Identity, by Muphrid. A tribe of Chinese sorcerers captures Ranma to purge emotions from the hearts of men. A continuation story, set after the end of the manga.
Escape
Chapter Two Finale
Along the river valley of the Ki Sorcerers, fires beat back the dark. Under torches' light, patrols scoured the village, seeking the girl who dared violate their young.
"We've yet to sight her, my lady," said the captain, Wuya. "The mothers and nursemaids are safe; I've seen to it."
The leader of the Sorcerers paced before the main gate to the palace. She walked with closed eyes, yet she knew by touch the features around her: the distance to the fortress wall, the subtle irregularities of the earth. "Our guest isn't interested in the mothers," said Sindoor. "She wants what any caged animal would want." Her eyes snapped open. She grabbed an oil lamp from the wall and thrust it into the darkness, driving out the shadows. "Isn't that right, Saotome Ranma?"
Ranma stepped up, into the lamp's glow. "I know what you people are. I know what you're doing to your children. You're raising them to be something they're not."
Sindoor chuckled. "You know nothing of our people, outsider. You know not what we do or why. Tell us of Saffron, and we may forget these trespasses. We can let you leave. You desire this, yes?"
"Do you think I'm stupid? You don't care about kindness or generosity, forgiveness or respect. All you care about is your magic. You use Tilaka. You use your children. You use your people to build this great stone palace, and it's all for your glory. Am I right?"
"The palace glorifies the people!" said Wuya. "How dare you judge our ways!"
"I'll judge if I please, and I do," said Ranma. "I'm breaking out of this village, whether you like it or not."
"Then you choose to be our enemy," said Sindoor. "A foolish enemy, at that. How do expect to leave without our blessing? Through the Maze you cannot pass."
Ranma laughed. "You're too proud of yourselves."
"And why is that?"
"Because if you weren't proud, you'd have attacked me by now. You wouldn't have let me walk freely, either this morning or tonight. But you know what the worst thing is?" He held up his index finger and pointed it to the sky. "You wouldn't have made the walls of your palace out of solid rock."
Sindoor flinched. "You wouldn't."
Ranma smirked, touching the edge of his finger to the wall. "Actually, I would. Kind of like this!"
BAM! The wall shattered; boulders blasted the guards. Sindoor and Wuya hit the deck, sheltering themselves from a spray of pebbles. The mound of earth collapsed, throwing up dust and flooding the defenders in dirt.
Sindoor kicked her way out of the landslide, wiping the soil from her robes. "She's means to harm the channelers! After her, quickly!"
#
Wall after wall Ranma shattered with Ryōga's Bakusai Tenketsu, the Breaking Point technique, flooding the outer levels with the stemmed pressure of walled-up earth. These landslides held his foes at bay, and with the majority of the Guard searching for him in the upper village, minimal defenders would protect the tower.
Looks like I've learned something from you after all, Ryōga.
When he reached the door to Sindoor's chambers, Ranma leapt atop the thin ledge of the doorframe and climbed. Each level of the tower was narrower than the last, and on fingertip holds Ranma pulled himself up, floor by floor. The mid levels, the ones with the channelers, had no windows, but from the top of the tower, one could see Jusendō. There was a window on the uppermost floor, facing the east.
And Ranma snuck his arms inside it, barreling through the gap headfirst. He rolled to his feet, and in pitch darkness, he tip-toed over the hard, irregular flooring, whispering a name.
"Tilaka?" He listened for an answer. "Yo, Tilaka!"
A low murmur echoed off the walls, distinct but unintelligible.
"Sorry, still don't speak that."
The voice changed, formed itself into something coherent. "It's you?"
"Yeah, it's me. You got a light?"
A spark of energy shot from Tilaka's fingers, igniting the fire. "Is that better?"
"It is." Ranma leapt; he tackled the boy and locked an elbow around his neck.
"Why? What are you—"
Ranma pressed his palm against Tilaka's mouth. "This is my insurance. You messed with my head the last time I was here. Try it again, and you'll be asleep in ten seconds. Got it?"
Tilaka blinked, passive, unmoving.
"Okay then." Ranma lifted his hand. "Tell me something: you said people who were cursed can do better magic, right?"
"No, people who change their form."
"Fine, whatever. If you change someone back from their cursed form, what happens to their ability to do magic?"
