Scrapyard: Ranma

by Krahae

Once more with feeling! False starts and failed ideas that never really caught; here's where I'll be putting the odd bits and pieces that I almost decided to continue, but not quite. Some of these may be revisited, but its unlikely. But not impossible. Mostly Ranma-centric.

3. Winging It

Warning: I'm not pulling any punches with these, as they're SCRAP FILES. This is my raw, personal edits and not screened for much other than my own inner grammar nazi. You can expect just about anything, and I know there are a few scenes of mature and violent content. Some of it harsh. So, be warned.

Premise: I mentioned some time ago in an AN about a Ranma/Aion crossover? Well, here you go. The image will be variable, but there's a plot-based reason for it. Which I don't get to much. Oops.

—

Winging It

Despite his father's best efforts, Ranma wasn't an idiot. Ignorant – yes. He'd admit that grudgingly. Capable of fixing it? Given enough time and the opportunity to do so, yes again.

Had he been given the time and materials – Damn his father for throwing away every book he managed to get his hands on – he could have warned them off these supposed training grounds.

Had he been given the opportunity and time – Damn Genma again, for never letting him settle in one place beyond some stupid scheme or plot – he could have come to understand that such a remote place with danger signs and a caretaker who did not look or move like a martial artist, could not really be a training ground.

Had he been given a different or at least less idiotic parent, Ranma wouldn't be hurtling into one of these undoubtedly cursed pools, head first.

Too bad for him, it wasn't a very deep pool, either.

–

Nodoka was going to kill him.

There really wasn't anything else to think. Oh, he wasn't at fault for this, really! That ingrate son of his was the one that couldn't dodge his cursed form, after all.

No more heir. His mind kept repeating that, though there was an undertone of guilt that he refused to face. He should have realized that pool was shallow and compensated! Foolish boy...

He'd seen him hit the pool, then seen his form shimmer. The spill of red was... Genma steeled himself. He'd return to Nerima, and face his wife, and tell her that her son died nobly, training to be that man among men she desired.

Then he'd escape and never return. It wouldn't be the first agreement he fled from.

But first, he had to escape the mob of vengeful Chinese warrior women, who seemed more than a little pissed off at him for eating that buffet.

–

Ranma awoke to a very unpleasant feeling. First off, his head hurt – a lot. More than he'd ever felt before, and it wasn't going away. "Concussion," he noted to himself silently, realizing that even thinking seemed to hurt. That was new, and not welcome. His second realization was that something just felt wrong, and it was centered on his back. Steeling himself for the coming nausea, the young martial artist turned onto his side, reeling as the headache began a new cadence of hammering in his skull. The nausea didn't worsen, though there was a nasty pulling sensation in his gut that ran through him like an electric shock. That could not be good.

But whatever was going on with his back felt less uncomfortable, so it was fine. For some reason or another, that had caused him more annoyance than even that cold wrongness in his stomach that wouldn't settle. One step at a time. Perhaps in a few hours, he'd chance opening his eyes, even. Right now, there was the distinct possibility that doing so would cause his head to burst.

"Hey. Enough sleeping. We've got to finish this patrol," a voice far too loud and near boomed into his consciousness. "Damned stygians. What by the Abyss did they plan to do with all this? Hey, I... Light, what happened to you, Guardian?"

Having no idea what the man meant, he tried to answer, ask a question, but all he could feel was a faint bubbling of fluid in his chest. Warning bells flared in the martial artist's mind, and he tried to cough, realizing with a stark clarity that for the last few minutes, he'd barely taken a full breath. Something behind him flailed in his panic, and a stifling warmth seemed to swallow him. He should move, struggle, try to get out of it... The strength wasn't in him to do so, however. When did that happen?

"Light above... Healer! Now! I need a healer here! Someone get her out of the water!"

He'd thank the man when he woke up, Ranma promised himself. And who was he talking about? Her?

–

Cologne sat near the head of the Jusenkyo Guide's bed, her face set in a pensive frown. She could understand the older man's reaction – not the Guide, but the fat glutton she'd had her warriors 'see out' of the valley – to the wound she'd taken. Her unbound hair would have been a rather dramatic thing to see, from a haze of panic after seeing such a fall. Still, there were... other concerns she had to admit, taking in the youth's full condition. "You've seen nothing like this before, then?"

The Guide shook his head, eyes still glued to the figure on the pallet he used for bedding. He shook his head again, hands worrying at the hat he'd taken off out of some impulse some time ago. "No, Elder. The Musk and sometimes the Phoenix come to use the spring often. Never has one been affected so."

"And her wound?"

Again, the Guide shook his head. "Never before. Blood in the spring only makes the change stronger, but this... no. Nothing like this."

"I notice you didn't say 'curse'." A wince was her reply. "Yes, I understand. I was just... checking. She does have a certain aura about her, doesn't she?"

Hating to do so, considering what he knew of the Joketsuzoku, the Guide still had a duty to perform. "Ah, Elder... the young one was a man, before falling into the pool..."

Cologne waved the man's concerns away. "I am not a fool. Ambitious and driven to see the Joketsuzoku take their place as the leaders they are, but not a fool." Her eyes strayed to the still-healing additions to the young woman laying on her side, asleep before her. "As much as I would relish the idea of binding one such as this to the tribes, the retribution would be... unthinkable."

The Guide nodded fervently.

"See that she... he, is tended to. When he awakens, send for me. Do and say nothing else."

Despite the fact the Guide worked for no single village or people, he did owe the Joketsuzoku some slight loyalty. They at least treated him as a human, if not an equal. He would abide by the Elder's request... for the most part. He looked down at the fitfully resting redhead, and what spanned behind her, nearly to the wall. Loyalty was one thing, but crossing the divine, of either persuasion, was not on his list of things to tempt fate with.

–

A month after his son's tragic training accident, Genma found solace the most usual place.

The arms of his long-estranged wife.

Nodoka had ranted, screamed, and raved at him for hours, but in the end she had clung to him as if he were the only thing stable she knew. Beneath the veneer and hard shell of his ambitions and desires for a true martial heir, Genma Saotome recalled that he had loved this woman, once. Loved her enough to marry her, despite both their family's objections.

The home was looking less forlorn now. They had cleaned and opened the rooms that were long-disused. Ranma's... they had boxed the dead boy's things up, storing them. His shrine sat in the small den, taking the central place now. The Dojo had been aired, mats replaced, tiles and signs repainted.

Genma was teaching, between days where he would work with a kind doctor of Acupuncture and Shiatsu, Tofu Ono. He'd gotten in contact with the man through his old associate Soun. As it turned out, Tendo had lost his wife, some time after he'd left on that ill-fated training trip. Shared loss brought the two closer, and they considered their past with wearier and clearer eyes.

Many a night was spent by the three adults, recalling the old days, reliving their wilder youths. Soun, without the promise of a son-in-law to take over for him some time while his daughters were young and single, followed in his friend's footsteps and reopened his own Dojo. Akane grew and mellowed, as her instruction continued.

The Tendo patriarch despaired to think what would have happened to his youngest, with her incomplete education. She'd learned almost accidentally how to tap into her ki using her anger, but such a thing in time would have destroyed her. Now, he could help lead her back to more healthy uses for her ki, though it would take a long time. Power was hard to simply give up, and for a martial artist, ki was a sweet lure.

Kasumi, her father now behaving more like the label deserved, got out a bit more, but she was still timid and more comfortable at home. She socialized with her college friends, once she began attending, but it was hesitant. Tentative.

As for Nabiki, Soun let her make her mistakes, and reap the rewards. With her record now blemished, the middle Tendo had to work all the harder to make up for the loss, but she did so realizing that she had no one else to blame. If she wanted a real life, she'd have to work for it, like everyone else.

A lot can happen in a year. The world could even change.

–

Returning the slight bow he'd been given by the Elder, Ranma smiled faintly, before straightening to give his report. "The eastern border is secured. What few Musk were about, are either fertilizing those fields, or running back to their kennels."

"Excellent work, Ranma," the beaming face of Cologne praised. "With that upstart Herb goading them, the barbarians have been getting cocky. It was high-time someone put them in their place." Her smiled dimming somewhat, the Elder rubbed at her nose. "Tell me, though... which form were you wearing?"

Ranma's expression visibly brittled at the expected question. "Her."

Cackling, the Joketsuzoku Elder clapped her hands. "Excellent. Herb will be walking on eggshells for years over that. A dragonspawn he may be, but even dragons bow before someone."

Though he was happy to help them in return for their hospitality, a little part of Ranma disliked the lie of appearance that the Elders put forward. It was bad enough he was treated as something wholly different by the entire tribe, though at least not in a negative way. It was something of an unstated rule that his female form be treated as the one he was born with, rather than the truth. He wondered if that was put in place merely to curry favor and gain his support in their war efforts due to his other form's talents, or for some other cause.

More than one male among the Joketsuzoku had sent him dire looks over that double standard, not that they would dare back them up and cross the Elders who held the village in the palm of their hand. But to use what had happened to him to intimidate the other two tribes bordering Jusenkyo?

And Ranma knew the tales of this prince Herb. The three villages were not so isolated from one another as they might imagine, he thought. Cologne would never consent to the consequences of getting Herbs attention, and could not even if she wanted to, but now there was tale of a fiery-haired warrior even the dragon-prince would pause to confront among the Joketsuzoku. That would either bring war to their steps... or a bride-hunt. Most likely the latter, as the half-dragon prince could not take his throne without a wife.

Female he may be at times, but being a bride would never be on his list of things to do. How would Cologne handle such a thing? Would she try to sell him off for a peace treaty? He had no illusions on what precisely he was to the tribe of warrior women. Ranma, to them, was a resource. Useful, unique, but not something they would endanger themselves over.

Perhaps... yes. Perhaps it was time to leave behind the comforts of the Joketsuzoku, to seek out his past. They had been more than kind to take him in despite how strange his situation had become. He'd spent a year sorting out his fragmented mind, piecing together the two lives that were there now. One spanned nearly ten times the years that he could recall as the one named Ranma, but they were full of bloody conflict and war, and enemies he could not even imagine before the curse. Fights in what seemed vast empty nothingness, with power flowing around like water in the ocean. Battles between those who resembled what he'd become and darker, sinister kin. Wars sometimes against, sometimes three-sided as they pushed back The Others who pushed through the broken walls of reality, to corrupt and enslave. Sometimes, he – though the one in those memories was her – fought for one side... and sometimes, the other. Lately, those memories had turned darker. Stained, somehow.

He pushed back those memories as best he could, but even within his own mind Ranma found himself the minority at times. The only saving grace to the situation he could find knowing that both he and the one who held those memories shared many basic points of view, and opinions. The foundation of them all remained the same, which gave Ranma some peace of mind – one used their strength to protect those who could not protect themselves. Mostly. Later, they turned, and became vengeful, full of hate and the need to destroy... but luckily that time was brief. Though that similarity served as an anchor, he knew some day... some day those memories would need to be addressed. He knew it as surely as the sun rose, that there would be some kind of reckoning, between himself and the life he knew but never lived.

Ranma knew well who he was, however, even within the maelstrom of a century and a half of war that raged in his mind. His memories were not so broken as to hide that. A year among the Joketsuzoku taught him much, and more than anything else, he wanted to find his father and demand answers. It took time but he learned their language, and then from Cologne, his own. Ranma had been amazed at how badly he'd been taught such basic things as reading and writing. More than that though, he was stunned by how the Joketsuzoku treated children. He'd watched the young warriors-to-be being raised, cherished, and loved... and not even in the broken memories of another life could he find such things. No, Ranma knew his own life well enough, and he still bore the scars, physical and mental.

Yes, there was much he wanted answers to. He would begin by hunting down the man he once called father, and this time he wouldn't get the chance to run away.

He would not be hasty, however. He would consult his sword-sister, and hear her suggestion as well. She was an excellent tracker, and a fellow warrior, and Ranma valued her opinion on such things more than most.

–

A stiff wind scattered the leaves by the koi pond behind the Tendo home. A scent of fire and distant cold was felt through the small gust. Nodoka and Kasumi paused in their discussion of what to do with the nearby garden, while Soun and Genma looked to the sky.

