Author Note: Disclaimer, no contents of Ranma ½ or Sailor Moon have been thought up or invented by me. This is purely a work of fan fiction and is not meant for promotional or finical endeavors. This is meant to be made in respect and admiration for series' of Rumiko Takahashi and Naoko Takeuchi and all the contents of Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon belong, respectively, to them.
Please respect the fans, and fandom of the series by remaining polite and open minded while reading.
A familiar feeling of dread welled up inside Ranma as she stood with her best disarming grin on her face and her right hand frozen in place where it had been nervously circling scratching at the back of her head. Her she was, possibly appearing out of nowhere in front of someone, dripping water onto the carpet of what was a rather expensive looking and well kept office.
Yet, despite that fact the suited and lab-coated man across for her wasn't reacting to her presence in any sane matter at all.
Truthfully, he wasn't reacting at all – something that despite her own less than civilized track record Ranma was solidly sure was further off the deep end than the last of Japan's crazed whalers.
Then the man finally did something besides stand there seemingly staring through instead of at his unexpected guest. The smile that bloomed across the white-haired doctor's face as his eyes focused to a disturbing intensity on Ranma made the martial artist feel as if ten copies of the Old Ghoul had suddenly surrounded her and all dropped into the Soul of Ice.
It was cocksure and felt like the casual study of a butcher who had decided on just how he could best make use of the pile of meat slapped down upon his chopping block.
Before Ranma could react to the alarming change in the man's demeanor the it rapidly morphed once more as he wordlessly dismissed Ranma and forcibly strode past the martial artist – the white coat trailing backwards in the air at the aggression in the man's movements. A tic began to appear at the corner of the redhead's mouth as he heard the room's owner calmly pull out the chair to his desk and sit down with a slight and contented sigh.
Insanity. This was the familiar realm of insanity and it was not something that Ranma had ever wanted to deal with again – especially not at the behest of some jackass of a demon.
Gritting her teeth at both the fact that she was a she and at the actions of her so far silent host the martial artist decided enough was enough and spun on her heel. She almost reeled backwards as she was faced with the sight of the the strange man coiled over a open folder scribbling frantically upon a pile of documents.
Even when writing the man didn't make sense. The pressure he exerted upon his pen wasn't even constant and despite the difficulty Ranma had in making out what he was writing it was obvious even at a distance that each character was either blotted with too much ink or almost illegibly faint from too little. Sometime he would even stop mid stroke and travel erratically all the way down the page to begin writing somewhere else – his first thought not even finished.
Steeling her resolve Ranma took a step forward and stopped herself just short of slamming her palms down – and possibly through – the finely polished desktop. Her palms still hit with enough force that she could feel the red sting of impact and they made a sufficiently sharp thud to bring a grin of her own to the martial artist's face.
Not willing to give away her initiative the redhead's left hand darted out and deftly stole the pen from out of the man's hand and then made it disappear with a twirl. The brazen maneuver managed to once more completely gain the attention of the room's owner.
This time though the gazed shared between the two was one of one predator looking to the other.
Unfolding from where she was stooped over the desk Ranma crossed her arms and kept on with her assault. "Now tha' we're lookin' ta' be back at square one let's go through this again-" The martial artist pointed to herself. "Saotome Ranma." Next the redhead rolled her wrist and let her finger point towards the bridge of the man's glasses. "An' who are you – besides ah rude ol' man."
Ranma scored herself a point as the man's face dropped its maniac grin and turned brilliantly sour. "You should already know. You were sent here were you not? I have no use for such a lack of resourcefulness- everything must stay under control; you must be here to control the path-" The man's voice had started off smooth but had slowly twisted into a hiss until he was barely audible. Ranma could only catch a few words as the man seemed to berate himself about 'worms' and 'failure'.
Resisting the urge to just let out one long sigh Ranma knew without a doubt that her life was somehow back to whatever the cosmos thought it should be.
