The Onikami Files
Chapter 2
Starting the Path of Discovery
Disclaimer: I don't own this series or any other series. I am just floating an idea. I am making no money, nor plan to, off this venture. If you think of suing me over this, then grow up.
I would like to first personally thank all of those reviewing my stories. I enjoy reading your comments, and try to correct the grammatical errors I miss with my final read-through as well as my spell checkers. The suggestions you all make will help make this story better for everyone to enjoy, as well as allow my to fix some plot holes I may unintentionally leave. If you find any, let me know, and I will correct them and repost the chapters.
It was a quiet and peaceful day, along a stretch of road deep within Western China. The bird were singing, the weather sunny with just enough cloud cover to keep it from becoming balmy, with the wind carefully caressing all it could.
But sadly, such a peace could not last forever.
"No!" came a loud voice of an elderly man, one very similar to what many women feared to hear, often racing to hide any underclothes they held dear.
"Damn it, Old Man!" shouted another voice, a male voice that man considered to be the very enemy of said man. "I want ta know your name!"
"Well you ain't getting it, m'boy," said the elderly man.
The two who had disturbed this peaceful natural setting could in fact be seen coming over a small hill, the small man sitting on top of the boy's backpack, as the man smoked a small pipe. "I already explained it to you before we left Japan. I really don't see what's so hard for you to understand."
"Well, it ain't like I can keep calling ya 'Old Man' for the rest of the trip, now is it," growled out Ranma.
"Nothing wrong if you do," said the Old Man. "You've been calling me it since we left Japan to come here."
"JUST TELL ME YOUR NAME!" yelled Ranma, stopping along the path, and trying to grab the elderly advisor from atop his pack.
But the Old Man proved he was just as quick as his perverted brother, quickly vanishing from the pack, and appearing a few meters down the road. "M'boy, I'll let you in on a small secret. I only told one man my real name in all the years since I abandoned that little snot of a brother of mine," he said. "And the only way an impatient child like yourself will ever learn it is if he tells you. Unless ... you want to go asking my brother about it."
Ranma growled for a bit. Yeah, like he could ever get a straight answer from the Old Letch. "So all I gotta do is get this guy who knows your name ta tell me?"
The Old Man snorted. "You really need to work on your language skills, m'boy. You sound like you were educated by a yokel.
"But yes, you just ask him what my name is, and he'll tell you ... if he remembers."
"And where is this guy?"
"That's the man we're going to see, m'boy," said the Old Man, walking closer to Ranma. "You see, while I may be great at finding lost history, even a person like me couldn't have learned all I did about the Sanjiyan Unkara without a large reserve of their facts that were protected from Erasers."
"Erasers?"
"M'boy, they didn't like to be public when they were around," said the Old Man. "Nowadays, I have to be very careful, as they have old allies and such who are working on erasing their very presence from the rest of the world. After all, how can you fight what you don't understand?"
"So they're invaders?"
"Not exactly m'boy. You see, some may not really have given a damn if we humans knew about them. However, there are those that would rather stay in the shadows, and kill anyone trying to shine a spotlight at them."
Ranma gulped. "These people are killers?"
"Like I said, m'boy, some are. They're a lot like humans, in that you have some with pure hearts, and others that have pure corrupted souls. The point is that if asked, some won't hesitate to slay you, me, and anyone in their way."
"Is this guy...?"
"Not unless his little problem allowed them to."
"Problem?"
"Well, this source of mine was once a Sanjiyan Unkara. He left his tribe because their ruler was ... well ... a power-obsessed madman bent on ruling everyone and everything he saw fit to. So, he disappeared, and built a place that that idiot could never find, no matter what sources he used. Hell, he even enchanted the place so you can't really find it, teleport in... You name it; he did it to ensure that even if he died, they'd never get his research. It'll only let a select few in, but it's been so long, even he doesn't know what those select few have to have to get in."
"How does that relate to his problem?"
"Well m'boy, one of his research projects was to create permanent immortality for a Sanjiyan Unkara, much like their Wu."
"Wu?" asked Ranma. "I think ya mentioned them before."
"Nice to see your mind retains some facts," grumbled the Old Man. "Yes, a Wu is the immortal bodyguard of a Sanjiyan Unkara. You see, the Sanjiyan Unkara can use powerful magic, but it can leave them so drained, they sleep for days. Kind of hard to stay safe when you could sleep for that long.
"So, they found a way to create Wu. They find someone they often believe can protect them, and perform a technique, which transfers a person's soul into them."
"WHAT?"
