Subject: Saotome Ranma...recording…
-12:45:46 power level increasing...
-12:40:34 maximum output reached...
-12:39:45 burnout imminent...
-12:36:53 CAUTION! power level increasing beyond maximum levels!
-12:36:21 Human status revoked...Demongod protocol invoked
-12:35:59 Evaluating power level...Level 1.64
-12:35:58 Status change notification...sending...failed
-12:35:56 System test...runnsiQsrjARdnm,a,'4# jsssa3Q$9sj
-12:34:03 System reboot completed...recovering data
-12:34:00 Data recovery complete. All systems normal.
---
-00:00:00
Ranma woke from his sleep with a sudden premonition of danger. He
quickly rolled out of his sleeping bag and stepped out of his tent,
looking to the east. The feeling wasn't intense, nor urgent, but it was
still there in the direction of his homeland. It seemed that despite
having saved Akane yet again, things would still continue to happen.
Saffron had been the hardest fight he'd ever had, and it felt as though
he'd had to reach deeper than he'd ever imagined possible in order to
win. And that power that he'd drawn upon was still there, simmering
beneath the surface.
He released a little to hover above his palm and realised that even
this small thing was requiring more effort than ever to hold back. He'd
have to train his control a lot to make sure things didn't get out of
hand. He'd hate to release as much power as he had only 12 hours ago in
the middle of a populated area. It was strange that he had no regrets
about destroying the mountain and effectively killing Saffron. It had
needed to be done to save the woman he lo...was friends with so he had
done it. The only thing he did regret was how everyone was looking at
him now. There was almost an awe in their eyes at what he'd done. Some
even showed a little fear, but all treated him with respect. He still
wasn't sure if it was a good change.
But it was something to think about later. He looked at the night sky
and allowed himself to feel wonder at the multitude of stars you just
didn't see in the city. It was so beautiful out in the wilderness. And
in these quiet moments, he sometimes wondered why he'd ever stopped
travelling. Not that he'd ever really had any say in the matter. He
grimaced and shook his head to clear it. Right now, he had to train and
learn to control this extra power. Thinking could come later.
Several hours later, as the sky was brightening with the false dawn, an
exhausted Ranma slipped back into his tent and closed his eyes, sleep
claiming him immediately.
---
The trip back to Nerima was amazingly uneventful. Everybody was feeling
weary from the battle with Saffron so there was little of the usual
brawling associated with the group. The exception to this was Ranma and
Akane, who still seemed to find every opportunity to insult each other.
Yet there was no mallets used and the insults seemed to be more good
natured than they usually were. Everything seemed to have settled into
a quiet routine.
For Ranma, there was still the sense of danger to the east. Every step
he took added to the impending sense of dread. He was torn between
rushing ahead to find out what the cause was and walking away in the
opposite direction to avoid it. So he stayed with the group and trained
whenever he could, always taking a harder path than the others. He also
didn't seem to need much sleep anymore, so he practised focussing his
chi late at night when the others were asleep. And he'd noticed a lot
of improvement in his control. It was becoming easier and easier to
manipulate the chi in the manner he wanted.
On this night, he impulsively decided to try juggling a few balls of
chi. It was harder than he thought to hold the balls intact away from
his body and it took him most of the night to manage just two chi
balls. He was finding learning to manipulate his chi to a fine level
was harder than any martial arts technique he'd learned, but progress
was being made. He just hoped it was enough for whatever awaited them
back in Nerima.
They were only a days walk away from the port town of Tianjin now and
from there only a few days on a boat back to Tokyo. Ranma was tempted
to swim again, but he had to admit that a boat was faster and saved him
from having to stay in his cursed form for the length of the trip.
Perhaps he'd swim along beside the boat for a few hours. He didn't want
himself to lose any conditioning. Just as long as Aka...the tomboy
didn't try to swim as well, everything should be fine.
He decided to enjoy the sunrise on his last day in China and ran
towards the nearest mountain, revelling in his speed, almost bouncing
throughthe forest and up the side. He arrived with a few minutes to
spare and turned to the east. He stared as a dark stain seemed to
spread across the horizon shortly before the sun rose to wash it away.
Unsure as to whether it was simply an illusion, he walked more sedately
back to the camp, hoping that it had nothing to do with his sense of
danger he'd been feeling for the last weeks. Only a couple more days
and he'd know for sure. Just 2 more and they'd be back in Japan.
