Ryoga, Tristainian Academy of Magic, Halkeginia.

Ryoga stalked away from the tables where Louise was sat with no small amount of anger rising in him. She'd linked them through their life-force, and from what she had said he doubted she'd be willing to split them up without a fight. Ryoga growled to himself, knowing that it would be easy to knock her down, he had enough strength in his index finger to break bones. But that would change him. If he did that he would no longer be a martial artist, he'd be a thug. Even Ranma wouldn't fight someone who couldn't take it, and whatever Ryoga Hibiki was, he knew that he would never stoop below Ranma Saotome.

He turned a corner, and ran into a group of people surrounding a tall boy with brown hair as he talked to a pair of girls. Ryoga was close enough to hear the conversation, and he slowed down to listen. It seemed the girls had the idea that the boy was seeing both of them, but his silver tongue was getting him out of it. Ryoga stood for a moment, and then the anger surged. For a moment he was stood back in Nerima, watching Ranma talk his way out of Akane's rightful anger, And the whole mess fell away into his old ways.

"So you're both just going to let him talk his way out, huh?" Ryoga's voice was low, growling with anger as he moved towards the trio. The gaze of both girls snapped over to him, their eyes narrowing as they considered his words.

"You're just going to let him get away with two-timing you both?" Ryoga continued, his anger at the situation replacing his sight with memory as he kept talking. "Just like he always does, and like he always will?" He didn't hate Ranma, not any more. But his ki had always filtered through depression, and it was so easy to slip from that into hate.

The boy was backing away from both of the girls, hands waving in front of him as he tried to talk his way out of the trouble Ryoga had just dumped him back into. Unfortunately, Ryoga's words had come at just the right time, and the girls were both back up into righteous anger.

CRACK. The first girl slapped the boy across the face and stalked away. The boy then turned his attention to the second girl, trying to recover his poise.

CRACK. The second girl followed suit on the other side of the boy's face, leaving him with a matched set of hand-prints, then sniffed haughtily and strode away. The boy paused for a moment, then turned on the still-angry, but now somewhat mollified Ryoga. After all, the Ranma substitute had just been given his comeuppance, so Ryoga was a bit happier. However, the boy was not.

"You, ruffian, how dare you make two beautiful ladies cry!" The boy was pointing a rose at him, and had exactly the same upper-class mode of speech that made Kuno such a mocked figure in Nerima. Ryoga looked at the boy, giving him the customary once-over check to see if he posed a threat. Ryoga's first thought was fop. It was his second and third thought, too. The boy was wearing an open chested shirt, formal trousers and was carrying a long-stemmed rose in his right hand. His face was, Ryoga supposed, more attractive than most, with a lack of the scars and hardening that most martial artists acquired as they trained. His hair was blonde, and kept long, in a ruffled style. Still, his stance wasn't bad, and as Ryoga looked closer, the hints of some kind of training showed through. Probably not with any formal Art, but certainly with some kind of military.

As Ryoga completed his evaluation, the boy had clearly been performing his own.

"Hmph. A ruffian indeed. Where did you find your clothes, a ditch?" The blonde boy kept an aristocratic sneer on his face as he spoke. "Still, it is polite to introduce oneself, even to a rude commoner. My name is Guiche de Grammont, firstborn son of the honoured General Grammont. And who are you, ruffian?"

Ryoga could feel the tension in the air. There was going to be a fight here, he could tell. The blonde would not back down, and Ryoga was itching for a good spar. After all, his fight with Ranma had been rather unceremoniously cut short. The martial artist cracked his knuckles, and let his fangs dip over his lips as he responded.

"My name is Ryoga Hibiki, you womanising fop."

The blonde's eyes tightened, and his hand tightened on the rose. Ryoga watched with amusement, knowing what was coming next, eagerly anticipating it.

"Such arrogance, from one who broke the composure of two ladies, cannot be allowed to continue. You will fight me, and when I have you beaten, commoner, you will make a full apology. Not to me, I feel nothing for your impetuous insult, but to the ladies you have wronged." It was exactly what Ryoga wanted, the blonde's words were perfect.

"And when I've beaten you, fop, you will make a full apology to the girls for being a cheating, womanising pervert." Ryoga's words incensed the blonde, and seemed to amuse the crowd, which was growing ever larger as people grabbed their friends to watch the fight. Ryoga glanced around, then continued speaking. "Where do you wish to be beaten, fop."

