Chapter 10: Everything has changed
Nodoka began to feel better, since she didn't feel the invisible hold's presence anymore and stood up, getting her second wind. She quickly grabbed her katana as she raced out the door towards Ranko's house. Her mind raced through many horrible images as she ran down the block in her socks, for the first time in years not worrying about soiling them. All she could think about was, what if she was too late? What if that bastard who called himself Ranko's father had killed her? She could never forgive herself if anything happened to Ranko, and swore that she would run her sword through herself if something did.
She continued running down the street, remembering the last words Ranko had said, and how terrified the girl had looked when she shouted them out, to whatever was disabling Nodoka and was choking her as she tried to help Ranko. Nodoka skidded around the corner and continued to run towards Ranko's house, hoping that it was not too late, as she ran up to the front door, slicing it off it's hinges with her sharp blade, before kicking it down and stepping inside, and then positioning herself into her family's sword stance, ready to maim anyone who stood in her way.
Ranma-chan tried to pull off the red tail that was tightly wrapped around her neck. Forgetting all about her own current predicament, she looked over to see what all the commotion was about, and to her own displeasure saw her mother entering the ominous situation. Her eyes widen, as she started kicking wildly at the devil, now having more reasons to fight back than before. She knew she had to get loose before anything happened. The devil just growled angrily at her, enraged at the feisty girl's impertinence, rolling his eyes at the mortal's attempts of escaping, before just tightening his hold around her neck, and ignoring her kicks, all together.
Nodoka rubbed her eyes in disbelief and starred at the gigantic red beast that was holding Ranko by her neck, with what appeared to be his tail. She shook her head and composed herself, before charging at the beast, and striking it on its tail with her katana. Satan hissed furiously and unraveled his tail, losing his hold around Ranma's neck.
Angry now, Ranma rubbed away at her neck, bitting down on her teeth, as her foot became a blur, kicking the devil repetitively, Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken style. At the same time, Alley poked her head out of the kitchen, before noticing that her master was in trouble, and deciding to charge at Nodoka with a knife, trying desperately to even up the odds somehow. Nodoka snickered to herself, before knocking the knife out of the woman's hand with her katana, shaking her head at Alley for bringing a knife to a sword fight. She waited patiently for the woman to try and make another move, confidently gripping her katana, ready to teach this amateur another lesson.
Onna stretched and rubbed her eyes as she slowly regained consciousness. Her eyes widened as she spotted Nodoka fighting off Alley. She tried to get up but hesitated, feeling a sharp pain shoot through her body. Still she gritted her teeth and managed to stand up. She turned her head over to Ranma, who looked very scared, fearing for both his mother and her katana, while Onna recalled the seppuku pledge. Ranma was afraid of his mother's katana, because of the promise that his father had made to Nodoka about making ranma a man among men, and that if he didn't succeed then he and ranma were to commit seppuku, and nodoka had to uphold her honor and duties of being the wife and witness to the promise, and here ranma was in girl form and very close to being exposed as a failure in his mother's eye's, and she would surely make him commit seppuku if she found out about the curse.
"Poor Ranma," she thought realizing that here he was in his girl form, at risk of the devil exposing him out of spite at any moment to Nodoka.
Satan ignoring the pain from his wound, looked over at Onna, and decided that he wasn't going to be mister nice demon anymore, he was done dealing with her defiance to him. He pointed a claw directly at onna's red gem on her necklace, and it glowed a bright red at the contact from his finger. Onna's eyes suddenly glazed over,she felt her control slipping away, the gem now glowing more brightly as Satan's commands rushed through her head. Like a puppet, she walked up behind Nodoka and grabbed her by the neck, using both hands. Satan smirked and disappeared into thin air, along with alley. He had to tend to his wounds for now and it would be that much more enjoyable having the girl hurt her own family.
Nodoka began to choke as she felt someone grab her by the neck from behind. She tried to pull the hands off her throat desperately. Ranma looked on horrified as she watched her own sister choke her mother. Thinking quickly, she remembered what the devil had said.
"Yes, I used your DNA to create her. Call it payback for not listening to me, when I tried to temp you into doing naughty things. But obviously, since I used your DNA, she just as bullheaded as you are. So I had to take different measures, to insure her cooperation," she heard him mock in her mind.