"Not like you're thinking," grumbled the Old Man, having been close enough to feel the ringing in his ears from that yell.
"How can them taking a soul not be taking as a bad thing?" yelled Ranma.
"They don't take the soul, m'boy; just the anchor point."
"Huh?"
"Think of your soul as a boat, the anchor point is the anchor, keeping it to your body. Now, if you get injured enough, that chain snaps, and your soul is cut loose, you die. What they do is put the chain into themselves, making it impossible to break. As a result, the magic that is part of them ensures that any damage to the body of the Wu is healed. Might take a while, depending on how banged up the Wu is, but they'll reform. A cut will disappear as the injuries negate themselves. Hell, there have been tales of Wu who have been blown to little more than dust in the wind. But in a few weeks, they were back together and talking."
"So ... they really don't take your soul?"
"It falls either way, m'boy," said the Old Man. "In a way, they have your soul, but not to the point where you're some brain-dead zombie. Granted, they usually wait until you've stopped growing and are the best possible asset for them. The magic also negates your aging. So if they took your anchor as a child, you'd be an eternal child."
Ranma slowly nodded. "Sounds like something the Old Letch would like."
"True, that is why my worthless brother asked me to find them," said the Old Man. "Of course, they had all but been wiped out. I knew of only two living, and the man we're going to see. One was the Sanjiyan Unkara who killed them all, and he had a Wu who was sealed up somewhere. The other was a young girl who recently acquired her Wu, and there was no way I was going to subject my brother on her."
"And this other guy?"
"Well, like I said, he was experimenting with trying to give himself the eternal life of a Wu. Remember what I said about an anchor. Sure, the Wu's is safe, but only as long as the magic exists to power it. If the magic disappears, meaning the Sanjiyan Unkara dies..."
"Then ... the Wu dies?"
"Yes, m'boy," said the Old Man. "Granted, in those that had that bastard humanization ritual used on them, their Wu had their anchors returned. That is the only way to reverse it as far as I know.
"But my friend, he wanted a way around that flaw. He wanted to make it so that you could never kill a Sanjiyan Unkara without stripping them of their magic. Of course, he researched it for centuries before he made one attempt."
"What happened?"
"He tried to pull on his own anchor while looking in a mirror, coated with phoenix blood, hoping that by doing so, he'd make his anchor indestructible, and thus make himself immortal."
"Phoenix ... blood?" asked the now pale Ranma.
"Yeah, why?"
Ranma gulped. "Um. This guy wouldn't be known as Saffron, would he?"
"You know the guy?" asked the Old Man. "Well, he was close to his rebirth cycle when I met him last. How was he?"
"Um..."
"WHAT!" came the loud yell of an elderly man, as birds and animals from miles around took off and away from whatever created such a loud noise.
"Damn," muttered Ranma, as he tried to stop the ringing in his ears.
"I can't believe they did that to him," growled the Old Man. "I mean, if he was only shown his lab..."
"Lab?"
"When I first arrived there, they were very dubious of me," said the Old Man, "given my brother's pathetic legacy. But then I discovered Saffron's lab. In it, he learned of his past, the research. Hell, there was a waiting attempt he had made where he could pass his memories on from one life to the next, as long as he hadn't ascended yet. He was supposed to use it in his next cycle, in order to spend more time working on a cure.
"But it looked like those old chickens in charge didn't show it to him, despite that he said he'd order them to," growled the Old Man once again.
Shaking his head, he turned towards Ranma. "Just so you know; the man I knew would be glad you stopped the fool he had turned into, if this is the guy you had to take out to save that Tendo girl.
"I just hope we don't need to kill him again," sighed the Old Man. "Well come along now. My old friend needs his medicine, and we need his lab to wake up your latent side."
"My what?"
The Old Man sighed. "M'boy, you really do try even my patience."
"Halt!" yelled out one Phoenix guard. "Identify yourself, landling!"
The Old Man growled. "Last I heard; Saffron was against such slanderous terms. Don't tell me that those feather-brained morons changed even that?"
"How dare you insult our leaders!" challenged the guard.
The Old Man smirked. "Because I was here about thirty years ago, brat. The last I checked, Saffron was a man growing a heart."
"Who are you?" spoke a female voice.
"Long time, no see, Kiima," said another voice as he appeared before them.
"Saotome," she growled, tightening the hold on her pike.
"The Defiler!" challenged the guard, rushing to attack Ranma.
Before Ranma could even take the guard on, the Old Man deflected the attack with his pipe, sending the guard into the mountainside, and out cold. "Trolire must be rolling in his grave if you're that stupid, m'boy."