"Why do you—"
Ranma pressed his arm against the carotid artery, choking off the flow of blood to the brain. "Answer me plainly. What happens if they change back?"
"The magic…" The boy writhed, struggling, but Ranma held his grip. "The magic isn't as strong."
Ranma nodded. This was his ticket out, the way to neutralize their magic, at least for a time. Maybe long enough to break through the forest and breach the edge of the Maze.
Tilaka went limp, sagging in Ranma's arms.
"It's just good night for a while," said Ranma. He eased Tilaka's head to the floor. "Now, how much time do I have?" He jogged to the window and peered out.
Torches from the Guard's defense parties closed on the tower. Most came from the river and the upper valley, to the north, but others circled the palace, struggling for headway against the black and dirt.
"Not much. They'll look for any way up here, to get to me." Ranma stepped over Tilaka. He stamped out the fire and crouched by the door. He rapped on the cold steel three times.
Tap tap tap.
The guards undid the latch. They crept inside.
THUD! Ranma shoved the door in their faces. He yanked a staff from its owner's hands and swiped at the other's shins. He twirled the stick, gaining momentum, and crushed a guard's collarbone with the heavy metal tip. Tilaka's defenders fell, dazed and wounded. Ranma stole their daggers, slashing both.
"Sorry I can't be sanitary," said Ranma, strapping a sheath to his waist. "I'm gonna need a good one for anyone else I find." He dragged the guards to lie with Tilaka and latched the door behind him. "At least if someone comes by wondering where you went, it'll take them a while to figure it out. Maybe."
On his way down the center stairs, he extinguished the torches, casting the spiral descent in deepening black. The guards took no kindness to his deeds: they herded the channelers away from the doors. They grabbed torches and swiped at the dark, but Ranma danced in the shadows. He baited them up the tower, towards safe territory. He stole the clothes off their backs, the daggers from their hips, and gashed them on their arms and legs. They snoozed on the the stone stairs, and Ranma glimpsed his targets, the dull, pale channelers, who clung to the firelight, crowding against the back walls.
Ranma picked up a guard's battle staff and leveled it on his foes. "Somewhere on this floor there's a fountain, right?"
The channelers watched him, blank, expressionless.
"Fine. Doesn't matter if you can understand what I say or not." He thrust the tip forward, startling the crowd. "You understand that well enough, don't you? Move it!"
At staff-point, Ranma drove the channelers away from the staircase. Like sheep before their herdsman, they wandered the level, past mats and low tables. Total accommodations to live, all on a single floor of the tower. They slept, they ate, they bathed here…
A gray mist crept along the ceiling, expanding in puffs and billows.
They made wishes here.
Ranma prodded the group of channelers away from the doors, locking both when they filed inside. From a corner he snatched a clay pot and dunked it in the pool. He poured the water over him, closing his eyes, relishing the warmth.
"Well," said a deeper, commanding voice, "now we're in business."
The channelers linked their hands, humming. They watched him with death glares, the disdain reserved for a denier.
"You think a little noise scares me?" Ranma dipped the pot again, filled it to the brim with water. "Who wants to be first?"
The hum intensified, a bass tone and component harmonics, a deafening fever-pitch.
"Say goodbye to your magic!"
Silence, emptiness. The channelers disappeared.
Ranma spun around, but the room lay deserted, save for the flowing fountain. "Another trick? You think you can trick me with this again?" He flung the contents of the pot.
And the water splashed on the wall. Again and again he filled the pot. He spun around and sprayed the room with water, yet only the torches flickered. The empty room remained. He even dashed to the doors and peered beyond.
He saw a room. A fountain. A young man cracking the far door open and peeking through the gap.
Ranma slammed the door behind him. Only one word captured his frustration, his panic.
"Shit."
BANG BANG! The steel doors dented; they rattled and shook, bursting against the locks.
"Oh, sure!" said Ranma. "You guys can get in, but I can't get out?"
TEW! A beam of light blasted a door off its hinges! The Sorcerers barreled inside, staves whirling. They chopped; they slashed. Ranma parried, but the enemy's stick slid along his and smashed his finger between wood and grip.
"Bastard!" Ranma kicked his foes away. He spun the staff before him and swung it like a baseball bat.
CRACK! Home run. A Sorcerer fell. The staff splintered, and Ranma tossed away the fragments, baring his fists.