The word was brilliant, thought Ryoga, as the blonde boy seemed to draw himself into a rage every time he used it. Eventually the boy mastered himself, ice lacing his words as he responded.

"The main courtyard. Ten minutes." With those words, Guiche turned on his heel and strode away, followed by the majority of the crowd as they began loudly speaking amongst themselves. Ryoga watched him go, a pleased smile on his face. A spar would be good fun. Ryoga creased his brow as his ears informed him of an odd hissing sound from behind him, and he turned to see the angry face of Louise, his unasked-for, and likely to be permanent, companion.

"What, exactly, do you think you are doing, familiar." The hissing had given way to words which seemed laced with the fires of hell. "You leave for less than five minutes, and you are already provoking people far above your station. You will come with me, and apologise, and maybe Guiche will be gracious enough to avoid beating you too badly." Her wand was back in her hand, Ryoga noticed, and her grip had gone white-knuckled again. Still, he wanted this fight, and was not about to back down now.

"No." His response was clear, and while her anger made him briefly reconsider, he had no true thoughts about giving any other. "Can you show me where this courtyard is. I don't want to get lost on the way." The words, delivered in a calm voice, seemed to puncture Louise's anger, and she seemed to deflate.

"Fine. Maybe having your head beaten in will make you a more tractable familiar anyway." The anger was still in her voice, but there were undercurrents of disappointment tracing through it.

Louise gestured down a passageway, and led the martial artist to the courtyard where Guiche stood, rose in hand. The courtyard was surrounded by a throng of students, all waiting to see the commoner get beaten. The blonde squared his shoulders as the pair arrived, waiting for Ryoga to move in front of him before he spoke.

"I will give you one last chance to flee, commoner. I am not without mercy, and if you apologise to the flowers of womanhood that you wronged I will forget your unseemly words.

Ryoga grinned at the boy, and settled into an aggressive stance.

"Bring it, fop."

"I would not dirty my hands with fighting," sniffed the blonde imperiously. "My magic shall provide your opponent – the Bronze Valkyrie!" He brandished the rose he held, and one petal dropped to the floor. Ryoga watched it in confusion, which turned to shock as the petal expanded into a seven foot tall metal golem between the boy and himself. He had seen no ki spike from either the boy, the rose or the petal, which meant that this magic was slightly more useful than any he had seen back home. Still, a golem was hardly the best thing for the boy to have summoned against him.

Guiche, it seemed, had a measure of control over the metal giant, as his voice emerged from behind it.

"Attack, my Valkyrie, but do not kill him!"

Ryoga's grin grew to a full smile, and he raised his fists in front of him. Oddly, the runes on his left hand seemed to glow slightly, and he felt his ki surge more strongly within him. As the golem moved forward to attack, Ryoga slid to the side, trying to duck under a metal arm as it swung for his head and overshot completely. His ki had seemed to spike as he dodged, speeding him up and leaving him stood behind the metal giant. The golem stumbled to a halt, the rudimentary intelligence running it obviously confused at the disappearance of it's foe. Ryoga stared down at the runes, and gave an amazed chuckle, alerting the golem to his presence again, and it turned to resume the attack.

This is... interesting, thought Ryoga, as he danced around another blow. He would normally have been only just fast enough to dodge the strikes, probably choosing to weather the blows instead, however the runes seemed to boost his body significantly above where it should have been. He was faster, maybe even as fast as Ranma, and yet still as strong as he always had been. Then, Ryoga tilted his head in thought. What if I'm stronger, too, he thought with a mental grin. Deciding to test this, the next time the golem swung he dodged round it, and darted in, levelling a punch at the golem's shoulder. The strike tore through the metal, sending the arm spinning away to land across the courtyard. The crowd, who had been growing restless from the constant dodging, suddenly went silent, focussing on the damage Ryoga had produced in a single hit.

Both Ryoga and Guiche were also staring at the damage the martial artist had caused. Ryoga was staring in amazement, switching between watching the Valkyrie try to regain it's balance and examining the runes on his hand in awe. Guiche was staring only at the Valkyrie in more than a little horror. His father himself had complimented him on the golems that he could make, stating that they would be a fine addition to the battle, and this commoner had torn off an arm with a single punch.

