(akuma means devil or demon)
"Battling and Becoming"
Flying, he felt an unbridled wonder inside his heart. After developing advanced ki techniques using high-level geometry, he had speculated what hidden knowledge lurked inside the collected science of man.
His father's mastery of vacuum came in part because the stupid old man used gluttony as an emotional ki focus. Using his own focus of serenity and self-acceptance he could easily reproduce multitudes of ki-vacuums. Then he had read how airplanes flew, essentially surfing through the air on a cushion of turbulent pressure difference, or riding an imperfect speed-created vacuum.
Jumping off the top of Mount Fuji running at top speed had been a huge next step.
After maintaining her (mountain's snowcap) altitude for five minutes, Ranma noticed a beyond pleasant feeling across her chest. Swiftly reversing her gender, he realized the physics books hadn't been kidding about the vibrations from air pressure.
Now, zooming across the country of his birth held by merely a pressure wave of his own will, Ranma wondered at his next step. When he accomplished a goal, it seemed another appeared as a natural continuation of the path.
In strange epiphany, he understood though flying was amazing, landing would really suck.
----
"Musubetsu Kakuto Ryu imitating Toma's Sword of Illusion. This is between you and me Matriarch, and they would have interfered." Nodding toward the unconscious forms of Shampoo and Mousse, Ranma readied himself to face Cologne, who had earned his respect over dozens of similar battles. She had resisted the technique by using ki-vision.
He met her Buzzing Fist with his own, and the semi-solid compressed air harmed neither. When the old one bared her teeth, like, well, a ghoul, and split the Artifact known as the Pearl of Madness, he deafened his ears. The first time, it had shattered his eardrums and lost him the fight.
Yelling an attack from his inner heart, one based on love, freedom and disappointments, he sent out a grayish-red cutting ki-vortex with the trigger phrase "Akane No BAKA!" It left a crater in the street a hundred feet deep, but Kuh Lon had taken to the air.
He met her there, and only her speed, faster than his own locked level, kept her in the fight.
With a burst of white ki, he summoned his aura of serenity, and was matched by a deeper version of the Soul of Ice than he cared to learn.
The old woman sent thousands of chilling ki pinpoints at him, each with enough power to leave his skin frostbitten and unresponsive. Using Happosai's projection technique, he called forth the surface that was a plane, twice as large as himself, but paper thin, and pointed the Klein Bottle's nozzle back at the ancient woman.
Each of her ki-dots hit the surface of his shield, and traveled up to the mouth of the Klein bottle, where they collected until the onslaught halted. A brief instant of concentration, and he redirected chilling ki in a freezing beam. Kuh Lon dodged, leaving a nearby storefront encased in inches of ice.
Perhaps thinking to best him with power, the Matriarch drew heavily into the ki-focus that was her staff, and sent a small blue-green ovoid at him. He knew if it touched him, it would invade his skin, squeezing his heart until he screamed out submission. The magnitude of focused ki it contained could survive even his attempts at dispersing it.
He threw an unnamed counter, and his ki-torus shredded the blast before it came halfway. He sighed in relief. . . . . finally the rotation was right to disrupt her careful redundant structure.
When Cologne pulled out a strange wand-like Artifact he had never seen, he simultaneously left a Splitting Cat Hair's Image behind, while sneaking around her in the Way of the Silent Thief.
As she blasted his image away with a black lightning-like beam, he nailed his honored opponent's sleep spot with the strongest inverted ki pulse he could make.
He faded back into sight in shock, looking at her slumbering form. A passerby might think he'd beaten up a helpless old grandmother, but for the first time, Ranma had bested Matriarch Cologne of Joketsuzoku.
Years had passed inside limbo. He stopped counting a while ago.
----
"Let's go over this again, Tate-chan," said the pig-tailed girl.
Looking up from his straightjacket across the room, Kuno repeated the words and watched the explanation for the tenth time. Even with his memories back, the stubborn delusional jerk refused the truth.
"Your name is Ranma Saotome. His name is Ranma Saotome." Obligingly, Ranma switched genders.
Tiredly, Kuno continued: "He fell into a spring which forced your body upon him, but now you have control over which body you occupy." He changed to a she in mid-nod.