Then it hit her as she remembered that right after he had said that, he had put the necklace back on Onna's neck. Then she stopped acting like herself as soon as he had pointed his clawed finger at her red gem. That's it, it was the necklace that was controlling her! Ranma hopped up off the floor, standing up and grabbing onna from behind by the necklace, making her loose her grip around nodoka's neck, as she herself started gasping for air. Nodoka who already was in the process of passing out, spun about and fell to the ground, seeing double of Ranko before her world faded out.
Onna growled and focused her attention on ranma, and twisted her head around glaring at Ranma, she slides her leg forward towards her legs, and thrusts her leg out quickly kicking ranma in one of her's legs. Ranma kept her grip on the necklace ignoring the kick to her leg, the pain from touching the necklace was what she was focused on, even though it felt like it burned her skin as she held it, she yanked the chain tightly so it choked the other girl.
"If you don't want me to kill you, then you'd better take that necklace off.."
She yanked the chain tighter, till the girl tried to pull the necklace off herself but screamed in pain as she pulled at it and stopped trying.
Ranma took the chance and lifted the necklace off around the girls neck for her and slammed her fist into the wall against the gem shattering it. She cursed as the stone fragments burned her skin from the contact. The shattered pieces fell down to the ground and disappeared suddenly. Ranma looked over at the girl, worried that she might disappear at any moment now that her controller was broken.
Onna's eyes went back to normal as the last pieces of the shattered gem vanished into thin air, but she felt very naked now, even though she was fully clothed she patted around on the ground nervously looking all over for the necklace. Upon not finding it she hugged herself with her arms feeling disturbed , she had been so used to always wearing it, it felt like it had been part of her. She looked over at the unconscious woman on the floor blankly, that wasn't faraway from where she was. Ranma looked over at Onna with concern written on his face.
"You alright?"
Onna suddenly looked up at ranma. "I'm sorry.."
Ranma kneeled down next to her noticing her sudden change of attitude.
"It's really not your fault, you were being controlled by that necklace.. i'm sorry but I had to break it."
Onna nodded but looked away feeling very empty of feelings. Ranma noticed this and felt really bad about breaking it, it seemed like the girl had been linked to the necklace and not having it was effecting her greatly.
"I could get you another necklace I suppose.. since you are sorta my sister.."
She rubbed the back of her head nervously, hoping what she had said would cheer her twin up, or snap her out of her dreary mood. Onna still looked off in another direction with her head down not caring, but replied.
"No I'm just a clone, I'm not worth anything in this world, and I don't want to be in it.."
Ranma shook her head, the girls condition was worsening.
"Hey,don't say that! I was really happy when I figured that out ..i mean yeah I was mad at you before.. but I didn't know you were being controlled."
Ranma keep going on about how she felt about having a sibling, and all the cool things they could do together hoping the girl would change her expression or something. No one seemed to notice the hands that came through the wall next to onna that grabbed her by the shoulders and started to pull her through the wall.
Ranma stopped talking as she noticed the girl hadn't replied, and looked over at where her twin was, only to see her go through the wall disappearing
"Onna!"
Alley stepped through the wall in her she devil form.
"Sorry but she's with the master at the moment, thing's wouldn't have gotten this bad if your mom hadn't butt in and hurt him."
She noticed how angry the girl named Ranma Saotome looked at her with pure hatred and it amused her and pushed her to toy with her feelings for the girl known as Onna.
"Now next time you and your sister meet, she'll be quite different." She laughed as she walked through the wall disappearing, leaving the girl to her thoughts.
Ranma charged at the wall full speed, without thinking straight at the moment and smacked face first into the wall. She peeled herself off the wall, and shook her head around annoyed.
"Damn it.. I thought I'd be able to get through."
Then ranma turned her attention to her mother as she started to wake up and looked at her, ranma frooze up immediately. Nodoka looked around dazed as she gazed up at the redhead with concern. "Ranko are you alright?"
Ranma tried not to look at the katana that his mother clutched tightly in one her hand's, and tried to keep calm. "Yes I'm alright Auntie Saotome.."
Nodoka started to get up off the floor and dusted her kimono off, looking at the girl sternly for running off. "Ranko I told you I didn't want you coming back here to that sort of abuse.. you really worried me. Now we should go back home alright."
Before the girl could object, nodoka grabbed her arm and dragged her off towards her house, ignoring her objections.
