Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½ or Sacrifice™ or any related characters, terms or concepts.
Part Two: Growth of the Storm! Sparks Fly Tonight!
How in the world do I get myself into these messes?
Was Ranma's primary thought. He looked over his forces, pitifully few in comparison to Yuki and Yiku's. He'd gathered the few followers he thought could be spared from Sliverspine, which amounted to half a dozen Frostwolves and four Sylphs. Yiku and Yuki both had a dozen Frostwolves and the same amount of Sylphs. Yiku had brought a quartet of Vorticks with him, whilst Yuki had half a dozen Squalls. They looked over his small force and sympathetically clicked their tongues and shook their heads.
Ranma fought down any feelings of embarrassment; it wasn't his fault they'd been on more raids and thus carried off more souls then he had. Nor was it his fault he didn't really like the idea of killing; he'd been brought up to protect the weak, not to prey upon them! But then, could it really be considered killing if the life force of the slain could be reconstituted into new beings?
Yiku distracted Ranma from his philosophical musings (a rarity even now that the scar tissue was being eroded) to draw his attention to the plan. The three of them were each going to attack a separate village, thus reducing possible suspicion and minimizing the possibility of unified resistance. Ranma nodded as Yiku gave him directions, and resolved to get the raid over with and then deal with any feelings of guilt.
Yuki and Yiku went their separate paths, and Ranma, with some reluctance, headed down the trail Yiku had pointed out, his followers silently following him.
They approached the village through the trees, moving as silently as possible in this unfamiliar environment. They were close to the fields now, and Ranma could see peasants tending to their crops. He fought down perhaps the strongest pang of guilt yet and motioned to his warriors to advance. Unfortunately, a Shrike hidden in the nearby bushes disrupted their silent approach.
"AWWK! WARE! RAIDERS! RAIDERS! AWWW-GUK!"
The Shrike's lethal voice had thrown Ranma's force into chaos, clutching their heads in agony. Ranma ignored his bleeding ears and intensely throbbing bones and motioned at the Shrike, at his gesture a Sylph put an arrow through its throat. The kill was quick, but not quick enough. The village had been alerted, and the peasants scrambled into their huts as Druids, Rangers and Shrikes swarmed towards the forest.
"So much for the silent approach. Oh well…. Forward! Take no prisoners!"
Did I really just say that?
Ranma had no time to consider his words as he and his warriors charged forth to meet the oncoming defenders of the village.
"Destroy the heretics!"
Shouted a Druid.
The resultant melee was both more and less brutal than any battle Ranma had ever engaged in before. While not on the same level as one of his usual fights, none of his other fights had ever been truly lethal. A Shrike dropped from the sky, riddled with Sylph arrows, whilst one of his Frostwolves half-snarled and half-screamed as a Ranger's arrow hit it in the shoulder. Ranma himself was hurled into a fight with a half-dozen Druids, whilst three Rangers did their best to stick him with arrows whenever they felt there wasn't a risk of hitting their allies.
Ranma found his personal fight to be, if anything, reminiscent of home. True, none of his rivals wore spiked gloves, or used a bow and arrow, but the similarities were there. The Druids' style was unlike anything he'd seen before, but nothing to really challenge him. Ranma's guilt and desire to avoid killing meant he was on the defensive though, dodging and blocking attacks, when he noticed something happening nearby that made time seem to stop.
Rockjaw, a young Frostwolf who had begged to be allowed to come on this raid, was fighting a Druid- and losing. Clearly defeated, he threw away his dagger and surrendered. His opponent clearly recognized the surrender for what it was and stopped- for a second. Then he sneered (as well as Ranma could tell with that weird mask Druids wore) then deliberately slit Rockjaw's throat with his glove-blades before punching through his ribcage and impaling the heart. At that, something seemed to snap inside Ranma's head; the guilt and indecision vanished as something seemed to click into place.
