I don't own Ranma or Ikkitousen.

Sorry for the lateness of this chapter, RL got in the way. I thought about waiting and adding the epilogue to this chapter, but since i had already said it would be out and it was already late i decided to post what i had.

Chapter 12 Final confrontations are always so messy

Saji smirked looking down at the unconscious body of the Ruler of the east, the Shao Haou Hakufu. She had been almost ridiculously easy to capture, just a few hours of practicing with her 'in secret' the night before and then offering some of his meal to her, and with that she was out like a light thanks to the knockout pills mixed in with the food. Evidently Gakushu hadn't thought that she would be a target again, or hadn't listened to Ryuubi's concerns about it, as the only person that had been in the area was Kokin, and despite the boy's skill, he was no match for Saji and the group he had stationed nearby.

Now he looked down at her and shook his head. "Seems almost a shame," he said, running his hands none too gently over her chest, trusting the amount of knockout pills she had consumed to keep her out for hours yet.

Shibai glared at him. "Stop that!" she exclaimed sharply. "We can't take a chance on her waking up and trying to run away. We want to control the Dragon Spirit inside of her, not become its target!" That said she turned back to writing diagrams and spells around Hakufu to control the spirit within her with a brush as large as an arrow to allow her to do so without forcing her to kneel on her ruined legs. Once that was done, whoever held the tag in her other hand would be able to control the spirit within the ditzy girl completely. She frowned suddenly uneasy as she tried to remember where she had found the spell for this, but that unease was swiftly buried under a feeling of avarice as she thought of what they could do with the power of one of the Dragon Rulers under their command.

Saji too was feeling a little uneasy, but he couldn't put a finger on why. All around them their fighters were getting ready to move, except for two were standing over Kokin's comatose form, his face a mass of bruises. He had put up a good fight, but in the end he had fallen to their superior numbers. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Shibai turned from her work to glare up at him, her eyes glowing red a little bit. "Yes you idiot, I do!" she snapped, "now shut up and let me finish." By her side Teni stared fingering her bow and staring hard at Saji. Saji backed off, but stayed close by Hakufu's unconscious body.

Somewhere that defied that description, somewhere that did not change to mark the passage of time, the awakened intelligence carefully felt out its remaining tethers. One of its main three was now near to the forces that it still could control, including one of the medium anchors that had been created by chance over the centuries. It felt out the containers combat ability and though it's ability to grow further was great, at this point it did not have the skill to match the medium-sized anchor that was nearby. Feeling their thoughts, which it could not have done earlier until its intelligence had woken up, it could see that this medium anchor was much more suited for its needs in the present crisis. Foolish monkeys, they hadn't even realized the so-called spell was merely its own creation, the soul merely needed the anchors to be near one another, the spell was merely a reason they could comprehend not reality. With an effort of concentration that was incredible to it, it was able to grasp the main anchor and slowly start to transfer power over to the medium-sized anchor. This exchange would take time but it would be able to transfer almost all of its energy to the medium-sized anchor. The other tethers nearby would also serve well, and it began to manipulate them, making them stronger, angrier, more mindless in equal proportion to the energy transferred from the main anchor to the new vessel. Once the transfer was complete it would simply crush the last of their willpower and its peons would go forth to do its bidding.

Herb sighed happily as he once more put his shirt on, after all he hadn't wanted to get it wet again. "Fully male," he breathed happily, still getting used to the sensation of cold water that wasn't immediately accompanied by his body changing shape. "How I have missed this."

Dr. Oden snorted at him. "Indeed you're an irritatingly perfect image of health," he said sardonically. "There've been no ill effects to you, nor am I happy to say to Ren, judging from the checkup I gave her yesterday. I must say that makeshift ritual was an interesting experiment to watch. The fact that Ren's soul was able to change your 'twin's' body to match her own image of herself was astonishing."

"Count your blessings Dr.," Herb said dryly, "if she hadn't been able change it I might've been forced to kill her to remove a potential challenger to my place as heir to the throne."

Dr. Oden looked at him askance at that, unable to tell if the Musk prince was joking or not. But their conversation was interrupted by the hotel room's phone ringing. Being closest Chou'un answered it, having come over with Herb to check on the progress being made with a special seals by Harumoto while he got his checkup. Thankfully the gnomish sealmaster had finished the next promised seal tag, but unfortunately it had taken most of his power to create, and he would need months to recover before he could make another. A few seconds after picking up the phone Chou'un frowned, and Herb and the old man could tell that whoever the person on the phone was, what they had said was bad news.

Days after the operation/experiment/ritual that had saved her life the once mighty Ryofu Hosen was awake yet barely able to lift a spoon to feed herself. That didn't stop her from glaring at Chinkyu, her eye twitching fiercely. "What?"

Chinkyu shrank a little under her glare but replied to the one word question, fingering where her magatama had hung on her right ear for so long. Ranma had destroyed it, Koumeis and Chinkyu's at the same time he had destroyed Chou'un's. "Er, like I said, Ranma sort of somehow sent his mind into your bead and found out that the soul inside wasn't Lu Bu, like we always thought, but a girl named Ren. Then well, they did this wired ritual that removed her soul from the bead, which stopped the ki allergy disease that was slowly killing you, and somehow put it into this new body, I didn't follow what they were saying but it was basically combining three curses to get rid of two or something like that."

"Not that" Ryofu snapped, her voice almost back to normal despite her weakness, "I meant the part about where my ancestor getting with him and Kan'u."

The younger girl shrugged, trying to keep her sudden surge of jealousy off her face and out of her voice. "Well, apparently she, Ren that is, fell for him during their meeting, and Kan'u and Ryomou had no objections so.. yeah she joined them. They're actually cute together."

