Ranma 1/2
Ascension
Hundreds stood, and looked upon the crushed buildings and other carnage of the eastern shores of Japan. Fortunately there was a great deal of warning before the massive wall of water had hit, but its force leveled what its bulk came in contact with. Much of Eastern Tokyo was no more.
It was much more fortunate than Hawaii had made out, as it was completely swallowed up by raging waters and furious storms.
Children that didn't feel the weight of the situation in San Diego froliced in the three inch snow.
Water levels worldwide had begun to rise at least an average of seven inches, what with the temperature of the polar ice caps dropping dramatically.
Scientists predicted that the planet would slow down in its rotation by about a millianth of a second due to the dramatic altercations of the weather that was becoming a weather pattern that El Nino could never even compare to. They also worried that the re-emergance of 'supercanes' would not be too far in the horizon.
Tremors from the teutonic plates of the Ring of Fire in the Pacific were becoming more pronounced due to the sudden ecological changes forced upon it by the sudden appearance of an energy beam three days ago. It's passing heated up the air in a general area a lot faster than the earth could truly handle without the already apparent traumatic effects. People were leaving the western coast of the US and Canada for fear of 'the Big One'. Hawaii was no more than slag and ghosts.
Many cities were being declared under martial law by the currently reigning President of the United States, the former Secretary of State. People, not just in the US but the world over, were becoming savage and primal, fighting for control of their hostile enviorment and climbing over whoever was in their way for their right to survive.
God was punishing the world for their sins, casting all there was into a Hell that none could escape but through death. The ones that had been taken scant days ago were the lucky ones...
For the Apocolypse was here.
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"LISTEN UP!" Ranma shouted; everyone had heard him speak somehow, "YOU WILL NOT BE FACING YOUR GOD..." Ranma held his fist up, and the ring on his finger flashed. Those that were pressing against the barrier fell forward.
"YOU WILL FACE RANMA SAOTOME OF THE ANYTHING GOES SCHOOL OF MARTIAL ARTS!" He shouted with his own voice. Cologne held back the sigh of immense relief she felt, it had worked.
The legions of fighters suddenly rushed at Ranma, converging to subdue, and possibly more, to the mad God. Tenchi started towards the fray, wanting his own piece of revenge, but found a staff blocking his way.
"HEY! LEMME GO!" The young man shouted, right before a streaking beam of intense energy potruded from the center of the pile, from Ranma.
"COLOGNE! HE'S STILL USING HIS POWERS!" Ukyo shouted in despair. Cologne gravely shook her head.
"No, he is keeping his word, child."
"You mean to tell me that young man was even this powerful before gaining Godhood?" Yosho stated in terrified awe.
"No," Cologne replied, "But... you would do well to realize that once the taint of the secrets of infinite might has touched you, it is difficult to recend."
"Hmm, meaning, he still has the knowlege of manipulating power from when he was using his greater powers," Yosho interpreted.
"That is correct," the elderly woman turned towards those who had been patient enough to and smart enough to follow whatever the old woman's plan was, "Now, I am sure that the basics of the design was given to you of my plan, now you must know the details to carry it out..."
Ranma cleared some breathing room for himself with his opening volley. He knew they weren't expecting such ability from a mere 'boy'; they would do well to remember that this boy was good enough to gain ultimate Godhood in the first place. Ranma crouched down, and leapt through the opening his perfect Mouku Takabisha left for him, and spared a glance towards Akane. A few straglers were attempting to face death, but in the end, she would always succeed. Death defended herself with an elegent katana, using it with skills that no mortal had ever encountered.
Ranma turned and sidestepped a fist encrusted completely with ice, and then ducked a follow up hook from a fist engulfed in flame. Ranma shoved his hand onto the blue and red man's chest, and forcably reversed the energies from fire to ice, ice to fire. Gill was left writhing on the ground, as Ranma found himself surrounded from all sides by apparently compotent swordweilders. A parry here, an evade there, a counter attack every so often left him unharmed, as they spent more time in each others way than in his. Above Ranma, a floating golem-like man enclothed in white that matched his hair and made his blue-gray skin stand out was building his chant to cresendo. At it's finality, he gave a shout, "RA-TILT!!!!"
Ranma quickly turned to the shout, while kicking away a raven haired swordsman who rivaled Kuno in the use of the bokken. Akane suddenly appeared above Ranma, holding her sword in the fore. It glowed with pristine white magic, before she slashed in the air back towards Zelgadis. His shock hindered his ability to evade his magic spell returned as a projectile.
Ranma dodged the Burn Knuckle, and uppercut the Blond fighter who saught to overpower him with hyper blue energy. Another blond intercepted him in the air, tossed Terry Bogard to the side, and dropped straight down feet first, with his body incrested in roaring golden energy. Ranma leapt back from the impact, as Andy's Dragon Bullet was charged with enough energy to create an impact crater twelve meters wide, and rumble the ground of the whole area.
Before Ranma could even land, he was slammed out of the air by a red headed girl who roared like an enraged cat. Ranma's return roar was that of a lion, as he utilized the Catfist to subdue his attacker. Nuku Nuku layed, unmoving, as Ranma pulled his clawed hand from the large hole he created in her; still holding wires and bits of jagged metal.
Ranma felt his muscles lock up, as the air began to reak of ozone. Lum calmly floated up, her own out of control powers keeping most others at bay with the intense generation of electricity.
"NOW'S OUR CHANCE!!!" Terry shouted, "OVERSHIFT..." The blond's shout brought forth many of the army that had been standing back, awaiting an opening that wouldn't be interfered with, and at once, they all rushed in. Ranma looked into Lum's dead eyes, and remembered how she felt now. Lum's expression became one of slightly surprised, as her electrity expanded, and engulfed all who were attempting to attack. Once they were subdued, he reversed polarity of Lum's attack.
When Lum dropped, having lost her own powers, Ranma ripped into the staggered fighters that had come towards him, becoming a blinding streak in his retaliation.
"BLASHEMOUS DEMON! LET THE SOLDIERS OF THE TRUE GOD FINISH YOU!" Ranma moved to the side from the sword slash of what appeared to be a nun. She spun with the blade aimed at his stomach, but he cleanly leaped over it and threw a kick at her face. The Warrior Nun brought her robotic forearm up to guard, and Ranma's foot impacted with the ruby that was embedded in it.
Before Ranma could once again fully land, he felt a second taint of magic in the air. He twisted out of the air of the small magic blast, and ended up landing on his side; a very prone position. The Magic Priests above rained down blasts, which Ranma narrowly evaded, while he was forced to parry the bokkens of Kuno and Mokoto Aoyama, with the inclusion of Utena's rapier, two other Warrior Nun's sword and halberd, and clawswipes of the Devilman. With careful precision, Ranma maneuvered so that he was only defending against certain attacks at once, while the others would interrupt one another's blows. Ranma willed that he would not become overwhelmed, regardless; though the man with the red hair and yellow cold eyes that was standing in a battoujitsu stance, waiting unnerved the pigtailed God.
The Blasts from the air suddenly ceased, and the bodies of the Magic Priests fell to the ground, most likely not surviving the height of the fall. Ranma knew Akane was elsewhere working against her. So who...?
"FINAL FLASH!!"
A blinding light bared straight down upon Ranma, and anyone who was caught in a twenty or so meter circumfrence with Ranma. The attack at it's full power would have ripped the Earth apart, fortunatly due to Ranma's foresight, it only left a molten pit where it landed.
Cologne blinked, feeling the heat even from where she was, "I... I guess the battle is over..."
"Feh, and I was told to wait for those idiots to clear?" Vegita scoffed, and wiped his mouth in disgust, "Far be it from me to play the part of exterminater, but..."
"You missed," Ranma's voice calmly sounded from the pit.
"WHAT? IT CANNOT BE!" Vegita saw through the thinning smoke, towards the sight of the young man, standing on an untouched isle in the middle of the recently created lava pit. Ranma plunged his hand into the molten rock, and pulled out a pinch of it between his fingers. He flaired his cold aura on it, instantly turning it to a tiny sliver of glass, and with barely a motion, flicked it towards Vegita, right into his left eye.
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Minako clutched the Silver Imperium Crystal in her hands tightly. It was all she had left of her friend and ally, Usagi Tsukino aka Sailor Moon. Right now, she was doing something she hadn't done in a very long time.
Minako was praying.
She was praying for diliverance, for the power to combat this evil. This crystal, while not completely intelligent, knew enough that its owner had been killed. Due to the strange nature of the link between the royal family line and the crystal itself, it was dying as well. The crystal understood that the girl clutching it wanted to get revenge for whoever had killed the last in the line of its mistressess.
It granted her the power she desired.
Without any fancy poses, without a transformation sequence, without sparkling lights, Minako unleashed the attack. The only warning Ranma had were three whispered words.
"Heart's. Love. Annihilation."