"You are the same person. You like girls only, no matter which body you're in. No sorcery, no soul-switching; nothing like that." Still Kuno's disbelief showed.
Pain would not dissuade Kuno, so Ranma resorted to careful logic and demonstration.
"You are in denial." Ranma (female) said flatly.
"I am not in denial! Such travesty, such lies!" Kuno began his typical rant.
"You are denying you are in denial." Ranma (male) said understandingly.
"Twisted words, do not a truth make!" Yelled Kuno back.
"Then if you're not denying you are in denial, you accept the truth?" Ranma (female) pouted cutely.
"No, never shall I accept such a horrid truth, for it would mean my love would be lost forever more. Release my pig-tailed girl, Ranma Saotome, or face my wrath!"
"Then you're in denial." Stated Ranma (male) flatly, knowing this could take hours.
Kuno began ranting again, for variety; Ranma (female) spoke the words with him. Occasionally it actually caused him to stop talking and listen.
Much, much later, the Kuno problem remained unsolved, but Ranma had one untested idea. While an interesting distraction, Kuno's ignorance held nothing to improving in his art.
----
Sighing in contentment, Ranma disabled the last soldier with an invisible pulse of ki to the back of his head. After finishing Sun-Tzu and the Book of Five Rings, he knew how to think like his enemy and choose the right ground.
Moving faster than human perceptions, and creating a vacuum cone that redirected bullets away from his body meant 'Assault of the American Military Base': Mission Accomplished. The grenades could be diffused with a bubble of crushing ki, so they imploded rather than exploded. Flamethrowers meet Soul of Ice. Sure they had other weapons, but such large bulky things couldn't be armed quickly enough.
This exercise had taught him how to disable quickly and efficiently. It showed how strategy and surprise won over superior force. He'd even figured out to make ki blasts invisible.
Helping himself to a sheaf of top-secret documents, Ranma happily thumbed the incompressible English pages, verifying he couldn't read them.
Leaving them lying in a pool of papers, he walked out merrily, mentally sticking his tongue out at Nabiki.
She had told him: "Only a moron takes down a military base just because he can, and doesn't even raid their secrets."
-----
Expecting the emergence of a horror beyond mortal ken, Ranma shouted out his oft practiced (and hopefully perfected) solution: "Soul Cleansing Demon Vortex!"
The attack caught the evil thing as it emerged from Kodachi's body. Based on crushing willpower, the rotating gray cone held the entity immobile while the demon huntress transformed.
Flinching from the emulsions of infernal power directed at his prison, Ranma firmed his concentration and drew upon ambient energies for reinforcement. Carefully, he lowered the cone's edge, so the demon hunter could swing directly into the creature's core.
This mistake allowed Ranma to notice the entity had taken the shape of a nine headed lion with impossibly long fangs and dead black eyes. While he no longer feared cats, seeing the unexpected nightmare disrupted his concentration, and therefore his ki-prison.
The gray ki-cone rapidly dissolved, but Kodachi's attack trisected the malevolent demon, banishing most of it. Enough remained to impale Ranma's left shoulder with a dark claw of corruption, matching his inhuman speed when he attempted the dodge.
Invoking her relic, Kodachi swiftly cleansed the remaining evil. She knew banishment the hard way hurt such Things. Nothing could truly kill them, but that creature would be diminished for centuries.
Watching Ranma attempt to realign his aura and fail, Kodachi drew upon the strongest of her bracelet's powers and zapped him with holy yellow lightning.
"That hurt you know." Stated the frazzled martial artist in a deadpan voice.
"Dealing with demons is a filthy business; you are lucky to be alive Ranma-sama."
Grumbling at her, Ranma thought maybe he could use a little nap and laid back on the scorched, torn up floor. The Soul Cleansing Demon Vortex took a lot out of person...
Waking up in Kodachi's arms hours later, Ranma thought he must be having a dream, since she hadn't tried anything outrageous. She sleepily muttered something about auras and spells, but he shifted and returned to sleep.