"An ill omen, old friend."

Genma nodded, pushing his glasses up. "Perhaps we should leave before the rain begins? Doka-chan, we wouldn't want you catching cold, what with-"

"Dear, I'm pregnant, not made of glass," the redheaded woman chided. "And for your information, I miss walking in the rain on occasion."

Booming a laugh, the large martial artist nodded. "Very well then. We shall wait till the rain is coming down in sheets!"

Nodoka smiled fondly, shaking her head slightly at her husband's antics. Still, she couldn't shake the strange feeling that things were going to change soon... and not for the better.

–

At the gates, Ranma turned one last time to take in the sights of his brief home. Almost idly, he reached up to trace the scar, hidden by his hair, that had served as a key to that peace, odd and punctuated by fights against the Musk as it had been. Compared to the memories of two lives, his time among the Joketsuzoku had been almost idyllic. Full of work, training, and the odd dance that was politics among the matriarchal society, but it felt peaceful to him.

Despite it, however, he was not one of them. He had accepted adoption of sorts, taking on a sword-sister, but nothing more. He'd refused challenges and set terms before any fight publicly and openly, crushing any hopes of securing ties that would bind him through accidental marriage. The Guide had taught him that one thing, pushing him to understand and recognize it, and he had learned. Cologne had been harsh on those that had tried seeming to acknowledge his request, but Ranma had felt that was due more to her own goals possibly being compromised. She seemed too ambiguous in her reactions, and to deny such things seemed out of character for her.

The impromptu challenge from his sister as he was saying his farewells, Shampoo being great granddaughter to the Elder Cologne, had proven that suspicion. He had refused the challenge, but Cologne, to his rising annoyance, had overridden him. So, he'd offered to fight... on his terms alone. He had bet on Cologne calling his bluff, and before his death-strike could end his adopted sister, the Elder had deflected the blow. No Kiss was given, as the fight had been interrupted.

Ranma had picked up his tiny pack without a second look, until he reached the gates. There waiting for him, stood Cologne and Shampoo. "Are you going to try something else to force me to stay, granny?"

The Elder winced, knowing that the strange young man never called her such unless he was truly annoyed. He respected ability and skill, and unlike some, showed it. "Forgive me, Ranma, but we are a proud people, and you present a unique... situation."

"I know about your laws, I have lived here for a year, you know," the annoyed youth replied. "You messed up. I trusted you, and you go behind me and try to force someone I see as my sister on me?" Furious, the young man turned to Shampoo. "And you! What have you to say about this?"

The violet-haired woman flinched at the anger in that glare, looking down and away from her oath-broken sister. "Nothing, Ranma. I can only do as I am told-"

"Bullshit," Ranma replied lividly. "You've proven time and again you have your own mind. Use it!" Growling in irritation, he turned to move by the two. "Cologne... this was low, even for you."

The Elder bowed slightly again. "I do what I do for the strength of Joketsuzoku."

Something bent within him with his fury, and Ranma felt the odd twist of energies that hallmarked the less-obvious parts of his change stirring. His blade suddenly in hand, the furious youth stilled his anger. "Then remember what I'm capable of, when angry," Ranma ordered, before looking at his hand. It was not a small sword by any means, regardless of how weightlessly he wielded it. Nearly as long from the tip of blade to the delicately shaped and tooled pommel as he was tall, the greatsword resembled an artful cross of fire, leaf, and feather made from a metal that seemed as much silver sometimes as gold. Sweeping and curving along its length, the blade was as wide as his profile, making the thing look oppressively heavy. To anyone else who tried to wield it, it was. To him, however, it resembled those things it drew inspiration from.

Ranma regarded the blade, a symbol of his anger. Something he'd never turned against these people, and never wanted to. But this... it was too much like the past. Like him. The blade shattered and dissipated like a flight of startled fireflies, motes of light and dark fading into the evening air. "If I return, you'll know I've forgiven you."

Massive wings of white and silver burst into being from the youth's back, before a sickly pall swept across them, twisting and distorting what, for a brief moment, seemed perfection. Black and wicked, oily as only a carrion-bird's wings could be, they stretched only to curl in quiet menace around the youth, pinions looking as deadly as the blade he sometimes wielded. Without another word, the sky broke, as Ranma leapt into the blue above, leaving the village of Joketsuzoku behind him possibly for the last time.

A brief conversation between Shampoo and her Elder occurred, before the girl retrieved a full pack from a waiting guard, and left as well.

–

On a small island teeming with people, five young women and a brave young man gave up everything, to push back an evil that they felt could end the world. It might have been able to, had it not been nearly blasted into oblivion once before... but perspective is a very interesting lens.

They sacrificed regardless, and triumphed. Returned to their lives, as if they weren't wielding powers out of scale for their apparent opponents. Oh, they were clumsy and unskilled, but a man with a sledgehammer kills a fly as well as one with a swatter.

Time would temper them. She had to.

–

Flight was taxing, though that was nothing new to Ranma. A year adjusting to his new wings had given him more than enough time to become familiar with them. A number of things had become apparent, in that time. For one, he could cover more ground in his female form, it being both lighter and with a better connection to that odd ability to weave ki out of the world around himself for another. However useful it was, it was difficult, and took time to find the proper frame of mind and center to do so. More than once he pondered that skill, a remembered thing, and why it felt like the world resisted his efforts.

Part was due to form, he understood now. After all, it wasn't as if his male form had always born such abilities. After Cologne noted the odd reddish highlights coming into his hair in his male form, Ranma restricted himself to using most of those newfound abilities, as well as the wings, in his cursed form. The fear that the curse was bleeding over into his normal body was enough to make him very wary about using those new skills outside of the change.

As it was, it was strange enough that he could use anything at all. According to Cologne and the Guide, the bleed-over most encountered occurred in the mind. Within the Joketsuzoku village, he was introduced to few of their warriors who were either punished or had accidentally fallen into the springs, and he saw what they meant. Almost all carried some small portion of their curse with them constantly.

None however, to the degree he did. It was almost as if the curse had been too much for even a changed body to bear, and so split itself between his forms. Definitely a scary thought, considering those memories he had were all of a woman. Ranma suppressed a shudder at the memory one particularly unlucky person he'd been introduced to, who had broken the tribal taboo on purposefully visiting the springs for their own benefit. Their cursed form had originally been that of a small dog, a rather humiliating thing really for a warrior he understood. Thinking they could counter the curse with water from the Spring of Drowned Girl, they'd gone through with their plan... but the results had mixed, rather than replace one another. Now, though her form was indeed much different and almost human, she also had the dishonor of the tribe's law against her. Though, she did serve as a visual deterrent for those that thought to cheat their way out of their curses.

To Ranma however, it brought a more worrisome point home. What would his curse do to him, if it continued to bleed over? Even being fully female in body was preferable to some half-form of either. The Joketsuzoku weren't the kind of people he wanted to spend his life around, but they were good for countering a lot of Genma's supposed teachings, specifically those against the fairer sex. For the life of him, Ranma wondered what it was his father had against women... it seemed like any time they came up in conversation, he was putting them down, deriding their ability, or outright disregarding them entirely. He, however, learned better. All the veteran warriors and Elders would have made Ranma's father look like a fool in a real contest, he knew. He'd trained with them, fought beside them, and even bled in battle alongside them. He counted himself lucky that the biased old man wasn't around after his curse, though the bitterness of being left behind was still there. Was that why he abandoned him? Why he was left to drown in those cursed waters, to be rescued by the Guide?

The curse still bothered him, despite his seeming if grudging acceptance of it. For all he wanted a cure, wanted to return to normal, the worry that the curse would blend across and that he'd have to live his life as some hybrid man-woman haunted him. Ranma wouldn't like it, would fight it till he was certain, but he'd take being a woman full-time to being a freak. But that, if it ever started to happen at all, would be a long time off if Cologne were to be trusted, and he was being careful.

Which was why he was currently female, crossing the forests and small cities by night on silent wings.

It had taken two months for the martial artist to remember, through those fragmented memories, how to dismiss and recall those wings. Such things were nearly instinct now, though that had sometimes been a problem of its own.

Shanghai drove this point home.

Currently female, as she had spent most of the previous day flying and needed to recharge, Ranma rested on the roof of a tall building. Having spent little time in large cities and even less watching current television, the redhead saw the helipad as a very inviting landing spot, if not understanding what it truly was. She thought nothing of the warnings and symbols, as she was used to ignoring such things with Genma around anyway, and the Joketsuzoku had little reference to them. She intended no harm, and had no intent to steal anything... simply sitting couldn't be so bad, right?

Which is why she was startled from her meditation by the loud sound of a landing helicopter, and the cli-clack of weapons being brought to bear. Blinking her eyes open, she watched as four men with automatic rifles hopped from the still hovering machine, approaching her warily. Ranma puzzled at why these people were so upset with her. "Um, hello?" she hazarded in Mandarin, hoping she wouldn't offend anyone.

Apparently, wherever it was she'd landed wasn't the kind of place where they were forgiving. Two of the men advanced on her quickly, their posture clearly stating they meant to fight and subdue her, but Ranma would have none of that. As the first made a grab for her, she spun around his clumsy attempt, crouching before launching herself in a fast line for his companion. Caught flat-footed, the second man went down quickly to a heavy strike to his jaw, jerking his head upward. Spinning in place, she sent the first, who was only then regaining his feet, back to the ground with a hard axe-kick to the collar.

Instinct was the only thing that saved her. Ranma twisted at that energy within her that fed off her ki to become something else, and called on her wings by reflex, as a hail of lead thundered toward her. In a muted flare of light, her pinions burst free from her back, the feathers this time remaining a pristine white. The silver accents that resembled armor glinted along the leading edge of each wing, ending in a wicked blade at the point where the greater bones met the smaller at a bend. It was that armor that sat like a shield before her, deflecting bullets but still driving the slight girl back toward the edge.

The man in a crisp uniform that looked disturbingly military stomped forward from a group of three others, gesturing toward the ground and shouting something that the redhead couldn't quite make out, through the ringing in her ears. Peeking from between her enclosed wings, she watched as the men put themselves between her and the helicopter. Rifles at the ready, the men waited uneasily, till the lead man barked out his questions, "What are you? Why are you up here? This is a restricted area!"

Realizing that admitting she just landed to gather her reserves would sound stupid, Ranma laughed nervously. What to say, what to say... "Er, I was looking for the restroom?" Despite her weariness, she had enough energy to glide off the roof if needed, so the martial artist backed toward the edge, trying to appear as anxious as she felt. Hopefully they wouldn't see her as a threat...

A muted voice said something from the helicopter, and the lead man stiffened, raising his rifle in a clearly threatening manner. "On the ground, hands behind your head! Now!"

So much for that idea, Ranma groused. "Look, I didn't know this wasn't someplace I could rest-"

"Do it, Now!" The clatter of the other rifles again trained on her sounded loudly over the darkened rooftop.

Muttering, Ranma spent a fraction of ki, and leapt up and back. Gunshots ripped into the place she'd been, some tracking better if still not well enough. Luck had them miss her, or graze off the brief armor along her wings. As she cleared the lip of the rooftop and out of view, Ranma shifted her position and turned, facing the ground. Gliding across the span of a block in a heartbeat, she turned and touched down, sending great plumes of dust and debris away from the wind of her landing. A moment later, she looked back from her new perch on a nearby but shorter skyscraper, as the men on the other stared in muted shock.

Heaving a sigh, Ranma dismissed her wings in a scattering of fast-fading motes of light. "So much for subtlety. May as well find someplace to sleep and change. No way I can fly across the East China Sea to Nagasaki on my current reserves, and red hair stands out too much after something like that." As she made her way to the street from the roof of the building, Ranma decided she definitely needed to better hide her nature. Though the Joketsuzoku had accepted her without question, if not without expectation, the modern world would find the sudden appearance of someone who resembled an angel pretty startling. Current events proved that well enough. Add in her other talents and how those wings changed if she was taken by some strong emotion...

The less said about western zealots and their apocalypse fetish, the better.

