A Curse of a Different Color, part 2

Ellen Kuhfeld

The afternoon at Furinkan went quietly. Oh, there was the incident with the volleyball in PE, but volleyballs are cheap. And people wanted to know what had happened between Ranma and Kuno. "We spoke," Ranma said, and wouldn't elaborate. Kuno was no more talkative, which was not at all like him.

After school Ranma and Akane walked home together. The ladle lady got him, of course, but that was the worst that happened. It was as if the whole world were holding its breath, worried about starting anything.

"You say your senses are ten times as sharp now, but you still can't see her coming?" Akane teased.

Ranma-chan grumbled as she wrung water out of the tail of her tang. "Dammit, she's just washing her sidewalk. She don't mean me a lick of harm. So she don't set off any alarms in my head." The two continued down the street, the redhead trailing wet footprints behind her.

No sooner had they taken their shoes off by the door than they saw Nabiki leaning against the wall waiting for them. "So?" she said. "What happened between Kuno and you?"

"We spoke. We got a truce for a while."

"Surely there's more to it than that?"

"Sure is. But that's between the two of us."

"I'm going to find out, you know."

"Who's gonna tell you? Kuno and I were the only ones within earshot." Then an idea came to Ranma. She cocked her head to one side, and smiled at Nabiki. She held out her hand. "Fifty thousand yen, please?"

Sizzling elegantly, Nabiki went up the stairs and into her room. She closed the door. But Ranma could hear her fist come down on her desk, and muttered curses.

oOo

After dinner that evening (Genma still hadn't shown up) Akane curled up on the sofa to watch television. Ranma snagged a spare cushion, and curled up on the tatami near her. Some while later, during a quiet portion of the show, Akane noticed a slight buzzing. She pricked up her ears and looked around. It seemed to be coming from Ranma. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing gently.

"Kami-sama help us, he's purring," Akane thought.

oOo

Ranma woke again to dimness, this time on the tatami. After he'd gone to sleep, someone had put a blanket over him, and the freshest scent was Akane. He yawned, stretched, and smiled.

Oyaji still hadn't come home. It was time to hunt him down and have a long talk.

Ranma went to the refrigerator for a snack, then had a quick rinsedown with cold water in the furo. She changed clothes. Heh, it'll really honk oyaji off if I'm a girl when I find him!

She went to the spot by the dojo where there'd been panda scent. There was more now, fresh. Sniffing, Ranma began to track her father back to his lair.

After half an hour, she was in one of the neighborhood parks. There was the quiet sound of a small stream, and she could feel his sleeping ki deep in the bushes nearby. Quietly, she crept up on him.

Genma woke, flying through the air. He splashed down with a terrible curse cut off into a 'growf" in midstream. Then he rose, snarling, from the waters.

"Hold it right there, oyaji. You're in enough trouble already – don't make it any worse."

"Growf?"

"I got good news, and I got bad news. The good news is that Bjorn-sensei didn't come back with me. The bad news is that the Cat came back."

Genma produced a sign, not remembering it was too dark to read: "I don't know what you're talking about."

Ranma read the sign, even in the darkness. She had, after all, brought back the Cat. "It's the neko-ken, you doofus. You remember the neko-ken? The cats? The fish sausages? The way I pleaded with you not to toss me in the pit?"

"It was for your own good, boy." (flip) "And why are you a girl?"

"I'm a girl because you knocked me in the damn spring," Ranma said. "And I've given you ten years credit for thinking it was for my own good. But now I have another point of view."

"It was for your own good, boy!" (Genma had a lot of practice with that sign.)

"And how would you feel if you were taken from a comfortable home? Starved, hauled about, tossed in a pit, starved some more – and then had some poor kid thrown on you? Over and over?"

"Growf?"

"I've learned the neko-ken for real now, you idiot. That means I'm sharing this head with the Cat. Do you think we cats enjoyed your training? Are you going to say it was for our feline good too?"

