For disclaimer see prologue.

{ …. } -thought speaking

[ …. ] -Weapon speak

Chapter 04

Will Mustn't Run Away

By: Master Yume

(In heaven, more specifically the Office of Mortal Soul Plane Transferals)

Death sighed as he continued to fill out paperwork.

"Oh sure I get an apprentice and then the paperwork piles in. I never actually thought that some schmuck would take up the position."

Death had already dropped his 'Death-guise' and scrubbed a pale hand over his face trailing down to the edge of his red-haired beard. Oh how he wished that he could be at home right now, but the Higher-ups had said he needed to go over this paperwork so everything would get straightened out with his new apprentice. His musing were interrupted by a really big annoyance, at least in his mind. Looking up as a shadow fell over his small mountain of paperwork, Death (or Daryl to the people who knew him better) sighed in almost anguish. There at the edge of his rather expansive desk stood one of the few gods he could actually refer to as an 'outside-of-work acquaintance'. Loki smiled that oh so infuriating smile at Daryl.

"Hello Dairy how's tricks?"

"They suck Loki, now what do you want?"

Loki staggered as if hit.

"Oh you wound me; do you think the only reason I'd visit you here is because I wanted something?"

Daryl just looked at Loki his bright red eyebrows level in an impassive stare. Under which Loki's smiling demeanor cracked a bit.

"Ok you're right I do want something. I want information. About our new apprentice."

Daryl nodded not having exactly heard Loki right.

"Well Yume or Will as he's going by now on the plane he's on, is doing ok. However it seems that the Higher-ups might have planned my little misfire on the spell that sent him to this Ranma-realm. It looks like he may be a bit more useful to them."

Loki nodded sitting on the corner of Daryl's desk. Reaching out he grabbed a few of the papers that Daryl wasn't working on. Slowly he glanced over them and nodded a few times.

"That wasn't what I meant, I already knew about that. In fact I had a hand in it."

Daryl stopped and stared at Loki for a moment, his fingers suddenly itching to grasp his scythe and slice something up but good.

"What do you mean Loki?"

"Well I thought our apprentice could use a bit of a challenge. After all it wouldn't do to have him being unprepared for his new mantels."

Daryl stared at Loki and oh so wished he didn't have to deal with him right now.

"So are you saying that the Higher-ups approved a dual apprenticeship of both our mantels to the same mortal?"

"You got it Dairy boy."

Daryl sighed tiredly, his hands resting tiredly over his eyes. He wasn't sure how but in someway sometime this was going to blow up and it would end up being all over him with Loki coming out smelling like a rose. Sometimes he hated not having become a higher deity. Oh well best deal with what was at hand.

"So were you planning on having me tell Yume or will you do it yourself?"

"I think I'll have you introduce me."

Death sighed, of course this way it would be him that got blamed if Yume wasn't happy about it. Stupid elder gods.

"All right I'll introduce you to him the next time I speak with him."

Loki smiled and bowed a bit.

"Don't worry this will be fun, you'll see…. Partner."

Daryl slipped back into his death-guise as soon as Loki left the room. Oh that sense of impending doom was starting to hum and he just knew something was going to happen that he hadn't taken into account, the next time he met with Yume.

"It's going to be a LONG trial." He could feel it on his bones.

---------

Yume staggered as he reappeared in Perfume's home, coincidentally he managed to appear just outside of a door which, as he landed from his hasty teleport, shattered under his bulk making him loose concentration over his Death-guise and making him return to the flesh. Yume staggered a bit more as he was hit with a rather vicious wave of nausea. Yume sagged against a wall and tried desperately to steady himself.

'Well that certainly was a lot of fun.'

{Ugh.}

[Let's do it again.]

Yume and Typhous both mentally glared at Siren making him/her/it go silent. The clearing of a throat made Yume turn around and immediately wish he hadn't. Standing before him was Lotion in what could be best described as an eye searing flash of pain. (Read as a bathrobe) So saying (or seeing) he collapsed to his knees and began convulsing at the horrible mental image that was incurred by his overactive imagination. Seconds later Perfume rushed into the room her naginata held at ready, and her shirt thrown on hastily. She looked down at the quivering crying mass that was apparently her husband. Lotion looked from Yume to Perfume and raised an eyebrow.

"Well did you lose something? Or were you both too busy to remember where you are?"

Perfume blushed furiously and grabbed her husband by his cloak.

