Good morning, readers! It's another beautiful Sunday, and time for a new chapter of this ongoing epic. I want to take a moment and discuss the gap between the last chapter and this one… because in all fairness it has been quite a while. I hadn't intended for there to be a six month hiatus just now, but depression hit me hard while I was dealing with unemployment, and I've been finding ways to cope. I've also started a second fanfic, Magi Senshi WonderMoon, a crossover between Sailor Moon and the Justice League, which should be getting mostly monthly updates for the foreseeable future. I've *also* also started working on my first potentially publishable work, the details of which I will not divulge here just yet. When I'm closer to release on that one, we'll see what happens with it.

In addition, as of just a few weeks ago, I finally have a new job. It's not the job I was looking for, but it is a steady source of income, and that's important. Now that I have that particular stressor off my back, and a more regular day-to-day schedule, hopefully that will open up more time and energy for writing. I am still at my muse's beck and call most of the time, so I rarely have control over when or even what I write, let alone the quantity of such. But we'll see what happens as it happens. :D

Comments!
Temsen and woodxvii: You're both on the right track, but the story there is longer than could fit into this margin. I'm not going to be prepared to pull that thread again for a while, but rest assured the particulars for that are well and truly set.
kingred222: I'll be honest, even I had forgotten about that particular trait of his. I don't know if that'll happen aboard the Leviathan's Tail, but it could happen at a later point.
Sly Dragneel: Cloud's connection with Ranma is definitely something interesting. A strong and durable fighter who can keep up with Ranma on his best days? Doesn't want to marry him/kill him/steal or murder Akane? Willing to teach him more about how to be a good leader and teacher? Pretty rare indeed.
Death of Snipers: Ranma reshaping Wutai would be truly inspiring on the one hand, and also a very terrifying prospect on the other. He's going to be a tad busy to be opening up an interplanetary branch of the Saotome-ryu Dojo. That doesn't mean that his impact won't be felt, but… well, give it time, you'll see what's in store. :D

Now that I'm back on top of things, we'll see how long it takes me to get the next chapters out. Either way, it's good to be back. Read on!

Chapter Thirty Nine

The Path of the Martial Artist

[ ν ] - εγλ 0007, December 19

"So… how do you Earth people celebrate, anyway?"

"Mlrf?" Ranma responded to the question that had come from Tifa. They were sitting in the galley just before lunch as one of the sailors was preparing ingredients for a meal. Ranma had been sitting in contemplation of what to tell Aerith about Shiva's revelations when the question pulled him out of his thoughts. "Celebrate what?"

Tifa shrugged. "Like, anything, I guess. Birthdays, holidays, special occasions… tell us something fun about your home. No more stories about you and your girlfriend dealing with mister grabby-hands for a while, you looked like you had a lot on your mind."

Ranma thought about that. There were certainly an inordinate number of instances where either of himself, Akane, or occasionally both had come to blows with Kuno, now that he considered it. And then he thought about just how long it had been since he came here. And after some quick mental arithmetic, he realized what day it was. "All right, then, let me tell you about something that's actually going to happen in just six days, back on Earth," he began with a smile. "Let me tell you about a time of year we call Christmas."

"Oh, this should be fun!" Aerith commented, and swiveled in her seat to face Ranma.

Barret glanced over as well and flashed a grin. "Yeah, let's have some more of Ranma's Fun Time Story Hour."

Ranma's smile weakened somewhat as he realized he had everyone's attention. He still wasn't quite used to speaking in front of large groups, but at least they weren't as aggressively misunderstanding as all the rivals he had to deal with back home. He took a moment to clear his throat. "So, Christmas is a holiday from another country that kinda caught on in Japan, but according to my pops, we celebrate it differently. The other country I know of that celebrates it is called America. For America, Christmas is kind of a religious thing, I don't remember exactly why. It has something to do with…" He paused again. He remembered something that Genma had told him years ago, about a baby and a barn and a bunch of old guys wandering the desert. He remembered something about a cross and nails and 'dying for their sins', and then being locked in a cave for a week until he came back to life, or something like that. If he'd had the vocabulary for it, he might have said something about how he wasn't tutored in comparative theology. Instead, what came out of his mouth was, "...a baby being taken out of a barn by these guys called the Wise Men… who nailed a cross to the barn because they needed to cross a desert… and then when the baby died for its sins, I think they put the baby in a cave… I dunno, I don't get religion much," he added, looking at the puzzled and concerned faces of his friends staring at him.