Ranma lowered her head and tried to think of what to do, oh how she wished Onna was still around at a time like this. She wanted to be near her mother, but the whole seppuku thing was just too scary. Ranma pouted, thinking about hot water and how it always seemed to find her, whenever she was near her mother. At the risk of the curse being revealed she decided to leave now.
"Um Auntie Saotome I'm alright now ..I think I'll go stay with Uncle Soun for awhile. You should go home and take it easy though."
Nodoka nodded sadly, knowing she'd be alone again.
"Alright just as long as you don't go back home, I'll see you later then Ranko." She reached over and embraced the girl tightly, then she pulled back as she noticed the wound on her arm was gone. "My you heal fast Ranko."
Ranma blinked and looked at where nodoka was to her right arm, remembering that her twin had a wound there and thought quickly.
"Ooh um yeah I guess I do, well I'll see you later Auntie Saotome."
Ranma bolted from the area as quickly as she could, it was too much for her as she had talked with her mother whom she hadn't been with alone for years.
Satan started pounding at the piece of coal on the desk with his hammer, after he had finally broken it down into smaller pieces he stopped and laid the hammer down on the desk. Then he grabbed the two nearby demon's he had recruited and slashed both of their arms with his sharp animal like claws and then his own arm as well. He held the small piece of coal in one hand, and wiped the blood from the two demon's wounds on his other hand, wiping it off onto the piece of coal in his other hand, then he let the blood from his slash mark on his own arm drip onto the piece of coal. He smirked as there was a flash of light and the blood hardened around the coal forming a new red gem.
Onna sat in a room with her head down, sobbing, as two demon guards mindlessly stood by the door like a pair of statues. Onna thought to herself, as she sat in the chair, looking over at the demons, closing her eyes and remembering the dream from before. Satan had killed two of his demons and then let his own blood join with theirs, creating a new gem.
She now knew how he controlled her. The gem was linked to Satan because his blood was part of it. If she wanted to be free from his clutches, then she would have to use her own blood and mix it with the blood of two unsuspecting demons, and here conveniently she had two perfect guinea pigs.
She looked around the small room scanning it with her eyes, she spotted an old quill style pen that had a sharp metal piece on the end that lay on the desk, next to the small bed, then she looked over on the bed and spotted the pillow and lowered her gaze down to the sash she wore around her outfit, before grinning.
The demon guards yawned and stretched, closing their eyes for only a moment, and that's when she took action. First she snatched up the pen from the desk and stuck it in between her teeth, then she grabbed the pillow off the bed and charged at the guards smacking the pillow against their faces, and watched as a bunch of feathers exploded from the material from the amount of force she used. Then while the guards waved their arms around trying to get rid of the tiny feathers that were all over the room in the air, she untied the sash from around her waist and silently, but quickly moved behind them grabbing hold of both of their necks with the sash and started to tighten her hold on it. When she heard them cough, she tightened her hold on the sash with more force smirking and watched with satisfaction as the sash pressed deeply into their throats and they started choking.
She waited for them to hit the floor, as they did she released her hold on the sash slowly and kneeled down on the floor where they were, taking the pen out of her mouth, jabbing the sharp metal pointed piece into one of the guards arm and waited as blood started to appear. Then she pulled the quill pen out of arm, and jabbed it into the other guards arm doing the same thing, pulling it out of his arm she gritted her teeth as she jabbed the sharp pointed metal piece into her own arm till it started to bleed.
Biting down on her lip to keep from screaming from the pain, she didn't want anyone to hear her scream and come running, she yanked the sharp piece out of her skin painfully and tossed it aside glad to be rid of it. Then she reached over and stuck her finger into each demons wound letting the blood pour onto her hand, she pulled one of her hand's back and with her other hand she let her own blood pour into it. She trembled as she put both her hands together, rubbing the demon's blood in with her own and waited. A bright light flashed and the blood hardened into the form of an identical red gem, like the one she wore before.
The lock outside the door clicked as someone unlocked it, and the door started to open slowly. Onna panicked and picked up the red gem stuffing it into her pocket, and nervously grabbed the sash off the floor tying it back into place as Satan stepped into the room. Satan looked down at the unconscious guards and smirked at her.
"I see you've been busy trying to escape."
Onna tried to look as innocent as possible.
"What me escape from you.. they looked at me perverted so I had to hurt them."
Satan laughed and accepted the girls excuse for the time being.
