DRAGON'S DESTINY 3: Battle Of Light & Dark

a Ranma 1/2 Altered Destiny fanfic by Gregg Sharp i don't own these characters, that doesn't keep me from having fun with them.

note: this was written quite a while ago, and i'm just trying to smooth it out a bit for the fanfiction.net site.

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A week passed.

The battle between Kuno and Ranma had occurred, with Ranma grabbing a bokken and dueling Kuno "as befits a true samurai." Just from making that statement during the match, Tatewaki Kuno would have been more favorably aligned with Ranma. As it was, it went from formal duel to polite sparring match within a week. Nabiki was giving odds that within a month it would be down to friendly sparring, especially as it was quite apparent that Akane was considered *very* unlikely to be the one to end up marrying Ranma.

Shampoo explained the customs of the Amazons, while Ranma said that things were different in Japan. Yuka and Sayuri, at Ranma's insistence, had told Shampoo about the courtship conventions in Japan.

Shampoo was now attending school, and as she required extensive tutoring, had turned to Ranma for this. Who better than her husband, after all? This did NOT sit well with any number of others, resulting in Ranma teaching classes (oddly enough composed entirely of girls) after hours in school.

Ranma's twice a day sparring also drew crowds, with the predictable result. In another week he would be teaching another class- this in the martial arts.

His mornings were sparring matches with his father, and occasionally Akane, followed usually by Tatewaki Kuno's challenge at the school.

Genma sent a letter to Nodoka Saotome, wanting to get that sword hanging over him out of the way as soon as possible. Nabiki hid the letter until she felt she had jockeyed to the best position, when she would mail it. Kasumi found the letter and mailed it, without
once thinking that it had been hidden on purpose.

Akane tried to cook for Ranma. Ranma, being a true man among men, complimented her on the "interesting flavor" before he passed out. Dr Tofu and his stomach pump arrived shortly thereafter. Akane's reaction to Nabiki's suggestion that Akane had just killed Nabiki's
fiance was quite predictable. Akane went to her room crying and Nabiki wore an ice pack.

Kasumi insisted on playing nurse to Ranma after that incident, though he drew the line at the sponge bath. The next morning, he insisted he was fine, though Kasumi and Nabiki expressed numerous doubts about this. Shampoo showed up at some time during this and proceeded to vow vengeance against "vile poisoners who do this to airen!" Obviously she'd spent too much time watching Ranma fight Kuno and listening to the latter's speeches.

All in all, a relatively peaceful week.

Relatively, that is.

--------------------

"Ranma, prepare to die!"

"Excuse please," Mao Yin said, as polite as always. "What for you attack tree?"

"Oh, sorry, heheh." Ryouga looked embarrassed and rubbed the back of his head. "I was just thinking about Ranma and the hell he's put me through."

"Oh, so knowing me has been HELL?" There were limits to everything, including the spiritualist's patience. "You want find your way to Japan on your own?"

Mao Yin stalked off, waiting to hear Ryouga apologize. She didn't like yelling at him, but hearing him go on and on about how he blamed this Ranma for all his problems...

Silence. She turned around and said one of the phrases that had been used on her when she was being beaten for being a witch. There was no sign of Ryouga.

"Stupid Ryouga. He go look for Ranma in, Tokyo, I think he say. I go Tokyo. He no get off that easy."

Mao Yin had been born with an unlucky mark - a streak of white hair that ran from forehead to just above the ear. She'd also always been able to see and speak with spirits. She'd grown up in a small village near Tibet's border, and had been miserable there.

When Ryouga had rescued her, she'd been overjoyed at first. Here was a handsome prince riding on his horse to her rescue. Well, actually he'd been walking. Unfortunately, he was also a bit slow upstairs, but she was sure he had a good heart. He'd kept her from being beaten by the local bullies, and he'd taken her with him. (Well, actually she'd followed him while he was trying to lead her back to her hut, except he'd gotten lost.)

Mao Yin asked the Heavens why she couldn't have her own chance to grasp happiness. Unfortunately, they didn't answer.

-----

Ranma relaxed, one of the few parts of the day where he could actually be alone. No Nabiki trying to get him to sign a contract, specifying her as his agent. No Akane trying to beat on Nabiki, or just about anyone except Kasumi, to "defend his honor" or somesuch. No shy and demure Kasumi finding excuses to demonstrate her traditional feminine charms. No glomping from Shampoo.

"Oh my, did I forget to put the sign out?" Nabiki smiled from the furo. "Well, since you're here..."

