"A Short Discussion about `The Universe'"
by Neil Reynolds
Chapter 3: The Life Cycle Of The Soul
Nabiki: So now that we've pulled off my first major spell, what's next on the syllabus
Cologne: I think it's time that we lay the groundwork in removing your biggest blind-spot with regard to magic.
Nabiki: A blind spot? Just laying the groundwork for removing it?
Cologne: Quite so. The actual removal is a time-consuming process, on the order of months or years. Shortcuts exist, but none of them are appropriate at this point, so we'll do this the old fashioned way.
Nabiki: Am I going to have to dance naked on a mountain-top?
Cologne: No, that's training for the esoteric martial arts move
"Bald Knight on Moussorgsky Mountain." We've talked of magic, but so far, you've only perceived it's effects, which limits things in alot of ways. You're at the stage where you can see that a magnet attracts iron, but have no perception that this is caused by electricity. Eventually you might propose an experiment with electricity that causes a spark to jump, and then you might be able to perceive the effect of magic moving through air, but that would still only be seeing the effect that electricity had as it oxidizes the air. Electricity would still be invisible to you.
Similarly, all you can perceive is the result of spells, you lack any perception of the underlying process, even if you have an understanding of it.
Nabiki: So how do I gain a perception of magic?
Cologne: There are several methods, all of which can be combined. In the long run, you'll develop senses for magic similarly to the way an infant develops the neurological pathways for your other senses. Being older than three means that the fluidity of your brain has slowed significantly, so this will take a long time.
Granted it is possible to restore such malliability through the use of powerful drugs, strong voltages across the frontal lobes, and a variety of other severe methods, but their benefit is far outweighed by the detrimental side effects, such as imbecilety.
There are exercises of mind-numbing boredom that I'll give you that should help, but first we're going to discuss both the nature of perception, and phenomenology as it applies to a world containing magic. First we'll cover perception using the analogy of electromagnetism. Can you sum up what you know about electromagnetism?
Nabiki: Just the standard highschool science material. You can make an electromagnet by wrapping wire around a nail. Light is electromagnetic waves. Electricity is the flow of electrons. Lightning, static electricity, batteries. That about covers it.
Cologne: Very well. It has long been known that electricity and magnetism were related. Your electromagnet, and lightning strikes on iron making permanent magnets were proof of that. Einstein's theory of relativity provided an explanation showing that magnetism was merely the secondary effects of electricity with respect to relativity.
Magnetism has long been easier to perceive, and has been of practical value for hundreds of years, if not thousands. Anyone can construct a device to test for the existence of a magnetic field, and with a little ingenuity, even measure it's strength and direction. An iron pin held by string, or iron filings will detect a localized field, or to be more technically accurate a field gradient, while a magnetized pin will point north giving a field's direction. Attach springs and you can get a measure of the forces involved. Some animals are even thought to have sufficient sensory apparatus as to always know where north is.
Useful as such magnetometers are, they tell you very little about electricity. Or rather they tell you alot, provided you're interested only in electricity traveling more or less in a circle, more or less continuously. Electricity itself remained unperceived until about two hundred years ago unless it was either static electricity, or rather huge amounts of the stuff being forced through the air making glowing pathways of hot ionized air that glowed impressively and destroyed trees.
Now we can build devices to measure electrical effects and potentials in a variety of methods. the human body is more than capable of detecting electricity, as anyone with metal fillings can attest. However it is still impossible for the human body to perceive a single electron.
A single electron does, however have the ability to theoretically affect every other electron in the universe. if it oscillates rapidly, the effect flows out as light, which is easily perceived so long as it's a wavelength we're interested in. This is of no use in seeing the electron itself, but it's effect is so pervasive that it wasn't until historically recently that we associated the two. The connection between light and electricity was actually the impetus that lead Einstein's immediate predecessors to throw out the strictly Newtonian view of the universe, allowing Einstein to propose his solution.
Nabiki: And this applies to magic how?
Cologne: When magic does something dramatic, everyone can see the effects, and anyone can make some kind of meter to detect the effects, much like magnetism. Through effort one can make a variety of thaummeters to measure the properties of magic in an area, like voltmeters and ammeters do, and if the magic is strong enough, one can detect magic used on yourself much like you'd feel a spark, even if the magic has no noticeable effect. The hardest to manage is magic sight at a distance, as humans don't have appropriate eyes for this.
One can develop a proto eye, much like the early animals did, which can detect the equivalent of light and dark, and colors. One can also use the equivalent of a pinhole lens to bring some focus. One can also construct something to act as a lens. However giving you a lens would be worthless, as you don't have the neural pathways to turn such an image into a picture of reality. it takes an infant with working eyes months before the light that hits it gets turned into an intellegable picture.
Nabiki: So I have to work at seeing color and light, and then later work on seeing where it comes from, and what it looks like?
Cologne: Yes, but still that's only part of it. There are different types of active and passive perceptions that can be used, each with it's own advantages and disadvantages. Passive scans are the easiest, safest, and least informative.
Nabiki: What's the distinction between passive and active?
Cologne: A passive scan could be looking around a room. You're relying on the object itself glowing or reflecting or blocking light from some other outside source. If this works, great. But it fails completely if it is too dark, or it's transparent to the light, or if it's obscured by the light as stars are during the day, or if it's the same color as the background, or a hundred other reasons.
An active scan is where you provide whatever is being used as light. Looking using a flashlight, or echolocation, or radar are all active. You send out something and look what comes back. You have much better control as you control the illumination. Something has to work much harder to avoid an active scan, but an active scan announces your presence, even to passive scans. A person has to be blind not to see someone with a flashlight in a dark room, and missiles can track radar right back to it's source. Any time you actually probe something it is an active scan. If you merely make yourself available to outside impressions, it is passive. Which brings us to phenomenology, and Hindu Buddhism.
Nabiki: Before we go there, what kind of passive and active scans are applicable to magic?
Cologne: Well, any type of passive scan yields several active scans, such as hearing leads to echolocation and explosive seismography. Passive scans in magic usually relate to types of magic, in broad terms. Detection of spiritual energies, elemental energies, raw power, chaos, intent, even desire to bend the future towards a specified goal.
* * *
It was a quiet weekend early afternoon. Ranma was working on a new technique while sitting on a rock surrounding the koi pool. The technique seemed to involve lights or chi flashing between his hands. Genma was playing go with Soun, and sipping Tea, while Kasumi was tidying up the family area. Akane and Nabiki were absent. This was one of the few moments of calm in the frantic life of Ranma.
His father was leaving him alone since his son was so obviously working on a chi technique, and was therefor not goofing off, so he felt he deserved a break from pushing Ranma to fight better. In Genma's mind, it was an odious task to ambush and berate his son. Only the lowest kind of filth would actually do that for enjoyment. But as it was the way to drive his son, he was willing to do it for Ranma's sake. In this way, rationalization allowed hypocrisy to engage in cruelty. The truely amazing thing was that all this could happen within the mind of one of the dumbest men on the planet.
Ranma wasn't actually working on this alone. Ran'neko was alternately trying to explain a concept for which both parties lacked the words. Ranma and Ran'neko didn't even have a vocabulary that they shared as such. It was a discussion involving imagined images, and feelings, and a prolonged game of 'hot and cold'.
Originally Ranma was trying to recreate the claws Ran'neko used, but it soon became obvious that this was a problem beyond their ability to communicate. Cologne's advice on the matter prompted another approach, Ranma was now working on cylinders. Ranma figured that if he could make a staff or a shield, he could work on sharpening the sides or the point later. Bladed weapons were harder to build, and harder to discuss with Ran'neko since they were something that Ran'neko saw no need for, but a shield, or just a cylinder in general could be useful, even if Ran'neko had no idea why at the moment.
This had an additional unexpected benefit when it was discovered that Ran'neko had no idea how to make a cylinder. It's claws were trivial to create, and it could make things based on a single claw-nail, but that was all done without conscious thought. Actually constructing a new shape was a bizarre concept to Ran'neko. However during Ran'neko's experiments in the easier task of making a cylinder, Ranma was beginning to see the method behind the technique.
This process was further hampered because Ran'neko had little to no attention span to speak of, and little interest in martial arts as Ranma did it. Ran'neko would play with the problem a little while, and then get bored. Ranma could squash a ball of chi between his hands now, making it look ovoid from the side, but this was of no use to him. It did prove that he theoretically could learn this technique, but it was a long way from useful.
Ranma was now trying to draw a chi ball into a long thin oval, approaching his staff idea, although Ran'neko had indicated that he was missing something basic that couldn't be explained. Ranma had gotten the idea that he was learning a step he'd need in order to make the staff, but he'd skipped some steps that would be needed to actually succeed. The two of them agreed that he had to learn this step eventually, so why not now.
Ranma seemed able to do it, but Ran'neko didn't think it was good enough, because he was adding and removing chi as he did it. Ran'neko insisted that the elongation step would need to be independent of the flow of chi between it and Ranma. Because they lacked a common tongue, this explanation of Ran'neko took about 10 minutes to get across.
So Ranma found himself apparently focusing on two chi tasks simultaneously. One task was maintaining a chi ball with a constant volume, and the other was to elongate it. Like a three year old trying to learn to pat his head and rub his belly at the same time, Ranma was slowly learning to split his mind in using chi, and was creating autonomic systems to do these tasks. This meant repetition, and exercise, even for an accomplished martial artist like Ranma. He knew what he wanted his body to do, now he had to practice it.
While Ranma was doing this, he was also communicating with Ran'neko, who found the exercise boring, and decided his next exercise would be making a small ball of chi, and making it move as he wished in front of him. Ranma was secretly hoping to expand this to a chi attack that'd go around corners, or follow a dodging target. If he knew how much harder his wishes would be compared to just moving the ball, he might have given up that idea, or at least gotten to it later.
Ran'neko was frustrated that it couldn't convey to Ranma why Ranma shouldn't be using emotions to power his attacks, but at least it got the idea to Ranma that he'd be unable to do any of the more difficult things until he stopped using confidence to fuel his chi. Ranma resolved to try to get Cologne's insight on this problem.
Just then, their concentration was interrupted by the cliche of Ryouga attacking for no reason. "Ranma Saotome, prepare to die." Ranma back-pedals away from the koi pond, and was trying to decide if he should let Ran'neko play with Ryouga, or if he should allow Ryouga to fight him instead.
On the one hand, Ran'neko was clearly bored, and would enjoy batting Ryouga around the dojo. Also Ryouga hadn't given even a passable reason why Ranma should allow Ryouga the fight Ryouga wanted.
On the other hand, Ryouga might have a decent reason for the attack, and therefor deserved to fight Ranma, and not be shunted off as an annoyance. Ranma was willing to admit to himself that Ryouga did occasionally have a valid reason to attack, although to Ranma's thinking those times were very rare.
Ran'neko couldn't understand Ranma's thoughts and reasons surrounding honor. But it did realize that Ranma knew it wanted to play, and that Ranma would let Ran'neko play, if Ranma decided it wasn't unfair to Ryouga. Ran'neko had some difficulty with the concept of fairness, goodness, and honor, because it lacked any referents. These concepts, like language were human things that it could barely grasp. Ran'neko was more than willing to put up with this human foible, because it realized that Ranma wasn't holding it back due to a selfish desire, but because of a need that Ran'neko couldn't understand, and truely didn't want to understand.
Ran'neko was probably the only being in existence that thought Ranma would be better at dealing with social graces and human interaction than it would be. While Ranma was unintentionally taunting Ryouga, and intentionally trying to find out what made Ryouga so mad this time, Ryouga moved his umbrella to automatically block the knife that was thrown at him.