A huge heart-shaped blast of yellow energy shot from Minako's outstreatched hands and hit Ranma from behind, creating an enourmous explotion. As the dust cleared, the area where Ranma Saotome had once stood was devoid of anything except a rather large crater that was rapidly filling with hot lava.
Minako, Ami, and Hotaru sank to their knees in relief. They had finally destroyed the evil.
"GIRL! DO NOT BE FOOLED..." an old voice shouted, but was ignored.
Minako looked down at the crystal in her hands. It had done its job well. She clasped the crystal in front of her as if she were praying, in both her hands. She closed her eyes, crying with silent joy.
Minako felt a pair of hands softly enclosing hers. She looked up with tears in her eyes to the most horrifying sight she had ever seen.
Ranma Saotome.
Before Minako could let out a scream, Ranma crushed both her hands and the crystal using his unforgiving strength. The pain from the injury and the shock of having both her hands crushed at once caused Minako to sink into blissful unconciousness.
Ami and Hotaru staggered to their feet. Ranma had appeared out of no where. One second they were sure the evil had been destroyed, and the next Minako's hands were reduced to a bloody pulp of blood, bone, and muscle.
A shout of "SHINE AQUA-" was interrupted by a fist in Ami's stomach, expelling the air from her. Ranma allowed the girl to collapse the ground, clutching her stomach.
Hotaru let the Silence Glaive slip from her nervless fingers as she sank once more to her knees. All of her friends, all of her family, had been destroyed by this madman. The grief and horror welled up in her until she burst into tears.
Ranma walked over to the crying girl. He slowly bent over and picked up the Silence Glaive. Hotaru looked wordlessly at him as he poised over her like some avenging angel, glaive held high. He brought it down swiftly. With a heavy crash, the flat of the blade impacted the side of Hotaru, shattering the blade. Ranma tossed the weapon aside carelessly, and left Hotaru trembling and staring mutely at the broken blade of the glaive. "You girls shouldn't be in this fight," Ranma replied with an akwardly concerned voice, before looking around for his next opponents.
As Ranma turned his back upon the Sailor Senshi, he felt a sudden, unnatural and too familiar shift in the air. With a sudden flash of rememberance, he dove to one side as a wind blade sheared through the air, cutting a deep, forrowlous swath along the ground with overly casual ease. Ranma dove into a roll and back on his feet instantly, that attack was almost an exact copy of the vacuum blades employed by the Yamasenken, but he had not sensed a ki focus upon its emergance at all...
"NOW! TAKE HIM!" A voice roared at the top of his lungs.
Ranma's eyes shot skyward, and the first he stopped was two individuals floating above. One of them was crackling with lightning, and the other was sheathed in raw, cackling flame.
"BURN AND FRY ASSHOLE!" Sorata screamed in ritious fury.
He unleashed a bolt of ball lightning greater than anything naturally possible, while Karen loosed a stream of searing hot fire simultainiously. The two attacks came together in mid-flight, creating an tidal wave of ungodly blaze and deadly ionization that careened straight toward the martial artist turned mass murderer.
Ranma's humanly defiable agility was in display, as the blast slammed into the ground where he was; uprooting dirt and rock into a miniature mushroom cloud of thick debris. He had no time to rest, for before he could take another breath a volley of wind blades came screaming toward him.
Aoki stood poised, the winds swirling around his body providing him with an entire planet's worth of oxygen with which to use as ammunition. The pigtailed God flipped and danced around the volley of lethal razor blades, buf found himself hard pressed to avoid them all
completely; recieving several nicked his attire, though creating nothing more than
small tears. At the same time, fireballs and lightning bolts were raining from above, all three of the remaining Seven Seals attempting to completely overwhelm their adversary from all directions until he falters.
"QUICKLY, KAREN," Aoki yelled up to his fellow Seal. "ERECT THE BARRIER WHILE HE IS DISTRACTED!"
Karen ceased her barrage and clasped her hands together; her brow furrowing in her concentration. High in the sky, the shape of a massive cross began to form in golden light. When Christianity's most holy symbol fully formed, it began to slowly descend toward the ground, generating the legendary Kekkai that would be utilized by the Seven Seals during the Final Battle. The shield impacted the ground, consuming Ranma, Karen, Sorata, and two others who were close within itself. The once translucent cross of light then solidified into a wall of gray, almost akin to steel, ensuring that no one, save Seal, and Harbinger could enter within.
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An erie silence overcame that portion of the battle, though the cries
of other fighters who were currently engaging Akane, could be heard in the background.
"Noble, but I would hope they didn't sacrifice themselves in vain," Cologne stated, as she appeared next to Aoki, who was still outside the barrier.
"It is a Kekkai, everything within it has been shifted into another dimension. A place that only a Seal can create, and where that bastard cannot escape unless the creator of the barrier is killed," Aoki explained in a grave tone. "We will keep him contained for as long as possible, but I suggest you use that time we buy to form a strategy." With those last words, Aoki charged into the barrier, effortlessly passing through its walls and shifting into another dimension.
"It seems as if one of the squads may succeed..." Yosho commented.
"You mean, they defeated that young man?" Tsunami whispered with trepidation and hope littering her voice.
"I don't know..." A young boy with eyes older than they should have ever been, far older than mortal eyes, in fact, "That girl was heading into the barrier, most likely to fight.
"The Immortal is correct," Cologne replied, heading back, "they are attempting to buy us time with their lives. Though we already have a plan formulated, we can take this oppurtunity to organize ourselves better, and save risking any more unnessesary deaths. Gather, so that I may tell you our final stratagy, and you can recruit more to completing its task. Though the strategy that had been adopted of sending squads to contend with Ranma was a good one, the situation is not suitable for it, for Ranma may never exhaust before our own numbers..."
When one has existed since beyond the Beginning; one, be it intentional or not, has an odd tendency to pick up a few things over the countless centuries. This was being made painfully clear, as the remaining fighters attempted to subdue Death herself. When they had first arrived, they had bared witness to Death seemingly passive nature as she sat in silent contentment at Ranma's side, but now that the battle had been brought to her that silent submissiveness had turned into quiet, precise, and infinitely deadly efficiency.
It was a morbid dance in every sense of the word as the raven haired aspect given flesh attacked with pure accuracy and fine control. Her fallen opponents would only see a brief flash of her blade before their world went forever black, and ribbons of their blood swirled through the air in almost beautiful arcs, as she continued cutting a swathe straight through the crowd of gathered warriors who were futilly trying to put her down. She was older than all of humanity itself, and she had all those years to perfect and experience was simply beyond human comprehension.
Armor, be it magical or technological, could not stand against a sword forged by the hand of Death herself, made of the substance of eternity that was made in black holes and death throes. This was made evident, when she removed the katana from the impaled chest of a man in purple and black armor, and possessed large batlike wings. His blood instantly dissolved from the Damascus steel blade, like it was greedily sucked into its unnaturally beautiful gleam, before his lifeless body even touched the ground.
But even in the face of such overwhelming skill, the noble heroes pressed forward. Two swordsmen began their charge, with each one protected in samurai inspired armor; one in fiery red, and the other in forest green. The man in red came first, wielding dual katana in expert fashion that rivaled the great Shinmen Musashi himself. His partner followed his lead, brandishing a single blade that was significantly large, yet handled it as if it were a light as the air itself.
They attacked as one, each taking an opposite side and knowing that no human could possibly defend both sides at once. However, this was no human they faced, and she moved speed that caused multiple images as she used light parries and blocks that kept either blade from even grazing her skin and her black as nothingness kimono that flowed around her with wraithlike etherality. It even seemed that their attacks even came remotely close because she was volintarily choosing to allow it.
"SAGE! NOW!" The red Samurai Trooper known as Ryo commanded.
They both took the skies in enhanced leaps, each one preparing their ultimate attacks.
"SO EN ZAN!" Ryo of the Wildfire screamed at the top of his lungs as he unleashed his Twin Blade Flame Slash.
"THUNDERBOLT CUT!" Sage of the Halo did the same as he loosed a similar strike, though his utilized the power of lightning.
Twin shafts of light descended upon Death, consuming her in white-hot and crackling energy. A miasma of fire and light consumed the area, leaving it utterly pulverized by their combined might. The two remaining Troopers landed some distance away, and looked upon the column of smoke rising from the crater with their eyes narrowed in uncertainty.
"Is she dead?" Sage wondered, "What is she? I have never seen anyone fight like that with such perfect skill."
"If I could only summon the White Armor of Fervor, then we could be sure," Ryo snarled. "But not without the others..." His comrades had fallen in The Instant Death just like so many countless others across the cosmos, making it impossible to combine their strengths and generate the most powerful of all mystical Ronin armors.
Suddenly an explosive blast of air erupted from nowhere, blasting away the smoke column into more than small wisps of smolder. The two warriors' eyes widened in shock and horror as they witnessed Death floating above the black and ashen crater and sheathed in an aura of black that left her only visible in its corona. Her eyes glowed with the same intensity and she brought forth her katana again, itself radiating the power that neither one had ever felt before.
