Away to Neverland

xxx

Dear Mother,

As you have no doubt noted, I have made an arrangement that will allow an exchange of our correspondence, through the artifact enclosed within this letter. It is, you see, one half of a connected set. Simply insert the letter through one part of the artifact, and it will exit through the other. I would, however, request that you not ask how this specific letter arrived, as the explanation I recieved is mind-shatteringly baffling, and I more than suspect that the woman is amusing herself at my expense.

With respect towards your letter, I had no doubt in my mind that father would quickly lay claim to the alcohol, and am glad you received fair price for the jewel.

In regard to Nabiki, I have, upon further reflection, concluded that she would indeed be a very poor match for a man with any sort of wealth. Assuming, of course, that the man in question intended to keep that wealth. That considered, Kasumi's rather more demure nature and inclination towards traditional femininity would indeed leave her a better match. I am confident, of course, that all of your potential selections are equally well suited, and shall leave the matter to your discretion.

I am grateful, also, for your warning. While I would otherwise consider it unlikely for Cologne or her tribeswomen to find their way to this place, which I shall still leave unnamed for the moment in case certain of our acquaintances are so ill-mannered as to repeat their theft, I cannot deny that they have repeatedly proven to be wildly beyond my expectations in regards to their tenacity and resourcefulness in my pursuit. As well, the notion of being trailed by devil hunters is unsettling. I can not honestly say that I believe they will prove to be any significant threat against Suika, however, I have been known to be overconfident in my own abilities and, more relevantly, to mis-judge the ability of potential enemies. With knowledge that they may be coming in advance, however, I will have the luxury of not being forced into a snap-judgement. I will, however, be forced to request that you pass along more details regarding these potential devil hunters. On a related note, the thought has just struck me that Cologne may use these unknowns to her own ends. Unsettling, and worrying. I am, therefore, forced to consider this not a question of 'if' they will eventually discover my whereabouts, and a way to enter the area, but rather 'when' this will be the case.

I regret that it will likely be much to their misfortune when they do so. You are, I am sure, familiar with tales in which oni feast upon the flesh of humanity? I can affirm that there is no exaggeration in such. Indeed, were it not for my not-inconsiderable manly charm, things with Suika could have ended far more unpleasantly than they actually did. I have served to temper this in Suika, and where I could not prevent it, directed her to those whose unexpected disappearances would be considered something of a karmic retribution, rather than simply allow her to pick and choose as she would. The point I wish to make in this is that this place is, I am afraid, home to a very great number of beings whose tastes in such matters run very similarly to Suika's. Through various reasons, mainly including the threat of significant reprisal, the humans of this place are off-limits to being preyed upon by these beings, and I am assured that at this point many such walk market roads alongside humans, quietly purchasing and selling things as any human might, neither part of the equation truly registering that the one is Predator and the other Prey. However, people from outside this land, who wander in, are under no such form of protection. You need not worry for me, as Suika's might is not inconsiderable, and I believe I would not be simple prey to take regardless of what protection that offers. However, a sudden glut of humans from outside the magical boundaries of this place, making their way inside all at once? It would not be considered an invasion. Rather, it would be looked upon as a contigent of lambs belligerently bursting into a slaughterhouse and bleating loudly to get the attention of all within. While I am quite confident in my ability to adapt to such a new situation and believe I bear enough martial skill to survive in this land even unaided, I do not believe that would be the case for, for example, Shampoo. As I believe that she was the foremost warrior of her generation in her tribe when we met, I have based my estimations upon that and have come to conclude that should the contigent of her people make their way into this dangerous land, I believe that at a generous estimate, assuming they all immediately realize the danger they face, do not split up, and work together to find a way back out, perhaps a quarter of thier number would escape. A more realistic guess would pare that number down to Cologne, and perhaps whatever elders were numbered among them. In such a situation, I would mourn and regret Shampoo's death, but understand that the circumstances made it all but inevitable. I would therefore hope that they be dissuaded from pursuing me, or at the least, fail to locate this place, not for my sake, but theirs.