Settled in a run-down if tenable room after changing with hot water, Ranma slept fitfully, worrying over his upcoming meeting with Genma. At least, his supposed meeting... would he have returned to Japan? From the few letters and postcards the Joketsuzoku had managed to find in the man's pack, after he abandoned it to flee them, it would appear that someone of Ranma's family other than the old man was still alive and currently living in southern Nerima. That was his best bet to track him down. Troublesome however was another letter, from a man named Tendo asking about his 'future son-in-law'. That demanded attention as well, since it stank of Genma's usual idiocy, something he'd grudging come to recognize, if retroactively. A new perspective did a lot to clue Ranma in on what had truly happened with his childhood. Genma had much to answer for.

–

The surf churned and spat up in the wake of her crossing, as Ranma cursed her pride for leading her into a stupid situation yet again.

"And what made me think I could cross four-hundred some odd miles of ocean again?" Feeling her reserves quickly emptying, the redheaded martial artist calculated the distance she'd crossed, and swore again. It would be at least another day before she could make landfall, and that was if she could rest and recoup, and draw in enough natural chi to restore herself and her new reserves. Oh, sure she was nearly halfway there, but that was her limit at this speed. She flew well, and often far, but this... with no place to rest and only the sea below, she would soon be stuck with swimming. Would, except for her exhaustion. Ranma realized with a something more than a little worry that she desperately needed a full night's sleep, to rest and recharge her reserves.

She couldn't do that while swimming, of course.

Luck was on her side, however, as she spied a supertanker making its slow way in the same direction, some couple kilometers to the south. Cutting her speed to something more reasonable – she could fly very fast, she'd learned early on – Ranma paced the vessel, flitting around it like a curious moth.

Seeing a likely place to rest, she settled atop one of the thing's belching smoke-stacks, holding her breath as she dirtied a broad cloth from her pack. Satisfied if somewhat disgusted, she dropped to a lower spot, on top of the bridge for the vessel. Another scan around the ship showed that it was unlikely that anyone would see her here, as there were no other places one could really go that were higher up to give them that vantage.

Satisfied, Ranma let her weariness overcome her, curling the filthy blanket around herself. It wasn't much, but it would help to keep the idle observer from spotting her outright.

–

Dreams, as they usually came, rode the fragments of memory, and felt far too vivid for Ranma's liking.

She stood along the outer edge of a massive floating platform... no. Memory speared into place, causing her eyes to narrow beneath the ornate helm she wore. It wasn't a platform, so much as a vast island, supported by the energies of this broken place. Aether, her memory supplied, as the name for the almost tangible spirit-stuff that she breathed in like sweet incense. Behind her she knew rose a massive and wildly spiraling citadel, a thing of impossible angles, materials, and physics in her waking world. Here, it was almost modest, compared to... to... She shook her head, glaring about herself.

It would take time.

The dream-world shifted again, and rather than the comforting stability of her previous perch she found herself amid a vast melee. No, at the head of it, as behind her the forces of her homeland clashed against their darker kin, blood and screams echoing about the unstable core of this befouled place as all around her death walked among the living. The Defiling ones had come, and tainted all that they had passed, nesting in the sanctum beyond most likely, and with the resources of this place for the conqueror, all that could rallied to make war. Her dark-spawned kin and her own people clashed there, fighting for the right to possess such value. It was her job to cut a path through them, and secure what the Others had touched, claiming it. If such fell into the Fallen's hands, then even the cities of her home would be threatened.

Where behind her was war, before her lay destruction given form. An engine of unmaking larger than anything she'd seen before these increasingly regular attacks, the Guardian resembled her own kind only marginally. Massive of form and wearing armor that was likely as thick as her own greatsword's blade, the corrupted sentinel stood impassive at the great doors leading inward to the heart of the citadel. Wings spread from its back, though rather than supplying flight, they were tuned to the energies of the broken world around them. Aether siphoned slowly to power the siege warrior, in much the same way it did for her. The once pristine armor looked rusted and fouled, though that wasn't the case. It was likely as strong as before, if not stronger, due to the Defiler's touch. A she inspected her foe, her waking mind brought images from fanciful fictions to the fore, and she grinned savagely. Yes, it did somewhat resemble those massive mechanical suits of war, mentioned in anime and manga.

Perhaps there was some tender kernel of flesh and blood at the center of this thing, she could pry loose, in fact. A pilot. That course in mind, she ripped aether from the air, breathing it into her core where it ignited like wildfire. Around her, combatants slowed and grew lethargic as she literally drained the surrounding area of life, in preparation for the battle to come. Reaching out again, she snared the threads that the Guardian tied to itself, denying it the same life-giving aether on which to function. Those further away took advantage of the lull, cutting down those who had strayed too close like so much wheat before the scythe.

She regarded the thing before her with a hungry smile, as her acts were seen as an attack, and it readied itself. A Guardian may be powerful, but it was only a thing, with a purpose. She was purpose, with a will. Infusing her greatsword with a defensive shell of power that snapped into place as rotating bands of arcane symbols, she slammed her wings against the air, charging the thing that stood five times her own height.

Its own massive weapon, a halberd that could have easily made a decent ship's keel or mast, came snapping forward with a howl of shattered air. Her spells held, as she parried the initial strike, the counter-blast of released energy throwing the polearm back and away while leaving her unharmed and undeterred in her charge. Staggered by the impossible counter, the Guardian reeled in surprise. Within range of her foe, she twisted more aether into her core, slamming it into her weapon, forcing it to blazing life as she struck again and again in a blistering hail of blows. Her blade was alight, resembling nothing now so much as holy fire and wrath given form, driven before a similar divine rage.

The Guardian and the entire cavernous room shook with the fury of her attack. The war behind her slowed as those gathered watched one of their own batter at the towering sentinel as if it were a trivial opponent, not a pinnacle of power.

They of course didn't comprehend the sheer volume of power she was drawing on, or the cost. Oh, she, possibly more than any of her kin, had learned how to harness and perfect her grasp of internal energies, but nothing in this world of destruction came cheaply. Even as she drove the Guardian back against the very wall and doorway it protected, her wings grew more and more tattered, feathers curling like dry leaves before splintering along their shafts.

Well within her opponent's guard and driven before her onslaught, the tempest of fury drew on the thing's own energies this time, weakening it as she pushed herself further toward that vast chasm that marked her limit. It was not so far away this time, she noted dispassionately. No matter. This may not be her last battle, but that one would come soon enough. She would endure. She would conquer. She would not fall until her purpose was achieved.

She took in the destruction wrought from her fury and smiled. Its own wings and arms a ruin of broken armor and tattered organic machinery, the Guardian had started relying on its weaker grasp of aether-shaping to defend itself. Another assault left the thing's torso a twisted ruin of shattered armor, where she didn't just reach out and peel it back like some irritating fruit rind, hiding a delectable core. More spells rocketed toward her, and she contemptuously batted away such a feeble effort, simultaneously shattering its final shield with a kick, before driving her own massive blade into the armored giant's coldly inhuman eye.

Her blade told her that it had found that kernel of weakness, and she howled in victory and pain, as all the remaining aether she could spare was thrust into her weapon, turning it into a conduit of holy fire.

The Guardian shuddered, before going silent, the many points where it gathered power going dim. All around the battlefield, her kin rallied and drove their enemies back, crushing their desperate attempts to capture the sanctum of the citadel now that the defenses had been shattered. Even as the battle surged and ebbed toward a final decisive point, the change in the air was impossible to ignore when it came.

Where the Guardian had fallen silent, a hissing sound of metal being sheared apart sounded, as the one who struck it down ripped her blade free. From her wavering hand a vast circle of symbols sprang into being, spinning madly for a moment before sinking into the defeated sentinel. Over the din of battle, her voice echoed easily, if wearily. "Rise again, Guardian. Your purpose is not yet done."

The fortress shuddered to life once more, as the vast figure of the Guardian caught and cradled the now unmoving warrior as she fell, insensate but still faintly awake. The sound of the sentinel's massive halberd striking and shattering the vast mosaic that made up the chamber's floor echoed far beyond the walls of the citadel, alerting those still battling unawares beyond the inner chambers to pause. Pushing itself upright, the sentinel drew in power from the structure around it, as it too siphoned aether from the vast ocean beyond the walls. Armor mended, limbs straightened and strengthened as a silvery cast washed over the previously dull-hued and corrupted Guardian. Revitalized and renewed, it cradled the one to whom it owed allegiance in one massive gauntlet, while striking out at the now fleeing army with roaring flames from the other.

"By the order of the Lady Rashiel, none shall pass to the inner sanctum," the massive being rumbled, reaching down to retrieve its weapon. Satisfied that her goal had been achieved, the one who now recalled her name, Rashiel, finally let herself fall into waiting unconsciousness.

–

Ranma jolted awake, sweating and shaking under her impromptu blanket. The dream lingered in her mind, as all the others had. With the dream came more knowledge, though at times the martial artist could have very easily done without such things. "Guardians," she muttered quietly, her mind racing, putting more pieces of the puzzle together.

Far along into Rashiel's life, she had earned the same title, though it came without the loss of self others found with being tasked with such a role, their minds bound into massive, inhuman sentinels. No, she was to become Guardian of something far greater. The petite redhead shivered at the memory. "No way am I ready to think about that. Not yet. No way..."

Pulling the filthy blanket from her face, Ranma blinked into the midday sun. The heat and humidity on the ship were stifling under the thing, and the soot-stink of the blanket, now that she paid attention to it, was cloying and made her want to gag. Pushing it away, she let her stomach settle. Despite it all however, the sun was glorious, shining down on what skin dirt and grime didn't coat. Ranma closed her eyes and soaked it in, letting a slow smile creep along her lips as her hair warmed quickly.

She breathed in, ignoring the smells, the pollution, the acid tang in the air, and focused on the energy. The life, contained in that light. Each slow, deep, shuddering breath filled a long-starved void within the young woman, and after nearly half an hour of basking so, she ended her reverie with a contented sigh.

Once, what seemed like a lifetime ago, she'd panicked over such things. Startled that she could slake that new and aching hunger within her by simply breathing in the ambient energy all around her, she'd demanded that Cologne tell her about the springs and their cures, to teach her everything she knew out of fear of losing herself to such urges. Her mind had nearly broken at the old woman's admittance that even if she could possibly correct the original gender curse, but what had happened to Ranma was wholly different. All other questions were forgotten, in the wake of that one fact.

Ranma had quietly composed herself, thanked the Elder, and returned to the home she shared with her sword-sister, Shampoo.

It would be the first and last time she had wept openly since the Neko-ken, that she could recall.

Her mind had been saved not by the intervention of friends, or the support of the Joketsuzoku, but by her discipline in the Art. Ten years adapting anything and everything into her style of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū under her father didn't leave much in the way of weakness. There were definite flaws, and most of those involving women had been ground off with a vengeance by the Joketsuzoku, but she had survived the Neko-ken. She had not broken after everything else, no matter how terrible, how inhuman. To fall apart at her body changing? At gaining power, in some way? Because now she could fly? Hah! She could have been made into a dog or pig, and still found a way to keep her mind, and Art. This was a blessing!

Adapt or die. The unspoken creed of the Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū. And Ranma obviously still drew breath.

Recharged and ready she may be, but in the light of high day she dared not take to the air. Swimming was also out – the more energy she used for that, the less she would have for flying, and though Ranma knew she could swim very quickly, even waiting till night to fly would gain her more distance. Considering her options, Ranma used her limited grasp of the Hidden Weapons technique to retrieve her small satchel of belongings, sighing as the pressure against her ki was also relaxed.

Though it wasn't a very difficult thing to use, the ki-space technique was very taxing. It exchanged mass for energy, directly limiting the users supply of ki to accommodate the material they wished to store. The danger was obvious, so true masters of the skill were rare. One could easily exceed their potential for ki foolishly, and die as the space where all the material they held suspended leeched the life from them.

