Disclaimer-Nothing is mine. This is a fundamental truth, and unlike John Locke, I believe laying claim to things in such a manner is what destroys society. Political opinions aside, the only things in this story I could reasonably lay claim to are Azael and Kagami, as well as Daemonar's adult self, and the story that I managed to craft with all of these characters and concepts that are not mine.

Warning-Spoilers for Ranma and Black Jewels. Swearing. I said otherwise in the prologue, but Azael and Ranma just took me there: I had no say in it. Characters will act as I think they'll act. They'll get treated however they're treated by other characters acting as I think they'll act. If this disagrees with your own opinions, then I'm afraid you'll have to either debate with me so well as to change my mind, or simply not read. Violence. Mostly implied, and rather mature subjects may come up. You're reading an R fic, I didn't rate it there because I felt like it.

(Font specifics: "Blah" is speech. You know this.

Boo is either thoughts or stressed words, depending on the context.

-This- is an interruption.

/Huzzah/ is psychic communication.

If you have trouble with this, don't hesitate to e-mail me, I don't have much better to do.)

Conclusions

By Pale Wolf

Chapter One

The Beginning of the End

Daemonar Yaslana's eyes narrowed. /Hey, Azzy, you smell that?/ he queried on an Ebon-Gray thread.

Azael Angelline's presence unfolded just outside Daemonar's outermost mental barriers with the psychic equivalent of a snort. /I hope that was rhetorical, Bookworm./ The slender, muscular 'young' man leaned forward onto the plastic wall of his suite-like cell, his golden hair rustling over his lightly tanned skin and narrow, fine-looking face.

Daemonar leaned onto the plastic window across from his cousin, stretching out his large, dark-membraned wings. His powerful frame, dressed in gray leather, combined with his short-cropped hair and golden eyes, almost served as a foil to his small, slim, black-cotton-clad cousin with the longish gold hair and the large golden eyes. /I still think 'Bastard' and 'Prick' are better./

/But taken. If there are Blood here-/

/Besides us./

Azael nodded. /But if they're here.../

Daemonar grinned. /Then it's time to check out of this inn./

Azael finally opened his mouth to say, "Indeed it is. Indeed it is." He called in his fingerless gloves (set with chips from his Jewels) and wire-wrought rings, adorned with his Gray.

Daemonar called in his Red pendant. "Center of the Winds?"

Azael smirked. "Where else?" He raised a hand, long sharp black-painted nails reflecting the light, then cut down, slicing apart the wall meant to hold him in. He stepped out, vanishing the contents of his room behind him. "Pathetic little 'prison'."

Daemonar simply blasted a hole in his own cell and stepped into the corridor between them. "You can't fault their location, though. It's uncharacteristically intelligent of them. Not even the Black Wind touches this place."

"I could handle a jump from here, actually."

"Possibly, but you're unique, Packrat."

Azael raised a blond eyebrow. "A better nickname, maybe, but where'd it come from?"

Daemonar blinked. "You packed your whole room and you're asking me that?"

He snorted. "Whatever. Get your books and let's go."

And then the corridor's main door opened, and exorcists poured in, clutching their religious paraphernalia, from bibles to crosses. One, in a Cardinal's red robes, looked like the leader.

Azael smirked. "You're a little late. Shouldn't you have been here when we first got out?"

The Cardinal -a Frenchman named Michel Charest- glared. "My men are not fools, devil. They had to organize to destroy you once and for all."

Daemonar blinked. "Question. I've never been quite clear on this, and you keep changing how you address us. Are we demons, demonspawn, servants of the Devil, or the Devil himself?"

"Make fun if you want, creaturse of darkness, but you will not escape this holy place."

