4A Ninja's Love
Lawrence Figg was not a happy man. Who wouldn't be with a name like that? No, it wasn't really his name that made him so un-happy, it was his life. He had just lost his job. His car had been towed for sitting too long at a parking meter. The bank had foreclosed on his house. Oh yeah, and his wife had run off with some rich guy in a Corvette.
As he trudged along the street, he cursed his bad luck, "This is just great! Why me? What powers that be did I piss off to deserve this?" he sighed and walked on, "What else could go wrong?"
CRACK! BOOM!
He looked up at the suddenly black sky which uncaringly proceeded to dump gallons of rain on his head, "Perfect." he grumbled. He stopped, staring up at the sky, "I wish I was someone else." He waited for something to happen. Nothing did. Sighing, he started walking on, thinking himself an idiot for thinking something would actually happen.
Suddenly, a powerful jolt surged through his body, his vision whited out, and a thundering boom filled his ears, then everything went black.
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When Lawrence came to, he wondered what was going on. Apparently, he was floating in a great, black, emptiness. He assumed he was dead because his limbs were transparent.
Suddenly, an energetic young girl with blond hair and dressed in a kimono popped into existence next to him. "Hi, Mr. Figgs! I'm Sarah, your guide to the afterlife. Now if you'll just follow me..."
Lawrence interrupted, "Wait a minute! What's going on? What do you mean 'Afterlife'? And my name is Figg, not Figgs."
The girl blinked and stared at him. Pulling out a blue folder out of nowhere, she began flipping though it, reading it. "Lawrence Figgs, born May 6, 1937, five-foot-ten, brown hair, brown eyes. Scheduled to die March 19, 1990, four-twenty six PM, location: corner of Main St. and 7th St., New York, New York, USA, Earth, cause of death: struck by lightning..." She looked up at him, "You sure you're not this guy?"
Lawrence sighed, "My name is Lawrence Figg, I was born on July 10, 1967, I'm six-foot-two, with brown hair and blue eyes. The rest of it I don't know anything about, although I'm pretty sure I was hit by lightning, but I know I'm not this guy."
Sarah blinked a few more times, than started cursing in several languages, some of which Lawrence was sure weren't human, in a way that would make even the most die-hard sailor blush bright red. After what seemed like hours, she stopped and yelled, "REAPER!"
A massive being covered completely in a big black cloak, carrying a giant scythe, appeared next to her and she began cursing all over again, this time her long stream of curses was punctuated by comments like, "He's got blue eyes!" and, "He's four inches too tall, FOUR! How could you have missed that!" and, "He's only twenty-three! He had his whole life ahead of him!" After she finally exhausted her repertoire of curses, she savagely pointed in some direction and the reaper disappeared.
Taking a deep breath, Sarah turned to Lawrence and smiled, "I'm sorry, we seem to have made a mistake..."
Lawrence stared openly at her, "A mistake? A MISTAKE? You go and kill the wrong guy and you call it a mistake?"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Sarah wailed, "Whoever signed the Death Form forgot to add the "s" at the end of "Figgs" and the only "Figg" at the right place at the right time was...well...you."
Lawrence narrowed his eyes, "So I got fried by a big lightning bolt simply because I was at the wrong place at the wrong time?"
Sarah blushed and scuffed her feet against the non-existant ground, "Well...um...yea."
He stared at her cautiously, "So...let me guess...the person who signed my Death Form was...you?"
She covered her face in embarrassment, "Um...sorry?"
For a moment, there was complete silence, then Lawrence couldn't hold it in any more. "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! OOH! THIS IS TOO GOOD! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'M SORRY! WE KILLED YOU BY MISTAKE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Sarah huffed, her face bright red, "Hey! I've only been doing this job for eighty-thousand years! I'm new at this! You can't expect me to get it perfect!"
Lawrence regained his breath and waved it off, "Hee hee...no, no, it's quite alright, I wanted to die anyway. So, what's next?"
Sarah stared at him openly, "Huh?"
Lawrence shrugged, "You can look through my file, my life was crap. I don't really care if there was a mix-up, I'll work with what I've got. So, now what?"
Curious, Sarah pulled another file from nowhere, green this time, and flipped through it, "Hmm...oh my...wow...your wife did what?...whoa...owch, that was harsh...heh heh, those rain gods do get a little carried away sometimes..."Her eyebrows raised when she spotted a little entry at the end, "Hmm..." she closed the file and her face took on a look of deep thought. "You really did have a rotten life."
Lawrence watched as Sarah began pacing back and forth. "Yes...that might be possible..." she stopped pacing and turned to him, "Well, since your time on Earth was cut short by mistake, I can give you your life back," she held up her hand as Lawrence started to protest, "However, because the life you did have was unfairly cruel to you, I'm going to give you a different life. One where you can start over with a clean slate, all the way from square one. What do you think?"
Lawrence was thrilled, "Wow! Thanks! But, what kind of life?"
Sarah shrugged, "That, my good fellow, is up to you. It wouldn't be fair if I chose a life for you and you ended up not liking it." Her bright blue eyes gazed at him with curiosity,"So, what kind of life would you like?"
Lawrence thought about it, "Well, I don't really know." A thought came to him, "How about...a ninja?"
Sarah grinned at him like the cat who caught the canary, "Done!" she snapped her fingers and Lawrence faded away with a roar. She then sat down on a non-existent chair and pulled out a pink form and watched as it filled itself out. "Let's see. Reincarnation form...Ok...Ok...Ok...Hello? What's this?" she stopped when she saw one particular line and smirked, "Ooh! That will teach him to laugh at me! Hee hee! This is going to be fun!"
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Emma Tanaka smiled weakly as she held her newborn child in her arms. The doctors had told her she was too weak to have children, and they had said she wouldn't make it when she got pregnant, but she had proved them wrong. After nearly twenty-four hours of hard painful labor, she now held her firstborn in her arms. Ken Tanaka, her husband, had been so worried when she went into labor that he had never left her side throughout the entire ordeal.
Ken gently put his arm around Emma, "What will we call her?"
Emma thought for a moment, then said, "Kikyo. Her name will be Kiko."
Little Kikyo Tanaka suddenly had the strangest urge to cry at the top of her lungs, but didn't have the slightest idea why.