Regarding father, I would smack the man, were I there. Then, were I there, he would not have considered his current idiocy. Keep a watchful eye on him. As far as I can tell, the man usually means well. Unfortunately, his concept of what is the right thing to do, or what is best, is often significantly divorced from reality. Further, his mind and common sense seem at times to completely shut down, as his body moves automatically, without thought, to fill his belly or pursue whatever imbecilic flight of fancy has most recently crossed his mind. At such times, I have found that a stern hand and disciplining blows are the best means to keep him in line, so long as someone is there to keep his foolhardiness from being perpetrated. I can easily envision the prospect of him stealing a child from somewhere, if you do not succumb to his intent. I hope that you will be able to prevent him from making a fool of himself in such a manner, but if you cannot, then please, at the very least, be ready to violently re-instill some sense into his thick skull and force him to take it back. That is all I can ask for.

Should you choose to divorce him, please notify me. From that point, options will become available.

In regard to the photographs mentioned in your post-script, I find myself embarrased, but somehow not in any way surprised. My sensitivity to such things has likely been numbed through Nabiki's own activities. Please smack Akane for me, preferably with an outraged and shrill scream to go along with it, and if at all possible confiscate that photograph. I would naturally prefer not to have the details of my private life become wider known than is strictly neccessary, you understand. Try accusing her of perversion. When she freezes up, point out the nature of the photograph, that showing it off to all and sundry is a perverse act in and of itself, and that she has been doing so, and I believe her mind will shut down for a little while when the realization hits, allowing you to reclaim it unhindered.

Suika sends her warm regards.

Your son,

Ranma

Ranma finished the letter and eyed the enclosed portal speculatively. He didn't particularly trust it, given the person who had offered it. Even so, he recognized with a sigh that he had no other options readily available and carefully slid the envelope through, and it disappeared.

Elsewhere, it re-appeared, and Yukari daintily plucked it up. Without a thought, she gapped the letter out of the envelopes confines, read it with undisguised interest, and then replaced it similarly, without damaging it in any way, or indeed, opening it. Without a further word, she tossed it through another portal to where it landed on Nodoka's desk, and returned to what she had been doing.

xxx

Suika sat up sharply in bed, blankets spilling off as her eyes darted around wildly, breathing heavily and covered in a cold sweat. Her breathing slowed as Ranma shifted in his sleep beside her with a reassuring sleepy mumble.

She flopped back down, taking in the soft and comforting warmth beside her for a few minutes, then stumbled out of bed and to the bathroom. She was alone when she dunked her head under the spigot, running warm water over her face. When she pulled back up to breathe, the mirror revealed Alice standing behind her, looking equally bedraggled and sweat-soaked.

"Nightmare." the puppeteer said somberly, the single word conveying significant depths of meaning. Not a question, but a simple statement, presented with a certain sense of 'Yes, me too. What of it?'.

Suika grunted and stepped aside, allowing Alice access to her sink, where she stripped, washed herself, calmly patted herself dry with a hand-towel, and patiently waited. Suika eventually turned her head to the side, in disgust.

"It was Ranma." She allowed. "And... I don't really want to say anything more about the details."

Alice nodded appreciatively at the gesture of good faith, mulling it over as she composed her reply.

"... I grew up in Makai." She said, eventually. "This was before I was... you know..." She waved at herself awkwardly. "Back before I became that which I am now. When I was still human. In a sense, I was fortunate, as the god-queen of that realm had taken a shine to me for some reason, and took me in as her own." Her own 'what', Alice decided was irrelevant, as she had never quite figured that one out herself. She considered stopping there, but after hesitating she pressed on. "In another sense... I was not so fortunate. Mother... tried. She tried very hard. But she doesn't truly understand humanity, except of course how to torment them. It's her job. So, when she decided to raise a young human girl..."

