FATE
A Ranma1/2 fanfic by PansutoTarou5925
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Disclaimer to follow at end of chapter
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It was a small, unpretentious house at the edge of the village. Outside the village, even, if you went by the walls, although it had plenty of company outside the shelter of the walls: lonely little homely homes out in the fields, not close to their sisters like houses in the center of Joketsuzoku.
Such placement was a punishment, a place for dishonored warriors of the tribe. It usually wasn't the home to the tribe's strongest warrior.
But sometimes even the strong might not be able to defend themselves in certain situations. Politics was one of those. Love was another.
Shampoo, victim of both, wiped the sweat from her brow with one hand as she hoed her small garden. Her purple hair - cut shorter since her disgrace - was hidden under a kerchief, keeping it from the sun's rays. It would go gray enough soon. Age was not kind to her family.
Although, she reflected whimsically, at least they got a lot of it.
Reflections on the unfairness of aging inevitably brought her back to thoughts of her youth. It beat the hell out of tending to her radishes. When she was younger, before her life went to hell...
Hell, she was probably around that age now. His daughter. That bastard.
She sighed. You never did forget your first love... not completely. Not even if you hated them. She had a similar love/hate relationship with her village. Deciding which she hated more ate up plenty of her copious spare time, all ten minutes of it that wasn't already occupied by her children and the rigors of life out in the boondocks.
She should be in Tokyo right now, damnit!
Speaking of her kids, they were way too quiet. She'd better stop and see what they'd done now.
There were three people standing at the edge of her garden. She recognized them well enough; Perfume, who'd taken over after her great-grandmother's untimely demise, and two flunkies she could wipe the floor with - with one hand behind her back.
Come to think of it, she was stronger than Perfume, the supposedly strongest in the village, too. The thought made it easier to paste a smile on her face as she bowed to the three invaders. "Honored Matriarch," she said, managing to (mostly) keep her voice free of insincerity. "What may I do for you?"
"You can help by rectifying the appalling loss of honor you suffered, Shampoo, blood of Matriarch Cologne," she said, tilting her head. Perfume was not so old, nor so strong, as her great-grandmother was, and had a voice like flint, with a heart to match.
"Honorable one, I have children not of age," she said smoothly. "I cannot leave the village for war. The duties of motherhood have precedence-"
"-Saotome is coming here," Perfume said.
She stared expressionlessly at the elder for a few seconds before composing her thoughts enough to speak. "If he-"
"She," Perfume corrected.
"-if she is coming here... what does she intend?" Shampoo asked.
"That is none of your concern. You will obey your village in this matter," Perfume said, poking her with her staff. "Do not compound your dishonor."
'I could snap that stick over your head,' she thought, and kept the evil little smile from her face. "I understand," she said.
"I question if you do," Perfume sneered. "I have taken the liberty of taking steps to ensure your loyalty." The look of horror on Shampoo's face told her that she understood. "They will be unharmed - if you do your duty."
Shampoo bowed to the Matriarch as she left. Her face turned into a scowl, and she threw the hoe into the dirt angrily. She had reached a decision on her old question.
For her childrens' sake, though, she couldn't act on it.
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Chiyeko Saotome was no fool, and she could feel the terrible power contained in Jusenkyo, a dreadful curse that permeated everything: the soil, the water, the foggy air she was breathing. It was, of course, strongest in the still waters of the thousand springs that surrounded her. The power was familiar. Not like hers... different.
It felt like Sifu. Or maybe Urd.
"This is... divine magic?" she said, confused. Granted, her moral view of the universe had taken several dizzying hairpin turns after she was finding out she was the daughter of the queen of hell and a godslaying gender-bent martial artist, but weren't they the good guys? Why had they created such a terrible place such as Jusenkyo?
She threaded her way through the pools with extreme care, staying way the hell away from the edge of the ponds. Her attention was so focused on staying safe that she didn't register the approach of the guide until the last second.
"Miss Customer! Welcome to the fame training ground of accursed spring!" he said, greeting her in broken English.
"I don't want to be here," Chiyeko replied in Japanese, not even noticing what language he'd spoken.
"Oh, honored customer is Japanese," he said apologetically. "So sorry!"