With a primal shout, Ranma went on the offensive, using his full strength for the first time in a long time. The first Druid to catch his attention caught a fist in the face, his neck and skull audibly shattering as he flew through the air to impact the Rangers who had been shooting at Ranma. Another lashed out with a punch, only to have Ranma effortlessly dodge it and then snap the offending limb off before burying it spikes-first in its owner's heart. Noticing a Scarab had entered the battlefield; he quickly fried the magical spider with a Lightning spell before it could begin spinning its healing webs. Having defeated his own opponents, he turned his attention to the rest of the battlefield.
An Otherworld Mage's attitude and nature influences the fighting abilities and spirit of his followers. Ranma's indecision hadn't been exactly inspiring for his followers, who had fought with the same lack-lustre performance and general reluctance as he initially had. But when Ranma himself began to truly fight, they had responded to his change in attitude, attacking with a steadily building enthusiasm as their master served to inspire them. Druids went down, screaming defiance, beneath the flashing fangs and daggers of Frostwolves. Having cleared the sky of Shrikes, the Sylphs directed their shots with lethal accuracy at the ground-based enemies, taking great relish in downing their Ranger counterparts.
The village hadn't been that heavily populated to begin with, which meant Ranma's frenzied forces soon eliminated their adversaries. A few Frostwolves began heading towards the village, and the defenceless peasants within, but Ranma called them back.
"No! Enough killing. We've enough souls now."
He looked, sounded and acted like someone who'd just awoken from a long and not necessarily pleasant dream, staring at his bloody hands with an undisguised mixture of repulsion, guilt, self-loathing and fascination. He knew he should have despised what he had done with all his heart, but a part of him deep inside had been enthralled by the carnage and eagerly anticipated leading his followers into battle again. Ranma quickly and ruthlessly squashed that part, refusing to accept that he could ever find anything enjoyable in this bloodbath. He quickly turned to examine his forces. As well as poor Rockjaw, three more Frostwolves and two Sylphs had died in the battle.
With great reluctance, he approached Rockjaw's corpse, dreading what he had to do next. He reached out and gently touched the corpse, searching for the lingering life essence, the "soul", as Stratos had taught him to do. It flowed from Rockjaw's corpse (which evaporated in a puff of ether) into Ranma's body with barely a hint of effort on Ranma's part. Ranma stifled a smile at the surge of intense pleasure this caused, he should be feeling guilty for having to do this. He approached and absorbed each of his followers' souls, then thought over what he had to do.
He knew the spells to reconstitute his followers, but what should he use the essence for? He debated tactics and versatility in his mind for a few minutes, then nodded and began the incantation. If he had thought the rush from receiving a soul was intense, then he was truly surprised at how deeply… satisfied… he felt after having literally woven a new life-form from the ether and charged it with that essence. A new Frostwolf and two new Sylphs had been first on his list, but he decided to use the remaining three souls to give his force a little more "balance" in the form of three Brainiacs.
He scowled at the corpses of his enemies, and for a second considered leaving them rot here in this field. But that would mean his followers would have sacrificed themselves for nothing. Steeling his resolve, he began to cast the Conversion cantrip, each successful casting summoning a Stratos Sac-Doctor (which resembled a child-sized humanoid vortex of wind, ice and lightning) who began circling an enemy corpse, intent of forcibly ripping the soul from it and carrying it away to Ranma's altar back in Sliverspine.
"Oh, don't look so glum Ranma! For your first raid –and especially your first kills- you did great!"
"Yeah, besides, it's not like it really matters that some died does it? You got their essence back, your forces are as strong as ever."
"Stronger really, what with having brought those Persephone souls here."
Yuki and Yiku were trying –and failing- to cheer Ranma up back in Sliverspine. Since he'd arrived there (the first to do so) he'd fallen into a guilty depression. He still hadn't cleaned the blood off his hands. Yiku and Yuki were sympathetic, they understood how hard your first kill could be, but they were incomprehensive as to why Ranma was taking it so hard. They tried to talk to him, to make him feel better, but Ranma said and did nothing. Not even Ryo, his first (and so far only) Manahoar's gentle, anxious nuzzlings could provoke a reaction. Finally, Ranma stirred and got up from his chair.