"They were only worthless cats!" Suddenly Genma realized who was reading his sign along with Ranma, and tucked it behind his back. It was too late.

Ranma snarled, and leaped at Genma. Only the older martial artist's reflexes saved him, as he jumped into the air. Ranma hit, and growling, began to shred the boulder she'd landed on. "Run, oyaji, run! I'll try to hold the cat back!" Huffing, the panda receded into the distance.

Ranma-chaneko fumed as she tore at the rocks. She stared longingly in the direction Genma had run. Eventually Ranma-chan diverted the Cat over to Genma's camp. She knelt, and began quietly to shred every last item Genma had with him into slivers and scraps. A deep chugging, halfway between a purr and a growl, came from her. Then she took down her pants and marked the devastation as her own. She stood, fastening her pants again about her waist.

Should have done this as a guy after all, she thought. It would have been neater.

And she went home to tell Kasumi that Uncle Saotome would probably not be showing up for some while.

oOo

On Tuesday, Ranma was walking down the street when Ryoga descended like a bolt from Heaven, shouting "Ranma, prepare to die!" When the sound and the dust and the flying stones quit, Ryoga stood alone in the crater he'd made. He looked around for Ranma. Then he heard a hissing coming from the tree beside him. He looked up.

Ranma was crouched on a branch, hissing and spitting and making threatening motions with his paw. Ryoga broke out in a cold sweat, and carefully backed away. "Uh, er, I can see you're not quite yourself today, Ranma. We can talk about this later …."

And then Ryoga did what he did best: he got lost.

oOo

On Wednesday, Ranma and Akane were walking home from school together, chattering happily, when Ranma heard the Bicycle of Doom approaching. At the last instant, he ducked and slashed upwards with his claws. Shampoo landed awkwardly, with flat tires, and bent the frame of her bike.

"Fer Pete's sake, Shampoo, be more careful with that thing! You almost hit me!"

Shampoo untangled herself from the wreckage, crying "So, so sorry, airen!" and tried to glomp him. But somehow Ranma bumped her and she missed, glomping Akane instead.

"Shampoo, what the heck are you up to! Let her go!"

Shampoo staggered back from Akane, who was radiating bright green.

"Shampoo, you've knocked me for a loop with that thing half a dozen times. You're an Amazon, you think men are the weaker sex, and you claim I'm your husband. Isn't this a bit too much like wife-beating? And what are you doing glomping Akane? Is that the kinda spouse you wanna be?"

Shampoo shook her head dazedly, and picked up the remnants of her bicycle. "Shampoo confused. Must talk with Elder Cologne." And she trudged off in the direction of the Cat Cafe.

oOo

Thursday, Kuno met Ranma at the entrance to Furinkan. "I've found the right man to witness our talk," he said. "There's a shrine in Okayama that holds a demon prisoner. The priest is a powerful swordsman, and he has a good reputation for wisdom. Would this Saturday be acceptable to you?"

"How we gonna get to Okayama? That's down in Chugoku region!"

"We'll take the bullet train. It'll be a long trip, but we can get there and back in a day if we start early."

"I can't afford that."

"I'll pay. This is a serious matter of honor – and as you noted, I have greater resources."

"I can do it, then. One more request, Kuno-sempai. Could ya bring a piece of steel along, about the right size to make a knife? I got somethin' to show you, an' you'll be more sure of it if you supply the steel."

"Saturday, then. The front entrance of my estate, six in the morning. We shall leave from there."

"See ya then. Thanks for going to all this trouble, Kuno-sempai."

oOo

Friday night, Ranma prepared for a day-trip to Okayama. He laid out fresh clothes, and spent some time at the Tendo family shrine. "It's for Akane too, Tendo-san. Do your best." Then he went back in the house, did homework with Akane, and went to sleep early.

Cats sleep with their ears open. A little after midnight, Ranma heard the scrape of his window being carefully opened.

