Chapter 4 - A Hero's Origin.

02/03.

Ranma stumbled slightly, resting one hand on the side of a tree and shaking her head. She hadn't been kidding when she'd told Ryoga that she was getting tired, but hadn't quite expected it to be this bad.

"Are you all right?" the Servant asked from where he'd been following her.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm fine," she mumbled, staggering into camp. She contemplated building a fire and getting something to eat, but her stomach balked at the idea, so she just stripped off her clothes and crawled into her tent. She didn't even remember her head hitting the pillow.

HR - 02/05.

"Become a Servant, they said. Fight epic battles, they said… I'd rather be sailing." Lancer muttered under his breath, leaning on his spear at the edge of a rooftop, and watching an exercise in futility. Well, there hadn't technically been any 'they,' he didn't really remember how he'd ascended to the throne of heroes, and the saying he was quoting hadn't been invented until two thousand years after his death. The knowledge bestowed on him by the grail had some strange bits in it. He would, however, rather be sailing, preferably with a fishing pole and a box full of bait, than watching what he was currently.

"C'mon, left, left!" He exclaimed, only to see the small figure in the distance slowly turn right once again, walking down the same street he'd walked down six times in the past hour.

When he'd first noticed the Assassin doing it, Lancer had thought that he'd been spotted, but eventually, after watching him circle a park for two and a half hours, he'd decided that the other Servant either had no idea where he was going, or had patience beyond that of any mortal man. At least the previous night he hadn't come out, so the blue-clad man was able to make a quick sweep for activity and go back home, but unfortunately his master had insisted that he keep track of any Servant movements he could without being seen. ("He's still going around in circles,") he reported, hoping that the bastard had been asleep.

("Keep watching.") The reply was as calm, composed and tinged with a slight bit of amusement as usual, and the Servant grimaced.

"C'mon, Left…" he started chanting again as his target approached the next corner. As he did, however, a large purple beam of energy shot into the sky from the top of the mountain behind him.

Lancer certainly did not pump his fist into the air on being given something else to do, but he seriously thought about it. He headed for the source of the light, the temple where Caster had set up, as quickly as he could.

Getting there unnoticed wasn't as easy as it was to monitor the lost Assassin, since there weren't any tall buildings close enough for anyone but Archer to use as vantage points, but with the number of wards in the area he doubted anyone but Caster herself could feel him coming, and given who he was pretty sure she was, she could probably find him anywhere, anyways.

The first thing he noticed on approaching was a swarm of skeletal familiars around the base of the steps. There was a flash of intermittent blue from among them, before he got a look at unmistakable blonde hair. Saber was trying to cut her way through the horde, though it wasn't being made easy for her as the mountain's layline was powering the construct, and the familiars were being converted into energy to create more whenever they broke down. It was the kind of spell that made his head hurt just thinking about.

For a moment, he debated diving down into the fray, but forced himself to continue up the mountain, skirting the outer edge of the barrier.

"Idiot?! You know you're an idiot, and you still call me an idiot?! You idiot!" Lancer stopped, blinking and trying to process that.

"Are you a kid or something? You can't be helped if you're a kid and stupid, at least pick one, you idiot!" The first voice had sounded like a teenager, but the second one sounded much older., even if the dialogue suggested five-year olds.

Leaping up into a tree, Lancer peared over the wall to see Archer dragging Saber's master around the temple's courtyard by the collar while Caster tried to fry them with magic. "What… am I looking at?" He muttered, tilting his head in puzzlement. ("Um, boss, something's going on here, but I have no idea what.")

("That isn't very helpful,") his master returned.

("Yeah, but it's the truth,") Lancer answered, as Saber burst onto the scene. There was some sort of confrontation after that, but they weren't screaming right next to the wall anymore, so he missed most of it, before Saber and Archer retreated, leaving Caster to start fixing her wards.

Lancer quickly made his exit as well. He had to report this to his master, if for no other reason than it meant he wouldn't have to watch Assassin walk around that block again.

HR - 02/06.

Ranma's eyes shot open and he stared up into the top of his tent once again. "The hell was that?" He mumbled, feeling a sense of deja vu as strange images of a technological building that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie and a pink haired girl lingered in his brain. He supposed it was better than the other dreams he'd been having lately, the walking one, or that one with all the blood.