Ryouga and Ranma separate as they and the observers realize that something odd just happened. While fighting Ranma, a martial artist that fastidiously avoids weapons, Ryouga blocked a thrown knife. A thrown kitchen knife, that hit Ryouga's umbrella hilt first, and therefor wouldn't have bothered Ryouga if it had hit him squarely between the eyes. Who could have thrown it? There was no one in that direction, but Kasumi, falling to the ground in a faint.
There are two seconds of stunned silence, before people spring into action. Ranma and Ryouga honestly forget they are fighting, as they spring to help Kasumi. Soun would have been more help if he either stopped wailing or got out of the boy's way. Ranma turns to Ryouga, and barks "Ryouga guard her in case this is some sort of enemy attack, I'll call for backup." Ryouga nods, and looks after Kasumi, who seems to be in fine shape, except for her fainting spell.
Neither Ranma nor Ryouga realized that it was pure chance Ranma was nearest the phone. Otherwise in the heat of the moment he'd have sent Ryouga off for help, while he guarded. Because a mysterious incompetent knife thrower was somehow combined with a fainting spell, and therefor not a simple medical situation in Ranma's mind, Ranma called Cologne, and outlined the weird event, and asked for her help. Cologne and Nabiki race back to the dojo, after trying to convince themselves and Ranma that Kasumi isn't in immediate danger.
Ranma races back to the engawa, to find Ryouga alert, and Soun blubbering. "Cologne's on her way. Any sign of anyone else around?"
"No one."
"I'm gonna try something. You stand guard, and ignore me, OK?"
"Right."
Ranma releases control to Ran'neko, and scares Soun Tendo witless. Soun hasn't come to grips with the nekoken, and Ryouga had never seen this before. Ryouga was completely unaware of the changes to the nekoken that allowed Ranma to access it this way, and Ryouga never heard anyone refer to Ran'neko before. Ryouga assumed that Ranma had found some way to enter that state without cats being present, and was worried how he was going to snap Ranma out of it before being used as a scratching post.
Meanwhile Ran'neko was walking around Kasumi looking (and sniffing) for clues. A quick trot out to the knife and back convinced Ran'neko that in spite of the insanity of it Kasumi had thrown the knife. Ran'neko also couldn't detect any trace of a spirit, or possession, or any other oddity that might have caused the placid Kasumi to throw a knife at Ryouga.
Ranma stood back up. While communication was difficult between the two minds in Ranma's head, Ranma had understood, that Kasumi had thrown the knife before she fainted. Kasumi was definitely not possessed, and there was no sign that she had been. Ranma wasn't able to frame any other questions for Ran'neko, but Ranma was aware that Ran'neko was mystified. so whatever did this was too subtle, too skilled, or too bizarre for the spirit to spot it.
Ranma turned to Ryouga. "Nothing. No trace of anything out of the ordinary. Her hand was the last to touch the knife. She's not possessed. Well, almost definitely not possessed."
"You've mastered the nekoken?" Ryouga's mind focused on the most bizarre, and to him important, fact.
Ranma answered "Naw, but I can use it better than before. There's no one I could detect, and nothing wrong I could spot. Whatever it was is probably gone, but we'd better stay on guard until Cologne gets here. Maybe the steak-knife was cursed, so don't let anyone touch it until Cologne says so, OK."
"Got it. What can you do with the nekoken?"
"I can enter it, but then I'm not in control until I come out. Also I can remember what happened. I'm trying ta master those chi claws when I'm normal, but no luck yet. Also my senses are different in that form. That's why I switched. Ta see if I could figure out what happened. But I came up with nothing, except that Kasumi's hand threw the knife."
Nabiki bursts in, carrying Cologne on her shoulder. "What's happened?"
Ranma relates "Ran'neko could find no sign of possession, or any oddity. Kasumi definitely held the knife last. No sign of spirits, or people hiding. We're stumped."
Kasumi starts to come to. Soun dives towards her, crying "My baby!" But finds his forehead blocked by Cologne's staff. Cologne tells Kasumi "Just rest for a bit. Everything is all right. What's the last thing you remember before you fainted?"
"Ryouga and Ranma had started sparring on the lawn, when all of a sudden, I felt this wave of unreasonable hatred, and threw a steak-knife at Ryouga, which he blocked of course. Then I passed out."
"Stay lying down for a few minutes more." Cologne hands Nabiki a packet. "Boil a cup of water. Add a teaspoon of cold water to cool it, and drop these herbs in. They'll help Kasumi." Nabiki goes off to follow the instructions. "Kasumi, just rest until Nabiki has made you a cup of tea, and then you can get up."
Ranma interjects "I thought the knife might have been cursed. I can't think of anything else."
Cologne nods. "Unlikely, but possible. I'll test it in a moment, but that feels wrong. Ryouga. Her actions happened when you arrived. Let me look you and your pack over to check if that was involved."
After a lengthy process of tests on Kasumi, Ryouga, the knife, and Ryouga's possessions, all of which fail to detect anything odd, Ranma follows a hunch, and enters the kitchen where Kasumi is preparing a snack. At a vague hint, Ranma relinquishes control to Ran'neko, who promptly rubs his sides against Kasumi's calves, much to Ranma's embarrassment. After receiving a scritch behind the ears, and a pat on the head, Ranma and Ran'neko try to play twenty questions to tell Ranma what Ran'neko just discovered.
Ranma outlines to Cologne, and the rest of the living room, "Ran'neko noticed something odd about Kasumi, but has no idea what it means, or how to explain it to me. He said that Kasumi is possessed, by Kasumi, and that it's been around for a long time, maybe years. Does this make sense to anyone?"
Cologne asks "Two Kasumi souls overlapping?"
Ranma and Ran'neko try to work this out internally. "No. There's Kasumi, and there's little Kasumi? That's not quite right, but that's the feeling I'm getting. One soul, plus a little something that's also Kasumi. And there's nothing evil or mean or foreign involved, just something odd that's been around forever."
Kasumi brings in a tray of tea and snacks for the assembled crowd. "I thought you might enjoy a snittle lack."
Nabiki looks at her sister, "Kasumi, are you sure you're fully recovered?"
"Bever netter! I feel furfectly pine."
Cologne mumbles "I'm going to need to get some more sensitive items from my shop."
* * *
Cologne: OK, we're dealing with a variation on the theme of possession. Most of the information we have are negatives. We know it's not an external spirit, so exorcism would be pointless. It has no malicious or selfish intent, so it won't intentionally harm Kasumi. It has been around for a long time without detection, so if it wanted to do something to Kasumi it could have been done long before this. Right now it's manifesting spoonerisms in Kasumi's speech, so it isn't too onerous. The spirit isn't a whole soul, lacking in the ability to make decisions, or have desires that might run contrary to Kasumi's best interests, and probably can't survive as a separate being away from Kasumi's main soul. The spirit is almost identical in structure to Kasumi's, and has almost definitely arisen out of Kasumi's.
Here are my best guesses as to what's going on. It could be a harmless aberration like webbed fingers. But then it wouldn't be causing the spoonerisms. It could be an aberration that causes incidental distress, like a harmless wart in an unfortunate part of the body causing inordinate distress. In this case removing it if possible is best.
It could be mindlessly parasitic. Not intending any harm for the host system, but harming it none the less by draining resources either in miniscule or substantial amounts. This one I could test for. It is definitely not draining Kasumi in any substantive way. A much longer test over a few days would be needed to guarantee that it doesn't drain anything, but if it is draining anything, it is doing it so slowly that we can treat it as one of the earlier cases
It could be symbiotic, serving some function for Kasumi, in which case removal would be hazardous without finding out the root problem. This implies that the Spoonerisms are a side effect, either of it's existence, or the root problem.
It could be some form of evolution, such as a soul becoming an angel and gaining wings, but if it is, it's unique, counterproductive, and ineffectual.
Finally it could be an aborted or incomplete attempt for a soul to undergo parthenogenesis. There is no evidence to support this. There is no evident reason why this would occur, and indicators that suggest it isn't.
Nabiki: What sort of indicators?
Cologne: Well, we know that whatever caused this is old. Months or years old. If it were the beginning of a second soul, then like a baby differing from it's parents it would look like a similar but different soul than Kasumi's. Even if it started identical to Kasumi's, and experienced similar things, there would be a drift between the two souls.
The most likely choices here are a symbiotic relationship, or an unnecessary growth like a wart or callous in an area that disrupts the smooth operation of the main soul. In both cases we'd like the extra bit to be removed, or re-absorbed into the original. Preferably re-absorbed.
However this could be disastrous if it is performing some needed function, and we don't first fix that problem. Luckily the situation is about as benign as possible. There's no emergency to solve this, so we have the time to look for the root cause, and fix it if it exists. It would be negligent to try to fix this without guaranteeing that the cure doesn't cause the main soul more distress. So we assume it's a symbiont until proven otherwise
* * *
While Cologne and Nabiki discuss the nature of the growth of the soul, Ranma was trying to understand the hints Ran'neko was able to give him leading to a fuller understanding of chi. Having determined that Kasumi wasn't in any danger, besides possible minor embarrassment, Ranma decided to take advantage of Cologne's presence and ask her.
As soon as there's an obvious break in Cologne's discussion with Nabiki, Ranma asks, "Old ghoul, why does Ran'neko think I shouldn't be using my emotions to power my chi attacks?"
"There are several reasons, actually. Nabiki, you should sit in on this one, because it will probably be of value to you too. Chi and emotions are two completely different things. While Ranma has a good idea of the uses of Chi, he likely knows next to nothing about what it is. I normally wouldn't bother giving Ranma this kind of lecture, because it would bore him to sleep, and be forgotten, but using what I'm about to suggest would allow Ranma to develop attacks and defenses against supernatural entities. Using the wrong chi attack on an incorporeal spirit could power it up, rather than rip it to shreds."
"So I gotta stay awake to learn a new attack?"
Cologne chuckles "Oh no. You have to stay awake if you ever want to defeat a ghost with something other than luck. Do the wrong thing, and you'll power up the ghost the same way the rising dragon ascension is powered on your opponent's chi. If you want to develop an attack you'll have to do still more work, but you'll fail until you learn some of this."
Cologne continues "A perfectly healthy person without chi goes into a coma, not death. Why is that? The body can run without chi, but the person needs it to survive. The body generates chi, and provides some pathways to move it about, but it could keep running indefinitely without chi. Chi is what allows the body and the spirit to interact. Without chi, the spirit or soul of a person drifts free of the body. Without chi, a spirit cannot affect the real world in any means.
"So in order to see a ghost it must have some chi. If it looses all of it's chi, it still exists, but in a form that can't do anything until it finds some more chi. It can't even be seen. If you fire a chi attack, usually you are trying to knock the spirit's chi out of the spirit. If you do this, it isn't dead, but it can't do anything either. But if it can absorb that chi, your attack can make it much more powerful."
Ranma interrupts "So how do I know what chi attacks to use?"
"It depends on your enemy. In general the rising dragon ascension is safer, as it tries to draw chi from the enemy. But none of your chi attacks are pure chi. If they were, your chi attacks would behave identically to Ryouga's. Pure chi is white or colorless. It is more versatile than your blue tinted confidence blast, and much harder to focus outside of the body. You use emotions several ways when you do your mouko takabisha.
"Powerful emotions shift chi throughout your body making it easier to create a detachable ball of concentrated chi. That's why concentrating on one emotion is so important. Different emotions pump chi into different areas, so if you don't focus on one emotion, the amount of chi available for you to extract from one point of your body will be much smaller.