Happosai.

Happosai with a bucket, and his pipe.

Ranma didn't even want to think what Happosai might be up to. He lay still, damped his ki down, and watched through narrowed eyelids as the old master crept closer. I don't need a distraction, Ranma thought. The pervert brought his own.

Even as Happosai was beginning to pour the water, Ranma jumped up and slashed with her claws at the pipe. There was a terrible jar through her arm – the pipe must have been charged as full of ki as the old ghoul's staff – but it fell in several sections.

"Mousie!" Ranma-chan cried joyously as she leaped for Happosai. But he wasn't that easy to catch, and in an instant he was gone.

Ranma closed the window, and lay back down to sleep. In the morning, bathed and neatly dressed, he was waiting at the gate to Kuno's estate.

oOo

After the train ride, after the bus ride, Ranma and Kuno found themselves at the foot of a long stone stairway. Still in silence, they began to climb.

Several hundred steps later, they stood in the courtyard of the shrine. The priest stood in the door. They bowed to him; he bowed in return.

"Kuno-dono? Saotome-san? Welcome to the Masaki shrine. I am Katsuhito. Please, come in."

They entered, and sat with the priest before a low table. A young girl with long, pale-blue ponytails entered with a tray, and served each of them with tea, bread, and salt.

Ranma was startled. While the ki of the old priest showed a man of great power, that was only to be expected. But when Ranma looked at the girl, her aura was so strong it almost blinded him; more, it gave him triple vision. Beside her he saw an elegant woman, and behind the two, a majestic tree.

Surely, this girl was not a were-tree?

They sipped tea in silence, tore pieces off the bread and sprinkled salt on them, then ate. They drained their tea. The girl took their plates and cups, put them on her tray, and left.

"We have shared food and drink," the priest said. "The ancient laws of hospitality hold. There shall be no fighting while we remain on the temple grounds.

"Now, Kuno-dono, you asked for this meeting. Could you explain more fully what you wish of it?"

Ranma raised one hand. "Before we start, may I ask somethin'?"

Katsuhito nodded assent. "How does such a young girl have so much power, Katsuhito-sama? Just being near her felt like being in full sunlight. And there was a tree looming over her."

The old priest's brows rose behind his square-rimmed glasses. "She is not so young as she seems," he said. "And if you saw a tree, at the very least this is a sign we should go to the holy tree of our shrine to continue this discussion." He rose, and motioned to the others. Together they left the shrine and descended the steps.

The tree was on a small island in a pond, with stepping-stones going out to it. It was girded with chains of ofuda. Up close, it seemed even more unworldly to Ranma than it had in his – vision? "Are you the demon's prison?" he wondered as he looked at it.

Ranma stood before the tree. The only sound he heard was the sighing of the wind, the rustling of branches. He suddenly felt that he was alone, and turned to Kuno and Katsuhito, to find they were gone. When he looked back to the tree, the woman of his vision stood beside it. She was tall, with long pale-blue hair, elegantly dressed and agelessly young – a mature version of the girl that had served tea. Gracefully she sat by one of the larger roots, then patted the ground beside her and smiled at Ranma. He, too, sat.

"That is an interesting question," the woman said. "And I wonder how you came to ask it, let alone realize I was there to be asked. May I know your mind?" Her red eyes looked into Ranma's blue.

Somehow Ranma knew this was his decision, and she would respect it. His time with Bjorn came back to him. If he could trust a grizzly, surely he could trust a woman of such serenity? His ears heard her heart beating, slowly and calmly. The scent of blossoms, and earth, came to his nose. It was time for him to learn trust. He nodded.

Gently she smiled, and reached out to touch his brow. Twin markings on her forehead glowed. There was a chime, the sound of a drop of water falling into a crystal pool, then an instant where he felt an unearthly love and understanding. His mind came back to his body seated upon the ground. He sighed in contentment, knowing somehow that he had been heard, and not found wanting.

