Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Ranma ½, Ah! My Goddess, or any other trademarked/copyrighted product in this fanfiction. They were created by people a lot more imaginative than me. I am also not making any money off of this. This is merely for entertainment purposes.
Note: This story takes place after the Jusendo incident. Ranma is about to enter his junior year of high school. This story starts towards the end of the summer break.
Pursuing a New Path
by ranmafan1
Chapter 4: Reliving the Past and Training for the Future
Within the hazy confines of the dreams, visions of a past long ago assaulted a mind that wanted such memories forgotten.
A young girl sat by a small pond, throwing rocks into it and watching the ripples resulting from the action. All around her children were laughing and playing. Some girls were standing nearby and whispering amongst themselves while pointing at the child, though they did not know she could hear them clearly. "Why does she dress like that?" "Yeah, do you think that she wants everyone to think she is a boy?""That isn't the only thing weird about her. Well, I heard that she has some weird bug that reacts to disco music."
"Yeah, I heard that too! She totally can't stop dancing when she hears it! It supposed to be really freaky! I mean, I heard of some people having it in their programming to fall asleep with certain music, but that disco thing would be just too weird." (1)
"Maybe we should try that sometime just to see it. That would be funny!"
Giggles were heard from the gossiping group, while the child continued to look at the pond while clenching a stone within her small fist.
"Hi! What's your name?"
The girl blinked a few times, realizing that someone was talking to her. Tentatively turning her head, she came face-to-face with another girl about her age with platinum white hair and dark-tanned skin. The sitting girl only managed to speak, "Huh…"
"My name's Urd! Want to go and play?"
Nervously, the young girl searched for the right words to say, but could not find any. "Umm…"
"Come on. It'll be fun!" Not giving her the opportunity to talk, Urd grabbed the girl's hand and dragged her off towards the playground.
Within the dreamscape time quickly passed from young childhood into the late teenage years (at least according to appearance).
Two young women were laughing amicably while drinking at a bar. To all observers, the two were clearly old-time friends from the easy-going manner in which they interacted. "I can't believe she really did that!""Yep. Naked as the day she was born after giving a strip show to a room full of nymphs."
"I guess that ought to show why ya shouldn't drink one of Aphrodite's cocktails…Couldn't happen to a better goddess if I do say so."
"Oh….My, my, my, dear Mara, are you still thinking about how she and those others treated you all those years ago."
Mara snorted. "Damn straight! Those stuck-up brats always had it out for me. You know that, Urd." The demoness took another swig from the bottle in front of her. "Enough with taking about this depressive shit. Tonight's a night for celebration! Tomorrow both you and me are getting our full licenses!"
"Here! Here!" Urd raised her own bottle towards her mouth and took a swig.
The two remained in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying each other's company. Tentatively, Mara asked Urd a question. "Urd?"
"Yeah?"
"Are we still going to get to do these kinds of things after getting our full licenses? I mean…demon and god friendships don't usually last once they get their assignments."
Urd rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. "Mara, Mara, Mara. You worry too much. We have hung out together for a long time already and I doubt something as simple as being on different sides will change anything." A heartfelt smile appeared on Urd's face. "You were right before. Tonight's a night to celebrate and not being depressed." The smile turned mischievous. "So, are you interested in anyone lately?"
"Urd!" The demoness yelled in mock anger, while trying to conceal a small blush. "You know I'm not into looking for relationships like you!"
"Oh, come on, Mara! There has got to be someone that you like!"
"Well…," responded Mara uncertainly. "There is this one person…"
"Details, girl, details!"
"Um, well, it's…"
Once more time flowed through the mind at an accelerated rate until it stopped on one fateful day.
The same two individuals that were once laughing and chattering in friendship now stood facing each other with none of the closeness that existed before. The dark skies and pouring rain reflected the atmosphere between the two. One stood looking torn with sadness and regret, while the other face was etched with anger and hate."How could you do this to me!?! I trusted you!!!"
"Mara…I…," whispered Urd while trying to place a hand on the other's shoulder.
However, the hand was slapped away before it could it even make contact. "Bitch, bastard!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"
Silence once again claimed all.
Mara snapped awake with a gasp, air coming into her lungs at an accelerated rate. For a few moments, her eyes remained unfocused, seeing the images flashing briefly before they were once again banished.
'Damn. Haven't had those dreams for a long time.' Shaking her head to clear it, Mara got out of the bed and stretched the kinks out of her body from the night. Looking outside, the demoness noted how the sun was shining brightly. Apparently, there was going to be nice weather as compared to last night. With a casual snap of her fingers, Mara's nightgown transformed into a formfitting black shirt and jeans combination. On the shirt's front was written in red "Bad Girl" and on her hands were black fingerless gloves.
'Time for some food.' Just as she was about to step downstairs and conjure up some food (no way was she going to cook!), Mara felt a fairly large channeling of energy outside. Then she heard someone scream, "Damn you, Oyaji!!!" which was followed by a huge explosion. Peering outside, she noted a large cloud of smoke escaping from the practically demolished dojo. Sighing, the demoness realized immediately what must have happened. 'I guess someone is impatient.' Mara went to find some alcohol since she knew Ranma was going to need it.
Earlier…
Within the dreamscape of another mind, a similar play of memories filtered through.
A young boy tearfully waved goodbye to a kimono-clad woman. Standing next to him was a heavy-set man who looked disapprovingly at the child's emotional display.
"Come on, boy. It's time to go."
Wiping at the tears in his eyes, the boy meekly replied, "Okay, Papa."
"Ranma my boy, I will make you into a great martial artist, the best of your generation. The road will be long and hard, but I want you to always remember, 'The life of a martial artist is fraught with peril.'"