"That... was annoying," The Grim Specter growled in a voice that reverberated on several levels of reality, unreality, soul, and physiology; the remaining Ronin Warriors suddenly realized exactly what they just upset. She became a streak, moving so fast that she nearly blurred from existence all together. She reappeared at their rear, already sheathing her sword back into its scabbard that she was holding in her left hand. The two Ronin's were stuck frozen for several moments, just before falling over. Their lives quickly and painlessly erased by the two frighteningly precise gashes in their abdomens and chest. Death released their souls from their bodies, so that they would join their comrades in blissful eternity.
Death huffed at the presumptuousness of the two recently fallen. She didn't have much time to contemplate it, as her eyes caught sight of a man that she had seen earlier evade the flash of energy that melted the Earth around Ranma earlier, calmly striding towards her with fiery red hair, and yellow eyes that demanded vengence that would not come until his task was complete.
Akane bowed politely to the former samurai, and spoke, "You're familiar with me, as I was once part of your nature, I see." He bowed back, and went into the stance of unsheathing for one blow and one kill that had earned him the nickname the Hitokiri Battousai.
"This battle, if I win, I would..."
"Would have your love back..." Akane interjected.
Kenshin narrowed his eyes, "I was requesting the return of all those you have callously killed."
"That is something I simply will not do," Akane replied in a curt tone. She then bowed her head and lowered her eyes, "I... understand the power love has over one, and because of this, I will be willing to allow the return of who was precious to you."
Kenshin bit back a growl, but nodded.
"I see you're used to drawing a weapon with more friction against your scabbard, "Akane commented, as she unsheathed her own sword, and let it hang loosely by her side; barely keeping it's tip from touching the ground.
"You are perceptive," Kenshin replied respectfully, "My constant use of the sabatako has increased my skill with the katana.
Akane nodded in understanding, "Than you make this interesting for me." With that, one with the skill and speed that gods envied, and one far above gods, joined battle.
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Within the Kekkai, was a warzone. Blast craters, scorched earth, and cracks in the ground itself abundantly decorated the landscape.
Sorata was already down, while alive, he was no condition to keep on fighting whatsoever. Aoki hovered protectively in front of Karen, wind razors swirling around his hands as Ranma floated before him, utilizing Herb's Flight of the Dragon technique. His arms were crossed over his chest as he awaited his opponent's next move with due patience.
"Aoki, you have to let me fight!" Karen protested. "You can't fight take him alone."
"NO!" Aoki answered abruptly. "If you die than the Kekkai will dissolve, we have to keep him trapped here for as long as possible."
"I have no intention of killing you unless it's necessary," Ranma said calmly as he unfolded his arms. "But if that's what it takes to get out of here. Than I guess I don't have a choice, huh? I hate having my hand forced like this."
"You bastard," Aoki said in total contempt. His typical friendly, calm exterior was shattered when his fellow Seals had fallen. He dare not think if his wife or children were involved in the massacre, for deep down he already knew the answer. "You kill billions of innocent lives and you have the audacity to say you only kill if necessary?"
"Love made it necessary!" Ranma barked back in defense. "You can't understand. Flowers or chocolates aren't enough to satisfy a part of the universe! I would do anything to gain her approval, even if it means I must damn myself in the process." Ranma chuckled, "Not that it mattered, I was damned before I was even born, so I guess it wasn't too big a loss in that department."
"You fool, if you honestly think genocide is a sign of love, then you're too far beyond redemption." Karen shook her head in pity.
"You forget, am far beyond redemption," Ranma said as he aimed his palm at the two. "I am redemption. I, for all intents and purposes, am God."
"NEBYURA CHIEN!"
Out of nowhere, multiple chains shot forward and wrapped around Ranma's arms and legs. They binded around him tightly, and forced him to spread his arms and legs, as he fought against their unnatural strength with his own, currently more earthly might. Down below, the Bronze Saint Andromeda Shun focused all his concentration to ensure that he did not break free. Giving his partner the opening he needed.
"PEGASASU SUI SEI KEN!!"
Karen and Aoki hurriedly moved out of the way, as Pegasus Seiya surged forward, his fist blazing with cosmo energy; the Pegasus Comet Fist slammed full force into the chest of the corrupt God. The power of the blow ripped straight through chest bone and lung, exploding out the other side covered in vicious gore. Ranma's face turned into a mask of horror as he stared down at the arm that was halfway through his body.
"For Athena, you monster," Seiya snarled as he ripped his fist out of his chest. "You don't even deserve death."
"Bravo, you almost had me," A voice echoed from behind.
Seiya whirled around quickly, his eyes locked skyward as he saw Ranma hovering there with a completely unamused look plastered on his face.
"But...how," Seiya asked in total bewilderment.
"A little trick I picked up from a... uh... guy... named Konatsu," Ranma answered simply, arbeit sheepishly, as he fought to keep the kunoichi's true gender in mind. "CHOKUSETSU SHUUDA RYUUSEI KYAKU!"
He barreled toward Seiya with the ki-charged Saotome Meteor Kick. The super dropkick slammed into Seiya's chest, knocking him clear out of the sky and sending him careening into Shun. The sheer impact left them both unconscious, leaving Ranma with only two more opponents to deal with. That was when he turned around, and saw the last thing he ever thought he would see...
The Hiryu Hyou Toppa barreling right toward him.
"What the..."
That was all he had to time to utter before the concentrated tornado collided into him. He never thought he would feel the force of his own technique, it was quite an odd feeling actually...
The tornado blasted him back toward the ground, slamming and then drilling him straight into the earth itself. Massive cracks spider webbed outward as Ranma was plowed through dirt and rock and then buried under the tons of rubble that was loosed by his passing.
Aoki breathed heavily, as he lowered his hands that he had used to command the air to generate the tornado; unknowingly mimicking one of Ranma's strongest attacks. He was hoping that the razor edge of the twister would rip him apart, but it seemed his durability was too great for that, so burying him under an innumerable amount of rock and potentially grinding him into a paste within the Earth would have to suffice instead.
"I pray that's enough to end this," Aoki breathed.
"Let's make sure," Karen said as she brought her hands together and unleashed a tidal wave of flame. The blast set blaze to the area where Ranma was buried; ensuring that anything left would be reduced to ash.
"BAKUSAI TENKETSU!"
The ground suddenly exploded in a blast of shattered stone. Utilizing yet another special attack, Ranma's rocky prison was reduced to powder as a leisurely climbed out of the crater that was to be his coffin.
"Now then," He said as he dusted him off and noticed the ring of flames that surrounded. "Allow me to show you how it's supposed to be done."
He leisurely reached a hand up, and closed it into a fist. An M-6 tornado that rivaled any seen in record history exploded out of nowhere, capturing anything within its mile-radius in its 700 mph-plus winds. It kicked up the unconscious forms of the other fighters who had been trapped within the Kekkai, throwing them to the four winds like mere rag dolls, and ripped apart by the debris that swirlled within the massive funnel.
"KAREN! HOLD ON TO ME!" Aoki yelled as he held tight her hand. He was able to keep them from being overwhelmed by the tornado through his command of Air, but stopping tornado that was not of his creation was another matter altogether. "I'll get us out of this!"
He would never get the chance. A vacuum careened toward them from within the tornado, shearing straight through his arm with ease. Aoki screamed in pain while Karen was helpless as the winds wrenched her away in its almighty grip. Then in a moment, just as sudden as it appeared, the tornado ceased to exist. The immidiate loss of centrifugal force tossed Karen through the air where she slammed into the ground with a bone pulping impact; Aoki shortly suffered the same fate as well.
Ranma looked around in mid-air, the Kekkai was slowly beginning to dissolve. He knew the woman could not have survived such a fall, and at such a speed.
"About time. I thought I'd ne...*" He stopped mid-sentence. He suddenly began gasping violently for air, grasping at his throat in some attempt to force oxygen through.
Down below, and barely retaining consciousness through the continuing loss of blood, Aoki used his power in the most ruthless way he knew how. To suck the air straight out of Ranma's lungs, hoping the collapse them.
Feeling the burning strain on his lungs, he slowly turned to face the last Seal. He aimed his palm, and simply shot a blast at the fallen Wind Master. The blast was many times larger than Aoki, and the last thing he saw was light of his deliverance overcoming all his vision.
"GUHHH!" Ranma's breath came back in an instant, and he swallowed large gulps to refill his screaming lungs. His eyes scanned his surroundings, the field had totally dissipated, and he was back in the real world.
He noticed that the landscape was now littered with the bodies of fallen fighters, and he could see his beloved Death still in the midst of combat. Around him was a solid ring of fighters, staring grimly at him; ready to attack at a given command. Akane turned from the fallen former samurai, and looked towards Ranma with a curious and concerned expression.