"The other way that emotions are important is based on the way powerful emotions affect how the ball behaves once it leaves the body. This is why your chi attack differs from Ryouga's. You're using the same chi, but doped with different emotions.
Without powerful emotions, manipulating chi is much harder. Your confidence is like a weapon. A crutch. Loose confidence in a battler and you're much less powerful. Plus the use of chi mixed with emotions has side effects that haven't been properly studied. This is why Indian mystics insist that the cessation of emotions and desire are necessary precludes to chi manipulation. This is also why you rarely see either of us centarian martial artists firing off bolts of chi. They are forbidden to be taught in the amazon village."
Nabiki interrupts "If they're such a bad idea, why have you allowed Ryouga and Ranma to use them?"
"Because they'd use them even if I told them not to. Because they'd have to use them for a few years before they'd cause serious harm. Because teenagers don't really believe anything bad will really happen to them. And because they never asked me. Both Ranma and Ryouga are very good at learning what they want, but horrible learning what they don't care about. Ranma learned the Amaguriken so quickly, because he needed to. If I just told him to stick his fist into fire repeatedly, it'd taken him much longer.
In a year or two I'd have suggested to someone how to completely negate one of the attacks. Ryouga and Ranma would have gone into a panic learning to change their attacks, and absorb the other's, until one or the other would either have figured out or asked about emotionless chi. Once they learned those, the dangerous attacks would have been quickly abandoned and forgotten.
"So why are you telling me now?"
"You asked, and you now have a reason to want to learn the truth. You'll learn because you don't like the idea of an attack you can't do, and because you want to show your father what the nekoken could do if he hadn't tortured you ten years ago. Once you learn the neko's claws, you'll see so many better ways to use your chi than the mouko takabisha. Besides Nabiki needs to understand most of this order to understand how spirits, magic, chi, and humans interact."
"So how do I focus pure chi?"
"You can't until you have discovered what it feels like to focus chi when you are without emotions, and that means studying meditation techniques."
"Oh man. Dad's gonna flip his lid."
"Then you have to try something a little different. Meditation is supposed to be done at rest for two reasons. To help dismiss the awareness of the outside world, and to avoid restricting the flow of chi through the body. Both of those can be accomplished by you while doing a kata you know by heart. It might even be easier that way."
"The rest of this discussion is intended for Nabiki only. You can listen in if you want some more insight on opponents you might have to face in the future, but if you're bored, its your own fault."
"Spiritual possession can be accomplished in several ways, but they all revolve around some other spirit gaining a better grasp on the bodies chi and chi control than the victims spirit. This can be as simple as a wandering spirit coming by a body that had been drained of chi, and lost its spirit, to something complicated involving both magic and chi.
Ranma's is a special case where two spirits are using the same body, but neither is possessing the other. They are safe from exorcism, as both spirits were conceived and belong with that body, and therefor neither is an invading spirit to be driven out.
An exorcism that doesn't care which is the native spirit is called a soul knife, and is among the most deadly attacks on a corporeal body. It's an assassin's technique, and it's considered an abomination by all those who understand exorcisms. Even those who know how to do this want to obliterate the knowledge from others, as it is extremely effective against everything, unless it's both very powerful, and it's actively defending from it. It is the sealed technique of all sealed techniques except for those who are solely spirit. Interestingly, Hinako Ninomiya's 50 yen satsu is an intentionally flawed version of this attack, and if her attack could have been improved to remove this flaw, she'd have been killed long ago.
Now Kasumi seems to be suffering from a possession that also is native to her body, so a standard exorcism won't work. But unlike Ranma, where a skillfully wielded soul knife could theoretically dislodge one of the souls in him, the second soul in Kasumi seems to be Kasumi also.
Ran'neko has been in existence for 10 years, and could be said to be born of Ranma's soul, probably with the other cats in the pit acting as the other parent. Both of Kasumi's are exactly the same. Even if Kasumi's soul underwent some kind of parthenogenesis and split into the two souls, they should have developed differently. This implies that there is an intrinsic connection between them so that a change in one affects the other identically.
So even if an exorcism could be performed, it would do Kasumi much more harm than good. In addition there's no indication at all that this is intended to harm Kasumi in any way. It has apparently been going on for years, and is only now noticeable. My first guess was that the current behavior is a side effect of the beneficial work the second spirit had been performing.
"If that's the case, what would happen if the original need for the spirit was removed?"
"There are quite a few possibilities. The best would be it would completely merge back into Kasumi as if it never happened. If the bridge keeping them the same was broken, then the second spirit would become different over time, and we'd have a situation like with Ranma, although they'd be so similar that it might be years before they're behaving like 2 separate people, and some intervention would be needed. If the second spirit separated from the body, it'd be like Kasumi suddenly cloned, and one died. Not a true tragedy, but something I'd try to keep from happening to someone nice like Kasumi. After the second Kasumi's soul were freed, it could go to it's reward, or evolve into a different spirit or guardian angel.
"And if the original problem isn't fixed?"
"Then whatever happened that was so bad that Kasumi's soul felt it had to split, would happen."
"So it's a case of looking for the root cause, solving that, and then trying for the best possible results. Before the original problem is completely resolved, we want to prepare things so the souls could merge like the partial nekoken souls merged with those girls."
"Exactly, and though I may have more power and experience, your skills more closely mesh with the gathering of information, and the eventual integration of Kasumi. My brute force solutions, while effective, wouldn't be nearly as pleasant as one you can concoct, so it will fall to you to do the actual work."
Nabiki asks "So how should I find out what the root cause is?"
"Honestly, I haven't any idea. Of course I'll look into this, but consider this a homework assignment.
* * *
Nabiki was in her room trying to figure out how to determine for what purpose Kasumi's soul-fragment might have served, and how to determine it without years of Freudian psychoanalysis. How could you summon part of someone and ask it some questions?
Treat it like a desire to talk with Kasumi's subconscious. Well, her spoonerisms were alot like Freudian slips, but they didn't fit any pattern. She made them regardless of the conversation's subject, and with out any apparent attempt to form words that made sense.
What's really necessary is to provide a way that the subconscious could theoretically pass a message without the conscious mind getting in the way. Something seemingly random, but controlled. Something like tarot cards, but not so ambiguous.
Suddenly inspiration struck. It'd cost a trivial amount to buy the equipment, and if it worked, it would be worth a hundred times more to her. It was definitely worth a shot.
* * *
Akane returned from her morning spent with friends. "Tadaima."
Kasumi came out of the kitchen, drying her hands "Hi, Akane. Dow was your Hay?"
"Er, fine." Akane answered, "What happened now?
"Mothing, nutch. I'm spuck speaking Stoonerisms. It's wuthing to nerry about."
"Are you sure?"
"Yo, es! Nologne and Kabiki are working in aught. They say it'll be prow nobblem."
"Where's Ranma?"
"Ranma and Ryouga are darring in the spojo. With Ranma's spew need, Ryouga can't fey a linger on him. Still, Ryouga's a talking wank."
Akane blink-blinks
Kasumi continues "Rinner will be deady in about an hour. I gust met stack to my bouve. I've got two sots on pimmer!"
* * *
Meanwhile, Ryouga had actually wandered off, and Ranma was having great difficulty trying to access emotionless chi. Several times during his meditative kata, he thought he achieved it, when in reality he'd merely accessed the soul of ice. Ran'neko was able to point out that this wasn't what he needed, but was unable to express how the soul of ice differed from true emotionlessness.
Part of Ranma's problem was the skill he already had in manipulating chi, especially internally. His body tried to redirect chi the way it always had before.
Part of Ranma's problem was his introspective nature. Over the years, he had actually developed a talent for staring at a starry sky, and contemplating his life. Unfortunately having no companions but his father, meant that his contemplations inevitably revolved around the question "What should I do next?" and not "What about myself should I change?" Ranma's concentration on action and lack of peers left him without the psychological mechanisms allowing him to make changes to his own thought processes.
Ranma had a basic understanding of the ideas behind Zen Buddhism, heavily colored by his father's scorn for the passive arts. While Ranma practiced a form of "No thought" in his fighting, his acting without conscious thought was still colored by his emotions and desires. Trying to dismiss his desires and emotions seemed like trying to empty a pitcher of water, while sitting at the bottom of a lake. The more he tried, the more emotions he noticed.
Eventually he decided he was doing worse than when he started. In disgust, he abandoned his efforts, and tried to think of another method. He remembered how Cologne originally planned to teach him to use emotionless chi. Cologne thought he might stumble on it using other emotions.
In order to learn his confidence based chi attack, he had to learn Ryouga's attack, although he never had any proficiency with it. However now his goal wasn't to develop a specific attack, but to use as many different emotions, regardless of how much damage they'd do.
Since he was experimenting, he decided to try to summon a mouko takabisha while inside the soul of ice. He was somewhat surprised to find he could, even if it was much less powerful than normal. It was the same color, and behaved the same way, but less chi came to his call.
Next he tried to squeeze out a chi ball without concentrating on any particular emotion, and he succeeded in getting something that wouldn't form a proper projectile, and looked a muddy brown in color, Trying to throw it, looked like trying to throw a handful of water with your fingers spread apart. Chi didn't fly so much as it splat in his hands, having no effect on anything.
Depression, anger, sadness, happiness all produced spheres of various sizes, each a distinct single color, each of which could be thrown. Confidence was easily his strongest emotion and would remain his choice until he mastered emotionlessness, but so far he was emotionlessnessless. While he was contemplating his emotionlessnesslessness, he hit upon the idea of trying to summon a ball using two emotions simultaneously, but instead of the two colors mixing to form a third, the result could best be described as muddy. They didn't combine as light would, but interfered with each other in some odd way. It also completely lacked the cohesion necessary in order to throw it like a ball. It went splat.
Somehow clarity of emotion was necessary, but the soul of ice wasn't sufficient. Whenever he had entered the soul of ice, he found a clarity of thought, untouched by emotions. Yet he had still been able to do the mouko takabisha within the soul of ice, so the soul of ice wasn't emotionlessness, but a separation of emotion from thought. He still felt anger and confidence, but it wasn't affecting his thoughts.
So what he needed wasn't clarity of mind, or any form of mental discipline. He needed peace within his soul, something he couldn't ever remember having. Something he even had trouble picturing. Something that reminded him of Kasumi. Perhaps there was the way he should proceed; Kasumi went through the same weirdness the rest of her family did, how did she maintain her serenity?
Nabiki's calm was more like Ranma's soul of ice. Emotions separated from thought, but still existing. Soun's emotions were like a slightly frozen pond, completely hidden behind a fragile sheet, and spilling all over the place when the sheet was punctured. No, Soun's were more like a water balloon. Akane's were like a storm growing out at sea, building up force before it swept inland, destroying everything in it's wake. So how did Kasumi maintain her calm?
She just accepted everything, and her emotions were swallowed up. She obviously cared, so why didn't things affect her. How were her emotions swallowed up.
* * *
Nabiki walked into the kitchen, carrying a small paper bag. "Kasumi, when you have a moment, I'd like to try something with you."
"Nure Shabiki, uts whup?"
"I bought these refrigerator magnets with words on them. You can rearrange them to form silly sentences or haiku, and change them around whenever you feel like it. But before I put them up, I thought it might be fun to see what they'd say if you were to randomly mix them around."