Alice paused, then drew a cup of water and drank it. Her hands were not trembling. She knew this was so because she had trained her hands significantly, to the point where she had near-perfect muscular control of everything between her wrists and fingernails. She also knew that another persons hands might be.

"Some varieties of higher beings come into existence fully formed, near the apex of their maturity." She said, deciding to approach things from a subtly different angle, not knowing why she was still talking or why she wanted, suddenly and inexplicably, too keep talking on this subject. "Young looking, to humans. They don't change much after that. They don't usually grow much. Humans are different. They are born tiny, and they grow, and grow, and mature as they age. Some Youkai are similar, with the caveat that they mature mentally very swiftly indeed. And so, the minds of human children can be... flexible, for lack of a better word. Durable. Because they are not complete. Because they lack understanding, which only comes to them later. And so, when a youn child grew within a plane of hell..." Alice shook her head. "Mother was... always cheerful. Happy. She enjoyed her work, and she could get... intense, at times. She was a good mother. But... she didn't understand how to be a human mother. And so, rather than shelter me from things a human mother would instinctively shelter her children from, she bathed me in them."

A small, troubled smile crossed Alice's face before she wiped it away and drew another cup of water.

"And I enjoyed them, or learned to do so, far more than I probably should have. Because Mother knew best, and Mother loved me, and so Mother was always Right, and I had not yet grown into understanding. But I remembered. And I grew into understanding. And forever after, I wished that I hadn't. And now..." Alice shrugged eloquently, sadly. "I no longer live in Makai. I studied magic more feverishly than ever, hoping that if I became a youkai, everything would be better, as a youkai's understanding displaced that of my own as a human. To an extent, it worked. I could go, now, and return to Makai, and live exactly as I had before I left, and it would not trouble me in the slightest. But... I still have the memory of being human, and of having a human understanding. And it is from there that most of the nightmares spring. I still love Mother, beyond all reason, as did that happy child. But I also fear and dread her, beyond all reason. I have layered my house with thirteen unique protective wards. One to repel vermin, one to protect from rot, one that, to a degree, warns off other Youkai. And ten individual, unique wards, each specifically tuned to turn away Mother's watchful gaze, in effort to keep her from finding me."

Alice paused, and sighed.

"The worst ones... the worst ones are when I wake up and she's there, and she wants me to come home, for us to be a happy family again. And I succumb and agree, and we return to Makai. And then, when we arrive... I'm human again." She said, trailing down to a soft hiss of a whisper. "And that... that, I wouldn't be able to take. I'm... not that strong. I wouldn't have that fortitude, that I had as a child. I would break, and worst of all, Mother would never understand why it had happened."

Alice's whole body was trembling now, with conflicting emotion, and it was Suika's turn to sigh.

"Geeze... you're a wreck." She grumbled half-heartedly. "Alright. Get down here."

Without a further word, she forced the trembling dollmaker to her knees, and Alices eyes widened as the oni's strong arms wrapped gently, warmly, carefully around her. A moment passed like forever, and her arms were suddenly moving on their own, returning the unexpected embrace, as she bit her lip, feeling a tight itchiness around her eyes.

"It's all right." Suika said, softly murmuring reassuring things that she guessed Alice probably wanted to hear, not entirely sure how she had gotten herself into this situation or how to extract herself from it. She rubbed the taller girl's back, hoping that wasn't screwing up somehow. "It's okay. It's not your fault. Everything is going to be fine..."

Alice squeezed tighter, feeling a warm, gentle heat seep into her as she felt tears building at-

The door to the bathroom swung unexpectedly open, and Ranma stumbled blearily through, shirt unbuttoned and half asleep. Both of the girls froze in place as he lurched to the sink, standing right beside them and on top of Alice's nightdress as he poured a cup of water and drank it greedily, followed by a second, then washed his face. Then he stood straight and turned. And finally, finally, he saw that the room had been occupied.

