-Chaotic Waters Act 1, Chapter 2: Phoenix Scars and Past Horizons.
One month before Ranma leaves Nerima.
"Ok, I gotta admit you're getting good at that Sugar." Ukyo stated from her spot next to Konatsu on the kunoichi's bed looking over Ranma's work on his, currently her, disguise. "You might actually be able to pull this off."
"I would hope so." Ranma said with a polite smile, currently in his Michiru persona. At the moment, he was standing in front of the chef and kunoichi looking every bit like a normal, if not overly polite, high school girl. "It would be a rather foolhardy thing to attempt something like this if I could not do it adequately."
"...yeah that's still creepy." Ukyo shivered, getting a cocky smirk from Ranma in return.
"You did it again Ranma-san." Konatsu said, shaking her head in light amusement at the muttered curses coming from the aquatransexual. "Still...so long as you practice a bit more I don't see you having difficulty keeping in character through you classes." The kunoichi mused, turning her head to Ukyo as the chef tensed up. "Ukyo-sama?"
"Uh, I just thought of something that might be a bit of an issue. What are you going to do about Phys Ed, more specifically what are you going to do about the changing room?" Ukyo asked in concern.
"Oh, that." Ranma sighed, slipping out of his Michiru persona and frowning slightly to himself. "I wasn't thinking too hard about that, figured I'd just do my best to avoid looking at anyone and try not to gather too much attention." He said, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed.
"Yeah, that's not going to work." Ukyo muttered with a groan, rubbing her temples slowly.
"Why not?"
"Have you looked at yourself in the mirror, like at all?! You're covered in scars!" Ukyo practically yelled, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. "The claw marks from the Neko-ken are one thing, they're hard to see unless you've got a tan. " She said, ignoring his flinch at the reminder of the worst moment of his life. "But what about the ones from Mousse's blades or the burn scars from Saffron?! People are going to notice those no-matter what you do."
"If you've got any other ideas I'd love to hear them Ucchan." He grunted. "It's not like I can hide them, they're gonna be seen eventually. It'd be better to just get ahead of it and not hide them at all."
"Look, I know you're a guy and you don't care about scars, but a high school girl like the one you are trying to act like would care."
"Who says I don't care about them?" He frowned, giving Ukyo a small glare. "I've never liked having them, but it's not like I could avoid getting them either."
"...as much as I hate to disagree with you Ukyo-sama, in this case I think Ranma-san is right." Konatsu said after a moment. "Like he said, there isn't a way around it, people are going to see his scars." The kunoichi said calmly. "Hiding them is just going to delay the inevitable, not that there is an easy way to hide them to begin with. Instead, I believe we should come up with some kind of story, something that is easily believable and explains it all."
"Well the burn scars are easy, I can just say I was in a fire last year, it's technically true, Saffron was throwing around a lot of the stuff. As for the other ones...attacked by a ninja who swore revenge on my family?" He offered, scratching the back of his head, watching as Konatsu nodded excitedly.
"Sugar that only happens your insane life and in manga, it doesn't happen to normal people." The chef said with an eye roll, only to pause for a moment as a thought occurred to her. "There...there might be something you could do but it's a bit...on the nose." She licked her lips nervously as Konatsu and Ranma looked at each other curiously and then back at her. "Well, what if you..."
Juban High school, One month later.
It wasn't with a small amount of nervousness that Michiru walked into the girls changing room, making sure to look at anything other than the other girls there. She shivered, feeling like there was ice in her veins and spectral hand on her throat every time one of them looked at her, even for just a moment. She couldn't shake the feeling that Akane was going to pop out of nowhere and pummel her with her mallet for being a pervert, not that she was actually doing anything perverted. "I'm just a girl, in the girl's changing room, there's nothing wrong with me being here. No one is going to attack me just for being here." She thought to herself over and over as she loosened her ribbon with shaking hands, facing away from the in the hell did I think this was a good idea?!"She internally screamed as she pushed through the anxiety building in her body and slipped off her shirt.