"Look. You seem ta' got tha' picture that I just were dropped down in here, right?" Ranma forced the exasperation out of her voice and replaced it with confidence. She was happily rewarded as the man seemed to respond to her tone and stopped his unsettling ramble to reply with a firm nod. It was odd to watch the man seesaw from a complete wreck to a consummate picture of professionalism, but there wasn't much in the world that could still be counted as a new experience for the redhead these days. "Then let's jus' skip tha' part where you 'pologize fer being a jerk and get it just down ta' this: name an' why tha' hell I'm still standin' here instead of jumpin' out yer window."
The once more silent man glowered for a second – surprising Ranma as her body tensed in anticipation for a fight it knew without a doubt was about to come – before his face relaxed into the first natural looking smile she had seen so far.
"Of course, if that is what you want Saotome-san." The man's voice rolled forward like a wave of oil surfing its way atop of a flood. "You should know me as Tomoe Souichi, though you might be more comfortable with Dr. Tomoe, and as for why I'm rather stressed-" The man gave a helpless shrug and Ranma's hackles rose once more from the effortless charm that now surrounded the white-haired man. Souichi either didn't notice or ignored the anxiety in his guest as he swiftly spun the folder of documents he had been editing earlier so that Ranma could get a clear view of it – as far as the martial artist could tell from a glance it looked a bit like a personal medical file. "- I've recently been swamped by the work I've taken upon myself and while I have no regrets about the cause I have adopted this has made a rather stilted environment for my daughter and I."
Ranma couldn't help but frown at the reveal that here she was facing another parent who was willing to put some abstract goal above the concerns and well-being of their own kid.
What a freakin' joke Chaos had decided to drop her in.
The Doctor reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a picture of a young girl, dark haired and pale of skin the child looked to be straddling the line between adolescence and her teenaged years, and placed it down on top of the first page of the file. Taking a closer look at the page of hand written notes Ranma was happy to see that the girl's name – Tomoe Hotaru – must have been filled out while the man was still in one of his more stable moods.
Now that she had a name to place to the face the martial artist turned her attention back to the photo. Her frown only deepened as she studied the static image before her; the kid's face was in an unnaturally neutral expression for someone that young and while Ranma would need to meet Hotaru in person to be sure she was pretty sure that Doctor Tomoe's daughter wasn't as healthy as she should be.
Turning her attention back up towards a patiently waiting Souichi, Ranma didn't try and hide the disapproval in her eyes. "I know your story-" The martial artist's voice made it clear that she was also not impressed by it. "- but what about your wife – she have some calling that leaves your kid fending for herself too?"
Doctor Tomoe's entire body seemed to shift in what had to be the most violent twitch Ranma had ever seen and for a moment a look of horrified sorrow crossed the man's face before the coolly charming persona he had been maintaining since his earlier episode reasserted itself.
"My wife is dead Saotome and I would have you not bring her up again in either my own or my daughter's presence – we humans let our loved ones turn back to ash for a reason." Souichi's voice was bland and he grasped his hands together in front of his mouth, his elbows resting lightly against his desk, as if to hide the truth of his words from sight.
Ranma opened her mouth, an apology twisting itself on her tongue, but was cut off as the Doctor dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand and continued. "I have an assistant but Hotaru finds her to be distasteful and I have fears that continued association between the two will be more harmful to everyone's future than not." The older man reached his hand across the table and lightly closed the folder and lifted it in offering to the martial artist before him. "I have been told that perhaps she could maintain her civility better in the company of someone slightly closer to her own age and all I ask of you is to be her guardian during the weekends."
The redhead almost walked out right there. Martial Arts Child Care wasn't one of the various and insane styles she had picked up during her time in Nerima and despite how simple it sounded to just hang around the kind for 'the weekends' only Ranma wasn't fool enough to fall into that trap.
But, the sleaze – Ranma felt without a doubt that the term applied to Dr. Tomoe – had managed to word his request well enough that the martial artist was cinched into accepting no matter what.
A martial artist's duty is to protect.
Ranma snorted and snatched the folder as quickly as possible from out of Souichi's hands. A guardian – that was what she was supposed to be.