---
Upon waking in the pond, Ranma noticed the koi abandoned her head, and the fish put as much space between her body and theirs as the pond allowed. This so startled her that Genma managed a successful uppercut, something he hadn't done for years.
Meaning to swiftly end the fight, Ranma tossed out a ki wave, and watched in distress as it appeared with undulating dark malevolence.
It took Genma out, but it also demolished the top half of the stone wall encircling the Tendo compound. The shockwave woke everyone in the house, and they poured outside, flocking like lemmings to a sea of troubles.
"Stay back!" Ranma's confident tone hid her inner panic so successfully that no one paid any attention as she stepped out of the pond.
"Baka!" The thrown dumbbell seemed to warp space as it contorted into a pretzel and passed to the side of Ranma's head. The ki-defense flickered with black, and Ranma's aura pulsed ominously. Since she had claimed the furo, Akane neither noticed nor cared, trusting her aim.
Appearing briefly, Happosai took the situation in a glance, and fled. He'd lived so long by carefully picking his fights, and this wasn't one of them.
"Was that really necessary son? I know your dad has his moments, but that wall has stood for generations!" Soun's waterworks turned on, and the koi didn't mind.
"You realize this little debacle goes onto your debt Saotome?" Nabiki inflated the expenses by 150 for violently waking her.
Locked in an inner struggle she didn't really understand, Ranma totally ignored her surroundings. Blocking the barbell had been reflexive, not a conscious decision.
"Father, Nabiki, it might be a good idea to give Ranma his space for now." Kasumi gently prodded her family members away, having noticed how the grass underneath Ranma's feet had shriveled and died. Her skin crawling, the eldest Tendo hustled her family back into their home.
Calling forth her aura, Ranma summoned serenity and found evil waiting. As the battle started, her left shoulder blistered and began to bleed.
-
Cologne paused while serving the morning rush. Her great-grand daughter turned and questioned the behavior. Shaking her head sadly, the old woman declared, "Much evil this way comes."
"Too many bean jam buns last night?" Inquired Mousse.
As the ashtray found its mark on the moron's head, the matriarch muttered, "No, this emergency is real."
-
Kodachi screamed and held her head. She felt pressure on her mind, and abruptly she knew no more. A dark smile blossomed upon her face, and her body rose.
-
He was dreaming. In that dream power abounded and the sky trembled in darkness. The wind sounded like a cat hissing, and he stood triumphant on a hill of his dead enemies. While they appeared as ordinary people, something deep inside his psyche assured him they had been powerful rivals. Dark blue confidence flared, shattering imposed presumptions of megalomania.
He was dreaming. In that dream satisfaction filled him and he sighed in contentment. Women surrounded him, served him, submitted to him. He looked at their faces and saw Ukyo, Kasumi, Akane, Kodachi, and dozens of other girls from his travels. Softly, a voice told him exactly what to do, and he felt very safe. Pure white serenity flared, denying the escape of hedonism.
Was he dreaming? It was dark, very dark. Hissing and scratching and biting and pain... until he began to laugh. A golden glow dispelled whatever conquered fears were being unbarred from the depths of his memories.
He felt a metaphysical shrug, and Ranma intuited the creator of these traps preferred the direct approach. Then the fight for Ranma Saotome's sanity truly began, as he found himself balanced upon the bamboo poles over the Pools of Sorrow once more. His dead female side smiled from down below, distracting him while a thing made of teeth and darkness impaled his shoulder.
The method of attack confirmed his suspicions. How the demon had followed between days wasn't important now, as his ego blazed across the dreamscapes striking back with crushing will.
Relentlessly he battled the inhuman, and he noticed with detachment more and more of the settings were ending in the Tendo compound. Occasionally outside, in the koi pond, or even inside the dojo; he knew this meant the Demon had a final plan, and he held the memories of his last position closely. Standing right outside the waters of the koi pond, twisted barbell to one side; Ranma grasped that truth like a lifeline.
-
The scenario was like the last dozen times: he woke up inside in his room, and he unhesitatingly killed the vampire-likeness of Kasumi with a sharp spike of blackened ki. Carefully, he made sure not to get any of the acid she carried on his clothing. Too late he noticed his other hand held a dark malevolence in a cage of crushing will. A small swarm of eyes and teeth sized no larger than a mouse.