"Hmmf, when I get better we'll just see about that. No way am I going to lose to my own damn ancestor! Her and the Kan'u bitch, taking advantage of my weakness, I'll show them both!"

Chinkyu stood up abruptly glaring down at her angrily. "So that's it, you'll just go right back to what you were doing before? Not even caring how Ranma and Kan'u helped save your life, not even caring that they love eachother, you'll just try to take what you want!? You know who you sound like!?"

Ryofu stared at her in shock, but the words did penetrate and she fell back with a sigh. "You're right Chinkyu, what was I thinking? I don't even know the man that well and I want to kill to posses him, no that, no, that's not something I want. I'm sorry."

Chinkyu sighed and sat back down. "That's alright Ryofu-sama, I'm just glad you snapped out of it."

Ryofu looked at her best friend thoughtfully. I have been so blind, look at her, that's not a crush driving that devotion, that's real love. And now that I think on it, who has been there for me when I needed a friend, Chinkyu. Who was there to help me move past my rape by Saji, Chinkyu. Who has stood there thick and thin through everything, Chinkyu. And who can I no longer see my life without…Chinkyu. Well at least I have a chance to correct my mistake in not seeing the best thing in my life sooner. She smiled softly, reaching out a weak hand toward her friend. "You're right Chinkyu, Ranma and the troubles that come with him isn't something I want to put up with, especially," and her smile widened, "since there is someone far closer to me much more deserving of my attention." Chinkyu looked up, eyes filled with sudden hope, and Ryofu nodded. "When I get better, we're going to see about doing something to reward you for your devotion, Chi-chan." Chinkyu looked down with a bright red blush at the desire in her eyes, yet reached forward to take Ryofu's hand in her own.

At that point a knock on the door interrupted them. Chinkyu leaned back and cleared her throat before calling "Come in."

Ryuubi came in followed by Chouhi, who had recovered from the wounds she had taken, and now was ready for more, and Koumei. "We have a problem." Ryuubi said grimly.

Within an hour Ranma, Ryuubi and Ryomou were on their way to their somewhat ally Gogun high school to tell them in person about the curse, answer any questions and warn them about what might be going on, with the ongoing violence. Not that they had any real idea what was going on, only that Saji had wanted to wake up the 'Ruler' within Hakufu, and might have some way of controlling it. The idea that the dragon's soul had somehow awoken and was working against them hadn't corssed their minds.

Chou'un and Herb set off directly from the hotel Dr. Oden and Harumoto were staying in to meet with Gakushu and to see if they could hunt down were Hakufu went. They were armed with the seal tag Harumoto had finished the night before, though if they ran into an awakened Hakufu they were going to retreat if they could until they could meet up with Ranma. Even Herb didn't want to tangle with an awakened 'Ruler' on his own if he had any choice.

That left Kanu and Ren to patrol Seito's area. Chouhi and Chinkyu would stay in the temple to guard Ryofu, who was in no condition to move around let alone fight, and Koumei who was no good in a direct confrontation.

They all thought they had a idea of what was going on, but they really had no idea.

Saji hissed as power and fury suddenly filled him and he tried to beat it down to no avail. He'd felt it coming and simply assumed that the spell was transferring Hakufu's power to him as Shibai had told him it would (she had lied), but what filled him now wasn't just power but rage and hate in such strength it nearly overwhelmed him. The rage rose within him, the anger, the bloodlust, and he tried desperately to regain control of himself, wondering where the hell this is all coming from.

Among the myriad scrawling marks that actually did not do anything save look vaguely mystic Hakufu twitched as the shard of the dragon soul within her began to leave her body, and began to take over Saji's. Shibai gaped in horror from her wheelchair, and then her mind shut down, the dragon simply blasting her mind with so much anger and hate that she could not contain it and her own mind collapsed momentarily under the assault.

Unlike Saji the fighters around them had no chance to fight back, even Kakuha was subsumed swiftly by the curse they had for so long unwillingly and unthinkingly served once it was far enough along in the process of taking Saji over and transferring its power from Hakufu to him. Moments later every fighter, all 100 of them in the abandoned warehouse was under its control. Only Shibai had been able to retain control of her mind, her cold analytical nature so different from the dragon's mindless fury it allowed her to come back from the brink of destruction, but that was all. Her body was no longer her own and she screamed as she watched it move under a will that was not her own. She stood up, the curse made berserker she had become having no need to continue the pretense of her being crippled. She watched in horror as Kakuha, completely under the beserk rage reached out and ripped his pleading lover Kaku apart. The girl had lost her magatama to Ranma weeks ago when he interrupted her plans for Chinkyu, therefore the cursed warriors saw her as an enemy, and slew her mercilessly. Kaku hadn't even tried to run, too shocked by what was going on around her to react in time.

Saji was fighting back as hard as he could, but it was now only Saji fighting, the spirit inside his bead, the spirit that had for centuries tried everything it could think of to break free and take control of the destiny for itself had already succumbed to the dragon's fury. Saji however, kept fighting with the foremost thought his mind being that if he could somehow gain control of this he would be able to change his destiny, and take control of the game.

A thought emerged from the rage and fury that had besieged his soul. Fool, it said coldly, see the truth and despair! Before Saji could even think of a response his mind became inundated with images. Images of the dragon falling to the earth, images of the dragon being slain by his ancestor and the ancestors of all those involved in the destiny, the curse that had been placed on them all, the curses purpose, all the blood all the horror all the fear and terror that the curse created over the centuries, the soul of the dragon growing stronger and stronger with each cycle of the destiny. All for nothing but the continuance of the dragon spirit itself, nothing for the actual pawns involved. Saji stared and somehow knew without knowing how that these images were true, and that everything we had known about the destiny was a lie, there was no big payoff at the end there was no way to achieve his dream. There was nothing but blood and the fury and the curse from a soul so evil it polluted the very earth it strode. With a last desolate wail that no one heard the last bit of the individual known as Saji disappeared forever.

