A/N: This is a repost and rewrite of my previous story, "Nerima in the Dark", taking away most of the palagrism.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½ or Sailormoon.
CHAPTER I
Ranma's grip on the arms of his seat tightened as the descending plane suddenly dropped into an air pocket. In his entire sixteen years, he hadn't flown quite enough to be able to take occasional turbulences in his stride. It's not like he is afraid of heights, he was quite accustomed to being in the air half his life. It's just that he doesn't trust technology that much.
Hoping that the airport was by now in sight, he turned to look out of the small window to his left. He was disappointed to see that clouds still obscured most of the ground, as it has for the past hour of flight.
In his mind, he sees Tokyo like it was when he first left for that training journey to China seven years ago years ago with his father, a giant city of concrete filled with sounds, lights, and people. Soon, he hoped, he'll get to see how closely it matched his expectations.
He glanced inconspicuously at the young twelve years old girl sleeping on the seat beside him with a little black piglet with a mark tattooed on its forehead and wearing a yellow-stripped bandanna on its neck sitting on her lap. When he saw Ryouga appeared wondering around the airport with his trusty backpack, he knew that he was trying to look for him, probably to challenge him once more since Ranma knew he had been finished with his last assignment a few days ago. So, to save him the trouble of trying to find his way to Japan, which could have took several months, he splashed him with cold water and brought him along with him and Naomi as her pet. He decides it would be more cost-effective, as well as a hell of a lot safer for him and the rest of the passengers if he is kept in his cursed formed during the trip. Besides, with Ryouga there, he knew he wouldn't be lacking in good sparring partners, as long as he doesn't get himself lost.
When he left for China years ago, he never thought that he'd be coming back until he finds a cure for his own curse. Like that of Ryouga, it's also water-based. He considers it a bit more durable than that of his directional-deficient friend since he still remains human during his transformation.
A sudden feeling of panic stabbed up from the pit of his stomach. He never thought he'd be going back here so soon. Even though he was born Japanese, he feels like a stranger in his own country. He could barely remember his time here, except for the times he and his father travel all over Japan learning one martial arts technique after another. So many things had happened to him in China, particularly this last couple of months that his old life seems like another lifetime to him, which isn't that far off from the truth.
He knows that there's nothing in this country that he have to go back to, but still, this country used to be his home, he can't help but give himself a big sigh.
"What was that for?" said a hot little voice beside him. When he turned to look, he saw the little eleven years old looking girl starring at him with one emerald green and one yellow slit eyes.
Looking at the slightly glowing pig, Ranma knew that Ryouga is using Naomi as a medium for him to speak his mind in his cursed form.
"Don't worry yourself, bacon-breathe. It doesn't concern you in anyway." He said with a light smirk.
"Is master unhappy? Is there anything Naomi can do for master?" She asked in a totally different demeanor, which is childlike and a bit ditz.
"No, Naomi. I was just thinking to myself. Try to get some more sleep and let Ryouga be in control for a while."
"Yes master." Naomi said evenly before closing her eyes. When she opened them once more, both her eyes are emerald green, signifying that Ryouga is now in control of Naomi's body. "Don't think you could brush me off as easy as your pet, Saotome." Ryouga said hotly in Naomi's voice.
"Do I really look that transparent?"
"Well, your face does have a tendency of showing exactly what you feel all the time. It's just your luck that I'll have to rearrange that face real soon." The big smirk on her face assured herself, or rather himself, that he knows more about him than he thinks. Several years of sparring with the guy does that to a person.
"Yeah, yeah. In your dreams, pork-chop. For someone who's hell bent of killing me for a few years, you sure are talkative today."
"Can it, Saotome. You know I can't do much more than talk while using her body this way. I'll just have to pound you later. Besides, I'm bored."
Ryouga is as feisty as the day he first met him several years ago at that all-boys school where they ended up as rivals for the last of the cafeteria bread fights. They were supposed to duel it out but Ryoga didn't show up and Ranma ended up being dragged by his pop to China after three days of waiting. Of course, Ryouga went after them. How both of them ended up being cursed is another story entirely.