Ranma disliked using the skill much, as she was preternaturally aware of her own internal energies. Any segmentation, loss, or drain on them itched at her mind and made her uneasy. She never planned to expand her grasp or capability with the skill beyond what most of the Joketsuzoku did, that being something the size of a small traveling pack. In the case of the Hidden Weapons technique, she believed less to be more. After all, if she had so little ki for anything else, how could she fly, or fight, or even move and work at her peak?

No, it was not a skill she would master. Use lightly, however, yes indeed.

Ranma unpacked two books, some crude pencils, and a scroll of paper. Finding her latest dog-eared page, the redhead went to work practicing her Kana, dubiously attempting to catch up to a level that other young people her age would be at in such things. She could read and write Mandarin only barely, though speaking it was nearly second nature now since being immersed in the Joketsuzoku culture for a year, but she was not going to be traveling within China. Japan had its own language, and her grasp of writing it wasn't great. Being essentially itinerant with her father had left large holes in her education, but worse, the lack of constant practice and use left her skills in Japanese sitting at a much lower level than her age would suggest. Though she knew what work she did during her trip was mostly futile, with how much time she had to work with, Ranma continued with her practice. One thing she had definitely understood the lesson of, having been the ignorant and practically illiterate guest of those warrior women, was knowledge had quite a lot of power.

Her second book helped to remedy some of her more blaring faults.

It was, ironically, a Joketsuzoku's guide to dealing with the outside world. Basic etiquette, common pitfalls, a brief run-down on cultural mores and normal behavior. As a culture essentially cut off from the greater world and content to be so, the warrior tribes had done what they could to make any excursions to the world around them as painless as possible. It amazed Ranma for a while, initially, that the Joketsuzoku chose to live as they did. Sure they lost a few youths to the draw of the modern world – Cologne was working on persuading the other Elders that it was time for another boost in their own level of technology – but surprisingly, those that traveled abroad often returned with not only prospective husbands, but sometimes sisters as well.

As Cologne once put it, there was an appeal to their lifestyle, that the modern world could not match. To live each day by skill, in a world without pollution, without the eternal nuisance of overbearing government, with only one's own honor as a moral compass, rather than a huge snarl of staggering laws. Oh, the Joketsuzoku had their own laws, but they weren't terribly complicated, until one became entangled in a warrior's honor and the protection of their secrets. To save face and maintain their strength, outside threats had to be dealt with quickly and finally. Either they were annihilated, or assimilated. The security and future of the village demanded no less.

Ranma paused in her writing practice, frowning as she considered that. "Will they send an assassin for me, then? A spy, to see if after I tie up my loose ends, what I'll do?" She nibbled on the blunt side of her pencil idly. "Cologne knows what I'm capable of... would she risk me as an enemy?"

She knew she was powerful. Even before the curse, her abilities were well beyond those of similar-aged Joketsuzoku. Adding in what Rashiel's gift gave her... she could possibly, if unlikely, stand her ground against an Elder for a few minutes. She wouldn't win, but she wouldn't be a total loss either. The thought of fighting against the Joketsuzoku sapped what little good mood she retained from the midday's sunshine, as Ranma scowled in thought.

Killing was not something she was a stranger to. Not since the first Musk raid against where she was training with some younger warriors, and the realization of what the beast-men did with their captives. It was the first time she'd spilled blood willingly with the intent to kill, and the first time she'd manifested the sword that had eventually become somewhat iconic to her. Protecting the other young women had been a priority, and seeing that the Musk were well into their blood – and other – lusts, she'd had no choice. The Joketsuzoku would have executed them anyway, later, she had rationalized, but that excuse didn't clean her hands.

It had been the dreams, that finally scoured her imagined stains free. Not by lessening them, but by drenching the young martial artist. Almost as if it had been a trigger, the dreams of war began. Dreams of killing, of being wounded, of laying sick and feverish for weeks under poisons unknown. Dreams of burning twisted and dark icy citadels to ash, of hunting the Defiled, and of constant, unending, uncompromising war. Dreams of losing family, friends, loved ones, even entire cities... and later, dreams of loss so biting it left her curled up and retching into her pillow. Those dreams turned vile, bitter, and vengeful in ways she couldn't imagine, and more often than not, Ranma woke herself in a cold sweat after them.

Those memories of hundreds of years of war changed her, the redhead knew. It would have been impossible to come through unscathed, from them. Ranma would make the effort, as she always had, to end her fights peacefully. She would, as much as she could, restrain herself and match her opponents fairly. She would, as soon as it became clear, end the possibility of a real threat becoming more than just a risk.

If it became a fight between herself and one of the Joketsuzoku, then she knew what the stakes would be.

Finding herself utterly unable to concentrate, Ranma snorted and shoved her 'schoolwork' into the small satchel after removing a single clean large towel, wrinkling her nose as she tucked the bag behind herself and into nothing. Laying the towel on the roof of the ship's bridge, the redhead peeled off her clothing, folding and setting it aside.

"If I have to sit out in the sun and wait, may as well sun while I wait," she commented to the clear blue sky above.

–

Night finally came, and with it, the last leg of Ranma's trip. The tanker had covered a fair bit of distance, and it looked like she would be able to make it to her destination before it got much later, rather than just making landfall. Judging the time right, she twisted at her inner energies, letting her wings flare out behind her as she leapt into the air in a single motion. A few minutes of steady climbing, and she was gliding East toward Tokyo on the ocean-borne thermals.

"Nerima," she muttered faintly against the rush of metropolitan air. It wasn't as bad as the tanker, but had its own unpleasantness. Ranma didn't recall city air, the few times she'd smelled it, bothering her that much before. "Spent too long out in the wild," she surmised, forcing herself to speak Japanese with a little effort.

Considering her current state, the redhead grudgingly decided she needed either a change of clothes, or to wash her own. Opting for the former, she found a moneychanger who also offered some directions. She grinned afterward, at his confusion on asking which way Nerima was 'as the crow flies'.

Changed into a gender-neutral black, collared, button-down shirt that she'd done a quick sewing job on to give it vents in the back for her wings under some discreet pleats, and a pair of loose if thick white silk pants, Ranma felt wholly better about things. Clean clothes made a lot of difference in one's world view. A quick shower courtesy of a swimming pool changing room didn't hurt things either. The stall was tall enough so she didn't need to worry about shifting gender during her quick scrub-down, but regardless of her personal preference, Ranma shifted to female again before leaving. No sense in ruining the surprise by accidentally tripping over her target. She wanted to know why Genma left from his own lying, deceitful, thieving mouth, faced with a stranger, not his son. The man had too many wiles to deal with, as 'Ranma'.

There were two addresses she needed to scope out, in her attempt to find Genma, and the first had come up empty, initially. The postcard was mostly illegible, having been soaked before it was found during those first days after the Joketsuzoku warriors ran her father off, but the address at least survived. The name gave her pause, however. "Saotome? He managed to keep a house...? Nah. Has to be like a sister or something," she mused. Though she'd seen the name on the postcard, it hadn't hit home that she may have more relatives alive than just her father. Seeing that name on a home's tile made a part of her heart she'd long thought numb clench painfully. Ranma took in the property for a moment, noting the small feminine touches, but also quite a few details that reminded her of Genma. "Strange..." Confused and unsure of herself, Ranma sped off into the night to find the first address, thinking that she may have missed something.

On the way, she'd claimed some yakitori from a nearby vendor, and was currently nibbling on the sauce-stained stick when she saw her prey and a woman walking down the street, beside another middle-aged man and what looked like a small child of eight or nine years. Clenching the stick between her teeth, Ranma debated again which form she should approach in... and why. After only a little more than a year, Genma wouldn't have any problems recognizing her birth form, and she wanted answers... not a lot of crap about being ungrateful and dishonorable for taking a year to come back from the dead.

A slow, cruel smile spread across her face. "May as well introduce him to the curse while I ask..."

–

Tucking in her aura and energies as tight as possible, Ranma paced the small group as they walked. Despite her efforts, both the long-haired man with the mustache and her father seemed to at least know something was up. "Damn it," she cursed quietly. "Well, they do have a few decades on me yet. Best do this soon."

Ki was shunted into that hungry vortex in her core, and her body practically sang with the aether flowing through her. The call for her weapon was held at bay, merely a thought. On the street, the two older men stopped the small group, looking around warily.

Through keen ears, Ranma heard her father, "Old friend, was that...?"

"No, Saotome, I don't think so. It didn't feel the same."

She didn't let them discuss it further; her time was now. Leaping and taking to the air, she circled once to get the proper angle of attack, but also made no attempt to stifle the noise of her wings. Another twist against her core brought her sword into being in her hand, the massive thing seeming nearly as large as she was. As the four looked up to her position, finally tracking her, she dived in a falcon's stoop. The group of older people and one child hopped back in surprise and to gain a better defensive position, though the figure before them didn't seem to be attacking... yet.

With a crash and crack of shattered pavement, Ranma landed with her sword leading in a downward thrust. The aether-forged blade, reinforced with more of the same, easily sank into the pavement after her dive into the street some meters before them. Drawing herself back up from the kneel she'd fallen to in landing, Ranma flared her wings out with a furious snap, ripping her blade from the battered pavement. "Genma Saotome," she hissed, turning to regard the man fully, ice-blue eyes practically glowing. "For your actions at Jusenkyo, I demand answers!"

Genma's mind worked furiously. He had done a lot of things in his life he had come to regret. After rejoining his wife a little over a year before, there had been many long and cold nights where his sins had come to light, and been... explained to him, by Nodoka. The Kuonji girl's issue and claim had nearly destroyed his new life all over again, but by some stroke of luck, Nodoka's father had connections to the Kuonji clan, or at least some sway. The girl had dropped her vendetta after a call from her father, though she swore that some day there would be a reckoning.

It was a pattern that would repeat. It seemed that once he stopped his travels, all of Genma's actions caught up with him, and without Ranma as a buffer, the old man had to deal with the consequences himself. Nodoka had been as understanding as possible, but refused to let the 'sins of the father' come home to her unborn child. As she'd said, "I lost one child to your foolishness, and though I cannot forget it, I am working to forgive you. It will take time. But no more, Genma. No more. If I believe you're even thinking of sliding back into man that you became because of your Master's influence, you will rue the day you took my family name and stained it."

He had little choice but to believe her, as he was at the time, chained up and held upside down over a pit of spikes in the Saotome... training facilities. Nearby his wife's family had stood with approving smiles at her declaration.

Truly, the life of a martial artist was fraught with peril.

But he was seriously beginning to wonder if karma planned on giving him a break sometime before he was dead, if it was sending vengeful angels at him now instead of spurned former fiancees for his departed son.

Genma's eyes darted about, and he internally winced at what he saw. There weren't a lot of witnesses, but there were enough. His own curse had been made common knowledge some time ago, and at the rate things were going, so would news that some divine messenger had come demanding his head. He was debating the chances of being able to grab his wife and run, when the same woman's hand fell on his shoulder. "...What do you mean?" Nodoka asked levelly, though the frisson of anxiety and old hurt were clear in her voice.

As the avenging angel stood fully, the others present and watching looking between the woman and the winged individual. Ranma took in her father's companion with cold eyes, missing the small connections people were making around them. Dispassionately she replied, "This doesn't concern you."

"As a Saotome, I assure you that it does," the woman stodgily responded, but flinched back slightly at angry tensing in the younger redhead's shoulders.

After a year of stewing and mulling over her abandonment, Ranma had little patience for other delays. Ignoring the woman's claim, figuring she'd assumed right that it was her father's sister, Ranma returned her glare to Genma. All her pretense at trying to be crafty in getting her answers was blown away, as anger and betrayal welled up bitterly in her heart. "A year. I waited that long for you to come back. But what does my coward of a father do? He runs away.

"Everything I remember about growing up with you, once I began to think about it, was you running away," Ranma venomously declared, missing the confused looks she was getting as her tirade continued. "Every time you stole food to stuff that gullet of yours while I went hungry, when you pushed me in the way of the people you cheated. Running away.

"Every time you refused to answer me on why you had to train me till I was broken and bleeding. Running away.

"Every deal you sold me in, before stealing me back in the night like the thief you are, more of you just being a coward and running away!"