"Come on!" he said. "You guys want to go? Let's go!"
En masse they charged Ranma, poking, thrusting with staves, slashing with daggers. The staff-wielders Ranma dispatched of easily: the small, enclosed space pushed them nearer then their reach liked, and in extreme close quarters, Ranma yanked the stick downward and punched over it, kicked under it, butted heads with his foes. He ducked and dodged daggers, and the Sorcerers tranquilized their own kin with their strikes. Effective techniques in closed space, but in the confines of the fountain room, the bodies of the wounded encroached on the floor space. Save for a narrow path to the blown door, Ranma found himself backed up against the fountain, struggling to find footing that wouldn't tug his ankle from under him.
People don't just disappear. They have to go somewhere; they have to be somewhere. Ranma lugged a defeated Sorcerer by the elbow. He spun in place, flinging the man around like a weight on a rope, staying the other Sorcerers' advance. "You people might be smarter than I thought," he said. "You hide in front of my face. You can side-step water. Maybe you can even stop it with magic, but do that to a man, and it'll be worse than if he hit solid concrete. Do you really want to take that chance?"
Plant, step, throw! The channelers tumbled, like bowling pins. The spell was broken.
Clang, clang!
But not for long. The Guard beat down the second door. The channelers dusted themselves off, joining hands once more. A row of Sorcerers dashed forward, staff points up, like a charge of angry elephants.
Ranma backpedaled. He flipped, end over end, and landed atop the fountain, a place where his opponents' staves became mere prodding sticks.
This is it. I ain't getting out of here any other way. Only hot water will stop them.
He gazed into the pool below, the flowing water, the flickering reflection as droplets fell and merged with the surface.
There's water all over here, not just in the fountain. It's below us, in the floor, the walls. There have to be pipes. There's water everywhere.
The channelers tuned their voices. The warriors of the Guard dashed forward in lockstep, sliding their hands back on their staves, poised to thrust. The room, the erratic firelight, slowed to a crawl, and for the first time, Ranma saw clearly what he was up against: he had no chance of escaping this place, not now. Sindoor caught him creeping around the main gate, and he had to be flashy to distract her. He wasted time seeing Tilaka, confirming suspicions, when he should've acted on them instead. As for dousing scores of channelers in hot water, he didn't have a plan for that either, just hope. Blind hope that somehow, he'd dispel their powers and escape.
The hope for a cure, the hope that he might come home a man.
He hopped off the fountain, waded in its water. I may not be getting out of here yet, I may not be a guy all the time, but if nothing else, I'm finding out just how twisted and wrong these people are! He wiggled his fingers, cocked his arm, and brought the full force of his fist against the fount.
BAM! The statue shattered, debris showered over the room, and water—hot, steaming water—rained over the Sorcerers. The undirected spray extinguished the torches, and in darkness, low, guttural cries haunted the tower.
"I thought you wanted to leave."
Ranma scampered to his feet, feeling around the black. A jet of fountain water shot out, spraying his face. "Who's there?"
A light penetrated the doorway. Under the glow of a torch, Tilaka hovered, peering inside. "If you wanted to leave, you should've listened to me."
"I did that!" said Ranma.
"To stop the channelers' magic, to stop my magic, you need to make them return to their true form."
"With hot water!"
"No."
"No? What—" Ranma tripped on a fragment of the fountain, making his way to the door. "Tilaka, if someone's cursed," asked Ranma, "how do you change them? How do you make them the way they should be?"
"The human race is born cursed. Only the blessing of the spring makes us whole."
Ranma stomped over to him, yanking him by the collar. "Dammit, stop speaking in riddles! Answer the question: hot water or cold?"
"Cold, of course."
Cold water.
Ranma's grip faltered. He let Tilaka go, and the boy stumbled, weak on his feet. They really think they're born wrong. He snatched the torch from Tilaka's hands, shielding it from the fountain's spray. Over a defeated Sorcerer, Ranma held the burning flame. Water collected in the eyebrows and between the lips. It was a face that couldn't be average and ordinary, yet it surprised Ranma, all the same.
It was human, too. The Sorcerer Guard, the channelers—they were all human, dripping with hot water.
"Doesn't make sense," said Ranma. "I poured cold water on that baby. The baby was human. You're all human. So what does that mean?"