At that moment, every single conversation in the changing room was silenced as the other girls looked on in horror at Michiru's back. Large patches of stretched and mottled skin covered her back where Saffron's flames had scorched her, giving it an almost melted appearance in some places. The Phoenix Pill she had swallowed over a year ago had simply given her heat resistance, not immunity from all forms of heat, something she had had to learn the hard way. Alongside the burn scars were several others, scars from blades and claws nearly completely covered what was left of the unburned skin on her back, to the point where there was only one or two patches of unmarred skin to be found. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she quietly threw on her gym shirt, changing into the required bloomers with a disgusted look on her face. Outside of her changing, not one single sound could be heard in the changing room, none of the other girls said a word, none of them knew what to say. There in front of them was a girl their age who had been through absolute hell and was seemingly unaffected by the way it had disfigured her, and unafraid of the social ramifications of that fact. She left without saying a word, leaving every single person there stunned by what they had seen.
Not a single one of them ever spoke about what they saw to anyone outside of who was in that room that day.
"That was weird." Michiru mused to herself on her way into the gym. "I thought for sure they'd ask about them, guess Ucchan was worried over nothing." She stopped for a moment, before continuing on her way, shaking her head in annoyance for slipping up and mentioning someone from Nerima. Thankfully, a quick look around soothed her worries, there was no-one there to hear her mistake. "I need to be more careful, remember, I'm Michiru right now, not Ranma. Michiru doesn't know an Ucchan."
-Nerima.-
Nabiki Tendo was annoyed.
Granted, this wasn't unusual for her these days, Genma was an irritating man. This time however, it was the fat leech's son that was annoying her. Two weeks, it had been nearly two weeks since Ryoga had shown up and attacked Ranma for the first time since Jusendo and no one had seen hide nor hair of ether of them since. Akane had been even more angry than usual, shouting to anyone who would listen that the pervert was probably shacking up with one of the other fiancées and how she was going to pummel him when she found him. Her dad was imitating a water fountain more and more and Genma...well he was the same as always, a fat leech on their finances. Really the only person in their house that was going about things business as usual was Kasumi, though shehadseemed a little sad that Ranma hadn't come back yet. Her sister never could see the boy for the useless freeloading freak that he was. On top of everything else she was running out of new pictures of Ranma's forms to sell, especially his female one. She might hate the freak, but he'd made her a lot of money with the pictures she'd taken over the past year and a half.
"I still have seven clothed sets along with two towel and one nude picture left, thankfully from before Jusendo, the stupid idiot had to go and scar up the merchandise." She muttered as she sat at her desk typing on her computer. "People didn't seem to mind the other scars, but the burns are another story." She hadn't even tried taking any nude or seminude pictures since Ranma had come back, she'd known the second she'd seen the scars left over from the burns that the pictures wouldn't sell. "I can sell the ones I have at 3,000 to 5,000 yen per set, three times that for Kuno. With the 239 people that will buy from me, that puts me at roughly 6,692,000 yen plus Kuno's 105,000 yen for a total of 6,797,000 yen." She muttered, her fingers dancing on a calculator at an impressive speed. "Spreading them out as usual will put me at 956,000 per month, with an additional 15,000 from Kuno, for a total of 971,000 yen per month for seven months. That's plenty of time for the idiot to get back here from wherever Ryoga sent him." She stopped and stretched for a moment, saving her data before removing the floppy disk from her computer, storing it in it's usual spot in the false bottom she'd installed in her desk when she first got it. "Still...it was a bit weird, Ryoga attacking Ranma like that. He hasn't attacked him any of the other times that he showed up in the past year, aside from the wedding."
She reached over into her filing cabinet and brought out a red binder, flipping to the page that detailed that fight, frowning slightly to herself. Her gut was telling her there was something wrong but everything about that fight seemed normal enough...
