Mysterious Divine

Disclaimer: The same one as always.

…..

Three days had passed and Akane found herself back in the library. Ranma slouched beside her with the pre-dawn light filtering in through the doorway. The Godling had awakened them moments before and herded the groggy shisa to the back for another "lesson". Supposedly their new teacher would arrive soon to instruct them.

Akane yawned unconsciously showing off her canines and tried to blink herself awake. Her sisters had visited late last night with a troublesome piece of information.

There were two possible outcomes of the spell and the way the scroll was written it was unclear which was right. Either their current shisa bodies would be remolded into the human bodies they should have, or the spell would yank their souls out of the shisa and send them back to their original bodies. If the latter were true they would face some major problems; Ranma's body was currently occupied by the Godling and Akane's body was at the bottom of the sea.

Nabiki had been adamant that the only way to tell was to figure out how the original spell worked. To do that she insisted they needed to find out if there had been shisa at the Temple-Palace before Ranma and Akane became resident guardians. It made little sense to Akane's sleep depraved mind, but the gist was if there were shisa before then the spell moved souls around, if there were not shisa beforehand then it molded their bodies anew. The sisters left the task of finding out to Ranma and Akane for now. It was a long time after the sisters left before Akane could fall asleep again.

Akane felt her head drooping and jerked her head up, trying to keep her eyes open. Beside her, Ranma sprawled out not even attempting to stay awake anymore. Watching the steady rise and fall of his chest and the faint morning glow highlighting his golden mane, Akane felt very tempted to collapse on him like a big fluffy pillow.

As Akane watched her hazy mind began to wander, why was Ranma's fur golden? From looking at his human form she would have expected him to have black luscious fur like his pigtail or perhaps some vibrant red from his female half, not golden. Even if it was his skin tone his fur color was based on she would not have called Ranma "golden", so why as a shisa was he? The only features the same were his eyes. Come to think of it her fur was a matching shade of golden yellow. She had hardly been any more "golden" than Ranma before, so why the color?

They were even about the same size which had clearly not been the case before; her eyes had been level with male Ranma's chin before. Now the only size difference was that Ranma's current frame was slightly more…robust than hers, but not obviously so. The only feature not matching between them was their eye color, and their sex, of course, but Akane was not about to let anyone close enough examine that. Thus the only real way for anyone to tell them apart was Ranma's blue-black eyes and her deep brown ones.

Akane sagged, her thoughts becoming fuzzy again. Giving in to temptation she dropped on Ranma and buried her nose in his soft fur. He growled slightly at the sudden weight but otherwise didn't protest. Akane's last waking thought filtered through her mind about paired shisa always matching.

….

A soft breeze carrying the faint scent of mint reached her nose causing Akane to flick her ear and bury her nose farther into her pillow. The breeze persisted ruffling her fur, her pillow grumbled and shifted. Akane squeezed her eyes tighter and ignored it all.

If she wasn't trying so hard to return to sleep Akane probably would have been more worried that the wind had shifted to stroke her head and back. Phantom fingers began scratching behind her ears and she rumbled, until she remembered where she was. Shooting up suddenly she swerved around and tripped on Ranma in the process. Ranma let out a whoosh of breath and stood up flipping Akane over his back.

Soft familiar laughter brought both shisas' attention to the side where Tofu Ono sat quietly. "I certainly have my work cut out for me," he smiled softly as Akane gawked at his transparent form.

Akane straightened herself, still staring. She could not deny that it was the young healer from her village. He still had the same warm confident reassuring smile and soft friendly gaze that she had cherished when she was little. Akane was somewhat tempted to mention Kasumi to see if Tofu's gaze would vacate and his clumsy inattentiveness would return.

At the same time she was having lots of trouble grasping his presence. He had, after all, gone missing a year and a half ago only to suddenly now reappear. Not only that, but he was quite translucent. There was no denying the shimmer of his form or how she could outline each book placed on the shelf behind him.

Ranma was the first to recover, "Doc? What happened to you? You're see-through!"

The Healer's smile wavered and he sighed sadly. "It started when I left the village to trade for supplies in the city…"

"That's right! You never came back!" Akane accused out of the blue, her sudden irrational anger at Tofu abandoning her sister returning.