A resolute nod was the response from the boy, followed by another, "Okay, Papa."
The memories quickly shifted onto a different memory.
The same boy from before was sitting on top of an okonomiyaki cart as his father pulled it at a face pace. He waved good-bye to another child who appeared to be trying to catch-up to them. The boy carefully concealed the sadness he was feeling about leaving his friend since his father did not like for him to show emotions like that. His father always yelled and said to stop acting like a girl, though that always confused him. The boy thought that the only good thing out of this departure was that they seemed to have gotten the cart as a going-away present.A new set of dreams emerged from the dark recesses of his mind.
"Don't worry, boy! We'll get rid of this stupid fear of cats yet!"
The child tried to run and flee away from the pit, the pit where there was nothing but pain, but he was too hurt, tired, and hungry that he did not have the strength to resist. So, inevitably, the father once more threw his son in the pit.
Once landing on the ground, he immediately curled within a ball to instinctively protect his face and eyes from the ravenous beasts that pounced on him. How many times he had been thrown into the pit, the boy lost count, but every time it happened, his mind felt like it was getting closer and closer to tearing apart. This instance the boy found within his psyche a refuge to hide away from the fear and pain. All he had to do was reach out for it and release himself to it…
Another scene.
'Stupid Ryoga. Making me wait this goddamn long for a stupid match. He set this damn thing up in this lot and still gets lost. He'd better get here soon. The old man's getting impatient.'
Some time later.
The cool feeling of water surrounding him froze Ranma to the core. Before he got hit, the guide said that the spring his father fell into turned him into a panda. Now he fell into a spring, what was he going to transform into? But wait, he still had arms? Maybe he got out of it okay.After rising out of the surface of the pool and taking in several deep gulfs of air, he immediately knew something was wrong. His whole body's weight felt off. "Wh-a..?" Before he could finish a sentence, he stopped when hearing the different tone in his voice. It sounded a lot higher pitch than it should have been. Fearing for the worst, he looked down his front shirt and noticed two bulges. Quickly tearing open the front of the gi, he noticed what they were. He was a she. The insults of the past came roaring back to him with a vengeance, repeating themselves over and over again within his mind. A small part of himself realized how this was his father's fault. He embraced the hatred this spawned since it felt better than the depression he was about to fall into.
"Oyaji!?!"
Later.
A young girl with blue-black hair stood in front him (who was a her at the time), showing a bright smile and kind eyes. "Hi! My name's Akane. Do you want to be friends?"
Finally.
Surrounded in ice, Ranma was in mid-air with the Gekkaja firmly in his grasp. This was his only shot left. He knew time was running out for Akane since her eyes were going to soon close. A direct Hiryu Shoten Ha might actually work against Saffron if he could channel the tornado to remove the massive amount of heat surrounding the Phoenix King, which would subsequently freeze him. It was his only hope. Akane needed water from the Dragon tap to live and he would not let her die!!!
Ranma woke up with a gasp as the shock of memories overwhelmed him. His own eyes briefly recalled the dreams of the past night, which caused him to groan tiredly. It was those damn ones again. 'This is getting real old.' The way these memories kept haunting him at nights, he could not help but thinking his mind was trying to tell him something. 'Oh, well. Time to get up I guess.'
One good thing about not going with the others on vacation was how he did not get splashed awake with a bucket full of water or got thrown out a window. Right now he needed to brush his teeth and have a quick soak in the furo to wake-up.
After entering the bathroom, Ranma grabbed his toothbrush and put some toothpaste on it. Looking into the mirror, he blinked repeatedly upon noticing his appearance. Red stripes of hair intermingled with the raven black. Blue eyes with tinges of red. Two slashes on his forehead with a triangle under each eye. Opening his mouth he noticed the fangs. This all caused Ranma to sigh wearily while recalling all of the events that transpired the day before.
"Great. Just great. I guess it's too much to ask for yesterday to be a dream." Another sigh escaped his lips. "Ah the hell with it all." The newly-turned demon decided just to continue getting ready in the morning. He needed to find out what his body can do with these new changes.
An hour later…
Ranma was standing in the middle of the dojo in deep concentration. He was examining the strange life energy flowing through him now. When he examined his inner stores of energy, he nearly facefaulted at the amount of raw power within him. It was definitely a lot higher than Saffron's when they battled. He figured that he missed this detail due to being around Mara all the time. Her aura still dwarfed his own by many factors, Ranma grudgingly admitted to himself. He also probably did not notice because he was not really bothering to pay attention to his inner power levels yesterday due to the various events that occurred.
Taking note of his energy level also made him scowl. He did not really like getting free energy boosts. All of his previous skill and power before yesterday had been due to his own hard work. To all of the sudden becoming stronger than the Saffron he faced because of basically a mistake seemed to cheapen his previous efforts.
Upon reflection, that was one thing that annoyed him about his rivals and fiancées. They were all willing to take the short cuts for anything until they found out about the consequences. The cost for the super soba Akane ate where those c-cat whiskers. The "Mark of the God" that made Ryoga almost seemingly invincible was an incredibly stupid-looking tattoo of a smiling face.
A stray thought entered Ranma's mind, one that occasionally came up from time to time. 'I wonder if I would have been any different than them if things worked out differently. What if I accidentally ate the soba, if I received the mark, or if the battle dogi chose me?' Now it seemed like he would find out since it happened to him and this power-up made all of theirs seem insignificant.
Of course, now that he sullenly thought about it, his own price was his very humanity, and, unlike the other instances, this was something that could not be reversed or given up.
Ranma sighed again and shook his head to get rid of the depressing thoughts. He would start thinking like pig-boy if he kept that up. It was time to see what he could do with this energy. 'Hmm, I think Hild said it was called pishogue.' He had already gotten a glimpse of his new capabilities when he unconsciously channeled the energy to get away from "Hell's Paradise" and those succubae. Shivering slightly, Ranma remembered the hungry gazes those chefs gave him. Ranma was glad he would not be seeing them any time soon.