"Let's see, Ryoga showed up at the school at 2:15 and barges into Akane's class at 2:24." Without taking her eyes off of the paper she was reading, Nabiki reached over and took a potato chip from the bag, munching on it in quiet thought. "After barging in he immediately ran to Ranma and kicked him out of the window without saying anything, following Ranma out right after." There was something important here, some detail she was missing. "Standard R&R fight, flying bandana's, Ryoga using the Bakusai Tenketsu, craters from Ranma using Mōko Takabisha, and way too much property damage from the both of them." Another chip grabbed and eaten. "The worst of it was from an explosion caused by a Mōko Takabisha and a Shishi Hōkōdan hitting each other. They disappeared after Ryoga chased Ranma around a corner, after that they both disappeared and thanks to Ryoga's directional curse they could be somewhere in Canada for all I know." Her frown deepened as she looked over the details on the page again. "What am I missing?" She turned back to an earlier page detailing another one of their other fights and skimmed over the information quickly. "Ryoga barges in, yells "Prepare to die", causes property damage, then gets lost." She turned to a different page. "Same thing here... almost every single one of their random fights goes the exact same way, so why is this one giving me a bad feeling?" It had to be something small, something that was just the slightest bit different, like a new student in the crowd or a misspoken...word. Her eyes widened as she flipped back to the first page she looked at, a sinking feeling forming deep in her stomach. "He didn't say anything before he attacked Ranma, he just kicked him out the window. He always shouts before attacking, so why didn't he do it this time? There wasn't a reason for him not to shout, so why wouldn't he?" Something was definitely wrong, and whatever it was was going to affect her profits.
She hated things that affected her profits.
Juban
Michiru groaned and slid down the door of her apartment after walking inside, this one school day had felt more exhausting than than all of the ones at Furinkan combined for some reason. "This was just the first day, how am I supposed to do this for-No, I can't think that way. I just gotta push past this and keep moving." After taking a second to take a couple deep breaths, she pulled herself off of the ground and kicked her shoes off next to the door. "Now I have to search for a job so I can actually have groceries." She muttered, walking to her apartment's kitchen. She grabbed a kettle and filled it up with water, setting it on the stove to boil. "All I really wanna do right now is take a nap, maybe eat something, and just relax for a moment." Slowly and carefully she went about shedding herself of her Michiru disguise, changing out of her school uniform and undergarments and into a pair of boxers and blue jeans that were slightly too long for her legs. She grabbed a white shirt but didn't put it on, instead she threw it over her shoulder and headed to the bathroom to take off her makeup. It wasn't like she hated wearing makeup, sometimes she actually enjoyed how it looked on her, not that she wore it that often, it wasn't manly after all."Not that "Michiru" has to worry about being manly."She thought to herself with a small smirk." After all, she's just a normal girl, and girls don't have to worry about being strong or manly, or anything else like that, they really have it easier than guys do."She had just about finished cleaning off the last of her makeup, when the kettle whistled from the kitchen.
She double-checked the work she had done making sure she had removed every trace of makeup while doing her best to ignore a faint feeling of disappointment at having to clean it all off. She hated doing a bunch of work only to get rid of it later, it would be a lot easier if she could just keep the stuff on, but "Takeo", Michiru's "brother" didn't wear makeup, thus she had to clean it off unfortunately. She left the bathroom, closing the door on the way out and entered the kitchen, turning off the stove without looking at it.