Kasumi and Nabiki talked for a quarter of an hour, while Kasumi stirred the words around, never forming anything but gibberish, until Nabiki was ready to write this idea off as a waste. Eventually Ranma walked in, and asked Kasumi "I've been trying ta learn a new chi attack that isn't based on emotions, and I wondered how you managed to stay so calm while all this craziness goes on around us. How do ya do it?"
Kasumi looks startled at the question, before she smiles and says "I just do." and turns back to her cooking.
Nabiki's face develops a look of shocked horror, as she notices the words on the table. in a space in the center, where all the other words were swept away is the sentence "Help me, please"
* * *
Nabiki drags Ranma away, and snags Akane in passing in order to talk to both of them at the same time. "I think I've got the beginning of an idea about what's causing Kasumi to speak in spoonerisms, and I need to talk to you two to bounce ideas off. Cologne and I are working on the theory that her spoonerisms are a side effect of something else that's been around for years, something beneficial. So we can't safely cure Kasumi until we're sure that the cure wouldn't cause her more harm than good. Ranma's heard this all before, but you haven't." she says to Akane, "Cologne gave a long explanation that made sense to me, but my explanation sums up the part that concerns us. Are you with me so far, Akane?"
"I think so. It's like a medicine's side effect making you drowsy, but you still take it because the disease is worse."
Nabiki answers. "Exactly. So I was trying an experiment to determine what the underlying problem was, and it was failing miserably, until Ranma asked her how she remained calm with all of the insanity going on. Cologne told Ranma that he'd have to learn something close to that to learn a new chi attack, but that's not important right now. What is important, is that while she answered verbally saying 'I just do,' she subconsciously spelled out 'help me, please.'"
Nabiki continues "So I suspect that whatever is making Kasumi talk strangely is tied into maintaining her calm. She's not doing it consciously, and in a madhouse like this it couldn't be maintained accidentally. There isn't alot of evidence so far that this is accurate, but it feels right to me, and matches up with what I've seen. Does this make sense to you two?"
Ranma answers "So Kasumi's calm is not something that could be taught, but due to an oddity of her soul, like the way Hinako-sensei's chi draining abilities are a physical oddity? So why is she speaking oddly now?"
"My guess, based largely on the help message, is that the mechanism is overloaded. Either it can't keep up, or it's actually falling apart. Now, the obvious solution would be to lessen the chaos around here, but this would be disastrous. Every attempt to lessen the insanity made in the past has caused the situation to worsen. Cologne has even mentioned some reasons in the past that this might happen, so whatever you do, don't try to lessen the chaos! And don't mention this conversation to our parents! They'll just use it as an excuse to try to force you two to marry for Kasumi's sake, ignoring the dozen armed people who'd descend upon the house to stop it, and cause even more chaos for Kasumi."
Ranma asks "Are you saying that any attempt I make to simplify things is guaranteed to worsen things? All my attempts to fix the multiple fiancee mess are doomed?"
"I'm afraid so. I'm not saying the problems can't be fixed, but all direct attempts are doomed to failure. It's like Ryouga's direction sense. You might eventually get where you want to go, but if you try to make towards your goal, you'll wind up going away from it. My point is that trying the direct method in this case will do Kasumi more harm than good, and that you should keep this conversation secret, because other people will just try the direct method and cause Kasumi more problems. OK?"
Akane asks "So what should we do then?"
"I'm still working on that. What Kasumi really needs is a better or an additional method of dealing with the insanity. Unfortunately, up until recently, she's been the best in our family at coping."
Ranma interrupts "I was thinking about that before I came in to ask Kasumi. I gotta learn about emotionless chi, and I was thinking how people deal with emotions. Kasumi was the best example, and I had no idea how she does it, so I asked her."
Nabiki frowns "What about me? I don't let my emotions fly loose."
"Naw. I thought of you, but that'd never work. My first try I went into the soul of ice technique that I use for the Dragon Ascension attack. But that wasn't 'No emotion,' that was just separating emotion from thought. Instead of becoming angry, for example, I'd become ice cold furious. When I realized that, I realized it was similar to you. I've seen you get mad. You feel emotions, you just don't let it interfere with you. Kasumi, Cologne, and Tofu are the only people I've seen that just didn't get angry sometimes. With Cologne and Tofu I can chalk it up to experience, but with Kasumi it's something else."
Akane interrupts "How sure are we that Kasumi's problems are even related to this?"
Nabiki answers "Not very. It feels right, and it matches the evidence so far. My next steps are to try to devise a test to see if I'm right, and to talk to Cologne and Tofu to ask about how they think emotions can healthily be handled. If everything checks out, the next step would be to help Kasumi use the new method, and see if the spoonerisms stop. Then we can look into whether the original mechanism Kasumi is using should be retained or healed. Tofu is probably the best choice in detecting the flows of chi in Kasumi if it weren't for his problem. From what I understand, Cologne could detect it, but it might require the use of apparatus, and potions, and be rather cumbersome. So in spite of the difficulty communicating, I think our best bet would be to go with the one who detected the spiritual oddity originally, Ran'neko."
Ranma sighs. "I'll do what I can. Ran'neko likes Kasumi, of course. It's just frustrating. Ran'neko doesn't even seem to think in language. It's harder than it was communicating with people in China, and all this chi stuff is pretty abstract. Ran'neko might have been able to detect it, and I told you about it as well as I could, but you and Cologne had to do most of the work interpreting it."
Akane says "Those girls you gave a bit of the nekoken didn't seem to have any problem communicating with their nekoken."
Nabiki answers "They're in an entirely different boat. Their souls have changed, but they're still one being. The nekoken is connected with their subconscious, and no one communicates directly with their own subconscious. Ranma is one body hosting two souls, and I'm proud that they're able to communicate at all. But one of the souls isn't a human soul at all." Nabiki hmms "Ranma, when Kasumi's all right, remind me to look into ways of improving Ran'neko's comprehension. I won't promise anything at all, but there's things I should check that might help."
Akane laughs. "Two souls, two bodies, two genders, two species. Day by day, Ranma becomes more unique."
Nabiki comments "Don't let the symmetry fool you into thinking there's an easy way to split Ranma into a Male Ranma and a Female Ran'neko in order to cure his curse. I joked about it with Cologne once. Lets just say that the consequences could make Ranma's original learning the nekoken seem tame by comparison."
* * *
Over dinner, Nabiki asked, "Kasumi, have you considered trying to speak in Spoonerisms, so it'll come out sounding normal?"
"I thadent haught of that." She thinks for a moment "You mean, `lake piss?' That's got blight. It's larder that it cooks! Now I seek to be moussing up even Gore! This is incest. tisane. Insane! I think I'll go spack to boonerisms."
* * *
After Dinner, Nabiki is visited by the nekoken-enhanced girls, Miki and Naomi, who seem distraught. "We seem to be acting more and more feline. It's not bad yet, but it keeps increasing. We're worried that it might not stop."
Nabiki thinks for a bit. "I didn't expect any real change after the soul finished merging with you, except for the expected period of acclimatization. From everything I've learned, there's no chance for the soul fragment to take over, or any other kind of doomsday scenario. When we last checked, neither of you had any of the soul fragment remaining separate from the rest of your soul, so there's nothing that could take over. But this wasn't expected, so we'd better look into it to be safe. You two are rather unique, so better safe than sorry. Lets go to the Nekohanten and let Cologne look into this."
After explaining to Cologne, she runs all of the physical and magical tests she had run on the two girls earlier, plus a battery of new magical tests involving ofuda, potions, and some silvery metallic dust. After the last test, her look of concentration has turned into a broad grin. "Well, well. This is quite unexpected, but completely benign."
"What's going on?"
"Permit me to give you an analogy first, otherwise I doubt the explanation will mean much to you. When you get older, you'll have more experience with people drinking pitcher after pitcher of beer until they need to be carried home. The effects of inebriation are quite widely known, including it's lessening of the drinkers inhibitions. What's less widely known is that the extent of the effect of alcohol is partially social conditioning."
Cologne continues, "An easy experiment can be done, where after the first two pitchers of beer are served, the remaining pitchers contain either low alcohol beer or non-alcoholic beer. Many people will become more and more drunk, the more non-alcoholic beer they drink as long as they believe it's real. The beer gives them an excuse to behave in ways that they couldn't allow themselves to behave sober. Part of it is the placebo effect, but most of it is a psychological expectation. People become braver and brasher because they know that's how they behave inebriated."
"In effect that's what is happening to you two. I've searched for any signs of outside influence, and for any sign of the increase of felinoid nature within your souls. The only real changes are that you can better use the speed increase that you could only access before when you weren't thinking about it.
"You have an excuse to act more feline if you wish to, and so you do. Ultimately you have the ability to decide just how much of yourself you wish to change, but at the very core of it, are natural feelings that you would have had anyway, but have suppressed either due to unconscious fear, or societal conditioning. You have a chance to experiment, and if you find that you don't like the new felinish persona, you should have little difficulty going back to the way you were right after your souls merged."
"On the other hand, some of the restrictions you've been living under will have invariably arose from irrational fears of the unknown. Once these fears are lain to rest, there'd be no reason to go back, as you'll be happier without the self-imposed restraints. Also some of the restraints will be societally imposed, and while you'll have to retain some to avoid being seen as eccentric, some you'll want to discard regardless of what society as a whole might feel."
"For example, women in Japan are considered by many as inferior to men, and women are obliged to restrict their actions in order not to offend. Sometimes you might decide to act demurly so as to not cause trouble, but sometimes you might decide that the situation calls for actions that are considered by the Japanese as manly. In reality, the action is probably best described as humanly, and by doing what society thinks is inappropriate, you'll be acting in the only appropriate manner. Deciding when to obey, and when to discard societies restrictions, isn't easy, of course. It's the biggest lesson left when a young adult begins puberty, and lasts up to their whole life. In a very real sense, the moment someone says 'Now I know the answer, and don't have to learn anymore,' at that point the person stops growing up."
Miki asks "So, these changes are ones we could have decided on by ourselves?"
"Definitely. You might not have been ready to try them right now if it weren't for the soul fragment you've received. But they're a natural part of growing up and experimenting with what type of person you wish to be. When you get to your thirties there's another stage of development you'll have to watch out for, but right now you're in the process of trying to figure out how to go from a child that obeyed its superiors more or less implicitly, to an adult who knows when rules can be broken and when they must be obeyed."
Nabiki asks "What happens at thirty?"
Cologne laughs "That's when you realized that the view of the world you've formed as a new adult is inherently flawed, and that any direction you picked back then is a mistake if you continue it without revision. But whatever you do now, don't worry about being thirty. Just because every path is flawed, doesn't mean you wont be happier if you don't pick one." Cologne turns to Miki and Naomi "You two are free to act as felinoid as you want to be, and free to stop at any time and back up if you've gone too far. In a very real sense that's why society provides this six year period of experimentation before you have to support yourself as an adult. It isn't because children need the education, it's because they need the socialization and the safety net that the family is supposed to provide."
After Naomi and Miki thank Nabiki and Cologne, and leave, Nabiki fills Cologne in on developments with Kasumi, and Nabiki's conversation with Ranma and Akane. Cologne thinks about it, and responds "Good working theory. Even if it turns out to be wrong, it can't harm Kasumi to try it. I've methods I'd use to test your hypothesis, but all of them would require testing in contrived situations. If Ran'neko can communicate its findings, it is your best bet in testing the hypothesis in Kasumi's natural surroundings. Oh, and tell Ranma that talking to Tofu about being calm might help, but if he were to ask me such a general question I'd give him the same advice about meditating that I'd already given him. Don't tell Ranma I said so, but asking Kasumi, even if it hadn't help him, was clever.