What strode forward afterward was not him, but the dragon's fury made manifest. It wasn't back to its full power as it had hoped to be, nor was it as intelligent or as in control as it would have been if it's soul had been completely repaired, but it would have to be enough for it to deal with the interference to its curse. With its position in its new anchor secured and the Fighters nearby under its thrall, the dragon began to funnel some of its power to the other anchors it still retained, the better to sow chaos and division among its enemies. With a thought, its mindless troops went forward to do its bidding, and the thing that wore Saji's skin walked out to find its last main anchor and add that anchors power to its own.

At the edge of Gogun High's territory Ranma and the others with him were met by Ryu Kumon, as Ranma had supposed and the girl he took to be Ukitsu, a short well built girl with a heavy tan and spiky blue hair going in every direction around her head.

Ukitsu looked between the two men for a moment and then smirked. "See you both side-by-side it's pretty obvious that you're not related, but Jesus at first it was really weird."

The two men shrugged, still staring at one another. Ranma finally said "how are you doing dude, haven't seen you in a while?" While the two of them had gotten off to a very rough start, as long as Ryu stayed away from his mom Ranma didn't have any problem with the other warrior.

Ryu responded roughly "well enough I suppose. I heard what you did to your father in Nerima by the way, let me just say that was excellent. I wish I could've seen his face when he realized he was going to be weak for the rest of his life, but I was in Hokkaido at the time."

Ranma nodded. "We must have just missed and each other than, I went up to Hokkaido after clearing up in Nerima."

Ryu shrugged, "Whatever."

"So what are ya doing in this area?"

Ryu now smirked at him. "You don't think that little video of you and that Sousou character only got show in this area did you? I saw it and I thought to myself, 'heh, I should probably go and see if I can get into this.' You can't just hog all the fun fights for yourself you know."

Ranma grinned at him and Ryuubi rolled her eyes. Great, just what we needed another combat junkie… On second thought maybe that is precisely what we need right now. "Is that the reason that you decided to ally yourself with us?" She asked Ukitsu.

"Pretty much," the other girl replied. Then she tossed her magatama to Ranma who caught it reflexively. "That thing has never really influenced me specifically one way or the other, though it gave me my mission of going after and killing Hakufu. Still, was at least unable to think for myself. After Ryuubi tried to tell us about the curse I was a little skeptical but after I saw that thing come out of Sousou in that video I was sold."

Ryuubi nodded and took over the conversation, discussing a schedule to bring along the magatama of Gogun High's fighters. There were going to be a few issues as some of them weren't going to be willing to hand them over, but for the most part, this would leave Saji and Shumei standing alone.

Ren and Kan'u were walking around the town making certain that none of their fighters oReny of the fighters of the other schools were making trouble, but this was much easier to say than it actually was when Ren was involved. While she wasn't very interested in the town itself, she did tend to stop whenever she saw a TV and stare at it for a few minutes before moving back on. This was nothing however to the time she spent staring at any dog that came by. Indeed there were far more dogs coming out to greet her then Kan'u had ever thought the area contained. One dog came out of a one alleyway and three out of another within the first ten minutes of their patrol. All of them appeared to be wild dogs, shaggy and cagey looking, but Ren greeted them all like old friends, kneeling down and patting them on the heads and scratching them behind their ears. Even the most dangerous looking was swiftly putty in her hands.

Every time she would look up at Kan'u with a question in those expressive eyes and Kan'u would be forced to reply, "No Ren I'm sorry, you can't keep your friends in Renma's apartment. There just isn't enough room for them. Maybe after this is all over, we can get you some pets then okay?"

This was repeated at practically every alley they passed. Kan'u sighed heavily as a dog dragged its owner down the street towards Ren who had already kneels down to welcome. The girl had truly an uncanny way with animals. It wasn't just dogs, when they passed a pet store all of the animals inside had turned to look at them. Kan'u would've found it very irritating, if Ren wasn't so darn cute! She wasn't very talkative, in fact, she was the exact opposite, she was almost completely silent, but she was very expressive with the noises she made, that little pleading noise she made and the soulful eyes staring at her had practically broken Kan'u. One more time she thought, I can probably stop myself from saying yes one more time, but after that she'll have me wrapped around her little finger.

Despite the animal/pet/friend issue she was well pleased with the newest addition to their small family, Ren was fun, cute as all get out, very responsive to the few times they had exchanged kisses, and even more responsive when Renma had kissed her. She was gentle, friendly and insanely strong and, despite her ignorance of the modern world, intelligent. While they haven't had time to spar just yet Kan'u's ki sense could tell her that Ren was nearly as strong as an awakened dragon. No wonder the curse had gone out of its way to make her act out the part of the bad guy. Once again Kan'u wondered though where all the history about Lu Bu had come from. Surely it could not have all come from the curse?

Her thoughts were interrupted were interrupted as in front of her Ren suddenly stiffened, swiftly crouching down into a fighting position and bringing out her Houtengenki from weapon's space, which she had picked up incredibly quickly once her ki had built up to its normal level. Kan'u looked around wondering what had startled the other girl, knowing she had better senses than Kan'u's own. "Ren" she said slowly, "What's wrong?"

"Enemy," Ren replied, staring down the street.

Kan'u looked where she was staring, but couldn't see anything for a few minutes, and she was about to say so then paused as six fighters dropped down from a building at the end of the street right into a group of civilians and began to literally rip them apart with her hands. The screams and cries of the wounded and swiftly dying reached her where she was standing and she gasped in horror.

Ren however didn't bother to gap and simply shot forward as fast as she could down the street. Kan'u swiftly followed bringing out Seryuutou and whirling it over her head to bring it slashing down, slicing the head of one of the attackers off his shoulders. She took out one more and by that time, Ren had dealt with the remaining three.

