Ranma glanced over the books. Each of the books was fairly huge, nearly square and close to a meter wide and long. Thick too, as thick as the sort of dictionary one normally found only in libraries - the sort that had a table to themselves. Other than the gold-engraved title and the color, there was nothing to differentiate between the volumes.
The red book was labelled Dead Before Their Time, the blue book was titled Doomed By Forces Beyond Their Control and the green book was titled Truly Didn't Deserve To End Up Like This. There was a light blue book titled They Tried and a purple one entitled Fought The Good Fight, But Lost
"Uhm," Ranma addressed the proprietor. "These are..."
"Heroes and those who tried to be heroes," said the Being behind the counter, not looking up from his newspaper. "People who may have had their flaws and difficulties, their moments of weakness and indecision, but tried to do the right thing when it counted. People and things, and things which are also people, who deserve a Second Chance. Hence this agency, which tries to do exactly that."
"Why me?" asked Ranma.
"Because, Mister Saotome, if this agency had not been here you would have been trapped in going to one of the other stores. In most cases you would end up a large breasted street whore mindlessly making out with male customers at first, then female and male customers, and eventually animals, small children, and so on," said the Being. "It was decided that while you have flaws such as your pride and tendency to wound people with your words and actions - you deserved a Second Chance yourself."
"Ah," said Ranma, eyeing the door again. "You said 'most cases'?"
"A few of the other 'magic stores' as referenced in those tales told amongst your classmates don't deal with soul-destroying amounts of despair and degradation," admitted the Being, turning another page. "Furries 4 U, for example, at least makes an effort at the 'quality pets for quality owners.' There are others. 'Sweetheart Confections' as another example would leave you permanently of the female persuasion, but you'd simply orient on a single individual and then be a devoted and loving girlfriend."
Ranma frowned at that possibility. "I've heard the guys talking about these things. These malls like some maze ya can't find your way out of?"
"Until you buy something? Yes," admitted the Being, still engrossed in his newspaper.
"How do I know you ain't lying?" tried Ranma.
"You don't," said the Being. "I'm not, but if I were a demonic entity I could lie. You know though - don't you, Mister Saotome?"
"Yeah," admitted Ranma. This guy was kind of Kasumi-like. Not that 'not entirely not there' aspect, but the 'honest open' aspect - he just sort of radiated that quality. "So-"
"You can look without any sort of charge here, and leave at any time," said the Being. "If you do make a purchase, the cost will be part of your 'bad aspects' - some of your ignorance or monomania perhaps."
"huh," commented Ranma. He was pretty sure he had enough of that to make a major purchase if it came to that.
On an impulse he flipped open the Dead Before Their Time.
Pictures that were apparently flat photographs, except that they moved as they replayed a scene over and over again. Ranma realized he was watching people DIE.
There was a busty looking girl in shorts and suspenders fighting with some decent martial arts moves, except that she went down as some monster knocked her off the railroad bridge she'd been fighting on. She tried to twist and grab a support, but simply landed about five hundred meters down on bare rock.
There was a girl in red, apparently praying at some altar, when some guy in black leapt down and ran her through with a katana from behind.
There was a short-haired, shuriken-hurling, girl. She was facing a cloud of some insects that swarmed around her attacks and left a gleaming skeleton behind when they were done.
There was some spiky haired guy with a really big sword, chopped up by the black-clad katana wielder that had killed the praying girl.
This picture had some blonde girl who morphed into some pink vaguely humanoid-female form, which faded away as some laughing maniac cut in her in half using some glowing stone.
Closing that one, Ranma went to the next book.
Same thing, except opening this one to a random page had a different set of girls and guys. This particular group were going 'splut' as one of the others would touch them.
Except that this was that girl doing the 'splutting' except she was blowing up inside a giant robot while a big white worm attacked her?
And there was this other girl who seemed to be in a coma or something, quietly expiring in a world with a crimson sea and weird sky.
"What happens if I wanna help someone?" asked Ranma.
"Then you have to make the purchase," said the Being, pausing as a took a sip of tea or something. "Some would end up your fiancee or girlfriend, some would end up your student or your friend, some would end up your pet or your genie servant or something else. Penance for deeds as well as the psychological needs of the individual."
"Huh," said Ranma, mulling that over. He hated to see people in pain, especially girls, but wasn't too sure about the commitment. "What if we want to go our seperate ways?"
"Covered in the contract, Mister Saotome," said the Being, looking directly at him for the first time. "All you have to do is terminate their contract by telling them to go away, dismiss them, or something to that effect. They go back to their original doom. We offer Second Chances here, Mister Saotome. For you, and for them. Keep in mind that existence itself rarely gives second chances and more than that is even more rare."
"What kinda people are these?" asked Ranma, flipping a couple of pages to see one gal that REALLY called out to him on some level. Just the look of utter despair and hopelessness, the loneliness on the girl crying in her room, touched him on some primeval level.
"That is Minako Aino, also known as Sailor Venus. She is a champion of love and justice who started out a perky optimist and friendly individual. She became boyhungry later on, then eventually fell to despair and tried to go with lesbian relationships with her teammates, becoming part of her Queen's harem. Eventually she is moved from the spotlight to a third string position as even a haremgirl and then even that falls away eventually. She has a cat named Artemis as an advisor and even Artemis eventually leaves to raise a family with the Queen's advisor. She eventually goes into a despair so profound that she literally wills herself to die, possible because she is a magical girl."
"Yeck," said Ranma. "That's bad."
"Each case is bad, Mister Saotome," said the Being. "That's why they are here."
Ranma -
Sat Apr 23 00:48:17 2005