Incubus, a ranma fanfic

Incubus

He sat. Cross-legged, atop the building that he called school, he sat. Watching. The clouds in the midday Nerima sky looked as if they reached up into the never ending heavens as long as they could, leaving this plane of misery, of torture. He sighed.

He knew he would never make it there, where the sky met eternity.
A bell rang, and he was suddenly on his feet, leaping from pole to tree to fence to ground with an uncanny sense of balance and equally uncanny constitution; a normal man would have broken his ankles with such a leap. But not him, no, he had never even experienced a mere hairline fracture of his fine frame, rather amazingly. In fact, most things about him were just as amazing; he was an unequaled fighter and martial artist in general at the tender age of seventeen, he had partaken in some of the most awesome adventures that a person could experience, he even endured women throwing themselves at him to be his wife. On top of all this, he was living with one of the horrible Jusenkyo curses that made his gender always an issue. Yet somehow, all these things seemed as nothing to him.

He walked up the stairs casually, his hands clutched in his pockets, and he heard the footsteps beginning to run behind him. He knew who it was. His emotionless eyes were instantly covered by a mask of even amiability; the way most people were accustomed to seeing him. He didn't act like he knew she was there, for it would startle her if he did, as she was still far across the yard from him. He almost smiled genuinely.
He knew exactly how long it took her to arrive behind him, and at that moment, he casually glanced back over his shoulder.

"Aw..." she moaned, bringing her bladed hand down to her side, "why don't you ever let me surprise you?" Smiling now, she gazed up into his eyes lovingly. Inwardly, he wondered if this truly was the same girl who had smashed him with a table on the first day they met, this playful, cheerful, loving woman beside him. He wasn't the same either, and a flash of sorrow swept through him when he considered her enduring what he had to live with every day of his life. It wasn't possible. Only distracted by thought for a split second, he put down the thought and returned her gaze.

"Because, I just can't let a klutz like you sneak up on me," he stuck his tongue out, and she slapped his chest lightly.

"C'mon, let's go to class, dummy," she grabbed his hand, and led him inside the building.

Feeling the grip of her small, soft hand upon his, knowing the love that was there for him, his mask was betrayed for another moment, his face revealed to the look of utter anguish at what he knew awaited him... and her... not far in the future. A tear nearly escaped him, but didn't. It couldn't. Not anymore.

who are you?
come with me.
love me.
I need it.
her soul...
more... I need love
so beautiful
can't die
thank you... thank you...
not another one
never again
I'll pay the price
no, no, no...
the only way
the
only
way

"A challenge?" Ranma looked at the parchment on his desk, obviously written by the same person who always brought a challenge to him written in calligraphy.
"'During lunch. The far trees. Come alone.
--Kuno Tatewaki'"

He sighed as he slipped the paper into his pocket and gazed out the window listlessly; he knew it was going to have to do with the wedding that was coming up the day after school let out -- his own wedding with Akane. This time, he knew that nothing was going to get in the way, for it had taken them the entirety of the last year, but he and Akane knew the feelings that they had for each other were real. Part of it had to do with his own calming down from the unruly boy that he used to be, but she seemed to have matured as well. Again, he smiled lightly when he thought about Akane... but it quickly faded. He frowned and closed his eyes, waiting for class to end.

He sauntered down the grass towards a more hidden part of the schoolyard, where the trees grew and the toolshed sat. He knew that Kuno would be waiting as always, and he even sensed him, the one-track mind of the school's top kendoist. He left his guard at a minimum; it was all he needed.

"Saotome, prepare to meet your match! For I, Kuno Tatewaki shall strike you down and free the fair Tendo Akane from the clutches of this upcoming nuptial! And then, she shall find her true love with he who challenges you!" he spoke, his deep voice sounding almost heroic if it weren't for the fact that he was speaking about something that he just couldn't grasp.

