Chapter 12
This is NOT Good
AN: translations for hymnos are in ().
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Mir and Ranma sat in comfortable chairs facing each other. The main assembly of the portable dive machine sat between them, and in their hands sat the helmets to the device.
"Are you sure about this Ranma?" Mir asked. "It's generally not a good Idea to let someone you barely know dive into your mind."
"Yes, besides I remember from overhearing Sierra and Ryoga talking that the first level is usually just superficial thoughts and feelings," Ranma responded.
"True it's the barest surface thoughts, and feelings, but it's still your mind," Mir replied. "Ready Ranma?
"Yes."
---Mir's point of view---
My eyes became dazzled as I traveled through what looked like a tunnel of multi-colored hymnos characters. As my vision cleared I saw that I was in the middle of a stone brick platform surrounded by some standing stones. "So this is a Stonehenge, looks just like it was described in the books I read," I said aloud.
"Correct, welcome to Ranma's cosmosphere Mir," a cultured feminine voice said from behind me. The r's that the voice said were slightly rolled.
I jumped and swung around, only to see a black cloud flouting at approximately at my eye level. I could swear that I saw something solid shifting inside of the cloud, but the cloud is too thick for me to see the center. "You must be Ranma's mind guardian," I commented while at the same time, was I trying to get my heart under control.
"Yes, my name is Rain," the cloud responded.
"Rain? Suits your form, but why would Ranma have a cloud as a mind guardian? The mind guardian is supposed to represent something precious to a person, and no offence, but it's hard to imagine that a cloud would be important to a person," I asked with genuine curiosity.
"I'm not a cloud, but you are not quite trusted enough to know why I'm like this. When you get to the right level you will find out why I'm like this," Rain responded sadly.
/Ranma's concealing her mind guardian?! I thought she wanted me to dive! Unless…/ I thought. "Rain, can you tell me if she's hiding you from me, or herself?"
"Herself," Rain said with a sigh.
I was shocked to hear this, but also partially relieved that Ranma wasn't rejecting me like that. "Thank you for answering that, but I should really get started," I said as I started walking out of the Stonehenge.
As soon as I left the stone structure I stopped. I stood in front of a huge desert, off to my right in the distance I saw a corpse of dead trees that looked like they had dried from lack of water, to my left lay a broken city. I could have just used the map function of the dive to transport myself instantly to either place, but I felt that something important was in the desert. "What the hell happened to her? If it is this bad at level one, I'm actually scared at what's lower, unless she is concealing her true world with this one," I said.
"I'm not," a male voice said from behind me.
The voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and I quickly turned around to face the owner of the voice.
It was Ranma's male form, but instead of the clothes he was wearing at the doctors clinic he was wearing black armor with crimson highlights, the armor was similar to Lyner's with only two exceptions. His upper arms were uncovered and on each forearm was a piece of armor with a foot long collapsible and retractable blade. "Ranma?" I asked with a note of irritation. I was really getting sick of getting snuck up on.
"Yes, I'm the one the dragon favors; the destruction you see is what is left after the dragon attacked." Ranma said.
"Favored? Dragon? Why would the dragon destroy your world?" I asked confused.
He shook his head as he replied, "Yes favored, the dragon is trying to remake me in his image. I'm trying to resist, but this level is the last stand. I'm going hunting, go into the city if you need more information." He then walked toward the forest. After a few steps the wind picked up, causing a sand storm to obscure him from view momentarily, and when the wind died down he was gone.
"Weird, I might as well follow his advice. The city is as good a place to go as any." I mumbled to myself.
"True," Rain said from behind me.
I turned toward him with a twitching eyebrow. I wonder where he went, not important I suppose.
I continued trekking to the city the slow way since I wasn't in a hurry. By the time I was half way through my dry, hot and dusty trek; I gave in and moved there using the map function.
After I arrived at the city I noticed that the city's buildings are totally wreaked. Most are burnt out shells, and some aren't even that well off. By my estimates the damage was done over a ten year period. Suddenly I see a blurry house of an unknown structural design. The house was almost transparent, but even so it looked better than the surrounding buildings. I then noticed a girl that was sitting on a bench across from the building. She was wearing a black and silver outfit, and as I approached I realized it looked like a color inverted version of Shurelia's basic outfit. with a start I also realized that it is Ranma's girl form sitting there. "Ranma, why did you send me here to learn more when you were just going to tell me anyway?"
She started and looked at me in confusion. "What are you… oh you met him," she said tiredly.
"Him?" I asked confused.
"Ranma," the depressed reyvateil answered.
"Aren't you…" I began.
"No, I was never given a name. I am simply myself, and the one that the dragon seeks to destroy above all else," she interrupted.