"Eh... huh?" He said, still foggy from sleep and not really taking in the situation before him. "Oh. uh... oh! I-uh... I'll just go back to bed now. Sorry?"

He beat a hasty retreat from the room, leaving Alice and Suika still entangled together as before, but with the prevailing mood quite thoroughly shattered beyond any recognition.

"So... this is what mortification feels like." Alice said, in a dull, shell-shocked sort of tone.

xxx

"Okay, I wanted you two here because I've had a couple more ideas to try about flying. But... they might be just a little dangerous." Ranma warned, stretching slightly in the middle of the mostly-emptied storage room.

"Oh god." Alice said instantly, palming her face in resignation. "I'll get a mop."

"Ha. Ha. Ha." Ranma sarcastically replied, then twitched as she actually left and returned with a mop and bucket of soapy water. "... I'm glad to see you're confident in me."

"You still have a hole in you." Alice shot back. "Granted, I could probably only fit a finger in it now, rather than my whole fist, but that it's there at all proves my point."

"Yeah, yeah, sure." He replied, waving off her protests. "Anyway, first I'm going to try bastardizing the Hiryu Shoten Ha to make something like a compressed, localized, tying tornado under each foot."

"I see absolutely no way in which this course of action could go wrong." Alice lied in a flat monotone.

"Yeah, me neither." Ranma answered perfectly seriously. "Anyway, this may take a minute, focusing the spirals down that small will be a little tricky..."

He braced himself, feet shoulder-width apart, closed his eyes, and focused on molding chi. Cold and hot, together in the spiral of the technique... he had learned to do it on a large scale, to brute-force the tornado when an opponent simply refused to co-operate, but it still took time to set up and was more draining. And if they could fly, there was no point, because they would just float gently out of the area of effect. Focusing the spirals down to such a small scale was actually even trickier, as they seemed to object to being reduced, and were fighting him every step of the way. A drop of sweat rolled down his cheek from the effort.

"Almost... almost..." He mumbled under his breath. "And... got it!"

At his triumphant cry, two tiny vortexes of air appeared, beneath and surrounding his feet, and lifted him gently off the ground. This state of affairs lasted very nearly a full eyeblink before they decided, in concert, that they had had just about enough of this nonsense and catapulted him through the air, spinning, with legs whirling in ways vaguely reminiscent of helicopter rotors and all but guaranteed to have ripped them completely off of any normal person, given their speed and velocity.

Ranma landed face-first in the bucket. After a moment, he lifted himself free, blinking the suds clear and dripping.

"All right." He decided aloud. "That... that has potential. It worked... sort of... until I lifted off the ground, anyway. I just have to find a way to keep it under control after that, somehow..."

"Yes, good luck with that." Alice said, focusing on the huge wet patch on her dress, left in the wake of the splash-down.

"Alright... alright. So, the other thing. Anyway, I got this idea from Ryoga's Iron Cloth trick. It's actually pretty easy to work out, even if it makes peoples eyes cross when I try to explain. What you do with that technique is to leak chi out into the general area, not infuse it into the cloth, and then you... twist, sort of, and I'm not explaining this very well, but while your twisting what you do is sort of to trick the world into thinking that the cloth is hard and rigid and sharp like a sword, and that if you swing it at something that it will cut. And if you do it right, and you're confident enough it will work, it works. More or less. Sooo... what I was thinking of doing, was applying that concept, knowing that it works to something less... material. I mean, if I can trick the universe into thinking that a handkerchief is a dagger, it shouldn't be that much harder to convince it that gravity is optional, right?"

"Well, you have fun with that." Alice answered, turning away and opening the door. "In the meantime, I have to change my clothes. I'll be back momentarily."

"Alright. It should take me a few minutes to figure out how I'm going to make this work, anyway." Ranma agreed, sitting on the floor and beginning to think heavily.