"That seems reasonable.. now I made you a new necklace, I want you to put it on without any excuses.. Or would you like me to hurt you again.."
Onna shook her head and took the new necklace from Satan's hand and pulled it on over her head, she tensed up as it fell into place around her neck. She didn't want to put this new controller on her, but if she didn't he'd surely figure out she was up to something, and she didn't feel so naked anymore or empty since she had the necklace back.
"That's my girl, now come along with me, we're going back," he said.
Ranma stepped into the house, taking off her shoes and setting them with the other ones quietly before walking inside. Akane heard the door open and raced out to the front door to see who it was, at seeing ranma her heart raced.
"Ranma where have you been?"
Ranma looked up at akane.
"I told ya I went off to talk to that girl.. listen let's talk about this somewhere in private ok.."
Akane nodded and walked upstairs into her room, ranma followed behind her. Akane sat down on the side of her bed and waited as ranma took a seat in the chair next to her desk.
Ranma sighed, she couldn't believe that she was going to tell akane what she had just seen.
"I went to go find out what Onna, the girl from Asadaiba was doing pretending to me…and I found out."
Akane then noted how upset ranma looked.
"What did you find out ranma?"
Ranma rubbed at her head nervously, thinking if she should tell akane the next part, she finally decides to regardless of the reaction.
"I know this sounds hard to believe but.. I met the Devil.. and he told me created Onna with my DNA to frame me for evil things.. because I never listened to him when he tried to tempt me to do bad things ..the worst part is since it was my DNA she could be my sister.."
Akane's eyes widened in astonishment as she listened.
"So that girl is your sister.. is that why your so upset Ranma?"
Ranma nodded.
"But what I'm most upset about is.. that she didn't want to do any of those things… That bastard made her do it with that mind controlling necklace, and he punished her too by strangling and smacking her around, for trying to have a mind of her own." she said enraged.
Akane look horrified and suddenly felt very concerned for the girl.
"We have to save her then, since she's really not evil.. and is sort of your sister."
Ranma shook her head looking upset.
"I tried but he took her back.. she was so out of it after I broke the red gem." Ranma said, almost crying from remembering how much her twin had changed after the necklace was broken.
Akane comforted ranma as best she could with encouraging words.
"Somehow I think you'll see her again.. but she'll probably be under the devil's control again, but I'm sure you'll be able to save her again." She smiled at ranma, hoping she had gotten through to him.
Ranma looked at akane thoughtfully for caring so much and believing every word so far, till she noticed the video camera lens that peeked in through the doorway. Akane looked over at what ranma was gazing at and looked shocked and enraged upon seeing the video camera lens, it was probably mr. Saotome and her father since nabiki wasn't home yet. Akane stood up grumbling and stormed over to her door and shoved the camera lens out of her doorway and slammed the door shut. Genma fell over backwards from the impact, loosing his grip on the video camera, and dragged Soun down with him as they both hit the floor with a thud.
Ryouga meanwhile barged in through the front door of the Tendo Dojo, grasping a cup of ramen.
"RANMA! How dare you tamper with my food!"
Ranma and Akane both looked at each other as they heard the familiar voice and ran towards the bedroom door at the same time. Ranma was faster and got to there first, opening the door and racing downstairs ahead of akane, she didn't want akane getting into this like she always did.
"What the hell did I do now Ryouga?"
Ryouga held out the ramen cup towards Ranma and crushed it angrily not wanting to hear any of his excuses.
"You know what you did.. how dare you pretend not to know, I mean no one else would tamper with my food but you!"
Ranma shrugged her shoulders as the lost boy ranted on about how she supposedly ruined his stash of ramen, after hearing enough she grabbed the bucket of water that was near the doorway and flung the content's onto ryouga hoping to shut him up peacefully.
"We'll talk about it later, ok P-chan."
P-chan bweeted angrily and snorted as he charged into the air at ranma. Akane finally came down the stairs and spotted p-chan, she ran over and caught him into her embrace.
"Ooh P-chan where have you been? I missed you so much."
She snuggled the small black pig into her chest, not noticing that the pig had turned ten shades of red and spouted a nose bleed.
Ranma started to walk off, but was stopped as shampoo suddenly appeared and glomped herself onto her.
"Aiyaa we go get married now yes Ranma?"
Ranma looked at shampoo with a tired expression.