"Yeah, whatever yah say Doc." Despite the grumbling tone the martial artist's words came out clear as she busied herself with slipping the folder into the nothingness of her personal ki-space. "Pick the brat up on Friday's then – where you got a mind fer me ta' be at?"
Dr. Tomoe – who had frantically turned towards more of his erratic writing as soon as the folder had left his hand – looked up and favoured the black and red clad woman before him once more with his insane smirk from earlier.
"Why Saotome-san – all you need to know is a time!" The Doctor's voice dripped with caustic amusement. Souichi toyed with the pen he had taken out to replace the one Ranma had stolen as he stood up. "You are already inside of my somewhat humble home after all."
Closing his eyes as he stepped forward and leaned against the corner of his desk Souichi seemed to find a moment of peace as he carefully placed the wet fountain pen down far away from the sheets of paper that almost plastered his work space. When he opened his eyes again his demeanor had once swung it's pendulum back towards that of a charming and arguably sane man.
"We'll expect you here no later than four if you don't mind. And there isn't a need for us to discuss a return date – I'll let Hotaru know for her to show you her school and she'll just need to be dropped off there each Monday morning." The man clapped his hands together with a satisfied smile on his face. "Are we in agreement then?"
Ranma glared as the man cheerfully bartered away his daughter with nothing more than his own convenience in mind. "I already said I would do it."
Souichi nodded to himself and then retook his seat at his desk. "I'm sure someone of your capacity can see themselves out Saotome-san?" Without waiting for a real response the Doctor began to shift through the mess of papers he kept and began to mumble completely unintelligibly to himself.
Opening her mouth to respond sarcastically Ranma stopped and instead frowned. The martial artist instead walked past the man's desk and pushed open the heavy wooden framed window. The slight breeze that invaded the room didn't even seem to register in the Doctor's mind as it cut its way across the back of his coat and Ranma briefly entertained the idea of kicking Souichi in the back of the head.
Looking back at the dim room that surrounded her and then the warm mid-day glow of the world outside the window the redhead only shook her head and curled her legs up under her so that she was suddenly perched on the edge of her impromptu exit.
The street outside was mostly deserted – both of people and other buildings – with the only things Ranma could see around being a single burnt out building across from the home she was currently in and a pair of drunks slumped in the gutter sleeping off what was far too long of a previous night. Hopping out of the second story window the martial artist landed nimbly on the short expanse of dead grass the occupied the few feet of ground before the sidewalk.
Turning herself around Ranma's eyebrows rose at the house she had just left. It was solid brick, had a third story rising above the second that she had just left and sat squatly across its property looking about as angry as Ryoga after the Lost Boy hadn't been in Nerima for a while.
The property wasn't one that would be hard to find; especially after Ranma casually leaned back to look first left and then right at the areas around it. Everything else seemed to have been abandoned – some lots nothing but now crumbling foundations – and the evidence of a large scale fire was clear across the entire block.
"Such a beautiful tragedy." Ranma's eyes flicked up towards the top of the house immediately as her own voice drifted down from it. Sitting with its back blending into the shingles of the roof but legs standing out starkly against the weathered brick was Chaos.
The redhead's fist clenched and she could feel her body begin to tremble as his mind screamed at her to fight. "Ya' locked tha' curse."
Chaos's head shifted from being held upright to being cocked horizontally with no movements in between. "I'm sorry Ranma, but I'm afraid I'm not aware of any curses – in you or anywhere." The seldom heard apologetic tone to his own voice coming out of the demon served only to make Ranma's body begin to visibly quiver. Possibly obvious to the change in its companion, but none the less ignoring the entire situation, Chaos was suddenly standing and then stepped off the roof. One inky hand caught the window that the redhead had left open and slammed it closed as it passed towards the ground.
Ranma took a step forward to where the creature was going to land – but stopped mid-motion as Chaos disappeared from view. An arm covered in grey vortexes and explosions of violent white settled weightlessly around the martial artist's shoulder.
"Is there something wrong with a friend coming to visit their favourite tomboy?" Ranma's own voice queried of her.