In Nifelheim, a certain quintet sneezed, momentarily stopping their daydreams of a pigtailed demon.
To start off with, Ranma began with basic punch and kick katas. Gradually, he worked up the speed and strength of them until he became a blur throughout the dojo. Although he expected this new energy level to increase the power of his movements a lot, he was still quite surprised by how drastically it changed. When he started to apply the Amaguriken principles to his upper and lower body, he was moving faster than before this whole fiasco started with seemingly little effort.
After about two hours of accelerating practice, Ranma finally stopped to take a breather. Beads of sweat were dripping down him from the workout. He had long ago taken off his shirt to cool down better in the summer heat. His mind was currently wrapping around what just happened. 'This is incredible. I've never had this speed before. I'm probably faster than the old ghoul and the perv now.' Those thoughts made him giddy in thinking that he would finally be able to beat them in a straight-out fight. Then he remembered that he would still only be able to win against them using superior speed as well as power and not on skill. This redropped his mood, but one bright point still was how Happosai would not be able to push him around as easily as before. Of course, who knew what other kinds of surprises he had in his arsenal?
Now that he saw how his Amaguriken speed was affected, it was time to check some of his other special techniques. A full Hiryu Shoten Ha was out of the question in the dojo since it would blow the place apart. However, a small Moko Takabisha should be okay. 'Okay. Now all I gotta do if find my center and project my confidence outward.'
Taking a few deep breaths, Ranma cupped his hands in front of himself. After focusing on his center, his battle aura surround him. He was somewhat surprised and a little nervous upon noticing the different color of it. Where before it used to be the yellow-gold representing his confidence, it was now black. Having the energy projecting outside of himself also allowed him to have a better feeling for the dark 'texture' to it. Although, now that he thought more about it, this did make sense considering what he was. Now, all he had to do was to use his confidence to draw the battle aura in between his hands. Whenever he needed to do this, Ranma tended to think about all of the past battles he won. It always gave him the extra ego boost he needed to pull off this technique.
However, to Ranma's great surprise, he could not condense the battle aura. Again, he tried upon focusing his confidence to channel the energy, but still it would not work. One more time, he concentrated, this time on imaginary scenarios of him defeating the entire Nerima Wrecking Crew in a gigantic battle. Yet again, a failure. This resulted in his confidence slipping a bit to replaced with some frustration and anger. 'Why won't this work, dammit!'
For a brief instant, Ranma felt the correct channeling of energy towards his hands, but it stopped as fast as it came. Now this confused Ranma. Ki projectile attacks like his Moko Takabisha and Ryoga's Shi Shi Hokodan are based upon have a fairly large battle aura and being able to guide that energy using an emotion where the individual has excess. For him, it was confidence and for Ryoga it was depression.
'How was that little bit of anger that I felt able to channel that much energy so easily?' It was almost as if the energy was meant to be used with…dark…emotions. The answer hit him upon that realization. 'The whole feel to this pishogue is dark, whereas ki doesn't have any such sensation unless an emotion is used to manipulate it.' If this was true, that meant that in order for him to throw an energy projectile again, he would only be able to do so using negative emotions. This made him depressed upon realizing he could not use his true Moko Takabisha anymore. For one thing, that technique used ki and not this pishogue. In addition, confidence could not be used for directing this energy. 'Looks like another sacrifice to this whole mess.' He was always proud of his development of the Moko Takabisha to counteract Ryoga's Shi Shi Hokodan.
One positive note was that he should still be able to throw an energy projectile. Since this energy seemed to be 'programmed' to use negative energy, it would not take a sufficiently large amount to make it work. The other 'good' aspect of this development was that he had plenty of memories to help fuel the necessary emotions.
'Okay. Now let's try this again.' Once again finding his center, the dark aura reappeared. 'Boy, that is going to take some getting used to. It's pretty creepy.' All he had to do was find a dark memory to help focus the anger that would be needed. The most prominent one that came to mind was his father during the Neko-ken training.
As he thought more and more about those damn animals and how merciless his father was to him then, Ranma's anger rose to greater and greater heights. 'I begged him to stop throwing him in that pit and he just shrugged it off. That bastard!'
Had someone been looking at Ranma's eyes, they would have noticed that their red-blue colors were darkening into a blood red. Using all of his anger at his father during that time, Ranma easily channeled the energy in a black, swirling ball between his hands.
As Ranma's eyes flashed pure red, he lifted his hands into the air and shouted out in rage, "Damn you, Oyaji!!!" However, with so little practice on handling this type of power, the energy exploded right there.
Back to the present…
With a bottle of sake in hand, Mara casually strolled out of the house and around the koi pond towards the trashed dojo. 'Hmm. Pretty impressive for a first time. It seems like all of his advanced martial arts training has helped him immensely with energy manipulation to be able learn the most basic of pishogue manipulation so quickly.' As she came closer to the dojo, Mara assessed the damage done more thoroughly. The entire dojo had practically collapsed into a pile of lumber...on top of Ranma. 'That had to have hurt.'
The demoness stepped onto the dojo floor, which was surprising intact. She assumed his energy must have been fired just upward and to the sides. In the center of dojo remains, Mara noticed a large pile of debris, which is where she assumed Ranma was buried under. Hearing a faint groaning coming front around that area made her postulation correct. After walking next to the pile, Mara made a wave of her hand. The lumber flew off to the side. Now the demoness was able to see an exhausted and beaten Ranma on the floor. "Oh, well. Nothing a little drink won't fix."