The Valkyrie got it's balance back, and Ryoga glanced at Guiche to see if he was about to pull any other surprises out of his bag, only to see the blonde staring at him with utter terror. Well, guess the spar's over then, thought Ryoga glumly. Didn't last long. Better finish the golem though. The Valkyrie, adapting to the lost limb, readied itself and charged at the bandanna wearing martial artist, who gathered his ki together and mentally prepared himself to use one of his techniques.

The crowd seemed to collectively draw breath as the yellow-shirted boy stood in the path of the charging figure of metal without flinching, and watched with bated breath as he raised his arm and extended a single finger. Ryoga brought the ki to his finger, and as the Valkyrie swung it's fist at him he moved to meet it, saying the name of the first ki technique he'd learnt, the Breaking Point.

"Bakusai Tenketsu."

The golem shattered into slivers, which crumbled to the ground around the martial artist, knocking dust and dirt up from the ground as it clattered down. Ryoga brushed his shirt clean of the dust, and turned to face the wide-eyed figure of Guiche, who seemed to have lost his voice completely with the destruction of his Valkyrie. The courtyard was silent, and Ryoga glanced around before walking forward towards the frozen figure of his opponent. The colour seemed to drain from Guiche's face the closer Ryoga came, until he stopped within arms reach when Guiche's face was bone white. Ryoga raised his arm, placing his fingertip less than an inch away from the pale boy's forehead, and leaned forward to hiss a word.

"Yield?"

Inside, Ryoga was quivering with laughter. It was just like with Ranma, back when he'd learnt the Breaking Point the first time. The technique did nothing to living matter, the ki flows were just too flexible and there was no set point to overwhelm with ki to cause the object to shatter. But just as Ranma hadn't known it then, Guiche didn't know it now. And unlike Ranma, Guiche was nowhere near good enough to simply avoid Ryoga's fingertips.

The blonde boy's eyes were stretched out wide, and he had to try three times before he could get a word out.

"Yes." Guiche's word was barely above a whisper, and yet the courtyard was so quiet that even those at the back of the crowd heard it. Ryoga didn't move.

"You will apologise?" he asked, keeping his finger pointed at Guiche, who swallowed nervously and whispered back.

"Yes."

"Good." And with that, Ryoga retracted the finger, walking back to the stunned figure of Louise standing at the other side of the square. She swallowed just as nervously as Guiche had when he came close to her, but the spar, brief as it was, had provided Ryoga with something good from the bond, and he was nowhere near as stressed as he had been, so he simply smiled at her, saying:

"Shall we finish our talk now?"

The pair returned to their original seats at the benches, though this time a lot more people were paying attention to the duo. Louise still looked shaken by the result of the fight, the idea of a noble being beaten so comprehensively by a commoner taking a while to set in. Ryoga himself simply sat there waiting, looking into his ki to try and find out what exactly the runes had done to him. Eventually Louise looked up, and stared at the man she had summoned, in what was the first spell she had ever successfully completed.

"Who are you?" Louise's question was asked quietly, with none of the arrogance which had coloured her earlier words. Ryoga looked back at her, meeting her eyes as he spoke.

"My name is Ryoga Hibiki. I am a martial artist, and have been for most of my life." The words hung in the air for a moment, before Louise went on.

"And what you did to the Valkyrie... what you threatened to do to Guiche... was it magic?"

Ryoga gave a chuckle as she asked, shaking his head in response.

"No, it's just ki. Anyone can do it, with training." Ryoga paused for a moment, and considered both his and Ranma's lives for a moment, then added: "A lot of training."

Louise nodded, staring at her hands for a moment, then she folded them into her lap and looked up.

"You don't wish to be my familiar, do you?" She asked, every word picked out carefully, as though the wrong one would cause a cataclysm. Ryoga's mouth twisted. He didn't, but part of him knew that the speed and strength were due to the bond, and there was something in the back of his mind that didn't want to hurt the girl. And saying the words would hurt her, though Ryoga wasn't entirely sure why he knew that.

He paused for a moment, and then took in a breath.

"Lets just say I'm undecided at the moment, shall we?" Ryoga noted the lines of her face jerk up at his words, pulling her away from sadness, and felt the bit at the back of his mind relax. He hadn't hurt her. That was good.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, before Louise cleared her throat softly, looking down at her hands again. Ryoga looked at her quizzically, waiting for her to keep going.