Thinking it was all Ranma's fault, which partly it is, he had been trying to destroy him. And because of that, he also ended up being caught up in several of Ranma's misadventures, which mostly includes demons, Hong-Kong Triads, devil hunters, Amazons, exorcists, soul wells, and, surprisingly, Ralph Lauren designer clothes.
"So?" Ryouga asked a bit impatiently.
Ranma, after eyeing the piglet for a moment, sighed once more before saying, "Do you still remember what your house looks like?"
Ryouga, a bit taken back a bit by that unexpected question, thought for a moment before answering, "Yeah. But I've been gone so long it might not be what I remember when I get back. But what does that got to do with anything?"
"Nothing much. It's just that I have no recollection of what my house had looked like. I've been on the road as far back as I can remember that I can't even be sure if I ever lived in one. How much do you think it has changed since we were gone? At least you have your parents waiting for you when you get back. All I had was my pop and he's gone."
"So, you're saying that it makes you feel weird going back to Japan since, as you say, there's nothing there to go back to? I never knew you were such a sentimental thinker, Saotome. I guess even someone as crummy as you would think like that sometimes."
"Ha-ha, very funny, Hibiki. Anyway, that about sums it up. I mean, the last people I known there is my old pal Ucchan but we've been separated so long he might not remember me anymore. Pop said mom died when I was young and we don't have any relatives so I haven't got no family to return to."
"You'd be surprised how often I feel like that, Saotome. Even if I managed to find my house, I might not find my parents there. They've get lost as much as I do that the last time I was able to see both my parents was just before I came after you to China. Besides, I don't think my parents would be thrilled to find out what I've become."
"You might be surprised. Does both your parents have the curse of misdirection?"
"No, just my dad. But mom always let my dad lead the way. She says that the Hibiki Family curse isn't always a curse, but a mere handicap. And that this handicap is the foundation of the Hibiki School of Wanderer Martial Arts. Mom always says life with dad is just one great adventure after another."
"Traveling around the world, meeting new people, and the excitement of not knowing where you'll end up next. I mean, with all that and improving your skills, what's not to like? By the sounds of things, your parents seems quite happy with their lifestyle."
"Yes, they are. But still, I wouldn't mind being able to stick around one place long enough to be bored there before getting myself lost again and ending up somewhere else entirely."
"Listen, once I'm finished with my assignment, I'll take you back to your house, okay."
"I don't accept charity from anyone, Saotome! I'll find my own way home."
"Yeah, sure. And that coming from the mouth of a guy who gets lost inside a room with one door. Face it, it'll take you a hell of a lot easier if I lead you there. Who knows, maybe you'll get lucky and catch your parents there."
"With my kind of luck, I doubt it." He sighed before going silent for a while, thinking of his rival's offer. "Fine. I'll hold you to your word. So anyway, what's your assignment this time? I thought you're finished with that kind of work?"
"I am. But I owe Mao Lin a huge favor and she asked me to get some sort of cursed object for her from one of her associates."
"So, you're just got to retrieve this object and ship it to her? Seems a bit simple to me. Doesn't sound like her at all."
"Don't let it fool you. Since when did Mao Lin ever gave us anything simple. Knowing her, I might have to retrieve it from the hands of the local mob there. Or better yet, it could be in the possession of a cult that is going to use it to revive some demon or something. Worse case scenario, another Necronomicon."
Both boys shivered at the last one. "Yeah, I guess you got a point."
"You got that right." He said with a small chuckle, which Ryouga mimicked seconds later, until they noticed what they've done and stopped instantly.
"Did we just do what I think we did?"
"You mean having to held a completely decent conversation?"
"Um, yeah. That was creepy"
"Lets not do that again."
"Ever."
"Agreed."