Kan'u looked down sadly at a young boy who had been caught by the mad berserkers and torn asunder. "What in that hell" she said slowly, angrily, "caused that?" Ren knelt, staring sadly up little boy then up and Kan'u. "Sight" she said simply.

"They attack on sight you think?" Ren nodded. Kan'u looked down at the dead fighters for a moment recognizing four of them as coming from Rakuyo and the other from Nanyou. Then the thought hit her, It doesn't matter what caused them to go nuts like that, all that matters is what they'll do! Swiftly she got out her phone and called the police commissioner on the line Ranma had provided her. "Commissioner we have a big problem." She swiftly outlined what had occurred and then told him "broadcast on the TV, on the radio, hell get a plane into the air anything and everything every civilian needs to take shelter inside the nearest building and stay there until we figure out what the hell is going on and how to stop it. No civilians on the streets at all within a maximum of fifteen minute of me calling you do you understand do anything you need to get back down or else were going to face a blood bath if this isn't an isolated incident." As she said this Kan'u motioned to Ren and indicated the girl should pick up the beads of the fighters they had killed. Ren did so quickly, though had some trouble finding the magatama of the warrior Kan'u had beheaded.

The police commissioner had paled and then red and then he paled again as Kan'u outlined what was going on. A part of is brain was thinking so this is the endgame, the curse must be aware somehow and striking back, but the rest of them was swiftly going about his business. In 10 minutes not fifteen as Kan'u had said a helicopter was in the air blaring out emergency warnings to get every civilian off the street and into the nearest building. He swiftly ordered his police groups back into the stations or into the nearest large buildings like schools or grocery stores and places like that, which were quickly boarded up, the better to defend against these berserkers.

Thankfully the people reacted much like this was a tornado warning, and soon enough were safe all inside their houses. This would save untold countless lives in the following few hours, as indeed that first group Ren and Kan'u had run into had been one of the three forerunner groups. And of the three was the only one that had found any civilians the other two would run into other fighters from Nanyo and Gogun. However most of those fighters had in turn been turned, as they still had their magatama, giving the curse a way to infect and control them, further swelling its numbers.

About 30 minutes later Ren and Kan'u were aghast to see a group made up mostly of Nanyo students and a few fighters from Rakuyo coming down the street in the same nearly blind yet purposeful manner, snarling out their rage to the world. "It's like invasion of the body snatchers meets zombies from Hell," Kan'u muttered "and then throw in a dash of berserker strength. This is not going to be pleasant."

Ren didn't reply to this statement, she simply looked at her, "plan?"

Kan'u looked from her to the on rushing fighters, who had apparently seen them and sped up their shambling walk into a semblance of a normal run, arms outstretched, faces hard with rage and fury. "Plan," she said as she once more brought out her spear "I don't think we need a plan Ren. Those people had a choice," she said softly. "They could've chosen to come forward to surrender themselves and to have the grip of the destiny on them broken. They didn't. Now let them reap the whirlwind! Remember to pick up their beads after we finish off each group, guard each other's backs and let's go!" she said grimly.

Ren smiled at her then followed her as Kan'u shot swiftly forward shouting a wordless battle cry.

At the same time this was going on Chou'un and Herb had met up with Gakushu and were trying to trace Hakufu steps with the help of Goei. This is the last place I saw her," Goei muttered, as she led the way up the hills behind their property. "Kokin was with her, though, I'm not quite sure what could've gone wrong so fast he couldn't at least have called me."

Chou'un nodded calmly as Herb and Gakushu looked around. "No sign of combat or any kind of struggle, they'd know Saji and anybody with him wasn't to be trusted right?"

Gakushu nodded "Kokin would at least," he said thoughtfully. "I'm not quite sure if the discussion we had about Saji got through to Hakufu thought. She's a bit of an airhead you know?"

Chou'un rolled her eyes. "Yes, she is a little too trusting wasn't she? Still, I don't think she could have been taken by force without leaving some kind of struggle, so some kind of subterfuge was used here, possibly poisoned food from a friend or something like that.."

Goei muttered, "I knew I should've made certain she was immune to knockout pills and cyanide and stuff. Oh well something to train her on later".

The three warriors looked at her a little askance then shrugged. "We're not getting anywhere here, do you know any places Saji could've gone, or hid himself?" Chou'un asked the warrior from Nanyo.

"I don't off the top of my head but…" his reply was interrupted as above them a emergency helicopter flew low blaring out of its speakers its message of alarm.

The three warriors looked around suddenly wary. "I wonder what that was about?" said Herb thoughtfully.

Just as he said this Chou'un's phone beeped and she looked at it and held it to her ear. A moment later she put it away and said grimly "that was the police commissioner, passing on a message from Kan'u and Ren who apparently ran into some kind of berserkers, several of them in a pack, not very skilled, but completely mindless. They attacked a group of civilians and wiped them out before Kan'u and Ren could get to them."

Herb nodded understanding, his eyes suddenly hard, looking more reptilian than they had before this. "In that case we should get a move on shouldn't we?"

Gakushu shook his head at the news wondering what the hell was going on now. "I know of a few empty warehouses on the edge of the district, they're technically in my factions territory, so I know they haven't been searched yet. We meant to search them, but with the fights breaking out among our warriors we never could get to it."

"It sounds like a good place to start" Chou'un said grimly, "let's move."

While they hadn't succumbed as quickly to the madness of the curse as the fighters near 'Saji' had all the fighters from Nanyou and Gogun, those schools that hadn't been forced to submit their beads for destruction, did succumb once they came face to face with a warrior who had already fallen to the curses fury. Luckily they began to fight among the themselves and once they had done that, weeding out the week among them they move moved around to find others to kill. By which point all of the civilians had gotten inside and all that was left for the fighters to find were Ranma's group and those allied with them.