The sound of wings snapping through the air was the only warning Genma received, before he was bent around the broad-side of a greatsword from a punishing backswing. Rolling with the impact, the larger man was shocked at how much strength the petite redhead could put into such a hit, but didn't linger on it. Tumbling into a defensive crouch, Genma looked to where the girl had been, frowning, "What, after all that noise you're running..." the bald martial artist noted where everyone was staring with wide eyes, and spared the sky a moment's attention before paling. "...away? Oh crap."

"Tempest Wave!"

Ranma's lips peeled back in a feral grin, as her modified Shark Fist roared through the space between her and Genma. The five ki-infused dragons of air slammed into the ground where the rotund man had been with the force of an exploding bomb, scattering pavement and concrete around like so much shrapnel. She'd launched herself airborne after her initial attack, just so she could unbalance her father with a display of exotic Joketsuzoku ki techniques. It wouldn't do to give herself away just yet, with a full-contact unarmed battle, she mused, forgetting how her earlier statements gave her away in her rage.

While she was still hanging in midair, Genma made the attempt to take the fight to the redhead, only to lose the arm of his Gi as the winged menace started slashing with her blade meters away. The air pressure alone from her strikes were tearing cuts in his clothing and fending him off, much to Genma's concern.

Not yet content with her efforts, Ranma again dived, dismissing her blade. She was met by a not-quite-so-rattled Genma, as he regained his poise with a triumphant smirk. Falling for the ruse, Ranma had no other recourse, and dropped the flow of aether to her wings, dismissing them. Her dive altered drastically with the change in aerodynamics, but not enough to fool her father. Slipping under her extended kick, the older man grappled and spun them in the air, intent on using her fall to crash her bodily into the ground.

Ranma countered with a mid-spin breakout and grapple of her own, completely transferring all of the momentum from her dive and Genma's lunge into horizontal spin. Each of the airborne Saotomes were familiar with the tactic, though one was shocked to see it used against him.

Genma's surprise let Ranma have the first opening, as she caught him with a vicious axe-kick to the collar that nearly shattered bone. Unwilling to give up the aerial fight where his school excelled, the larger man snagged his foot under the girl's knee, twisting to bring his other leg into play. The impromptu leg-lock was unexpected, and all of Ranma's efforts to keep the upper hand were lost as both combatants slammed into the ground.

Along the improvised sidelines the eyes of Nodoka and Soun were intently tracking the fight. "She's... isn't that...?"

"The Saotome Ryū," Nodoka muttered in agreement to her husband's friend, brows knit in thought. "Definitely my husband's school. But... why would this girl know it? How could she?"

Snarling in anger, Ranma flipped backwards to get space and her feet back under her. As soon as she touched down, she let the crouch continue, till only a single finger was against the ground. "Bakusai Tenketsu!"

The ground beneath the girl exploded, though the surprise of those around was short lived as another shout was heard from the heart of the sudden mass of broken pavement and stone "Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!"

Genma had to resort to the Umisenken's Yasha Tankai Hō to gather all the dart-like shards of rock and debris into his own Gi after shucking the garment off, spinning in place to bleed off their velocity. Once he'd weathered the storm, the now boulder-sized collection of scree was hurled at the petite redhead, followed by a pair of wide-sweeping arm strikes. Disdaining to announce his own attacks, Genma also didn't wait to see the results. He expected the Kijin Raishū Dan's compressed negative pressure blades to strike the bundle and send the collection of rock flying like a grenade, which would hopefully give him an opening to end the crazy fight. His opponent was knocked off her feet again, and slammed back-first into a building with a cry of pain. Having a moment to catch his breath, Genma smirked as he closed on the redhead, "Out of tricks already? And here I was starting to take you seriously!"

Ranma was getting seriously ticked off at the old man. Dragging herself out of the small crater she'd made, Ranma snarled inarticulately at the form from her vengeful dreams. Her intent shifted with her anger, and it showed as her wings snapped back into place, armor flaring to life across them and her body unbidden. White feathers lost their sheen, dimming, then tarnishing into an oily black as those nearby watched. The armor did not go untouched by the strange transformation, either. Vastly complex and fluted in places, the tooled silvery armor seemed more decorative than functional if of a vicious design. Though it had appeared clear and pristine when it manifested, it too soon tarnished and blackened, mirroring the anger and hatred coursing through the redhead that bore it.

Untouched was the blade that returned to Ranma's hand, and though it too seemed made to some unknown aesthetic, it certainly was not there just for show. Rage fueling her actions, Ranma spread her fingers wide on a hand that shimmered and grew clawed, as a circle of arcane symbols flared into life, contained themselves in a series of interlocked circles that began to spin in the air. Black wings curling forward and glowing balefully, the circle too flared, drawing power from them.

Realizing that goading an opponent like the one he faced may not be the smartest move, a few things slammed into Genma's mind that the fight had initially made him miss. The accusations at the beginning, the aerial prowess, the resemblance to Nodoka... "No. It can't be..."

Something in her father's eyes caused Ranma to snap out of her fugue, and with some shock she realized what it was she was aiming at the old man. Abruptly, the flow of power into the circles ceased. Distantly, she recalled a similar skill used during a siege to collapse a massive portion of reinforced stone and metal, and she flinched. Nothing for a block around her would have survived that kind of blast – likely not even herself, with how different her body was to the one from memory. She was getting better, but the equivalent of siege weapons were still far, far beyond her ability.

Through her wavering resolve, Genma saw another chance. Ranma saw her father's eyes go sharp with the realization that she was hesitating, and snapped out her hand again, a flare of aetheric power igniting there in a brief whorl that was much smaller than the one she'd nearly called on. Luckily, that power she'd summoned was already there, ready to shape. "No more running!"

She had practiced the very skill she called on for months, finally making the breakthrough that lead her to opening up other talents. All of it, just to keep Genma from doing what he did best. All of it, for this one day. She'd nearly lost herself to anger though, and found little satisfaction in seeing her efforts pay off.

It wasn't roots in the normal sense that burst from the ground to entangle Genma, who had barely twitched his muscles to begin what Ranma knew would be the Saotome Final Attack – Run Like Hell, but they resembled them superficially. Glowing faintly and apparently unbreakable if Genma's impotent struggles were any indicator, the seemingly magical lashes held him still. Ranma smiled in victory, before her expression fell into one of long-expected glee. "I've waited a year for this day. I will get my answers if I have to carve them out of your stinking panda hide, Pops!"

Slightly to the side, Nodoka started badly, her eyes going wide as a trembling hand made its way to her mouth. That was the final piece. It couldn't be... "R...Ranma?"

The avenging apparition paused, looking at the woman who spoke sharply. "Who are you, and what do you know about that name?"

Nodoka held her ground. "...Son?"

Her steps faltered, and the shock of that one word caused her focus to shatter. With it went the sword in her hand, the wings flaring angrily behind her, the shining armor that encased her, along with the bindings holding Genma in place. Face blank in her surprise, the redhead turned fully to the woman. "What... what did you just call me?"

Without the intimidating span of her wings or the threat of her sword in hand, the person before them became much less unreal and intimidating, and the family resemblance between the older and younger redheads was clear. So too, was her slight if buxom frame, giving her an air of youth she'd lacked before. Her apparent age aside, it was becoming clear to Ranma's stuttering and rapidly refocused mind, creeping in during that long expectant pause to whisper "she looks like I do, now," into the silence.

That silence was broken when Genma dashed forward instead of fleeing as Ranma had expected, wrapping the petite redhead in a crushing hug. "Ancestors! You're not dead! I thought... how? You fell and all I saw was red in the water!"

Her mind a blank at what was going on, which was far, far outside of her expectations, Ranma pulled her braid forward. It wasn't truly needed – her shock-red hair was very apparent, after all – but the motion brought Genma's focus to it. His amazed expression fractured slightly. "Not blood...? I see. Why... why didn't the Guide say anything? He knew every pool there, why would he...?"

Her mind still whirling in mild shock, Ranma didn't register the other woman clinging to her side and sobbing uncontrollably, or the rest of her father's words. "You... thought I was dead? Why'd you leave me there?" Ranma asked numbly, trying to find her anger and failing as she dragged her stuttering brain back into gear with some difficulty.

Genma looked away, shamefaced. "I... guilt. Despite all my discipline, you were right on some points. I am at heart... less than honorable. A coward." Shaking his head slowly, the older martial artist closed his eyes. "There aren't any other excuses. I was afraid, and could only see the terrible things my imagination let me see."

To say Ranma was stunned that the man she remembered would say such a thing was understatement. Added on to that was the woman at her side, still sobbing and muttering into her shoulder how she never wanted him to go on that damned trip and how he can't leave her again. Unsure what else to do, overwhelmed by what had happened, Ranma's resolve crumbled and a sensation of panic gripped her. This wasn't how things were supposed to go! She was here to get answers! Vengeance!

Pulling her arm free of the sobbing woman, Ranma backed away, a fearful light in her eyes. "I... I can't..."

Alarm was clear on Genma's face, as he watched the girl who was his son back away, fear clear in her eyes. "Son, just calm down-"

"It wasn't supposed to be like this!" A burst of wind swept away from the unbalanced redhead, as she grimaced and clutched at her chest. Unbidden, her wings started forming at her back, only this time rather than flaring with a burst of light, they seemed to draw inward, building themselves from vortices of shadow. "You... weren't supposed to... and her," the redhead pointed, as oil-slick, inky darkness swirled about the girl's form, building a defense around her out of reflex as her mind reeled. "My mother? I don't even remember having a mother!" Her scream faltering, Ranma backed further away, flinching away harshly as she saw the other two people who had accompanied her parents move toward her with upraised, calming hands. "S-Stay away!"

"You're obviously very upset," the long-haired man with the mustache soothed, stopping in his advance. "I don't know what's happened to you since your father left-"

"He left me there to die!" Ranma screeched, as the whorl of shadow-stuff about her snapped into place. Black and wicked of design, the darker incarnation of the girl's armor seemed half-intended for flaunting her full figure, as much as providing a very dual-edged defense. Spikes at the elbows and knees, with grand arching blades at her shoulders, and a back-mounted flaring skirt of oily-sheened metal that resembled bat's wings, the suit seemed a sinister counterpoint to its lighter opposite's design. Crowning her head, quite literally, was a black band of metal that expanded behind her head into an intricate patten, bearing massively curving horns that began behind Ranma's head, curving around and below her ears to end in sharp points, jutting forward before her face.

Complementing and completing her transformation, Ranma's wings were as wicked and daunting. Pitch and bearing a raven's sheen, the dark feathers seemed to exude a sensation of corruption and malice.

Clearly intimidated by the diabolic image, Genma backed away slowly as the slight figure's burning gaze turned his way. "I... I thought you were dead, son. I-"

Ranma had no interest in listening to the man, only snarling incoherently while swiping her hand at him. Instinct alone let the man mostly escape the cleaving force from her clawed and gauntleted hand, though he took a wide and bloody gash in his thigh regardless. Her distraction gone, Ranma sprang up into the air, beating her wings for a moment as she hovered nearby, before disappearing into the afternoon gloom.

–

"Yeah," Ranma muttered, around a half-eaten loaf of hard travel bread, "that didn't go how I wanted it to at all."

She still had trouble believing, after all the things she'd gone through in the time with the Joketsuzoku, that she'd lose her head like she had. Worse yet, she'd tapped into that part of her cursed form's skills that marked the last segment of that form's memories. The time she refused to think on, where everything changed for the worse.

"Kinda kidding myself though," she muttered to the darkened sky above. "Everything about this form's defined by those last years. The sword, the armor... half those skills." Heaving a sigh, Ranma choked down the mouthful of food she was eating, despite how it seemed to turn to ash in her mouth. Throwing the rest to the ground for the birds to scavenge, she stood from where she'd fled, the nighttime gloom heavy on the small park.

Before she'd taken five steps, her instincts flared and she leapt back, half blinded by the beam of light and heat that had seared the ground near where she'd recently stood. Dropping into a crouch, she extended her senses, but kept her ki wound tight. She'd burned a lot of her reserves on flying and Genma earlier, and honestly wasn't up to another fight, not that she expected that to matter. Polite opponents don't shoot first, then introduce themselves, after all.