He had no way of knowing, but not one of the members of AVALANCHE had the same picture in their head, and thanks to Ranma's awkward, meandering explanation, none of them had a picture even close to what was the official story. Red's single yellow eye narrowed in consideration. "...they stole a baby?" he asked, his tone one of incredulity.

"An' they let it die?" Barret added, his own thoughts flickering to Marlene.

Even Cait's head was tilted in confusion. "An' they're called Wise Men for doin' all tha'? Sound pretty daft, if Ae do say so meself."

"It's… not important," Ranma answered, waving his hands dismissively. "The important thing is, Christmas is supposed to be the baby's birthday. And so America comes together and celebrates the day he was born, because that's one of the biggest religions in their country. An' they celebrate with big meals and giving each other presents, and they gather in churches and sing songs about the baby…" Ranma's face screwed up in thought, because that didn't even sound right to him. He waved his hands vaguely once more. "...never mind. Japan doesn't have the same spiritual history that America has, so we kinda do it different. We don't spend time in churches, but we do spend time with friends and family. We don't have all of the same foods, so we have smaller meals, and there's usually chicken. We do share gifts, though, so that's the same… oh, and couples usually go on dates on Christmas Eve, the day before the big celebration itself."

Yuffie did not look impressed. "So what does this… Christmas thing look like, anyway?" she asked in a tone that made clear how much she was humoring him.

That was something Ranma knew how to answer, at least. "Well, it's usually snowing in Japan at this time of year, an' people hang up colored lights an'… I forget what it's called, but like this silver glittery tape, and those things get put up everywhere. Some folks go out and get a tree to put in their homes an' decorate it, but a lot of places sell fake trees, and some folks just don't bother with that. The one Christmas I've had at the Tendo dojo, we did get a tree-" That Akane tied me to, he thought, wincing slightly at the thought, "-invited a bunch of friends and family over-" And several of my worst enemies, Ranma considered for a moment, suppressing his aggravation, "-for a meal, exchanged gifts, and we all had a good time." Except for Kodachi spiking the drinks with paralyzing poison, Shampoo trying to kill Ukyo in the kitchen, and Akane's and my pops teaming up to present that stupid ring on stage in front of everyone we knew, he thought again, doing his best to smile through the moderately distressing memories.

The group thought about that for a few seconds. "That does sound like a lot of fun," Aerith admitted. "There aren't a lot of trees in Midgar, so being able to celebrate like that would be hard. But putting up lights like that would be pretty, watching the light sparkle on the snow…" She let out a wistful sigh and smiled at Ranma.

Ranma smiled back, reaching into his pockets nervously. As his hand bumped up against the darkened Summon materia, his face lit up. "Oh, nearly forgot. Aerith, can I ask you about somethin'?" Aerith nodded her head in response, and waited. Ranma paused as he realized he hadn't meant for this to be something for the whole group. "Oh, uh… in private?" he added finally, pointing towards the hallway on the other side of the galley cabin, leading to the sleeping quarters.

Aerith blinked, caught off guard. "Um… of course," she answered, suddenly and unexpectedly flustered.

Ranma got up from his seat, and started moving towards the hallway, Aerith falling in line behind him. A silence settled over the group again, punctuated by the sounds of the sailor in the kitchen beginning to cook. Yuffie was the first to break the silence. "So they're… definitely banging, right?" she asked quietly. A collective groan circled the others. "What? They keep makin' eyes at each other, don't they? And Ranma was, like… doing something up on the aft deck last night by himself, and-" Tifa rubbed at her eyes with one hand and reached over to smack the ninja across the back of the head. Yuffie ducked beneath the blow without even thinking about it. "-he was being really weird about…" she trailed off as she realized what had just happened. "Whoa, okay, that was pretty cool."

Tifa stared at her. "How did you do that?"

Yuffie grinned. "Ranma's training," she answered with a hint of glee in her eyes, as she turned her back on Tifa. "Nobody's ever going to lay a hand on me again, if I have anything to say about-"

Tifa reached out again and successfully smacked her in the back of the head. "Well, it seems to me that you need to keep practicing. And keep your nose out of their business. If it's any concern of ours, they'll tell us when they're ready."