The first Ranma and the others knew about it though was when Ukitsu suddenly grabbed her head in agony as the curse hit her. Ryu and the others turned to look at her then Ryuubi that also collapsed to her knees. Ryuubi however was able to throw it off. Her bead had been destroyed by Ranma last night, which only left the dragon shard within her, which without a mind behind it couldn't break her will. With the intelligence moving itself into Saji to control him, it had lost the ability to influence Ryuubi from afar. The shard itself could try to influence her, but with their friends around her. She felt no concern or irritation or anger that it could use as a lever to force her to do what it wanted.

Ranma swiftly turned and after only a second to gather his ki pushed his consciousness into Ukitzu's magatama and was immediately assailed by a myriad of images. Fighting, fighting honorable battle honorable combat one-on-one fight, growing remorse, anger, sadness, pain, desire to end. With a gasp he broke out of his trance and brought a fist down filled with ki. The bead crumbled, and Ukitsu gasped as the curse's hold on her disappeared.

"Your ancestor was a pretty honorable person," he said softly holding her up with the help of Ryu. "He tried to fight the curse back, but he couldn't. Finally he just wanted to end." Ukitzu nodded slowly and then pointed wordlessly down the street. Coming towards them as if on homing in on an unseen signal was a group of fifty fighters mixed from her school and the fighters from Rakuyo. At the same moment the emergency helicopter appeared in the sky above them, blaring outs its warning.

Ryu grinned cracking his knuckles explosively. "Looks as if we have a fight on our hands!"

"Ukitzu stay with Ryuubi until you're recovered," said Ranma calmly as he stepped forward, "Ryomou left, Ryu right, I'll take center. Ryomou once you're tired switch out with Ukitsu and we keep moving. Take their beads if you can see if that breaks them out of this weird berserk trance of theirs. If it doesn't keep the beads anyway, and well we all know what we'll have to do," he finished grimly.

Ryu again cracked his knuckles a fierce light burning in his eyes. He had never been a kind or gentle as Ranma was, a good fight always ended with at least one person the hospital if not the morgue in his opinion. He wasn't a bully by any mean, he lived to test himself on those that were stronger than him but he wouldn't feel any remorse about killing any of these fuckers. "Let's get it on!" He said and started forward the others following swiftly after him.

The following fight was brutal, and ended with most of the fighters dead, with a very few simply unconscious. Apparently a strong enough blow to the head while at the same time taking their bead would be enough to break them out of their berserk fury and knock them out. But it had to be at the exact same time or it wouldn't work, and there were simply too many fighters and they were too strong and too dangerous to fuck around with. "I wonder what the hell is causing this," Ranma mused as with one hand he plucked a fighters bead from around his neck where it had hung on a chain and with the other, crushed the side of his head in, sending him into lala land.

Ryomou ducked under a blow and slammed her leg up between her attacker's legs sending him into the air with a scream of agony that had broken through its berserk rage. "Analyze later, fight now" she exclaimed dodging another hammer blow, grabbing the arm and twisting until it snapped then kicking the person in the side.

Ranma nodded and his hands moved catching the blow that was aimed at his head from one direction, but he grunted as another punch got through from his other side until he turned carrying the first person he had caught and using him like a flail to hit the second person sending both of them went down in a tangle of limbs and he jumped in and slamming hard shot straight to their necks snapping them instantly.

He looked up and found that was the last of this bunch. Ryu stood beside him with Ukitsu, Ryomou having just fallen back to guard Ryuubi. Unfortunately, this was just a prelude, as another thirty fighters came towards them baying a challenge. Ranma groaned. "Here we go again."

The quartet of fighters moved forward, forgetting for just an instant to leave one of them behind to guard Ryuubi. This proved to be an almost fatal mistake, as another group of ten this time moving purposefully and under a driving intelligence jumped down from a nearby rooftop. Before Ryuubi could shout out the central fighter, Saji had grabbed her around the neck. She screamed "Ranma!" as she felt something inside of her start to tear away.

The dragon exulted. This main anchor was completely unsuitable, but now that it had the continaer within reach it could transfer its power to its own body. It's enemies came towards it but it ordered it spawns into their way delaying them enough to it when it could suck out its power from the center into its now sold single anchor. That done it began to suck out Ryuubi's own soul, intent on adding its power to the dragon's own. This process was interrupted by a boot ta the head™, which send the creature who had once been Saji flying into and through the wall of a nearby building. Ranma gathered up Ryuubi, who surprisingly was already beginning to stir, and shouted over his shoulder. "Ryu, plow the road, we're getting out of here!"

Ryu nodded and brought his hands forward in the Yama-sen-ken, "Kijin Raishu, Dan!" Several dozen vacuum blades shot forward, slicing and mangling the fighters around him. With that lull in the attack, the group was able to take to the rooftops and retreat.

Behind them the dragon pushed its way out of the rubble of the building, a thankfully empty café whose owners had hidden in the basement, and jumped after them.

Hearing the thing and the few followers remaining in the area. Ranma passed Ryuubi over to Ryomou. Ryomou take Ryuubi and get the hell out of here, get back to the temple and wait there until we call ya, me, Ryu and Ukitzu will try and hold it off. Get in touch with Kan'u and the others, she's on speed dial the first one," He said, tossing her his cell phone. "We'll try to pin this thing in place. Take out all the rest of the fighters in the area first and then come and help us." Ryomou nodded understanding and took off as the other three turned to engage Saji.