The woman touched the back of his hand. "You deserve an answer," she said.

"The one you ask of is not a demon – she is my niece. I am Tsunami, the Goddess of a distant world. She is Ryoko, daughter of my sister goddess Washu. Many years ago, Ryoko was taken from her mother, and raised by a cruel and selfish man who thought of her only as his weapon." Tsunami smiled wistfully. "You can see why your story reaches out to me, now that I know it – your story, and that of the Kuno boy, if what I read in your mind is true. But Kagato was a hundred times worse than your father, or Kuno's.

"Seven hundred years ago, Ryoko escaped and fled to Earth, where she was captured by the priest of this shrine and locked away in a cave. Her body lay still, while her spirit could wander the temple grounds and take in its peace. And it seems she learned to love, too. Recently she was freed from the cave, and is learning to bring her body and spirit back into harmony, learning to reconcile the love she has learned with the hate she was taught."

Tsunami smiled again, this time looking towards the future. "If she lives through the next few thousand years, she'll make a fine young kami. Until then – children can be such a bother!

"You," she continued, "are learning to reconcile the human and the cat. And doing a good job of it, though there's a long way to go. You still have much work before you combine male and female …"

Ranma looked at her, opened his mouth – she spoke before he could. "You're not one of mine. In this, I cannot act. Bring your curse up with the local kami. But I've read you down to the bottom of your soul. You still have much to learn, and that curse is one of the lessons. You'd miss her if she were gone.

"And though you have a long way to go, you're still trying to help the Kuno boy bring the two halves of his soul together – the samurai, and the schoolboy raised without a mother by his idiot father. I think I can help there, by soothing his mind as you speak. His problems come, not from the wrath of the gods but purely from humanity.

"I can't have your mind remembering this. But your soul will." She kissed him on each cheek, and on his forehead. The scent of flowers grew even stronger in his nostrils. "Go now. You're on stage."

As Ranma looked behind himself, he saw Kuno and Katsuhito. He turned to them, bowed, and sat seiza. For some reason, he was filled with peace and confidence. A lingering fragrance brushed past him on the breeze. Kuno and Katsuhito also sat.

Kuno spoke.

"There has been bad blood between Saotome Ranma and myself since the day we met. For reasons I considered good, I claimed he was an evil sorcerer. He claims, now, that he and I suffer from a curse that has caused much of this conflict. We are here before you – priest, warrior, and tamer of demons – to speak of this curse. With you as witness, we need fear no further sorceries."

Ranma spoke.

"There is truth in what Kuno Tatewaki says: my life has been touched by sorcery or magic. But I am the victim of sorcery, not its creator. As a priest of long years, and a master of the martial arts, you must have learned to distinguish between truth and lies. I call upon you, as witness, to judge the truthfulness of our speech."

Katsuhito spoke.

"I hear, and in this holy place, agree. If I see sorcery, or hear lies, I shall act. Until then I shall hold silence. Nor shall I speak of what I hear to others." He raised his hand, in a gesture familiar to both martial artists, then dropped it. "Begin."

"Saotome Ranma, what is this curse you claim you and I and my sister share? And how has it caused conflict among us?"

"Kuno-sempai, it's a simple and common curse. We were raised by idiot fathers. Worse, we had no mothers with us to temper our fathers' idiocies."

"Continue," Kuno said.

"I was raised on the road, movin' from place to place, learnin' the arts of combat and insult. I almost never stayed long enough to make friends, seldom even acquaintances. I made two friends in all those years, an' because of th'way oyaji took me from 'em, they came back as enemies. My social skills are rotten, 'cause I've never had much chance to use 'em. And I'm used to hittin' problems on th' head or throwin' 'em into a wall.