"I'm sorry great-grandmother, it will never happen again."

So saying she proceeded to drag Will into the hall, 'accidentally' hitting his head against the doorframe. He was too busy, clawing at his face and moaning about 'his precious beautiful eyes.' All of this was ignored by Perfume as she 'happened' to cause his head to hit a wall right before hitting the doorframe into the room he was staying in. By now Will was merely crying softly to himself trying to either cope with, or block out the memory of what he had seen. Perfume growled and, in an impressive feat of strength and balance, hauled him over her head and onto the bed. Hitting the soft sheets Will decided to risk a look around and was greeted with the sight of his wife/fiancée/whatever, with her shirt missing a few strategically placed wooden ties. Perfume following his gaze saw her rather lewd state of dress, which she quickly fixed then, doled out proper punishment to her perverted husband. As he rubbed his recently abused head Perfume stood up and crossed her arms over her chest.

"So what were you doing in my great grandmother's room?"

"Uh …. Well…. That is to say…. I was…."

{Sleepwalking.}

"Sleepwalking, yeah that's it I was sleepwalking."

Perfume raised an eyebrow at her husband and let her arms drop to her sides.

"Are you sure that is all you were doing?"

Will nodded fiercely. Perfume nodded to herself, it seemed that this outsider knew his place already.

"So what do you Amazons do around here besides train?"

Perfume looked at her husband and slinked over to him in just the way that turned most mortal men into jelly. Will however was re-mortal-ed or whatever, but it worked just as good on him.

"Well husband, there are two things that we could do. But you only get to do one today."

Will smiled as she snaked one arm around his neck and curled her fingers in his hair while the other hand reached out and grabbed his twitching tail.

"Really what's that?"

Her smile suddenly grew evil and cruel and he felt his heart drop into his stomach, slashing on the gooey insides causing him to sweat profusely.

"We are going to train. No husband of mine is going to be a pushover."

Will wisely kept his mouth shut and only nodded in the way that only the damned could nod. With that she locked her arm around his neck and held him in a near unbreakable headlock as she drug him through the hut to the outside world. And to his imminent doom.

---------

Lotion sat in what could be the living room of her home and slowly sipped at a glass of tea. It was quite interesting this new husband of her great granddaughter's. He reminded her of someone, but she just couldn't remember whom. She took another sip and sighed, it seemed that the boy had great magical potential and chaos potential, at least that's what the village Lore Master had said during the meeting of the elders. It was also brought up that he could already have control over said magical abilities as had been seen in his fight with Perfume the day before. Seeing as the more experienced elders did not sense any signs of chi from the attack and had thought it was an illusion as had Perfume that is till it hit her. The thought that he had control over magic was furthered when it was recalled that he had healed Perfume after the attack. Lotion sighed again, she was sure that whatever the other elders agreed upon would not be helpful in getting the strange youth to want to stay. She could already hear the old bat Cologne cackling with glee at the thought of such 'strong blood strengthening the Amazon bloodline' and it was not a pretty sound to her ears. She was one of the elders that tended to want to try and move forward a bit and was willing to break tradition for the betterment of the tribe. Her musing were interrupted as the front door slammed open and revealed a rather winded Perfume carrying her very beaten and bruised husband over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Once she reached the common room she plopped her husband on the floor and walked back to close the door. Lotion looked at the grisly visage that Will portrayed. His face seemed like one big bruise, as did most of the skin she could see. Already she could tell that his eyes were swelling shut and he'd have trouble seeing straight for a while. Perfume sat softly into a chair by her husband's corpse and sighed as she rested her head on her hands.

"What's the matter child?"

Perfume just looked up at Lotion and smiled eerily.

"Nothing great-grandmother, I just started to teach my husband the advanced breaking-point technique."

Lotion's eye grew wide at what her ward said. The Advanced Breaking-Point training was even harsher than the first. Instead of using relatively soft boulders this technique used some recently acquired metal bought from a black-market dealer in Hong Kong. He said it was a mixture of Titanium, Steel, and depleted Uranium. In other words this was some tough assed metal. So the training really wasn't different it just involved a much denser and heavier medium to smash…. Er…. Train a pupil with.

"So how did he take it?"

Perfume smiled dreamily as she thought about the training they had done during the day.

"I have to say he recovers quickly. He managed to undergo two whole sessions before he fainted on the third."