"Shampoo that wasn't me ok.. it was my sister."
Shampoo ignored ranma's excuse not thinking about it and kept snuggling her regardless of ranma's objections. Colonge hopped in through the doorway on her walking stick.
"I didn't think you'd just give yourself away like that son in law, I found it hard to believe what shampoo had told me."
Shampoo frowned as she listened to her great grandmother thoughtfully. "You mean no was ranma?"
Ranma took the chance and pulled shampoo off her while she was distracted.
"No I told you, it was my sister.. listen we'll talk about this later I need to think.."
Ranma ran off out through the front entrance, she just had to get away from all this madness. She just wanted to be alone for the time being, no interruption's or anyone telling her she wasn't allowed to show her true feelings, regardless of what gender she was at the moment.
"Shampoo go kill Ranma sister now?" Shampoo asked Cologne for permission, thinking that, 'girl who deceive amazon must die.'
"No child, that wouldn't be wise, besides there's more going on here than meets the eye," Cologne said as she watched Ranma roof hop in the distance.
Onna's eyes were glazed over as the new red gem around her necklace glowed brightly as she walked towards Ukyou's restaurant like her master had instructed her to do. Satan watched through a mirror back at the house with the Alley clone. He smiled as she neared the front door of Ukyou's restaurant. "I should've put her under my full power a long time ago."
Alley nodded as she rubbed her master's shoulders lovingly, and blushed as he reached his arm behind her back, pushing her closer to him.
Onna slid the front door's open slowly and peered inside, the light's were dimmed and it seemed no one was home at the moment. She stepped inside and closed the doors behind her as she dragged the container full of gasoline inside with her. Setting the container down on the floor she looked over to the grill and grabbed a squirt bottle of oil off the counter, she squeezed it out onto the surface of the grill making letters with the oil. She wrote out the words I LOVE YOU AKANE onto the grill and tossed the squirt bottle aside, bending down she grabbed hold of the container full of gasoline and lifted it up onto the counter. She twirled the cap off the spout and poured large amounts of the gasoline onto the grill. Then as Satan's commands rung throughout her head, she pulled the match box out of her pocket and lit one of the matches, then she tossed it onto the grill and walked out of the restaurant as the fire started.
Ukyou's eyes fluttered open as she thought she smelled smoke faintly, she thought had better go check just to be sure. With that she stretched and stood up walking herself down the stairs that lead to her restaurant, her eyes widened in horror as she saw the huge fire that spread all along the grill with the fiery words that burned I LOVE YOU AKANE. Ukyou trembled full of fear, as she ran over and grabbed the fire extinguisher that hung on the wall, and thumbled with it till she hit the switch triggering a large spray of foam that she directed at the raging fire.
Onna walked off towards the tendou dojo her red gem bouncing against her chest as she made her way closer. The command's swam around filling up her mind with nothing else, as she entered the entrance and walked past akane hugging p-chan up the stairs towards Nabiki's room. She opened the door to nabiki's room and entered looking around, no one was there at the moment. She walked over to the dresser and flung the drawer open that held the negatives and copies of the photos. Kneeling down she gathered them up into her arms and started walking off down the stairs, she sniffed the air and smelled smoke coming from the back porch area and walked towards it.
Happosai greeted Ranma as she walked out onto the porch.
"Hello Ranma my boy, have you changed your mind?"
He watched as ranma walked over to the fire he had made, and tossed whatever she had been holding into the flames. He picked up one of the loose photo's she had dropped, and his jaw dropped open as he caught sight of the photo.
"Ranma how could you burn such beautiful pictures of yourself…" He sniffled and rubbed his eyes.
Onna sneered at the little old man, with her glazed over expressionless eyes.
"Because I don't like Nabiki taking them without my permission and then selling them to who knows who. Perhaps, if she had asked first and then let me decide who she could and could not sell them to, I wouldn't have been forced to do it," she yelled, jumping up into the air and over the wall and disappearing from Happosai's view, leaving the old man to cry over the burned photos.
Authors notes: Wow I really got caught up in this chapter. Haha and to the reviewer who commented about me torturing ryouga, it just happens and if you think about it ryouga puts himself up to it. Because he thinks the worst will happen and it does.
I do not own Ranma ½ or any of it's characters the great and powerful Rumiko Takahashi does and Kitty, Shogukan, Viz Video and any others I forgot.