Mao Lin Shou is a 34 years old former priestess who ran away from her clan to start her own exorcism and cursed-artifacts retrieval business. Ranma and Ryouga met her two years ago. They went to her to see if she could remove their curse. But she ended up hiring them instead, on the spot (despite the fact that they weren't even applying for it) after they helped her when she screwed up in exorcising a demon-possessed client, who ate the last of her employees.
Mao Lin has the tendency to bite off more than she could chew, particularly in her exorcisms, usually forcing Ryouga or/and Ranma to clean up after her. She also got a thing for accepting retrieval jobs for them that always almost gets them killed. It was no wonder she was so desperate to hire anyone when they first met.
It was lucky for them both that their last job offered quite a sum of money so it would take a while before she starts hunting them both down to get them to work for her again. Of coarse, if both boys have anything to say about it, they'd file a restraining order against her for at least a hundred miles.
Beneath the last translucent layer of cloud, Ranma made out the long gray runway of Tokyo International Airport. It was surrounded at all sides by commercial and road structures broken up by occasional vacant lots, residential houses, and natural greenery, which he could easily see due to the full moon.
Ranma gave one last sigh before buckling his seatbelts when the stewardess asked them to do so prior to the plane's decent. Ryouga cut off his link to Naomi so she could buckle up herself.
"Well, here we are." Ranma said to himself as he looks down at the city below from the window of their hotel room. They checked into the west wing in the 25th floor of a rather nice hotel somewhere in the Shinjuku District of Tokyo. Ryouga, who was already in his human form, immediately went to sleep in one of the three bedrooms the moment they got into the room barely two hours ago while Naomi is curled up on the sofa staring at him.
"Is something wrong with master? Would master like Naomi to service him tonight? " Naomi asked rather innocently. "Maybe even punish Naomi for no reason?" She added expectantly.
"Thanks, Naomi, but no. And you are still not allowed to punish yourself without my permission." He replied calmly without even turning away from the view of the city outside.
Naomi pouted at her master's unwillingness to punish her or even have her service him intimately, like she was taught to do by her former master, who happens to be a greater demon, whose hobbies was to steal souls while providing the victims with fulfillment of their sexual fantasies. Ranma stumbled upon her when she and her former master tried to steal a certain demonic book he and Ryouga was transporting a year ago. Ranma managed to kill her master, severing the bond between it and Naomi.
He already knows that Naomi is part succubus, he just can't figure out what the other half is. She has the ability to morph into several different forms, either in humanoid, hybrid, and also demonic forms. She could also turn herself invisible, quite handy when he wants her spying on some people. And she is quite dependent on her master through a bond she now shares with the pigtailed boy. Without that bond, Naomi would have ceased to exist since she wouldn't have a master to keep her in this plane of existence.
Naomi morphed into a sultry twenty years old Asian woman wearing a long and incredibly revealing red gown that highlights her perfectly shaped body. "Are you sure master?" She asked in a very seductive voice (think of Hinako Minomiya in her adult form).
"Yes, Naomi. I'm sure. Now please return to your child form and get a little more sleep." Ranma sigh once more, while looking at his familiar morph back into a child and curled up on the sofa before falling asleep. He went back into looking out the window. He was really bored now. Whether its because he was too excited to sleep or he has an opposite reaction to jetlags, he isn't quite sure. All he knows is that he needed something to do. "I think I'll take a walk for a while." He said to himself before heading towards the door.
Fifteen minutes later, he found himself walking around the city. The streets were quiet except for several bars and strip joints in the area so he was having quite a peaceful walk, that is until he heard a small explosion a few blocks away. Having nothing else to do, he went to check it out.
"You are not going to get away this time you monster!" Sailor Venus shouted as she charged the cloaked figure with another flying kick. "Damn!" she cursed when it jumped up into the top of the wall on the small alley they were fighting at, avoiding her strike.
She jumped after it with several combinations of kicks and punches but it blocked them all effortlessly before it lashed out with a kick to her midsection, making her crash towards a pile of garbage nearby.