* * *
by Neil Reynolds
Chapter 3: The Life Cycle Of The Soul
Nabiki: So now that we've pulled off my first major spell, what's next on the syllabus
Cologne: I think it's time that we lay the groundwork in removing your biggest blind-spot with regard to magic.
Nabiki: A blind spot? Just laying the groundwork for removing it?
Cologne: Quite so. The actual removal is a time-consuming process, on the order of months or years. Shortcuts exist, but none of them are appropriate at this point, so we'll do this the old fashioned way.
Nabiki: Am I going to have to dance naked on a mountain-top?
Cologne: No, that's training for the esoteric martial arts move
"Bald Knight on Moussorgsky Mountain." We've talked of magic, but so far, you've only perceived it's effects, which limits things in alot of ways. You're at the stage where you can see that a magnet attracts iron, but have no perception that this is caused by electricity. Eventually you might propose an experiment with electricity that causes a spark to jump, and then you might be able to perceive the effect of magic moving through air, but that would still only be seeing the effect that electricity had as it oxidizes the air. Electricity would still be invisible to you.
Similarly, all you can perceive is the result of spells, you lack any perception of the underlying process, even if you have an understanding of it.
Nabiki: So how do I gain a perception of magic?
Cologne: There are several methods, all of which can be combined. In the long run, you'll develop senses for magic similarly to the way an infant develops the neurological pathways for your other senses. Being older than three means that the fluidity of your brain has slowed significantly, so this will take a long time.
Granted it is possible to restore such malliability through the use of powerful drugs, strong voltages across the frontal lobes, and a variety of other severe methods, but their benefit is far outweighed by the detrimental side effects, such as imbecilety.
There are exercises of mind-numbing boredom that I'll give you that should help, but first we're going to discuss both the nature of perception, and phenomenology as it applies to a world containing magic. First we'll cover perception using the analogy of electromagnetism. Can you sum up what you know about electromagnetism?
Nabiki: Just the standard highschool science material. You can make an electromagnet by wrapping wire around a nail. Light is electromagnetic waves. Electricity is the flow of electrons. Lightning, static electricity, batteries. That about covers it.
Cologne: Very well. It has long been known that electricity and magnetism were related. Your electromagnet, and lightning strikes on iron making permanent magnets were proof of that. Einstein's theory of relativity provided an explanation showing that magnetism was merely the secondary effects of electricity with respect to relativity.
Magnetism has long been easier to perceive, and has been of practical value for hundreds of years, if not thousands. Anyone can construct a device to test for the existence of a magnetic field, and with a little ingenuity, even measure it's strength and direction. An iron pin held by string, or iron filings will detect a localized field, or to be more technically accurate a field gradient, while a magnetized pin will point north giving a field's direction. Attach springs and you can get a measure of the forces involved. Some animals are even thought to have sufficient sensory apparatus as to always know where north is.
Useful as such magnetometers are, they tell you very little about electricity. Or rather they tell you alot, provided you're interested only in electricity traveling more or less in a circle, more or less continuously. Electricity itself remained unperceived until about two hundred years ago unless it was either static electricity, or rather huge amounts of the stuff being forced through the air making glowing pathways of hot ionized air that glowed impressively and destroyed trees.
Now we can build devices to measure electrical effects and potentials in a variety of methods. the human body is more than capable of detecting electricity, as anyone with metal fillings can attest. However it is still impossible for the human body to perceive a single electron.
A single electron does, however have the ability to theoretically affect every other electron in the universe. if it oscillates rapidly, the effect flows out as light, which is easily perceived so long as it's a wavelength we're interested in. This is of no use in seeing the electron itself, but it's effect is so pervasive that it wasn't until historically recently that we associated the two. The connection between light and electricity was actually the impetus that lead Einstein's immediate predecessors to throw out the strictly Newtonian view of the universe, allowing Einstein to propose his solution.
Nabiki: And this applies to magic how?
Cologne: When magic does something dramatic, everyone can see the effects, and anyone can make some kind of meter to detect the effects, much like magnetism. Through effort one can make a variety of thaummeters to measure the properties of magic in an area, like voltmeters and ammeters do, and if the magic is strong enough, one can detect magic used on yourself much like you'd feel a spark, even if the magic has no noticeable effect. The hardest to manage is magic sight at a distance, as humans don't have appropriate eyes for this.
One can develop a proto eye, much like the early animals did, which can detect the equivalent of light and dark, and colors. One can also use the equivalent of a pinhole lens to bring some focus. One can also construct something to act as a lens. However giving you a lens would be worthless, as you don't have the neural pathways to turn such an image into a picture of reality. it takes an infant with working eyes months before the light that hits it gets turned into an intellegable picture.
Nabiki: So I have to work at seeing color and light, and then later work on seeing where it comes from, and what it looks like?
Cologne: Yes, but still that's only part of it. There are different types of active and passive perceptions that can be used, each with it's own advantages and disadvantages. Passive scans are the easiest, safest, and least informative.
Nabiki: What's the distinction between passive and active?
Cologne: A passive scan could be looking around a room. You're relying on the object itself glowing or reflecting or blocking light from some other outside source. If this works, great. But it fails completely if it is too dark, or it's transparent to the light, or if it's obscured by the light as stars are during the day, or if it's the same color as the background, or a hundred other reasons.
An active scan is where you provide whatever is being used as light. Looking using a flashlight, or echolocation, or radar are all active. You send out something and look what comes back. You have much better control as you control the illumination. Something has to work much harder to avoid an active scan, but an active scan announces your presence, even to passive scans. A person has to be blind not to see someone with a flashlight in a dark room, and missiles can track radar right back to it's source. Any time you actually probe something it is an active scan. If you merely make yourself available to outside impressions, it is passive. Which brings us to phenomenology, and Hindu Buddhism.
Nabiki: Before we go there, what kind of passive and active scans are applicable to magic?
Cologne: Well, any type of passive scan yields several active scans, such as hearing leads to echolocation and explosive seismography. Passive scans in magic usually relate to types of magic, in broad terms. Detection of spiritual energies, elemental energies, raw power, chaos, intent, even desire to bend the future towards a specified goal.
* * *
It was a quiet weekend early afternoon. Ranma was working on a new technique while sitting on a rock surrounding the koi pool. The technique seemed to involve lights or chi flashing between his hands. Genma was playing go with Soun, and sipping Tea, while Kasumi was tidying up the family area. Akane and Nabiki were absent. This was one of the few moments of calm in the frantic life of Ranma.
His father was leaving him alone since his son was so obviously working on a chi technique, and was therefor not goofing off, so he felt he deserved a break from pushing Ranma to fight better. In Genma's mind, it was an odious task to ambush and berate his son. Only the lowest kind of filth would actually do that for enjoyment. But as it was the way to drive his son, he was willing to do it for Ranma's sake. In this way, rationalization allowed hypocrisy to engage in cruelty. The truely amazing thing was that all this could happen within the mind of one of the dumbest men on the planet.
Ranma wasn't actually working on this alone. Ran'neko was alternately trying to explain a concept for which both parties lacked the words. Ranma and Ran'neko didn't even have a vocabulary that they shared as such. It was a discussion involving imagined images, and feelings, and a prolonged game of 'hot and cold'.
Originally Ranma was trying to recreate the claws Ran'neko used, but it soon became obvious that this was a problem beyond their ability to communicate. Cologne's advice on the matter prompted another approach, Ranma was now working on cylinders. Ranma figured that if he could make a staff or a shield, he could work on sharpening the sides or the point later. Bladed weapons were harder to build, and harder to discuss with Ran'neko since they were something that Ran'neko saw no need for, but a shield, or just a cylinder in general could be useful, even if Ran'neko had no idea why at the moment.
This had an additional unexpected benefit when it was discovered that Ran'neko had no idea how to make a cylinder. It's claws were trivial to create, and it could make things based on a single claw-nail, but that was all done without conscious thought. Actually constructing a new shape was a bizarre concept to Ran'neko. However during Ran'neko's experiments in the easier task of making a cylinder, Ranma was beginning to see the method behind the technique.
This process was further hampered because Ran'neko had little to no attention span to speak of, and little interest in martial arts as Ranma did it. Ran'neko would play with the problem a little while, and then get bored. Ranma could squash a ball of chi between his hands now, making it look ovoid from the side, but this was of no use to him. It did prove that he theoretically could learn this technique, but it was a long way from useful.
Ranma was now trying to draw a chi ball into a long thin oval, approaching his staff idea, although Ran'neko had indicated that he was missing something basic that couldn't be explained. Ranma had gotten the idea that he was learning a step he'd need in order to make the staff, but he'd skipped some steps that would be needed to actually succeed. The two of them agreed that he had to learn this step eventually, so why not now.
Ranma seemed able to do it, but Ran'neko didn't think it was good enough, because he was adding and removing chi as he did it. Ran'neko insisted that the elongation step would need to be independent of the flow of chi between it and Ranma. Because they lacked a common tongue, this explanation of Ran'neko took about 10 minutes to get across.
So Ranma found himself apparently focusing on two chi tasks simultaneously. One task was maintaining a chi ball with a constant volume, and the other was to elongate it. Like a three year old trying to learn to pat his head and rub his belly at the same time, Ranma was slowly learning to split his mind in using chi, and was creating autonomic systems to do these tasks. This meant repetition, and exercise, even for an accomplished martial artist like Ranma. He knew what he wanted his body to do, now he had to practice it.
While Ranma was doing this, he was also communicating with Ran'neko, who found the exercise boring, and decided his next exercise would be making a small ball of chi, and making it move as he wished in front of him. Ranma was secretly hoping to expand this to a chi attack that'd go around corners, or follow a dodging target. If he knew how much harder his wishes would be compared to just moving the ball, he might have given up that idea, or at least gotten to it later.
Ran'neko was frustrated that it couldn't convey to Ranma why Ranma shouldn't be using emotions to power his attacks, but at least it got the idea to Ranma that he'd be unable to do any of the more difficult things until he stopped using confidence to fuel his chi. Ranma resolved to try to get Cologne's insight on this problem.
Just then, their concentration was interrupted by the cliche of Ryouga attacking for no reason. "Ranma Saotome, prepare to die." Ranma back-pedals away from the koi pond, and was trying to decide if he should let Ran'neko play with Ryouga, or if he should allow Ryouga to fight him instead.
On the one hand, Ran'neko was clearly bored, and would enjoy batting Ryouga around the dojo. Also Ryouga hadn't given even a passable reason why Ranma should allow Ryouga the fight Ryouga wanted.
On the other hand, Ryouga might have a decent reason for the attack, and therefor deserved to fight Ranma, and not be shunted off as an annoyance. Ranma was willing to admit to himself that Ryouga did occasionally have a valid reason to attack, although to Ranma's thinking those times were very rare.
Ran'neko couldn't understand Ranma's thoughts and reasons surrounding honor. But it did realize that Ranma knew it wanted to play, and that Ranma would let Ran'neko play, if Ranma decided it wasn't unfair to Ryouga. Ran'neko had some difficulty with the concept of fairness, goodness, and honor, because it lacked any referents. These concepts, like language were human things that it could barely grasp. Ran'neko was more than willing to put up with this human foible, because it realized that Ranma wasn't holding it back due to a selfish desire, but because of a need that Ran'neko couldn't understand, and truely didn't want to understand.
Ran'neko was probably the only being in existence that thought Ranma would be better at dealing with social graces and human interaction than it would be. While Ranma was unintentionally taunting Ryouga, and intentionally trying to find out what made Ryouga so mad this time, Ryouga moved his umbrella to automatically block the knife that was thrown at him.