---
When he arrived back at the camp, he found his father and the others
awake and waiting for him. There was something in their posture and
movement that told him they were all braced to attack. Quizically
flicking his eyes across them all, he noticed his father walking
towards him and waited, expecting some sort of attack. He wasn't
disappointed and his father struck out with several easily blockable
punches and kicks. Noticing the others approach, he allowed his father
to throw him into a nearby tree.
He quickly flipped and paused briefly against the tree before pushing
off to the side to avoid his father's fist. Unfortunately, that put him
directly in line with Mousse, who took the opportunity launch several
sharp metal objects at him. He twisted in the air and pushed with his
chi to direct his motion to intercept Mousse as he stepped aside from
his original path. Landing heavily on Mousse's head, Ranma snapped his
leg downwards and caught Mousse across the ear then leapt off to allow
Mousse to collapse to the ground. His landing gave him just enough time
to push off into the sky towards his father and intercepted a kick,
throwing him to the ground. He could hear words in the background, but
all that was important was the fight so he ignored them.
He could see that Ryoga and Shampoo were circling to his side and Akane
was standing aside watching calmly. That left only Cologne. He leapt
forward suddenly as he realised the likely reason and narrowly avoided
the swipe of a staff. Landing directly between Ryoga and Shampoo, he
launched himself sideways at Shampoo and stepped inside her defense,
immobilising her with two quick strikes to her neck and waist. As she
started to collapse, Ranma leapt straight up, avoiding Ryoga's attack
and incidently putting himself in the path of his father. He traded
blows with his father in the air and took several hits before managing
to knock the old man back to the ground where Ryoga was standing. The
two collapsed in a heap.
For a short time he would only have to worry about Cologne, who was in
the middle of an attack. His hands blurred as he put up a desperate
defense against her staff, managing to block her strikes with only a
few getting through. He focussed his chi further and started striking
back. Several hundred strikes later, he managed to accomplish his
objective and disarmed Cologne from her staff. Suddenly, he found
himself falling to the ground as a heavy object, he guessed an
umbrella, connected with the back of his head. He had forgotten to pay
attention to Ryoga and the old man and he was about to pay the price.
He tried rolling with the blow to avoid the next strikes, but was met
with strikes from three directions. Allowing them a few more strikes,
he arranged himself and struck out in three directions simultaneously,
two connecting and dropping the opponents to the ground.
Ranma knew he was heavily injured now, but there was no way he was
going to let them beat him. Bruises covered his body, but he needed to
act quickly before they could organise to attack him again. He stood
quickly and launched at his father, the only opponent still standing
and the weakest of the three in a standing fight. A single kick in the
centre of the forehead and his father was stunned. He turned and waited
as Cologne and Ryoga prepared to attack again. Taking a brief moment to
catch his breath made him feel a lot better. However, it also gave
Cologne the opening she needed and she charged forward.
Ranma sidestepped, seemingly without passing through the intervening
space and touched Cologne several times on her back as she passed. By
the time she landed, she could no longer move. Ryoga's fist grazed him
on the side of the head as he ducked and he spun to absorb the blow. A
leg caught him in the side and he instinctively struck forward with a
fist. Hearing a grunt, he rolled away and stood up a little groggily.
The attacks came relentlessly, and he could feel himself beginning to
lose his consciousness. So he put everything he had left into a final
strike. A glowing foot rose from the ground and struck his opponent in
the head, knocking him to the ground. Ranma stayed awake long enough to
see him collapse with no sign of getting up before slumping forward
unconscious.
---
Akane watched in awe as the battle went on. She wondered briefly if
this was how Ranma fought when he was serious. She had never seen him
fight anyone or anything without taunting. He seemed calm and in
control throughout the entire fight. Why Genma had asked everyone to
join in with the morning training session, she wasn't too sure because
surely they'd easily beat Ranma as a group. Now she wasn't so sure.
Mousse had been taken out with just two strikes, Shampoo moments later
with a disabling move of some sort. He'd even just managed to disarm
Cologne. But that had to hurt. Perhaps she'd spoken too soon. He was
now on the ground and getting seriously pummelled. Cologne and Ryoga
fell down suddenly and Ranma struck his father and knocked him out of
the fight with a single blow. This wasn't normal. Normally, he only
just matched his father, but today, he was outclassing even Cologne. It
was like his skill and power had risen drastically since the last time
she saw him fight. Maybe the battle with Saffron was as difficult as
everyone said. But he couldn't have destroyed the Mountain, could he?