"Damn you, monster!"
"Will you quit bugging me you sailor brat! For the last time, I didn't ruin you're date!" Said a clearly feminine voice from inside the hood.
"Never! For what you did to me is a crime beyond forgiveness! VENUS LOVE ME CHAIN!" Golden chains made of light burst out from her finger and wrapped themselves around the so-called monster's body before she tugged on it using the other end, sending the other person crashing into the ground hard.
"THAT REALLY HURTS YOU BITCH!" The cloaked figure shouted while getting up, its eyes glowing with two yellow orbs. It then suddenly pulled on the chains, dragging Sailor Venus with it and sending her crashing on the opposite wall of the alley, denting it with several cracks.
It loosened the chains, allowing the cloaked person to free itself. It then wiped out a huge wooden black hammer oozing with demonic energy before charging the still dazed senshi. Venus saw the attack coming but she knows she wouldn't able to evade it. After almost two months of hunting this monster down, she would finally die by its hands. Closing her eyes, she prepared herself for the final blow that never came. When she opened her eyes once more, the figure was gone and she was alone in that alley. She cursed once more as she tries to pick herself off the ground. Once again, the youma had left her to live with the shame of having a demon take pity on her life. She'd taken down demons before but never that is as strong as this one.
"Sailor Venus, are you all right?" asked the voice from the com-link on her left ear.
"I'm okay, Artemis. But that youma got away again. Damn! I was so close."
"Maybe you should just let this one go. I mean, you've been trying to destroy her for the last several weeks and she keeps beating you every single time. Besides, you really need to improve your fighting ability. We've proved that this youma is skilled martial arts."
"Never! Do you hear me, Artemis? I shall not allow this monster to run loose in this city! It ruined my chance of true happiness! I shall destroy it or die trying!" she cried lifting her fist into the air in a very dramatic pose.
You could almost hear Artemis sweat-dropped from the other line. "Well, Minako, it was just a date, you know. You really need to think this through."
"What I need are more of me to take it out."
"Well, we could just wake the other senshi to help." Artemis whispered softly to himself. But Venus already heard him.
"Other senshi? What do you mean?"
"Well . . ." Artemis begun but was quickly cut-off by Venus.
"We'll talk about it when we I get back. I really need a bath right now!" She said before jumping away into the rooftops, never seeing the young pigtailed boy hiding behind a dumpster nearby who saw the whole thing.
"That was too close for comfort." Said the cloaked figure to itself as it steps out of its hiding place behind a dumpster before pulling down her hood, revealing strands of short bluish-black hair and brown hazel eyes.
"Are you talking about her almost beating you or you almost killing her?" said a new voice behind her.
The girl in the cloak immediately turned away from the voice, twirled around in the air, and turned herself into a defensive stance as soon as her feet touched the ground. Standing there casually was a young man, probably between the ages of 16 to nineteen, wearing a red Chinese shirt and baggy black pants, with his hair tied in a pigtail, staring at her.
"Hi there." He said cheerfully.
"Who are you?" She asked with a growl, her eyes glowing once more. It isn't everyday a person could sneak up behind her without her noticing its presence. Whoever he is, he was able to masked his presence from her despite her heightened senses. And anyone who could that is quite dangerous in her book.
"The name's Ranma. And you are?"
"Why should I tell you?"
"Because it's the polite thing to do after someone introduced himself." He said, his smile unwavering despite her anger.
The girl stared at him for a moment, studying his stance and readying herself for any sign of hostility from the stranger. From his own words, she knew he saw the battle between her and the senshi. But he seems so casual about it. He was neither spooked nor afraid, as if he sees this kind of things everyday.
"How much did you see?"
"I came around the time that other girl used that shiny chain thingy."
"Then you know I could kill you anytime."
"No you won't. If you could that other girl would have been dead by now."
He was right and they both knew it. This only makes the girl tensed more. "Fine. But I can definitely maim you instead." She said as she pulls out her mallet.