Ryouga and Ranma separate as they and the observers realize that something odd just happened. While fighting Ranma, a martial artist that fastidiously avoids weapons, Ryouga blocked a thrown knife. A thrown kitchen knife, that hit Ryouga's umbrella hilt first, and therefor wouldn't have bothered Ryouga if it had hit him squarely between the eyes. Who could have thrown it? There was no one in that direction, but Kasumi, falling to the ground in a faint.
There are two seconds of stunned silence, before people spring into action. Ranma and Ryouga honestly forget they are fighting, as they spring to help Kasumi. Soun would have been more help if he either stopped wailing or got out of the boy's way. Ranma turns to Ryouga, and barks "Ryouga guard her in case this is some sort of enemy attack, I'll call for backup." Ryouga nods, and looks after Kasumi, who seems to be in fine shape, except for her fainting spell.
Neither Ranma nor Ryouga realized that it was pure chance Ranma was nearest the phone. Otherwise in the heat of the moment he'd have sent Ryouga off for help, while he guarded. Because a mysterious incompetent knife thrower was somehow combined with a fainting spell, and therefor not a simple medical situation in Ranma's mind, Ranma called Cologne, and outlined the weird event, and asked for her help. Cologne and Nabiki race back to the dojo, after trying to convince themselves and Ranma that Kasumi isn't in immediate danger.
Ranma races back to the engawa, to find Ryouga alert, and Soun blubbering. "Cologne's on her way. Any sign of anyone else around?"
"No one."
"I'm gonna try something. You stand guard, and ignore me, OK?"
"Right."
Ranma releases control to Ran'neko, and scares Soun Tendo witless. Soun hasn't come to grips with the nekoken, and Ryouga had never seen this before. Ryouga was completely unaware of the changes to the nekoken that allowed Ranma to access it this way, and Ryouga never heard anyone refer to Ran'neko before. Ryouga assumed that Ranma had found some way to enter that state without cats being present, and was worried how he was going to snap Ranma out of it before being used as a scratching post.
Meanwhile Ran'neko was walking around Kasumi looking (and sniffing) for clues. A quick trot out to the knife and back convinced Ran'neko that in spite of the insanity of it Kasumi had thrown the knife. Ran'neko also couldn't detect any trace of a spirit, or possession, or any other oddity that might have caused the placid Kasumi to throw a knife at Ryouga.
Ranma stood back up. While communication was difficult between the two minds in Ranma's head, Ranma had understood, that Kasumi had thrown the knife before she fainted. Kasumi was definitely not possessed, and there was no sign that she had been. Ranma wasn't able to frame any other questions for Ran'neko, but Ranma was aware that Ran'neko was mystified. so whatever did this was too subtle, too skilled, or too bizarre for the spirit to spot it.
Ranma turned to Ryouga. "Nothing. No trace of anything out of the ordinary. Her hand was the last to touch the knife. She's not possessed. Well, almost definitely not possessed."
"You've mastered the nekoken?" Ryouga's mind focused on the most bizarre, and to him important, fact.
Ranma answered "Naw, but I can use it better than before. There's no one I could detect, and nothing wrong I could spot. Whatever it was is probably gone, but we'd better stay on guard until Cologne gets here. Maybe the steak-knife was cursed, so don't let anyone touch it until Cologne says so, OK."
"Got it. What can you do with the nekoken?"
"I can enter it, but then I'm not in control until I come out. Also I can remember what happened. I'm trying ta master those chi claws when I'm normal, but no luck yet. Also my senses are different in that form. That's why I switched. Ta see if I could figure out what happened. But I came up with nothing, except that Kasumi's hand threw the knife."
Nabiki bursts in, carrying Cologne on her shoulder. "What's happened?"
Ranma relates "Ran'neko could find no sign of possession, or any oddity. Kasumi definitely held the knife last. No sign of spirits, or people hiding. We're stumped."
Kasumi starts to come to. Soun dives towards her, crying "My baby!" But finds his forehead blocked by Cologne's staff. Cologne tells Kasumi "Just rest for a bit. Everything is all right. What's the last thing you remember before you fainted?"
"Ryouga and Ranma had started sparring on the lawn, when all of a sudden, I felt this wave of unreasonable hatred, and threw a steak-knife at Ryouga, which he blocked of course. Then I passed out."
"Stay lying down for a few minutes more." Cologne hands Nabiki a packet. "Boil a cup of water. Add a teaspoon of cold water to cool it, and drop these herbs in. They'll help Kasumi." Nabiki goes off to follow the instructions. "Kasumi, just rest until Nabiki has made you a cup of tea, and then you can get up."
Ranma interjects "I thought the knife might have been cursed. I can't think of anything else."
Cologne nods. "Unlikely, but possible. I'll test it in a moment, but that feels wrong. Ryouga. Her actions happened when you arrived. Let me look you and your pack over to check if that was involved."
After a lengthy process of tests on Kasumi, Ryouga, the knife, and Ryouga's possessions, all of which fail to detect anything odd, Ranma follows a hunch, and enters the kitchen where Kasumi is preparing a snack. At a vague hint, Ranma relinquishes control to Ran'neko, who promptly rubs his sides against Kasumi's calves, much to Ranma's embarrassment. After receiving a scritch behind the ears, and a pat on the head, Ranma and Ran'neko try to play twenty questions to tell Ranma what Ran'neko just discovered.
Ranma outlines to Cologne, and the rest of the living room, "Ran'neko noticed something odd about Kasumi, but has no idea what it means, or how to explain it to me. He said that Kasumi is possessed, by Kasumi, and that it's been around for a long time, maybe years. Does this make sense to anyone?"
Cologne asks "Two Kasumi souls overlapping?"
Ranma and Ran'neko try to work this out internally. "No. There's Kasumi, and there's little Kasumi? That's not quite right, but that's the feeling I'm getting. One soul, plus a little something that's also Kasumi. And there's nothing evil or mean or foreign involved, just something odd that's been around forever."
Kasumi brings in a tray of tea and snacks for the assembled crowd. "I thought you might enjoy a snittle lack."
Nabiki looks at her sister, "Kasumi, are you sure you're fully recovered?"
"Bever netter! I feel furfectly pine."
Cologne mumbles "I'm going to need to get some more sensitive items from my shop."
* * *
Cologne: OK, we're dealing with a variation on the theme of possession. Most of the information we have are negatives. We know it's not an external spirit, so exorcism would be pointless. It has no malicious or selfish intent, so it won't intentionally harm Kasumi. It has been around for a long time without detection, so if it wanted to do something to Kasumi it could have been done long before this. Right now it's manifesting spoonerisms in Kasumi's speech, so it isn't too onerous. The spirit isn't a whole soul, lacking in the ability to make decisions, or have desires that might run contrary to Kasumi's best interests, and probably can't survive as a separate being away from Kasumi's main soul. The spirit is almost identical in structure to Kasumi's, and has almost definitely arisen out of Kasumi's.
Here are my best guesses as to what's going on. It could be a harmless aberration like webbed fingers. But then it wouldn't be causing the spoonerisms. It could be an aberration that causes incidental distress, like a harmless wart in an unfortunate part of the body causing inordinate distress. In this case removing it if possible is best.
It could be mindlessly parasitic. Not intending any harm for the host system, but harming it none the less by draining resources either in miniscule or substantial amounts. This one I could test for. It is definitely not draining Kasumi in any substantive way. A much longer test over a few days would be needed to guarantee that it doesn't drain anything, but if it is draining anything, it is doing it so slowly that we can treat it as one of the earlier cases
It could be symbiotic, serving some function for Kasumi, in which case removal would be hazardous without finding out the root problem. This implies that the Spoonerisms are a side effect, either of it's existence, or the root problem.
It could be some form of evolution, such as a soul becoming an angel and gaining wings, but if it is, it's unique, counterproductive, and ineffectual.
Finally it could be an aborted or incomplete attempt for a soul to undergo parthenogenesis. There is no evidence to support this. There is no evident reason why this would occur, and indicators that suggest it isn't.
Nabiki: What sort of indicators?
Cologne: Well, we know that whatever caused this is old. Months or years old. If it were the beginning of a second soul, then like a baby differing from it's parents it would look like a similar but different soul than Kasumi's. Even if it started identical to Kasumi's, and experienced similar things, there would be a drift between the two souls.
The most likely choices here are a symbiotic relationship, or an unnecessary growth like a wart or callous in an area that disrupts the smooth operation of the main soul. In both cases we'd like the extra bit to be removed, or re-absorbed into the original. Preferably re-absorbed.
However this could be disastrous if it is performing some needed function, and we don't first fix that problem. Luckily the situation is about as benign as possible. There's no emergency to solve this, so we have the time to look for the root cause, and fix it if it exists. It would be negligent to try to fix this without guaranteeing that the cure doesn't cause the main soul more distress. So we assume it's a symbiont until proven otherwise
* * *
While Cologne and Nabiki discuss the nature of the growth of the soul, Ranma was trying to understand the hints Ran'neko was able to give him leading to a fuller understanding of chi. Having determined that Kasumi wasn't in any danger, besides possible minor embarrassment, Ranma decided to take advantage of Cologne's presence and ask her.
As soon as there's an obvious break in Cologne's discussion with Nabiki, Ranma asks, "Old ghoul, why does Ran'neko think I shouldn't be using my emotions to power my chi attacks?"
"There are several reasons, actually. Nabiki, you should sit in on this one, because it will probably be of value to you too. Chi and emotions are two completely different things. While Ranma has a good idea of the uses of Chi, he likely knows next to nothing about what it is. I normally wouldn't bother giving Ranma this kind of lecture, because it would bore him to sleep, and be forgotten, but using what I'm about to suggest would allow Ranma to develop attacks and defenses against supernatural entities. Using the wrong chi attack on an incorporeal spirit could power it up, rather than rip it to shreds."
"So I gotta stay awake to learn a new attack?"
Cologne chuckles "Oh no. You have to stay awake if you ever want to defeat a ghost with something other than luck. Do the wrong thing, and you'll power up the ghost the same way the rising dragon ascension is powered on your opponent's chi. If you want to develop an attack you'll have to do still more work, but you'll fail until you learn some of this."
Cologne continues "A perfectly healthy person without chi goes into a coma, not death. Why is that? The body can run without chi, but the person needs it to survive. The body generates chi, and provides some pathways to move it about, but it could keep running indefinitely without chi. Chi is what allows the body and the spirit to interact. Without chi, the spirit or soul of a person drifts free of the body. Without chi, a spirit cannot affect the real world in any means.
"So in order to see a ghost it must have some chi. If it looses all of it's chi, it still exists, but in a form that can't do anything until it finds some more chi. It can't even be seen. If you fire a chi attack, usually you are trying to knock the spirit's chi out of the spirit. If you do this, it isn't dead, but it can't do anything either. But if it can absorb that chi, your attack can make it much more powerful."
Ranma interrupts "So how do I know what chi attacks to use?"
"It depends on your enemy. In general the rising dragon ascension is safer, as it tries to draw chi from the enemy. But none of your chi attacks are pure chi. If they were, your chi attacks would behave identically to Ryouga's. Pure chi is white or colorless. It is more versatile than your blue tinted confidence blast, and much harder to focus outside of the body. You use emotions several ways when you do your mouko takabisha.
"Powerful emotions shift chi throughout your body making it easier to create a detachable ball of concentrated chi. That's why concentrating on one emotion is so important. Different emotions pump chi into different areas, so if you don't focus on one emotion, the amount of chi available for you to extract from one point of your body will be much smaller.