Azael had a soft smile-too soft-as he stepped towards the priests in a smooth glide. His voice was soft and smooth, like a well-honed blade parting flesh. "I'm going to reveal something to you. We stayed down here for the last few centuries because we had nothing better to do. 'Escape' attempts every so often helped relieve my boredom, Daemonar could sit around reading forever. But now we want to leave. And, as a side note, none of your terms for us are quite accurate. 'Creature of darkness' was close, but 'children of the Devil' was your best guess." He smirked. "Technically, we're his grandchildren. Kiss kiss." Then he wrapped himself in the usual four shields- sight, sound, psychic, and protective. He was his father's son.

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"Kiima! Kiima!"

Moaning with the ache, she slowly levered herself up off the floor, sighing in relief as she got off of her wings. "What the f-?" As her eyes drifted open, she cut herself off, seeing her lord's worried face. "What happened?"

The 12-year-old reincarnate shook his head. "I don't know. That thing hit you, you fell and started shaking and glowing and changing and-"

Kiima gently raised a hand. "I understand, my lord. You needn't worry, I'll be fine." She smiled. "You've aged again, I see." The ancient boy looked downcast all of a sudden. "My lord? What's wrong?" She'd taken the Jusendo incident very seriously. The individual that Saffron had become was not the king she swore eternal loyalty to, for all that he wore his face, memory, and power. Trying to avoid that happening again, she'd chosen to raise this Saffron as a normal child (who happened to age however he wanted and have a few millenia of memories, rulership, and oodles of power over her) rather than spoiling him.

"A-after you fell, another thing hit Cumin, and she was hurting and screaming and thrashing and I panicked and grew so I could hold her down and keep her from hurting herself-"

"Is she all right?!" She tried to shoot to her feet, but cramped up and fell back down to her knees. Kiima hadn't planned on it, but she'd developed quite and affection for the little girl, Saffron's best friend.

Saffron nodded. "I got her mom to take her home, she's okay."

"Then what...?" Her eyes widened. By aging, not only had a gap appeared between them, but he'd just reminded everyone that he wasn't just the happy little boy he'd been for the last year.

She leaned forward and drew him into a hug-one that he tightly returned.

She hated Saotome Ranma more than any other human being, but she had no idea how to thank him for giving her another chance as a mother-she was sworn to the sword and the crown, between them finding someone to give her a child was the most distant possibility.

Unseen by any, she narrowed her pale lavender eyes. But if Saotome dared lay a hand on her child... She'd kill him. She didn't know how she could do it, but she would make him bleed, suffer, and die.

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Daemonar popped back out of his cell and cast an appreciative eye over the mess scattered through the hall. Azael was certainly creative. Not seeing any identifiable remnants of the Cardinal, he had to guess that the blond had his mother's touch.

As the blood seeped across the floor towards him, he formed a plane of force under his feet and raised himself above the ground. He walked across the air to his cousin, who was himself observing the carnage with his usual eye towards improvement. "There were distinctly less brutal ways of getting out. Still touchy about that last execution attempt, I see."

Azael gave him a flat stare. "They tried to shave me. I have uses in mind for my cock, thank you very much."

Daemonar raised an eyebrow, then turned his attention to a corpse that looked particularly... filleted. "While the particular use you're thinking of is, assuming it all works out, a rather pleasing thought, the fact that it's you sours it." He glanced around. Definitely had his mother's touch. The walls and ceiling were splattered. "Where's Cardinal Charest, anyway?"

Azael smirked and waved his arm in a wide gesture. "Around. Got your 'unholy' books?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Want some more? This Vatican place's library is mostly worthless, but they might've got something good since our last breakout."

Daemonar snorted. "Yeah. Right. I know you've been monitoring just like I have, they haven't had anything worth reading for the last couple of centuries."

"Well then, that leaves us with one question. The easy way or the messy way." There was a disturbing light in his eyes.

Daemonar studied him. "Mother Night. You're in rut." Azael nodded. "Then I'll let you direct that towards other people. Messy. And leave me some, if you can."

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Saotome Ranma groaned as delicate hands shook her. It wasn't exactly comfortable, where she was sleeping, but she was tired, goddammit! She felt for where the disturbance was-funny, she found it so easily- and lashed out to knock it away. Not full-out, never full-out, but certainly enough to knock it back a few feet, alert it to her displeasure.