At the same time 'Saji' struck at Ryuubi, Chou'un Herb and Gakushu had run into their own problems. While a large amount of the fighters had been sent out to kill everything in sight they found ten of them had remained behind near the abandoned warehouse, having been among the first sent out and discovering a few workers and vagrants in the area, who they hunted through the warrens of abandoned buildings until Chou'un and her group came along, saving several of these workers and vagrants who hadn't yet been caught. To make matters worse these ten were among the most dangerous, all C or B ranked fighters, with one A rank among them.

The berserker that had been the A-rank fighter Teni pulled back on her string and let fly as soon as Chou'un's head was visible around the final corner to the warehouse. She ducked back around corner and the arrow banged off the brick wall leaving a large dent in the brickwork. "I think we found them," She said dryly.

Herb grunted and using his flight power ascended into the sky, only to immediately come under fire again. He blocked two shots with ki enhanced hands but the third was able to graze his cheek and he growled angrily coming back down to the ground. "That archer is exceptional! I was barely out there for 3 seconds and she got off three shots in that amount of time?"

"Were you able to see how many arrows she had left?" asked Gakushu.

"No," Herb said grimly, "but there were several others and they were coming towards us. We'll have more to worry about in a few seconds than just one archer."

As he said this nine other fighters all B-rank or C-rank charged around the corner engaging them in close quarter combat. Many of them were wielding weapons, some makeshift others, such as one wielding a black katana, obviously not. One even stayed at mid range and began to throw senbon needles with deadly accuracy, but Herb swiftly put an end to that by using one of his special ki blasts, bouncing it off the roof behind her and impacting her head, destroying her bead at the same time it knocked her out.

One-on-one, these fighters would be no match for any of the three of them, even Gakushu who was easily the weakest of the trio, but together they were a potent threat. Soon the trio was bogged down, back-to-back and warding off the remaining eight fighters, all the while searching for the archer who could probably kill any of them if caught off guard.

Herb leveled one fighter to the ground then negligently kicked down snapping its neck before slamming his fist into another fighter sending it careening to the ground. But he was forced to dodge back as an arrow came out of nowhere that would've impacted his head had he not sensed in the air. It tore past him impacting another fighter and slaying him instantly, literally exploding his chest.

Two more fighter's were cleared, then Gakushu grunted in agony as his arm vanished under the impact of a ki laced arrow. He grabbed at the now blood spurting stump and tried to staunch the flow of blood but another fighters slammed a spear butt into his head and he went down. Before either Herb or Chou'un could get to him, Gakushu, last of the nanyo Big Four, was swarmed under.

Grimly the duo fell back trying to make their way toward of building that hopefully would be empty, trying to get there just to block further shots from Teni.

Herb grunted as he suddenly had to lift his hand to catch an arrow that was aiming for his head. This unfortunately uncovered his right side and he took a spear in the side, grunting in agony. But the spear couldn't penetrate too deeply, his specialized Dragon scale technique able to take much of the blow, causing what could have been a killing blow to be merely debilitating. A single blow hammered out shattering spear and spear holders neck in turn. Then he ducked under another arrow which impacted on another fighter.

Now there were three of them. Chou'un got enough space finally to reach down to her pocket and bring out her sword from weapons space and she sliced forward it, killing two of the remaining three instantly and then brought it back around to block an arrow bolt with the side of the blade. Herb cleared the last attacker way, slamming his head into the wall with a high kick. This left the archer free to shoot and he did so rapidly six shot coming at them faster than either could blank.

Chou'un was able to block three with her sword but one got through grazing her shoulder but with nearly enough force to rip her arm out of its socket. She was flown backward like a puppet two slammed into the wall of the building behind them. Herb had simply grabbed the two arrows aimed with hands flaming with his ki and threw them back. This caused the archer to dodge just enough to let him close the distance. "You came too close," he growled, bringing his fist in towards her face, but she responded by dodging under his blow, and bringing out a kunai to try and stab him.

Chou'un however had revered quickly, and interposed her blade, catching her kunai on her blade and bring her pommel up to slam into the archers head with enough force to send her to the ground. Before she could get up again, Herb, acting on a hunch reached down, his hands still incased in ki, and crushed the girls magatama where it was in her ear. As soon as he did she fell to the ground like a puppet with its string cut.

Chou'un turned, moving to check on Gakushu as Herb, seeing he could now destroy the beads moved around to do just that, making certain they were all destroyed. Chou'un shook her head sadly over Gakushu's body, then reached down gently and closed his eyes.

After a moments silence they moved on into the warehouse, where they found Kokin, miraculously still alive, having been ignored in his comatose state, and no longer having his magatama, having lost it at the same time Hakufu and Gakushu lost theirs. His injuries were such though that even without anyone guarding him he had been unable to break his bonds. Chou'un moved over to free him as Herb moved to look at Hakufu.

From a single glance he could tell the so called spell around her was mere gobbledygook, and he took up one of the girls limp hands, testing for a pulse. It was there, but barely, and he stared at her with his ki sight, seeing that she had lost practically all her ki, what she had left was barely enough to keep her body alive. Lifting up one eyelid he looked at her eyes, but couldn't tell if there was anyone home. He sighed, that would be for Harumoto and Oden to figure out. Right now, they had to get these to someplace safe and meet up with the others.

As he picked Hakufu up, Kokin got to his feet unsteadily and Chou'un cell phone rang. She answered it and after a moment turned to Herb. "Once we drop these two off at the temple we're to meet the others at Rakuyo high school, apparently it's the only school that was emptied by this emergency, and it's the closest open space to where Ranma, Ukitzu of Gogun and someone named Ryu are battling the awakened dragon."

Herb nearly gulped at that new but refrained. "In that case, I think we'll need to hurry don't you?"

About an hour after the madness had begun Kan'u and Ren had finally met up with Ranma and the Ryu. They found them heavily engaged with someone who looked like Saji, and Kan'u gaped for a moment stunned by 'Saji's' ability to fight her lover off. Then she realized, it's not Saji at all anymore, is it?