"The other way that emotions are important is based on the way powerful emotions affect how the ball behaves once it leaves the body. This is why your chi attack differs from Ryouga's. You're using the same chi, but doped with different emotions.
Without powerful emotions, manipulating chi is much harder. Your confidence is like a weapon. A crutch. Loose confidence in a battler and you're much less powerful. Plus the use of chi mixed with emotions has side effects that haven't been properly studied. This is why Indian mystics insist that the cessation of emotions and desire are necessary precludes to chi manipulation. This is also why you rarely see either of us centarian martial artists firing off bolts of chi. They are forbidden to be taught in the amazon village."
Nabiki interrupts "If they're such a bad idea, why have you allowed Ryouga and Ranma to use them?"
"Because they'd use them even if I told them not to. Because they'd have to use them for a few years before they'd cause serious harm. Because teenagers don't really believe anything bad will really happen to them. And because they never asked me. Both Ranma and Ryouga are very good at learning what they want, but horrible learning what they don't care about. Ranma learned the Amaguriken so quickly, because he needed to. If I just told him to stick his fist into fire repeatedly, it'd taken him much longer.
In a year or two I'd have suggested to someone how to completely negate one of the attacks. Ryouga and Ranma would have gone into a panic learning to change their attacks, and absorb the other's, until one or the other would either have figured out or asked about emotionless chi. Once they learned those, the dangerous attacks would have been quickly abandoned and forgotten.
"So why are you telling me now?"
"You asked, and you now have a reason to want to learn the truth. You'll learn because you don't like the idea of an attack you can't do, and because you want to show your father what the nekoken could do if he hadn't tortured you ten years ago. Once you learn the neko's claws, you'll see so many better ways to use your chi than the mouko takabisha. Besides Nabiki needs to understand most of this order to understand how spirits, magic, chi, and humans interact."
"So how do I focus pure chi?"
"You can't until you have discovered what it feels like to focus chi when you are without emotions, and that means studying meditation techniques."
"Oh man. Dad's gonna flip his lid."
"Then you have to try something a little different. Meditation is supposed to be done at rest for two reasons. To help dismiss the awareness of the outside world, and to avoid restricting the flow of chi through the body. Both of those can be accomplished by you while doing a kata you know by heart. It might even be easier that way."
"The rest of this discussion is intended for Nabiki only. You can listen in if you want some more insight on opponents you might have to face in the future, but if you're bored, its your own fault."
"Spiritual possession can be accomplished in several ways, but they all revolve around some other spirit gaining a better grasp on the bodies chi and chi control than the victims spirit. This can be as simple as a wandering spirit coming by a body that had been drained of chi, and lost its spirit, to something complicated involving both magic and chi.
Ranma's is a special case where two spirits are using the same body, but neither is possessing the other. They are safe from exorcism, as both spirits were conceived and belong with that body, and therefor neither is an invading spirit to be driven out.
An exorcism that doesn't care which is the native spirit is called a soul knife, and is among the most deadly attacks on a corporeal body. It's an assassin's technique, and it's considered an abomination by all those who understand exorcisms. Even those who know how to do this want to obliterate the knowledge from others, as it is extremely effective against everything, unless it's both very powerful, and it's actively defending from it. It is the sealed technique of all sealed techniques except for those who are solely spirit. Interestingly, Hinako Ninomiya's 50 yen satsu is an intentionally flawed version of this attack, and if her attack could have been improved to remove this flaw, she'd have been killed long ago.
Now Kasumi seems to be suffering from a possession that also is native to her body, so a standard exorcism won't work. But unlike Ranma, where a skillfully wielded soul knife could theoretically dislodge one of the souls in him, the second soul in Kasumi seems to be Kasumi also.
Ran'neko has been in existence for 10 years, and could be said to be born of Ranma's soul, probably with the other cats in the pit acting as the other parent. Both of Kasumi's are exactly the same. Even if Kasumi's soul underwent some kind of parthenogenesis and split into the two souls, they should have developed differently. This implies that there is an intrinsic connection between them so that a change in one affects the other identically.
So even if an exorcism could be performed, it would do Kasumi much more harm than good. In addition there's no indication at all that this is intended to harm Kasumi in any way. It has apparently been going on for years, and is only now noticeable. My first guess was that the current behavior is a side effect of the beneficial work the second spirit had been performing.
"If that's the case, what would happen if the original need for the spirit was removed?"
"There are quite a few possibilities. The best would be it would completely merge back into Kasumi as if it never happened. If the bridge keeping them the same was broken, then the second spirit would become different over time, and we'd have a situation like with Ranma, although they'd be so similar that it might be years before they're behaving like 2 separate people, and some intervention would be needed. If the second spirit separated from the body, it'd be like Kasumi suddenly cloned, and one died. Not a true tragedy, but something I'd try to keep from happening to someone nice like Kasumi. After the second Kasumi's soul were freed, it could go to it's reward, or evolve into a different spirit or guardian angel.
"And if the original problem isn't fixed?"
"Then whatever happened that was so bad that Kasumi's soul felt it had to split, would happen."
"So it's a case of looking for the root cause, solving that, and then trying for the best possible results. Before the original problem is completely resolved, we want to prepare things so the souls could merge like the partial nekoken souls merged with those girls."
"Exactly, and though I may have more power and experience, your skills more closely mesh with the gathering of information, and the eventual integration of Kasumi. My brute force solutions, while effective, wouldn't be nearly as pleasant as one you can concoct, so it will fall to you to do the actual work."
Nabiki asks "So how should I find out what the root cause is?"
"Honestly, I haven't any idea. Of course I'll look into this, but consider this a homework assignment.
* * *
Nabiki was in her room trying to figure out how to determine for what purpose Kasumi's soul-fragment might have served, and how to determine it without years of Freudian psychoanalysis. How could you summon part of someone and ask it some questions?
Treat it like a desire to talk with Kasumi's subconscious. Well, her spoonerisms were alot like Freudian slips, but they didn't fit any pattern. She made them regardless of the conversation's subject, and with out any apparent attempt to form words that made sense.
What's really necessary is to provide a way that the subconscious could theoretically pass a message without the conscious mind getting in the way. Something seemingly random, but controlled. Something like tarot cards, but not so ambiguous.
Suddenly inspiration struck. It'd cost a trivial amount to buy the equipment, and if it worked, it would be worth a hundred times more to her. It was definitely worth a shot.
* * *
Akane returned from her morning spent with friends. "Tadaima."
Kasumi came out of the kitchen, drying her hands "Hi, Akane. Dow was your Hay?"
"Er, fine." Akane answered, "What happened now?
"Mothing, nutch. I'm spuck speaking Stoonerisms. It's wuthing to nerry about."
"Are you sure?"
"Yo, es! Nologne and Kabiki are working in aught. They say it'll be prow nobblem."
"Where's Ranma?"
"Ranma and Ryouga are darring in the spojo. With Ranma's spew need, Ryouga can't fey a linger on him. Still, Ryouga's a talking wank."
Akane blink-blinks
Kasumi continues "Rinner will be deady in about an hour. I gust met stack to my bouve. I've got two sots on pimmer!"
* * *
Meanwhile, Ryouga had actually wandered off, and Ranma was having great difficulty trying to access emotionless chi. Several times during his meditative kata, he thought he achieved it, when in reality he'd merely accessed the soul of ice. Ran'neko was able to point out that this wasn't what he needed, but was unable to express how the soul of ice differed from true emotionlessness.
Part of Ranma's problem was the skill he already had in manipulating chi, especially internally. His body tried to redirect chi the way it always had before.
Part of Ranma's problem was his introspective nature. Over the years, he had actually developed a talent for staring at a starry sky, and contemplating his life. Unfortunately having no companions but his father, meant that his contemplations inevitably revolved around the question "What should I do next?" and not "What about myself should I change?" Ranma's concentration on action and lack of peers left him without the psychological mechanisms allowing him to make changes to his own thought processes.
Ranma had a basic understanding of the ideas behind Zen Buddhism, heavily colored by his father's scorn for the passive arts. While Ranma practiced a form of "No thought" in his fighting, his acting without conscious thought was still colored by his emotions and desires. Trying to dismiss his desires and emotions seemed like trying to empty a pitcher of water, while sitting at the bottom of a lake. The more he tried, the more emotions he noticed.
Eventually he decided he was doing worse than when he started. In disgust, he abandoned his efforts, and tried to think of another method. He remembered how Cologne originally planned to teach him to use emotionless chi. Cologne thought he might stumble on it using other emotions.
In order to learn his confidence based chi attack, he had to learn Ryouga's attack, although he never had any proficiency with it. However now his goal wasn't to develop a specific attack, but to use as many different emotions, regardless of how much damage they'd do.
Since he was experimenting, he decided to try to summon a mouko takabisha while inside the soul of ice. He was somewhat surprised to find he could, even if it was much less powerful than normal. It was the same color, and behaved the same way, but less chi came to his call.
Next he tried to squeeze out a chi ball without concentrating on any particular emotion, and he succeeded in getting something that wouldn't form a proper projectile, and looked a muddy brown in color, Trying to throw it, looked like trying to throw a handful of water with your fingers spread apart. Chi didn't fly so much as it splat in his hands, having no effect on anything.
Depression, anger, sadness, happiness all produced spheres of various sizes, each a distinct single color, each of which could be thrown. Confidence was easily his strongest emotion and would remain his choice until he mastered emotionlessness, but so far he was emotionlessnessless. While he was contemplating his emotionlessnesslessness, he hit upon the idea of trying to summon a ball using two emotions simultaneously, but instead of the two colors mixing to form a third, the result could best be described as muddy. They didn't combine as light would, but interfered with each other in some odd way. It also completely lacked the cohesion necessary in order to throw it like a ball. It went splat.
Somehow clarity of emotion was necessary, but the soul of ice wasn't sufficient. Whenever he had entered the soul of ice, he found a clarity of thought, untouched by emotions. Yet he had still been able to do the mouko takabisha within the soul of ice, so the soul of ice wasn't emotionlessness, but a separation of emotion from thought. He still felt anger and confidence, but it wasn't affecting his thoughts.
So what he needed wasn't clarity of mind, or any form of mental discipline. He needed peace within his soul, something he couldn't ever remember having. Something he even had trouble picturing. Something that reminded him of Kasumi. Perhaps there was the way he should proceed; Kasumi went through the same weirdness the rest of her family did, how did she maintain her serenity?
Nabiki's calm was more like Ranma's soul of ice. Emotions separated from thought, but still existing. Soun's emotions were like a slightly frozen pond, completely hidden behind a fragile sheet, and spilling all over the place when the sheet was punctured. No, Soun's were more like a water balloon. Akane's were like a storm growing out at sea, building up force before it swept inland, destroying everything in it's wake. So how did Kasumi maintain her calm?
She just accepted everything, and her emotions were swallowed up. She obviously cared, so why didn't things affect her. How were her emotions swallowed up.
* * *
Nabiki walked into the kitchen, carrying a small paper bag. "Kasumi, when you have a moment, I'd like to try something with you."
"Nure Shabiki, uts whup?"
"I bought these refrigerator magnets with words on them. You can rearrange them to form silly sentences or haiku, and change them around whenever you feel like it. But before I put them up, I thought it might be fun to see what they'd say if you were to randomly mix them around."