That was surprising to even Lotion, while not unheard of usually the only ones that could take that kind of punishment were those who had spent years training their bodies. Not even the village champion was able to undergo that kind of training yet. Which also brought up a rather interesting point to Lotion.

"Why were you putting him though the advanced training? Shouldn't you have started on something easier like the normal training?

Perfume shook her head.

"He is very skilled with his weapon but it's like he didn't train himself he just knew it. His body is completely unable to handle the stress long periods of combat place on it. Like during our fight he said his Blazing Blade had really been a last ditch effort and he was planning to use it as a distraction so as to run away."

Lotion nodded at this revelation. While she had watched the fight she had not been close enough to tell how he was doing physically due not only to the distance but also due to the rather expansive cloak he wore. When the hood was up it nearly hid all of his features completely leaving but few places that could be seen and his face was not one of them.

"Still it doesn't explain why you're doing that to him."

"Well he needs to build up quickly, after the fight he put up I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a challenge or two, and the last thing I want is to be a widow after less than a week."

Lotion nodded accepting this explanation. After all with the village champion out on an honor hunt the position was opened again till she returned or someone filled it and challenged her upon her return. So that meant lots of girls would be looking for a decent fight in order to practice, and if the show the day before had been any indication it would indeed be best to build him up quickly.

"Very well when he is feeling better I think you should continue his training, just remember that he has limits."

Perfume heaved a deep breath and stood up and grabbed her husband and re-slung him over her shoulder then took him to the guestroom. Lotion sighed and smiled as she watched her great granddaughter drag her lump of a husband back to the room he was staying in. They kind of reminded her of her and her new husband back when she was much younger. Oh to be young and have a virile husband again. Lotion returned to her musings, she had to think of a way to protect her son-in-law before that witch Cologne sunk her claws into the boy and destroyed the thing that made him so powerful, his pride and self-image. Slowly a plan blossomed into being within her head. It was a risky gamble but if she pulled it off then not only would they have a magically inclined ally in her son-in-law but maybe they could find some more strong blood for the village and that power-hungry old bag Cologne. In his unconscious state Will shivered heavily as Lotion cackled with glee.

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Ranma sighed as he gazed into the campfire. He and his father were making remarkable time. Then again having a psychotic Amazon bitch nipping at your heals tends to do that to a person. They had set up camp just outside of Wuhan, a relatively large city on the way to Shanghai, which was where they'd probably stow away on a ship or swim back to Japan from. Still he couldn't get over how cowardly his father had acted when faced with death, his conscious was currently giving him a rather severe tongue lashing as he thought to how they had just abandoned Will in the middle of that village of chicks. He hoped that all Will's talk about magic had been right, even if he didn't trust the stuff it would probably help Will out. Then again he had not been faring too well with that green haired Amazon with the naginata. Maybe someday they'd meet again. With that thought Ranma turned over and let sleep claim his weary bones. Close by his now panda father was snoring away like a chainsaw having long ago fell asleep with no guilty conscious to bother him with. (Whether he had one and was too stupid to notice it or he had lost it long ago was debatable.)

Nearby the Saotome camp Shampoo rested by a tree her Bon Bori clutched to her chest like heavy metal teddy bears. Some how she always seemed to lose sight of female Ranma, then this strange boy would just pop up and begin walking with female Ranma's panda as if nothing were amiss. Oh well such thoughts were best left till tomorrow after a good night's rest.

(And that concludes our Ranma Update for the time being. We will inform you as to any new noteworthy developments as time progresses. We now return to our regularly scheduled story already in progress.)

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Yume awoke to the rather bleary sight of the void, where he generally met his boss. Shaking his head to regain his bearings he heard Typhous speak.

{I am so glad I didn't take over your body. I almost hurt from that ringer Perfume put you through.}

"Ugh."

That was all Yume could really articulate at the moment. A moment later and the amount of black in the otherwise white void increased. Death appeared seeming to just grow from the ground.

"Good evening sir."

Death nodded his reply to Yume then seemed to speak to someone behind him.

"Yume, I have neutral news, bad news and possibly some worse news. Which would you like to hear first?"

"Uh no good news?"

Death shook his head.

"Uh let's go from neutral to worse I guess."

Death nodded and tossed Yume a folder.

"Ok, first order of business. It seems that the Higher-ups planned for your little dimensional misplacement. You are to go to Tokyo and wait there. Which ward you choose will be up to you. But you have to be there and have a 'base of operations' for lack of a better word, set up and ready within two months."