Ranma stood and stared at the ground, kicked at the grass, the lifted his eyes to Kuno and left them upon him; they smoldered with a darkness that made the kendoist blink at seeing. He hadn't seen that look in his nemesis before.

"Kuno... Akane loves me, and I love her. Why don't you just see that and leave me alone? I'll be outta your way soon," Ranma said to him cryptically, his voice unusually monotone. "After all, you don't wanna get your ass kicked again, do you?"

Kuno frowned. "How dare you? I shall defeat you before she is tied to you, such a foul incubus! Have at you!" Kuno began to advance.
Ranma looked up and his eyes flashed widely and his heart sank. "How... how do you know that?" he said, shocked, then his eyes darkened to a deep black and a red light shone from his pupils, "What are you, a yokai, an oni working for the Dark One? Come to kill this body and make me return to my duties? Well, I'm going to have to disappoint you today!"

"What?" Kuno said, seeing the change in Ranma, and then froze in his tracks as he saw the pigtailed boy engulfed in a black and red aura and raise up off of the ground, energy gathering in his fists. Then it occurred to him that he intended to use that energy against him, so began to dodge to the side. Just in time, too, for the blasts created an impressively deep crater where Kuno would have been. He looked up and saw Ranma charging up again.

"Don't think you can get away! I'll not let anyone get in my way when I am so close! Return to hell, bastard!"

"Have you gone mad, Saotome!" Kuno shouted, scrambling away from another shot.

"Don't mock me! I see through you!" This time, Ranma lowered nearly to the ground, and took on an attack stance. Kuno saw this, and looked about him, then took the only logical course of action: he ran.
Ranma was on his back at every turn, firing blasts of energy just barely missing Kuno's heels. Coming across the toolshed, he ran inside, and whispering a prayer, braced himself.

"I cannot get away from him! What have I done to him that he would turn... turn so deadly? Tatewaki, face your death like a man... but at least try to talk to him..."

Ranma slowed down for a moment and concentrated; he could hear the babbling noise of Kuno's terrified mind from within the shed. He smiled malevolently and pretended to look around.

"So, you thought that you could fool me by taking on the form of that moron, Kuno, didn't you? Or have you always been of Dark blood? That Kodachi is more an evil spirit than woman, so it would not surprise me if the clan Kuno is part of the Dark," he paused; Kuno's mind seemed confused but still in terror. Time to strike. "Evil spirit, evil man, I shall send you to the other side; you will NOT stop me from this!"

With that, he fired an energy blast at the shed, knocking out the wall opposite the one Kuno was leant against. Ranma raised to the air again, his dark aura stronger than before, his eyes completely black, save a small point of red light that pierced where his pupils should have been.
"Why are you not fighting back, fool!? Is this not what you wanted?" he waited for Kuno to make a move, but the man was sitting in a traditional pose, with a stern face that trembled slightly; this angered Ranma all the more. "FIGHT ME, or I will kill you with one blow!"

"Saotome Ranma," Kuno began, falling forward, his forehead to the dirt floor, his palms supporting the rest of his weight, "Forgive me." Ranma was taken aback; what was this?

"Forgive me for how I have wronged you and Tendo Akane. I am not blind; I can see that you are in love together, and I can see that my pigtailed goddess is yourself in female form. I have only done these things in desperation of love and for my own selfishness! I beg you, if this is my moment of death, I must have at least the smallest bit of honor to take with me to the beyond. If you must kill me, at least grant me this..." Kuno spoke with an uneven, yet strong voice. He remained there, prostrate, and waited for Ranma to do as he wished.

"He is not fighting back... and he is asking... Gods, what have I done? The confusion in his mind... that was because he did not know what on Earth I was accusing him of! And now this... how could I?" Ranma immediately dropped to the floor, his eyes reverting, his aura dissipating. Looking at his own hands in disbelief of what he had almost done: he had nearly killed a simple man.

