Fixing him with a strong look, her eyes hard, Mukoku said, "Let me tell you the story of how hell was lost."
Settling down, posture reclined, Ran prepared himself for a story more precious than golf.
Since his arrival, he'd puzzled over a set of questions. Where's the fire? Why isn't hell hot? Where are the burning souls? Where are the planes of torment? Where is the great abyss HE had fallen into? Why was hell more like a mythical land of depression and darkness than a true hellscape?
It seemed like he was about to get some of his questions answered now so he paid attention as Mukoku began.
"In times ancient past, a shamanic man died and his soul was judged to belong to Naraku," Mukoku began, her voice gaining an echoing timber—making Ran shiver not for the tone alone but also the familiarity of those words—
Soul…belongs…to…Naraku.
"What I'm about to tell you now, is the story of how a man's name was erased from existence so none could remember it or speak of it again for all of eternity," she added, as her gaze locked in on him in complete focus.
"This shaman was an abominable soul. It is always said that the soul of a sinner belongs to hell, but that is always in the context of judgment. For this shaman it was beyond that, his soul truly belonged to hell in the context of habitation, natural environment."
Ran understood her meaning but was confused by the possibility, or rather impossibility, of her words.
It made no sense.
"How did his soul…in that way…belong to hell when he was a mortal? Was he a demon in disguise or born of a demon?" He asked.
Mukoku favored him with a proud smile. "You are very close to guessing the truth of his nature. The shaman was not a mere mortal, but neither was he a demon disguised as human nor did he possess a demon parent."
Ran, out of ideas, questioned. "Then what was he? Why did his soul belong to hell?"
"He was a Mesoamerican, as your people call them, who was an expert in rituals. In his lifetime, this cursed shaman had sacrificed over five hundred demons to empower himself. He was no longer mortal again, he was not even a demon. He was something else, something never seen before. His soul was not even a soul, it was like the waste of refined oil. He. Was. An. Abomination."
At the utterance of that last hacked sentence, a scorching heat flashed past them like a wind moving at incredible speed.
It was gone by the time Ran registered it. It was that fast, but still he bit his tongue from the sensation.
For a split second there he'd almost felt like he was in the heart of the sun.
Mukoku waved a hand over the Wraithwagon and he felt a breeze as cold as arctic winds wash over them.
He sighed and took a deep breath. "How are you doing this?"
"Severing the existence of warmth around us. In the absence of warmth there is…"
"Absolute decline in temperature. We might freeze to death," he said looking at her.
She shook her head in amusement, a smile upon her lips. "Don't worry about that. Such a cold can never exist in hell. It's ontologically impossible. This, this is the worst the temperature can decline to here and aside myself only the Feys can manage such a feat," she assured and lectured him at the same time.
"And what in hell caused that reaction? That scorching flash?"
"That was hell itself reacting unkindly to the story I was about to tell you," she said, looking unbothered. She patted him on the cheek like a babe. "Don't worry, it won't deter me, much less stop me from completing it."
Looking around suspiciously and licking his dry lips, Ran bent his head to break contact with his face from her cold fingers and palm.
"Are you sure we should continue with that?"
She ignored his question and went right on, making him sigh and settle down again. This time, though, he wasn't fully settled and was still quite tense.
"It was noted that there were oddities to the shaman's soul but no one really was interested in finding out more beyond noting that."
"Why?" Ran asked, perplexed. "I'd have expected due diligence in judgment?"
Mukoku rolled his eyes at him. "Kaito Ran, how many people have lived and died since the creation?"
He was completely caught off guard by that question. He felt like it had jumped at him out of the blue.
Taking a moment to really think about it, Ran first went over the fact that there were billions of people living in Kurana currently and probably more spread out across the universe.
Hundreds of billions of people, if not trillions.
So over eras of the past, since ancient eons, millions of trillions have died—probably more.
When he provided Mukoku with his estimation she snorted.
"You are quite far off. Amongst the Queen of Hell, we alone have command over trillions of damned souls, those sparks you see up in the sky. Now let's not even talk about wraiths, the spirits of the animals that have died," Mukoku explained, showing how ridiculous his estimation had been and how much he'd underestimated things. "Millions of people die everyday from all across the universe. Even in Kurana, at least one person dies every minute. Now the powers of the Celestial Realm are not infinite, how do you expect them to not only judge but also investigate the nature of those who are judged?"
"But aren't they supposed to have information of everyone prior to individual judgment?"
"They do, but you knowing every hyena is a murderer and knowing every murder they have committed and the reason behind them doesn't translate to you having knowledge of that hyena's spiritual state as it has nothing to do with their judgment, there's no connection so knowledge was not gained as the knowledge was irrelevant."
Ran felt like he understood while also not understanding. It felt like a paradox that completely made sense to him, at least sense although not enough sense.
Now he was talking himself into knots. He sighed. "This is crazy," he muttered.
Mukoku heard him clearly and laughed. "Beyond your comprehension. Hope you never become fully capable of comprehending the spiritual. As the it is said, 'Being above mortality introduces a higher state of mind not dissimilar to insanity.'"
Ran had never heard the saying but it felt right to him from all he'd experienced since he arrived here. Just the skeletal and fossil architecture alone spoke of a height of madness beyond comprehension, and that was even before considering that they were actually fossils of great beasts slain in ancient times.
Like the Lagarakei would have been, he thought then immediately brushed the subject of his mind.
"Madness or whatever you want to think was the cause of it," Mukoku continued, smiling wryly, "the shaman was ignored after his judgment and his soul was transported here."
She took a deep breath and when she spoke, the ground rumbled as though hell itself rebelled against her narration of its dark history.
"For the first time since creation, a soul was found impervious to hell fire."