As if her thoughts were some kind of trigger, her most recent foes stepped into the light of the park, causing the redhead to blink owlishly. The girls were young – younger than her – and as they struck dramatic poses, announcing themselves, Ranma stood staring in stark confusion.

"Parks are for romantic rendezvous and playing, not for demons to hide in! In the name of the moon, we will punish you!"

Ranma had to wonder if she'd imagined that attack earlier. These girls couldn't possibly be-

'Move!'

Ranma didn't question the imperative that blazed through her mind, only following its intent. Again, some kind of spell or ki attack blistered the ground where she'd recently been standing, this time with fire potent enough to glass the ground it struck. Tracking back the fiery bolt, Ranma's eyes met those of a very pretty dark-haired girl, who's predominant theme seemed to be red. Incredulity was burned away with that attack, as Ranma's mind engaged into combat mode with grim efficiency born from a year of war on the Musk, and over a century of Rashiel's memories of conflict. With a clinical detachment, she placed 'names' to faces and colors, since they so conveniently offered such a clear scheme to separate themselves.

As she dodged between clumsy, if shockingly powerful, attacks, Ranma built a reference base of sorts, matching the names she'd picked to skills. Red was obviously a fire user, while Blue seemed to favor water attacks. Green could hurl ball lightning, which was, Ranma knew, frankly strange considering the nature of electricity, but not nearly as surprising as Orange and her damn lasers and almost sentient chain-whip. Blondie – since the blue in her skirt was taken by the water-user – didn't seem to be as powerful with her energy attacks, but had some interesting and unpredictable moves as well. That trick where she flung her tiara like a chakram amused Ranma, till it split a boulder in half. Soon, she was predicting and outmaneuvering the skirted girls, much to their frustration.

"She's damn slippery!" Green announced, as Ranma skated around the younger girl effortlessly, dodging her amateurish attempts at Kempo. It was clear early on in the conflict she didn't need her wings, much less her sword for these opponents, instead being perfectly capable of outmaneuvering them with only her martial arts skill. This tactic was apparently an unknown to the girls, as none of them seemed very competent at hand-to-hand or close quarters combat.

Scooping up a handful of rocks, she started flicking them at the girls, smirking as they squawked and yelled in annoyance as the impacts disrupted their little spell casts. Anger was overriding their teamwork, as she continued her assault, moving into a central position between them. For an unknown foe, such a position would frankly suicidal, but Ranma felt she had the measure of these skirted magicians. Any time now...

"It's an ground attack! Quick, someone use a water skill!"

"Damn it Meatball Head, this isn't Pokemon!" Red raged at Blonde, while Blue, Green, and Orange simply stopped to boggle at the girl with oddly ornate hair buns. Though it amused her to no end that she'd caused a break in the fighting by enticing some kind of weird comment, this wasn't the effect Ranma had wanted. Smirking nastily, she decided to play along, if it would keep things moving how she wanted.

Pulling her hands up to her chin, Ranma affected a full-body shiver. "Oh, no! Please, anything but that!"

The effect was immediate, though still amusing. Blondie stuck her tongue out at Red in apparent triumph, while Blue charged up another of her attacks, noticeably more powerful than the previous. While she was doing so, Ranma flicked another pebble at Green, smirking as it clacked off her tiara, "Hey, Sparky! Gonna sit there and wait for your little friend to finish me off?"

"Why you- Ow!"

Ranma cackled as another pebble left a welt on the girl's forehead. A sidewards glance told her Blue was nearly done. "Yeah, because really, if I can dodge lightning, what chance does she have? Care to take another shot, maybe this time you'll actually get close!"

Green snarled and whipped her hands up to her tiara, where that odd little lightning rod rose up again. Ranma would have laughed in glee had it not given her away. Rooting herself in mock horror, she stared at Green as she charged up a quick lightning strike.

Orange was yelling a warning, and Red seemed to just figure out what was going on, when there were twin calls from the two girls Ranma had been antagonizing.

"Mercury Aqua Mirage!"

"Supreme Thunder!"

Ranma dove forward, dropping to a roll and springing out of it to give her more distance as she cleared the intersection like a shot. Chancing a look behind her, she wasn't disappointed at the carnage her gambit had caused.

Green was locked into a feed cycle, as her lightning found a far-too enticing ground in Blue's water attack, which had struck the taller girl full in the chest. Blue came out far worse for wear, as the lightning sparked and arced off her body, which was seized up stiff as a board. After a timeless moment where Ranma began to think that Blue was likely going to simply explode from the massive amount of energy she'd conducted, Green's power finally cut off, leaving both to slump to the ground unconscious.

Clapping, her face set in a mocking smile, Ranma drew the remaining three skirt-wearing girls' attention back to herself. She'd had time if she truly wanted to almost literally walk around behind each of the remaining girls to disable them, but honestly didn't see them as that much of a threat. Still, her position was no longer central, just in case one of them had an ace to pull for their downed friends. "So, that was rather easy. Three left, huh? Well, step up, who's next?" She asked with light, playful grin.

"Dead Scream."

There was a moment, no more or less, between the transition from the mockingly smiling young woman they'd been fighting, to a figure from nightmare. The Senshi's opponent didn't so much as blink as she pulled a simply massive sword that seemed an artist's rendition of fire, feather, and leaf out of nowhere, to swat aside the coruscating ball of violet energy that bore down on her from the nearby darkness. Where she'd been dressed in a black top of Chinese cut and simple white silk pants before, the figure was now clad in matte black armor, that bore a frankly demonic cut and air, backed up by the massive raven's wings on her back, bearing their own wickedly bladed ornaments.

Ranma cursed soundly, the words grating on the ear as she unconsciously used a tongue from Rashiel's lifetime, rather than anything familiar to her own. "And who the fuck was that? Reinforcements?"

"Something like that," came the haughty response, as four more of the skirted girls appeared from the same direction the massively powerful attack had come.

Ranma casually reached out and back while keeping her eyes fixed on the new additions to the field, and caught the glowing tiara aimed at her blind spot, letting it spin out in her gauntleted hand before crushing it into a bent ruin. She ignored the odango haired girl's incredulous cry at her ruined jewelry. "Nice try, and good for you on not screaming out your attack first, but no prize for you, Blondie."

"My name isn't Blondie, it's Sailor Moon!"

Ranma blinked at that, sparing the girl an disbelieving look. "Really? Where's your boat?"

Blondie tugged at her hair in annoyance. "Arrrgh, not like that! We're the beautiful warriors dedicated to love and justice! The Sailor Senshi!"

Scanning the young women still standing, Ranma's brow furrowed. "So... it refers to the uniform, then? A serafuku? Wow. That's some team spirit you got there – I wouldn't be caught dead in that getup."

"Duly noted," the taller, dusky-skinned woman with the black motif replied, marking herself as both the one to speak earlier, and the one with the purple ball of death attack. "Now if you would be so kind as to stop dodging, we can let Moon purify you, and return home in time for bed, so we can get a good night's sleep. Some of these girls have school tomorrow."

Ranma couldn't help it – she liked this one. She had wit. "See, there's a small problem with that," the redhead noted, making a conscious effort to calm herself and let her ki and spirit become tranquil. The day's stress, her anger, the resentment at her denied vengeance all dimmed and dissolved under the chill of the Soul of Ice when she brought it to bear. With that change in her spirit, so too came the reversion of her armor and wings to their lighter state. "I kinda beat you to the punch."

A few incredulous stares answered her metamorphosis, though not all lost their abject aggression. "Oh, right, like we're supposed to believe you're not a demon just because you can change color?" Red snorted in a very unladylike fashion, charging her fire-bow again. "Get real."

"Yeah, if you're not evil, why'd you trick Jupiter and Mercury into frying each other like that?"

Ranma boggled at Orange for that, staring at the blonde with frank annoyance. "Hello! Who shot first and then introduced themselves while I was having a snack!"

"Yeah, probably some innocent's life-energy," the new blonde, who Ranma didn't bother to try to name since all her colors were already taken, sniped.

The idea left Ranma shuddering in revulsion however, which wasn't missed by the Senshi. "What? That's disgusting – and where'd you get that idea? I was having some travel bread, you trigger-happy nutcases!" Gesturing to the stomped and trampled remnants of her meal, the redhead snorted. "And I was meaning to feed the birds the rest when someone took a pot-shot at me!"

"Now she's admitting to poisoning innocent birds!" Blondie wailed, to which Ranma got fed up with the girl's stupidity and launched a pebble, smacking her in the middle of her forehead.

"Stop being dumb!" Ranma griped, eye twitching. This actually caused Red to snicker slightly, before she realized what she was doing and adopted a serious face again.

Oddly, it was the short girl in purple with the polearm that seemed to make the first sensible observation of the night. "She's not a negative being," the girl stated with some finality, causing the other three new players to look at her in surprise. "She's giving off energy, in fact."

Black, as Ranma had come to name the witty one, looked to the downed Blue with a sigh, before turning to Red with a raised brow. "Mars?"

Said dark-haired girl seemed to focus a moment, before her flames guttered out in her hands. "She's... oh that's just weird."

"Hey!" Ranma snapped, "I'm standing right here, you know!"

"You're converting your ki into something else," Red explained, tilting her head in Ranma's direction quizzically. "What it is, I don't know, but it's not... well, like a Youma or anything else I've seen."

The new blonde apparently didn't like standing around and fired off her own opinion, "Doesn't matter. She's already taken out two of us, so that makes her a new enemy one way or another. So, why are we still talking?"

Ranma didn't really understand this little impasse she'd found herself in, so answered Red, feeling it wasn't all that important. After all – it wasn't like there were others like herself around. "It's aether. I don't know what else to think of it as, but that's what I call it," she explained, relaxing that engine within her, dampening the already taxing draw on her own life-energy. She hoped this ended soon, one way or another, as she was quickly reaching the limit of her reserves.

Rashiel's memory of what happened after, wasn't pretty.

To the new blonde, she leveled a droll glance. "They attacked me, or are you deaf as well as lacking any kind of fashion sense?"

"Why you-" A hand on the blonde's shoulder stopped her advance, and she looked back at a stoic Black with open confusion. "Pluto...?"

"If you don't mind me asking," the dusky-skinned woman inquired, meeting Ranma's eyes with inscrutable intensity, "could you tell me your name?"

Ranma cocked her head to the side, blinking owlishly. "Well, not like it matters," she replied. "I'm Ranma of the Joketsuzoku." The cursed youth watched the woman stumble slightly on nothing, as her nearly maroon eyes got huge. "Um..."

"Family name," the woman muttered, regaining herself while the other Senshi stared on in surprise. "What's your family name?" She demanded hoarsely, her voice carrying an edge that none of the others had even come close to matching.

Narrowing her eyes at the woman, Ranma crossed her arms across her chest, incidentally letting her blade shatter and disperse into flickering motes. "...my family are the Joketsuzoku."

There was a tense moment, as the black-skirted woman stared back into blue-silver eyes. Finally, she broke that silence, "Please."

Ranma blinked, before loosing a weary sigh. Like it would matter, she rationalized to herself. "My father's name is Saotome. Are you happ- hey, are you ok? Oh, c'mon, he didn't do anything to you too, did he?"

The reason for the winged woman's question was clear, as Pluto stood shakily, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. "You... this...Ranma, what happened?"

–

Hikawa Shrine wasn't always the meeting place for the Senshi. It served its purpose well though, as their numbers grew and became too conspicuous for casual locations. The only problem was making sure that a certain nosy grandfather didn't walk in on a sensitive moment, but Rei managed to divert him well enough. Not that their most recent guest would know this.

Still, Ranma had to wonder why they were all gathered in what appeared to be the sitting room of a young woman, judging by all the accents and oddities strewn about. The shoujo manga stuffed into odd nooks and crannies, uncommon but not unknown to Ranma, only added to that impression. "Apparently," Ranma observed to herself, "the Senshi didn't have s secret base." Feeling rather out of her element, Ranma couldn't quite stifle the nervousness in her voice, "So. Um... what did you want to know?"