Pulling himself up, he felt all of his joints groan in protest. It felt as though he'd been training non-stop the day before, probably with Cologne smacking him in the head the whole time. Groaning, he managed to crawl to the tent flap and heave it open, his eyes immediately scrunching closed at the light.

"You're awake." Given how late it was, he was surprised that Ryoga sounded more relieved than anything else.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice scratchy, throat somewhat clogged. He felt about as bad as the day after that Shakespeare play incident with all the sake.

"You got hit with an overpowered physical misfortune curse, that's what happened," Ryoga responded, tossing the blouse of the Furinkan uniform Ranma had been wearing when he'd fought that mage in front of him. At first glance, it just looked like there was a hole blasted in it, until he noticed the stain of black and grey rot that emanated from the hole. "Most people would've died."

"Huh…. Guess I really pissed her off," Ranma mumbled, starting to slowly recover. His stomach then growled. "Gotta get some breakfast." Ryoga said nothing as Ranma started his morning routine, merely sitting on a log and glaring at him. After about five minutes of this uncomfortable silence, the pigtailed boy broke it. "So, how long was I out?"

"A little over two days," The lost one growled. "Going to let an attack hit you to see what it'll do again?"

"O… over two days?" Ranma stammered. Given how he'd felt when he woke up, he'd thought that it might have been more than a day, but that was really bad. "Okay, so maybe that wasn't my smartest idea."

HR.

"Would you stop glaring at me?" Ranma grumbled, as he walked down the street, the cloud of mana that was Ryoga behind him. He wasn't sure how he could tell that the incorporial Servant was glaring at him, but he could. Honestly, this reaction was kind of freaking him out. True, the lost boy had stopped issuing many death threats months before, and he might even consider the one he knew a bit of a friend, but the over-protectiveness his Servant had been exhibiting was starting to get so obvious that even he could see it.

The older martial artist had actually gotten fairly angry when Ranma announced that he was going to continue searching for whoever had been killing people after breakfast, trying to convince him to wait an extra day to recover. He'd disagreed, and really, waiting any longer wasn't needed. Though it felt like every muscle in his body had been worked almost to the point of giving, he hadn't found any actual injuries, and getting some food had done a good job of restoring his energy.

Still, he was back at square one, or close to it, with two waisted days. He supposed it was possible that the mage girl was going around killing people, but it really hadn't seemed likely from the way she'd acted when they'd talked and faught. The only other master he knew about was that creepy little girl with the Berserker, and he doubted that thing could cut neat little holes rather than reducing people to bloody puddles.

The lancer was more likely, though the wounds didn't look like they were inflicted by his lance, either. It was… He suddenly stopped dead as a sense of revulsion slowly crawled down his spine. Something was very, very wrong somewhere nearby, though he had no idea what.

("Ryoga, you feel that?") he asked, looking around.

("Feel what?") his servant asked, obviously still angry.

("Look, if you're lying about this to try 'n keep me from going…")

("I honestly can't feel anything strange,") Ryoga answered, immediately.

"Great…" Ranma muttered. "If this is my imagination, there's somethin' seriously wrong with me." He could easily detect the direction the feeling was coming from, his skin still crawled slightly from its passage. Leaping to a rooftop, he began heading for it.

Even going as quickly as he could, it took a few minutes to get close enough to spot a giant reddish dome that seemed to be covering a building. ("I've got something now,") Ryoga reported. ("There are a couple of servants around there, and a lot of mana.")

("That's not all there is,") Ranma replied. The dome seemed to give off a sense of fundamental wrongness as it sat there, every instinct he had screaming that he shouldn't go anywhere near it. ("I dunno what that thing is, but it's.. Really bad.")

When the dome flickered out of existence a moment later, he realized how big an understatement that was. The building it had been surrounding suddenly came into focus, a fairly large high school campus. Several students were scattered around the grounds, unmoving. "What the…" Ranma mumbled, already running towards the grounds. When he got to the first victim, a boy who lay on the school's front lawn, he almost threw up. He was still breathing, but he looked badly emaciated, and somehow… felt… even worse, as though bits of him were simply missing.