Ranma slid the door closed again. They HADN'T been sneaking into the bath. Well, there was that time Kasumi had brought in extra towels. Come to think of it, there was that time Shampoo had offered to wash his hair with some "special" shampoos. Or the time when Akane had offered to scrub his back before running off saying something about how perverted SHE was getting.

Ranma's shoulders slumped. He really needed some time alone. The only thing he really wondered is why it had taken Nabiki that long to try something like this? She was usually MUCH more forward. Such as all the attempts she'd made to examine his dragon tattoo. He'd bought it at first. Studying it from up close had been sensible. Touching and rubbing his tattoo had been a bit more odd, but still well within the realm of reason. When Nabiki had went to licking and sucking on the tattoo, starting at his shoulder and heading towards his belt, Ranma had finally gotten the idea that this was not completely innocent.

Behind him, Shampoo stuck her head in the window. "Nabiki strike out as well."

"Like your little battleplan worked out." Nabiki toweled herself off without looking at the Amazon. "This hasn't worked out for any of us."

"Akane lose nerve. Kasumi go off into fantasyland and Ranma sneak away. Nabiki too obvious. Shampoo not fool airen. Girls at school keep trying, so what we do?"

Nabiki finished dressing. "What do we do? We keep united in our resolve! Shampoo, we will not rest until Ranma has made a choice!"

"Oh brother," muttered Ranma as he crept away from where he'd been listening. This was getting WAY out of hand. And his mother was coming tomorrow. Such joy he felt at the prospect of his mother seeing this nonsense.

-----

The morning was shaping up as usual. Kuno giving a nod of the head, indicating that he'd wait for the formal match later. He had not given up on Akane, but knew that Ranma would give him honorable combat, samurai to samurai, later.

The usual routine was broken by a yell. "Ranma, at last I have found you!"

Everyone looked around for the source of the voice until Akane tracked where Ranma's gaze was focussed. "There he is," she pointed to the top of a nearby building.

Silhoutted by the rising sun, a boy pointed down at Ranma. "Ranma Saotome! Now you shall pay for running out on our man to man duel! For the HELL you have put me through, you shall DDDDDDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!"

With that as his battlecry, the figure leapt. Despite it being a three story drop, and over forty feet away, there was absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that this boy would survive the attack. That he had a projective aura similar to Ranma's (without the heroic or manly referents) did not occur to anyone save Nabiki, who had worked out that aspect of his transformation just a few days ago.

The boy's impact opened a three foot wide crater where Ranma had been standing a moment before.

"Who?" Ranma analyzed the image of the boy before him. No exact match was found, though the bandana... "Ryouga?"

"So you DO remember me," Ryouga snarled showing his prominent fangs. "Now you shall pay for leading me on that wild goose chase through China!"

"I don't get it, Ryouga, I waited for you for three days, and if it's about the bread..."

"ARrrrrgghhh." Ryouga screamed. "I arrived on the fourth day but you'd already fled to China! How dare you run out on a man-to-man duel?"

There was muttering from the crowd as Ryouga's comments were repeated. "Four days late for a duel?"

"Ranma, prepare to die!"

*WHAM!* Ryouga staggered forward as something struck him in the back of the head.

Akane had grabbed Kuno's bokken. "You stop threatening MY Ranma!"

Ryouga turned towards Akane.

*WHAM!* Ryouga staggered to the side.

Shampoo glared over at Akane as she pushed away from Ryouga after doing a flying dragon kick from the third floor. "He not YOUR Ranma yet! Shampoo no lose!"

"Would you stop that!" Ryouga began to build up his power. A brick, thrown by Yuka, slammed into his nose. Various women in the crowd began hurling projectiles. "Cut it out!"

"Everyone, run!" Ranma watched Ryouga's power level building, at this rate... "Get to cover, quickly!"

"Huh?" Everyone glanced around. Ranma was telling them to run, but why?

Ryouga's growl clued the vast majority in as a glow flickered into place around him. His shirt burst open in a fashion almost exactly like Kenshiro from "Hokuto No Ken"- a resemblence not lost on all of those watching. The crowd fled, exercising the better part of valor and having either made their wisdom check or having failed their morale roll.

Kuno directed the others back, confident in Ranma's ability to deal with the intruder. After all, was not Saotome a samurai like himself?

Then there were the others. Shampoo and Akane taking battlestances. How dare this interloper threaten not only Ranma, but their school?

Nabiki left the protection of the school, her family was perhaps the only thing she'd put above her own personal safety. She stared at the tattoo on Ryouga's chest, so similar to Ranma's. Instead of a coiled oriental dragon, this was a western dragon with five heads, each a different color. The white head was moving, twisting, and silently threw back its head in a howl.