"Kuno... get up, I'm not going to kill you..." Ranma muttered, crossing his legs and hunched over, poking the other man's head. Kuno lifted his head gingerly, and when he saw Ranma reverted back to a normal, human looking state, he launched himself forward, Ranma reeling back as Kuno wrapped his arms fast around one of his legs.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! You are indeed merciful towards my sins!" he sat up suddenly and tried to look dignified again. "That is... I shall spare you..."

"Can it, Kuno," Ranma spat back. He was, for the moment, still disgusted with himself for acting so paranoid and foolish: how could he have mistaken stupid old Kuno for a real member of the Darkness? Every eminence from the man's mind had signaled that he was, indeed, only a man.

"Fine, then, I think I should go now..."

"Wait a minute there," he glared at the Kendoist who was beginning to get to his feet, "You're not leaving just yet. I can't let you go after all you've seen of me... and what's this that you're not as thick as brick and know that I'm your pigtailed girl?" Ranma noticed more sweat appearing on the man's forehead.

"Sigh... I suppose my act is up," he said, defeatedly. He sat back down, his back straight and his face stern once again. "I have loved Tendo Akane since I was in grade school; no other girl has ever possessed such a balance between beauty and formidability. It has been the Kuno way for generations to win one's mate by treating the pursuit of love as battle and strategy, and so it has been the only path I knew to take in winning her affections.

"And then," he raised his lowered eyes to Ranma, "you entered the picture. A man, living with her, intended to be her husband by her family, who is equally as attractive, but a stronger warrior than I. And I watched, day by day, you treat her like dirt and fall into the traps of the other 'fiancees' that you had, and it... hurt me," he strained with the words, and Ranma continued to listen, nearly shocked by Kuno's candidness and... lucidity.

"But what hurt me more is that I saw that she began to love you from that first day. But a Kuno never gives in... even when he knows that all is lost. So I kept trying, in hopes that someday she would see me with the same eyes that she saw you with."

"Well, Kuno... I'm sorry, I guess..." Ranma began, still taken aback by Kuno's confession; then he remembered the 'pigtailed girl' part. "But what the hell is up with you trying to hook up with ME? What kind of hentai-yaoi bastard are you for that??"

"That..." Kuno began silently, "Is the other half of my treachery and my... my... desperation. I do not think I can tell you..." he said dramatically, yet sincerely dramatic for once in his life. Ranma's eye twitched.
"Tell me or I *will* kill you."

"Right... then I suppose that I must..." he gulped and sweated more. "For a few weeks, along with the rest of Furinkan, I did not know that you and the pigtailed girl were one and the same. All that I knew was that a girl equally as beautiful as Tendo Akane, but much stronger and much more spirited had fallen into my life. So I began my pursuit of her with the hopes that I would win her, which would save my hurting heart from the imminent loss of Tendo Akane. However, word was spreading of the 'oneness' of you and my pigtailed goddess, and when I was watching the girl and Tendo Akane walking home, I saw her pour hot water over herself and change, before my eyes, into you.

"The pain of the loss of both the women I loved to the same man was something I could not bear. And the disgrace... loving a woman who would not love me back, and the other, who was in reality a man... if people knew that I was thinking clearly, they would have thought me to be the saddest creature on the face of the planet, and... yaoi for not giving up on the pigtailed girl.

"I could not break my obsession with the pigtailed girl, even knowing that it was you, Saotome, whom I hated. So, as the student body thought me to be as simple-minded and insane as my father is, I used that. I feigned ignorance and I was accepted for it. But deep within me, I hoped that, somehow, your curse and misadventures would break you and Akane apart, and she would be mine.... or one of those misadventures would make you the pigtailed girl forever to be mine."

Ranma's mouth was nearly open with the thought of Kuno knowing it was him all along...

"Now you know, Saotome, that I am not a fool in mind... only in the heart. Now do you know why I hate you? Why I keep trying to best you, to break you?" tears were welling up in the man's eyes, tears that he had been fighting back with all of his strength, but this... telling the only person whom he never wished to admit defeat to every sordid detail of his deviance.