Ranma refused to collapse to his knees in the exhaustion he felt, fearing any show of weakness would give his opponents would mistake him as weak. Quietly he began to draw energy from the ground with a revitalization technique, and stared defiantly towards the apparent leaders of the group; Colonge, some old man with glasses that carried himself with centuries of skill and poise, and a blue haired woman with markings on her forehead that held a divine grace about her, "So... who's next?"
Cologne's staff was raised in the air, and she suddenly dropped it, pointing to Ranma, "Take him."
The effects of the command were instantanious, as the circle suddenly shrunk onto Ranma. The first thing he encountered was the clawed hand that barely missed ripping open his chest. Ranma grabbed the arm of Devilman, and used the demon's hand to parry the sword of another one of those long blond haired warriors like the one that tried to flashfry him from the air. Devilman's hand was split open, leaving the demon screaming in agony, while Ranma punched Trunks to turning around, and then shoved his index finger into the blond boy's ear, and into his brain.
A platnium blonde woman with dusky skin and markings on her forehead cupped her hands together as she flew over and began hovering above Ranma, while her partner with black and white hair and wings flew across from her. The pigtailed young man felt the build of something other than ki above him which he knew was deadly to him, and almost desperately grabbed the nearest fighter to him roughly. White Lightning's face expressed extreme shock at himself being grabbed, as fast as he was moving, and didn't even manage to put up a struggle, as Ranma suddenly synced with his aura and shouted.
Urd's spell was almost completed, but was cut off by the sudden pillar of life force that slammed up into her, and then spread out in a five meter radius. The Goddess and her angel crashed into the earth, while Ranma cleared some space for himself for breathing room. He dropped the white haired valle's withered corpse to the ground, and quickly brought his hand, palm facing outward, near his head. His index finger and middle finger scissored together, catching a bullet between them, and with a flick of his wrist, Ranma tossed it away...
_____________________________
Up on one of the hills outside the battle, a man didn't even see the piece of metal heading straight back at him, running easily through his gun scope, and into his eye. Agent Golgo 13 would not finish this mission.
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Ranma's eyes went wide, as he leapt back from being stomped on by a large robot that seemed straight out of cartoons. In the back of his mind, he thought this was a bit overkill for little old him. The pigtailed boy noted several other potentially powerful fighters on the fore of him behind the Gundam, such as Herb himself, and decided to retreat to the wooded area for his advantage. The trees would only far more hinder such a large army to where he could take care of them more to his leasure. The God started in another direction, easily taking down those who got in his path.
Cologne's face watched intently, as the Nerima fighters along with the Juraians stood behind her, ready to start the final faze of their plan. The former Amazon Elder smiled; Ranma did exactly as she had hoped. Positioning stronger fighters in the more open area forced Ranma to retreat to the woods where he would have had a clear advantage. Fortunately for them, it would also keep him from noticing their actions. Once the ancient woman decided that Ranma was in the woods and thoroughly distracted enough, she made the call, "Begin."
Shampoo and Tarou rushed forward from different directions, each coming in low to Ranma's view. The pigtailed young man did see them, though, and moved to counter them. Ranma blinked in confusion, as they suddenly crossed in front of each other, and Tarou veered off. Ranma knocked away a random fighter into another one, and quickly went into stance. Shampoo was suddenly cut off by Kodachi intercepting his path, and Ranma noticed it seemed as if they were handing something off to each other. Ranma didn't have time to contemplate it, as he had to guard against the strike of a white haired man that growled like a large dog.
"YOU WILL GIVE ME YOUR POWER, GODLING!" Sessmarou growled, and swiped again.
"I ain't no mere godling, Dogboy!" Ranma retorted, fading from the dog demon's sight, and retaliating.
Kodachi circled around to the back of Ranma, and then was intercepted by Yosho. The gymnast handed the jewel off to the old man, as he made a beeline for Ranma. After the demon dog was dealt with, Ranma turned to face the old man, only to have him intercepted by some Amazon girl that apparently survived the massacre. Ranma's brow furrowed, as he leapt backwards over a sword swipe from a girl with a yin/yang sign on her Chinese outfit with her hair done in braids that were looped into hoops.
Akane frowned, finding few were even attempting to mess with her, as most of the army that was left seemed to concentrate more on Ranma now. She also frowned, when the noted what Cologne and the others were doing, and started forward to help Ranma. Before she could reach him, however...
"AKANE, STOP. SOMETHING'S UP SO DON'T COME NEAR!" Ranma shouted defending against two other fighters at once. Death frowned, but was touched by the notion that Ranma still felt the need to protect her, and begrudingly obeyed his command. After all, it wasn't like she had to let him die.
The Amazon was then intercepted by Ryouga, as she ran across from Ranma. Tenchi and Cologne then cut across him. Ranma knew they were trying to confuse him with this ploy to get one of them close to him. As close as they were now, either that young man with the ponytail and the weird almost glowing cloths or Cologne would make the move. Cologne would be too obvious, and it almost seemed as if Shampoo didn't hand anything off to the young man he didn't know, as if it were an accident he cut in front of her. Ranma knew who he had to guard against at that moment, and turned to Tenchi just in time to sidestep a blue glowing sword that bore down at him from the Juraian from a vertical angle. Ranma had completely missed Shampoo being intercepted at his blind side by Ukyo; he didn't even hear Ukyo's name being called by the Amazon to snap her back to attention from her apparent daze.
"NICE TRY!" Ranma shouted, avoided what he assumed was some sort of mystic Amazon weapon to slay Gods. The young man was a compotent swordsman, so it made it all the more apparent that that was their ploy. Ranma quickly stepped into Tenchi's guard, and delivered a double palm strike that nearly caved in his chest and pulped his intestines. Ranma immidiately knew to defend against Cologne, but at the last instant, the old woman stopped, and quickly backed away. On intuition, Ranma turned around, just in time for Ukyo to place a glowing jewel on his chest.
Ranma stared down at it incredulously, and was suddenly enveloped by white light that then started to shift to the side of him. Ranma's eyes grew even wider, as he saw that he was standing right next to his cursed half.
"Wha, WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT?" Ranma shouted, as the Redhead grabbed Ranma's right fight, which was donning the ring, into her own hands, and looked him in the eye defiantly.
"Ranma," The redhead growled, "This has gone too far, we need to put things right."
Ranma's face grew furious, "COLOGNE, IF THIS IS YOUR LAST RESORT, IT'S GOING TO FAIL MISERABLY!!!"
Ukyo's eyes suddenly went wider than initially from seeing Ranma split off into two forms. "This... this is like my..." The young chef then slowly started taking steps backwards; the way things are going, her precognition from only moments ago would come true.
The Redhead shook her head slightly, "It may be a last resort, but it will be the only one we need. Ranma, we need to use the ring to fix everything the way it was."
"And who are you to tell me what to do?" Ranma seethed, not even attempting to pull his hand out of his girl side's grip.
"The only one who can help ya, and the only one who can beat ya," the girl replied with a side smile, "I'm you, more importantly, I'm your heart."
"Hmph, then let's see if you're up to the task that a whole super powered army wasn't up to," Ranma challenged. Their auras suddenly sprouted to life; male Ranma's being red, while the female Ranma's being white. When the two auras met, it was with explosive results...
The chef was thrown back by the ensuing blast. Ukyo tightened her back, and curled up into a tight ball, as she slammed into one of the various trees from where she had been slowly backing away from Ranma . She had been expecting the blast, since she had the premonition, so was alright. She had managed to do her part, and because of it, they would all pay dearly.
Everyone sheilded their eyes from the brilliant light that radiated from the center where the two combatants fought for dominance over Godhood. The outcome was a thin chance at best, but it was their only one. The bodies of friends, allies, and even enemies were ignored, as everyone held their breath . White and red fought for dominance, each occationally gaining the advantage over the other. In a few short but eternal moments, white consumed all of the red.
"Did... did we?" The regal woman with the blue hair and crystal red eyes asked with hope.
"R-Ra-Ranma..." The thing claiming to be Akane breathed with her own concern.
"Even a heart cannot triumph, if it is fighting against what it exists for..."
"N-no...." Cologne collapsed to the ground, as they watched the white light die down, with the young man standing victorious over his final opponent.
Ranma looked down at Cologne in sympathy, "You've lost, that was your final attack, and I beat it." his eyes then became cold, as he turned to look at the standing, the wounded, and the deceased. Before he could speak, he felt his lungs tighten. Blinking, the God looked down, and found an arrow piercing him from behind through the chest.
"I am sorry, Ranma-sama," Konatsu stated in a sad voice; still holding his long bow in position from firing from his vantage point in a tree, "this is the second time I have failed you."
Cologne stood up slowly, and approached along with those who were still near. They won, they had actually defeated the God. Ranma suddenly began to smile, and then chuckle lightly. His humor became as much as it would allow with an arrow piercing his lung, and it wasn't a laugh of regret, nor of insanity. It was the laugh of someone claiming victory...
Something was very... very wrong...