Kasumi and Nabiki talked for a quarter of an hour, while Kasumi stirred the words around, never forming anything but gibberish, until Nabiki was ready to write this idea off as a waste. Eventually Ranma walked in, and asked Kasumi "I've been trying ta learn a new chi attack that isn't based on emotions, and I wondered how you managed to stay so calm while all this craziness goes on around us. How do ya do it?"
Kasumi looks startled at the question, before she smiles and says "I just do." and turns back to her cooking.
Nabiki's face develops a look of shocked horror, as she notices the words on the table. in a space in the center, where all the other words were swept away is the sentence "Help me, please"
* * *
Nabiki drags Ranma away, and snags Akane in passing in order to talk to both of them at the same time. "I think I've got the beginning of an idea about what's causing Kasumi to speak in spoonerisms, and I need to talk to you two to bounce ideas off. Cologne and I are working on the theory that her spoonerisms are a side effect of something else that's been around for years, something beneficial. So we can't safely cure Kasumi until we're sure that the cure wouldn't cause her more harm than good. Ranma's heard this all before, but you haven't." she says to Akane, "Cologne gave a long explanation that made sense to me, but my explanation sums up the part that concerns us. Are you with me so far, Akane?"
"I think so. It's like a medicine's side effect making you drowsy, but you still take it because the disease is worse."
Nabiki answers. "Exactly. So I was trying an experiment to determine what the underlying problem was, and it was failing miserably, until Ranma asked her how she remained calm with all of the insanity going on. Cologne told Ranma that he'd have to learn something close to that to learn a new chi attack, but that's not important right now. What is important, is that while she answered verbally saying 'I just do,' she subconsciously spelled out 'help me, please.'"
Nabiki continues "So I suspect that whatever is making Kasumi talk strangely is tied into maintaining her calm. She's not doing it consciously, and in a madhouse like this it couldn't be maintained accidentally. There isn't alot of evidence so far that this is accurate, but it feels right to me, and matches up with what I've seen. Does this make sense to you two?"
Ranma answers "So Kasumi's calm is not something that could be taught, but due to an oddity of her soul, like the way Hinako-sensei's chi draining abilities are a physical oddity? So why is she speaking oddly now?"
"My guess, based largely on the help message, is that the mechanism is overloaded. Either it can't keep up, or it's actually falling apart. Now, the obvious solution would be to lessen the chaos around here, but this would be disastrous. Every attempt to lessen the insanity made in the past has caused the situation to worsen. Cologne has even mentioned some reasons in the past that this might happen, so whatever you do, don't try to lessen the chaos! And don't mention this conversation to our parents! They'll just use it as an excuse to try to force you two to marry for Kasumi's sake, ignoring the dozen armed people who'd descend upon the house to stop it, and cause even more chaos for Kasumi."
Ranma asks "Are you saying that any attempt I make to simplify things is guaranteed to worsen things? All my attempts to fix the multiple fiancee mess are doomed?"
"I'm afraid so. I'm not saying the problems can't be fixed, but all direct attempts are doomed to failure. It's like Ryouga's direction sense. You might eventually get where you want to go, but if you try to make towards your goal, you'll wind up going away from it. My point is that trying the direct method in this case will do Kasumi more harm than good, and that you should keep this conversation secret, because other people will just try the direct method and cause Kasumi more problems. OK?"
Akane asks "So what should we do then?"
"I'm still working on that. What Kasumi really needs is a better or an additional method of dealing with the insanity. Unfortunately, up until recently, she's been the best in our family at coping."
Ranma interrupts "I was thinking about that before I came in to ask Kasumi. I gotta learn about emotionless chi, and I was thinking how people deal with emotions. Kasumi was the best example, and I had no idea how she does it, so I asked her."
Nabiki frowns "What about me? I don't let my emotions fly loose."
"Naw. I thought of you, but that'd never work. My first try I went into the soul of ice technique that I use for the Dragon Ascension attack. But that wasn't 'No emotion,' that was just separating emotion from thought. Instead of becoming angry, for example, I'd become ice cold furious. When I realized that, I realized it was similar to you. I've seen you get mad. You feel emotions, you just don't let it interfere with you. Kasumi, Cologne, and Tofu are the only people I've seen that just didn't get angry sometimes. With Cologne and Tofu I can chalk it up to experience, but with Kasumi it's something else."
Akane interrupts "How sure are we that Kasumi's problems are even related to this?"
Nabiki answers "Not very. It feels right, and it matches the evidence so far. My next steps are to try to devise a test to see if I'm right, and to talk to Cologne and Tofu to ask about how they think emotions can healthily be handled. If everything checks out, the next step would be to help Kasumi use the new method, and see if the spoonerisms stop. Then we can look into whether the original mechanism Kasumi is using should be retained or healed. Tofu is probably the best choice in detecting the flows of chi in Kasumi if it weren't for his problem. From what I understand, Cologne could detect it, but it might require the use of apparatus, and potions, and be rather cumbersome. So in spite of the difficulty communicating, I think our best bet would be to go with the one who detected the spiritual oddity originally, Ran'neko."
Ranma sighs. "I'll do what I can. Ran'neko likes Kasumi, of course. It's just frustrating. Ran'neko doesn't even seem to think in language. It's harder than it was communicating with people in China, and all this chi stuff is pretty abstract. Ran'neko might have been able to detect it, and I told you about it as well as I could, but you and Cologne had to do most of the work interpreting it."
Akane says "Those girls you gave a bit of the nekoken didn't seem to have any problem communicating with their nekoken."
Nabiki answers "They're in an entirely different boat. Their souls have changed, but they're still one being. The nekoken is connected with their subconscious, and no one communicates directly with their own subconscious. Ranma is one body hosting two souls, and I'm proud that they're able to communicate at all. But one of the souls isn't a human soul at all." Nabiki hmms "Ranma, when Kasumi's all right, remind me to look into ways of improving Ran'neko's comprehension. I won't promise anything at all, but there's things I should check that might help."
Akane laughs. "Two souls, two bodies, two genders, two species. Day by day, Ranma becomes more unique."
Nabiki comments "Don't let the symmetry fool you into thinking there's an easy way to split Ranma into a Male Ranma and a Female Ran'neko in order to cure his curse. I joked about it with Cologne once. Lets just say that the consequences could make Ranma's original learning the nekoken seem tame by comparison."
* * *
Over dinner, Nabiki asked, "Kasumi, have you considered trying to speak in Spoonerisms, so it'll come out sounding normal?"
"I thadent haught of that." She thinks for a moment "You mean, `lake piss?' That's got blight. It's larder that it cooks! Now I seek to be moussing up even Gore! This is incest. tisane. Insane! I think I'll go spack to boonerisms."
* * *
After Dinner, Nabiki is visited by the nekoken-enhanced girls, Miki and Naomi, who seem distraught. "We seem to be acting more and more feline. It's not bad yet, but it keeps increasing. We're worried that it might not stop."
Nabiki thinks for a bit. "I didn't expect any real change after the soul finished merging with you, except for the expected period of acclimatization. From everything I've learned, there's no chance for the soul fragment to take over, or any other kind of doomsday scenario. When we last checked, neither of you had any of the soul fragment remaining separate from the rest of your soul, so there's nothing that could take over. But this wasn't expected, so we'd better look into it to be safe. You two are rather unique, so better safe than sorry. Lets go to the Nekohanten and let Cologne look into this."
After explaining to Cologne, she runs all of the physical and magical tests she had run on the two girls earlier, plus a battery of new magical tests involving ofuda, potions, and some silvery metallic dust. After the last test, her look of concentration has turned into a broad grin. "Well, well. This is quite unexpected, but completely benign."
"What's going on?"
"Permit me to give you an analogy first, otherwise I doubt the explanation will mean much to you. When you get older, you'll have more experience with people drinking pitcher after pitcher of beer until they need to be carried home. The effects of inebriation are quite widely known, including it's lessening of the drinkers inhibitions. What's less widely known is that the extent of the effect of alcohol is partially social conditioning."
Cologne continues, "An easy experiment can be done, where after the first two pitchers of beer are served, the remaining pitchers contain either low alcohol beer or non-alcoholic beer. Many people will become more and more drunk, the more non-alcoholic beer they drink as long as they believe it's real. The beer gives them an excuse to behave in ways that they couldn't allow themselves to behave sober. Part of it is the placebo effect, but most of it is a psychological expectation. People become braver and brasher because they know that's how they behave inebriated."
"In effect that's what is happening to you two. I've searched for any signs of outside influence, and for any sign of the increase of felinoid nature within your souls. The only real changes are that you can better use the speed increase that you could only access before when you weren't thinking about it.
"You have an excuse to act more feline if you wish to, and so you do. Ultimately you have the ability to decide just how much of yourself you wish to change, but at the very core of it, are natural feelings that you would have had anyway, but have suppressed either due to unconscious fear, or societal conditioning. You have a chance to experiment, and if you find that you don't like the new felinish persona, you should have little difficulty going back to the way you were right after your souls merged."
"On the other hand, some of the restrictions you've been living under will have invariably arose from irrational fears of the unknown. Once these fears are lain to rest, there'd be no reason to go back, as you'll be happier without the self-imposed restraints. Also some of the restraints will be societally imposed, and while you'll have to retain some to avoid being seen as eccentric, some you'll want to discard regardless of what society as a whole might feel."
"For example, women in Japan are considered by many as inferior to men, and women are obliged to restrict their actions in order not to offend. Sometimes you might decide to act demurly so as to not cause trouble, but sometimes you might decide that the situation calls for actions that are considered by the Japanese as manly. In reality, the action is probably best described as humanly, and by doing what society thinks is inappropriate, you'll be acting in the only appropriate manner. Deciding when to obey, and when to discard societies restrictions, isn't easy, of course. It's the biggest lesson left when a young adult begins puberty, and lasts up to their whole life. In a very real sense, the moment someone says 'Now I know the answer, and don't have to learn anymore,' at that point the person stops growing up."
Miki asks "So, these changes are ones we could have decided on by ourselves?"
"Definitely. You might not have been ready to try them right now if it weren't for the soul fragment you've received. But they're a natural part of growing up and experimenting with what type of person you wish to be. When you get to your thirties there's another stage of development you'll have to watch out for, but right now you're in the process of trying to figure out how to go from a child that obeyed its superiors more or less implicitly, to an adult who knows when rules can be broken and when they must be obeyed."
Nabiki asks "What happens at thirty?"
Cologne laughs "That's when you realized that the view of the world you've formed as a new adult is inherently flawed, and that any direction you picked back then is a mistake if you continue it without revision. But whatever you do now, don't worry about being thirty. Just because every path is flawed, doesn't mean you wont be happier if you don't pick one." Cologne turns to Miki and Naomi "You two are free to act as felinoid as you want to be, and free to stop at any time and back up if you've gone too far. In a very real sense that's why society provides this six year period of experimentation before you have to support yourself as an adult. It isn't because children need the education, it's because they need the socialization and the safety net that the family is supposed to provide."
After Naomi and Miki thank Nabiki and Cologne, and leave, Nabiki fills Cologne in on developments with Kasumi, and Nabiki's conversation with Ranma and Akane. Cologne thinks about it, and responds "Good working theory. Even if it turns out to be wrong, it can't harm Kasumi to try it. I've methods I'd use to test your hypothesis, but all of them would require testing in contrived situations. If Ran'neko can communicate its findings, it is your best bet in testing the hypothesis in Kasumi's natural surroundings. Oh, and tell Ranma that talking to Tofu about being calm might help, but if he were to ask me such a general question I'd give him the same advice about meditating that I'd already given him. Don't tell Ranma I said so, but asking Kasumi, even if it hadn't help him, was clever.
* * *