"You looked so lonely out there by the pond." Kasumi faded into shock with a whisper, blood leaking out of her stomach. A spilled glass of water lay near her on the floor. He never thought Kasumi would smell that way, but a deep analytical part of him, ill-used but still functioning, murmured 'dead is dead.'
A pulse of power against his barrier reminded Ranma about the demonic infestation. Grimacing, he devoted more ki into containing the entity in his right hand. If not for the knowledge he lived a repeating existence, Ranma knew Kasumi's death would have shaken him into releasing the Demon he had just defeated.
Filthy thing.
Departing the house, Ranma gave thanks his outfit was red and black. The Chinese silk hid blood well. He needed holy objects, ancient wisdom, and a possibly a good fighter at his back. He couldn't risk releasing ki -- his captive might escape.
As he landed on a rooftop, he almost brought his right hand reflexively up to his bleeding shoulder. That hand contained the prison; the demon had laid many snares. It writhed inside his ki, angry at another small defeat. Wiping his bloody left hand on his red silk shirt, and deliberately not thinking about Kasumi, he sought exorcism.
Cologne. She would help.
-
He burst into the Cat Café and beheld chaos. Mousse lay bleeding and unconscious on the floor, and Shampoo was locked in mortal combat with a female warrior wearing feudal samurai armor. Three customers huddled in a corner; the rest had escaped.
"Airen!" Shampoo noticed his arrival. "Help me!"
Grabbing dishes, he imbued them with a minute amount of ki and launched them at the armor. Even that risked much, but Shampoo was in trouble. "Where's the old ghoul?" He asked urgently. Breaking glass punctuated his statement.
"She fighting too. No can talk need concentrate." Beautifully, Shampoo unfolded in a deadly wu-shu combination.
Ignoring the crippling blows as well as the dishes, the warrior fought like a woman possessed. A braided ponytail of black hair trailed a foot down the armor's back, whirling from side to side in melee. A silk hood obscured the attacker's face, but her body was female.
He felt a pulse of satisfaction from the Demon in his right hand, and calmly, the armored warrior backhanded Shampoo through three walls and turned her attention to him. A broken spine from Shampoo's last shot healed with an unpleasant grinding sound.
Where the hell was Cologne?
The setting sun outside indicated his time was running out. "Eat this you bitch! Saotome secret technique: Fast Break!" Making throwing motion around the ki-prison, Ranma swiftly escaped. The possessed woman stood stupidly for a second, as if expecting to catch a thrown demon. Then, she gave chase.
The instant of confusion bought precious time. He leapt to the rooftops and poured on speed, outdistancing the possessed armor within seconds. He could hold out long enough to reach the Fushimiinari Shrine in Kyoto. He knew of the monks there, and they held immense spiritual powers.
The magical whip of dark flame came within centimeters of taking his left eye. Booming laughter assaulted his ears: "Ho-HO ho HO HO!" Risking a glance behind him, he saw Kodachi's face twisted by the pestilence of possession. She brandished a whip of darkness and hunger, which smoldered in darkling flames along with her leotard. The Thing in Ranma's hand called out to part of itself, and he clamped down ruthlessly with crushing will.
Dodging again, Ranma was forced off his chosen path. A crackle of hungry darkness maneuvered him in a half-circle while the woman possessed by the armor arrived. Dodge. Perhaps it was woman who enchanted the armor? Dodge. With magic, he had learned anything was possible.
Expertly herded, Ranma noted he ran back the way he came. He saw the doll-like suit of armor charging, and absently dodged the cracking fire whip by moving faster still. 'How much ki can I risk without freeing the Demon?' Desperate thoughts and plans flowed across his mind.
None were useful except a gamble. Grinning madly, running at the samurai woman in armor, he sped up, as fast as he could possible go, leaking ki into his feet. Using her head a springboard, he formed the pressure wave of ki and flew. Such a thin, little power, but concentrating on two things at once would swiftly wear his alertness down.