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Special thanks to both Tannimfodder and Midnight Sun for their massive contributions. Without them, I would have just remained lazy and delivered only 20K's worth of writing ^_^
Ascension
Hundreds stood, and looked upon the crushed buildings and other carnage of the eastern shores of Japan. Fortunately there was a great deal of warning before the massive wall of water had hit, but its force leveled what its bulk came in contact with. Much of Eastern Tokyo was no more.
It was much more fortunate than Hawaii had made out, as it was completely swallowed up by raging waters and furious storms.
Children that didn't feel the weight of the situation in San Diego froliced in the three inch snow.
Water levels worldwide had begun to rise at least an average of seven inches, what with the temperature of the polar ice caps dropping dramatically.
Scientists predicted that the planet would slow down in its rotation by about a millianth of a second due to the dramatic altercations of the weather that was becoming a weather pattern that El Nino could never even compare to. They also worried that the re-emergance of 'supercanes' would not be too far in the horizon.
Tremors from the teutonic plates of the Ring of Fire in the Pacific were becoming more pronounced due to the sudden ecological changes forced upon it by the sudden appearance of an energy beam three days ago. It's passing heated up the air in a general area a lot faster than the earth could truly handle without the already apparent traumatic effects. People were leaving the western coast of the US and Canada for fear of 'the Big One'. Hawaii was no more than slag and ghosts.
Many cities were being declared under martial law by the currently reigning President of the United States, the former Secretary of State. People, not just in the US but the world over, were becoming savage and primal, fighting for control of their hostile enviorment and climbing over whoever was in their way for their right to survive.
God was punishing the world for their sins, casting all there was into a Hell that none could escape but through death. The ones that had been taken scant days ago were the lucky ones...
For the Apocolypse was here.
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"LISTEN UP!" Ranma shouted; everyone had heard him speak somehow, "YOU WILL NOT BE FACING YOUR GOD..." Ranma held his fist up, and the ring on his finger flashed. Those that were pressing against the barrier fell forward.
"YOU WILL FACE RANMA SAOTOME OF THE ANYTHING GOES SCHOOL OF MARTIAL ARTS!" He shouted with his own voice. Cologne held back the sigh of immense relief she felt, it had worked.
The legions of fighters suddenly rushed at Ranma, converging to subdue, and possibly more, to the mad God. Tenchi started towards the fray, wanting his own piece of revenge, but found a staff blocking his way.
"HEY! LEMME GO!" The young man shouted, right before a streaking beam of intense energy potruded from the center of the pile, from Ranma.
"COLOGNE! HE'S STILL USING HIS POWERS!" Ukyo shouted in despair. Cologne gravely shook her head.
"No, he is keeping his word, child."
"You mean to tell me that young man was even this powerful before gaining Godhood?" Yosho stated in terrified awe.
"No," Cologne replied, "But... you would do well to realize that once the taint of the secrets of infinite might has touched you, it is difficult to recend."
"Hmm, meaning, he still has the knowlege of manipulating power from when he was using his greater powers," Yosho interpreted.
"That is correct," the elderly woman turned towards those who had been patient enough to and smart enough to follow whatever the old woman's plan was, "Now, I am sure that the basics of the design was given to you of my plan, now you must know the details to carry it out..."
Ranma cleared some breathing room for himself with his opening volley. He knew they weren't expecting such ability from a mere 'boy'; they would do well to remember that this boy was good enough to gain ultimate Godhood in the first place. Ranma crouched down, and leapt through the opening his perfect Mouku Takabisha left for him, and spared a glance towards Akane. A few straglers were attempting to face death, but in the end, she would always succeed. Death defended herself with an elegent katana, using it with skills that no mortal had ever encountered.
Ranma turned and sidestepped a fist encrusted completely with ice, and then ducked a follow up hook from a fist engulfed in flame. Ranma shoved his hand onto the blue and red man's chest, and forcably reversed the energies from fire to ice, ice to fire. Gill was left writhing on the ground, as Ranma found himself surrounded from all sides by apparently compotent swordweilders. A parry here, an evade there, a counter attack every so often left him unharmed, as they spent more time in each others way than in his. Above Ranma, a floating golem-like man enclothed in white that matched his hair and made his blue-gray skin stand out was building his chant to cresendo. At it's finality, he gave a shout, "RA-TILT!!!!"
Ranma quickly turned to the shout, while kicking away a raven haired swordsman who rivaled Kuno in the use of the bokken. Akane suddenly appeared above Ranma, holding her sword in the fore. It glowed with pristine white magic, before she slashed in the air back towards Zelgadis. His shock hindered his ability to evade his magic spell returned as a projectile.
Ranma dodged the Burn Knuckle, and uppercut the Blond fighter who saught to overpower him with hyper blue energy. Another blond intercepted him in the air, tossed Terry Bogard to the side, and dropped straight down feet first, with his body incrested in roaring golden energy. Ranma leapt back from the impact, as Andy's Dragon Bullet was charged with enough energy to create an impact crater twelve meters wide, and rumble the ground of the whole area.
Before Ranma could even land, he was slammed out of the air by a red headed girl who roared like an enraged cat. Ranma's return roar was that of a lion, as he utilized the Catfist to subdue his attacker. Nuku Nuku layed, unmoving, as Ranma pulled his clawed hand from the large hole he created in her; still holding wires and bits of jagged metal.
Ranma felt his muscles lock up, as the air began to reak of ozone. Lum calmly floated up, her own out of control powers keeping most others at bay with the intense generation of electricity.
"NOW'S OUR CHANCE!!!" Terry shouted, "OVERSHIFT..." The blond's shout brought forth many of the army that had been standing back, awaiting an opening that wouldn't be interfered with, and at once, they all rushed in. Ranma looked into Lum's dead eyes, and remembered how she felt now. Lum's expression became one of slightly surprised, as her electrity expanded, and engulfed all who were attempting to attack. Once they were subdued, he reversed polarity of Lum's attack.
When Lum dropped, having lost her own powers, Ranma ripped into the staggered fighters that had come towards him, becoming a blinding streak in his retaliation.
"BLASHEMOUS DEMON! LET THE SOLDIERS OF THE TRUE GOD FINISH YOU!" Ranma moved to the side from the sword slash of what appeared to be a nun. She spun with the blade aimed at his stomach, but he cleanly leaped over it and threw a kick at her face. The Warrior Nun brought her robotic forearm up to guard, and Ranma's foot impacted with the ruby that was embedded in it.
Before Ranma could once again fully land, he felt a second taint of magic in the air. He twisted out of the air of the small magic blast, and ended up landing on his side; a very prone position. The Magic Priests above rained down blasts, which Ranma narrowly evaded, while he was forced to parry the bokkens of Kuno and Mokoto Aoyama, with the inclusion of Utena's rapier, two other Warrior Nun's sword and halberd, and clawswipes of the Devilman. With careful precision, Ranma maneuvered so that he was only defending against certain attacks at once, while the others would interrupt one another's blows. Ranma willed that he would not become overwhelmed, regardless; though the man with the red hair and yellow cold eyes that was standing in a battoujitsu stance, waiting unnerved the pigtailed God.
The Blasts from the air suddenly ceased, and the bodies of the Magic Priests fell to the ground, most likely not surviving the height of the fall. Ranma knew Akane was elsewhere working against her. So who...?
"FINAL FLASH!!"
A blinding light bared straight down upon Ranma, and anyone who was caught in a twenty or so meter circumfrence with Ranma. The attack at it's full power would have ripped the Earth apart, fortunatly due to Ranma's foresight, it only left a molten pit where it landed.
Cologne blinked, feeling the heat even from where she was, "I... I guess the battle is over..."
"Feh, and I was told to wait for those idiots to clear?" Vegita scoffed, and wiped his mouth in disgust, "Far be it from me to play the part of exterminater, but..."
"You missed," Ranma's voice calmly sounded from the pit.
"WHAT? IT CANNOT BE!" Vegita saw through the thinning smoke, towards the sight of the young man, standing on an untouched isle in the middle of the recently created lava pit. Ranma plunged his hand into the molten rock, and pulled out a pinch of it between his fingers. He flaired his cold aura on it, instantly turning it to a tiny sliver of glass, and with barely a motion, flicked it towards Vegita, right into his left eye.
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Minako clutched the Silver Imperium Crystal in her hands tightly. It was all she had left of her friend and ally, Usagi Tsukino aka Sailor Moon. Right now, she was doing something she hadn't done in a very long time.
Minako was praying.
She was praying for diliverance, for the power to combat this evil. This crystal, while not completely intelligent, knew enough that its owner had been killed. Due to the strange nature of the link between the royal family line and the crystal itself, it was dying as well. The crystal understood that the girl clutching it wanted to get revenge for whoever had killed the last in the line of its mistressess.
It granted her the power she desired.
Without any fancy poses, without a transformation sequence, without sparkling lights, Minako unleashed the attack. The only warning Ranma had were three whispered words.
"Heart's. Love. Annihilation."