Enough being said, Mara popped the top of the sake bottle. She was tempted to just pour the contents onto him and leave some of it dribble into his mouth, but decided against it. She did want some of it for herself. Therefore, Mara knelt down and lifted Ranma's head off the floor. She slowly poured some of the contents down Ranma's throat. While the alcohol was starting to take effect on Ranma, Mara looked for a while at his bare chest. Her mouth all of the sudden felt a little dry, so she took a drink of the bottle as well. This was when Ranma started to regain full consciousness. Quickly, Mara set his head down and put a few feet between them.
Ranma moaned as reality began to reassert itself with him. Squinting his eyes open, he noticed Mara standing near him, holding a bottle.
"You awake yet, 'dear.'"
Growling softly, "No fiancé jokes, Mara. I got one hell of a headache right now." After his senses cleared, he took a look at the damage and groaned. Most of the dojo was a wreck now with only the walls and some of the roof surviving. There was no way he could fix all of it in a couple of days. He could just imagine everyone's reaction. Soun and his pop were going to gang up on him, the former with his demon head and the latter wailing as well as screaming about his worthless boy. Akane was going to probably pound him to the ground or the air (or both), Nabiki was going to take every yen he had to his name for years to come, and Kasumi…well, Kasumi will probably say, "Oh, my!"
Mara interrupted his thoughts. "You know you're pretty lucky that you weren't able to channel too much of your energy yet. You could have easily vaporized that entire block into a smoldering crater if you weren't careful."
Blanching at the imagery, Ranma was thankful that she was right. He also berated himself for his lack of control. Thankfully, nobody did get hurt (except for himself, of course). Almost shaking with effort, Ranma was able to pull himself to his feet, although he almost fell over again as another wave of dizziness hit him.
"Here. Take some of this," Mara stated, while holding out the bottle she was carrying.
Ranma looked at it, saw the word 'sake' on it, and understood what she meant. Reaching out, he grabbed the bottle and quickly downed some of it. Almost immediately, he could feel some of his strength returning. After taking another sip, he handed the bottle back to her and belatedly said, "Thanks."
Mara shrugged indifferently, and then questioned, "So, you were trying to throw an energy blast by my guess, right?"
After sighing, Ranma answered, "Yeah. First off, I started testing my skills with this new energy…It is called pishogue, right?" Seeing Mara nod, he continued, "Well, anyway, after that, I wanted to try out some of my special techniques to see how they would be. One of mine…was the Moko Takabisha, but that worked on confidence. I figured out that this new energy doesn't work with good emotions, so I tried anger, and…, well, the rest I guess you know…," he ended sheepishly.
Mara smirked in response, though internally she was rather impressed with him. His file was not kidding about his adaptivity. He picked up on some of the basic pishogue mechanics without any instruction. Taking a look around the room, her grin widened a bit as an idea came to her. "Well, this place sure is a mess. How long do you think its gonna take to fix it up?"
Giving a face of disgust, Ranma too looked around again at the damage and replied, "I dunno…" Ranma sighed and continued, "…but not before everyone comes back." An idea popped into his. He glanced at Mara questioningly, then spoke, "Unless you use magic. It would be done practically in no time."
On the inside, Mara smiled at his predictable thinking processes. 'This is way too easy.' She answered simply, "No."
Ranma blinked a couple of times, then repeated almost incredulously, "No?"
The demoness nodded her head, then affirmed, "No…" She was about to continue, but Ranma interrupted her.
"Okay. What do ya want?"
This time it was Mara's turn to blink. "Excuse me."
Sighing, he elaborated, "Isn't this how it usually goes? Now ya tell me what I gotta do to get ya to help me." 'This is what Nabiki usually does,' Ranma thought wryly.
Mara raised an eyebrow, but she was thinking, 'Well, that wasn't what I had in mind, but it could prove useful to do to him in the future.' She was just going to make learning the spell a challenge so that he would be more willing to be taught magic, given that his mind seemed to work that way…but since he asked. Her mind wandered off into a couple of fantasies that made her chuckle darkly.
The faraway, glazed look on hers did nothing to ease Ranma's nerves. The evil laugh subsequently caused him to sweat in response. This did not bode well for him.
Mentally shaking off the daydreams, Mara decided to be lenient on kid, but filed away the same blackmail tactic for future reference. She also highlighted 'basic negotiation skills' in the list of things in which Ranma needed to be educated. "No, Ranma. What I was thinking was that I could help you learn the spell to repair the dojo."
Ranma blinked a few times in surprise. "Oh, um, okay…Do you think there's gonna be enough time to do that? Everyone's supposed to be back tomorrow."
Tapping a finger to her chin, Mara responded, "There should be. You have already picked up on some of the basics on your own." She shrugged. "The rest should easily fall into place." The demoness smirked and then snapped her fingers. In an instant, Mara had a lab coat on top of her current attire in addition to wearing a pair of glasses and holding a ruler.
Ranma, on the other hand, found himself sitting in a desk and quite bewildered by the current development. "Ummm…"
In a stern lecture tone, Mara spoke, "Please take out your demon training manual."
Looking incredulously at the demoness and still disoriented from the drastic change in atmosphere, Ranma was only able to utter out, "H-huh…"
Calmly walking up beside his desk, Mara held the ruler out and smacked it upside his head.
"Oww!!!" Ranma rubbed the back of his irritably from the impact. "What did ya do that for!?!" He was surprised that the ruler didn't break upon hitting him. She must have been channeling energy through it to hurt as much as it did.
Mara smirked and then answered, "You're slacking off already, student. If I'm going to be teaching you spells, you're first going to need to learn the basics of what being a demon is all about. Now get to work."
Ranma grumbled a bit under his breath about 'tomboy teachers' and 'wannabe taskmasters.'