"How do you know of my grandfather?" asked Kiima, raising her own weapon.
"Grandfather?" said the Old Man. "Ah, you must be Trilire's child. I knew them both when I came here last time. Tell me, your father wouldn't happen to be Ghosik, would he?"
"H-H-How?" Kiima said, backing up slightly.
Ranma just sighed. "Listen, the Old Man was here before, made friends with Hothead, before he was reborn and turned into a major jackass by the guys you stupidly left to care for him. Now he's back to help Hothead become a decent guy again."
The Old Man nodded. "That's about it ... well, minus the Hothead comment. After all, I can't help you, m'boy, without Saffron's help."
"Help? Him?" Kiima said, pointing at Ranma.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were supposed to raise him to value your lives, right?" asked the Old Man, remembering some of the tales Ranma spoke of. "Unless of course, you like him trying to crush you with the mountain."
"And why should we trust you?" asked Kiima.
"Because I can get Saffron to his adult self in a day," said the Old Man. "If you need more, I'll show you where his lab is, if he can still reach the entrance controls, of course, and assuming the destroyed tap didn't damage it too much."
"Damn," muttered the Old Man, looking over the damaged wall that the two taps came from.
"Kiima," asked the short child known as Saffron, "are these people good people?" He had been brought to them by Kiima's orders, to test the story of the Old Man.
"Of course, old friend," said the Old Man. "Why, when I taught it to you, you always gave me such a good game of European Chess, the likes of which I've yet to find again," he said.
"What is going on?" yelled an elderly Phoenix, as he and several others entered the cavern.
"I'm trying to correct the foolish mistake you feather-brained fools created," said the Old Man, looking over the wall.
"You!" cried one. "We shall not let you poison our Lord with anymore of your lies!"
"If it's all Saffron's stuff," said Ranma, "then how is telling him about it a lie?"
"The Defiler!" cried another man. "Guards, kill him!"
Ranma just growled, as chi began to gather in his hands. "Try it and I'll be seeing if any of you can turn into eggs." Killing lost a lot of the fear when the dead just came back.
"Old Friend," said the Old Man, pointing to Saffron, "could you touch those three stones right there, and focus some power into them. That should open the door to your lab."
"My lab?" asked Saffron.
"Well, there is something special you left in there that can make you an adult again. You just need to take it."
"Wow," said the small immortal Phoenix. Being an adult meant he didn't need to take so many naps, let alone study as much as Kiima wanted him to. "That sounds cool!"
"See, they have begun to corrupt our Lord once again!"
"Double Mōko Takabisha!" yelled Ranma, sending two balls of chi towards the elderly men, driving them to the side. "Listen, I don't really care if you old fools are stuck being idiots, but I need this so I can live!"
"All the more reason to stop you now!" cried one of the elders, grabbing a pike from the guards, and charging on his own.
Ranma simply shook his head, as he grabbed the pike, and used the elderly Phoenix's own momentum to spin him around and throw him into his buddies.
"There we go," said the Old Man, as Saffron finished doing what he needed to open the doorway.
As the wall parted, the room soon began to be encompassed in light, as ancient spells started.
The cavern was huge, the walls lined with stacks of books and scrolls, the floor littered with tables, small chambers, beakers of unknowns. The walls were covered with shelves and open spaces with parchments and diagrams on them.
The only thing out of place were two narrow grates in the floor, which seemed to go from one end of the cavern to another.
One, which looked like it had lead to where the Phoenix Tap drew its water from, was empty, while the one that looked like it fed the Dragon Tap continued to flow, a pale blue glow seeming to cover and explode off the water, as it passed by.
"Just like I remembered it," said the Old Man.
"Wow," whispered Ranma and Chibi-Saffron, as the rest of the Phoenix slowly entered.
"We should leave!" demanded one of the council. "This is forbidden!"
"This is Saffron's place," growled the Old Man. "You can't tell him one way or the other what he can do here."
"We will stop you!"
"Guards!" called out another.
"Ranma, m'boy," said the Old Man. "I do hate to impose on you, but can you keep the old fools busy until I get my Old Friend here his medicine?"
"Sure," said Ranma, cracking his knuckles, as more nervous Phoenix guards showed up, not quite certain to attack the Defiler, or the man escorting their reborn Lord into a secret chamber they had never known of.
"I had no idea that this was here," said Kiima, as she escorted Saffron by holding his hand, to keep the young Lord from destroying anything in his excitement.
"Only Saffron knew of it, aside from myself," said the Old Man, looking about. "He said he'd tell the elders, so they could ensure he could grow quickly to continue his research."