A huge heart-shaped blast of yellow energy shot from Minako's outstreatched hands and hit Ranma from behind, creating an enourmous explotion. As the dust cleared, the area where Ranma Saotome had once stood was devoid of anything except a rather large crater that was rapidly filling with hot lava.
Minako, Ami, and Hotaru sank to their knees in relief. They had finally destroyed the evil.
"GIRL! DO NOT BE FOOLED..." an old voice shouted, but was ignored.
Minako looked down at the crystal in her hands. It had done its job well. She clasped the crystal in front of her as if she were praying, in both her hands. She closed her eyes, crying with silent joy.
Minako felt a pair of hands softly enclosing hers. She looked up with tears in her eyes to the most horrifying sight she had ever seen.
Ranma Saotome.
Before Minako could let out a scream, Ranma crushed both her hands and the crystal using his unforgiving strength. The pain from the injury and the shock of having both her hands crushed at once caused Minako to sink into blissful unconciousness.
Ami and Hotaru staggered to their feet. Ranma had appeared out of no where. One second they were sure the evil had been destroyed, and the next Minako's hands were reduced to a bloody pulp of blood, bone, and muscle.
A shout of "SHINE AQUA-" was interrupted by a fist in Ami's stomach, expelling the air from her. Ranma allowed the girl to collapse the ground, clutching her stomach.
Hotaru let the Silence Glaive slip from her nervless fingers as she sank once more to her knees. All of her friends, all of her family, had been destroyed by this madman. The grief and horror welled up in her until she burst into tears.
Ranma walked over to the crying girl. He slowly bent over and picked up the Silence Glaive. Hotaru looked wordlessly at him as he poised over her like some avenging angel, glaive held high. He brought it down swiftly. With a heavy crash, the flat of the blade impacted the side of Hotaru, shattering the blade. Ranma tossed the weapon aside carelessly, and left Hotaru trembling and staring mutely at the broken blade of the glaive. "You girls shouldn't be in this fight," Ranma replied with an akwardly concerned voice, before looking around for his next opponents.
As Ranma turned his back upon the Sailor Senshi, he felt a sudden, unnatural and too familiar shift in the air. With a sudden flash of rememberance, he dove to one side as a wind blade sheared through the air, cutting a deep, forrowlous swath along the ground with overly casual ease. Ranma dove into a roll and back on his feet instantly, that attack was almost an exact copy of the vacuum blades employed by the Yamasenken, but he had not sensed a ki focus upon its emergance at all...
"NOW! TAKE HIM!" A voice roared at the top of his lungs.
Ranma's eyes shot skyward, and the first he stopped was two individuals floating above. One of them was crackling with lightning, and the other was sheathed in raw, cackling flame.
"BURN AND FRY ASSHOLE!" Sorata screamed in ritious fury.
He unleashed a bolt of ball lightning greater than anything naturally possible, while Karen loosed a stream of searing hot fire simultainiously. The two attacks came together in mid-flight, creating an tidal wave of ungodly blaze and deadly ionization that careened straight toward the martial artist turned mass murderer.
Ranma's humanly defiable agility was in display, as the blast slammed into the ground where he was; uprooting dirt and rock into a miniature mushroom cloud of thick debris. He had no time to rest, for before he could take another breath a volley of wind blades came screaming toward him.
Aoki stood poised, the winds swirling around his body providing him with an entire planet's worth of oxygen with which to use as ammunition. The pigtailed God flipped and danced around the volley of lethal razor blades, buf found himself hard pressed to avoid them all
completely; recieving several nicked his attire, though creating nothing more than
small tears. At the same time, fireballs and lightning bolts were raining from above, all three of the remaining Seven Seals attempting to completely overwhelm their adversary from all directions until he falters.
"QUICKLY, KAREN," Aoki yelled up to his fellow Seal. "ERECT THE BARRIER WHILE HE IS DISTRACTED!"
Karen ceased her barrage and clasped her hands together; her brow furrowing in her concentration. High in the sky, the shape of a massive cross began to form in golden light. When Christianity's most holy symbol fully formed, it began to slowly descend toward the ground, generating the legendary Kekkai that would be utilized by the Seven Seals during the Final Battle. The shield impacted the ground, consuming Ranma, Karen, Sorata, and two others who were close within itself. The once translucent cross of light then solidified into a wall of gray, almost akin to steel, ensuring that no one, save Seal, and Harbinger could enter within.
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An erie silence overcame that portion of the battle, though the cries
of other fighters who were currently engaging Akane, could be heard in the background.
"Noble, but I would hope they didn't sacrifice themselves in vain," Cologne stated, as she appeared next to Aoki, who was still outside the barrier.
"It is a Kekkai, everything within it has been shifted into another dimension. A place that only a Seal can create, and where that bastard cannot escape unless the creator of the barrier is killed," Aoki explained in a grave tone. "We will keep him contained for as long as possible, but I suggest you use that time we buy to form a strategy." With those last words, Aoki charged into the barrier, effortlessly passing through its walls and shifting into another dimension.
"It seems as if one of the squads may succeed..." Yosho commented.
"You mean, they defeated that young man?" Tsunami whispered with trepidation and hope littering her voice.
"I don't know..." A young boy with eyes older than they should have ever been, far older than mortal eyes, in fact, "That girl was heading into the barrier, most likely to fight.
"The Immortal is correct," Cologne replied, heading back, "they are attempting to buy us time with their lives. Though we already have a plan formulated, we can take this oppurtunity to organize ourselves better, and save risking any more unnessesary deaths. Gather, so that I may tell you our final stratagy, and you can recruit more to completing its task. Though the strategy that had been adopted of sending squads to contend with Ranma was a good one, the situation is not suitable for it, for Ranma may never exhaust before our own numbers..."
When one has existed since beyond the Beginning; one, be it intentional or not, has an odd tendency to pick up a few things over the countless centuries. This was being made painfully clear, as the remaining fighters attempted to subdue Death herself. When they had first arrived, they had bared witness to Death seemingly passive nature as she sat in silent contentment at Ranma's side, but now that the battle had been brought to her that silent submissiveness had turned into quiet, precise, and infinitely deadly efficiency.
It was a morbid dance in every sense of the word as the raven haired aspect given flesh attacked with pure accuracy and fine control. Her fallen opponents would only see a brief flash of her blade before their world went forever black, and ribbons of their blood swirled through the air in almost beautiful arcs, as she continued cutting a swathe straight through the crowd of gathered warriors who were futilly trying to put her down. She was older than all of humanity itself, and she had all those years to perfect and experience was simply beyond human comprehension.
Armor, be it magical or technological, could not stand against a sword forged by the hand of Death herself, made of the substance of eternity that was made in black holes and death throes. This was made evident, when she removed the katana from the impaled chest of a man in purple and black armor, and possessed large batlike wings. His blood instantly dissolved from the Damascus steel blade, like it was greedily sucked into its unnaturally beautiful gleam, before his lifeless body even touched the ground.
But even in the face of such overwhelming skill, the noble heroes pressed forward. Two swordsmen began their charge, with each one protected in samurai inspired armor; one in fiery red, and the other in forest green. The man in red came first, wielding dual katana in expert fashion that rivaled the great Shinmen Musashi himself. His partner followed his lead, brandishing a single blade that was significantly large, yet handled it as if it were a light as the air itself.
They attacked as one, each taking an opposite side and knowing that no human could possibly defend both sides at once. However, this was no human they faced, and she moved speed that caused multiple images as she used light parries and blocks that kept either blade from even grazing her skin and her black as nothingness kimono that flowed around her with wraithlike etherality. It even seemed that their attacks even came remotely close because she was volintarily choosing to allow it.
"SAGE! NOW!" The red Samurai Trooper known as Ryo commanded.
They both took the skies in enhanced leaps, each one preparing their ultimate attacks.
"SO EN ZAN!" Ryo of the Wildfire screamed at the top of his lungs as he unleashed his Twin Blade Flame Slash.
"THUNDERBOLT CUT!" Sage of the Halo did the same as he loosed a similar strike, though his utilized the power of lightning.
Twin shafts of light descended upon Death, consuming her in white-hot and crackling energy. A miasma of fire and light consumed the area, leaving it utterly pulverized by their combined might. The two remaining Troopers landed some distance away, and looked upon the column of smoke rising from the crater with their eyes narrowed in uncertainty.
"Is she dead?" Sage wondered, "What is she? I have never seen anyone fight like that with such perfect skill."
"If I could only summon the White Armor of Fervor, then we could be sure," Ryo snarled. "But not without the others..." His comrades had fallen in The Instant Death just like so many countless others across the cosmos, making it impossible to combine their strengths and generate the most powerful of all mystical Ronin armors.
Suddenly an explosive blast of air erupted from nowhere, blasting away the smoke column into more than small wisps of smolder. The two warriors' eyes widened in shock and horror as they witnessed Death floating above the black and ashen crater and sheathed in an aura of black that left her only visible in its corona. Her eyes glowed with the same intensity and she brought forth her katana again, itself radiating the power that neither one had ever felt before.