"It's our curse to be different. We live with bodies that don't match who we are inside." Tilaka smiled. "Like you."
Like me?
BANG! The steel door bounced off its hinges.
"Get away from him!"
A hard, metal tip bashed Ranma's kneecap. The attacker wrestled him to the floor and climbed on top of him, pressing the staff across his windpipe.
"Captain, restrain yourself!" said Sindoor, rushing into the room. "Captain Wuya!"
Tilaka picked up the forgotten torch, pallid, shaking. "Wuya? Captain Wuya?"
Sindoor motioned to her men. "Take the Sieve back to his chambers!"
"Wuya!"
The guards lifted Tilaka by his elbows and ankles. Sindoor herself pried the torch from his hands. The boy shouted, incoherent, but Wuya only gritted her teeth. She said nothing to calm him, nor did she answer his cries. Instead, she bore down on Ranma, bending the staff under the force of her weight.
"Give me a reason why I shouldn't kill you," she said. "You abuse Tilaka's kindness. You attack children; you destroy our village!"
Ranma met her gaze, eyes wide and defiant. He pushed back on the staff, panting, opening his throat. The words that came out were raspy, like gravel, but they made his message clear.
"I know where Saffron is," he said. "I beat him."
"Liar! You could never beat Saffron!"
"I fought him when he had no control, when he was literally burning himself out. How do you think you'll fare if you face his full adult form?" Ranma coughed, rubbing his throat. "He'll blast you off the side of the mountain, that's what, but I know their mountain. I know the caverns under their spring. Saffron is the next Sieve for your village, and only I can help you take him alive."
Her robes wet with fountain water, Sindoor knelt beside Ranma, bringing the torch to cast light on all three faces.
"Well?" said Ranma. "We got a deal or what?"
#
For beings of great power, life's pulse is like waves on a pond. Every motion on the surface ripples to the shore and back again. The ripples say much to those who know how to hear them, how to feel them.
In safety and surety, peace and calm, the Sorcerer, Sindoor, meditated in her private chambers. She dipped her finger in a bowl and marveled at the waves and their reflections. Even here, well within her fortress, she couldn't avoid the ripples, nor could she keep from influencing them. The deeds of men react with one another, a messy interplay, that no one—not plant, animal, or Sorcerer—can shape or predict. To feel the ripples wasn't to know the future, only the present instead.
A present in which the finest laborers of the village rebuilt the palace walls, the ones Saotome Ranma destroyed on his rampage within the tower. On the inner rings, the first to be recast, the Sorcerer Guard trained, redoubling their resolve for a new mission: the invasion of the Phoenix people, the taking of Saffron, the rightful, chosen Sieve. And while the lieutenant patrolled the training grounds, whipping the Guardsmen for their sloppy footwork, the captain oversaw the affairs with a pigtailed girl at her side.
If these people think I'll give them Saffron on a platter, they're wrong, thought Ranma. I'll take them to the mountain. I'll lead them up the steps to Saffron's lair. What Phoenix and Sorcerer do to each other after that ain't my concern. These people want to fight and die, so be it. A few well-placed lies can rout an army better than any general, any weapon ever could. You fight the Phoenix. You people go and die. I'm going home, dammit. I'm going to be a man again.
In any group of people, a small subset dominates the rest. Their ripples overwhelm all others. The tidal wave engulfs the shallow breaker. Sindoor herself was one such person, a natural position as leader of the tribe. Ranma, too, would shape the future of the village, the time evolution of its fate, but there were others, just as important, if not more. Tilaka, the last Sieve, high in his chambers atop the tower, and the captain, Wuya. As Xiu and Ranma tended to the Guard's training, Wuya scaled the spire, past the libraries, past the crowded halls of the channelers. She burst through the topmost door of the tower and faced Tilaka's protectors.
"Captain Wuya, by Lady Sindoor's orders—"
Punch, chop, kick!
The captain trained her men well, but every teacher withholds something crucial from her students, in case she should ever meet them in battle. Staff in hand, Wuya nudged the unconscious bodies aside. She jiggled the handle and pushed the door open.
"I've been waiting for you."
She barred the door with her staff, just to be sure. Tilaka sat by the fire, the only light in the room. Wuya crouched beside him, trying to glimpse his hooded face.