That's why a loud and fast-diminishing scream shocked her into awareness, and she gaped as the girl who'd been tending the jewelery store flew back... through the wall... across the street... through another storefront... and she still didn't seem to be slowing.

Pushing thought aside, Ranma acted. She ran forward- faster and more powerfully than should've been within even the wider range of human ability that Ranma was aware of, but she just took that into account and filed it away for later attention. Her world turned empty for an instant, then rose back into view. Postponing the figuring out of what had happened for later, she reoriented herself, then snagged the incoming girl from the side, spinning in place to burn up the last of the momentum. (Just catching her and stopping would apply almost as much force as the initial hit, and Ranma, although not complaining, wasn't quite sure how the girl even survived a hit as strong as Ranma had felt it to be.)

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Azael's jaw dropped. "Mother Night..."

"And may the Darkness be merciful," Daemonar added, looking around at the abyss surrounding them, the sense of an ocean that wanted to fill the gap occupied by the cousins. Riding the Winds darker than his own Ebon-Gray always made him nervous. If Azael's shield faltered for even a second, he stood a good chance of being broken... even mind-broken. He only suppressed a shudder at that thought through long-held confidence in Azael. "What's up?"

Azael shook his head. "Somebody just dumbed out the Winds."

Daemonar blinked. "Then... why didn't I feel it?"

A little smirk played at the young man's lips. "Because, my friend, she went a little deeper than me."

Daemonar repeated Azael's dropping jaw and "Mother Night" sentiment.

That damned smirk was still there. "Way east, about ten minutes by the Ebony from Ebon Askavi."

"They call it Phoenix Mountain."

"I know. She wasn't even in for a second, but I caught a whiff of her scent. Just a whiff, but uniquely dark. She's our blade."

Daemonar frowned. "Whatever she could do for us, she's still a living, breathing being."

Azael stroked one of Daemonar's membraneous wings, fully aware of how sensitive they were. "I meant 'blade' in your Eyrien sense, Bookworm. She'll do what she wants to. We just make it possible. And in return, we ask for one thing that she might want to do anyway."

He raised an eyebrow. "That make it easier?"

A sleepy glaze came into Azael's eyes, and Daemonar shuddered. "I serve our Queen. Our blade will do as she pleases, with knowledge we will give her. We are not a charity Daemonar, and I will not leave our task undone." The coldness faded, and he smirked. "I wear the Gold. And we're about to arrive, so relax. You know I don't like distributing the work, but we don't have the power alone. And I won't manipulate our blade, I'll ask her when the time comes." Then they dropped into physicality.

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"What's the problem, Ami? Have you figured out what happened to Haruka and Hotaru?"

Mizuno Ami rubbed her stomach and looked across the shrine table at Hino Rei. Hotaru hit really hard. She flipped open her pocket computer. "You know that surge of darkness you felt?"

Rei slowly nodded. She'd recovered soonest, having been first to get knocked out. "What does that have to do with Haruka, Hotaru, and catching and stopping that bitch?"

Setsuna drifted in through the door to the shrine's inner areas. "We should let her speak." Rei shot her a glare. "Kagami is a priority, but we can't afford to ignore anything right now."

"Don't sneak up like that! What about the others?"

Setsuna rubbed her neck. "Hotaru, Haruka, Makoto, Minako, and Usagi are still out. Michiru is keeping an eye on them. Ami, what did you find?"

Ami nodded, raising her computer. "There has been a massive upswing in Dark power worldwide."

Setsuna's eyes narrowed. "Clarify that."

"Umm... There are about ten thousand powerful new Dark signatures in the world."

Rei raised an eyebrow. "I can feel that capitalization. Why?"

Ami blushed. "It felt right."

Setsuna cleared her throat. "You said 'powerful'. How powerful?"