"Would you be able to... teach me?" Ryoga's brow furrowed as he considered the request. He could teach her, he'd taught Akane Rhythmic Gymnastics Martial Arts in a week, after all. But how long would it take... A thought crossed Ryoga's mind, and he looked at the girl in confusion.

"Why do you want to learn martial arts, anyway? You're at a school for magic, surely you can... y'know, use that."

The girl hunched down tighter as Ryoga waited for a response, and the silence wound into the conversation. Eventually the girl snapped, her quiet time clearly exhausted by the previous conversation.

"I can't, okay!?" Her face had turned from embarrassment to anger, and the wand had found it's way back into her hand, held in a death-grip. "I'm useless at magic, does that make you feel better!?" Ryoga was hunching down in the face of the sudden anger he had apparently flared in the girl, preparing himself for the inevitable explosion. "You're the first thing that's gone right, as you can apparently use some kind of magic, and you will be helping me until everything else goes right too!" Louise's voice had now reached new heights of volume, and contrary to her claims of being useless of magic, it was apparently letting itself out in a somewhat destructive way. Plates on the table were shattering, and a heavy pressure was crushing everything around her to the floor.

Ryoga had time for the brief thought that this was probably what his foes felt under his Perfect shi shi hokodan, before the avatar of destruction in front of him pointed the wand at him and the pressure seemed to double.

"Is. That. Clear?" Her voice had dropped out of the clouds and gone straight back down to playing in the fires of hell again. Ryoga nodded frantically, at which point the pressure lifted, and he no longer felt like the universe was trying to crush him into the floor.

"Good." Louise had apparently calmed down from her wrathful moment, and was now seeming to consider the damage around her. She blinked at the broken pieces of crockery and furniture, and then clearly decided to just ignore it, walking away towards the castle proper.

Ryoga let himself lie there for a few more minutes, before making a mental note. Try to find some way of her accessing her power in a less scary way, or she might not let up next time. He gave a mental shudder. Who could have known so much rage could be placed in such a small girl.

Ranma. Still Lost.

Three hours later – which contained two fights, both of which ended with a monster's death, and a lot of sneaking – and a somewhat exhausted Ranma Saotome had made his way to the foot of a staircase up to a glowing set of walls. The lighting hadn't changed as he traversed the black plains, the sky remaining an ominous red, with no clouds or sunlight breaking through. Ranma was beginning to worry quite a bit about where he was, given the company he appeared to be keeping and the general sickly feel of the place.

Still, this place felt better, Ranma decided. Mentally crossing his fingers he made his way up the winding staircase, which snaked over a dark void as it rose. The steps narrowed as he climbed, until it was barely wide enough for two people to stand abreast, and with a sigh he came to a heavy wooden door, reinforced with dark iron. There were carvings in the wood and the metal, and as he looked at the stone walls which bracketed the door Ranma noted that there were more there too. There was barely an inch of space which did not have some form of symbol or inscription carved into it. Still, they weren't setting off Ranma's well-honed danger sense, so he raised a hand and pounded heavily on the door.

The answer seemed to take a while, and he was considering knocking again when he heard a series of clicks and heavy thuds from the door, before it was swung open, nearly knocking him off the narrow stairs. As Ranma recovered his balance he stared at who had opened the door. A woman in full plate armour stood there, with more of the sigils that adorned the door and walls carved into the metal. On her left arm she carried a large shield, embossed with an image of a dragon, and in her right hand she hefted a sword that seemed to glow with an unearthly light. Ranma was momentarily struck dumb with shock, as of all the things he might have thought he would see, a medieval knight was not near the top of the list.

The woman stared at him for a few moments, then spoke a word which rang like a bell in Ranma's mind before he immediately forgot everything about the word, other than the fact that it had just been said. The reaction seemed to surprise the knight, who had apparently been expecting a more fearful response, and she then seemed unsure of how to act.

Ranma took the opportunity, and introduced himself.

"Er.. Hi. I'm Ranma Saotome. Can I come in?" The boy's words were a little hesitant, his eyes still locked on the softly glowing sword held in the woman's hand, and she took a moment to look him over, before looking back at his face.