"OK, time for Michiru's brother to make his first appearance." She muttered to herself, grabbing the kettle and sticking her head over the sink before pouring the boiling water over her head. Once again the change back into a guy was quick and sent an uncomfortable shiver down his spine. "It still amazes me that that doesn't hurt anymore." He muttered, grabbing a towel he'd placed by the sink for this exact reason and drying his hair off. After swallowing the Phoenix Pill, heat was...weird. Things still felt hot, he could still enjoy a hot bath after all, but heat no longer seemed to hurt or burn him. "Well, up to a point." He mused, thinking about the scars on his back. Aside from Saffron's flames, not one single source of heat could actually hurt him, if anything hot things felt...comforting now, like a fireplace in the winter. But Saffron's flames? They felt...old, almost primordial in nature, like he had been facing the original source of fire or something. His resistance didn't compare to that monstrous heat. He shuddered, feeling the phantom sensation of the skin on the back burning away by those flames. If he ever had to fight another person who used fire like that it'd be too soon.
He threw on the shirt he'd kept on his shoulder after drying off, his clothes fitting much better now that he was in his male form, though he still had no idea where five inches of his height went when he changed into a girl. Finally, he tied off his dark teal hair into a low ponytail, before putting on the shoes he'd bought for his male form. "Alright, time for "Takeo" to get a job." He muttered, cracking his neck as he left his apartment.
~~~D4S~~~
{"I regret ever being envious of my siblings for getting to go to this event."} Nerida thought to herself, keeping a pleasant smile on her face as a member of the Martian Court rambled on about how the Saturians were acting suspiciously. This year, it had been decided to hold the Royal Gathering of Planets and Moons at Neptune's Royal Palace, and Nerida's father had been unable to find a reason to deny her attendance, though had he used this man as a reason she might have listened. {"Or, just a thought, they're a private people who were repeatedly attacked by your people for thousands of years until the rest of the system put a stop to it and they just don't want to deal with you. We've had nothing but good relations with the Saturians for nearly four thousand years you ignorant fool."} She was just about to give the man a cutting remark when she heard a voice from behind her, causing her to turn in slight surprise.
It was a tall man, either Venusian or Uranian going by his blonde hair, though his height would suggest the latter, dressed in a formal black suit. {"Excuse me Lord Aeneas, my apologies for interrupting, but might I have a word with Her Highness? I have been meaning to speak with her for some time now about Neptune's recent agricultural developments."}
{"Ah...not at all."} Lord Aeneas muttered, obviously wanting to be in that conversation as much as a Mercurian wanted to burn books, that is to say not at all. With a sour look on his face, the small portly man wandered off towards some other nobles, one of whom was the princess of Pluto if Nerida's eyes weren't deceiving her.
{"My apologies Your Highness, but it seemed as though you were becoming quit put off by that man."} The newcomer stated with a small glare at the man. {"I'm afraid he's been attempting to foster bad blood with the Saturians, apparently one of his ancestors was killed by a Saturian Nightstalker in the Raid of Titan."}
Nerida frowned as she tried to recall that particular piece of history, feeling like the battle sounded familiar. {"That was the Martian invasion sixteen hundred years ago correct? The one right before the Sol Peace Accords?"}
{"You have a good memory Your Highness."} The man said with a smile before seeming to catch himself. {"My apologies, I never introduced myself. I am the First Prince of Uranus, Ziaza."} He said, giving Nerida a small bow with his left hand behind his back and his right at his side, the formal greeting one used when meeting the Royal family on Neptune.
Nerida blinked in surprise before responding in kind, giving a deep bow with her right hand in a fist above her heart, the Uranian version of the greeting the prince had just given her. {"Apologies Prince Ziaza, I should have recognized you."} Internally she searched through her memories, trying to recall anything and everything her Father and Siblings had told her about the Royal Family of Uranus. There was the King and Queen of course and the two royal children who had made quite the stir when they both announced that they...ah.
{"I see you've remembered my "quirk" as the Uranian Council likes to call it when they think Mother and Father cannot hear them."} The Prince stated with mirth, his shoulders subtly shaking in amusement.
{"Of course Your Highness, you and your...sibling? The two of you made quite the stir with your announcement of fluidity."} That was putting it lightly, the entire system had been a buzz with the news once the two royal children had made their announcement that their gender was subject to change at times. {"I believe it nearly became the most talked about topic in the system, aside from that fiasco between the Lunar and Martian Princesses."} Nerida said with a small giggle.