"Yet another duty they have failed to do," growled the female Phoenix.
The Old Man nodded, as he hopped over to a small chest and opened it, pulling out a bottle of a glowing red liquid. "Ah, this is it."
"What is it?" asked Saffron.
The Old Man looked at the small child. It would probably be best not to tell him it is his blood from then; spelled to stay lively and do the purpose he wanted. "Um ... a special medicine you made to grow up and remember what you forgot when you made this."
"Oh," said the child, nodding.
"So, what will happen when he drinks that?" asked Kiima.
"Well, he said he should attain his full adult form, and not lose any time he has before his next rebirth. It is also intended to give him his memories up to the point the potion was created."
Kiima slowly nodded. "We do need him to take command soon. The Elders have been most ... stubborn about recent events. They have even begun to demand to be part of Lord Saffron's education once again, as well as making plans to acquire the territories of the Musk and Amazons."
"No more school work, no more books, no more nap time..." chanted the little Lord, as he imagined a life without all those stupid things Kiima said he had to do.
The Old Man nodded, as a broken pike came across the floor, followed by more taunts from Ranma. "Well, I think we should hurry."
"So I just drink this?" asked Saffron, as the Old Man handed him the corked vial.
"Yep, now drink it all. It might not taste too good," he cautioned. "But trust me, you'll feel much better after you take it."
The Old Man then backed up to Kiima, as Saffron took the stopper out of the bottle. "If this works as well as his other potions did ... we better duck."
"What?" she asked, eyes wide, as she felt herself tripped by the Old Man.
"Fire in the hole!"
"Mmm," smirked Saffron. "Tastes like cherries!"
And then everything went white.
Ranma stumbled forward as he felt a wave of energy pass behind him. "Hey, Old Man! That better have been a good thing!" he yelled behind him, as he took on another Elder who felt he could fight. "Damn, you guys need ta take lessons from the old ghouls in the Amazons. At least they can give me a workout."
"You okay, old friend?"
Saffron placed his hand against his head, feeling a major headache. "Did someone just stuff that overgrown potato Kaiyanwang in my head?"
"No," said the voice.
"Then I'll be fine," said Saffron, slowly sitting up, trying to focus his sight. "What hit me?"
"Your memories," said the old voice, as the shapes finally resolved.
"You?" he asked.
"Yep," smirked the Old Man. "Glad to see that serum actually worked. I started to get a little afraid it would blow you up, and I'd have to run for it."
"Serum," said Saffron, rubbing his head. "Wait, I remember that. I ... I remember... IT WORKED!" he shouted, standing up, arms high in the air, winged spread, and accidentally flashing Kiima his nude form. His earlier clothes did very little to hide his adult form's modesty.
But his smile soon turned to a growl. "And where are my soon-to-be dead advisors? I need to thank them for trying to keep me away from this."
"Oh, I think my current charge is dealing with them," said the Old Man, as another pained cry echoed through the chamber.
"Damn," muttered Saffron, ignoring the stares of his people, as he slowly stood up. "I wanted to fry them for that."
"I'm sure the boy'll leave them alive," said the Old Man. "Need to break him of that habit."
"So, why're you here?" asked Saffron, as he grabbed an old robe that was hanging nearby on a chair, something he had last worn before his last remembered death. "Last you said; you doubted you would be back this way, not wanting to lead your foolish brother here, or some nonsense like that."
"I need to ask you about whether or not those taps are still useable," said the Old Man, pointing to the two flows of water that passed by the lab, through several grates. "Mainly, I need to know if the one source of the waters for those taps is safe."
"What for?" asked Saffron. "You need the White Water for something?"
"Yes, the boy needs it to live," said the Old Man.
"Oh, care to explain?"
"A bit later, after the boy's had his fun," said the Old Man. "But I should tell you something very important."
"What?"
"I saw this one chess game last decade in Belgium. And let me tell you..."
Kiima could only look up at the two from the floor, her eyes wide. "Shit, I think it killed me. This can't be real."
She was still blushing from seeing her Lord returned to adult form ... minus some clothes.
"Um, excuse me," said Ranma, slightly worse for wear, walking up to his former worst enemy/current hope for survival, stepping over the grumbling female Phoenix.
"Yes?" asked Saffron, turning from his conversation with the Old Man about recent chess games.
"I was wondering if you could tell me the Old Man's real name." Ranma decided he would have that name, and wanted it quickly ... before more people took what he said the wrong way.
"His name?" asked Saffron, scratching his head.
"Yeah, what's the Old Man's name?" pleaded Ranma, pointing at the Old Man in question.