"That... was annoying," The Grim Specter growled in a voice that reverberated on several levels of reality, unreality, soul, and physiology; the remaining Ronin Warriors suddenly realized exactly what they just upset. She became a streak, moving so fast that she nearly blurred from existence all together. She reappeared at their rear, already sheathing her sword back into its scabbard that she was holding in her left hand. The two Ronin's were stuck frozen for several moments, just before falling over. Their lives quickly and painlessly erased by the two frighteningly precise gashes in their abdomens and chest. Death released their souls from their bodies, so that they would join their comrades in blissful eternity.
Death huffed at the presumptuousness of the two recently fallen. She didn't have much time to contemplate it, as her eyes caught sight of a man that she had seen earlier evade the flash of energy that melted the Earth around Ranma earlier, calmly striding towards her with fiery red hair, and yellow eyes that demanded vengence that would not come until his task was complete.
Akane bowed politely to the former samurai, and spoke, "You're familiar with me, as I was once part of your nature, I see." He bowed back, and went into the stance of unsheathing for one blow and one kill that had earned him the nickname the Hitokiri Battousai.
"This battle, if I win, I would..."
"Would have your love back..." Akane interjected.
Kenshin narrowed his eyes, "I was requesting the return of all those you have callously killed."
"That is something I simply will not do," Akane replied in a curt tone. She then bowed her head and lowered her eyes, "I... understand the power love has over one, and because of this, I will be willing to allow the return of who was precious to you."
Kenshin bit back a growl, but nodded.
"I see you're used to drawing a weapon with more friction against your scabbard, "Akane commented, as she unsheathed her own sword, and let it hang loosely by her side; barely keeping it's tip from touching the ground.
"You are perceptive," Kenshin replied respectfully, "My constant use of the sabatako has increased my skill with the katana.
Akane nodded in understanding, "Than you make this interesting for me." With that, one with the skill and speed that gods envied, and one far above gods, joined battle.
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Within the Kekkai, was a warzone. Blast craters, scorched earth, and cracks in the ground itself abundantly decorated the landscape.
Sorata was already down, while alive, he was no condition to keep on fighting whatsoever. Aoki hovered protectively in front of Karen, wind razors swirling around his hands as Ranma floated before him, utilizing Herb's Flight of the Dragon technique. His arms were crossed over his chest as he awaited his opponent's next move with due patience.
"Aoki, you have to let me fight!" Karen protested. "You can't fight take him alone."
"NO!" Aoki answered abruptly. "If you die than the Kekkai will dissolve, we have to keep him trapped here for as long as possible."
"I have no intention of killing you unless it's necessary," Ranma said calmly as he unfolded his arms. "But if that's what it takes to get out of here. Than I guess I don't have a choice, huh? I hate having my hand forced like this."
"You bastard," Aoki said in total contempt. His typical friendly, calm exterior was shattered when his fellow Seals had fallen. He dare not think if his wife or children were involved in the massacre, for deep down he already knew the answer. "You kill billions of innocent lives and you have the audacity to say you only kill if necessary?"
"Love made it necessary!" Ranma barked back in defense. "You can't understand. Flowers or chocolates aren't enough to satisfy a part of the universe! I would do anything to gain her approval, even if it means I must damn myself in the process." Ranma chuckled, "Not that it mattered, I was damned before I was even born, so I guess it wasn't too big a loss in that department."
"You fool, if you honestly think genocide is a sign of love, then you're too far beyond redemption." Karen shook her head in pity.
"You forget, am far beyond redemption," Ranma said as he aimed his palm at the two. "I am redemption. I, for all intents and purposes, am God."
"NEBYURA CHIEN!"
Out of nowhere, multiple chains shot forward and wrapped around Ranma's arms and legs. They binded around him tightly, and forced him to spread his arms and legs, as he fought against their unnatural strength with his own, currently more earthly might. Down below, the Bronze Saint Andromeda Shun focused all his concentration to ensure that he did not break free. Giving his partner the opening he needed.
"PEGASASU SUI SEI KEN!!"
Karen and Aoki hurriedly moved out of the way, as Pegasus Seiya surged forward, his fist blazing with cosmo energy; the Pegasus Comet Fist slammed full force into the chest of the corrupt God. The power of the blow ripped straight through chest bone and lung, exploding out the other side covered in vicious gore. Ranma's face turned into a mask of horror as he stared down at the arm that was halfway through his body.
"For Athena, you monster," Seiya snarled as he ripped his fist out of his chest. "You don't even deserve death."
"Bravo, you almost had me," A voice echoed from behind.
Seiya whirled around quickly, his eyes locked skyward as he saw Ranma hovering there with a completely unamused look plastered on his face.
"But...how," Seiya asked in total bewilderment.
"A little trick I picked up from a... uh... guy... named Konatsu," Ranma answered simply, arbeit sheepishly, as he fought to keep the kunoichi's true gender in mind. "CHOKUSETSU SHUUDA RYUUSEI KYAKU!"
He barreled toward Seiya with the ki-charged Saotome Meteor Kick. The super dropkick slammed into Seiya's chest, knocking him clear out of the sky and sending him careening into Shun. The sheer impact left them both unconscious, leaving Ranma with only two more opponents to deal with. That was when he turned around, and saw the last thing he ever thought he would see...
The Hiryu Hyou Toppa barreling right toward him.
"What the..."
That was all he had to time to utter before the concentrated tornado collided into him. He never thought he would feel the force of his own technique, it was quite an odd feeling actually...
The tornado blasted him back toward the ground, slamming and then drilling him straight into the earth itself. Massive cracks spider webbed outward as Ranma was plowed through dirt and rock and then buried under the tons of rubble that was loosed by his passing.
Aoki breathed heavily, as he lowered his hands that he had used to command the air to generate the tornado; unknowingly mimicking one of Ranma's strongest attacks. He was hoping that the razor edge of the twister would rip him apart, but it seemed his durability was too great for that, so burying him under an innumerable amount of rock and potentially grinding him into a paste within the Earth would have to suffice instead.
"I pray that's enough to end this," Aoki breathed.
"Let's make sure," Karen said as she brought her hands together and unleashed a tidal wave of flame. The blast set blaze to the area where Ranma was buried; ensuring that anything left would be reduced to ash.
"BAKUSAI TENKETSU!"
The ground suddenly exploded in a blast of shattered stone. Utilizing yet another special attack, Ranma's rocky prison was reduced to powder as a leisurely climbed out of the crater that was to be his coffin.
"Now then," He said as he dusted him off and noticed the ring of flames that surrounded. "Allow me to show you how it's supposed to be done."
He leisurely reached a hand up, and closed it into a fist. An M-6 tornado that rivaled any seen in record history exploded out of nowhere, capturing anything within its mile-radius in its 700 mph-plus winds. It kicked up the unconscious forms of the other fighters who had been trapped within the Kekkai, throwing them to the four winds like mere rag dolls, and ripped apart by the debris that swirlled within the massive funnel.
"KAREN! HOLD ON TO ME!" Aoki yelled as he held tight her hand. He was able to keep them from being overwhelmed by the tornado through his command of Air, but stopping tornado that was not of his creation was another matter altogether. "I'll get us out of this!"
He would never get the chance. A vacuum careened toward them from within the tornado, shearing straight through his arm with ease. Aoki screamed in pain while Karen was helpless as the winds wrenched her away in its almighty grip. Then in a moment, just as sudden as it appeared, the tornado ceased to exist. The immidiate loss of centrifugal force tossed Karen through the air where she slammed into the ground with a bone pulping impact; Aoki shortly suffered the same fate as well.
Ranma looked around in mid-air, the Kekkai was slowly beginning to dissolve. He knew the woman could not have survived such a fall, and at such a speed.
"About time. I thought I'd ne...*" He stopped mid-sentence. He suddenly began gasping violently for air, grasping at his throat in some attempt to force oxygen through.
Down below, and barely retaining consciousness through the continuing loss of blood, Aoki used his power in the most ruthless way he knew how. To suck the air straight out of Ranma's lungs, hoping the collapse them.
Feeling the burning strain on his lungs, he slowly turned to face the last Seal. He aimed his palm, and simply shot a blast at the fallen Wind Master. The blast was many times larger than Aoki, and the last thing he saw was light of his deliverance overcoming all his vision.
"GUHHH!" Ranma's breath came back in an instant, and he swallowed large gulps to refill his screaming lungs. His eyes scanned his surroundings, the field had totally dissipated, and he was back in the real world.
He noticed that the landscape was now littered with the bodies of fallen fighters, and he could see his beloved Death still in the midst of combat. Around him was a solid ring of fighters, staring grimly at him; ready to attack at a given command. Akane turned from the fallen former samurai, and looked towards Ranma with a curious and concerned expression.