"For one, why'd you come with us so easily?" the new blonde, who identified herself as Sailor Uranus, asked querulously before anyone else could speak. "Is this some kind of trap you're staging?"

If it had been a single, isolated comment, Ranma wouldn't have let her temper flare. No, it was something like the twelfth, if the martial artist recalled correctly, since the woman who called herself Pluto had declared her a non-threat and asked that they speak in private and at length. Fed up with the woman and much more comfortable with anger than anxiety, Ranma leveled a scalding glare her way. "Look, I don't care who or what you are, but drop the paranoia. If I wanted to take you all out, I could have done it easy already."

The woman sniffed disdainfully, while a few of the others started looking uncomfortable. "Right, tell me another one."

She'd been cycling her ki since the one called Pluto talked the others down, and was now, if not fully recharged, at least easily able to take one of these so-called Sailor Senshi on. Ranma narrowed her eyes and stood, causing a ripple of movement among the already-wary Senshi. "Want a practical demonstration, windbag?"

"What did you just call me?"

Ranma smirked while the other Senshi drew away, as Mars started looking somewhat panicked. "Windbag. You know, someone who's all talk, and no action. So far, I think it fits you to a 'T'."

Uranus practically shook with rage. "Why you..."

"Uranus!" Pluto barked, startling the blonde out of her anger. "Sit down, and be quiet." Turning her disquieting gaze back to the now-normal looking Ranma, the glare lessened, but only slightly. "And please, Ranma... don't antagonize her."

"Tell that to the tomboy," Ranma groused, getting a dire glare for her comment. In return she blew the fuming blonde a raspberry.

Pluto let her face fall into her hands with a sigh. Muffled, her voice was still clear. "Well, at least some things didn't change..."

That got Ranma's attention rather easily. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, that you're not even supposed to be like this, much less in Juuban," Pluto explained curtly, leaning back with a worried expression. "You were supposed to get your curse, and end up in Nerima with your father almost a year ago," she explained, causing the redhead's eyes to grow wide. She ignored Ranma's reaction, continuing her tired tirade, "Incidentally, it wasn't supposed to be a curse that involved wings and armor and mood-influenced levels of malevolence."

Ranma was about to open her mouth to ask what and how this woman knew what she did, when Red – Mars – yawned while putting her tea down, incidentally causing the cup to tip, spilling it on the nearest person to her.

Eye twitching below his now black bangs, a very male Ranma sighed at the stain that was spreading through the silk of his white pants. "...and I just got those too."

"What-who-how," Mars babbled, eyes widening till white shone around her irises clearly.

Glancing around the table, Ranma noted similar reactions in most of those present, excluding Pluto, which caused him to narrow his eyes. "You knew I'd get cursed. You knew my Pops and me would go back to Nerima. How? What've you got to do with all this?"

"Do? Nothing. I simply observed. What I thought I knew," the woman corrected, heaving a sigh, "goes like this. A little more than a year ago, Ranma and Genma Saotome would have gotten their curses – Ranma into being female, Genma into being a panda – and then traveled to the village of Joketsuzoku in the wilds of China. There, you would have eaten the prize for the yearly challenge, earning you the ire of a certain girl named Shampoo. Since you were female when you bested her-"

"She gave me the Kiss?" Ranma paled, imagining how his life would have gone, with his sword-sister sworn to kill him. Sure, they ended things rocky recently, but he knew Shampoo's honor. She would have tracked him to hell itself, for her pride and honor as a Joketsuzoku warrior. If he was honest with himself, Ranma wanted to go back some day, but knew he needed more time. Time to think on what it was that Cologne wanted of him, and if he could be that person. Hopefully the Joketsuzoku Matriarch wouldn't do anything rash... but Ranma really couldn't say one way or another if her ambitions were stronger than her bonds of loyalty to a friend and ally. His rocky reintroduction to the Saotomes – including his mother! – only complicated things.

Pluto nodded, a wry smile bending her lips. "Both of them, actually," she commented, causing the cursed boy before her to nearly fall out of his chair. "But I'm getting ahead of myself. You would return to Nerima, to learn Genma had made an arrangement with Soun Tendo-"

"...to marry one of his daughters," Ranma interrupted again, nodding impatiently. "Yeah, I found that much in my old man's things, after he left me for dead in the Spring of Drowned Girl."

The emerald-haired woman winced, as a few of the Senshi shared surprised looks at that facet of the story unfolding before them. "Well, sufficed to say, it was a... bumpy engagement."

Ranma snorted. "I can imagine, considering he used to sell me off on a whim, while we were on the road. Bet that finally caught up with us." Seeing the woman's surprise at his words, Ranma snorted. "So I didn't remember?"

"No... how do you, now?"

"The Joketsuzoku," Ranma explained simply, reaching up to rub at the scar above his hairline in a thoughtful gesture. "After they took me in, my memories were a mess. Not to mention, my views on some things. After a year among an entire village where everyone that matters is female, I kinda got over Pop's chauvinistic ways." Leaning back, the pigtailed youth got a distant look in his eye. "Had a lot of reason to keep my memories clear. Anyway," Ranma dismissed, folding his hands below his chin in a peak. "What next?"

Pluto spared him a hooded gaze. "Many things. Things I won't explain... except to say that a little over two years later, you were supposed to arrive here, and meet the Senshi."

"They as trigger-happy then, as now?"

"Hey!"
"I said I was sorry."

"Someone can really hold a grudge."

Ranma ignored the various mutters, in favor of watching Pluto, as she explained things. "It doesn't matter," she finally stated, frowning severely. "Things have already changed far too much."

Shrugging, the martial artist noted the woman's discomfort, but didn't understand it. "So? I got here early. What's the big deal?"

"It means the Gates were wrong," Pluto pointed out, which made no sense to Ranma, but judging by the sudden near-panic in the room from the others, apparently meant this was a very bad thing. "You were supposed to encounter the Senshi, and end up training them to be better fighters, after facing the things that went on while living in Nerima."

Standing, the tall woman began to pace. "That training became critical, when things escalated for the Senshi at that time." A light blush colored the woman's features, as she looked away hurriedly. "This... something went terribly wrong.

"And I don't understand how," she concluded in a fierce hiss, startling those near her.

Ranma swallowed, having clearly understood a few things from how the woman was speaking, and what she said. Clearly, the woman had something that let her see possible futures, or was a diviner of sorts, neither of which were concepts totally unknown to Ranma. He'd heard tales of a lost artifact of Cologne's that did something similar, and there were Musk oracles that were frighteningly accurate. "When... when did you last check on this future?"

Pluto regarded him evenly. "Yesterday."

–

It would have seemed like an almost romantic setting, if one didn't know who the two people walking slowly side by side were, or what had just been discussed. The Shrine's grounds were well-kept, clean and level, with blossoming trees swaying in a gentle wind. Above, since night had fallen some hours ago, the half-moon shone down, faintly illuminating the pair.

Ranma took this in, as he walked slowly with his hands folded behind him. "So, this other me was something important, wasn't he?"

The emerald-haired woman nodded, her silence unbroken for a long minute. "He was... important to a number of dreams."

Ranma understood, but didn't want to bring attention to the subtext the dusky-skinned woman was clearly implying quite yet. "And now it's all ruined."

Heaving an uncharacteristic sigh, the typically stoic Senshi of Pluto turned to regard the black-haired youth before her. "You were noble. Unerringly noble, even if it was a rogue's code. The things you held highest were honor and the protection of those that needed it." Smiling a slow smile, the woman laughed, slow and quiet. "You weren't perfect. Not at all, and sometimes you made things worse, for your efforts... but you always finished what you started. You were the knight in shining armor, but it was so rough and unpolished. It was like watching a man who had built himself up to being a king, all by his own blood, sweat, and tears... but rather than being some idealized figment, he was still human."

The martial artist blinked once, somewhat taken aback by the warmth in the woman's voice. "You loved him."

"I loved him," the woman agreed, drawing in a slow breath. "But I couldn't touch him. His heart belonged to another."

Ranma frowned taking a few more steps into the darkness. Pluto, still in her Senshi form, moved with him. "Going to guess it was one of those daughters of Tendo's."

"Actually, no," the emerald-haired woman admitted, laughing bitterly. "Though you did marry her – that daughter I mean – your heart... it was duty and honor that drove you to marry. You were steadfast and did what you felt was right, but it wasn't love in that way you felt for her.

"Your heart belonged to your childhood friend Ukyo," she explained, getting a stunned look from the cursed young man. Seeing his expression, she tilted her head. "What is it?"

Swallowing thickly, a number of things played through the martial artist's mind, first and foremost, though, he voiced, "But Ukyo's a guy!" Pupils narrowing to pinpricks despite the deep shadows offered by the night, Ranma paced nervously in a small circle. "Oh man, does this mean my curse got locked? Or... maybe I go..." staring hollowly, he shivered from head to toe.

"Ranma," the Senshi chided, shaking her head slowly. "Ukyo is a girl. And no, she's not cursed – she's always been a girl."

His legs giving out at that last shock, Ranma sat hard on the cool ground, unmoving for a long moment. Finally letting gravity take over, let he let himself fall backwards, staring up at the sky's faint haze, and the half moon that lit it from behind. "Man... maybe I should stop asking questions."

Kneeling nearby, Pluto's Guardian nodded with a distant air about her. "Perhaps so. It has been a long day of revelations, after all."

Turning his head to regard the woman nearby, Ranma had to admit in that maelstrom moment where his defenses were down... she was rather pretty. Her features were clean and sharp, foreign he realized with a slow blink. There was more than that, however, that pulled at his attention. Ranma listened to that new sense that had come with his curse, as he had so many other times, in dealing with people he wanted to gain a better understanding of. It wasn't familiar from his memories of Rashiel, but similar to how she dealt with aether, in her home. Doing so with ki just came naturally, as his body was different in fundamental ways, even while he was in his cursed form. His senses, tuned to the movement of life, scented at the woman's aura. As if sensing his probing inspection of her, the woman turned to regard him, meeting his eyes directly.

Ranma inhaled slowly, the depth of loneliness and distance there hitting him like a nearly physical thing. Recalling all the things she'd said about this other 'Ranma', that she'd come to admire and love, he looked away. It felt so strange being shamed by a memory of himself.

"I'm... I guess I'm not like that Ranma," he muttered up at the sky. "I'm not as noble as that. I mean, for the last year, I've been doing nothing but training for the day when I'd find Pops, and beat the truth out of him over why he left me.

"Not much noble about that," the cursed teen admitted with a shuddering sigh. "I've fought, killed... hell, I've leveled entire villages, in that stupid border war between the Joketsuzoku and the Musk." Closing his eyes against the memories, Ranma shook his head slowly. "I don't even know where my honor stands, anymore. I call myself Joketsuzoku, but... I can't be that either. I can't bring myself to bend to their laws, despite a year among them. What Pops taught me's been getting fainter, since he left me, but he always went on about not abusing that power, and not abusing the Art. I've done both. A lot."

Kipping up to his feet suddenly, Ranma shook his head hard. "I came here for vengeance, and then when I was faced with my Pops and the mother I didn't even remember, I freaked the hell out and ran away. I never even thought beyond that moment." Staring down at the woman who was still kneeling nearby, Ranma smiled sadly. "I'm... sorry I'm not him."

Not knowing what to say – what she could say, to that – the Senshi of Pluto simply looked back to her clenched hands, tucked in her lap.

"Look. I'm obviously... causing a problem," Ranma gritted out, so unused to being in such a swell of emotions that had come up recently. "So, I'll just say I'm sorry for spooking everyone, and that you'll probably not see me around," he concluded, moving with new determination for the Shrine's gateway.

The Pluto woman, he easily admitted, seemed like an awesome planner, with a powerful tool to help her. Capable, and with clear goals. She would find someone else to train the other Senshi, someone that probably fit in with their ideas better than a blooded Joketsuzoku warrior, whose life had been turned into a broken vow for vengeance. Somehow, he just didn't see himself being what they needed, or would need as the case was, with the Senshi's declaration to be 'soldiers of love and justice'.