Ami's face cleared. She was deadly serious now. "Not a single one is weaker than the generic monsters, our applied power level. The three strongest... each of them is quite a bit stronger than Serenity with the Silver Crystal."

Rei warded herself, both against the thought of that much power, in anyone, let alone an enemy, and also Setsuna's visible expression of emotion: slack jaw and eyes wide.

Setsuna quickly composed herself. "Where are those three?"

Ami winced. "The weakest of them is in a nearby ward of Tokyo. Nerima. The middle one appeared out of nowhere in Italy, Rome, about an hour ago, but is now in China's Qinghai Province. The strongest... it's in Juuban, just outside of the Osa-P jewelery store."

Rei shot to her feet. "Then let's go!"

Setsuna shot her a scathing glare. "Don't be stupid, Rei. Only half the Senshi are even conscious, counting Endymion, our two strongest are still out, and we can't be sure what is going on with Uranus and Saturn. Let's not go up against an enemy stronger than us at our prime." Ami timidly raised a hand. "What?!"

The genius, impressively, didn't shrink back. "I have some readings on Haruka and Hotaru. There was an energy overlap between Kagami and them- Kagami's energy was overlaid over both of them. Based on their behaviour, I think that this is some form of mental manipulation. There are currently no traces of Kagami's dark energy in either of them, so I think they should be fine when they wake up."

Rei nodded. "Fine. Look, Setsuna, we've fought enemies stronger than us before, and-"

"No. We haven't."

"What about Galaxia?" Ami queried. "Or Pharaoh 90?"

Setsuna sighed and took a seat. "You don't have the experience with the computer's readings to realize. The computer said the the weakest of the new readings was on par with our applied power. That's how much we use, partially because we don't have the bodily ability to handle our true power, and partially for... other reasons."

"This is a crisis, Setsuna-san," Ami stated, meeting the Time Senshi's eyes. "We can't afford your semantics and secrecy. What do you mean we don't have the bodily ability, and what are the other reasons?"

Setsuna shut her eyes, sighed, nodded, and opened them again. "You're right. I'm trying to be forthcoming, ever since that fight with Kagami proved that the Time Gate isn't working right. What I mean by 'bodily ability' is just that. The human body isn't meant to handle planet power, and you don't have the experience with it, which is the whole reason for the limiters we have built in. If we go at overly high power levels, we will experience a degenerative effect on our bodies. And at full power... that's the other issue."

"Just say it!" Rei snapped.

"Limiters off... any of us could destroy a planet. Hotaru's just the only one who can do it and not notice. The planet just won't survive us at full power, and neither will we. Your computer's comparison of the strongest was the Silver Crystal at full power. To defeat 'stronger' enemies, we've just loosened the limiter. We win by power more than strategy, and that's just not an option this time. We have to think."

Ami nodded. If thought was involved, she could certainly make more of a contribution than in the usual slugging matches that Senshi business devolved to. "I agree. I think we should go after the middle-power ones first. The stronger ones are too dangerous, and we can take the weaker: our full power was put well above all but a hundred of the new signatures. This will be risky, but I think we can do it. Final decision goes to Usagi, though."

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Nabiki frowned, fingering the amber-coloured jewel in her hand. What the fuck were these things? They'd come out of nowhere and slammed into her and her sisters, and none had escaped unchanged. She looked down into the hand mirror she'd brought down from her room with a sardonic smirk. That was still the face everyone in Nerima knew and feared. Of course, nobody would recognize the internal changes she could feel.

It was like Mousse putting on his glasses (rare though the event was)- everything seemed sharper, more apparent, and there was this sense of power to everything, even the beating of her heart, the pumping of her blood.

Her senses... There was a new awareness in them, too. She could feel many times her own power from Kasumi, who was following some wierd set of instincts she'd picked up, examining all of her ingredients, herbs, and spices. Kasumi stepped out of the kitchen suddenly, placing her own sky-blue jewel into a pocket in her housedress.