She dove in, alongside Ren to engage the thing shouting "Where's Ryuubi?"

Ryu grunted under the impact of the kick and barely was able keep in place for a moment as Ranma answered, slamming home several hundered Amiguriken blows with the thing didn't seem to even feel. "That thing sucked out the Dragon soul from her. She was still breathing when Ryomou carted her off just now, hell she was already moving her arms'n stuff.

Ryu grunted again as another kick came in towards him, the thing having ignored Ranmas attempt to draw its attention and he tried desperately to bring his hands forward to use the sealed technique. The fighter was too fast though and hammered his fist down and then another kick came in crushing into it the side of his face sending him down onto the street below.

"Shit," Ranma muttered, "Ren, Kan'u hit the rooftop with your strongest ki attack on 3,2,1!" and at three all three of them hit the street with their strongest ki attack, alongside with his Bakutsai Tenketsu technique, buyring the bersker momentarily and allowing them to fall back.

"Okay," said Kan'u calmly a little too calmly under the circumstances, "at exactly what point did we lose control here?"

"I don't know" Ranma said, breathing deeply and gathering his ki. "But that thing is a way stronger than Sousou was, even before it took Ryuubi's dragon shard into its own. I think it's the dragon, the soul didn't want to wait anymore, we were weakening it too much, and it somehow woke itself up. We beat that thing, and its all over, no more curse!"

"Easier said than done lover," Kan'u muttered, watching as the thing in Saji's body forced its way out of the rubble of what had been a karaoke bar, thankfully empty at this hour of the day.

"Agreed, we'll need some space to fight it, we've gotten lucky so far and I haven't seen any civilians injured or anything, but that'll change if we don't find someplace to fight it away from buildings, where's the nearest field or open park?"

Ukitzu looked around from where she was tending Ryu, pointing off to the left. "Rakuyo high is that way, about five blocks, but why don't you and Ryu hit that thing with that attack he used before to clear the streets?" She was feeling angry as hell, all her training had been to fight without the use of ki, merely pure physical ability, but her strongest punches barely caused that thing to blink, let alone hurt it.

Ranma nodded. "As soon as we're away from buildings that's the first damn thing I'm gonna try. But for now let's move."

Even as he said this 'Saji' broke out of the last of the debris holding him and jumped forward toward them.

Ren swiftly brought her spear around slicing at its arms but the slice barely broke the skin and it was soon healed over. Ren cocked her head quizzically but dodged aside again and cut at the things eyes. This blow however the thing dodged, kicking out at her and she was forced to fall back with the others. Ranma and Kan'u swarmed in, one going high the other low, Ranma shouting "Moko ha Reiku!" and a beam of golden light hit the thing in its chest, while at the same time Kan'u shouted "Crescent blades Earth Roar!" The impact of the two ki blasts lifted the thing off the roof and in the general direction of Rakuyo.

Ranma touched down. "Okay general, what do we do now?"

Kan'u nodded at him taking charge immediately. "Alright, Ukitzu head over to the temple and meet up with Ryomou, go around and make certain we've gathered or destroyed as many beads as you can, if you find any more of those berserkers, well you know what to do." Ukitzu nodded grimly. While she had never really been friendly with the lower ranked fighters of her faction, having to kill so many of them after they were infected with the berserker madness had been a sobering experience. "Ranma, can you engage that thing with that hurricane maneuver of yours?"

Ranma nodded. "Sure, and while I do that…"

Kan'u nodded, the three of us and Chou'un and Herb will hit the hurricane with as many long range ki attacks as we can, hopefully that will be enough to kill this thing, if not, it will at least injure it severely."

"Gotcha, I'll keep the thing busy until yer all in position, but don't take too long, I don't think I can last fer long against that thing by myself." With that said the group broke up, and Ranma raced toward where the dragon had been thrown.

The thing was already back on its feet only its lack of hair denoting any damage from the twin ki attacks. As Ranma neared, its aura burst forth again, covering its body in hotted denser, flames than even Sousou's aura. Thankfully Ranma had started to enter the Soul of Ice as soon as he left the others, and he charged forward to meet it. The two collided, and as with the fight against Sousou it was as if two weather fronts were battling it out. Ranma began almost immediately to lead the thing towards where Ukitsu said the high school was, wincing as a blow got through his defenses. Even with his massive advantage in speed Ranma was still taking far too many hits.

Suddenly, as they passed a fire hydrant Ranma hit on an idea, and he ducked under a blow spinning and kicking the top of the hydrant. A huge fountain of wire appeared shooting up into the sky and Ranma dodged through it, gasping as the change hit. Now a she, Ranma was just that little bit too fast for the dragon to hit, and it raged after her as she dodged around, leading her towards the ambush point.

Chou'un and Herb arrived at the ambush point barely five minutes after Kan'u and her group got there. Chou'un looked a little worried as she looked at the school. "Are we certain no one is inside there we really don't want anyone around when we do this?" She remembered all to well how much damage the first tornado Ranma created caused.

Ren nodded, and Ryu shrugged. "The quiet one said she couldn't feel anyone inside, so we'll have to take her word for it."

Kan'u who had been listening to something on the phone, put it away and turned to them. "Alright, Ukitsu and Ryomou are in the process of clearing up the few beads we missed, the police are out now in force to round up prisoners, but they haven't seen any more of those berserkers, it looks as if we might have taken them all out." She winced as she said this, while she and Ren might have killed the lion's share of the berserk army, it wasn't a task she had enjoyed. Unlike the other teams, neither she nor Ren had figured out how to stop the berserkers without killing them, and really with the image of the family that first group had torn to pieces they hadn't wanted to. She shook her head to get rid of the memories and focused on the here and now. "Alright I want us all hidden in different places. Ryu, that tree on the right side of the track field, Ren the tree on the left, Chou'un, up on the roof with Herb, I'll hide behind the corner of the building until Ranma has moved 'Saji' into position in the center of the track field." The other all nodded and they ran off to their positions.