Tofu's look became grim, "I had every intention of returning. Until I died."

Silence answered him. Akane kept wondering how the healthy, strong, careful, young healer she knew could have died. Eventually she whispered, "How?"

The man turned spirit sighed, "I didn't know it at the time, but a shadow sprite had latched onto me and was feeding off my insecurity." Tofu gave a wry grin, "that's why I could never act properly in front of Kasumi. Anyway, the sprite itself did not kill me, just weakened my spirit enough for the ogre."

"The ogre?" The way Tofu said it sent a shiver up Akane's spine.

"Ogres, I discovered, are the underlings of Glorious Will. When He requests it of them, they often eagerly carry out the Glorious' will, serving as his henchmen if you will." Tofu shifted and continued, "The ogre attacked me at dusk on my way back from the city. I guess between the ogre and the shadow sprite depleting me, I died. Before I even fully understood what happened I was standing outside my body with the ogre on one side and the shadow sprite on the other. "

The former healer paused, both the shisa had their rapt attention on their friend.

"Before the ogre or the shadow sprite could grasp me, a shield spirit saved me and brought me before The Great One."

Ranma made a discontented noise as Akane snorted. Once Akane would have listened to this tale with fascination; The Great One was after all the deity who offered protection, courage, strength, success, and wisdom. She used to really think He was the guide of the living like the majority of her friends and family, now she wasn't so sure.

There were two other deities in addition to The Great One her home village had occasionally paid homage to: the Glorious Will and Fey. Akane, and all the other people she had ever known, had all believed that of the three The Great One was the most advantageous to have on their side and had focused their worship on Him. The Glorious Will was known to those who sought power, gain, and everlasting unchanging life, but He was also known to be harsh and demanding. Fey mostly played around in the world; She was the trickster, joker full of games and laughter. She was the one who filled the world with mysteries and illusions, and while Her adventures sometimes hurt ultimately She brought her followers peace and joy.

Tofu broke through Akane's thoughts when he continued with his narrative, "The Great One saved my soul from the grasps of the Glorious Will, for that I am grateful. He gave me the chance to watch and help my still living loved ones. I agreed and He is allowing me to wander and watch as a shield spirit."

The healer raised his eyes to pierce the shisas' in front of him, "Ranma, Akane, I know you are mad at The Great One right now, but He is here to help all mortals. He did what He must to come here and save not only you but multitudes of others. Yes, He changed you into shisa but He did so in a way that both saved you and gave you the opportunity to battle alongside Him." The transparent healer squared his shoulders and continued, "That is why when He asked I came here to teach you how to be shisa."

Akane didn't know how to react. She didn't know what to feel. So she sat there stunned, staring at her deceased transparent friend and tried to absorb it all. Should she be happy she got to see him again and learn his fate? Or devastated that he had apparently sided with The Great One? She wondered if Tofu was brainwashed.

Then again, from his story she could understand his position. The Great One had helped him.

She wondered if she and Ranma were brainwashed. The Great One was manipulating them, but based on this new information about ogres serving the Glorious Will, that deity did not care for mortals as well. Akane wondered if Fey was in on this too, if all the humans were just pawns to be used, neglected, and abused that the Deities just dominated whenever they wanted.

All the Deities promised their followers satisfaction from life, only the methods were different; The Great One through hard work, Glorious Will through luck and gain, and Fey through play. Akane had never considered it before, but how did they, the mortals, know that they would get the happy life they asked for? Were these Deities really out to help any of them? Whose side was anyone on anymore?

….

….

Finally!

Part of the reason I took so long was that I was unsure how to add all that new information and still keep the chapter interesting. Not to mention keeping the new information easy to follow. I would love feedback on how I did in that regard.

At one point I was going to have all the spirits be Japanese… instead I ended up just making them up as I go. It might work out better this way, now I can do whatever I need to with the spirits and deities without worrying about authenticity. On the other hand this means I get to name everything, I tend to be terrible at naming things. In particular I keep looking at the Glorious Will and thinking, Really? That's the name I came up with?

Unfortunately I have no idea how long it will be before I finish the next chapter.