"Nabiki-chan, I'm going out to the market," she commented as she headed to the door.

Nabiki frowned. "You might not be safe. Should I call Akane to keep an eye out for you?"

Kasumi paused in slipping on her shoes and shot a level look at her sister. "Nabiki. I have gone to the market alone at least once a week for the past decade, and I haven't been hurt yet. I will be fine." She finished getting into her shoes and stepped out the door.

Nabiki frowned. Something about her had cried against letting her elder sister out without protection. It annoyed her even more that she had listened, but... it had been so overwhelming.

Akane had changed too. By a far wider margin than Kasumi over Nabiki, the youngest daughter was stronger than the other two put together. When they'd woken up about twenty minutes ago, Akane had instantly gone over to the dojo to break bricks and keep in a temper to beat Ranma when he came back. Of course, she'd had to quit when, in smashing the first set of bricks, she'd blown such a large crater in the dojo floor that it was hard to find any actual wooden, intact, flooring. She'd called her friends over, apparently Yuka and Sayuri had both been hit by those wierd jewel-things, and were coming to visit. Akane waited upstairs.

Nabiki checked off another name on her list and reached for the phone. Soun and Genma had disappeared after the jewels had hit, and Ranma and Ryouga still weren't back. None of her contacts had yet seen them. In Ryouga's case, this was understandable, but Ranma? Never. The boy was nigh-impossible not to notice, whatever the gender. And he always returned. He should've been back from that duel by now.

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"Typical. Just typical. You'd think losing a fight, gettin' hit by this black thing, plus losin' control of my strength would be enough..."

Osaka Naru frowned. What was that redhead (...stripehead?) so worked up about now? How much more wrong could this whole situation get with a simple trip to the bathroom?

"... but nooo, the fuckin' kami just never get tired of playin' with," here her voice... tried to mimic a deep bass, "Saotome Ranma, 'Man Among Men'."

Naru blinked. 'Man Among Men'? Ranma was a tomboy for sure, but far too well-endowed to ever be mistaken for a man. And even if she somehow managed that feat, she was still easily beautiful enough to have pretty much any heterosexual male questioning his own sexuality. Naru was rather jealous, actually.

She was still ranting. "... nothin' else, they changed this stupid body again! I mean, jeez, most people just have one body in their lives! I'm on my third!"

Naru nodded. That made a certain amount of sense. The redhead might not have noticed how much she'd changed before seeing herself in the mirror. She rubbed her sternum. The girl certainly hit hard... in fact, the bone was almost dented. But considering the prolific stream of apologies for just hitting her, she probably shouldn't mention it.

Naru was no expert on the human body. Therefore, she couldn't have been expected to know that that blow would've put a hole through Ryouga and probably broken the rest of his body like an overripe watermelon upon contact with another surface.

"... just that, now I'm stuck in this one! And," she took a moment to breathe deeply and raise her right hand. There was something... off... about it. "I have a fucking claw!"

Naru blinked and peered closer at the hand. Wierd, she was right. There was a visible, razor-sharp projection extending from the ring finger. It was more pointed and tubular than edged and hooked- a stabbing claw rather than a slashing claw. Nasty-looking regardless, and clearly deadly, its tip glistening.

Apparently having voiced her current concerns with life, Ranma quickly relaxed. She grinned sheepishly at Naru. "I introduced myself, right?"

Naru nodded. "Yes, Ranma."

"Not properly." Ranma extended her right hand... then glanced at the claw and extended her left instead. "You probably shouldn't touch that, I think I'm poisonous. Anyway, I'm Saotome Ranma, and I was born male."

Naru's glance dropped to Ranma's... rather prominent chest. "Umm..."

Ranma smirked. "Got hit with a curse two years back. I get hit with cold water, I turn into a girl, hot water turns me back into a guy." She shot a glare into the bathroom. "Normally." She turned her attention back to Naru, wiggling her still-extended hand.