Nabiki yelled and threw herself flat on the ground. "Take cover!"

"FREEZE FRAME!" Ryouga struck the ground. A wave of mist sped out from him, ice forming over every surface as it passed.

"Now, Ranma, without interference," Ryouga snarled, eyes seeming to blaze, "we can settle this..."

"K-Kasumi?!"

Both Ryouga and Ranma turned. A woman Ranma did not recognize stood with Genma near the gate to the school, staring at the pillar of ice a few feet ahead of them.

Ryouga straightened up and looked around him, at the frozen front of the school, at the various icy pillars seeming to thrust up out of the frozen ground. "Oops."

"RYOUGA!" Ranma slammed into Ryouga, "go NOW, I have to fix what you've done here. If you STILL need to fight me, do it some other time!"

"Oh no, Ranma, you're not getting out of this fight that..." Ryouga's eyes widened as he saw that the ice pillars actually had people in them. Fighting a gagging reflex, Ryouga managed to stammer out an agreement. "Yeah, um, I think I better get going."

"Ranma?" The woman with the long bundle watched Ryouga go with a frown.

Ranma stepped up to her. "You must be my mother, I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to know you."

Genma looked around the schoolyard. "Damn, what that boy did..."

"Those over there just need to be chipped out of the ice, father," Ranma pointed at the crowd. "Mother, please assist him. Ryouga's ice attack went mainly to his sides and front. They were behind him and were spared the brunt of the attack."

"What will you be doing, son?" His mother eyed him carefully, was this truly her son?

Ranma sighed. "First I break the ice. Shampoo and Akane stood by me, Nabiki tried to protect her family- Akane. Kasumi saw her family in danger and got in the way too."

"So that's why she ran ahead of us." Genma grunted and brought a fist down on a sheet of ice, cracking it.

Ranma nodded, while finding his wa, his center. "They paid the price, I can feel their lifeforce almost gone. There's only one thing to do. Give them mine."

Nodoka Saotome glanced over at her son and smiled but wiped away a tear. Her first impression WAS correct. He truly was a "man among men."

Ranma arched his back and gathered power. The resemblence to Ryouga's earlier ki buildup was almost exact. His shirt burst open. The "tattoo" of the coiled oriental dragon writhed as the power built.

Ice shattered. Kasumi, Akane, and Shampoo slumped in the remains of their prisons while Nabiki finally reached the ground.

Ranma smiled, a little bit wistfully, fully aware of the hurry. He reached Kasumi first, replenishing her ki with his own. He moved on to the next, a little unsteadily. Nabiki, Shampoo, Akane all receiving a replenishing of their own life force from him, all warming as the increased ki flowed through him.

Ranma heard his mother shout as things went black and he felt himself fall on top of Akane. As everything faded out, he hoped he had been successful.

-----------

"Akane, you're awake!"

Akane slowly got up, groaning as she did. "Ow."

"You ought to rest a little longer," Kasumi tried to smile. "We all had to before we got our strength back."

"What happened? Did we..."

"You don't remember, Akane? The white light, the presence, the sense of peace?" Kasumi shook her head. "Though it may seem to be like a dream now."

"Yeah, kinda, it was...oh no."

"Yes, Akane, we were dead." Kasumi sighed and got up. Her joints still hurt from that terrible cold. "We got better, but Ranma..."

"It couldn't be. Not Ranma! Ranma could never be beaten by that..." Akane looked at her sister's griefstricken expression, waiting.

"No, Akane." Kasumi sat on the bed next to her sister. "We've already heard this several times as Shampoo and Nabiki and I were all filled in on this. Ranma strengthened our lifeforce with his own. He just didn't have anything left for himself."

"No..." Akane felt tears welling up.

The door nearly burst off its hinges. Shampoo leaned in. "RANMA ALIVE!"

----

Downstairs the body had put on a futon. It had been Shampoo who had stared at the body and realized something about it. Then she'd uncovered the futon, torn Ranma's shirt off, and gone off to tell everyone.

"Look, see!" Shampoo pointed at the body.

Nabiki scowled. "He isn't breathing and I don't feel a heartbeat, so what are you pointing at?"

"Look at tattoo!" Shampoo couldn't believe it. Didn't these Japanese know anything about magic?

"That's weird," Akane said thoughtfully. She could remember that tattoo from her brief glimpses. This looked almost like a trail of colored water but it occupied the same general area and was about the right size. "It's almost completely faded out. Why would that happen?"

"You kidding, right?" It was Shampoo's turn to scowl. "Tattoo is not tattoo! Tattoo move when airen stand still! You get now?"

Blank looks rewarded Shampoo's efforts.