As he passed over the Tendo roof, he heard Genma call out "Demon-God Assault Bomb!" from below. Veering sharply upward, he yelled back "Watch it old man!" and saw a frightening reflection in the koi pond.
Kodachi on bat wings of dark hellfire in close pursuit. The wing clipped by Genma's ki-strike swiftly reforming. As if sensing weakness, the caged Thing in his fist pulsed hungrily, and he lost altitude containing it. In an eye blink the Tendo house fell far behind, and he could expect no further help.
Pointing himself straight upwards, he gained altitude at a sharper angle of ascent than the inefficient wings of his pursuit. Anticipating the tactic, she abandoned her whip and began lobbing balls of dark fire. The pressure wave he rode upon served as an effective shield with a bit of maneuvering, as the dark attacks homed relentlessly in on the ki-prison he held.
Leaving Kodachi-akuma far below, he gained height until his lungs hurt. Then reducing the power below him, he carefully drew his hands from beside his body upwards beyond his head. Focusing, he transferred the demon prison into a sort of nose cone heavily reinforced by the vacuum wave he rode.
Now, with only one thing to concentrate his power on, Ranma's speed resounded with a mighty shockwave, and he flew into the twilight, slowly descending, seeking a shrine in the random direction he had chosen.
A half hour and a hundred miles later, he saw a huge torii below him. The symbolic gateway separating a Buddhist temple from the material world never looked more welcoming.
Reducing speed, he circled twice, and flew under the torii, crash landing in the sacred cold spring used for ritual cleansing before entering the shrine proper. The curse triggered, and the Demon tried to escape, seemingly unbothered by the sacred waters.
She felt a burning pain in her shoulder, and guessed her wound had been spiritually cleansed.
Grimacing, Ranma staggered up to the closed gates of the inner temple and pushed them open. Seeing the holy bell used for sacred celebrations, she thrust the fist containing the imprisoned demon inside it next to the striker. Using the Amaguriken, she struck the bell exactly 108 times, releasing the ki-prison slightly with each strike. Such a number should banish all hungers and restore the world to pristine balance; it signified a new year for that reason.
Feeling the malevolence in her right hand weaken, Ranma turned and grabbed the robes of a handy priest. Three bald priests had rushed to investigate the bell chiming. Thrusting the hand containing the wavering malevolence under the captive middle priest's nose, she opened her fist and watched the old guy pale.
For her trouble two ofudas smacked her forehead, delivered none-to-gently. "I'm not possessed you morons; hurry up and purify this before it breaks free!"
Picking her up bodily (and groping her very professionally in the process), the holy men proceeded to ritually submerge her in the fountain outside while chanting sutras and burning incense. This went on in various ways for three hours, until an effeminate looking fourth priest walked over. He spoke a few solemn words and slapped a ward onto her right hand, ending the ceremony. With a satisfied air, he departed.
Sighing, she felt the demon disappear from her perceptions, and hoped it was diminished enough not to bother her next morning.
"What's the big idea taking so long to banish that damned thing?"
Following the eyes of the three priests to her chest, Ranma noticed the silk didn't hide much in the nighttime torchlight. Remembering her position during the ritual cleansing, Ranma swiftly realized how exposed her cleavage became every time they had poured cold water over her head.
"Lechers."
The three priests nodded proudly, in tandem.
"What about him?" She indicated the direction the fourth priest had exited.
"Very devoted." Said the first priest.
"Or very into men." Added the third priest.
The second priest nodded solemnly, though whom he agreed with, Ranma would never decide.
With a large sigh followed avidly by three pairs of eyes, Ranma staggered slowly through the torii. Normally she'd kick some ass for this, but for now all she wanted was to see Kasumi's smile the coming morning.
----
Kasumi merrily hummed as she folded laundry. She thought it very nice (if a little odd) that Ranma hadn't left her side since morning. Kasumi took Akane's reaction to heart, but she couldn't dissuade Ranma from herself. He helped with breakfast, and now he was folding laundry.
Finally she began a conversation about her sisters. She intended to guide the topic over to Akane, and started with Nabiki as neutral ground.
"A game of questions, Ranma? That sounds like such fun!"