"I'm... I'm surprised, Kuno, that's all I can say..." Ranma began, surveying the broken man before him, and feeling guilty for it. Had he truly done all these things to a man who's main fault was knowing nothing about approaching women and never admitting defeat? For the first time since he had met Tatewaki Kuno, Ranma felt respect for him. "But it takes a real man... with honor... to admit what he has done wrong... and to fight even without hope of winning..."

"I have no honor... I am a dog..." Kuno spat, tears streaming down his face, his back hunched forward. Suddenly, he felt soft, delicate hands rub his back and shoulder; he recognized that touch.

"No, Kuno, I sense it now... you are a good man after all..." she said to him, her bright blue eyes looking into his sincerely.

"How...?" Kuno noticed that she wasn't damp at all.

"Shh... Just for now, be quiet and let me be your pigtailed goddess for the moment; wise and gentle," she continued to rub his back, and pulled him forward to lean on her shoulder; he resisted, but gave in shortly. His body shuddered with a sob, and felt him bury his face in her soft, red hair.

"Your clan has made you what you are. I can see it now, I can see your honorable, good soul, and you do not deserve what you have gotten out of love. How could one so loyal to his family's ways stray from a taught path, even when it does not work, or there is no hope? But do not worry, Tatewaki, there is hope for you yet; as you have told me your sad story, I shall tell you tell you mine.

"However, to hear my story you must be prepared to take up the responsibility that comes with it..." she whispered to him.

"I want to hear... what do you require?"

"Your family has dishonored you... and so horribly that by leaving it you would not be dishonoring yourself, and you cannot dishonor that that has none. Change your ways; be strong but kind, be persistent but sensitive. And... you must promise to be friend to Saotome Ranma and protector to his children."

"But... I--" Kuno began to protest, but the red haired woman shushed him again.

"I will give you a day. If you can make me that promise, meet me," Kuno suddenly felt the size of the person he was leaning on grow, the softness turn to hard muscle, and the hair in his face turned from a fair red to a coarse black, "Saotome Ranma," Kuno sat up and stared at him, who had just been his girl a moment before, "in this spot after school tomorrow. Otherwise, speak nothing of what you have seen here, and I will tell no one what you have told me."

Ranma stood up and walked off without another look or word to Kuno, who sat in disbelief of what had just transpired, and mulling in his head the not unreasonable request of his goddess.

*****

Ranma felt himself hurrying; why was he so eager to see if Kuno would show and listen to his story?

"This has been my secret for my entire life, so why should I feel a need to share the burden, and with Kuno of all people?" he asked himself as he leapt the perimeter fence without even a second thought to it. "Could it be, that he is the only honorable man I know who I could trust with this? What about Ryoga? No... I don't think he would understand... he would surely tell Akane or do something foolish with the knowledge. Anyway, he has his own love interest now, so it wouldn't be fair of me to put this upon him. Kuno is a broken man, and he is the only person I know that has loved both Akane and myself..." Ranma shuddered a bit when the image of Kuno and his female self 'together' crossed his mind's eye -- but he let the image linger.

"I need to know that someone will be able to pick up the pieces."

"How can I possibly accept these terms?" Kuno muttered, pacing back and forth outside the shed, which was still damaged from the day before, still dressed in his Kendo attire, for he had even left practice early to come and hear Saotome's story. "What, in all of the world could cause him to make me vow such things? But I saw him, so deadly... I had no defense at all... and he changed forms without water... I have felt a feeling of darkness from him for a while now; when we fight, his face is so emotionless. What has happened to him?"

"So, you came."

Kuno instinctively spun on his heel, startled, and was face to face with Saotome, wearing an emotionless mask, the same look that Kuno had taken note of in their more recent fights. Kuno straightened himself up and crossed his arms.

"Yes..."

"And the terms? Do you accept them?"