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"I… uh… wanted to ask you about the summons again," Ranma began, as he motioned for himself and Aerith to enter the sleeping cabin.

Aerith was her usual cheerful self as she stepped inside. "Sure, how can I help?"

Ranma checked to make sure nobody was sleeping in any of the bunks, and shut the door behind them. "I've been… practicing," he began, reading into his pocket and holding up the dim red sphere.

Aerith looked at it in puzzlement, before transferring that same look to Ranma himself. "Wait, how did you… when was… no, hang on, we would have seen," she began, furrowing her brow as she took the Shiva materia out of Ranma's unresisting hand. She stared at Ranma. "This… isn't that… Umi-sen Ken trick of yours, is it? That thing you're teaching Yuffie? You haven't found a way to make summons invisible or something, right?"

Ranma shook his head, lifting his hands to wave them dismissively. "No, no, nothing like…" And then he paused. And remembered Yuffie not seeing Shiva the previous night, and none of the sailors reacting to it either time he had summoned her. Not even Captain Shiro had said anything, and he would have had a clear view from the bridge. "...uh… well… maybe…?" he finished, his tone just as confused as Aerith's. He paused again and shook his head. "Look, I don't know how to explain what's going on here without you lookin' at me like I'm crazy or somethin', but remember when Ifrit said somethin' to us when I summoned him the other day?"

"Yeah, I remember," she answered, before that same answer caught up with her brain. "No." She put her hands on his shoulders, looking him square in the eyes. "No~o," she repeated firmly, though her disbelief seemed almost forced at that point. "You didn't."

"Look, I can't help it if everything in your world secretly runs on chi, yanno," Ranma muttered. "Or lifestream, I guess." He pulled out the Ifrit materia, still bright red and warm to the touch. "I've barely even touched this one since we came on board, 'cuz I didn't wanna wind up with Ifrit throwing a giant fireball at the ship. But I couldn't figure out how to use mana only to do the summon, it felt like getting my head shoved through a keyhole… so I tried usin' my chi to summon Shiva, and it worked. And she definitely talks," he hissed quietly, trying to keep his voice down. Aerith let out a sound somewhere between a snort of laughter and a scoff of disbelief. "An' she says she wants to talk to you."

Aerith stopped short. A pregnant silence passed between them. "You can't be serious." The look on Ranma's face indicated the opposite. "...oh goddess, you're serious. Why would Shiva even know who I am to want to talk to me?"

Ranma hesitated again. This was the moment he'd been dreading. Back home, he had to deal with the curse, with people making his decisions for him, and having to clean up after Genma's various instances of poor impulse control. And despite occasionally being accused of being something other than male, he'd never had to deal with someone accusing him of being something other than human. And that had cut a bit deeper than he thought it would. Even Red had only asked about such a thing, and had dropped the matter after he had failed the test Red had devised for him. He let out a breath he'd been holding for longer than he realized, and glanced away. "Shiva… thought I was a Cetra…" he said finally. It felt strange to say it out loud. It felt stranger, somehow, that Aerith's reaction to that declaration was calm consideration. "I had to explain to her that I'm not a Cetra, and that I ain't from here, and then that led to talkin' about you."

Aerith blinked for a moment, but then smiled in earnest. "Well, I guess that makes sense, at least," she responded. Then she tilted her head to one side. "Well, not all of it, but… wait, why did she think you were Cetra?"

Ranma pointed to the unlit sphere in Aerith's hand. "Shiva said somethin' about chi- er… about lifestream casting bein' somethin' that Cetra could all do," he explained, flicking a fist out to one side, the punch erupting in a momentary burst of ice crystals. He was slowly becoming more comfortable with the feeling of having magic flowing through his body in such an unfamiliar manner. It wasn't easy at all, but now that he'd been doing it for a few days, he felt he might be able to keep it up for a while with a little more practice. Which meant that he had every reason to practice as much as he could between his growing duties to his students. "An' she said that humans had forgotten how ta do it, or somethin', but usin' chi is what lets the summons talk."

Aerith nodded her head in understanding. "So she thought you were a Cetra because you'd done something she believed only a Cetra could do." She looked Ranma up and down for a moment. "So… how do we both talk to Shiva?"