"Aiyaaaaa! Shampoo no believe this. This prove that Shampoo should just take Ranma and run for Amazon Village where airen have at least fighting chance."

"I'm afraid I can't allow that," Nodoka Saotome said sadly. "He'll be cremated and interred in proper Japanese fashion."

Shampoo would have torn her hair out if such a thing wouldn't reflect badly on her Amazon roots. "Airen NOT dead! Tattoo linked to Ranma's lifeforce!"

"Ohhhhhhhh." Comprehension finally clicked.

"How do we know that's true?" Akane wasn't going to give the Amazon any credit. After all, she was a bimbo.

Shampoo thought about this. "If airen give his life for us, then he have..." She looked shocked as a thought occurred to her. "Shampoo got to go check something."

Nabiki watched Shampoo run down the hallway. "What's gotten into her?"

There was a slam, as of a door closing, a brief pause, the same door slamming open, then the sound of someone running back down the hall. Shampoo came running into the room.

Soun's eyes couldn't have popped open any further. Genma stared only to find his wife's hand suddenly blocking the view.

"Shampoo, put your shirt back on!" Akane stopped abruptly as she realized what else she was looking at.

Shampoo nodded. "Shampoo think everyone else check too!" One of her fingers traced the faded dragon tattoo which curled sinuously up her body. Green-blue scales seemed to glisten in the light.

"Oh my!"

"Damn."

"I wonder if I can..."

"Genma, I think you ought to leave the room. You too, Mister Tendo."

"But, dear..."

"Mrs Saotome, I..."

"Now, boys." Nodoka Saotome escorted the two men out of the room without once having to draw steel. Both knew it was there, however, and this did have some intimidation factor.

"Shampoo thought so." Shampoo looked down at Ranma, resting her hand on his chest.

"It looks like," Akane didn't want to admit that Shampoo had something right. It wasn't fair that Shampoo was a better martial artist, was cuter, and a better cook than her. If she couldn't hold a superior intelligence over that "Chinese bimbo" what could she use to assert her own superiority?

"Yes, it looks just slightly more solid. It has certainly stopped fading." Nabiki, ever the pragmatist, was working it out. She didn't understand magic, but seeing Ranma throw ki blasts and levitate were enough to indicate that there was more to the world than in old Horatio's reckoning. Cause and effect, whether linked by physics or ki or this magic stuff, was a familiar enough framework for her to begin working out the basics.

Nabiki *had* studied Ranma's tattoo up close. When he'd raised that ball of chi on his first day, she'd gotten a clear look at how the dragon had moved independent of the skin. That had gotten the Nabiki Tendo Curiosity Factor (a term she now preferred to snoopiness) going. She had studied it close, she had noted that the dragon had a slightly cooler temperature than the surrounding skin, she'd noticed the odd play of light, and even a slightly spring-rain scent and taste to it. Then she'd gotten a little carried away and Ranma had freaked out, but it had been interesting while it lasted.

"What if two?" Kasumi laid her own hand next to Shampoo's. "Was that a little more color?"

Nabiki and Akane each knelt down, taking Ranma's hands. There seemed to be a twitch but nothing else.

Nabiki directed the others through a few actions, some moving away, some touching, some leaving the room. Finally she thought she had an idea of how the whole thing worked. "Proximity seems to be the key here, as opposed to physical contact." Nabiki nodded. "Kasumi, you and I will gather extra futons. As long as one of us keeps in physical contact with him, there's a resonance between our 'shared lifeforce' for lack of a better term. We should all stay here for the night."

"Nabiki! You're kidding! Right?"

"Akane, if we accept that the dragon tattoo is, in fact, tied to Ranma's lifeforce, then the degree of fading would indicate how low it is. Do you remember when you first noticed it, that it looked more like a water trail than anything else?" Nabiki pointed to the hint of coloration that might have had a vague resemblence to a dragon. "The ones on our bodies are far more solid than his."

"So we..."

"Sleep in the same room," Nabiki assured her sister. "It's not like he's going to get up and ravish us." Nabiki watched her sister's face turn completely red. The odd thing was that Kasumi's blush was only slightly less prominent.

"Shampoo stay too!" Shampoo glared at Akane, just daring her to say anything.

"By the way, Shampoo, you can put your shirt back on now. We've all observed how the dragon seems to move when you touch Ranma and I appreciate the information."

Shampoo shrugged. "Well, Shampoo remain here with airen. Shampoo think it going to be long night."

On THAT there was no disagreement.

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next: "Oh no. Kodachi? Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics? We don't have time for this nonsense! Next time on Dragon's Destiny: Tool Time, we'll see you there."