The Uranian Prince snorted, covering his mouth to keep from bursting into laughter at the memory of that event. Neither princess was ever going to live that down, not even when they both ascended to their respective thrones. {"True enough, though we should not speak of such things where the Lunar Queen could hear us, I do believe she still has not forgiven her daughter."}
{"I would be surprised if she had."} Nerida said, shaking her head. {"If I may ask, how are your magical studies going?"}
{"Not...as well as Father would hope."} The prince responded with a grimace. {"I'm afraid magic is not my forte, I find the mechanics of it to be quite difficult, were it not for my duties I admit I would not bother with it."}
Nerida paused and looked at the prince raising her eyebrow. {"Anaxagoras' Four Laws of Magic?"}
The Uranian Prince nodded with distaste clear on his face. {"Anaxagoras' Four Laws of Magic."}
Smiling gently, the Neptunian Princess held out her arm for her companion to take. {"If you would like, I could explain it to you the way my brother did? I couldn't make sense of it until then."} She offered.
The Uranian Prince seemed to debate it for a moment before nodding and taking her arm in his own, smiling back at her. {"I would like that very much Your Highness."}
Neither one of them ever forgot that night, for that was the night they met, the two Royals who would one day be known as the Guardians of Uranus and Neptune.
~~~D4E~~~
Takeo Kaioh, Ranma's male disguise, stopped, admiring the white torii gate in front of a shrine he had decided to check out after seeing it from the bottom of the hill. Unlike a few shrines he had been to on his training journey, this one had power, a lot of it too, though it seemed to be from two different sources. One felt pure, like a crystal clear river flowing through nature, a feeling he had long since associated with the divine. The other one also felt pure but in a different way, if the first was purity in nature, than this one was purification through destruction, like a fire cleansing the forest so it could grow again. Despite seeming like the two energies would clash, the two seemed to flow into and around each other, like an intricate dance of spiritual energy.
"There's traces of other spiritual energy too." He mused to himself, as he walked past the gate. "Whoever the other energy belongs to spends a good amount of time here, but not enough for it to seep into the grounds." He frowned, feeling the wisps of energy brush against his ki before continuing their intricate dance. The energy felt...familiar, like an old friend saying hello. "Still, this is just the sort of thing I'd run headfirst into back in Nerima, which means I should turn around and avoid this place and whoever this energy belongs to." He thought, turning around to do just that, only to freeze at seeing someone there.
It was a girl, probably around thirteen or fourteen with long black hair and violet eyes, wearing a shrine maiden outfit. Normally this wouldn't be cause for concern, but two things that made him pause. The first was that she was glaring at him like he had somehow offended her, never a good thing with girls, and the second? The source of energy that felt like purification through destruction was coming from her.
"What do you want?" The girl asked, gripping an ofuda between her index and middle fingers tightly.
Takeo rubbed the back of his neck, already feeling the familiar stress of having another girl angry at him. Seriously, why couldn't he ever catch a break? "Nothing really, I was just-"
"-Bullshit." The girl snapped, cutting him off sharply. "I could feel your evil aura from the moment you stepped foot on the grounds."
"Evil aura? Can she sense the curse?" His eyes narrowed slightly, this girls posture practically screamed she wasn't going to listen...still it couldn't hurt to try. "Look the only reason I came here was to take a look at the energy surrounding this place, I've never felt anything like it." He tried to explain, putting his hands up in a calming manner. Something in what he said only seemed to infuriate the girl more, he could feel her pouring spiritual energy into the ofuda like a faucet. "Oh what pissed her off now?! I just said I wasn't up to anything!" He fumed in his mind, fighting to keep his expression calm, only to nearly fail when he saw heatwaves beginning to come off of the ofuda. "Oh for fuck's sake, she's actually serious about the evil aura thing! I think that thing could take out the old perv!"