"…wait, both of us?"

"Well, yeah, of course!" Aerith confirmed in her usual bright tone. And then she remembered that they were trying to keep it quiet for the moment, and lowered her voice again. "I mean, Shiva wants to talk with me, fine, but there's no way I'm going to cut you out of the conversation. After all, you figured out how to talk to summon spirits in the first place."

Ranma considered that for a moment. Is it even possible? he thought, scratching the side of his head with one finger. An' even if it is, how would I do that? He met Aerith's gaze and frowned. "I… don't know how," he admitted, shaking his head. "I only just figured out how to do this the other night, and I'm not gonna try it with Ifrit, not while we're still on a boat. Doin' the chi thing with Shiva froze the deck of the ship right under me. I don't wanna come back from a heart-to-heart with Ifrit only to find out everything's on fire."

Aerith blanched at that mental image. "Okay, yeah, that would be pretty bad." She hummed thoughtfully, holding the darkened materia orb in front of her. It wasn't much bigger than a new magic materia, maybe about half the size of her fist. They couldn't both hold onto it at the same time. She leaned on her staff for a moment, and- "It couldn't be that easy, could it?" the brunette thought out loud.

"...what can't be that easy?" Ranma asked, puzzled.

Aerith handed the Shiva materia back to Ranma, before reaching into her own pocket and pulling out a green orb, inserting it into the staff. "It's Blizzard, don't worry," she said, handing the staff to Ranma. "Can you do that… element channeling, through the staff?"

Ranma wasn't sure what the plan was, but removed his own Blizzard from his bracelet and spun the staff in his hands once. In the cramped quarters of the sleeping cabin, there was very little in the way of wide motions he could apply to a staff, but with some finesse it could certainly be useful as a way to control the space. Holding it at the back third like a spear or naginata, he took a deep breath and gathered his chi, focusing both on the materia orb near the middle of the staff and the blunt tip at the other end. There was a moment where he was sure it was doing nothing at all, and in the next moment he felt the metallic surface begin to cool in his hands. Ranma allowed himself a smile, and swung the staff forward in a rapid combo of strikes, the tip blossoming with frost. As he thrust the staff into the empty air, a needle-sharp icicle extended briefly from the end, forming an impromptu spear. A series of spinning blows sent fragments of ice bursting away from either end before sublimating into nothingness. After a moment, he pulled back into a standing position. "Yeah," he said confidently, bringing the weighted tip down against the cabin floor with a thud, the frost cascading off the staff with the impact, before passing it back to Aerith. "Looks like I can."

Aerith took a moment to remember that 'pick up a new martial arts skill and be amazing at it an hour later' was absolutely normal for Ranma, and stifled the sense of awe she felt watching him perform his practice fights. She took the staff and gasped from the sharp sensation of cold against her fingertips. "Okay, if that works, then you and I should be able to work the summon together." She unclipped the Blizzard materia from the staff, and pushed the Shiva materia into the now vacant slot. "So we'll tackle that in the morning. Right now-"

A sound blared from above. It wasn't until the sound repeated itself that Ranma guessed it was some kind of alarm. The ship's PA, not nearly as clean or modern as on the Grace of Ifrit, squeaked into life. "Attention all hands and passengers," Captain Shiro's voice blared from the speaker hanging from the ceiling in the center of the sleeping cabin, "an ice floe appears to be in our path. Brace for deceleration. All engines, half reverse, steady as-" The PA cut off abruptly as the ship lurched with the force of deceleration.

Ranma looked at Aerith as they braced against the bunkbeds, the sudden shift in momentum nearly causing them to stumble. The martial artist glanced upwards meaningfully. "Right now, let's see what's going on up on the surface," he finished for her, and opened the cabin door.

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The ship was at almost a complete stop at this point, drifting only as far and as fast as the waves pushed it. On the horizon, spanning most of the visible ocean in front of them in the near-sunset light, was a sheet of ice almost a kilometer wide. Ranma looked out across the water at the uneven stretch of ice as Aerith stood next to him at the bow of the ship, Yuffie trailing behind a few steps.

"So what's the deal?" Cloud asked, coming up behind them. "Sure, it's a big chunk of ice, but we can just sail around it."