I pale; this is bad, very bad. Her personality is fractured, and fractured badly enough to see on level one. This combined with the other symptoms I have seen since the dive started made a pit open up in my stomach.
I struggled to keep my voice steady as I spoke to her, "First order of business is, you need a name, how about Kayla?" meanwhile I thought /I need to get them to merge or accept each other eventually, but with her not having a name I think that it means that she thinks whatever this personality has is worthless./
She looked at me puzzled, but nodded her assent.
"I'm hoping you can explain this favored and need to be destroyed thing to me," I said to her.
"The dragon always said girls were weak, stupid, and worthless. When I came into being the insults got worse. This is especially true because I couldn't practice any martial arts in this weak body. Martial arts are Ranma's life, and I'm useless to him," Kayla said sadly with tears streaming from her eyes.
Being unable to do martial arts makes her useless?! What type of life had Ranma lead? Wait… my thoughts stopped abruptly, and I turn toward Kayla and looked at her speculatively. My thoughts continue, male:female, protector:protected, and aggressive:gentle. Two sides of the same coin one of which is critically suppressed by the 'dragon,' and the other forced into prominence. My god! The only person that could do that to someone is a parent this 'dragon' must be a parent, someone that Ranma should have been able to trust. What was done to me was worse, but at least it was strangers doing it.
I shook my head to clear it of the thoughts that was crowding it, and asked, "Why do you think you are useless if you can't do martial arts?"
"It's all we know. Our entire life has been nothing but training to master the art," Kayla sobbed out. "I mean look at me I'm crying like the weak girl that the dragon always called me."
I backed off at this point, and went to the map to take stock of the situation. The whole cosmosphere was a mess, although a patch of green caught my eye. I looked at the patch of green and saw a square meter circle of grass, and in the center was a bunch of boards nailed into thin air with "KEEP OUT!" painted on the center of the boards.
"This is horrible!" I said aloud.
"Yes it is," Rain said as she appeared in front of me.
"What's going on here? I figured some of the problem out, but what's the rest?" I demanded of Rain
"What have you figured out? I can explain some of what's going on but not all, and before you complain, this is because you need to figure some of it out on your own," Rain answered evenly.
I figured out that Ranma has a fractured, nearly split personality, that this 'dragon' which represents her father, tried to wipe parts of her mind from existence, both personalities are polarized with the qualities desirable to the worthless sack of shit mistakenly called a parent is the male Ranma I met, and the undesirable qualities are the in the female part Kayla," I said with more than a trace of venom in my voice.
"Impressive, you figured that out rather quickly. His father raised him to be a 'man among men' and a martial artist. To his father all of the 'softer' emotions and habits needed to be expunged from Ranma. That combined with insane training regimens caused a lot of damage to Ranma's psyche. The curse was the last straw." Rain sighed before continuing, "because without a full education, Ranma feels less than worthless, as a reyvateil Ranma feels less than worthless because she lost the only thing she was good at, and can't see what she can do besides martial arts. His/her psyche virtually shattered when she stepped out of the pool, it's a good thing you came when you did." After Rains explanation, I could have swore I heard her say, "I hate pronouns with Ranma."
"I see, one last question," I said speculatively.
"Yes?"
"What the hell is with those boards?" I asked, while I pointed at the aforementioned floating boards.
"Oh, that's connected to another cosmosphere; I boarded it off so no one could go through from either side." Rain answered.
"I see," I said absently. While I looked for my next destination, I saw two locations shining brightly.
One of the lights is in the middle of the desert, and one is in the dead forest. I made my choice ad headed for the desert.
As soon as I get there I hear Kayla shout, "MIR, HELP"
I hit the ground running toward her voice, and soon I saw a western dragon attacking a figure on the ground. The dragon was roughly thirty three meters long, and was colored black, and a sickly looking green. As soon as I get in range I stop and start singing. As soon as I felt the magic charge to a point that it could be released I send it at the dragon. The blast hits the dragon midway along its length, and it stops its attack. The dragon takes one look at me, and starts laughing. As soon as it calms down it heads toward the forest.
"Why didn't you use your song magic?" I demand of Kayla as soon as I reach her.
"I can't fight, it's Ranma that's the fighter not me. I don't have the strength. I'm just a weak girl that needs someone to protect her," she said before running toward the city in tears. Like when Ranma walked off she disappeared in a swirl of sand.
I wanted to chase after her, but I also remembered the other glowing spot. It was in the forest, the same place Ranma and the dragon were headed! I quickly move to the forest.
As I arrived in the forest I found it deathly quiet. I proceeded forward carefully, and soon I heard a crashing sound coming at me from behind. I went down with Ranma flattening me to the ground.