"I -- Leaving my clan, it is something that I have never even fathomed. It is simply against everything that I have been raised with -- it is contrary to my traditional values. My name has given me wealth and notoriety... but those things are meaningless when that name brings dysfunction and an inability to love. My father is psychotic, my sister is not much better than he -- she embraces the Kuno way of pursuit, and my mother... she, in an early death from the family -- she is the lucky one.

"My heart has been wanting something real, but I have known of no other way. Part of me, that dutiful son, that carrier of the Kuno name, hates and cannot accept the terms that you ask of me."

"All right, I'll be on my wa--" Ranma began to turn and walk away.

"But," Kuno went on, Ranma stopping in his tracks but not turning back to face Kuno again, to see the conflict and confusion in the man's face, to see his hands clutched to whiteness, "After revealing all of the folly and pathos of the life that I have lead under the guidance of my clan, I want to start making steps to restore my honor and my future. In taking my life into my own hands, I defy my clan, and therefore, I *must* leave it," he trailed off, his face forced into a stern frown. Ranma faced him again and approached.

"Fine. And the rest?"

"I do not understand that. While it is in my own interest to become my own man, to force me to vow to be your friend and to be protector of your unborn-- unconcieved children leaves me dubious. As the way things stand right now, I still do not consider you a friend, but the possibility is fathomable, yet... it simply makes no sense to me," he told Ranma, lifting his hands up. Ranma's blank expression gave way momentary to a sideways smirk.

"That... that is something that is in your benefit, which will be revealed to you in good time. You will just have to trust me."

Kuno cocked an eyebrow, then shrugged his shoulders in a rather 'Ranma-esque' way.

"I shall take your word upon that, and so you shall have mine. I swear," Kuno began, raising his hand palm-out, "upon my honor as the clanless Tatewaki, that I take upon me the terms that you, Saotome Ranma has put forth in return for sharing with me an intimate secret."

Ranma nodded, and walked inside of the shed, beckoning the former Kuno to follow him. They both sat on the floor cross-legged and stared at the other for a few moments. Ranma let out an uneasy breath as he began.

"I'm sure that you are questioning whether I am, in fact the Saotome Ranma you met nearly two years ago, and I sometimes wonder that myself... but yes, I am Saotome Ranma, but I have become my full... 'self' over the past few months."

"What do you mean?" Tatewaki interjected when Ranma took a moment to choose his words.

"I'm getting to that, if you'll let me continue," Ranma said, impatiently. The other man crossed his arms, but complied. "From the time that I was a child, I always knew that there were two parts to me: the part that was me, Saotome Ranma, martial artist, son of Saotome Genma and Nodoka, the part that spoke with others and controlled my body, and thoughts that were separate from my own; a mind much older than my young brain, and always... sad.

"It always encouraged me, however, through hard times, such as whenever my parents seemed distant from each other, or when I had to leave my mother to go and train. As I grew older, this second voice in my head began to become one with my own thoughts. We were merging, not one side overcoming another. I thought it was natural, something that all people had and it was just sign of growing up, although I remember it discouraging me from asking other children what their 'second voice' told them.

"As we, or I, grew together, my coordination and strength and proficiency with martial arts grew, as if I were becoming an old master in the matter of a few years. Another side effect of this was an incredible increase in my attractiveness to women. I remember, when I was nine, I had a female teacher who would always give me kisses on my forehead and tell me that I was such a handsome boy, and that she couldn't wait to see me grown... a repeated action which spurred my parents to put me in a boys' school the following year, right before pop took me on that training trip...

"Yet, I still never thought anything of it; I thought that it was just who I was. Then came the curse... Turning into an incredibly sexy girl shocked me enough, but it scared me that... that a part of me felt it natural and comfortable to switch genders. I wondered if I were going yaoi, but I still felt attracted to girls, as I did to Akane within the first week of living with the Tendo family, so I wanted to be rid of the curse all the more to eliminate the strange feelings that came with it.