"The future I worked for," the woman stated suddenly, breaking Ranma's stride and thoughts like a soap bubble. He turned, noting her voice had gone dead and lacking inflection, "that future was a nightmare. It was... the world covered in ice. Dead. There was no summer, but magic meant that the one city that remained, prospered.

"My Queen had hoped to purify the world," she went on, as a slowly horrified Ranma listened. "She was young and... foolish. She though that by purifying the world of evil, it would let people live in harmony. In a way, she was right. She tried. It worked. But human nature is not a simple thing, that can be sieved like sand, to find pebbles and separate silt. Nor is nature.

"And we must always, always remember that good and evil are such subjective things," she concluded, reaching up to flick away an errant tear. "She grew from that mistake into a good ruler almost overnight. She lost her innocence. It made things easier, later, when what had to be done was again terrible. She'd already damned humanity, what was one more blow? She was broken when Earth all but died, but rather than drown in sorrow, she promised to make it right. And she did. But it took so much time."

Through her words, Ranma realized he was walking back to the woman, to kneel before her, as she had knelt before him recently. "You didn't stop this nightmare?"

Pluto laughed, though she made no sound. Regardless, her frame shook slightly. "I couldn't. For all my power, that... that ruin was the best chance, the only chance I could see." Taking a handful of deep, gasping breaths, the skirted woman's expression cleared, her face calming after minutes of dwelling in her own self-hate. "I wanted to. Oh how I wanted to... do you have any idea how it feels, to know that you were planning the death of billions?"

"My Queen, my first Queen, charged me with protecting her legacy, humanity, and the future. I spent hundreds of years frantically planning, working, skulking from the shadows and shaping the best course for humanity. I gifted the brilliant, I slew the terrible, stood by and let the righteous fall, and turned my back as tyrants rose," she whispered, voice hoarse and thick, while large, unbidden tears marched down her cheeks. "All for the chance at a bright future. Then, it all turned to ice. All I could see, was ice."

Suddenly, Ranma's worries on how he'd let the Art and the code his father had tried to beat into him become dirtied, seemed far, far less damning. Hesitantly, haltingly, he reached out and settled a hand on the shaking woman's shoulder. "What was the alternative?" he asked quietly, before continuing before the woman could answer. "You already said that was the best you could manage. The only thing. It was a terrible choice to make, to put on one person. I can't imagine being... anything after doing something like that," he admitted, trying and failing to think of what a decision like that would do to him.

Pluto sobbed once, a choked and despairing sound. "I've worked so hard. Given so much, and after it all, I know I'll just... feel like more of a monster than anything we've faced. Maybe I save the future, but the cost," shaking her head hard, the woman shuddered again, having never spoken these things to anyone, feeling bare and vulnerable. Had the man before her been anyone else, she'd have never risked such a moment, but this was Ranma. Even if it wasn't her Ranma – Setsuna laughed bitterly at that thought – it was still, on some level, the same caring, noble man. "I'll sacrifice my soul for that future, I will every time. But I don't have to like it. Don't have to be at peace with that idea."

"Then you're not a monster," Ranma declared sternly, shocking Pluto into raising her eyes to meet his own. "A monster wouldn't worry about those things. Wouldn't feel remorse, of regret," he explained, having clear memories of things that very clearly were monsters. Putting aside his own anxiety at human contact, Ranma sat near the sobbing woman and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her lightly.

As she calmed, Ranma let his mind bend to the problem presented. Honestly, he had no reason to help these so-called Senshi, no tie to them. He would be perfectly justified to walk away and never look back, after the attack earlier, but something about their determination, their innocence and hope called to him. It reminded him of how he'd been, before the curse, and the memories, and the war and killing. Looking at the woman breathing slowly, nearly dozing in his arms, he saw something else. Pluto, as she'd named herself, was not like the others. He had no illusions on who had lived longer, by her words, but felt there was something of a rapport there regardless. Rashiel's memories, the decades of constant bloodshed and loss, let him understand the woman better, and what it was the she strained under.

"Those Gates," he murmured quietly, feeling Pluto tense slightly as she came to attention from her near-sleeping state. "The ones that were wrong. They are what you see this future in? How you plan it?" Pluto nodded against his shoulder, and Ranma again felt a frisson of discomfort at the degree of physical contact, but stifled his impulse to pull away.

Before he had spoken, Pluto swallowed thickly, trying hard not to think about the warmth under her hands, and cheek. How so much of her recent days had been spent in bitter anticipation of soon finding Ranma, only to be unable to draw close to him. Now, it would have been only a year distant... No. She couldn't think of that now. Right now was this, here, with someone who was and yet was not the Ranma she knew. A Ranma, it was becoming startling clear to her, that was drastically changed, true, but bore fewer entanglements, while remaining the same fundamental person.

Perhaps his hands were bloodied, but could the Senshi claim else? She didn't speak on it, but Youma weren't simple, mindless, automatons. They too bore souls and destinies, hopes, and dreams. They ran counter to the Senshi's own, true, and their methods could not be tolerated, but the facts remained clear, if one had the perspective to see it.

They were warriors. They fought their enemies mercilessly, protected those that needed it, and killed their foes when necessary. How then, could she pretend to judge? Not, Setsuna realized, that she was. She nearly laughed at her own rationalizations, knowing well enough they weren't just for herself. Rather than focus on this very welcome opportunity, she instead centered her attentions on Ranma's question, mulling it over carefully. Her conclusions were not pleasant, or welcome. "If they have been wrong all this time, then everything I've done..."

"Shh," Ranma hushed, wincing at his fumble. "Let me try again. Maybe you just need a new perspective on things. Different eyes."

Deep red eyes met nearly luminous blue, blinking in confusion. "You're... offering? Why? After hearing about the future I'm trying to bring about?"

Looking away nervously, Ranma hoped the twilight hid his blush well. "For all my honor and code aren't in the best shape, I can't just sit by for something like this," he admitted. "Maybe I can help, so things change and you don't have to be that person. Maybe I can't, and it won't matter, but... I won't know till I try." Seeing the woman's expression fall somewhat, Ranma internally flinched.

Letting down the barriers around him that he'd built up, hardening his heart for that day he'd take his vengeance on his father, his expression softened. "Look... I ain't that Ranma. But I am Ranma. I don't know what he thought of you, and don't care. I..." taking a breath, the martial artist laughed quietly. "You know, sitting her with you is the most conversation I've had since China?" Seeing Pluto blink in the moonlight at his sudden shift in direction, he went on, "Maybe I won't be able to help like you want, but I can see clear as day you want it. And, that you didn't want to ask.

"You ain't trying to manipulate me like Pops did, with his insults and going on about honor or anything. You don't see me like a weapon or bargaining chip, like granny," he explained. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'd like to help you. If you'll have me."

"Me," the woman hazarded, clamping down on the hope that gripped her heart like burning iron bands. "Not us, the Senshi. You want to help me."

Feeling a shiver work up his spine from the ground to the base of his skull, Ranma nodded. It wasn't from fear, or anxiety.

–

"You want me to what?"

Despite the fact that Ranma had effectively beaten two of their number handily, Setsuna had little trouble convincing the Senshi that the cursed young man was a potential ally. Perhaps it was that fact that drove the point home, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth – pun irregardless.

Haruka was going to cause problems, she knew, at least until she and Ranma sparred seriously, after which the two would bond in a strangely eerie kind of pseudo-male camaraderie that left most everyone befuddled and blinking in confusion. At least, she hoped it still went that way, as otherwise the short-tempered Senshi of Uranus was going to cause serious friction in how the Senshi interacted in time around Ranma.

"You can't be serious – why me?"

There were other things that needed to be considered, however, and they required her attention soon. Number one on the list was getting Ranma a place to stay, as the currently-male martial artist didn't have a home to return to, according to his account on meeting the Saotomes and Tendos. She'd offer to take him to the home she shared with the Outers, but there was of course the unresolved issue with Haruka, which she hoped in time would work itself out. Even after the fact, however, Setsuna was wary. The blonde Senshi would not hesitate to drag Ranma into her and Michiru's sex life, using the curse an excuse, just to spice things up with a 'differently equipped girl'.

Setsuna's eye twitched at that particular memory of a potential future event. It sometimes amazed her the things Haruka would rationalize to herself, in the name of pursuing more interesting bedroom games. Ranma of course wouldn't have come within thirty feet of the blonde's bedroom after her overt teasing, but then again, this Ranma wasn't traumatized by years of hamfisted competition from a handful of obsessed fiancees and hopeful future wives. Or husbands, in the case of a few of the other Ranma's entanglements.

"Why not Makoto? She has room! I mean he... she?... argh!"

There was also her own temptation to think about. Setsuna honestly didn't trust herself at this point, with things so neatly falling into her lap as they had. It would be so easy to open herself up to Ranma, and just sit and talk for hours... and then she'd likely be trying to drag the cursed man off herself. No, she had things she really needed to do, and the distraction of an available and apparently receptive Ranma would not help her see them done. She shouldn't even be agonizing over this, but some concessions had to be made. An anxious, fretting, borderline-breakdown Guardian of Time was not the image she needed to portray to her allies and sisters-in-arms. Not when she had very serious work to do, that could take a very long time.

The Gates had been wrong. Not just wrong, but outright deceptive. It worried her much more than she let show, but there weren't many things in her long existence that could cause such an event... and none of them were good. Or even likely. However, she had to consider them, and with Ranma in the equation, chaos – the normal, non-capital 'C' type – was soon to follow.

"I mean what about your place? You seem to get along with him!"

Which all added up to her trying to talk Rei into letting Ranma stay at the Shrine for the near future. "You saw how he and Haruka got along – or rather didn't. No, that won't do."

Rei huffed and crossed her arms before her. "Why can't he just get an apartment then?"

"Because I asked him to stay and help us," Setsuna pointed out calmly, despite her inner voice continuing to banter on about things. "It wouldn't be fair to hold him here when he had no reason to stay, and then not help at all."

Grudgingly, the shrine maiden had to agree with that logic. "I suppose we are the only ones that could put him up, without it becoming something of a debacle, aren't we?"

"Minako... is Minako," Setsuna agreed, before counting off points on her fingers. "Mamoru is out, as he'd not in the country currently for college. Usagi's home is quite full already, and frankly, Ranma is too unsubtle to send to her. Ami's mother would never agree, and though yes, Makoto would be a good choice, both she and Ami are not ideal choices for... other reasons."

"Would that include getting their asses handed to them by Ranma?"

"His personality is somewhat grating," the other Senshi agreed, stifling the urge to sigh. "Though I doubt he'd be so confrontational to Ami, as she's typically tried to be a non-combatant, Makoto is fare game. And frankly, she'd lose the apartment to damages, or a loss of insurance in no more than a week."

Rei whistled lowly. "That bad?"

Setsuna nodded, a wry expression on her face as she looked out toward the temple grounds. "He will see it as a kind of training. Egging her on to make her try harder, move faster, thinking craftier, just to match and keep up with him. It was how he was trained, after all, and we learn from our teachers. Sadly, she won't see this – only the insults and barbs."

"He can't really be that insensitive, can he?"

"Rei, he was raised by a man who tortured him, sold him, used him as a bartering commodity, then finally abandoned him, thinking him dead." Seeing the young woman wince, the Senshi of Pluto continued relentlessly, "This was all during a decade-long training journey where he was forced to abandon his mother and his few friends who would later come to consider him an enemy, not that he knows this yet.

"He was then forced to adjust to a society that was completely counter to his upbringing, without knowing the language, locked in an alien form that the leaders there used as a tool to destroy and demoralize their foes. A society that any civilized culture would consider barbaric and backwater, lost to modern times." Leaning forward, the emerald-haired woman pinned Rei with an intense gaze. "Ranma's strength does not lie in the social arts. However, this is not his fault."

Blinking a the other woman's intensity, Rei nodded. "R-Right. I'll go set up a room."

"Thank you."

—

AN: I don't know what this thing I have about Ranma with wings is. Eh, whatever. Also, why can't I escape SM crossovers? Why? Argh.