Ranma shook his head. "Look over there," he said, pointing at a portion of the ice. There was a layer of sand and loose seashells that had been churned up against the edge of the ice. "It's beached, on the sandbar there," he explained to Cloud, as Tifa, Red, and Barret also came up to the forward deck. "That's what the sailors're sayin' anyway. One of 'em said somethin' about another route, but it's gonna take a while."

Barret crossed his arms. "Just spoke with the captain. Says another ship off to the north reported seein' this up there too. Mosta this whole strait is blocked off, and we're too big ta go windin' our way through the shallows between the islands to the south."

Ranma stared at it, rolling the Ifrit materia between his fingers in his pocket, contemplating his options. As focused as he was on what he was planning, he barely heard Cloud ask, "How big a detour is this other route, anyway?"

A silence surrounded the group for a moment. Yuffie turned to Cloud and shook her head. "We'd have to double back and go all the way around the Northern continent… and that's if the Polar Strait is open this late in the year. If it is, it'd be about two weeks before we got to Wutai…" her voice trailed off as the delay sunk in.

Barret growled. "Ain't never heard'a icebergs or whatever this far south when I was a kid," he declared angrily, gesturing at the beached sheet of ice with his gun-arm. "Betcha it's somethin' else we can lay on Shinra, one way or the other."

Ranma wasn't paying attention to the others speaking. He was fidgeting with the Ifrit materia, deep in contemplation. Ifrit must not be able to help with something this big, he thought, or Cloud woulda said something by now. But… He could see a way through the obstacle. It was only a matter of whether he could make it work. It was a big risk, but as he glanced over the others, he realized this was not something they could help with. Not yet, anyway, he thought, his gaze falling on Tifa and Aerith.

"Hey," Ranma called out, turning to Cloud. "You remember that… whaddya call it… fastball? That thing you and Tifa did back in the tower?"

Cloud stared at Ranma, perplexed. "...yeah?" he answered cautiously, not quite sure where it was going.

"If I needed ya to, could you throw me all the way to that sandbar with it?" he continued.

Cloud's glare remained in place as his eyes flicked between the ice floe, the sandbar, and Ranma. "This is another 'solving it yourself' thing, isn't it?" he asked calmly, relaxing a bit.

Ranma paused for a moment, and lowered his gaze, nodding. "Yeah…" he confirmed. "I think I had a pretty good idea for it too, but-"

Cloud smirked as he opened his mouth to interrupt the young martial artist. "Well, despite my warning the other day, it looks like your students are taking after you in more ways than one."

Ranma looked up at Cloud in confusion. Cloud simply lifted one arm, gesturing behind Ranma. The martial artist turned, and noticed the other sailors backing away from the ship's bow. He looked further and saw Aerith, standing near the prow of the ship, glowing faintly in the afternoon light, her staff hovering in place in front of her. It reminded him of that day back in the fields of the Eastern continent, when she had calmed a stampede of chocobos. But something was different now. Her aura was visible this time, even if it was only just so, and it was clearly unnerving the sailors as they backed away in a semicircle.

Aerith either didn't notice, or didn't care. Her attention was fixed on the obstacle in the ocean before them, her mouth moving wordlessly. Her aura intensified, spilling out from her in waves. To Ranma's eyes, her aura was the green of growing grass or evergreens towering above a forest, filtered through the light of the setting sun. The wind swirled around them all, seeming to focus on the spot Aerith stood, before dispersing, only to pull in again a moment later. It took Ranma only a moment to realize it was happening in time with the girl's breathing. He had never seen anything quite like it.

Aerith's hands moved along the floating staff, spreading out to either side of her body as she gathered her strength. Her long braid fluttered in the wind. There was a moment of no sound, as if the entire world was holding its breath in anticipation. And then she reached out and grabbed the staff, twisting it from horizontal to vertical as she spoke one word-

"Shatter."

-before driving the end of the staff into the deck at her feet, releasing the energy she had woven together.

The deck held fast, despite a reverberation from the impact that seemed to come from something much more substantial than the weighted end of a staff striking the boards of the ship's forward deck. But Ranma was not the only one to notice a ripple in the water, a fast-moving lance of… something… that left a shallow wake as it rolled beneath the surface of the ocean. Two of the sailors along the deck railings on one side pointed at it, speaking hurriedly in Wutaian. It made a bee-line for the ice floe, and connected with an almost deafening crack.

