. In slow motion she saw Ranma dash forward to knock Hikaru out of the way. As Ranma reached the boy, she watched horrified as the demon's aim slammed into Ranma. Hikaru and Ranma went flying and landed in a heap some twenty feet away. Something must have clicked in Hikaru's brain as he got up, and slowly dusted himself off. A gleam in his eye said something. It was the chance to prove himself by defeating this demon. A sonic boom blasted from Hikaru's outstretched hands and impacted in the demon, knocking it back slightly. Asmodeus' laughter boomed over Nerima. "Good! Good! I thought this was going to be boring. So much more fun if you squirm a bit before I eat your soul!" A gout of fire lashed out from Hikaru's fingers and impacted into the demon. This time, the magical flame scored slight damage on it. The demon roared. "That is the first time in ten millennia I have felt pain. For that Mortal, your death will be infinitely slower!" Akane watched all of this with a sick dread; somehow Hikaru had become powerful, but he was giving his all and it wasn't enough. The demon swatted Hikaru like a fly and he slammed into a tree with a crunch. He lay still for a second. It laughed an evil, horrible sound. "Is that the best you have, mortal?" Hikaru got up painfully, blood streamed from a scalp wound where he had hit the tree. He wiped the blood out of his eyes and spat out a tooth. He looked up at the demon without fear. "Good bye, Akane," Hikaru said. Hikaru, magical reserves depleted, drew on his last vestige of strength--his life. He gathered his final power into what he prayed would be the demon's deathblow. "For Akane," he whispered. A column of pure energy lanced out to spear the spawn of hell into oblivion. Akane was knocked back by the force of the shockwave. The last thing she remembered was an inhuman scream that would chase her nightmares for months to come. When she came to, Ranma stood over her with a worried look on his face. "You okay, Akane?" "Ye- yes, I'm fine. Where's Hikaru?" Ranma pointed silently to the broken figure that lay on the ground. Akane got up slowly and walked over to where Hikaru's body lay. She sank to her knees and cried. The funeral was two days later. The Gosunkugi family stood, not understanding why or how their son had died. The papers called it a "catastrophic gas main failure". Akane's mother stood with her daughter, trying to give her comfort after the horrible accident. 'If she only knew,' Akane thought, heartbroken. Strangely, she felt her father seemed to understand. The Saotomes were quiet about it, Ranma wouldn't talk about it, and no one else had witnessed the strange battle in which Hikaru had sacrificed himself to save Akane and Ranma. It seemed the whole battle had been for nothing. She could not tell Gosunkugi's parents that he had died bravely in battle. They didn't know it had been a battle, and they couldn't understand. Akane herself didn't understand. As the pallbearers brought the coffin to the grave, Akane broke down and cried even harder. She had thought she had cried her last tear, but a well of them had been unleashed. Her mother did her best to comfort her little girl. A small plaque was left on the grave. The stone marker would not be put down for months. Rain drizzled down in a mist. Akane stood under her umbrella, clutching a small package. She kneeled down and carefully unwrapped it. She lay a single red rose on his grave and walked away.