"His name is Rouou," said Saffron, smiling.
"Rouou?" asked Ranma, eyes confused, as he turned towards the Old Man. "Your name is Rouou?"
"Yep," said the smiling elder.
"But that means 'Old Man'."
"And?"
Ranma started to growl. "All this time, your name is the same thing I've been calling you ever since I met you?" he asked.
Saffron started chuckling. "Ah, he did that again. I remember some of the stories he told me about doing that same thing."
"Always good for a laugh," smirked Rouou.
"DIE, OLD MAN!" yelled Ranma.
"Oh, now you're okay with using that name," said Rouou, dodging the assault.
"HEY!" yelled Saffron. "NO FIGHTING IN MY LAB!"
Kiima slowly shook her head. "Great, traded one child for two more."
"The lab you see here is a more recent endeavor on my part," said Saffron, as the walked along the grates. "I added it to this room after I made these pathways for the White Water to flow along."
Ranma looked between the two. "Why?"
"Well, I was experimenting with the water," said Saffron. "If you'll look, you'll notice the Dragon Tap pathway is lined with blue crystals, and the Phoenix Tap is lined with red ones. They control the temperature of the two, giving them the properties I needed at the time. It wasn't until later I discovered they could 'ascend' a Phoenix into a source of life for this tribe."
"My Lord," said Kiima. "Did you create us as well?"
"A side effect from an earlier experiment," said Saffron. "But do not think anything less of your existence, dear Kiima. That was one unforeseen consequence I have never regretted."
The Phoenix girl slowly nodded at the information about the creation of her people.
Rouou merely nodded his head as he listened to the story once more. "He didn't even plan for this water to escape, the magic itself imbued by these crystals wasn't meant to last beyond the slope of the mountain, and yet..."
"Jusenkyo," said Ranma.
Saffron nodded. "A sad event; but even I have to wonder how everything that drowned to curse those pools made it there."
"The room connected to the levers on the taps are behind this door," said Rouou. "They run along the floor, set up so only one can be on at the time. You're quite fortunate m'boy that your attack triggered the off for the Phoenix Tap."
Ranma slowly nodded, wondering what would have happened had the tornado pulled in hot water.
As the entered the main room, Ranma spied the true source of the waters of Jusenkyo.
It looked like a normal pile of stones, a natural spring. But he could sense something behind the mound of earth and rock that the water poured from, something that was not quite right. The water then poured down the small stones, into a central bath, which ran around the stone mound. From there, it encountered a series of levees, as it reached on area with an old stone gate. The gate appeared to direct the water to one path, with a series of smaller gates ensuring that it could only go down one path at a time.
"I take it you sense it," said Rouou, pointing to the mouth. "You sense the breech?"
Ranma nodded. "What is it?"
"I studied it for years," said Saffron. "And all I could determine was that it was some natural crack between this world and the Seichi, the Holy Land of the Sanjiyan Unkara. It is a parallel world to this one. I neither learned of where the other side is in Seichi, let alone how it gets here, just that it does."
"And this is what I need?" asked Ranma.
Rouou nodded, barely stopping Ranma from running into the water. "It has to be done a certain way, ingrate, or it'll kill you!"
"Oh," said Ranma, as he ceased struggling to get to the water.
"No patience," muttered Saffron.
"HEY!" yelled Ranma. "I got plenty of patience!"
"How long before we can ascend the boy?" asked Rouou, glaring at Ranma.
"About a day," said Saffron. "I need to prepare to ensure the water doesn't do anything else since he's already been touched by it."
"I have?"
"Your curse," muttered Rouou.
"Oh."
Rouou sighed. "Which means I can begin giving you your lessons."
Ranma started to smile. "Ya mean like martial arts techniques?" he asked, eyes gleaming with excitement.
"I mean like basic history and such," said Rouou, causing Ranma's excited eyes to turn pale and empty. "You are not going to be an idiot if I can help it."
"HEY!" Ranma yelled, glaring at Rouou.
"Knowledge is power, boy," glared the old man. "A simple fact your father has failed to teach you."
"Knowledge is also the basis of magic," said Saffron. "The more knowledge you have, the more power you can wield." He then pointed off to the side, showing a door. "And without knowledge, you cannot wield what lies in there."
"What lies in there?" asked Ranma.
"That m'boy, is what you'll learn when we feel your ready, not when you think you are," said Rouou.
"And when will I be ready?" asked Ranma.
The two glared at him. "What?"
"He doesn't listen very well, does he?" asked Saffron.
"Not a single bit," said Rouou.
"Hey!"