"Don't worry," she said. "I get that a lot." Where the hell was Hild 'from', anyways? "I'm, uh, half-Swedish," she lied by way of explanation, and twirled some of her blond hair on a finger nervously. "Could you show me the, uh, spring of drowned girl?"
The guide looked at her blankly. "Customer is already a young girl. Oh! Do you have curse, what needs cure of Nyannichuan?"
Briefly, she considered asking where the boy spring was, but decided that dangerous water could wait until after the Amazons were beaten up, or (assuming her mother got angry) reduced to free atoms. "No. I just want to see the spring," she said.
He shrugged. Stupid or at least incomprehensible requests from visitors were pretty much the usual sort of nonsense he had to deal with at Jusenkyo. At least this one had the sense to stay off the damn poles. "Follow," he said, and led her to a pool towards the edge of the patchwork of springs. "This is Nyannichuan."
Chiyeko eyed it for a full minute, thinking about all the pain and trouble it had caused her father, her face set in a deep and angry frown. Then she considered that it had brought some happiness into her mother's life, and was probably responsible for her being around at all, and her face lightened somewhat.
But she still spit in the spring before she left, and added her own curse to the valley's sorrows.
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Miles away, Saffron stiffened as he stood at the gates of his mountain.
"Milord?" one of his attendants said, already nervous because of the proximity of the God-Slayer, Ranma.
Saffron glanced in the direction of Jusenkyo. "It is nothing," he said finally. "Let us see what Saotome has to say, beyond what she has told Kiima." The Phoenix King would not go to anyone - not even the feared Saotome - as an equal, and after being told of Ranma's plans, had decided to wait here, and discuss matters outside the gates. Certainly, he would not allow Saotome's companion - the Daimakochou herself, from what he could tell - inside his domain.
Although, privately, he knew that if they really wanted him dead, either of them could do it alone, never mind together. There was something of venegance which had put its mark on Saotome and made her more - or less - than human. The stories of his fight against Cologne made her out to be more powerful than their last fight...
Saotome's party emerged from the woods. They had a brief discussion, and then two of them seperated from the rest. "Saotome," he said, acknowledging her. Then, to be polite, "and Hild. Welcome to Phoenix Mountain."
"But not too welcome," Ranma said, and smiled slightly. "Kiima has told you?"
"You intrigue me, Saotome. I know of your feud with the Amazons, and expected you to want to wipe them out."
"Times change," she explained. "I just want to make sure that they will deal - and don't stab me in the back."
"And what makes you think this technique, this Happo-Go-En-Satsu, will make me agree to be your backup?" Saffron asked.
"Sometimes, you are reborn. You are the last and best line of defense for your people. What if you're still young?" Ranma asked. She pointed up at him, emphasizing his size. "Right now, you're strong, you can crush anybody, other than Hild and I, anyways. As a kid, though, you're nothing special." She smirked. "Learn this, though, and you've got a shortcut."
"I see," Saffron said. "Why ask me, though? Surely they wouldn't cross the daimakochou..."
Ranma shrugged. "They might not be as perceptive as you," she said. "Plus, we'll be trying to keep her under wraps. Even my friends don't know..."
The Phoenix King nodded. "I see. I will help you, Ranma. But after this, I ask you to trouble my people no more."
"I understand completely - so long as it is mutual."
"You do?"
"If I ever come back to this part of China, it'll be too soon."
"I suppose you understand after all." They both laughed at that. "It is agreed, then! I will join you the day after tomorrow. That is when you plan on holding your tournament, correct?"
"Yeah, that's right," Ranma said, and bowed goodbye.
Hild stayed a moment longer, smiling mysteriously. "You know, Saffron..." she began, letting him fill in the rest.
He smiled. "I'm not accepting any offers, Hild," he told her.
"Heh." Hild turned around to go, then gave him one final look. "See you at the end, then."
"Indeed. Until Ragnarok," he replied, and watched her go. The smile didn't leave his face until she was safely out of sight. Then he frowned. "And it won't be too soon." He really hated being reminded of his place in the pecking order of the powers-that-be. The idea that he'd be 'guarding' her for a few days...