Alice took her time. When she returned, everyone had moved to the hall in front of the door to the storage room, the fairy was on the ground in the fetal position, wild-eyed, covered with thick orange slime and whispering gibberish to herself, and Ranma and Suika were launching blasts of chi, gouts of searing flame, and miniature black holes into the room. Somehow, she found that she was not in any way surprised by this turn of events.

"Well, Saotome?" She asked pertinently, watching as he seemed to squirm, but didn't let up for a moment on the energy blasts.

"Yeeeaaaah..." He said, slowly. "About that thing I was going to try. I might have accidentaly a horror from outside the plane of reality as we understand it." He finished at a volume she could barely hear, clearly unsatisfied with this turn of events. "Everything was going fine before that, though."

He blinked, then frowned.

"You'll want to get away from that wall."

Without questioning why, Alice moved, swiftly, as thick and ouly masses of coiled, grasping... something, which her mind wasn't able to readily define reached out and snatched at her, only to retreat back through the undamaged wall as Ranma blasted at it.

"Plus side, it's not breaking anything itself." Alice mused, in a slightly shaky tone. "So... can you get rid of it?"

"" the fairy gibbered, and was summarily ignored for the moment by anyone.

"It really doesn't like what we've been doing to it." Ranma hedged, not coming out with a clear yes or no answer. "So... probably. Eventually. Or it'll run away. I think."

"Aaaaliiiice!" A voice called from the general direction of the front door. "I came to plays!"

"Hold that thought." Alice instructed. "And don't let it get away."

"Yeah, sure." Ranma grumbled as she rushed off.

She was back in less than a minute, leading another blonde with amused eyes by the wrist.

"There." She said immediately, pointing vaguely at the wall as Suika and Ranma kept up their bombardment. "I don't know what it is, but it's in there, and I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to even exist. I'll give you the entire basket if you kill it."

"Hey, no problems. Kirisame exterminations at your services!" The new girl answered, far too happily for the situation.

She smiled and reached up to pull a handheld bronze octagonal box of some kind out of her oversized witches hat and held it in both hands, aimed directly at the wall rather than anything inside the room. Ranma was confused at first as to why aim only seemed important to her in the vaguest of fasions, and remained so until she finished charging and called her attack.

"Magicannon: Final Spark!"

xxx

The disheveled hobo's brain seemed to pulse as he looked at the sketch held in front of him. Yeah. That was him. No mistake. He hadn't had the best life, before he'd seen that guy, but he'd figured out how to get by. Work with the people in charge, don't cross them, and he got three square meals a day and some extravagances here and there. Sure, he hadn't been allowed to leave, and he'd had to deliberately conceal the extent of his psychic abilities, for fear of them either becoming too experiment-happy or just killing him, but he had been fine with it.

And then, in a handful of hours, his life had been destroyed. He'd had to escape, or those... things that had been set loose would have killed and eaten him before they were brought down. And once he'd escaped, he couldn't go back. He'd overheard a little about policy, and simply by escaping, even only to save his own life, he could never be considered anything but 'uncooperative'. He mentally shuddered at the idea, knowing what they did to those.

So he couldn't go back. But he didn't have a lot of options. Legally, he didn't exist, as his files had been manipulated to show that he'd died in a tragic accident the day he'd been taken in. Nobody would hire someone without identification, and he was in a situation where he couldn't get any.

So he didn't have any more of even the most minor extravagances. He was lucky to get a single decent meal a day now, much less three, and he lived hand to mouth. A dirty, shunned, homeless beggar. It was like a little slice of hell had been forced on him and it stuck in his craw. And he knew just who was to blame for it all.

His brain pulsed again, and he could almost see a moment in time of the person sketched, and knew that he could track him down. Slowly, a smile crept across his face.

Kenshiro looked up from the paper.

"Yeah... yeah, I know this guy. So what's it worth to you?"

Cologne leered right back.

xxx

A.N.