Bristling the martial artist struck out with an elbow that only flew up against thin air. Chaos, for its part, was standing across from Ranma with the casual stance and assurance that that was where it had always been. "Don't call me that." Ranma gritted out as she brought her stance back under control.
The creature brought its hands together and pulled its arms in – the limbs disappearing as the lines that kept them distinct disappeared inside of its torso – and bowed until Ranma was looking at what should have been the top of its head. For a moment Ranma thought that the demon might have found some amount of respect, but then when its head began to lift back up the redhead saw that the thin, grey crescent of a smile had returned.
"Don't worry so much – being one is part of what makes you so cute."
Ranma's punch was aimed at her target's gut before it had even opened its stupid voice stealing mouth. Instead of ceasing to exist in the space that it had was occupying though Chaos simply walked out of the punch as if Ranma had been moving in slow motion. The demon placed both of its hands upon the martial artist's extended arm and then held her there.
Ranma's eyes moved frantically towards where the inky-mockery of a person stood and tried to wrap her mind around what was happening – she was completely unable to move any part of her body besides her eyes despite the fact that the hold that the demon had on her was laughable at best.
"Let's remain calm, eh, Ranma?" The redhead's own voice chirped happily at her. "Didn't I say I've been your friend this whole time. I've always meant everything I've said."
Ranma wanted to snort at that – do anything in response really – as the demon had to be an entire pile of contradictions for its last statement to be true. It had professed to being her friend multiple times now, but that didn't mean that she had forgotten how it had casually mentioned trying to murder her and how it had no intention to stop anytime soon either.
"As for locks-" Ranma's attention was turned entirely towards Chaos as it spoke that word. The demon seemed to notice it too as it clipped itself off to bend itself over her outreached arm. Its body just grew, elongated and snaked closer until Ranma and the creature were looking at each other face to face with barely an inch between them. The swirls of grey and white bursts slowly drained from the face as the two were forced to stare at each other and then its mouth returned – this time placing itself into a shy smile that was almost lost in the abyssal black of its existence. "If I've done anything for you Ranma it wasn't to lock but unlock."
Chaos snapped back to its normal dimension and was back to where it maintained its hold on the martial artist's arm. Ranma's attention was still captured completely as she tried to figure out just how what the creature had said played into it toying around with her life. Then, her mind went blank as she watched the demon place both hands right next to each other and then ran one up and the other down the span of her arm.
Where the hands passed her arm had been replaced with the familiar form of his.
As Chaos finished and its hands left Ranma's shoulder and clenched fist the martial artist eye's locked on the impossible sight before her.
The rest of her body was still as it had been when she dragged herself out of the sea on the coast of China, but her left arm was exactly as it should have been attached to her birth body. It was impossible – let alone the differences in the skeletons and muscles between the two forms – it went against everything that Ranma had ever learned or knew about the curse.
The redhead knew she could move now, knew in her bones that whatever strange hold that Chaos had froze her in was gone, but the new hold that the demon had put upon was stronger than the previous one could ever be.
Fear.
Saotome Ranma was afraid to move. Afraid that if she moved that his arm would rip itself off of her body and she'd bleed out here. Afraid that she'd always be stuck like this – worse off than any lock than before – a freak of a girl with one horribly disfigured limb for the rest of her life.
The redhead closed her eyes and dived deep inside of herself – finding the shard of ice within her soul that would allow her to regain control of herself. Feeling the chill spread out around her Ranma remained in the dark as she moved her body out of its frozen blow and allowed herself to relax.
Nothing broke, nothing tore. Movement was as easy and natural for her as it had always been.
Opening her eyes Ranma's heart sunk in surprise. Her left arm now mirrored her right again; she was normal. Looking up and across from her the martial artist glared at Chaos. "What did you do?"
The demon, who was copying her trademark stance with its body held loosely and hands shoved where pockets should be, shrugged and then responded. "Nothing that you can't."
"Bastard." Bastard. Ranma wanted out. She had tried to get out – to get away from the insanity that had marked her life from the moment of birth until now. Glaring at the demon before her though; the bastard of a creature obviously had taken offense to any sort of stability in the life of Saotome Ranma. "Was this all yah wanted me fer? Drop me on an ol' creep an' make me play baby-sitter?"