Of course, Mara heard him and, instead of hitting with the ruler, zapped him with a small lightning bolt. She growled out, "What was that?"
With smoke coming of his slightly fizzled hair, Ranma muttered, "Nothing, sensei."
'Sensei. Hmm…I could get to like that. Heheheh…' thought Mara. Outloud, she spoke, "Read the first three chapters. If I remember correctly, that should be enough to start off with before we begin spell training."
"Yeah. Yeah," griped Ranma. Remembering how the librarian told him to summon the book, he concentrated for a second and willed the book to appear on the desk. Opening it to the first chapter, Ranma read the title, 'Chapter 1: Demonhood for Dummies.' Ranma sweatdropped as he realized that the 'For Dummies' book series was probably one of those patented products from which Nifelheim made money. Ranma himself was quite the customer for that particular company.
For the next several hours, Ranma continued to read the book in the strange language that he could somehow understand. It was actually quite interesting to him, much more so than the boring books for his classes at Furinken. The content consisted about the Yggdrasil system and how it connected as well as ran all three planes of existence, Asgard, Midgard, and Nifelheim. Ranma was also immensely grateful that the reading was not taking as long as he thought. This was mainly due to how many of the pages held illustrations to exemplify what the book's subject matter was.
The second chapter mainly focused on what he had already learned from his training session in the morning, which was how to properly focus and channel pishogue. He had to admit, however, that if he did not have prior experience with ki manipulation, those lessons could have taken weeks just to get down the basics.
While Ranma was reading the material in front of him, Mara was once again playing video games on the portable unit she seemingly carried everywhere. What the demoness really wanted was to find some people around to play havoc on, but according to her own senses, there were no high-energy humans in the district (meaning none of the main characters Ranma usually got into trouble with were around). She figured that they probably went wherever everyone in this house had gone. With nothing better to do, she decided to try and increase her skills with video games. "I'll beat you yet, Urd," muttered Mara under her breath.
Ranma blinked as he thought Mara said something. Occasionally, he kept hearing the demoness mentioning something about beating someone named Urd, but he shook it off and continued onto the third chapter, which seemed to talk about the basics of spell casting. He hated to admit it, but the book was getting pretty interesting. It had probably been the most fun he had reading in a long time, if ever. This was probably because he was beginning to see how much work actually was involved when casting spells. Hild seemed to be right when she said magic required a different level of concentration.
Eventually, Ranma finished the last chapter of his 'assignment.' After stretching the kinks out in his back, he placed his hand onto the book and willed it back to wherever it went. Looking at Mara, he noticed that she was still playing the portable video game. After waiting a while and seeing she was not really paying attention to anything else, Ranma decided to get her attention. "Yo, um, sensei!"
Blinking out of her concentration, Mara looked at Ranma and questioned, "Oh, you done?" Not waiting for an answer, she stood up and stretched. Afterwards, she put the video game away faster than even Ranma could notice where it went. "Well, let's move onto the next lesson." With a snap of her fingers, the lab coat and glasses she was wearing were gone. "Before we go into spell casting, I want you to perform an exercise that will help you have a bit better pishogue control."
Ranma raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "And what would that be?"
Smirking, Mara stated, "Flying lessons."
His eyes opening in surprise, Ranma repeated incredulously, "Flying lessons!"
Instead of confirming her own previous words, Mara floated up into the air. This caused Ranma to almost stumble in shock. Sure, he saw demonic creatures flying around in Nifelheim, but they were all using wings to do so.
Now that he thought about it, flying for him would be easy. He had already seen how Herb was able to float, but the guy had dragon ancestry, and as a result, a huge ki reservoir. With all of the energy he now had, flying should be simple.
After the concept of actual flight sunk into his brain, Ranma was filled with such anticipation and glee that he could not help but smile. One of main specialties of the Saotome Branch of Anything Goes was mid-air combat and using various maneuvers to maintain time in the air as long as possible. Now he would actually be able to fly. It was like a dream come true.
Mara, who was now on the ground, was sweatdropping at the sparkly-eyed look on Ranma's face. It was similar to the one at "Hell's Paradise" when he found out he could eat all that he wanted and did not have to pay for it. Mara was finding that expression to be very disturbing and all-around creepy. To break him out of this state, she coughed loudly and spoke, "Um, Ranma?"
Snapping out of his stupor, Ranma replied with obvious enthusiasm, "Yes, sensei?"
With her sweatdrop growing slightly larger, Mara asked, "Uh, are you ready to start?"
Ranma responded with the same level of excitement, "Yes, sensei!"
"Uh, right." Shaking her thoughts about his current weirdness, she went on with the lesson, "Close your eyes and concentrate on your energy." Ranma eagerly complied. Once she felt the necessary focus was maintained, Mara continued, "Good. First, I want you to simply float into the air. Doing this is pretty simple. All you have to do is channel the pishogue towards you lower body." After her senses told her he had accomplished that task, she added, "Now, push that energy towards the ground…Think of it like jumping into the air, and firing a ki blast below you to increase her height, except you do not need that first leap to move." After rubbing her chin thoughtfully, she resumed, "Another way to think of it is how a rocket uses propulsion to move in the direction it needs to go."
After a few moments, Mara smirked as she sensed him doing as told. Of course, there was one tiny detail she left out.
"Ahhhhhh!!!" screamed Ranma as he was propelled high up into the air. And as gravity exerted itself, he plummeted straight downward and crashed hard onto the floor.
"Oops. Did I forget to mention only to use a little bit of energy?" Mara innocently asked.
"Yes, I think you did," replied Ranma, though it sounded muffled with his face firmly implanted in a new hole on the floor.