"And you? Raised in a mansion by father and servants, along with yer sister. Told stories of past glories. Y'know, while Sasuke ain't a bad sort, he's a ninja. They got funny ideas about honor. 'Nen when you get to school, yer father's principal. You're rich. You can get away with anythin'. But that doesn't get'cha friends. It gets ya toadies. I don't think either of us got very many true friends."

Tatewaki grimaced in pain. His eyes were closed, tears leaking from their corners. For several minutes he was silent, breathing heavily. When he spoke, it was no longer with his customary elegance. "And my sister?"

"I bet yer father wasn't comfortable with girls. Did Sasuke do more to raise her? You, you got Samurai honor and Samurai tactics. Kodachi, she tries for the Samurai honor, but her tactics are more like a ninja. And neither of you understand people who ain't Samurai."

Kuno Tatewaki was silent again – or at least, he did not speak. Ranma heard his heart beating irregularly, his breath catching in his throat. Kuno's face was bowed down, but Ranma smelled the salt tang of tears. Without looking up, he finally choked out, "Tendo Akane and my pigtailed goddess?"

Ranma reached out, put his hand on Kuno's shoulder. "Akane? She's caught up in the same curse we are, but her father's nowhere as bad and she has sisters to help. The pigtailed goddess? 'Member I said I had at least three curses? She's caught up in my third curse. And it's not the time to talk 'bout that, yet."

Now Ranma was holding both of Kuno's shoulders. "Kuno-sempai, I'm weary to the bone of fighting. I've just had a month away from it, an' now I can't go back to the way things were. I won't go back to the way things were. I want a life, not a lifelong battle. I want a home, not a battleground.

"If there's anybody in Furinkan who can understand me, it's you. If there's anybody who can understand you, it's me. I dunno if we can be friends. But we can't be enemies any longer."

Ranma moved to sit beside Tatewaki, then kept silence. The two sat for five minutes, then ten, lost in memories, emotions playing over their faces.

After fifteen minutes, the old priest spoke. "You've both been staring your past in the face, and seeing things you didn't like. I know – I have more past than the both of you put together. It's why I'm priest at a lonely shrine: duty and memory keep me here, and the peace sustains me. Saotome-san, Kuno-dono, there have been no sorceries and no lies. But the whole story has not yet been spoken. What brought the two of you to this place? Rather, what brought the two of you to the decision to come?"

The youths rearranged their garments and their faces.

"You said that to battle now could cost us both our souls," Tatewaki said. "How?"

"Kuno-sempai, Katsuhito-sama, have you heard of a technique called the Neko-ken?" And Ranma told them about the pit, the cats, the fish, the claws and eyes, and the madness that could descend upon him. "'Member when Gosunkugi told you I was afraid of cats, and you dumped me in a pit of cats? And I shredded your bokken? You were lucky I didn't shred you. I wasn't human when that happened.

"Ever since I was taught the Neko-ken, I've had the soul of a cat in me, as well as the soul of a human. Mostly, the human was in charge and the cat slept. Sometimes it was the other way around, and I was very dangerous.

"This last month, I studied under a master of the bear-claw. They also have two souls, bear and human, but over the years they've learned to bring the souls together so they work as one. I learned the beginnings of this. Now I'm part cat all the time, and I can use the claws of the cat whenever I want.

"Kuno-sempai, did you bring the steel I asked for?"

Kuno Tatewaki took a cloth-wrapped rectangle from where it was held in his belt, and gave it to Ranma, who unwrapped it. It was perhaps twenty centimeters long, two wide, and half a centimeter thick, of finest tool steel. He spread the cloth on the ground before him.

Concentration plain on his face, Ranma brought forth his claws. One end of the steel he rounded, corners and edges, to make a comfortable grip. Then he took the grip in his hand, and began carving a blade on the other end. In less than a minute he had a serviceable small knife. He handed it, grip-first, to Kuno.

Tatewaki and Katsuhito both looked at the cloth, covered with slivers and shavings of sharp steel. They looked at the knife. They looked at one another. Then they looked at Ranma.