"Anyway... the last small phase of this self-completion came by the calming of myself around Akane. The outward me had never really understood the right way to deal with women -- I was learning, but the other me possessed knowledge of pleasing women... in many ways..."
"You didn't--?" Tatewaki choked, his face turning red.

"No, no. I would never seduce Akane. But I learned how to express my love to her and allow her to open up to me on her own terms. This was the beginning of the school session this past fall, a good two months after the botched wedding. For a couple of months thereafter, I felt like I was not growing anymore, but that I was still incomplete -- like the parts of me had just stopped coming together close to completion. Again, I wrote it off as something else, this time just a sign that I needed Akane to complete me or something flowery like that.

"Nine months to the day of my eighteenth birthday, it happened. We, I, became one. I was in the middle of my morning Katas, when I was suddenly surrounded by the black and red aura that I expressed when I was attacking you, and the knowledge returned, or rather, was known to me fully....

"...I am an Incubus."

He let the declaration ring for a moment and looked up to see the incredulous Tatewaki blinking his wide eyes at him. Ranma smiled a twisted grin and looked down again as he went on.

"I remembered being a servant of a Dark Lord of Hell for millennia after being born from the souls of love-starved men and women who had committed suicide in their pain. I was originally genderless, a Succubus in female form, Incubus in male, but over the centuries, as I became more defined as a being, I chose the male form as my baseline form. You know already what Succubi and Incubi do ... they descend upon sleeping humans, most often those who are starved for love and affection, have a night of torrid relations while in the process stealing the soul away from the person to Hell. I can still see the face of each man and woman I pleasured before I ripped their soul from them in the climax of our meeting.

"Most yokai find their only joy in doing what evil they were made to do... but some of us find the ability to grow; change our minds. I first showed growth when I decided define myself as an Incubus, a choice made after I found that I preferred to descend upon women. But as time went on, that preference grew to a respect. I used to choose the women that I visited, the ones that had the worst circumstances-- with an abusive or uncaring husband, a forced chastity, the loss of a never touched lover -- and I would grant them the most tender and unforgettable night... before I took their souls away. As this went on, I would continually visit some of the women that I was more intrigued with, keeping them around by pulling out of the act before she climaxed. But eventually, I would have to do my job. And very rarely did I find a woman willing to let her soul go to Hell.

"I grew more and more weary of damning the souls of women, and the occasional man, to torments in Hell merely for my nature taking advantage of their denied or wronged nature; my 'growth' as a being had taken the ignorant, wanton joy out of what I was created to do. It was my job, under the hand of my Dark Lord to bring him souls, so there seemed no escape, save a few rumors that floated around from time to time of dissatisfied yokai finding a way out of their illicit duties. And then, eighteen years ago, I wandered into the bedchamber of Saotome Nodoka.

"Such a beautiful woman, but so lost, so unfulfilled -- her marriage had been arranged long before she was old enough to know what being a wife required of her; her husband had only used her enough to make sure that he had planted his seed and then ignored her. He did not love her, and she could not love a man who forced himself on her for a quick fix and disregarded her afterwards. I drifted over her, as I normally did, and stroked her soft skin and silky hair, and kissed her beautiful face.
"I had not expected her to wake up from a mere caress, but she did, and by intuition, or maybe expectance, knew exactly what I was...

"Who are you?" she asked, but, with an odd smile on her face, went on, "oh... I know you, yokai Incubus."

"You know me so easily?" he said, still floating above her, still stroking her face, her eyes closing and her face turning into his hand. "You've caught me, so I have no influence over you; you'll soon tell me to be gone," he looked into her eyes; he had seen so many women's eyes, but hers... hers looked like they wanted something, wanted...

"I've always heard tales of Incubus coming for poor women like me... pathetic, sad women. I lie here, the seed of a husband I cannot love who will not love me inside me, growing. I cannot bring myself to take my own life and my child's... I am a coward. So I hoped that you would come, to take me away ... after showing me more love than I could ever hope to have in this life or after it, after whispering in my ear, 'come with me' as you love me. Incubus, do you have a name?" she asked him, her sad voice sounding almost excited at the prospect of finding both love and escape, no matter how twisted the package.