"You can try," she murmured, stepping backwards to give him room to enter. Ranma looked at her in confusion over the remark, wondering if that meant she would try to stop him. However, she had given him room, so he walked in the door. As he passed the threshold the woman seemed to lose a little of the tension in her face, and she gestured for him to come fully into the hall.

"You aren't a demon," she noted with a tone of curiosity. "Tyrael gave the impression that nothing lived down here that was not of demonic form. Nevertheless – well met, brother."

Ranma looked at the woman in confusion, before staring around the entrance hall in awe, noting the glowing pillars of dressed marble rising to the mosaic covered ceiling. Everything around them seemed to glow with an inner light, and even the floor seemed to put out a white sheen. Ranma looked back at the armoured girl, noting that she looked surprised to see his astonishment at the building.

"How can you have got to the Plains of Despair without passing through the Pandemonium Fortress?" The woman sounded surprised, rather than accusatory, so Ranma held off on his immediate 'Flee from angry woman' reflex, and answered her instead.

"I think I've got lost." The woman burst out into laughter at this response, gesturing towards the stairs leading out of the entrance hall.

"Do you often find yourself wandering Hell when you are lost, brother?" The woman sobered at the look on Ranma's face as she passed this comment.

"I'm... I'm in Hell?" Ranma stuttered the question through his shock, before a sudden thought hit him, moving straight out of his mouth. "Maybe Ryoga really has seen hell, if he can get me lost down here."

The woman simply shook her head, gesturing for the shocked martial artist to start walking up the stairs to where an old man stood talking to a hooded being with ethereal wings of light.

"Either way," she said, her voice coloured with curiosity again, "Tyrael and Cain will know what to do."

Nabiki, en route to the United States of America, Earth

Nabiki sat next to Shampoo and Cologne on the jet as they soared across the Pacific ocean towards America, and entertained herself with poking fun at the oddly scared Chinese girl.

"Not fond of heights then, Shampoo?" The Japanese girl had only been on a short plane trip before, an overland flight for a holiday when the family was young, but she was managing to deal with the flight quite well. Not so much for Shampoo, who, Nabiki was fairly sure, was digging grooves into the armrests of the seat with her fingers. A growl was the only response from the purple-haired girl, who was staring straight ahead into the headrest in front of her, clearly trying not to look out the windows on either side of the passenger bay.

The Japanese girl smiled as she turned aside. She'd never liked Shampoo, her bluntness annoyed Nabiki, as well as the way she'd decided that because Ranma had beaten her up they were now married. Still, Nabiki had to bear in mind that they wouldn't be in the sky forever, and Cologne's price was still to be paid. Admittedly, had Nabiki thought about it she would have realised that she needed to take back-up, and the girl currently shaking in fear was probably the most powerful martial artist in Nerima who would have been willing to come with her.

Nabiki sighed, and settled back into the seat. Four more hours on a cramped commercial airliner and they'd be there. At least Shampoo's English was better than her Japanese, Nabiki thought. She turned away from the girl at her side and looked at Cologne, who was perched on a seat next to a mother and son. The son had taken one look at the elder, decided she was clearly a zombie come to eat his soul and stayed silent and still ever since take-off. Cologne, for her part, had merely smiled at the boy's mother and proceeded to read a magazine about popular foods in America.

Nabiki cleared her throat, and Cologne looked up from her magazine to meet the girls eyes with a questioning look.

"How difficult is it going to be, Elder?" Nabiki asked her question as politely and vaguely as she could. She didn't want people thinking she was mad, after all. Cologne folded the magazine she was reading, and seemed to think to herself for a moment before responding.

"It depends, child, on the flexibility of your mind. I think you will have little problem getting there. Getting back, however, relies on you teaching both son-in-law and Ryoga the same trick. It is lucky Shampoo already knows it, for I feel they may need much teaching."

Nabiki nodded in response, silently agreeing with the Chinese woman. She thought back to Nerima, hoping both it and the Dojo would still be standing when they returned. I think I've set it all up right, Nabiki thought worriedly. The accounts are set up so the father and Mr Saotome can't drink all the money away, Happosai is off for the Miss Europe competition, and most of the other meandering martial artists were impossible to predict.

She still wasn't sure why she was going, she just knew that she had to. One way or the other, Ranma Saotome was coming back to Nerima.