"When the Lady told me I should be Sieve, she said my friend had drowned herself, that the guilt, the shame of breaking taboo was too much for her to bear. At first, I didn't believe it, that someone so much stronger than me would despair, but the Lady told me so, and I believed her. She told me so often, I couldn't not believe her."
"It was your punishment," said Wuya. "It was the only way she could make you want to do this."
"And you? Were you punished too?"
"Every day." She pointed to the stairwell, to the observation windows above. "Every day, I've watched you. I know the horrors they subjected you to, but I could do nothing. The Lady forbade even speaking to you."
Tilaka nodded. "There were times I thought I felt your presence, but I dismissed it. I thought it an echo, like a spirit, a ghost. It only made me want to forget."
"You don't need to anymore."
"The priests will be here soon. They'll help me recenter." He cast a hand over the fire, slow and steady. "I am Sieve; I bear the energies that the people cannot. I—"
"Look at me, Tilaka."
The boy shook his head, staring into the fire. "I feel nothing, for I am nothing. I am the void. I am the emptiness that soothes—"
Wuya snatched a torch from its wall mount and lit it in the fire. One by one she lifted the veil of darkness from the room, lighting torches that for so long had laid dormant. She stomped on the fire pit, mashing the embers under her feet.
"Will you look at me now?"
Trembling, Tilaka pulled his hood back, eyes glued to the floor.
"You've borne this burden too long, my friend," said Wuya. "You need not punish yourself any longer."
"It is my duty!"
"But it shouldn't be! Not anymore! The outsider will deliver Saffron. Let him bear the weight of our sins."
Tilaka rose, meeting her gaze. "You're losing control."
"I don't care." She stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and pressed a hand to his face. "Feel what I feel, Tilaka, and never be Sieve again."
Even through many levels of stone, the strength of such ripples is great indeed, or at least, great enough to rouse the Sorcerer from her meditation, to displace tranquility and calm with disquiet on her face. To the salute of her servants, Sindoor left her chambers, carrying the bowl, her meditation aid. She journeyed up the tower, a step at a time, careful not to spill a drop. Water is precious, after all. It cures many ailments. It restores the body to its truest form. When Sindoor reached the top of the tower, she found Wuya, who inched the door to Tilaka's chambers shut.
"You grow too attached to the Sieve, captain."
Wuya twitched, startled, but she did not face her Lady. "Saffron will be Sieve. Tilaka should not perform this duty anymore."
"That," said Sindoor, "is a decision not yours to make."
"Long I have served you, my lady, and asked for nothing in return. I do not ask for favors, as Xiu does. I do not ask for indulgences."
"Your service should be its own reward."
"Say what you will. As Sieve, Tilaka was the most helpless of us. If we cannot protect him from ourselves, then my service means nothing."
Sindoor looked to the bowl, to her own reflection in the water. "This favor cannot come without price, captain."
Wuya stiffened. "Go on."
"As long as we hide behind the Maze, we are isolated. We know too little of the outside world, of the Phoenix, to be effective in capturing him. If we should make Saffron the Sieve, the Phoenix will demand vengeance. They will come looking for us, and while they cannot penetrate the Maze, they can besiege us, if they so choose. We must establish a base of operations outside the village, both to stage this attack and intercept any forces that come after us."
"You have a location in mind?"
Sindoor nodded slightly.
"The spring ground?"
"Indeed."
Wuya narrowed her eyes. "You only wish to separate me from Tilaka."
"I could instead ask the priests to remind Tilaka of his experiences," said Sindoor. "Or should I see to it myself?"
Wuya glanced aside. "What of my other duties?"
"Those functions can be suspended, for a time. Your skills may be needed in that body, but you should remember your place and who you are." Sindoor offered the bowl of water to her. "Captain Kohl."
Water splashed on the floor. Dripping wet, Kohl returned the empty bowl, adjusting his clothes. "Yes, my lady."
"Make your preparations for the expedition," said Sindoor. "I must meditate."
Kohl gave a slight bow, and Sindoor departed, down the steps, back toward her throne and chambers. For all her interference, her efforts to stifle the waves, the ripples proceeded unhindered.
The human race is cursed, but through these blessed forms we rise above. We bury the feelings that would drive us to sin. Anger, jealousy, rage…
Sindoor filled her bowl with water from a small trough, admiring her own stoic, immaculate reflection.
Love.
Identity 02, End
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