Ranma still hadn't been tagged, but her own return blows were no longer enough to hurt the thing, and she could barely get through its flame aura. It was getting frustrating, but they had at last arrived at the school. Ranma moved the fight into the center of the track field, the largest clear space in the school yard, and began to move into his spiral. A moment later the redhead caught sight of Kan'u poking her head around the side of the building, and she flashed him a big thumbs up to indicate they were ready. Ranma didn't bother responding, she merely kept going into the spiral, tighter and tighter, as her ice aura dueled with his opponents flame until at last she reached the center of the spiral. Ranma punched upward, impacting one of her larger opponent's fist with her own and shouted coldly "Hiryu Shoten Ha!"

A monstrous tornado appeared from the point of impact, picking up 'Saji' and twirling him into the air with a roar. At the same time the other fighters came out of cover, and immediately began their attacks.

Ryu was first, his attack not needing much buildup "Saidaikyū Kijin Raishū Dan!" Several large vacuum blades appeared, then rocketed forward into the tornado.

From above Chou'un swung her sword shouting "Silver blade Slice!" And a long thin but dense scythe of ki lanced out from the end of her swing.

Next to her Herb, "Hito Ryu-Zan Ha!" Several smaller blades of ki shot forward into the tornado.

Ren didn't bother shouting merely saying in a normal voice "Twin slicer" and slashing her ji forward twice at Amiguriken speed. Two very wide crescent moon shaped swathes of ki appeared and shot forward. At the same time Kan'u did her lightning roar, pouring as much power as she could into it, causing the roar, which was normally only the size of her arm to grow as large as her own body before streaking forward into the tornado.

Ranma reached into his weapons space pocket and pulled out some hot water, knowing that he put more power into even hi ki shots in his male form. "Cat fist revised, claw fist Storm!" Hundreds of tiny slivers of ki shot forward into the tornado.

Herb, whit his near bottomless supply of ki continued to throw ki attacks into the tornado, which had begun to expand and move outward. Soon enough he and Chou'un had to leap away from the roof, and it was only thanks to his flight ability that the two weren't pulled into the tornado as it destroyed the school buildings, first the main building and then it expanded to include the gym and the rest of the grounds.

By this time Ranma and the others had retreated to the edge of the schools boundary, standing on the wall and watching as the tornado continued to rage. It did so for another forty minutes before it began to subside.

As it did they were all astonished and not a little frightened to see the Saji-thing still in one piece, crashing into the ground. It was tattered, its clothing torn and its skin bruised, but it had survived the tornado and everything they had thrown at it.

As the others looked in horror, Ranma simply gritted his teeth and jumped forward to finish the job. Kan'u followed swiftly, with Ren moving right behind her. The other three looked at one another and Herb shrugged, and they all charged forward together.

The dragon soul raged in what had become its prison. It could no longer feel even a single anchor outside of its present body, its ki was fading, and the body was being held together now more by its will than by blood and sinew. It had nowhere to go, and not enough energy to recast the curse that could have saved it. For the first time in millennia it felt fear, which angered it all the more as the fighters it had thought so puny once more closed with it.

Ranma rushed forward, hands glowing with ki as he shouted "Tiger Amiguriken!" the power shots came in hundreds at a time, draining Ranma's energy more than anything he had ever done before but doing their job and the thing was barely able to get its arms up to block.

This proved a mistake as Kan'u slashed forward, adding her ki to her weapon s to make its edge sharper. One of 'Saji's' hands flew away, severed completely and the thing roared even as the stump closed slowly, falling back and kicking out, sending her backward with cracked ribs.

Ren and Ranma worked in tandem then, Ranma, grabbing the things arms as Ren sliced one of them off before the thing could wrench free. Again the stump began to close quickly, but with noticeably more time. Ranma grunted as he took another kick to the ribs, but held the thing in place as Ryu, Chou'un and Herb pounded on it.

Chou'un sliced a long gash across the things chest, which started to heal even slower than the stump where the thing arm had been, but she wasn't fast enough to dodge a punch to the side of the head which sent her to the ground senseless.

Ranma and Ryu used point blank "Kijin Riashin Dan!"'s and the thing lost its left leg, the leg sliced into several pieces. With a roar that was more a despairing wail than anything else the thing fell to the ground and rolled down the mound of rubble to come to a stop against a girder. Even so, the wounds began to heal, slowly, so slowly, but surely before their eyes.

It fell to Herb to remember the spell tag, and he walked forward waiting until Ranma and Ren engaged the thing where it lay on the ground before darting in, slapping the spell tag onto it's back. "Activate!" the Musk prince shouted, and with a last roar the soul of the dragon was pulled out of its last anchor into the tag. At the same time Kan'u and Ren Slashed forward, and sliced what remained of the body of Saji Genpou into three pieces.

For a moment they all fell silent, and Ranma sat down heavily one the ground, Ryu following a second later. Kan'u came over and leaned on Ranma's head, while Ren did the same thing from the other side. They all looked at Herb who looked at Chou'un. The swordswoman nodded and he tossed the tag into the air. She swung her blade forward, and a last despairing wail rent the air as she sliced the tag neatly in two. The curse of the sacred beads was at last ended, and Ranma and the others all collapsed, exhausted beyond belief.

End chapter

Some of you may ask why I keep referring to the dragon soul as it rather than coming up with a name, I did that deliberately to show that even the dragon soul had forgotten some things down the centuries, and because I think it was more evil and in a way soulless without a name to it. Still hope you all liked the final solution of the curse, there will be an epilogue next week, but that will be it for this story.