"What… what the hell is this?!" Ranma demanded, his voice cracking. He couldn't do anything to help the boy, he wasn't actually wounded in any way, even though he looked as if he were about to die. When he heard a sound nearby, he looked up to see the school's front door opening, a dark haired man in a dark grey suit stepping out of it and carefully stepping over a crumpled figure next to it as he walked down the steps.

His expression was flat as he looked around, only catching on Ranma for a moment. The pigtailed martial artist, on the other hand, studied him intently. Even dismissing the fact that he was walking around while everyone else was collapsed near death, something was strange about him. Standing slowly, he walked towards the man. "Hey, what's happening here?:

("One of the Servants is gone, I can't tell where the other is, be careful,") Ryoga said, before the man spoke.

"There was an accident in the school's chemistry lab. The authorities have been called, but you should probably evacuate."

"That was a joke, right?: Ranma asked, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "This wasn't a chemistry accident, and the fact you're making up that story and aren't affected tells me you got something to do with it. You the one who cast that spell, or was it your Servant?"

The man's strike was so quick that it blurred even to Ranma's eyes, and he only evaded it by reading the tensing muscles beforehand, three fingers shaped into a blade passing in front of his throat, the other hand coming down to try and jab deeply into his shoulder. Even as he did this and Ranma swayed backwards, the man's expression didn't change. He just stepped forward and launched another attack. "Takin' that as a yes, just so ya' know," the pigtailed martial artist said, swaying out of the way of another blow, this time aimed at his chest.

His first experimental retaliation, fairly light as he didn't know how tough his opponent was, immediately got a precise and vicious response, the man folding almost unnaturally around his return punch to the stomach and landing several nerve strikes along his forearm. He stifled a scream of pain as muscles in his arm began to cramp and twitch. Ranma's retaliation for that attack was a bit more powerful than he intended, a rising kick into the black suited man's midsection, though he managed to fall back quickly enough to bleed off most of the force, only favouring one side slightly.

"What's someone like you doing here?" Ranma gasped out, flexing the muscles in his disabled arm rhythmically to try and settle them down. His opponent didn't respond, but that wasn't surprising at this point. What happened next, however, was.

("One of those Servants is approaching,") Ryoga said. ("From inside the school.")

Ranma's gaze flicked towards the main school building just as two of the front doors swung open, A blonde haired woman in a blue, armor-plated dress walking out, her hands in position to hold a blade he couldn't see. Behind her, the mage he'd fought two nights before walked next to a tall, lanky boy with hair almost as bright red as his female form's.

Unfortunately, Ranma realized a bit too late that he'd let his attention wander a bit too far, only managing to just barely avoid yet another knife-hand strike to the side, the attack cutting through a small fringe of his silk shirt like a knife. The guy' had to be supplementing his hands with Chi or something.

"Kuzuki-Sensei?" A surprised male voice came from the doors.

"Sensei, huh?" Ranma asked, leaping away and leaning back on the balls of his feet, attention split between his opponent and the new arrivals. "My school's kinda nuts, but I thought regular schools didn't hire homicidal assassins." To his surprise, this actually got a reaction out of his opponent, who glanced over to the students, his mouth twitching just slightly to reveal clenched teeth. Ranma snorted. "It's not like I blew your cover given what you just did."

"Are you saying Kuzuki-Sensei did this?" The red haired boy demanded, incredulous.

"If he didn't, he knows who did," Ranma replied, falling into a more obvious combat stance. "And I plan on making him talk."

"Woah, hold on a minute," the boy said, stepping forward. "Seriously, he's just a teacher, you should…"

"Mr. Emiya," the grey suited man said. "This is none of your concern, you and Ms. Tohsaka should probably evacuate the school." The boy had his mouth open to ask another question when the older man moved again.

Ranma was ready for him, though when his first strike almost took the pigtailed boy's head off, he quickly re-evaluated. The guy had somehow changed all of his movements just enough to throw off the counters Ranma had worked out in their previous engagement, while maintaining the same speed and precision. It was a neat trick, and one Ranma would have to work on stealing for himself, but Anything Goes was nothing if not adaptable, and he altered his own evasions and counterstrikes to match.

