I've got something going now, and I guess I can't stop just yet. Okay, let's get going.
====== THE THREE ITEMS ======
It was two o'clock in the morning when Ranma had found himself trudging through a forest just outside the city. 'Stupid crooks. Could have at least waited a few days for me to rest up...'
As he moved silently through the foliage in the dead of the night, he began to hear some voices up ahead. Moving in closer, he began picking up on the words.
"I can't believe how easy that was. Now all we have to do is stay away from the Spirit Detective and we'll soon rule the world!" A little skinny kid with spiky black hair was testing a sword in his right hand, a maddening grin on his face.
"Heh, I don't care about the world, I'm just in it for the meal." A thickly muscled man with a ragged-looking mop of hair was eyeing a glowing green orb in his right hand. He didn't appear, nor sound, as if he was too smart.
"You can have your meal, I'll just make demons out of the corpses and with Kurama's mirror helping us we'll be unstoppable!"
"I'm sorry, but I must withdraw from this alliance. Goodbye." A skinny guy with long red hair and a sad look on his face turned around just as Ranma decided to announce himself.
"Hello, what have we here?" Leaning against a nearby tree, Ranma whistled at the three, a mocking tone meant to arouse their anger, "Impressive! A sword, a ball, and a mirror. But you know, I don't think those belong to you."
"I'm sorry, I don't have time to be arrested today." Kurama, the red-haired one, gripped his mirror a little tighter and ran off at a speed even Ranma could respect. Nowhere near his own speed, but still pretty good.
"Grr, KURAMA! WAIT! WE HAD A DEAL!!!" flit Hiei, the one in black robes with spiky black hair, seemed to simply disappear with his speed, but Ranma's experienced eyes could track every movement even as the big guy walked up in front of him.
"What do you want, Magilla Gorilla?"
"Hehe, unlike my two companions, I'll be happy to abide you a fight. And I take it you're Ranma Saotome?"
"How do you know my name?"
"HAHA!! You must be kidding!? Saotome? Your name is all over the Demon World! There are bounties on your head sky high! Bounties I intend to collect when I've killed you! RRRAAAGGGHHH!!!!" Suddenly, the big guy seemed to grow several times his size and his skin became an ugly orange-brown. His eyes became an animal-like gold as his face, if anything, became even uglier as he grew fangs and his ears grew several times longer.
"Nice trick. So what are ya? An ogre?"
"A Gyukonki, not that it matters to you. But if you'll excuse me, I'm suddenly hungry." Using his left hand, Goki reached into the green ball and grabbed something. What he pulled out looked like a white puff, which he then swallowed. "Ahhh... this thing really is amazing. Able to pull human souls right out of their bodies. Which is good, since it cuts down on all the cooking involved in eating them. Children's souls are my personal favorites, being so tender and full of energy."
"Y-you eat..? That was a.. s-soul!?"
"HAHAHA!! YEAH! GREAT! ISN'T IT!?"
Ranma's eyes glowed blue for a moment as he scowled darkly, "Bastard! COUGH IT UP!!! YAAA!!!" Ranma sent a fist into the big man's stomach, bugging his eyes out and sending him through a nearby tree.
"Aaagh... how can a puny human hit so hard! My skin is hard as rock!!"
"I break boulders with my head daily. A thick-headed demon is nothing to me. Now are you going to spit out that soul peacefully, or am I going to have to keep hitting you till it pops out?" Ranma looked really unhappy right then, glaring dangerously at the tall mountain of a demon.
"Haha, you don't have what it takes to kill me. Those stories about you were obviously exaggerated. I was expecting a demon-killer, and here I've got a puny kid with a lucky punch! HA! I'LL KILL YOU NOW AND EAT YOUR SOUL!!!"
Ranma easily dodged Goki's barreling fist, kicking him in the back of the head and sending him face-first through another tree for his trouble. "Idiot. I'm holding back all my strength. If you had any eyes at all you'd be able to see that."
"Hah! All I see is a skinny kid with almost no Spirit Energy! And I-I-I... uh, oh." Goki watched, wide-eyed as Ranma's aura of Spirit Energy suddenly flared to life. He hadn't realized that Ranma had been hiding it that whole time.
"Tell me, how do I get that soul out of you?"