"You could try. But wouldn't you rather have a decent conversation with me instead?" he smirked a bit, but his smile was still there.
"No." She said after a moment before jumping up onto the roof of the nearest building and leaping away from there, leaving a now more curious Ranma behind.
"That was interesting." He said to himself, a smile grazing his face, as he watch the girl disappear into the rooftops. "Maybe it wouldn't be so boring here after all."
The cloaked girl finally saw her destination ahead. The Tendo Dojo looked quite inviting after the trouble she went through tonight. Hopping from one rooftop to another, she travels towards the dojo as she thought about how it was getting harder to avoid that Sailor Senshi and also about that strange boy she met.
One more leap and she would be inside the Tendou property. She was almost inside when she felt a shield of some sort that that shocked her with several thousand volts of electricity, forcing her to jump away, landing on the street outside the property.
"What the hell was that?" She shouted to herself while rubbing her numbing arm. The front of her cloak was charred and her entire body was smoking a bit, despite that she was okay.
"Sorry about that." Said a female voice behind her.
With martial arts reflexes, the cloaked figure jumped away from the voice while turning around and taking a defensive stance. Seeing Nabiki Tendou standing there with a smirk on her face, she immediately put herself at ease and pushed down her hood, revealing the frowning face of Akane Tendou. "What the hell was that, onee-chan? I felt like I was struck with a lightning bolt. And look at my cloak! It's totally charred."
"Don't be such a grouch, imouto-chan. I was just testing out our new defensive wards. We can't have demonic entities just waltzing in our home, do we?"
Akane just glared at her older sister, her eyes glowing with the color of golden yellow.
"Oh, stop that, sis. It's quite creepy, you know." Nabiki said absentmindedly while walking towards the front door, making her younger sister sigh in defeat and comply. "Besides, we don't want your little adventures following you home. It wouldn't be cost effective."
"Fine. But you should have told me about extending the wards from the house to the entire compound."
"I needed to test if the wards were strong enough after extending the coverage area. I'm also doing this so we don't have to worry about your playmates attacking you in your sleep even though you only do that once a week now."
"Okay, okay. I get it." She said exasperated as she takes off her cloak, revealing the yellow gi she's wearing underneath, which was a bit charred as well. She has several burns on her skin and several bruises from her earlier fight with Sailor Venus.
"The senshi again?" Nabiki asked.
"Yeah. That brat is really starting to bug me." She sighed once more, withholding the story about the boy she met.
When they came into the living room, Kasumi was there waiting for them with the first aid kit and a small basin with clean water and a damp clothe beside her. Akane really didn't need to be patched up since her healing power would make sure all her wounds would disappear in a few days. But she knows better than to argue with Kasumi whenever she goes into a caring-mother-nurse mode. Besides, whenever her older sister takes care of her, those wounds would surely disappear by tomorrow, a phenomenon neither Nabiki nor Akane nor Kasumi herself, are able to explain.
"You should really stop playing so rough, Akane. Those stains would be really hard to wash off." She said as she starts to clean up her wounds with that ever-present cheerful smile of hers.
"Don't worry so much about me, Kasumi. I can handle it. Besides, it was Nabiki's fault for charring my clothes." She said proudly before glaring at her middle sister.
"It's not like it looks any better than before." Nabiki smirked as she starts heading up to her room, ignoring her younger sister's glare.
Ryouga woke up in the middle of the night with his bladder full. Looking for the bathroom only took him half an hour. When he tried to get back to bed, he found himself lost once more because all he sees around him are trees. "DAMN IT! WHERE THE HELL AM I NOW?"
Meanwhile, somewhere in Nagasaki:
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" cried a Swat team member as he tossed a hand grenade towards the creature that was wrecking havoc inside a local convenience store.
The creature, which seems to be part human and part Doberman dog, was blown away by the explosion, only to stand up was more, roaring in anger. It ripped a large soda machine from a nearby wall and tossed it towards the police officers, who has the right mind to get out off the way.