Yume nodded and perused the folder not really paying it any attention before tossing it into the volumes of his cloak. This earned merely a raised eyebrow from Death as he proceeded.

"The bad news is that it seems that your contract had an added clause to it that I wasn't informed about until just recently."

"Come again?"

Death pulled out the contract Yume had signed the first time they had met and handed it to him with a special magnifying glass.

"Use the magnifying glass to look over your signature."

Yume looked at his John Hancock and nearly dropped the magnifying glass. Almost his whole name was actually comprised of words forming a seemingly solid line. Which if he read it correctly, and his lessons from Law and Order and The Practice were anything to go on then he had basically agreed to any additional clauses to the contract. The added clause he read now was that he accepted to be the apprentice to another higher being.

"So this means I am a dual apprentice?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Does this mean I get a double workload?"

"Probably."

"Damn. So what's the worse news?"

Death sighed and stepped to the side to reveal a smaller blonde haired blue eyed man with a mischievous smile.

"Yume I'd like you to meet Loki Norse god of Mischief and Trickery."

Loki nodded to Yume who merely stared.

"I see you are in awe of my very presence I like that in an apprentice. Good material is so hard to come by anymore."

Yume merely blinked and continued to stare.

"You're kidding me right? I mean the god of mischief? Me? In a Ranma-verse? Is this someone's idea of a joke?"

Death sighed.

"I'm afraid not Yume the Higher-ups decreed it and I am in no position to oppose them."

Yume looked at Death oddly.

"What are you talking about worse news this is great."

Death performed a remarkable face-fault and groaned.

"Huh?"

"I said this is great do you realize just how good and how much fun it will be to have the power of mischief on my side? If you knew as much about the Ranma-verse as I think I know then you'd be grateful for something like that."

Death sketchily stood and brushed himself off glaring at the giggling Norse deity.

"So you have no problem with this?"

"Well as long as he gives me some goodies too then I think it won't be a problem. Though the idea of me a former mortal holding two positions like this is kind of strange. I'm not about to complain."

Loki smiled he liked the way this boy thought.

"Well I guess I should give you your gifts."

With that a heavily decorated sword appears in Yume's right hand.

"That is a powerful Rune Sword it will be much better than the common scythe you use now."

Yume looked at it and summoned his scythe from the fold of his cloak. Siren seemed to dislike the new sword.

"I don't know I already have a rune weapon and the scythe looks so much more sinister."

Loki and Death looked at each other and blinked as they realized that his scythe was indeed a rune weapon. Inexperienced yes, but a rune weapon nevertheless. Loki snapped his fingers and the sword disappeared.

"What else you got?"

Loki summoned a powerful spell book and tossed it to Yume.

"This is a long thought lost spell book in the plane you're on it's very powerful."

Yume opened it and looked over a few pages then tossed it back to Loki.

"Have it, my copy has color pictures."

"Colored? Can I see?"

"No. What else you got?"

Loki made the book disappear and grit his teeth a bit.

"Weapon training?"

"Got it."

"Disguise technique?"

"Have one and I really like it."

Death smirked at Loki a bit.

"A beautiful woman?"

"Got it even if she is a bit psychotic when it comes to my martial arts training."

Death's smirk grew; he was enjoying Loki get exasperated it didn't happen often.

"You know Loki its always good to read up on the files before you meet someone."

Loki scowled at his 'partner'.

"Teleportation?"

"Know a spell."

"A new car?"

"Wouldn't help where I am or where I'm going."

"A cute and furry familiar?"

"Does it have to be cute and furry? Can it be dark and evil?"

"No has to be cute and furry says so in the rules."

"Pass."

"Ability to power up exponentially."

"I already had a sayijan scare, I'll pass."

Loki scrubbed his hands over his face refusing to admit that Daryl had been right.

"Riches beyond your wildest dreams?"

"Nah it would throw off the world's economy."

"Prince hood in an extinct or near extinct intergalactic kingdom."

"Hmm, would I have hapless minions?"

"No."

"Pass."

"How about a super power?"

"Such as?"

"Super intelligence."

"Hmm no I think that if I had that I would think too far into things and thus see that no matter what course of action I take it will eventually lead to the same results."

"So that's a no?"

"Right it's a no."

"Enhanced senses?"