After picking himself off of the floor, Ranma turned to the snickering Mara. "Ha. Ha. Very funny." Sarcasm dripped from his statement.
Shrugging indifferently, Mara stated, "Well, you should have better control over your energy."
Ranma grumbled, but accepted the words as truth. He should have had better control and channeled the energy more slowly, but he was too excited to notice such things. Of course, she probably sensed he was using too much power to start off with, but 'forgot' to mention that little fact to get a few kicks out of it. "Yeah, whatever…So I guess all I gotta do to move in any direction then is channel energy outwards from the opposite direction."
Mara nodded, slightly impressed. "Exactly. Pretty simple, isn't it?"
With a familiar arrogant smirk on his face, Ranma replied, "Nothing keeps Ranma Saotome down for long."
Once again Mara shook her head at the sheer ego Ranma had. 'Of course, sometimes, I'm not much better,' she privately added.
Ranma once again had a look of concentration on his face. However, this time his eyes were not closed. All of the sudden Ranma was slowly lifting into the air. His face displayed a smile of satisfaction. Tentatively, his body began to move slowly in various directions. He then began to vary his speed in the same sequence for about fifteen minutes.
Mara was getting bored just watching Ranma and was about to call out to him, when all of a sudden Ranma zoomed up into the air at a high velocity, exclaiming, "Yahoooooooo!"
A bit surprised at the action, Mara was curious as to what he was up to. She noted that as he reached a fairly high altitude, he rolled into the air until he was pointing downward. Then, Ranma made a straight divebomb towards the ground. When it looked like he was to about to crash, he suddenly made a U-turn and stopped in mid-air.
Grinning wide from the freedom from flying through the air, Ranma stated, "Thanks a lot, Mara! This is great!"
Still a bit stunned from the surprise, Mara only nodded.
While in the air, Ranma began to perform basic katas. Eventually, he worked up his way to the advanced ones, and soon after he was adapting them to continuous flight rather than the brief seconds that they were originally designed for.
During all of this, Mara simply watched in fascination. She could not herself but to continue watching the beautiful display before her. Not only was the level of skill that Ranma was showing a rarity among mortals, but the way he adapted to flying was like he was made for there.
Then there was the most startling aspect of his appearance in her eyes. It was the carefree and content expression on his face, which showed every bit of the happiness that he felt. 'When was the last time I looked like that?' Mara sullenly asked herself. The answer immediately came to mind. 'At the hotsprings.' She remembered that one night where she and the goddesses were able to set aside their differences for a short time. 'Even if it was partly because of Belldandy's 'punishment',' she added, smirking a bit from the memory. Then Mara recalled the events of yesterday and remembered that she actually was having fun at that time as well. Suddenly, things did not seem so bad.
Mara shook her head from her reminiscence. She did not know why lately those past recollections were coming to mind lately, but it was getting quite annoying. And so the demoness settled done and comfortably watched Ranma perform his Art until the beginning hours of the evening.
Ranma lost himself into the Art. He had no concept of what time it was, nor did he care. All that mattered to him was the feel of the wind against his body as he performed feats of strength and skill that would awe most martial arts masters, especially when considering the current flying aspect.
After he finalized the last kata of his practice, he lowered himself onto the ground and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his arm. All of the sudden Ranma heard clapping from the side. Startled, he turned to see Mara was one giving him applause.
"Nicely done, Ranma. Very impressive," she complimented.
Ranma scratched the back of his head in false modesty. "Well, you know…," he left open.
Mara rolled her eyes at the bad attempt at humility. "Now that you're done, let's get something to drink."
Blinking, Ranma noticed that it was around evening. "Wow, I guess I lost track of time," he noted a bit nervously.
Shrugging, Mara stated, "No problem. Your performance was quite…enlightening."
"Well, I'm gonna wash off now." Ranma pulled out his shirt from the rubble and proceeded to walk towards the house.
"Do you want some company?" Mara purred out. "You know, I'll wash your back if you wash mine."
Noticeably stiffening from the question, Ranma stuttered out, "T-that's okay. I think I'll be fine on my own." He quickened his pace until it is was almost a light run.
Mara shook her head unbelievingly. 'Man, talk about paranoia. What kind of fiancées does he have to make him this high strung?' Shrugging her shoulders, she walked at a slower pace than Ranma into the home. Immediately, Mara walked into the kitchen and went to the cabinet where she found the previous bottle of sake. 'Who would have thought that they would have so much sake? Decent stuff, too.' Opening the bottle, she took a sip from it and settled into the dining room, waiting for Ranma.
Fifteen minutes later…
Ranma descended the stairs, dressed in a blue sleeveless shirt and his traditional black pants, and moved towards the dining room. Wordlessly, Mara held out the bottle to him. Sighing, Ranma nodded his thanks and took it. After drinking a large swig from it, he handed it back to her.
Ranma decided to start the conversation. "You know, Mara, I've been thinking"
"Congratulations," smirked Mara.
Facing twitching slightly, Ranma returned, "Like I haven't heard that before." He continued, "Anyway, how is everyone gonna believe you're my fiancée. I mean, you are sorta…"
Growling slightly, Mara asked in a dangerous tone, "What were you going to say?" Lightning sparks danced around her hands.
With a sweatdrop on his head, Ranma hastily added, "…um, mature! Yeah, that's it! Mature, eh, eh, eh." He nervously scratched the back of his head.
Grumbling, Mara picked up the bottle and drank from it. After calming down, she closed her eyes and chanted.
"O' sea of time and space, Turn back the clock on this face, Change the look of my form, To match this idiot's temporal norm."
When Ranma was about to protest the 'idiot' comment, he was quite surprised to see Mara's form begin to glow, and soon he had to shade his eyes with his hand from the brightness. Once the light went away, Ranma almost facefaulted at the sight before him. Sitting on floor was a Mara in her teens instead of her mid-twenties. "Wha…?" was all Ranma could get out in his shock.