"Ah!!" Goki's previous bravado suddenly crumbled as he tossed the glowing orb to Ranma's feet. "I give up! I don't want to die!" Goki went into the Crouch of the Wild Tiger, bowing repeatedly at Ranma's feet.
Ranma reached down and grabbed the groveling demon by his tattered shirt, his eyes glowing furiously. "HOW DO I GET IT OUT OF YOU!?" When Goki just babbled incoherently, Ranma reached up to his right wrist with his left hand and pulled off the armband there, taking hold of Goki with his left hand, intending to do some damage, and maybe pop that soul out in the process.
BAM!
"AHG!! The orb! Use the orb!"
"Hm?" Ranma looked down at the glowing green ball still on the ground. Picking it up with his free hand, he could suddenly see a bunch of hazy lights inside his target. There was an overtone of black light throughout his body, and a bunch of smaller white lights in his stomach. "I get it..." Pushing the ball forward, he mentally pulled on the white souls, removing them from his stomach with a sudden pull that literally blasted a hole in the creeps belly. "Oops... oh well."
Dropping the limp body, he then tried to figure out a way of releasing the souls.
"Ranma. Just reach in and pull them out, that'll do the trick."
"Botan? ... like this?" Ranma reached into the ball, which surprisingly yielded to his touch, and grabbed something soft. Pulling it out, he let it go, and it floated off into the sky. Smiling, he pulled out two more souls in the same manner. "That should do it."
"And I'll take care of the stomach here. But I can tell you that the other two won't be quite so easy."
Ranma yawned, "Yeah, I'll get them later. Right now, I need to get some sleep before I drop."
"I'll lend you a ride."
"Sure." Ranma grabbed onto Botan's oar and they launched off, Botan suddenly holding onto that same black soul that Ranma had seen earlier. 'Heh, that'll teach 'im.' Ranma didn't find it a bit odd that he didn't really care that he had just killed. It was a demon, so he didn't mind.
==
Hyo-sama yawned widely as Ranma came back into the guestroom. "Did you get them?"
"Uh? Yeah, I'll get the other two tomorrow. G'nite."
Hyo-sama shrugged, and then curled up beside his master, blocking out the choked panda snores from the tied-up bulk across the room.
==
"Breakfast!"
Ranma pulled her beaten and battered corpse out of the koi pond, smirking even as each of her limbs protested to the movement. Most likely she wouldn't be getting any food till after Genma'd had his fill, but that was okay. She'd gotten in a few good hits with her Spirit Gun, and could already feel her Spirit Energy recovering and smoothing over her injuries. She'd be sore in school, but that was just fine, it felt good to be alive again.
Ranma almost got her mouth on a leftover donut when Akane grabbed her by the pigtail and dragged her out the door. "Come on Ranma! We'll be late!"
Ranma shrugged and swallowed the donut in one bite, 'I'll just let 'er drag me, my legs are too sore to do much yet anyway.'
But there was one thing that Ranma had apparently forgotten...
"Ah! Akane hath returned to me! AND THE PIG-TAILED GIRL! Truly now, since Saotome's defeat, the goodness of thine hearts are now free to be with me! Come now, so we may go to the stars to-geth-er?" blink
Akane didn't even miss one step on her way into the building, ignoring Kuno completely.
"Uh, Akane? Where we-"
"Here he is, see? He isn't dead!"
Ranma blinked in the face of Miss Hinako, who blinked in return and pointed to his seat. "Okay, then you both need to sit down. Mr. Saotome can make up his absence later."
"Yeah, uh-" Ranma was struck somewhat speechless as she was suddenly dragged to and then planted into her old seat, which was covered in a small layer of dust. "Wow, cough dust..."
"Hey wow! Ranma's back!" Hiroshi sat down beside Ranma, opposite Akane.
"Were you really dead Ranma?" Daisuke took his seat behind Hiroshi.
"Yeah, for a while there. Was a ghost and everything... waitaminnit... my books are still at the house!"
"You can look in mine if you need. I can't believe I'm talking to a real live zombie!"
"I'm not a zombie! I'm just so great that the gods wanted me alive longer! HAHA- ow! Damn pops had to hit me in the back..." Ranma arched her back in order to rub a spot at the base of her back.
This action caused her assets to be thrust out in the open, drawing the eyes of every boy in the class, much to Akane's annoyance.
WAP! CRACK!
"PERVERTS! STOP STARING!"