Taken aback, the Incubus lowered himself down onto the bed next to her, and went along with her request.

"I was created only as a yokai Incubus, but I came to be known as Ranma, the wild horse," he said, brushing back his flowing black hair.
"Ranma... a good name. If you wouldn't mind, yokai Ranma, would you just stay with me to talk for the night?" she asked with the boldness of the hopeless, "At least, before you do what you came to do."

"Where is your husband? Is this a trick to get me exorcized? The Dark Lord would punish me for a century for that."

"I did not know that you would be answering to a master... but, no, I had no intention of getting you in trouble. I... it has been so long since anyone has talked to me..." she said earnestly.

The yokai was strangely touched by her, and began to feel a strange attachment and camaraderie with this woman.

"Then let us talk."

"Nodoka told me about her life, the unhappy circumstances of her marriage, her sorry excuse for a husband. She had to explain to me things about human emotion that I simply did not understand, although these things were what attracted me to my victims, and even the emotions that had created my kind: sadness, loneliness, unfulfillment, despair. The more she talked, the more questions I had, and the more she intrigued me; never before had a human ever spent time with me in such a way, even when I allowed it. The hours went on, and morning was coming near, yet I still wanted to hear more, and she still wished to talk...."

"The light approaches... I cannot stay much longer," the Incubus told his intended victim of the night, although she had been the one to do the capturing. "I suppose," he said, not the least bit angry, "if this is how you intended to avoid me, you have succeeded, Nodoka. I cannot return to you..." he felt her spirit react: come back. "... unless you permit me. You have impressed me beyond any other woman in all of my centuries; I will not... I cannot steal you by use of sorcery."

"I..." she looked out the window at the rising sun; she knew that her husband would return, drunk, from his 'training' mission and sleep half the day away. He wouldn't say anything to her except 'Make me my meal', and 'Be quiet, woman.' She looked at the dangerous, horribly beautiful creature before her that in one night had become more important to her, even in his malevolent intent, than the family that had given her to her husband, and the husband that she was devoted to by honor.

"I will think about it. Come to my balcony at your hour, and if I wish, I shall let you in again... so that you may do what you came to do," she told him, a hidden smile almost betraying her face. The Incubus nodded to her, and floated out of her room with the long morning shadows.

"And so I came back, with the audacity to think that she would let me in a second time... but to my great surprise, I found her waiting outside for me. This lovely woman captivated me once again as I sat in the shadows, watching her; the way the silk of her kimono caressed every curve on her delicate body. I had come upon women as beautiful and even more so than she, yet to me there had never been a creature as exquisite as Saotome Nodoka in the light of the moon.

"We started off talking again, and as the night progressed, I became more engrossed in learning about the woman than doing my duty. I let another night go by without taking her, and I let hope leak from my voice when I asked her to let me come another night. This time, she consented right away and said she would wait for me again, on the balcony.

"She was there, as she said, and things continued in the same way... this progressed for a total of seven nights... a week. By that time, I knew that I was pressing my luck of another suspicious yokai under my lord's dominion would find out what I was -- or rather, was not doing -- and report me. I would be reprimanded and replaced for the job by an incubus that I knew would force itself upon my lovely Nodoka."

The yokai sat across from the young woman on the bed, engrossed one again in all that she had to tell him, to ask, to wonder. His heart was heavy; he knew what he was going to have to do tonight -- it was for her own good, and his. Better that he do the deed, he who appreciated her, who found no other to be lovelier than she. She stopped talking, and silence fell between them. The yokai looked into the woman's eyes, his sadness barely hidden beneath the exotic visage that he kept smiling towards her.

"Nodoka-chan, I have one more thing to ask you..." he began, breaking the silence.

"This is the night, isn't it?" she said calmly, "the night that you finish what you came to do."