"I'm going outside. I don't want to talk about it."
His voice was cold and flat, his eyes lifeless. Yuki and Yiku decided it was best to just let Ranma mourn in private.
Ranma walked through the village, aware of every eye turned upon him and their constant whispers. He knew they were staring at him with hatred, and whispering their grievances to each other. Or at least, that's what he believed. In truth, the villagers bore no resentment for the raid at all (it was just a part of daily life in Otherworld after all), and actually had been impressed by Ranma's fighting skills. Had they any idea about the self-loathing and guilt Ranma was suffering, they would have done their best to alleviate it, but as far as they knew nothing was wrong.
Ranma stopped suddenly, as perhaps the being he least wanted to see that moment came into view. Daggertongue, Rockjaw's mother, was known and feared as one of the village's best warriors. Ranma would have preferred to take her on the raid instead of her son, but a Yeti had mauled her a year ago; though she had survived she had been left with a crippled leg. That, coupled with the fact she was expecting a new pup (her husband had apparently been killed by Persephone raiders some time before Ranma came to Otherworld), meant she couldn't battle or hunt any more.
"Lorrrd Rrranma!" she called, growling her R's like all Frostwolves did. She limped towards him with her spear/walking stick clutched in her hands.
Oh great. She's going to kill me when she finds out about Rockjaw. Oh well, better than I deserve.
"Daggertongue, I just want to say I'm sorry. I know it won't bring him back, but you have my deepest sympathies. I won't try to escape your punishment."
Daggertongue blinked at him in confusion for a second, then bopped him over the head with her spear. He blinked, and not just from the sudden pain; it was weirdly reminiscent of Cologne.
"What arrre you talking about?"
"Your son, Rockjaw, he's…"
"Dead. I know. I hearrrd all about the rrraid. But still, why would I want to punish you?"
Ranma blinked in confusion.
"Why? Your son is dead!"
"So? Why should I be angrrry with you? Did you kill him?"
"I may as well have. If it wasn't for me, he wouldn't have come on that raid."
Daggertongue whacked Ranma over the head again, then shook her head sympathetically.
"Why arrre you so upset? Why arrre you blaming yourrrself? We have rrraided before, and been rrraided too, and someone almost always dies. So what?"
She chuckled gently at Ranma's stunned look of incomprehension.
"My lorrrd, you must underrrstand that, forrr us, death is a parrrt of life; rrraids arrre an everrryday occurrrence herrre. Once, long ago, all the lands knew nothing but constant warrr. Rrrockjaw fell in battle, fighting forrr a lorrrd we rrrespect and admirrre. There is no sorrrow in that. You arrre not a bad Mage Rrranma, and you shouldn't be upset orrr believe you have failed us by sufferrring casualties. Therrre is no shame in losing soldierrrs, only in failing to rrretrrrive theirrr essence from the battlefield. We rrrespect you, we admirrre you and, most of all, we like you. So cleanse yourrr heart, and be at peace. The village has only become strrrongerrr with these new souls, and you have nothing to be ashamed of."
She smiled, shook her head in gentle disbelief and limped away, leaving a confused –but strangely relieved- Ranma. As he accepted what she had said, he plunged his hands into the snow and began to scrub off the blood.
Wow, pretty dark by my standards. Not my best work, I know, but I was rather unsure as how to proceed. So Ranma's lost some of his qualms about killing, but he's still not a bona-fide Sacrifice mage just yet. In the next chapter, I plan to cover more "eventful" scenes from Ranma's life in Otherworld as he increases his magical powers, becomes more accustomed to leading an army and cures his curse, and in the subsequent his return to Nerima. If there's something you'd like to see happen, then review and let me know alright? I will consider requests.