When the man's pattern switched up again, this time mid-attack, and a sudden kick from the previously hands-only fighter came inches from Ranma's jaw, his eyebrow rose.

If he didn't hate this guy so much, this would almost be impressive. Still, his opponent had made a fatal mistake, thinking that he could switch styles more quickly than someone who had been trained entirely to do that. Ranma retaliated with several punches boosted by the Amaguriken speed technique, stitching his opponent's arms and shoulders with blows… until a blue-green flash suddenly appeared in front of his eyes.

His heart almost stopped. Why the hell was it happening now? Before the fight with the mage, it hadn't happened for more than a week. Was it getting worse? Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to think that through. Desperately, he pushed himself backwards as hard as he could, but it was nothing compared to how quickly he usually moved. He didn't even see the attack that slammed into his shoulder like a cannonball, a loud crack, stab of agony and spray of blood occuring in nearly the same instant.

As he fell back and everything faded to white, he heard what sounded like Ryoga yelling.

HR. - 02/20.

"Where the hell am I now?!" He bellowed into the sky, feeling at least a little of the stress and irritation of the last few days fade away. Still, they had not been fun days. It was like the entire world had the running theme of 'eat Ryoga.' This was the first time he'd been human in a week, he'd almost been cooked twice, and chased by a pack of wild dogs. On top of that, he'd managed to return home, only to find out that he'd just missed one of his father's visits by about half a day.

Now he wasn't really sure what he was going to do. He'd gotten a few presents for Akane and the others at the Dojo, but they were with his pack, which was probably at the bottom of a river someplace. The only reason he had clothes was because he'd found his house.

"Hey P-chan, what's the matter now?" He whirled to the voice, spotting Ranma leaning against a nearby chain link fence. Well, at least the pigtailed boy hadn't greeted him from on top of his head, this time.

"I've got to deal with you, that makes it about ten times worse," the lost boy growled back, baring his fangs.

Ranma shrugged. "Hey, don't be like that. You said you were lost, right? Want me to take you someplace?"

Ryoga's fists clenched. "Don't patronize me, Saotome."

"Yeah, okay, sorry." Ryoga blinked. Had Ranma just said that?

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What are you playing at?"

"Playing at?" Ranma asked. "Nothing, I just got done with school and don't feel like fightin' you right now, that's all. Seriously, if you want some help gettin' someplace I've got some time."

Ryoga's narrow-eyed stare turned into a full-on glare. "Don't feel like it right now? What, do you have some sort of busy schedule? Do you want me to take a number?"

"Would be nice…" Ranma grumbled under his breath, but unfortunately, loudly enough for Ryoga to hear.

"Ranma Saotome, prepare to die!" the lost boy bellowed, charging. Admittedly, he'd let himself get provoked over something fairly stupid this time, but rearranging Ranma's face, or at least trying to, would do a lot to get rid of some of his frustration over the last few days.

"Seriously, P-chan," the pigtailed martial artist said, dodging to the side. "I really don't wanna fight you right now."

"I don't remember asking!" Ryoga yelled, ripping off one of his bandannas and pitching it at the other martial artist.

"Damn it, Bacon Breath," Ranma snarled back. "Fine!" After that, things went about as usual. A lot of property damage, especially since Ryoga had been practicing a new, wider-ranged Bakusai Tenketsu variant, but he knew that Ranma was still winning by degrees. Strangely, though, the other boy seemed almost distracted, not taunting as much as he usually did and his face locked in a look of concentration.

All this really did was piss Ryoga off, believing that Ranma wasn't paying his full attention to the fight, until he launched a new attack he was working on, using multiple explosions of debris to mask his approach and angle of attack. When he saw that Ranma was totally out of position to get out of the way or even block very well, he smirked to himself, knowing that his new trick had worked. Ranma was going to have to take this next punch, which might just end the fight right there in Ryoga's favour.

The lost boy concentrated as much force as he could into his right fist and let fly. Ranma didn't brace for the incoming attack, however. He barely even moved as Ryoga's fist slammed into his side… and his ribs cracked like dry twigs.

There was a sickening squelching sound, and Ryoga felt something warm and wet spatter against his arm, the body of his oldest rival flying away from the force of the blow and slamming into a nearby wall with a wet thud.