Oh well, a deal's a deal.
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Ranma's party had gotten as close as they dared to the Amazon village before stopping to make camp. They'd be noticed and someone would come out soon enough to negotiate the terms of the coming fight, but it was best not to provoke them unduly. Amazons were rather touchy... like 'old dynamite sweating beads of nitroglycerin' touchy.
They were partway into setting up the tents when Chiyeko stumbled out of the brush. "Hey! I found you!" she yelled, pulling bits and pieces of brush off her as she went.
"Yeah," Ukyo said, upon seeing her. "How did you find us? We're in the middle of nowhere..."
"Uh, I got lucky?" she said, scratching her head. She couldn't exactly say she had homed in on her mother, who stood out like a beacon.
"She's like the anti-Ryoga," Ranma said, covering for her daughter.
"Hey!" Ryoga said, annoyed.
"Well, she is!" Ranma said, daring him to make something of it. "Anyways, since you're here, help Atasuke out."
"All right," she said in a chipper tone. "What's he doing?"
Ranma blinked. "Aren't you surprised that he's here?" she asked.
"Uh, no?" her daughter replied, before remembering that there wasn't any good reason - none she could give in front of the others - for how she'd known. She had a bit more sympathy for the lie her father had been stuck with living for years. "I, uh, figured he'd sneak off!"
"Well, help him get water for the camp," Ranma said, rolling her eye at the obvious lie.
The boy in question held out a jug. "Here, take one."
"I hopped over a stream back there, looked pretty clean."
"Lead the way, then," Atasuke said cheerfully, following her. And if it let his eyes drift a bit low, there was no one out here to see.
"You know, your mother said she's revoking your internet privileges for sneaking off," Chiyeko said idly.
Atasuke grunted acknowledgment, being more occupied with staring at her butt, when what was wrong with that statement hit him. "Hey, when'd she tell you?" he asked, confused.
"Oh, when I bumped into her in the dojo earlier today," she said, mouth running ahead of brain in classic Saotome fashion.
"Today?" he yelled, surprised.
"Uh..." Chiyeko said, realizing the magnitude of the error she'd just made. She wasn't used to hiding secrets like this.
"C'mon, there's no way you could have been in the dojo this morning and way out here," he gestured at the wilderness, "right now. Do you have some of the magical junk our parents were always running into, or something? Because I kinda want to see some of that stuff..."
"Er..." she said, pausing. She felt like crap lying to him. He was... her fiance. And he'd come out here to the ass end of China for her, putting himself at considerable risk for her, when she wasn't in any real risk at all, considering that her mother would probably go postal if she were ever in serious danger of being harmed.
He deserved the truth.
She took a deep breath and steeled herself, taking her headband off. "There's something I need to tell you."
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Ranma was looking into the growing fire, poking it idly with a stick, when she saw them. "They're here," she said. The rest of the crew took notice, sitting up straighter, or at least slouching in a more alert manner.
"Where?" Ryoga asked, looking around.
"Two hundred meters, seven o'clock," Ranma called out. That the direction was behind Ranma, and the distance well into the bush, didn't go unnoticed, and they looked at each other. "Trust me, I'm not paranoid." Still looking at the fire, she changed over to Chinese. "You can come out now, I can see you," she yelled.
A lone Amazon emerged from the woods a few seconds later, holding a spear and looking quite confident for someone all alone in front of her people's most fearsome enemy. "I saw both of you," Ranma added, which took some of the wind out of her sails. The warrior woman hesitated, then continued towards Ranma as if she hadn't said anything.
"What does the enemy of the Amazons desire?" she asked imperiously. "Have you come to offer your life in exchange for the end of our feud?"
"Not quite," Ranma said, still contemptuously facing away from the Amazon. "You've taken a lot from me, you know, and I want satisfaction. I'm challenging you. A tournament, to settle this once and for all. When I win, you'll drop your harassment of my family and my school."
"And if we win, Saotome?" she asked.
Ranma stood up and dusted her hands off. "You'll have my death - for all that's worth you."
"What makes you think we'll agree to this?" the Amazon sneered. "We would have that in war, too."