"Test the knife," Ranma said, looking at Katsuhito.

The priest reached out, found some deadfall wood from a nearby shrub. He carved it with the knife. Then he placed the knife on a rock, and hammered it with another rock.

"This is a sharp knife, of good steel," Katsuhito said as he handed it back to Kuno.

"Hold the knife out, point-first, over the cloth." Kuno did so. Then Ranma waved negligently at the knife and it fell into pieces, which dropped to the cloth.

"I scarcely felt that," Kuno said. "How sharp are these claws of yours?"

"Dunno – still learnin'. Plenty sharp enough to carve through rock and steel."

"The soul of a Samurai is his sword. You're of an old family. Your sword must be at least a thousand-layer sword, maybe more. What just happened to the knife? I don't want to do that to an ancient and honorable sword."

"And what if I killed you? I don't want that on my soul. But the angrier I get, or the more desperate, the more the cat comes to the fore. He doesn't mind killin'. And this time I'd be there to watch. So let's not fight any more – please? The stakes are too high."

Ranma stared into Kuno's eyes, and Kuno stared back. How odd, thought the kendoka. I've never looked into his eyes like this. They are strangely like the eyes of my pigtailed goddess.

Katsuhito said, after a moment, "So your fathers are the first curse, and the neko-ken is your second curse. But you speak of a third?"

Ranma looked down, at his hands, at the pond. He looked up, first at Katsuhito, then at Kuno. He took a deep breath. "It's not yet time to speak of the third curse. First, Kuno-sempai must observe the curse my father bears." (Ranma smiled wryly to himself at the pun.)

"Before we came to Nerima, my father and I traveled to a cursed training ground in China. There he fell in the Spring of Drowned Panda. And now, when hit by cold water he turns into a giant panda with a human mind. Hot water returns him to human form.

"When you come to me and say you have used both cold and hot water on my father, Kuno-sempai, I shall speak with you of my third curse."

Kuno said, "I have seen a panda on the streets of Nerima. This is your father?"

Ranma nodded.

Katsuhito spoke. "Then I think the two of you have talked sufficiently. I have seen no sorcery, deceit, or lack of good faith. Would you care to use the shrine for a while now, to meditate?"

The two boys stood, and bowed. "It's time for us to return home," they said. "We thank you very much for your aid, Katsuhito-sama." And they walked back towards the bus stop, after yet another bow to the priest.

"This formal speakin's gonna drive me nuts yet," Ranma said as they walked comfortably together.

Kuno punched him lightly on the arm. "You need to learn better speech, Ranma-kun."

"And you need to tone yours down."

They smiled. "Perhaps we can teach one another?"

oOo

Katsuhito gathered up the cloth with its sharp slivers, and walked back to his home. In the kitchen, he met the girl. "Sasami, you would not believe the conversation I've just witnessed."

Sasami lifted a ladle of soup, tasted, smiled and added just a pinch of sea-salt. "I don't have to believe – I was there with Tsunami. It was even stranger than you know. But we promised not to talk about it."

"True, true. When is dinner?"

oOo

That night Ranma slept, and dreamed he was crouched on a high branch in a noble tree. Beside him on the branch sat an elegant woman with long blue hair. "Good cat," she said as she scratched the back of his head just above his pigtail. "Good cat." Ranma squirmed in pleasure. "You spoke well today. I think friendship will work for the two of you."

"You had four curses, you know. The fourth was the most traditional: 'interesting times'. After you left I talked with Kami-sama about it. Your father had it put on you, to keep you from slacking off or going soft."

"Kami-sama and I spoke sharply with the kami in charge of that curse, and he agreed the curse would suit your father even better than you. So we transferred it over."

The woman stroked Ranma gently along his back, as she silently vanished away bit by bit, leaving only a smile behind. "Sleep well, dear cat."

And Ranma did.

oOo

Thanks to iCe for pre-reading.