Naru shrugged and took the hand, shaking it, then gave Ranma a bow. "Pleased to meet you, Ranma. I am Osaka Naru."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're surprisingly acceptin' of such a crazy story. And thanks for lettin' me use the bathroom, even if the stupid thing didn't work."

Naru grinned. "I'm used to wierdness." She pulled the gray jewel out of her pocket and frowned at it. "But I've never had this happen. I feel... something... welling up inside me."

Ranma snorted. "Try a bit of trainin' in chi. I can feel so much power, I'm fucking scared."

Naru frowned. "How strong?"

"You could probably nuke the planet and make it back in time for breakfast."

Naru's jaw dropped and her eyes bugged out.

"I'm many times that." Naru fainted. Before she hit the ground, Ranma caught her. She gently hefted the girl into her arms and began walking around the inside of the store, looking for somewhere comfortable to put her down. "And that scares me more than anything else," she added to herself.

She spotted a couch and laid Naru onto it. As she was carefully extricating her limbs, something touched her mind. It was the same kind of sensation as when Kagami had contacted her in the fight. But the thought sent, the message, was different, and so was the one who sent it. Deeper and darker, it resonated with something far within her.

/If you can hear this, you will find your answers at Phoenix Mountain. I am coming./

Next: Chapter 2! The situation escalates, as demon hunters fixate on the changed women across the world. A single figure hops around the world to save them, but one man can only cover so much territory. And what happened? What are they?

Author's Notes (You should know the drill. Just what I say when the story itself doesn't burn out my long-windedness.)

E-mail to contact me: miraclewolf at

All things you don't understand will be explained. Particularly all the stuff with the powers, that's what the next little chunk of the story is for. No offense meant to French people for the Cardinal, I just had to give him a vague bit of specifics, and that was the first one that popped up.

Don't worry about the psychotic power levels. Just because Ranma can fry many many planets without difficulty, doesn't mean s/he's not going to be challenged. I know enough about balancing power levels to handle that. In Black Jewels, immense numbers can threaten the powerful characters. And, unlike there, there will be powerful antagonists in this story. And languages: what's spoken is what's appropriate for the area and people (ie. Latin in the first scene), unless otherwise mentioned. The usual instant translation effect.

I need to get this out. Due to various issues, I'll be playing it cautiously with this story. One: new stories set in the Black Jewels universe are on the way, one of which in particular has the potential to completely debunk one thing I'm going to use here. If it does, count it as an alternate universe. Two: Jaenelle's lifespan-she's not from a long-lived race, but I'm figuring since she's pretty much a living deity, she can age however she likes. But 'Kaeleer's Heart' may completely scrap that, I don't know. I'll be honest. My confidence to keep this story going has taken a hit. I'll probably get back to work on it, but my focus will be shifting for a while, I think. Maybe. Anyway, don't count on this being updated next. Even if it is, some things will not be written until I've had a chance to read Dreams Made Flesh. That's probably in 2005. Don't worry though, I still have quite some distance to cover before I need that info, and I'll work on it.

Thanks go to Rmorletd and ranger5 for helping this not suck!

Major note to anyone: if you know Ranma, or Black Jewels, and find any errors, contact me. I have Black Jewels right here with me, but I'm certainly not perfect, and if you spot an error, I'll certainly go to an effort to correct it.

Pronunciation Guide: I apologize for needing this, but Ms. Bishop decided to make some of the pronunciations in Black Jewels pure madness. I'll fill this in as applicable names show up.

-Azael- Pronounced 'A-zayl'. Hard 'a'.

-Daemonar- Pronounced 'Day-mon-ar'. Same case.

(Feminine names with the 'ae' cluster are a soft 'a'. If Azael were female, name would be pronounced 'Azalle', or 'Azelle'. I haven't quite figured out the handling of it when the 'ae' is later in the word, but I'll explain the moment I figure it out. I think it's 'Azalle'.)

-Eyrien- Pronounced 'Ear-ee-en'.