Ranma turned her back, testing it after Akane had hit it. "Wow, that's lots better. The doc teach you that?"
"No. I just figured that if you didn't stop thrusting your chest in the air I'd go ballistic. You have no idea what you're doing to them, do you?"
"Who?"
"argh" Akane began hitting her head on her desk, mumbling about stupid, clueless perverts.
From there on class went on just as boring as normal, other than the occasional letter from any random classmate, including one Spirit Ward from an anonymous 'spell caster' in the back of the room. Unsurprisingly, Hikaru Gosunkugi avoided Ranma's gaze, instead focusing on the ceiling or the floor alternatively.
And then came math...
"To solve a three-by-three matrix, you must first take the top-left square matrix and solve it down to its base. Then do the same for the other three corners until you are down to a basic four. This you know. For a four-by-four and above, however, the process is somewhat more complicated, taking far more steps than any of the simpler matrices-"
"RANMA!! THERE YOU ARE!!" Suddenly a blue-haired girl in a pink version of the Furinkan school uniform barged into the room and stomped over to Ranma's desk.
"Botan!? What are you doing here?!"
Botan grabbed Ranma by the ear and dragged him out of the room, "What are you doing here!? You've got work to do, Mister!"
"But Botan! I have to know this!!! I CAN BEAT 'EM UP LATER!!!" Ranma fought Botan's grip only slightly as she dragged him out of the building.
The teacher pushed his glasses back up his nose as he cleared his throat, "Ah, Miss. Tendo? When he returns, remind me to have Mr. Saotome stand out in the hall?"
"Yes, sir." Akane suppressed a growl as she returned to her book.
==
"Damn, Botan, what was that all about?" Ranma was rubbing his reddened ear while walking alongside Botan.
"You have to find those items, Ranma! You can't be wasting time at school!"
Ranma smirked, "Thanks for confirming that, Botan." He then looked down at the little watch-compass on his left wrist.
"You know what I mean! Ranma! We have three days, no, TWO! To find all three items! We aren't talking about things made by humans, and you should know those are dangerous enough! These were made by the Universe itself in order to keep the balance between light and dark, and are pure darkness. In the wrong hands, even in the right hands, they can cause all sorts of mayhem, destruction, and sorrow!"
"Yeah, yeah. You told me this last night... though I also remember something about pink bunnies. Now anyway, the compass thingy says that red-haired guy is somewhere near here. What was his name again?"
"His name is Kurama, a legendary Spirit Fox not unlike your own Spirit Beast. Hyo-sama's been tracking him all morning so he shouldn't be far off."
"Yeah, great..." tap tap Ranma tapped his compass just as the darn thing started spinning uncontrollably. 'Great, he's here. And with my Spirit Energy all used up and my chi locked up I can't sense him even a little bit.'
Botan didn't notice the way that Ranma stiffened up, but she did notice the compass going crazy. "He's here..."
Then they both heard a message in their heads just as they noticed a red-haired guy with green eyes looking at them, {Do not worry, I am not here to fight you. I only want to ask a favor.}
{Yeah? What's that?}
{Simply allow me to keep the Forlorn Hope through tonight. I promise I will not be causing anyone any harm, and after tonight I will gladly return it.} Ranma watched as Kurama walked up beside him, {Please, I mean neither you nor anyone else any harm. I merely require the Forlorn Hope's power to save someone I care for. I'm sure you understand...}
Ranma nodded as he allowed Kurama to move on. 'Yeah, I understand...'
"What was that about!? You just let him walk off!?"
Ranma looked down, "CAT!!!!!!!!"
Botan, and everyone else on the street, looked up at where Ranma was clinging to the side of a nearby building.
"DAMMIT HYO-SAMA! DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT!"
Many sweatdrops were found in the surrounding area.
== That Night ==
Ranma had followed Kurama by his aura, having recovered enough of his Spirit Energy to do so, and found him atop a building.
Kurama was just about to make his wish when Ranma interrupted him. "And just what is this wish of yours? And why are you on top of a hospital?"