Chaos's head shifted back into its confused position. "Baby-sitter? No – the girl is your own concern." The creature shifted again, now with its hands crossed over its chest and its face turned towards the sky. "She's dying though – I usually see her dead – but it isn't something I'll ever find to care about."
"Shaddup." Ranma bite out fiercely. The demon had no right to speak with her voice like that – about something like that. "Ain't nobody gonna die under my watch."
Chaos was suddenly close to the redhead again. Its arm thrown across her shoulders companionably. "That is the whole point." The martial artist's voice told her cheerfully. "I brought you in because I always have known you are good for your word – we're close to each other on that."
"I ain't nothin' like yah." Ranma told the demon as she tried to shrug off, but only succeeded in making Chaos flit from hanging on to her right to her left side.
The demon just hummed to itself and then titled its head so its inky cheek rested against the redhead's shoulder. "We should really get going if you don't want to go back on your word though."
"Goin'? Where tha' hell you tryin' ta' take me this time?"
Chaos only laughed happily in response and tilted Ranma's head up towards the sky. Unsure why the demon wanted her to stare at what was an almost completely empty blue sky the martial artist focused on a spot of clouds far off towards the city proper as Chaos's hand pointed towards it with an exploding white finger.
"Where're going-" Chaos cheerfully extended its pronunciation of going as it lifted one foot and Ranma was grudgingly copied the annoying creature that had almost glued itself to her. "- here!"
Ranma's foot came down and a cacophony of noise burst forth from the air around here. The sky above her was different now – the sun in a slightly different place and a patchy series of clouds drifting lazily through the air.
The martial artist snapped her head down and saw that the location was also certainly different. The redhead was standing on a set of stairs and looking down towards the street side entrance of... wherever she was at.
A cordon of blue uniformed police and bright white barriers reinforced the small bar that was meant to only keep out vehicles, but would have failed at stopping the mass of foot traffic that now teemed around the entrance. An officer – who unlike his fellows who manned the barrier had eschewed wearing his protective vest – stood upon a chair and held a megaphone in his white gloved hands. He repeatedly announced to the crowd to please calm themselves and that updates would be released publicly as whatever investigation was going on continued.
The atmosphere was almost choked with panic and grief and Ranma swallowed heavily as she looked into the crowd to see some faces stricken with grief and trailing tears while others simply were locked in shocked disbelief or anger. The crowd was mostly middle-aged – some of the members looking as if they should have still been at work by the way they were dressed.
A snarl on her lips Ranma turned her attention to Chaos – who, predictably, was sitting down on the stairs next to her and seemed all together bored. "Where – how -" The martial artist could feel her own anger began to boil – whatever was going on below them was serious and she didn't have time for the demon's games.
"We walked." Chaos stated simply.
Confusion ramped up in the redhead's mind as she was suddenly hit with a long slew of memories. They had walked. Walked all the way from the Doctor's house and out of Juuban to whatever district of Minato City they were now in.
Which had to be impossible because Ranma's mind knew that she had arrived her before... before she had somehow walked her. Her head throbbing more than it did after taking a punch to the temple from a certain bull-octopus-bird-thing that would remain unnamed unless he showed up to add to the madness of the last few hours.
Glaring back down at Chaos, Ranma instead continued her interrogation. "Where?" In response the demon only jerked its thumb up the stairs and behind them.
Turning, Ranma swallowed heavier as she read the sign above the door to the building at the end of the stairs. Police, angry people, and an investigation – of course this was where they were at.
Staring at the entrance to the Minato City Police Station Ranma barely noticed as Chaos stood and brushed off imaginary dust from itself before clasping the martial artist's shoulders in both of its hands. With a gentle squeeze and a whispered, "Good luck.", in the demon's own otherworldly and echoing voice Chaos disappeared.
Second chapter up after more than long of a wait. Sorry about that. Thanks for dropping by anyway and joining in on my fun.
Movement and descriptions for chaos are a joy to write - even if it is possibly the worst.