"Sorry Mir," he said.
I got up and turned to give him a piece of my mind, when I saw the dragon from earlier crashing through forest directly at us.
"I got this Mir," the black armored figure said as he jumped up and gave the dragon a spin kick to the head.
The dragon chuckled and said, you think you can beat me alone Ranma? I'll show you just how powerless you are!" the dragon then flew off toward the city.
I thought about the dragons words, and suddenly I snapped my head up. Of course, why didn't I see the solution before? Time to solve this mess, I thought, and shifted to the city.
I saw Kayla, and moved to stand near her. I then turned to look in the direction of the forest only to see the dragon flying straight at us and following close behind was Ranma.
Ranma yelled at the dragon, "NO, I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO HARM HER!"
As the dragon stopped to attack us Ranma launched himself at the dragon blades extended, only to get swatted down by the dragon's tail.
"Why do you insist on getting in my way? " the dragon said hotly. "I am doing you a favor by eliminating that worthless distraction! If you continue to get in my way I'll take you both down!" the dragon then released a cone of black fire at Ranma.
Kayla watched the fight while shaking in fear and she was whispering "Was yant ga," (I'm extremely fearful, please stop) Over and over. her eyes widened as she saw me. she snuck over to me, and asked, "why aren't you helping him? He'll be killed!"
I sadly looked at her as I responded, "It's not my place to help. He's your knight right now, and it's the partner's right and responsibility to help their knight. This means that if he is going to get help, it has to be from you!"
"But I can't!" she yelled.
*Slap!*
She looked at me as she touched her face where I hit her in shock.
"Listen, he is trying his best to help you, and here you are screaming that you lack the ability when I KNOW you can do it. You are a reyvateil! Act like one, and support your knight! If you don't, you are exactly what that THING tells you you are! A reyvateil who tries and fails is far superior to one that never tries at all. Tell me what does he need now, a reyvateil that is too much of a coward to do her duty, and listens to what her enemies say, or a partner to help vanquish his foes? I know that you have the power to help him, you just need to gather the courage!" I practically scream in her face.
Her eyes closed for a moment, until Ranma's scream cut through the air. Her eyes snapped open and saw Ranma pinned beneath the dragon's claw.
"You should have just let me kill the girl, boy. If you did you would have avoided this situation!" the dragon said, and reared back to cook the hapless young man. A ball of white light suddenly exploded against its head causing it to move off of Ranma.
"Y-you l-leave him al-lone!" Kayla stuttered.
"Kayla?!" Ranma yelped in shock.
"Y-yes, I-I c-came to h-help." Kayla responded, fear still evident in her voice. She paused to get a deep breath, and sang "Was granme wa TIE JENGE!" (I can tolerate this, because I need to be very brave, RESTRAIN MY ENEMY!) Two forms appeared over her head, they looked like two female knights with whips, one in blue armor, one in red. The knights flew toward the dragon, and caught it near the head and at the tail, immobilizing it.
Shaking off the shock from seeing Kayla actually helping, Ranma said, "My turn!" He then ran toward the dragon, jumped up and plunged his right hand blade into the dragons skull, killing it instantly.
He started to turn toward us, only to turn back to the dragon and assume a defensive stance as the dragon dissolved into a red and green mist, shoot over to the Stonehenge and disappear.
"What was that?" I asked.
"I don't know, but I don't think we've seen the last of it," Ranma said. "Thank you Kayla, I don't know whether I could have done it without you."
"No, thank Mir, she was the one that slapped some sense into me," Kayla said. She then muttered, "Literally."
I smiled as I thought, better than I expected, she learned to have courage and that she isn't useless, and he learned that he needs help sometimes. "No problem," I replied.
I noticed a bright light bean to shine at this point from the corner of my eye. I looked toward it and realized what it was. "A Paradigm shift," I said. I looked around I see neither Ranma nor Kayla, and realize that they are already probably at the Stonehenge.
Still smiling I moved to the Stonehenge. Upon my arrival I saw the two of them standing side by side near the pillar of golden light.
"Looks like we made it, eh Mir?" Ranma said.
"Agreed we couldn't have done it without you," Kayla chipped in.
"no, you two did all the work," I responded.
Both of them swept me into a hug before vanishing into the Paradigm shift.
Before the dive ended I slumped against the Stonehenge, and said, "That was unexpectedly intense."
"What was with the dragon turning into a cloud?" I asked.
"You will find out either by diving deeper, or from Ranma him/herself," Rain answered sagely.
As the dive ended I saw both of Ranma's forms standing back to back, wearing what they were wearing during the dive.
---End Mir's Point of View---