Kurama sighed, "Some time ago, I was known as Yoko Kurama, a Spirit Fox of great power. With time, I had become bored and turned to thievery, obtaining rare artifacts simply as a way to pass the time. But one day I made a foolish mistake and because of it was nearly killed. With the last of my energy I made a portal to the Mortal Realm and came here, to Earth. I was badly injured and needed to recover, so in a ploy to save my life I bonded with an unborn child." Kurama smiled with recollection, "I'm sure that I must have been a handful in my early years," He turned toward the railing, leaning against it and letting out a sigh before continuing. "But with time I came to care for my human mother, far more than any demon I had ever known was able. And now she has come down with a disease that threatens her life, and if I don't intervene now, she will die. I know that this mirror, in order to do as I ask, will take my life. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make."
"Oh really? And how do you think she'll feel when she finds out her son is dead?"
"Believe me, detective. If there were any other way, I would be the one to know of it and would gladly use it. But this is the only way..." A beam of moonlight reached down to touch the mirror right then.
As if reacting to the moonlight, which it most likely was, the mirror began to glow as an eerie voice issued forth from it. "Speak your wish, and I will grant your heart's truest desire. A warning: Any wish I grant comes at the cost of your life."
"Mirror! I wish for you to recover my human mother to full health, saving her life at the cost of my own."
"HEY! WAIT A MINUTE! What about her!? What about everyone else!? I've seen it before, and it ain't pretty! And I don't want to see it again!" Ranma, without thinking, looked at the mirror, "Hey mirror! I want you to take my life instead! You got that!?"
Botan's eyes widened as she came out of the stairway door atop the roof, "RANMA! WAIT!!"
"GRANTED!!!"
A bright flash coming from the mirror engulfed the area, causing everyone to have to cover their eyes until it receded again.
Kurama looked dumbstruck for a moment as the area stilled. Ranma looked his hands over, wondering if something went wrong. Botan stood silent for a moment, suddenly wondering why she didn't just fly to the top of the building.
Hyo-sama tackled Ranma, sending him to the ground, "ARE YOU STUPID OR SOMETHING!?!?"
"Uh, yeah, I guess. I mean, what happened?" Ranma looked himself over, 'Yup, everything's still here... wait,' a quick check ensured him that yes, that was still there too.
"In response to these selfless acts and desires, I have granted this wish without taking life." The mirror then showed a picture of a woman in a bed, looking around a hospital room and looking as if she were looking for something.
"Ranma! What were you thinking!?"
"Heh, go ahead, Kurama. I'll bet there's someone down there looking for you." He then turned to the 'not-so grim' reaper. "And you know, Botan, I really don't know. I mean, the point was to stop people from being sad, but if I was gone again, then the whole thing with Akane and the others would have just been done all over again..."
Hyo-sama smiled wryly as he looked right into Ranma's face, "You idiot! You don't even know how clever you are!"
"Hu-wha?"
"It reflected your heart's desire! Your desire was for no one to be sad, you just worded it wrong! But the mirror doesn't care, it just reflected what was on your mind! You did just what you wanted without even knowing it!"
Botan blinked, "He did?"
Hyo-sama nodded, "Yup! But if he ever does that again, I'll have to... I'll be very angry at him! GOT IT!!!"
Ranma nodded quickly, backing away from the miffed feline, never having realized before that a cat could frown. Of course, he had never really paid attention before.
"Good, now let's start looking for that last guy, what was his name?"
"Nah. I'm goin' to bed. It's late and I'm tired. I'll see you later, Botan." Not allowing any argument, Ranma just stepped over the edge of the building, landing easily on the sidewalk.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Need a ride?"
"Yes please."
====== That's it, for now. ======
I suppose I should end it here. I suppose the last item will be used in the next chapter. I know that some of you are thinking, 'It's just like the other one!' Well, unfortunately, the first major differences come after this stuff, although you have already had a taste or two of how Ranma will be affecting the Yu Yu Hakusho storyline.
I suppose that's it for now.
I suppose that means I should close this for now...
I suppose I should recount the score for the 'Poll that will affect the future in a (slightly) major way.' poll.
Explode: IIII
Cleave: I
Freeze: IIII
O.O Looks like we have a tie. If that keeps up, I may have to cast my own vote! Not that I mind...
Either this or the next chapter will be the final chance to make your vote, after that, a winner will be chosen and the purpose of this whole debacle shall be revealed! So make your vote again, lest this never be resolved! .
With two worlds in one hand and a machine that says 'World Creator/Destroyer/Changer' in the other, this is Alex Ultra, signing off.
Alex Ultra: Lost In A Sea of My Own Making
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