Ranma refused to collapse to his knees in the exhaustion he felt, fearing any show of weakness would give his opponents would mistake him as weak. Quietly he began to draw energy from the ground with a revitalization technique, and stared defiantly towards the apparent leaders of the group; Colonge, some old man with glasses that carried himself with centuries of skill and poise, and a blue haired woman with markings on her forehead that held a divine grace about her, "So... who's next?"
Cologne's staff was raised in the air, and she suddenly dropped it, pointing to Ranma, "Take him."
The effects of the command were instantanious, as the circle suddenly shrunk onto Ranma. The first thing he encountered was the clawed hand that barely missed ripping open his chest. Ranma grabbed the arm of Devilman, and used the demon's hand to parry the sword of another one of those long blond haired warriors like the one that tried to flashfry him from the air. Devilman's hand was split open, leaving the demon screaming in agony, while Ranma punched Trunks to turning around, and then shoved his index finger into the blond boy's ear, and into his brain.
A platnium blonde woman with dusky skin and markings on her forehead cupped her hands together as she flew over and began hovering above Ranma, while her partner with black and white hair and wings flew across from her. The pigtailed young man felt the build of something other than ki above him which he knew was deadly to him, and almost desperately grabbed the nearest fighter to him roughly. White Lightning's face expressed extreme shock at himself being grabbed, as fast as he was moving, and didn't even manage to put up a struggle, as Ranma suddenly synced with his aura and shouted.
Urd's spell was almost completed, but was cut off by the sudden pillar of life force that slammed up into her, and then spread out in a five meter radius. The Goddess and her angel crashed into the earth, while Ranma cleared some space for himself for breathing room. He dropped the white haired valle's withered corpse to the ground, and quickly brought his hand, palm facing outward, near his head. His index finger and middle finger scissored together, catching a bullet between them, and with a flick of his wrist, Ranma tossed it away...
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Up on one of the hills outside the battle, a man didn't even see the piece of metal heading straight back at him, running easily through his gun scope, and into his eye. Agent Golgo 13 would not finish this mission.
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Ranma's eyes went wide, as he leapt back from being stomped on by a large robot that seemed straight out of cartoons. In the back of his mind, he thought this was a bit overkill for little old him. The pigtailed boy noted several other potentially powerful fighters on the fore of him behind the Gundam, such as Herb himself, and decided to retreat to the wooded area for his advantage. The trees would only far more hinder such a large army to where he could take care of them more to his leasure. The God started in another direction, easily taking down those who got in his path.
Cologne's face watched intently, as the Nerima fighters along with the Juraians stood behind her, ready to start the final faze of their plan. The former Amazon Elder smiled; Ranma did exactly as she had hoped. Positioning stronger fighters in the more open area forced Ranma to retreat to the woods where he would have had a clear advantage. Fortunately for them, it would also keep him from noticing their actions. Once the ancient woman decided that Ranma was in the woods and thoroughly distracted enough, she made the call, "Begin."
Shampoo and Tarou rushed forward from different directions, each coming in low to Ranma's view. The pigtailed young man did see them, though, and moved to counter them. Ranma blinked in confusion, as they suddenly crossed in front of each other, and Tarou veered off. Ranma knocked away a random fighter into another one, and quickly went into stance. Shampoo was suddenly cut off by Kodachi intercepting his path, and Ranma noticed it seemed as if they were handing something off to each other. Ranma didn't have time to contemplate it, as he had to guard against the strike of a white haired man that growled like a large dog.
"YOU WILL GIVE ME YOUR POWER, GODLING!" Sessmarou growled, and swiped again.
"I ain't no mere godling, Dogboy!" Ranma retorted, fading from the dog demon's sight, and retaliating.
Kodachi circled around to the back of Ranma, and then was intercepted by Yosho. The gymnast handed the jewel off to the old man, as he made a beeline for Ranma. After the demon dog was dealt with, Ranma turned to face the old man, only to have him intercepted by some Amazon girl that apparently survived the massacre. Ranma's brow furrowed, as he leapt backwards over a sword swipe from a girl with a yin/yang sign on her Chinese outfit with her hair done in braids that were looped into hoops.
Akane frowned, finding few were even attempting to mess with her, as most of the army that was left seemed to concentrate more on Ranma now. She also frowned, when the noted what Cologne and the others were doing, and started forward to help Ranma. Before she could reach him, however...
"AKANE, STOP. SOMETHING'S UP SO DON'T COME NEAR!" Ranma shouted defending against two other fighters at once. Death frowned, but was touched by the notion that Ranma still felt the need to protect her, and begrudingly obeyed his command. After all, it wasn't like she had to let him die.
The Amazon was then intercepted by Ryouga, as she ran across from Ranma. Tenchi and Cologne then cut across him. Ranma knew they were trying to confuse him with this ploy to get one of them close to him. As close as they were now, either that young man with the ponytail and the weird almost glowing cloths or Cologne would make the move. Cologne would be too obvious, and it almost seemed as if Shampoo didn't hand anything off to the young man he didn't know, as if it were an accident he cut in front of her. Ranma knew who he had to guard against at that moment, and turned to Tenchi just in time to sidestep a blue glowing sword that bore down at him from the Juraian from a vertical angle. Ranma had completely missed Shampoo being intercepted at his blind side by Ukyo; he didn't even hear Ukyo's name being called by the Amazon to snap her back to attention from her apparent daze.
"NICE TRY!" Ranma shouted, avoided what he assumed was some sort of mystic Amazon weapon to slay Gods. The young man was a compotent swordsman, so it made it all the more apparent that that was their ploy. Ranma quickly stepped into Tenchi's guard, and delivered a double palm strike that nearly caved in his chest and pulped his intestines. Ranma immidiately knew to defend against Cologne, but at the last instant, the old woman stopped, and quickly backed away. On intuition, Ranma turned around, just in time for Ukyo to place a glowing jewel on his chest.
Ranma stared down at it incredulously, and was suddenly enveloped by white light that then started to shift to the side of him. Ranma's eyes grew even wider, as he saw that he was standing right next to his cursed half.
"Wha, WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT?" Ranma shouted, as the Redhead grabbed Ranma's right fight, which was donning the ring, into her own hands, and looked him in the eye defiantly.
"Ranma," The redhead growled, "This has gone too far, we need to put things right."
Ranma's face grew furious, "COLOGNE, IF THIS IS YOUR LAST RESORT, IT'S GOING TO FAIL MISERABLY!!!"
Ukyo's eyes suddenly went wider than initially from seeing Ranma split off into two forms. "This... this is like my..." The young chef then slowly started taking steps backwards; the way things are going, her precognition from only moments ago would come true.
The Redhead shook her head slightly, "It may be a last resort, but it will be the only one we need. Ranma, we need to use the ring to fix everything the way it was."
"And who are you to tell me what to do?" Ranma seethed, not even attempting to pull his hand out of his girl side's grip.
"The only one who can help ya, and the only one who can beat ya," the girl replied with a side smile, "I'm you, more importantly, I'm your heart."
"Hmph, then let's see if you're up to the task that a whole super powered army wasn't up to," Ranma challenged. Their auras suddenly sprouted to life; male Ranma's being red, while the female Ranma's being white. When the two auras met, it was with explosive results...
The chef was thrown back by the ensuing blast. Ukyo tightened her back, and curled up into a tight ball, as she slammed into one of the various trees from where she had been slowly backing away from Ranma . She had been expecting the blast, since she had the premonition, so was alright. She had managed to do her part, and because of it, they would all pay dearly.
Everyone sheilded their eyes from the brilliant light that radiated from the center where the two combatants fought for dominance over Godhood. The outcome was a thin chance at best, but it was their only one. The bodies of friends, allies, and even enemies were ignored, as everyone held their breath . White and red fought for dominance, each occationally gaining the advantage over the other. In a few short but eternal moments, white consumed all of the red.
"Did... did we?" The regal woman with the blue hair and crystal red eyes asked with hope.
"R-Ra-Ranma..." The thing claiming to be Akane breathed with her own concern.
"Even a heart cannot triumph, if it is fighting against what it exists for..."
"N-no...." Cologne collapsed to the ground, as they watched the white light die down, with the young man standing victorious over his final opponent.
Ranma looked down at Cologne in sympathy, "You've lost, that was your final attack, and I beat it." his eyes then became cold, as he turned to look at the standing, the wounded, and the deceased. Before he could speak, he felt his lungs tighten. Blinking, the God looked down, and found an arrow piercing him from behind through the chest.
"I am sorry, Ranma-sama," Konatsu stated in a sad voice; still holding his long bow in position from firing from his vantage point in a tree, "this is the second time I have failed you."
Cologne stood up slowly, and approached along with those who were still near. They won, they had actually defeated the God. Ranma suddenly began to smile, and then chuckle lightly. His humor became as much as it would allow with an arrow piercing his lung, and it wasn't a laugh of regret, nor of insanity. It was the laugh of someone claiming victory...
Something was very... very wrong...
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Special thanks to both Tannimfodder and Midnight Sun for their massive contributions. Without them, I would have just remained lazy and delivered only 20K's worth of writing ^_^