The incubus' smile melted when he heard her say this, but he nodded. "Yes."

"I knew... somehow, when you came in that this would be our last night together. Anyhow... please, ask your question."

He froze momentarily, caught off-guard by the woman's reaction. Wasn't she afraid, in the least, of dying?

"Well..." he stammered, "I have often heard humans, especially in this age, refer to sex as 'making love'. From what I understand, sex happens whether or not love is between the partners, and love is usually there before the act is committed... what is this, is love actually made? Is it a metaphor for making a baby, or is it something that only humans know about?"

Nodoka smiled at the naiveté of the ancient being. "It is not something that I have ever experienced, but here is what I think it is: making love is the act of sex between two people who's love for each other is pure, and in that physical act of that pure love, it is intensified... made almost perfect for a moment in time. The two have together made their love greater. This is simply my understanding of the term; it is usually thrown around in popular usage as a nicer-sounding synonym for the act of sex."
"I like your definition much more..." he trailed off, thinking of what that would be like. "I would want something like that. Do you think that a yokai could ever experience that kind of love?"

"I... I don't know. I don't know if the dark nature of a yokai would taint the love, or if a pure love would purge the darkness from it. Maybe it happens. It's not something that would be heard about in the world of humans."

"Nor in the world of spirits. As long as we are doing our tasks, what we do in the mean time is generally ignored, at least for those of us in service to a lord. No one keeps tabs on free spirits, and reports we have of unusual activity from them are regarded as rumor."

"Ah," she said, her gaze drifted off into the distance. Absently, she untied the sash from her kimono, and then let the silken cloth slide down her perfectly formed shoulders, exposing the porcelain skin of her torso to the incubus next to her. Turning her head over her shoulder, her eyes spoke of longing, and bade him, 'come now, I am ready.'

Needing no other cue, the incubus inched his way over to her, the robes that he wore melting away from him into a wispy mist, then dispersing all together. He wrapped his muscular arms around her waist and began to kiss her neck and her ear, his face buried in her long brown hair. His moves were subtle and smooth; engulfed in the touch of his hands and his warm, soft lips that explored her face, neck and upper torso, she didn't even notice that he had lain her on her back and had positioned himself over her. She opened her eyes to see his face above her; he wore an expression of sadness.

He began.

She remained silent, save a few involuntary, soft moans. At this point, he was so amplified in his demonic prowess that he could hear her thoughts beneath her controlled exterior.

'i need it... i want it... thank you... thank you... this is what it feels like....'

He knew how to extend every moment, every motion; millennia of women, of practice had taught him how to make the most of his short time spent coupled with his prey. At the smallest increments, he began to speed up the pace at which he moved.

'love me... love me...'

Faster.

'more more more.... I need love... more...'

Faster.

'thank you.. thank you... thank you...'

Faster.

"So beautiful..."

'a-a-ah-h-h-h...!!!'

Fastest.

Her body rocked in time with his, and he felt her reaching the point -- the top of her feelings, the greatest of the animal passion that a human could feel. The feeling that took over her body, making her human soul less attached in the utmost of physical sensation. He began to feel her entering him.

"No... you can't die..."

'thank you... thank... you.... ' her thoughts whispered as they were drowning in him. Half of her soul had already been drawn up into him.

"Not another one..."

'i'll pay... the price...'

"NO NO NO!!!"

The yokai's thoughts screamed and reached out for every possible alternative; he was killing the first woman that he had ever... loved. Reaching, reaching... and found a way. Another soul, a small, unformed soul. The child in her womb.

"The only way..." his last thoughts whispered. Without wasting another moment, the incubus' form dissipated, leaving Nodoka's soul to return to her body. Exhausted, she lay heaving, atop her bed, an absent hand covering her belly. Souls merged and the mind of an incubus went into dormancy beneath the forming infant's own.

"Thank you...." she whispered, falling into a deep sleep, "Ranma."

**TBC**