Followed by another crackle.

And then another one.

And dozens more.

A spiderweb of cracks appeared in the glacial ice, the sound akin to glass breaking under immense pressure. And it continued to spread, each branching splinter seeming to produce more as the damage spread out from the point of impact. The network of destruction continued to spread through the entirety of the visible ice floe in every direction, until finally some undefinable tension within it fell apart, and the now-splintered ice began to float away in small chunks.

Ranma stared, slack-jawed in amazement. The others were similarly impressed with the display. "...nanda…" he breathed in a low voice. It reminded him of the Bakusai Tenketsu, the technique that Ryoga had learned that let him shatter almost anything with a single precision blow. Somehow, despite never having seen Ryoga perform the technique, Aerith had just discovered her own variation of it. His head swiveled from the dispersing remains of the massive ice floe to face Aerith herself, who suddenly slumped over, holding herself up with the staff in her hands. He darted forward without another thought, kneeling down to help her. "Jeez, Aerith, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm… I'm fine," Aerith responded hesitantly, waving him off as she pulled herself to her feet. "That just took a lot more out of me than I thought it would. Still…" she gestured out over the ocean, as thousands of ice fragments, most of them less than three meters across, began to drift along in the ocean currents. "Can't argue with the results, right?"

Ranma nodded in agreement, as the sailors began to report back to their stations. The PA squawked to life once more above them. "Attention, this is the captain. In light of… whatever the hell it was that just happened, we will be getting back underway shortly."

Aerith shrugged. "Well, with that done," she called to the others, "what say we get back to dinner? I'm starving."

The party began to circle around Aerith, speaking their words of gratitude and concern for her wellbeing. In the rigging above them, Cait Sith sat and stared at the Cetra girl as his processor began to document and catalog this new display of power. "'Nothing world-breaking', Ae says," he muttered to himself miserably. "'It'll keep fer a few days', Ae says. Me an' me fat mouth, Ae swear. At leas' Wutai otta be quiet enough."

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…elsewhere…

Cid Highwind sat alone at the table in his cramped kitchen. He sat and stared at the cup of tea on the table, boiled yellow with over-steeping. The tea would be cold soon. He'd never managed the patience needed to deal with making it properly. Shera was the only person who he trusted to get it right. And she'd been evacuated just like everyone else.

Shera… had wanted to fight them.

Shera. The quietest, gentlest, most apologetic woman he'd ever known in his entire life. She'd been reaching for her meter-long pipe wrench when they came and pulled her out of his house, threatening them with no uncertain amount of payback if they even scuffed her designs.

Cid hadn't had time to talk her down from that particular ledge before she was put in line with the other evacuees. He'd managed to pull the wrench away from her hands before she answered the door, half-cocked and ready to throw down. He didn't want to risk… any of it. After the space program's funding had been obliterated, he'd spent a year trying to secure more funding from Shinra. When it became apparent that wasn't happening, Shera had come up with the idea that they do it themselves.

And that was how Rocket Town became more than just a name. It was almost an affirmation of their desires, their collective dream of space travel. From that day, he and most of the town's engineers and mechanics had spent their own time and money trying to at first maintain the rocket known as Shinra No. 26, and then eventually restore it to full operational capacity. Even Shera, damned slowpoke that she was sometimes, had pulled her weight and then some working on the rocket. She'd changed some in that time. She still couldn't stop apologizing for every little thing to save her life, but she'd become more confident in herself by degrees. She carried herself differently now too. She had even found the courage to shout him down from his antics the last time he'd gotten himself drunk off of Roan's moonshine.

With the Air Graveyard nearby, getting parts was easy enough, assuming you could deal with the monsters. Rocket fuel had been harder to come by, but a half-dozen mechanics who had come to them over the mountains from Corel had built a small-scale refinery outside the forested area. It had taken them a while to get the mixture right, but now they were producing viable rocket fuel in small batches, using the lower grade 'waste' fuel for other needs. They'd all been working on her for most of the last three years to get her ready and fix all of the problems caused by the aborted launch, and he was pretty sure it was going to be ready for launch in early spring if things kept at their current pace.