"No then it would be hard to filter out noise and other things making me miserable if I were around normal people."

"Super strength?"

"No."

"Ability to control flame?"

"Hmm no I don't want to have to deal with Saffron if something were to go wrong."

Death was becoming a bit surprised; it seemed that Yume had already planned for the possibility of having abnormal powers.

"Just pick something, if I can do it I'll give it to you."

"Now you're speaking my language."

Loki merely nodded a bit and huffed as Yume set to picking his benefit from being apprentice to Loki. Suddenly Yume pulled out a notebook and flipped a few pages into it.

"Ok here's a small list of things, a few, if not all will work well."

Loki took the list and looked it over with Death looking at it from over his shoulder.

"Hmm this is a heavy list. But I think I can pull it off. You had better not screw up understand me? I can't have my apprentice failing."

Yume nodded and saluted.

"Yes sir."

Death looked at the list then at Loki.

"You sure you can pull this off?"

Loki waved a dismissive hand towards Death.

"Yes yes no problem."

With that Loki began to chant in a language long forgotten to mortals, soon a pulsing ball of glowing energy formed in between Loki and Yume. Soon some glowing energy began to leak from Loki, as his chanting became faster and more intense. When the ball became about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle he thus it forward with a shout. Yume blinked dumbly at the incoming ball of energy wondering why his body wouldn't respond to his command of 'get the hell out of dodge' Closing his eye he awaited the incoming pain. But luckily for our protagonist the energy was merely absorbed into his body giving it a strange glow. Loki smirked as Yume opened his eyes warily.

"All done? I don't feel any different."

"Of course you don't the changes won't take affect till you wake up."

Yume nodded at the logic in the thought. Death's head snapped up and he looked around for a bit.

"We had better go you need to wake up soon."

Both Loki and Yume nodded in eerie synch. To which Death merely blinked and shook his head.

"Remember Yume two months, and you'll need to have you base set up."

"Oh and make sure there's enough room for six to ten people to live comfortably."

With those departing words from Loki both him and Death faded from view and disappeared. Yume shrugged as he felt himself begin to dissolve from this plane

Will opened his eyes and glanced about the room curiously. The sky outside was still dark signifying the early ungodly hour he had awoken. Looking around the room again he spotted his cloak resting at the foot of his bed. Getting up he stretched languidly and cracked his knuckles. As he finished pulling his cloak over his head the door to the room opened and revealed a rather nice image of a fully dressed and ready Perfume.

"Good morning Airen. You're up much sooner than I would have expected."

Will shrugged tilted his head to the side letting one or two of his vertebrae pop.

"The same could be said for you."

Perfume replied in the same manner that Will had, she shrugged. Will nodded and began to walk out of the room as Perfumed let him pass.

"Where are you going?"

Will looked at her and smiled as the tail of his cursed form wrapped around his waist taking on its sash-like appearance.

"To the training ground, you know the saying 'the early student catches the technique'.... Or something like that."

Perfume blinked at her husband as he left the house. Looking back to the interior of the hut Perfume blinked as her rather sleepy-eyed great grandmother watched her. Waving goodbye Perfume quickly followed her husband. Lotion blinked blearily at the closed front door and grunted. Slowly she returned to her room and went back to sleep she was never a morning person and staying awake would have been pointless.

--------

It was much later in the day that found Lotion once again sitting in the common room of her home sipping on some tea. She was currently musing on the proper way to enact her recently made plan of getting her new great-grandson-in-law out of the reach of Cologne. Her musings were interrupted in much the same way as they had been yesterday. Only this time it was the other way around. Will opened the door and slowly carted in Perfumes tired looking form. Lotion raised an eyebrow as Will put a finger to his lips to indicate his want of silence. Carefully he carted his female companion to her room and laid her onto the bed. After he was finished he collapsed into one of the chairs in the common room and let off a shaky sigh.

"Whew that was a long day."

Lotion raised an eyebrow at Will indicating for him to continue, as she sipped calmly at her tea.

"Well I think Perfume was pleasantly surprised at me today. She Fainted shortly after her told me I had mastered the Breaking-Point technique, both of its aspects."

Will frowned mightily as he drug his hand down his face wiping the tea that Lotion had spit on him in her surprise. Lotion on the other hand was currently coughing up a storm trying to control her breathing, The sudden shock of hearing Will say that, had caused some tea to go down the wrong tube as she spit it onto his face.