"I don't know, Nabiki hides her feelings really well when we play." Ranma still had trouble drawing certain information out of the middle Tendo, though he could last indefinitely with asking inconsequential questions or using safe, already answered topics.
"Well, I don't suppose you could ask her to tell you a question she couldn't answer, then use it on her later? Nabiki knows enough about ground rules to avoid that. Why not just try riddles; I'm sure she'll be stumped eventually. You could think of it as Verbal Musubetsu Kakuto Ryuu."
"But if the problem is she deliberately loses, because she doesn't want to answer the question?"
"Oh, if little sis tried that with me, I'd put her in a double bind with an impossible penalty." Kasumi smiled airily, and moved another load into the washing machine.
Looking at the content laundress with incredulous respect, Ranma wondered why he'd never really noticed the eldest Tendo? Here was a solution to a problem that bothered him for years!
Laughing, he realized the guilt from yesterday was fading. Good naturedly, he answered all of Kasumi's questions, and never once left her side that day.
As he fell asleep that night, he thought of magic, and how his battles ended. Becoming a person who fought, losing himself in the art, what did that speak of his character? At the end of this next battle, perhaps it would no longer be about what he'd become. For once you find yourself; cannot your fundamental core only be enhanced?
----
Watching the pinkish purple ki-ball indicative of satiated lust, Happosai smiled and winked at his heir. "M' boy, this is the last barrier; if you can beat me, truly I have nothing left to show you." His voice was cajoling, free of the weight of infinite days, containing only camaraderie.
Nodding respectfully at his mentor, Ranma realized in a flash of insight, after this fight had finished, and finish it he would, if not today, then some other 'today' . . . .
. . . . . . he realized he would miss looking at Happosai as a master sensei. When not perving, the old man became an engaging and entertaining companion. Seriousness in his art, at least the level of dedication he held himself to, was vanishing rare. Fighting with Happi felt like communication with an equal, like a comradeship transcending age, space, and time.
Ranma realized becoming the ultimate best meant loneliness. But not today. But not for now.
Watching his master, his equal with an odious personal worldview but equal nonetheless, Ranma Saotome smiled in natural joy.
"Begin!" Yelled Soun from the background.
Ranma covered himself in an aura of serenity and vacuum, and took flight. Faster than sound, he flew at Happosai. Changing forms to minimize air resistance, leaking ki to minimize turbulence, he fought. With mini-vacuums smaller than pebbles and sharper than knives, with the cutting edge of his main aura, he battled.
Nabiki's camera would only show fountains of earth as the masters met and redirected high above the ground.
Happosai blocked everything. The micro-vacuums, the Edge of Nirvana, the Soul Cleansing Demon Vortex, the infant beginnings of his chain reaction shots, the inverted ki pinpoint feints. . . . All of them. Levels of ki mastery higher than Genma dreamed, eruptions of control which Cologne would envy. . . . They were not enough.
Neither were they completely lacking. Happosai's inhuman aura of telekinesis wasn't enough, nor was his delayed ki explosions. The few magic artifacts he used in fights – Ranma had now seen all. Like most tricks, they only worked once on a prepared mind.
The other 'masters' of Musubetsu Kakuto Ryu watched with unchecked awe and fear. They watched until the tape in Nabiki's camera ended; they watched until dusk fell. Neither could really tell a story of the ending, but suddenly the battle stopped, and the combatants bowed to each other, agreeing to draw.
Lying on the ruined Earth in the aftermath, Ranma wondered, looking ahead into the maze of today. He wondered at what might remain with the ending of his last battle.
In a way, such a thought terrified him, but also filled him with exalted purpose. An hour in The Day, which was not a day, approached its end, and Ranma Saotome felt the bittersweet kiss of never looking back.
Tomorrow he'd kick the old boy's ass for sure!
Then, it would be Magic Time.
---end "Battling and Becoming"
next: "Heritage"
AN:
--torii look like huge stylized doorframes, and are typically 20 feet or more in height. The really do symbolize the absence of material desire upon Buddhist temple grounds, and are found at all Buddhist temples (to my knowledge) in some form.
--If you want to know more about Klein Bottles, use Google. The in chapter description is spot on.