"Ahh, silly girl," Ranma said, taking a few steps towards her. The weight of anger the martial arts master had nurtured towards the Amazons cracked her facade in the presence of her enemies, and a black air of killing intent seemed to smother the spear carrier, who backed away automatically. "Saffron and Herb don't like that your stupid laws keep bringing me back here, again and again. So they support me in this. Decline and we destroy you."
Retreating much faster than she'd come, the Amazon departed. Ranma turned back to her friends. Those who hadn't been there at Jusendo were startled by the sheer intensity Ranma had, and those who were were instead startled by the difference in Ranma's determination this time. Then Ranma saw them staring at her, and smiled, breaking the mood. "I'm a bit wound up," she said. "Sorry about that."
Ryoga raised an eyebrow. "A bit?"
"At least it's over more than some bread," Ranma retorted, and the two of them laughed. "So, anyways, what's for dinner?"
Everyone sat down around the fire, and Hild sat down next to Ranma, looking the redhead over. So relaxed, after having been so ruthless. It reminded her of... herself.
They had been brought together by the Ultimate Force. She saw that now. He was in every way a hero, except in one - he was hers. "Ranma, dear, can you come with me?" she whispered.
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"So how many of us will actually be required to fight?" Ryoga asked idly. The private little conversation between Ranma and Hild had ended earlier, and the two of them had retreated to their tent with tea and a little rice, leaving their friends to pass time after dinner.
"Dunno, it's up to the Amazons," Ukyo said. "At a guess, four of us."
"You won't need to fight, Ukyo-sama," Konatsu said immediately. "I will handle the fighting for you."
"Thanks, sugar," Ukyo said. "I hate not helping Ranma out, but, let's face it..."
"You haven't kept up with martial arts as much," Ryoga finished.
"So, my father, myself... Ryoga, and Konatsu?" Chiyeko said thoughtfully, then turned to Atasuke. "You can carry my stuff."
"Gee, thanks," he joked. "Seriously, I'm pretty good at first aid, and I've learned a lot from my father... which like it or not will probably end up coming in handy."
No one felt like denying the probability of someone getting injured, and it put a damper on the conversation fast. Chiyeko guided Ryoga back to his tent while the others cleaned up, and soon after, the coals of the fire slowly cooling off, they each went into their tents, to try to catch some sleep.
Time passed, and in the silence, Chiyeko tossed and turned, nervous. Apparently, she couldn't really die, at least not easily, but if she was unlucky she might be out of commission for decades. She was also nervous about Akatsuke; what if the Amazons broke their promise, or attacked in the night? What did he really think after she told him what she really was? He said it didn't matter, but was he lying?
She crept out of her tent and slipped over to Atasuke's tent, determined to find some answers, and opened the tent carefully, looking at him. Apparently he was also sleeping lightly, because the moonlight made him open his eyes.
Chiyeko hushed him, one finger over her lips, and slid out of her shirt before creeping towards him. "What you said earlier, was it true?" she whispered.
"What are you doing?" Atasuke said quietly, confused.
"What does it look like?" she replied. "We might die tomorrow."
"We might die tonight," Atasuke replied fearfully.
Chiyeko looked upset. "You don't want to?"
"I want to, but..." Atasuke looked meaningfully in the direction of Ranma's tent.
"Afraid we'll go to hell?" she sniped.
"Even that wouldn't save us from your parents."
"Children!" Ranma's voice sounded out, breaking the moment. "Get back to your tent, Chiyeko!"
She grabbed her shirt and escaped, cursing softly. Just how the hell had her father known she wasn't in her tent anyways?
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DISCLAIMER: Ranma ½ is the property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shonen Sunday, Viz, and other parties; I make no claims of ownership of any of the intellectual or other properties pertaining to it. Oh! My Goddess belongs to Kosuke Fujishima, Studio Proteus, Dark Horse, and other parties, and I make no claims of ownership of any of the intellectual or other properties pertaining to it, either.
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Author's Note: This chapter was written to the sounds of Bach's "Little Fugue", in various renditions, looped over and over again. If you listen to the song loop as you read, you'll have the experience of reading it while in the same mind as the author - a man with a song stuck in his head, going slowly insane.