And now Rufus had come in, and the look on his face when he started talking about some new, undiscovered means of space travel bordered on obsession. He recognized that look in his own eyes for the last four years, trying to make his own dream, all of their dreams, a reality. And in one stroke he'd somehow turned the others against him, and also put a threat of having their collective dreams scrapped before their very eyes if they resisted. He couldn't risk that. And with that threat sitting over them all, there was nothing he could do.

So he'd sat down, alone. And he'd made tea, by himself. He sipped at the now-cold tea, and spat it out instantly. Shera had always been amused about that. It was one of the few things he could count on seeing her smile about, even after the failed launch. She'd laugh and comment about how he could work on a space rocket for years and not have the patience and attentiveness needed to steep a cup of tea for less than five minutes. And so she would make the tea, and they'd work on the rocket.

If he did anything, it'd just let everyone down. It was safer to-

tap tap tap

Cid sat bolt upright. The sound had come from the back door. He got up and walked over to it, peeking out the window.

It was Shera. "Let me in, Cid!" she hissed through the door.

Cid opened the door without thinking, and Shera swept in quickly as he shut the door behind her as quietly as he could manage. "The hell're ya doing?" he demanded as loud as he dared, which was not very loud at all. "You shouldn't be here. How the fuck'd you even get past the patrols, anyway?"

Shera snorted derisively. "Hah, those idiots out there are so regular in the gaps they leave in their patrol, you could run a timing belt between them," she answered. She strode past him and reached for a leather toolbelt, as well as her pipe wrench. "Listen, some of the boys wanna try and fight them off, show 'em a thing or two, and I for one agree with them. We can't just let Shinra waltz in here and mess with all our lives like this-"

Cid's eyes went progressively wider as she continued talking. "No, you can't!" he interrupted her after a moment, grabbing her arm firmly.

Shera paused, looking at him. "What're you talking about, we hafta-"

"They'll topple the rocket if anyone tries anything," he said quickly. Shera stopped cold, her eyes meeting his. Cid continued, "We've put so much work into getting Twenty-Six shipshape again. I don't want it to be for nothing."

Shera let out a huff. "I hadn't heard that," she responded thoughtfully. "I'm sorry, Cid. Most of the boys were halfway out of town by the time word came up the line that you were staying behind. If they're threatening our baby, then… yeah, we'll just have to figure out a way around that." She looked at her toolbelt, threading it on carefully, making sure nothing would rattle. "You talked to the man, right? The new Shinra head?"

Cid nodded his head, running one hand through his hair nervously. "Yeah, Rufus, the old president's son. Boy's got a burr up his ass about someone or something that's supposed to be heading this way in a few days. Says it's the secret to some… new kinda space travel, and wants to catch them here."

That got Shera's attention. "How's that supposed to work?"

Cid shrugged. "Beats the hell outta me. I think it's some pipe dream, but he's got a look in his eyes. He thinks it's real enough that he's willin' to ignore what's right in front of him."

Shera thought about that for a moment, before pulling out a notepad and scribbling down some information in silence. Cid looked like he was going to say something more, but Shera waved him off for a moment as she finished taking her notes. "So Shinra thinks there's someone on Gaia who can take us to space… and that it ain't us."

"He said that what he's looking for, it'd make Twenty-Six obsolete," Cid growled.

Shera nodded, adding it to her notes. "And he's turning the entire town into… some kinda trap for this one person, right? So they can find out the secret of advanced space travel, or something like that?"

Cid was silent for a moment, turning that over in his head. "I think that's what he was gettin' at, yeah."

Shera let out an exasperated sigh. "Cid, you can't be serious! You're telling me that Shinra thinks there's some kinda space alien running loose on Gaia?" Cid stared at her, dumbfounded, unable to piece together a response to the idea of an outer space man somewhere on Gaia. Shera shook her head in dismissal as she rounded the table, pulled out a fresh sheet of paper from underneath the piles of clutter, and started sketching something out. "Look, there's two possible ways that can shake out. One is that they're wrong. Whoever this person is they're trying to bait is just some hapless bastard who talks a big game, maybe has some interesting ideas about the way physics works, and that's it. The other possibility," she conceded, her pen still moving rapidly along the paper, "is that they're right. That there's an actual, honest-to-goodness alien somewhere on Gaia, and that somehow the alien is coming here, and Shinra knows they're coming here. If that's the case, alien'd probably be going for the rocket."