He wasn't that powerful...was he?
But he'd just defeated Cologne and now it was down to him and Ryoga.
And Ranma was losing this one. She sighed in relief, realising that
perhaps she was just overestimating him. Then his foot came up, glowing
very brightly, and struck Ryoga. Ryoga fell to the ground shortly
before Ranma. He had won. In shock, she stumbled across the field to
check out the survivors, starting with Ranma, who had just fallen.
Seeing nothing but the usual injuries, she checked on the rest, all of
whom just seemed to be unconscious or incapacitated. Well, there was
little she could do but wait, now. Wait and think.
What exactly had happened at Mt Phoenix? Ranma had defeated Saffron,
obviously. The top half of the mountain had been destroyed as well,
there wasn't any way to deny that. And if Ranma was really so powerful,
where would that leave her. She remembered very little about the actual
fight with Saffron, having woken up to Ranma screaming something and
holding her. She blushed a little at the memory, feeling more warmth
and love in that moment than she had since her mother died. There was
something else as well. As though Ranma had just given her something
wonderful. It had been an amazing feeling.
And he was different now. He seemed better, somehow stronger than
everyone else. She'd noticed that the others were treating him
differently as well. It was almost like they were awed at what he'd
done, and perhaps a little fearful. And she could understand that. If
he could contain enough power to destroy the mountain, was it not
possible for him to unleash that in other places. But if there was one
thing she knew about Ranma, it was that he wouldn't do that. He did
have some morals, even though he'd pick on nice people like Ryoga and
helpless animals like her P-chan. Grr...that baka. He was lucky he was
unconcsious already.
As she looked at him, her thoughts softened. He was her knight in
shining armour. She giggled at the thought of trying to get Ranma to
wear armour and laughed at the thought of him trying to speak politely.
No, he wasn't quite a knight in shining armour. But it was nice to
dream sometimes. Were they ever going to go further? Sometimes she
thought so, but sometimes she just wanted for him to leave her alone.
She wondered just how he felt about all this.
---
Ranma woke from his enforced rest and decided to lay still for a while
to check on the situation. There was only movement from one person, so
he guessed the others were either resting or still out from the fight.
How had he managed to draw in a fight with all of the group when they
were working together. He could admit to himself that he wasn't quite
that good before Saffron, but now...something had definitely changed.
Their hits had seemed less powerful than usual, and they'd been taken
out of the fight with less damage from him. It was like he'd suddenly
gotten Ryouga's strength and stamina without losing any of his speed,
perhaps even gaining as he was able to match and better Cologne.
He shrugged briefly and decided not to worry about it. It was good
enough knowing that he could defeat all of them so he sat up and looked
around, spotting Akane sitting staring blankly in his direction. The
others were all lying in various places around the field, so he got up
and walked over to Akane. Suddenly, he thought he'd better test his
abilities against Akane. He grinned to himself.
"Hey, Tomboy, hope you're not gonna make breakfast. Everyone's out
already. Don't need to knock them all out again."
Akane's head snapped up with that delicious look of pure rage that made
her even more of a tomboy. He sighed briefly in wonder that someone who
could be so cute could also be so easy to bait. And then he found
himself in the air. Nope, she still had him. One day, he'd find a way
to avoid the hammer, but at least it was good training.
He looked out east and saw dark clouds covering the horizon. The
feeling of dread swept through him and he knew something was very wrong
in Japan. They needed to get back as fast as possible. That meant the
others needed to be awoken. So he directed his descent as close as he
could to the camp, missing by only a few hundred metres. He sprinted
back to the camp and woke everyone as quickly as he could.
He proceeded to pack everything with amaguriken speed and managed to
have everything ready by the time everyone was fully awake. They all
looked at him curiously, feeling his sense of urgency. He needed to get
everyone moving, and quickly.
"Something bad has happened in Japan." And he started moving towards
the port, picking up speed as the others started following.
When all had caught up and taken a few of the packs from him, he
started telling them about what he'd seen and what he'd been feeling
for the last several weeks. Everyone looked blankly at him, but Cologne
only nodded, saying she'd felt something for the last several days. It
was confirmation for him and he picked up the pace further, forcing
everyone to move at near top speed to keep up.