GUESS WHO'S BACK IN THE GAME? IT'S MR SIDE CHARACTER FROM THE FIRST CHAPTER! So yeah, OC time. I can't let Ranma get off too easily, or you'll all get bored. Just because you don't see it, don't assume stuff isn't happening, and all that. Still need to think further about the possible-devil-hunters, but things are coming along nicely.

TJG, you'll notice that I blatantly stole from your review. They were spectacular ideas, and after a minute or two, I worked out how to make them spectacularly explode in Ranma's face. At this point, I couldn't not throw them in. Also, I've decided that 'TJG' are your initials, and have chosen to extrapolate from there to come to the conclusion that your name is actually Theodorias Johannes Grauffbergersson, and picture you as a hugely muscular man in a suit, with a massive handlebar mustach, professor type glasses, and a shiny top hat and cane. From this point on, that will be the name by which I refer to you in my head, and the picture I see when I do so. But that's neither here nor there.

To answer another review I meant to adress before: Nexus the 13th. Yes, Suika could probably use density hax to get drowned guy water to cure Ranma's curse, somehow. Or it could be cured with boundary hax, or miracle hax whenever Sanae gets there, or just plain magical bullshit hax, or any number of other things. It's still not going to happen, for two reasons. One, because Ranma is just so used to cures not panning out by now that he's subconsciously given up, and wouldn't realize that these things could be used that way unless someone waved a red flag with 'Jusenkyo Cure' stamped on it in big, black letters in front of his face. This won't be happening because, Two, Suika likes having options. In bed, if you really needed that explained.

Um, because I never seemed to get around to it in the chapters, I'll explain the electricity thing here. None of the equipment, or anything, is magic, but it's all plugged up into a special converter, which transforms magical energy into pure electricity for the stuff to run off of. It only needs to be recharged about once a month, and is much more feasible in that regard than having kappa chop down trees to put in power lines everywhere, and stuff. So know you know. It works, quite literally, because magic.

Good explanations for the spider, everyone, and I'll leave it at 'one of those is probably right, unless I think of something better, and it's probably not important anyway'. For now.

So, old business dealt with, on to new.

Alice. There's one little line in the wiki that I caught on to. Alice is, or ends up being, a frequent customer of Eirin's, who often buys the nightmare-repelling butterfly dream pill things. Therea are no further details given, but this implies that she has nightmares regularly enough that dreaming of being a butterfly instead is a really attractive prospect. I've already hinted at that, starting back in chapter 3, if you'll note the feverish sweat thing. So then, why does Alice have nightmares? Well, look again, and you see that in her first few appearances, before PCB, or EOSD was around, which is apparently a different canon or something...? She was a human child raised in Makai, by the/a Queen of Hell. If you stop to think about it, that cannot possibly be conductive to good mental health. So, since I had no patience to sift between pc-98 and windows stuff, to find out which was which, and what to facet and what to prune, I just mashed it all together and will conveniently ignore any plotholes that may arise as a result. BECAUSE MAGIC. I still think Suika came off a little wrong in the end of that scene, but everything else I try in place of it doesn't work at all. So, caught up in the moment of comforting the traumatized Alice, I guess.

Mini-cthulhu. This is the fabric of reality you're playing with, Ranma, please try not to tear it. I was going to write a bit leading up to the thing appearing, with space warping weirdly, the walls bleeding, the ceiling forming a sobbing face, the mop dancing, basically the mindfucking works. That just didn't happen, though. So you'll have to use your imagination. You're welcome, and pleasant dreams.

Marisa. The 'ze'. Fanonically, it's an important part of her character, or something, but I just hate writhing it down. 'No problem-ze'... shudder. Instead, I'll just rip off the 'Reinterpretation of Scarlet Devil' guy, and just throw extra 's's into things when she talks. You can think of it as 'ze' without the 'ze', or just that she has weird speakings, whatever you want. It works goods, yeah?

Oh, and yeah, Yukari will be reading Ranma's mail without telling him. Not always even because she's specifically interested, but just because she can. So she will.