"Well that was unpleasant."

Lotion stared incredulously at Will as her breathing calmed a bit. Shaking her head a bit she turned her 'good-ear' to Will.

"I'm sorry my hearing isn't what it used to be I thought I just heard you say that you mastered the Advanced Breaking Point technique."

Will stared at her then pulled down the hood of his cloak allowing his face to be seen.

"You're hearing seems to be fine because that's exactly what I said. Or at least that's what Perfume said before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fainted."

Lotion blinked for a moment or two then nodded her head understanding her great-granddaughter's response. In fact she was feeling a might feint from the idea herself. Then her body reacted almost with out thinking, and her gnarled wooden cane snapped out and struck Will dead in the face. To which Will didn't react much at all other than his eyes turning to regard the piece of wood now lodged in his cheek.

"What was that for?"

Lotion retracted her cane and leaned it against her shoulder as she regarded her son-in-law again.

"I was seeing if what you said was true or not. You have to excuse my initial response it does seem a bit strange that you have mastered such a powerful technique in a matter of two days. On average it would take our more gifted warriors at least a week to master such a technique, at least to master both of its aspects."

Will nodded sagely looking almost like he actually was somewhat intelligent.

"This could prove to be exceptionally bad."

"Why is that Elder?"

"Please son just call me great-grandmother. Because I think Cologne may have taken the idea of you becoming her new student into consideration."

This Will knew was a very bad thing. If Cologne sunk her claws into his rather thick hide he wasn't sure he'd be able to pull off his mission, thus nullifying his contract and in turn his mortality. But still he had to make it seem that he didn't know about what a power hungry critter Cologne was.

"So?"

"So. If Cologne gets a hold of you she'll get all the information that she need from you then turn you into near mindless breeding stock."

While the idea had a bit of merit it still would more than likely cause him an undue amount of trouble.

"So what can I do? I can't stay here I have to get to Tokyo in Japan."

Lotion glared at the boy. However he spoke before she could.

"Look it doesn't matter that I'm Perfume's husband now, I have to go to Tokyo and whether or not she is willing to go make no difference to me."

Lotion's glare intensified as she heard him speak. This little upstart male was talking back like he had a choice in the matter. (Here I'd like to note that even though Lotion was one of the more open-minded Amazon Elders she was still an Amazon and had years of protocol drilled into her.) However her argument to his point was silenced by the eerie glare that he was sending her way.

"Whether or not this pleases you I will be leaving and you and the other elders will be hard pressed to keep me here."

Lotion shook her head and resumed glaring at Will.

"Just who do think you are?"

"I am a person that if I don't get to Tokyo and do as my boss instructed in time I could very well die. This isn't about me wanting to defy you and your traditions this is about me wanting to survive. I will leave as I said now whether I am your ally or enemy will be determined by how you choose to handle this situation."

Lotion's look softened a bit after all he was still trying to be respectful.

"What do you mean my actions?"

"I mean your actions because I know that Cologne will not willingly let me go. So it falls to you to decide my future involving your tribe. I will ask Perfume what she wants to do when she wakes up. If she chooses not to come, but you do help me in leaving then I will remain an ally to your people. However if she chooses to come with me and you try to stop me then I will become your enemy."

Having said that he allowed a bit of the power he used to make his death-guise to show giving his whole person an odd supernatural look. Which for some reason unbeknownst to Lotion left her more wary than she'd have thought possible. She took a deep breath before she continued.

"Very well Will I will help you in whatever ways I can. But remember your promise, because one day we may need to hold you to it."

Will nodded and smiled at Lotion warmly.

"Thank you I hope that I will be able to help whenever it is that you may need my help, Just remember I may seem quite powerful now but I still have a ways to go before I have reached my potential. (That being taking over both of his mantels from his bosses.)"

With that said and out of the way they began to plan exactly how they were going to get him, and possibly Perfume, out of the village without arousing too much suspicion from the Matriarch. It was a long while before either of them went to sleep, they spoke late into the night.

(TBC)

Teaser for Chapter 05:

Ranma runs into a bit more trouble in his remaining trek across China. While Lotion and our perilous hero enact their plan to get Will (and possibly Perfume) out of the village and to Tokyo. Also Death and Loki get a request from some of the Higher-ups to speak with Yume. What will happen? ....... Well I'm not sure it hasn't been written yet.

Yume