Mara smirked at his stunned face and a mischievous smile appeared on her own. Taking one of his hand, she pressed it against her chest and made his hand squeeze. "See. A complete make-over."
Almost developing a nosebleed from the feelings in his hand, Ranma frantically pulled the appendage from her and scooted away. "W-what the hell was that about!?!" he exclaimed in shock.
Still maintaining the playful smirk, she simply stated, "Well, I just wanted for ya to see how complete the change was." She continued in a more normal time, "Anyway, as you can see, that spell I cast changed my physical age to the same as yours. So, there's no problem."
Ranma was still a bit overwhelmed by the past couple of minutes, so he only nodded.
Mara raised an eyebrow at his mannerisms, but shrugged it off. "While we're talking about spell casting, why don't we have ya try it on the dojo. You did say they were coming back tomorrow." She stepped up, took the sake bottle, and walked towards the back.
Shaking off his disorientation, Ranma stated, "S-sure. Why not." He then followed her into the backyard. While walking behind her, Ranma asked, "Okay. I can see how that…age spell ya cast will help with them believing you're another fiancée, but what about our aura's. The old ghoul, the freak, and about every other marital artist in the district will be able to feel them."
Stopping for a second, Mara turned around and responded, "Don't worry about it. Full demons and gods have built into them shields that prevent mortals from detecting what we are. They might feel something is 'off' about us, but the shield prevents their minds from making the connection. They also aren't able to see our demon marks. The only reason you were able to detect the nature of my energy and see my marks was because shields like that are brought down for a client." After a moment's thought, she added, "The only people who can tell that we are demons are other demons, gods, or those with a substantial amount of deity in their blood. And that's only when we don't cast temporary high level shields on ourselves."
Ranma breathed out a sigh of relief at that. He was actually surprised that he had not thought of that detail later. Then again, it was probably because it was not on his priority list of things on his mind beforehand.
Once the two of them were outside of the demolished dojo, Mara began her lecture. "Okay. As you can recall from your readings, all of reality is essentially a program run by a computer system called Yggdrasil, or the World Tree. Spells are basically programs that are used to manipulate reality…Now I want you to once again close your eyes and get your focus. Fixing things is actually a bit harder for demons than gods since our powers aren't really meant for that." He did as he was told and she continued. "Good. Next, think of the way the dojo was before you blew it up." That last comment was added with a smirk.
Ranma grimaced but did as he was told. It was a good thing he had been in the dojo (or flying over the dojo) to remember how it looked. After a few moments, he nodded to the demoness.
The demoness resumed, "Okay, now all you have to do is say some words that will 'force' what you want to happen. Remember, the words need to specific enough so that the lines of power weave properly. They don't really have to be poetic in any form, but that usually makes your focus better on what you want accomplished." 'This should be interesting.' Mara could already guess what was going on his mind. 'Probably cursing about his lack of vocabulary.'
Ranma was internally cursing about this last step. 'I'm no good with words.' He was one who tended to think only in strategy and with his fists, not with language. Nonetheless, he decided to give it a shot, though it took him a few minutes to come up with the words.
"Make this dojo as it laid, Reverse the damages that were made."
As he spoke the words, he could feel lines of energy enclosing the dojo. It was like forming a web of power as the book said. All of a sudden he felt a large magical discharge from himself towards the dojo. Excitedly, he opened his eyes and found the dojo's damages…reversed. Where the roof was previously collapsed, it was fixed, and where it was okay beforehand, it was now damaged. The same applied to the rest of the building.
"Well…the damages are reversed" Mara commented while trying to contain her laughter…and failing miserably.
"Oh, shut up," Ranma muttered. Closing his eyes, he centered himself and tried once again.
For a couple of hours and into the midst of night, spell after spell was made in trying to fix the dojo, but there was always something wrong with it. One of his attempts fixed the entire building, but made it upside down. Ranma was only able to stare stupidly at it for a few moments. How the whole building was balanced on the angled roof was beyond him. That failure was topped off, at least in his opinion, when the building turned into an Egyptian pyramid. Ranma could not understand how that happened.
While all of this was happening, Mara was being quite entertained. The various results of Ranma's efforts were hilarious, though she too was confused on how upside-down building and the pyramid versions occurred.
Looking angrily at the dojo, Ranma tried to figure out what was going wrong. Deciding that thinking from the beginning might help, he recalled the spell Mara was able to cast correctly. Ranma almost slapped himself for not previously realizing what to do. Taking a calming breath, he chanted.
"Change the shape of this land, To before I razed it by my hand."
According to Ranma's senses, the familiar pull of magic formed. Opening his eyes, he was quite pleased with himself to see the building as it was before he blew it up.
"Good job, Ranma, though it took you long." Ranma seemed a bit put off by her comment, but he declined to retort. Mara raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Razed it?"
This time Ranma did react. A little sheepishly, Ranma responded, "Yeah, well, when you're responsible for the destruction of enough buildings, you tend to hear a lot of words for it for over time."
Rolling her eyes, Mara tossed him the sake bottle, which he deftly caught. "Whatever. I'm going to soak in the furo and go to bed early." She smirked, "It'll probably be a busy day tomorrow." She then walked back towards the house.
Dumbly, Ranma nodded his head and said, "Um, okay, and uh, thanks, Mara."
Mara did not reply and merely waved it off.
Once she was back inside the house, Ranma shrugged his shoulders and drank from the bottle. Since there was not a lot left in it, he finished it off and threw the empty bottle into the appropriate recycling bin. 'Oh, what the hell. I might as well get to bed too.' With that thought Ranma proceeded up to his room.