"R-Ranma?" The lost boy asked, in a quiet, shaking voice, though he didn't look at the other boy's body, transfixed with the coating of red covering his hand and lower arm. His breathing started to accelerate, the only sound he could make short, strangled gasps… right up until he started screaming.

HR. 02/06.

A searingly bright bolt of purple light and a loud explosion brought Ranma back to reality as he flew backwards, hitting the ground with a jarring impact that shot bolts of agony through his shoulder. He looked around, disoriented and trying to figure out what was going on, just in time to catch sight of the teacher-assassin charging at him rapidly. Out of instinct he brought up both legs, lashing out with a double kick that caught the dark haired man full in the stomach, picking him up from the force and throwing him back several feet.

When he landed, piched forward and started wretching, a purple-robed figure suddenly appeared next to him, and the two vanished in a flash of light. Ranma collapsed, staring up into the cloudless blue sky and trying to catch his breath. ("...Ryoga, you there?") he called, before sitting up slowly, supressing a hiss of pain.

"I'm here," Ryoga responded verbally, and Ranma turned his head to see his Servant standing in a shallow crater, smoke wafting off of his slightly charred umbrella.

"What happened to you?"

"Caster," the lost one said, shortly. "You all right?"

Ranma looked down at his shoulder and winced. There were several deep gashes there, and from the feel of it one of the bones in his upper-arm was broken. "Sorta."

"So, you were right." Both Master and Servant looked over to the school's entrance, where the black haired mage girl was stepping forward, her red coated Servant having appeared next to her since Ranma had seen them last. "Kuzuki-sensei was working with Caster. That still doesn't answer who you are, and why you're working with that Servant."

Of course, she didn't recognize him. He'd been in cursed form when he'd fought her, after all.

"That's a long story," Ranma replied, "But it ain't one I'm tellin' right now." Hauling himself to his feet, he started towards the school entrance.

"Oh, no you don't!" the black haired mage snapped. "Archer!" Her servant nodded, and then blurred out of existence, re-appearing in front of the school gates. "I want some answers, and I want them now!"

Ranma winced. He was not in good condition for another fight, even if it was against the mage girl. He probably couldn't even keep up a good run with how screwed up his arm was.

"Um, Tohsaka," the red haired boy said, stepping forward. "Look, she's right, we do want to know what's going on with you, but maybe we could trade?" The girl gave him a sharp look, but he ignored it and continued. "Your shoulder looks pretty bad, we've got medical supplies fairly close by, and we'd be willing to give some information in exchange for yours."

"We would?" the girl asked through clenched teeth.

"I'm not certain about this action, Shiro," the blue clad woman who had kept in step with the boy, on constant guard, spoke up.

Ranma looked to Ryoga, the white haired Servant, and then the blue-clad woman who was almost certainly another one.

("We don't really have a choice, do we?")

("Right now I don't think so,") Ryoga replied, having taken stock himself.

"Fine, we'll play along for now," Ranma nodded.

The red haired boy smiled at him and nodded back, his Servant relaxing very slightly. "Then we should probably get out of here. The police should be arriving soon."

END.

Taiga Dojo!

"I'm... a little dizzy..."

"Don't worry, sometimes timeskips do that to you. Our author would like to deeply appologize for having to resort to that one, but I've seen it coming for a while now. Fortunately, things are all locked in and should start speeding up."

"...Or the extra complexity could spell the death of the author's motivation and we could linger here in Limbo."

"Such a downer, Metafict-"

"If you keep calling me that, I am going to sick Berserker on you."

"Uh... sure thing, Illya-chan! Anyhow, to answer one question right now, Ahem... 'What?! How could Ranma beat up Kuzuki that easily when he did serious damage against Saber in their first fight?!"

"Well, for one, Saber is not used to dealing with unarmed opponents who are trained to take advantage of that fact. Couple this with Kuzuki's technique, which capitalizes on unexpected strikes and odd combinations that would even trip up a martial arts master, and her first fight with him was a disaster on her part. Ranma on the other hand is a practitioner of a style which is Kuzuki's... only better in absolutely every way save raw lethality."

"And with that out of the way, thanks for reading. We hope you enjoy the chapter, an don't forget to tell us what you think!"