"Damn it! What does it get to stop this thing!" Another one of the officers said as they begun shooting it down with no apparent success. The bullets penetrated it but the bullet wounds merely heals itself up before it does permanent damage to it.
CHUNK! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTTT!
Almost everyone in the vicinity stopped cold on their tracks when a metal spatula stuck itself on the creature's chest, particularly when the said spatula suddenly emitted several thousand volts of electricity, shocking the beast momentarily. Then, a bright white orb flew towards the monster, hitting it directly in the face, where it was absorbed. The creature's head exploded a second later and it fell down the ground twitching a few times before finally stopping dead. Moments later, the creature started morphing into an ordinary looking Doberman without a head.
When everyone turned around, they saw a young boy, probably 16 to 18 years old, holding fancy looking gun attached to a contraption on her back by means of thick insulated wires. He was wearing a blue high school uniform and has long brown hair tied in a ponytail. After retrieving his metal spatula, which was still embedded on the headless dog's chest, he then headed towards an old man wearing a lab coat that was standing beside the police chief.
"Thank you for the assist, Professor Ikamura. My men can handle the rest." The police captain said to the old man and giving the boy a slight nod of thanks before heading towards the crime scene.
The old man just nodded and went towards the door on the side of a large truck parked nearby followed by the young man silently. Inside the truck was an assortment of highly advanced tracking devices and several units of the weapon used by the boy.
"How did it go, Kuonji?" asked Ikamura casually as he set himself on the driver seat.
The boy took of the device on his back and set it down on the floor and placed himself on the passenger seat before answering, "The spatula worked as well as we'd hope but the darn plasma gun still took too long to charge. The energy pack was way too heavy and constricting. And I could almost feel that darn pack overheating on my back after that first shot. It was lucky that was only a level 3 youma tonight or else this might not had turned out so easy."
The professor sighed at the boy's analysis on the weapon's testing as he flicked the ignition switch and starts driving off. He knew the weapons he made was are still a bit hard to handle but at least they were a hell of a lot better when they were just starting this business almost a year ago. It's true that the exterminating demonic entities aren't your normal average business practice, but someone needs to do it.
"Well, at least it gets the job done." He said cheerfully. "Besides, the new design still got a lot of bugs on it to be considered safe for usage so you just have to make due with what we have now. Also, even though your current spiritual analysis is much higher now, it's still not enough to handle the new weapons."
"By the way, how's the search going?" He asked suddenly.
"Oh, that reminds me," the doctor said as he took out a folder beside his seat and handed it to Ukyo. "It took me a while but I was finally able to track down this guy you were looking for. And I'd say this Genma Saotome is quite a bit more colorful character than I first thought. I mean, you wouldn't believe how long his criminal record is, particularly on petty thievery and breaking and entering."
Ukyo smirked as he said, "Genma Saotome is much worse than that. He's an honorless slob who doesn't care about anyone else than himself. And I bet his son is just as bad as," His ranting abruptly stopped when he saw the last two pages on the folder. "What the HELL is THIS?"
"They are copies of their death certificate."
"B-but, This can't be! They can't be dead." He said disbelieving.
"It says they got trapped inside an inn they were staying at when it burned to the ground five years ago. Both bodies were found together in the second floor where the fire seems to have originated from. The child's body was so charred that the father's dental records were the only sufficient clarification that identified Genma Saotome."
"I don't believe it. I WON'T believe it. Genma Saotome is a leech with more lives than a cat when it comes to saving his own skin. I'll believe it when I see his grave."
"Well, it says there that their bodies were sent to his wife at Juuban Ward in Tokyo."
"Then I'll head to Tokyo immediately."
"That's good because I'm shifting our base of operation on district nearest to it. There has been quite a lot of youma activity centered near that area. I've already asked Konatsu to take care of moving everything there."
"Good." Said Ukyo with a frown.