A half-hour later…
As in the previous night, Mara was once more laying on her bed in a black nightgown and thinking of the day's events. Although there was not any of the real excitement of the day before, Mara still could complain about it. There was a definite…homey atmosphere to how everything went.
In addition, it felt different, pretty good in fact, to act like a real woman for a change. Many times she dressed in boyish clothes and displayed the attitude of one. 'Hell, I've even used that image occasionally,' Mara added to herself, recalling when she introduced herself to Keiichi as Belldandy's fiancé.
One thing that confused her, however, was the sudden mischievous impulse she had in taking Ranma's hand to grab her chest.
'I wonder where that came from,' thought Mara as she drifted off into sleep, one in which the past did not haunt her.
In Ranma's room…
In an all too familiar position, Ranma was lying on his bed, his mind awhirl once again with the drastic changes occurring in his life. Not only did he practice normal routines with pishogue, but also he actually learned how to FLY! And if that was not enough, he cast a real spell!
Ranma shook his head from the surreal feeling to the whole situation. What was even more strange was how he was taking almost all of it in stride. Everything had felt…comfortable without the mess of fiancées and rivals out to get him.
And then there was Mara. She had actually done quite a lot to help him out recently, even if it was her assignment from Hild.
Ranma thought, 'I should thank her somehow,' before he drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
The next morning…
Mara slowly woke up as the noises from outside became too loud for her mind to ignore. Grumbling a bit, Mara stretched and lethargically got out of the bed. Almost as an after thought, she snapped her fingers and a loose-fitting robe appeared over the skimpy lingerie that she wore during the night. "Damn kid. Why the hell did he have to wake up so goddamn early in the morning?" she asked to no one in particular. Deciding that she might as well see what he was up to, Mara strolled out of the house and towards the koi pond. Hearing noises above her, Mara looked directly up and saw Ranma training. Wanting to make her presence known, she yelled out, "Yo!" A second later, she decided that probably was not the smartest thing to do.
A minute earlier…
Ranma was vigorously training in the air and it seemed like he could not just get enough of it. He had decided to get up a bit earlier so that he could train longer while flying. With the family coming back today, he probably would not get a real opportunity to do it again for a while. So after getting changed into his training clothes, Ranma immediately went into his workout, though it was in mid-air. He did not even eat breakfast since he wanted to train as long as possible and he did not really need it anymore. The alcohol he drank before bed last night seemed to have replenished his energy reserves pretty well.
And so here he was, currently performing exercises in the air. So focused was he on his training that he did not pay attention to his surroundings at all. Therefore, it was quite the surprise to him that he heard a loud 'Yo!" directly beneath him. This startled the demon out of his concentration.
Had Mara been more fully aware, she probably could have gotten out of the way. However, just having awakened, her motor processes did not react fast enough to move herself.
And so, one recently-ascended demon crashed on top of the more experienced demoness.
And it was at this point, the front door of the house was opened.
The actual crash did not really hurt Mara. She was a first-class demoness and thus made of sterner stuff. The actual bruise was to her ego and how stupid she felt to doing what she did. She should have known that this would have happened. Looking at Ranma, she remarked dryly, "Okay, you can get up now."
Mara's voice seemed to knock Ranma out of his daze. "Oh, um, sorry," he replied nervously. Putting a hand to each side of her body, he pushed himself up and to the side of her. "Are all o…kay…?" Ranma trailed off and Mara noticed that he seemed a bit pale. In fact, he appeared to be looking at something behind her.
Turning around, Mara noticed a group of six people standing in front of the back entrance, four of them were women and two of them men. One of the women, a young girl with black-blue hair, was glowing an angry red.
The eldest woman of the group, who seemed to be carrying an odd bundle with her, exclaimed, "Oh, my son is so manly!"
The two men seemed to be barely containing in their anger. "Son…" growled out one of them, while the other stated fiercely, "Boy…"
The girl with the pageboy haircut smirked and stated in amusement, "Well, well, well, Saotome. What have you been 'up' to?" The 'up' word was especially emphasized. "And what's the deal with the dye in your hair?"
The young woman with the long ponytail over her shoulder put a hand to her mouth and simply said, "Oh my!"
It seemed as if the youngest of the group could no longer take it anymore. "Raaannnnmmmaaaa!" The girl pulled a mallet out of nowhere, ran up to the shocked martial artist and directly belted him into the atmosphere before he could say a word.
This seemed to snap Mara out of her daze. Looking up she could see the dot of Ranma Saotome flying over the horizon. This caused her to sweatdrop slightly. Shaking her head to clear its thoughts, Mara turned her attention towards the yard's other occupants. Noticing that she was now the center of attention, Mara rose up from the grass and fixed her robe.
Now that she had a better grasp of her bearings, Mara took stock of the situation. The first people she examined where the three youngest ones. 'Hmm. The one who…malleted Ranma must be Akane and the other two must be her sisters.' Mara blinked as a realization hit here. 'Wait a minute…' Looking at the three sisters, Mara noted that the Akane girl had a mallet. Turning her view slightly, she noticed that one of the other sisters had a calculating and manipulative gleam in her eye. Examining the last one, Mara observed how she radiated peace and tranquility. A devious smile would have formed on Mara's face had she not controlled herself. 'This assignment might not be so bad after all.'
And in a surprisingly ironic fashion, Mara greeted everyone with, "Hi. The name's Mara. Sorry about this."
End Chapter 4.
Author's Notes:
(1) Children can be fickle about such things.
This chapter actually ended up a lot longer than I had originally planned out, but a couple of ideas popped into my head while writing along and so I just kept on going. A big thank you goes out to all of the fans of this fanfic for their support. Also, please continue with the helpful C&C.
-ranmafan1