Cid's brow furrowed in thought. "How the hell'dya figure that?"

"Oh, come on, Cid, you can't be that oblivious," Shera began, holding up her sketchwork. It showed an approximation of a human with small antennae coming off its head approaching something that looked like a rocket, with a number of armed men on either side. "Alien, stranded on Gaia, ends up coming to the only place on the entire planet that might be able to get them back into space? I wouldn't pass that up. But all of that's irrelevant, see," she continued, sketching out more details. "Because the outcome's the same. They're gonna black-bag whoever it is and do whatever it is they do, and whoever it is'll never see the sun again. If it's a real alien, then that's worse for them."

Cid tried to absorb all this, letting out a grunt of frustration. "Wait, hold up a damn minute," he said finally. "What if whatever they're chasin' can just… I dunno, teleport places? Like in them old sci-fi shows? They could take us all to the stars, all we gotta do is figure out some kinda deal with them, an' then-"

Shera turned away from her sketching. "People ain't machines, Cid," she countered with a glare. "If it's something this alien can do instead of some technology they can teach us, then Shinra isn't ever gonna let 'em go. I'm sorry, Cid, but as much as I wanna make it to the stars, I'm not gonna go to space in a machine powered by slavery."

Cid blanched as those implications hit home. It was not pleasant to contemplate. "So, the fuck are we supposed to do about it?" he asked, feeling defeated. "If we fight them it's just gonna make it worse. They'll fucking wreck the rocket, and…" he trailed off. Cid was not a stupid man, not by any stretch. He'd designed the Highwind and the Gelnika for Shinra's air force, and repurposed Shinra's rocket assemblies to make every test rocket up until the program's funding had evaporated. In his mind he was looking for a third option, though nothing seemed to be presenting itself. He buried his face in one hand in exasperation. "I… I'm not gonna lose the damn rocket, doesn't matter what else happens. I… just don't know. What the fuck do you even want me to do, Shera?"

Shera shook her head, sliding her oversized red-and-black pipe wrench into a leather strap across her back. "Look, you can sit here and do whatever you want, Cid," she answered, picking up her notes and pocketing them. "Even if what you wanna do is nothing. I know how much Twenty-Six means to you, because it means the same to the rest of us. We don't wanna see it wrecked any more'n you do. But you know a lot of the boys are from across the mountains, from Corel and Costa and everywhere else Shinra's been turning things upside down…" She turned towards the hallway leading to the back door, glancing back at Cid. "They weren't gonna stand for it before locking someone up to get the secrets of space travel was in the mix, and I'll bet they ain't gonna stand for it now either."

Cid hesitated, still trying to figure out a way through. Shera peeked out the back door and saw that the patrols were already finishing up their current sweep. "Look, Cid, if you can't help… then at least don't get in the way. We'll do what we can to keep Twenty-Six safe." She opened the door quietly, peeking out to make sure the patrols were actually clear, and then turned to regard Cid once more. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to deal with the tea on your own for a bit. I'll be in touch." And without another word, she left as silently as she had come.

Cid stared after her for several long moments, still confused and conflicted about this new information. After about a minute, he wandered back to his now quite cold cup of tea, sitting down at the table, alone once again with his thoughts.

They were not pleasant thoughts. They were decidedly disturbing thoughts about the possible outcomes of fighting Shinra while they were still holed up in Rocket Town. And every possible outcome he could think of ended in the destruction of his rocket. His dream. Their dreams. It seemed like the only way to win was to not play.

He stood up, pouring the cold tea out into the sink, and turned the heat on underneath the kettle to start a fresh cup.

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Ranma watched as Tifa and Aerith demonstrated their progress through the Amaguriken training. "Good," he commented. "Both of you, good work. I think you're ready to proceed." Tifa reached up and mopped her brow, while Aerith looked giddy with the prospect. "And that leads me to what you'll be practicin' with. Cloud? Barret?" he called below deck. "Whenever you're ready."

Aerith blinked in surprise. "We're not going to be fighting them, are we?"

Ranma grinned. "Wouldn't do somethin' like that to either of ya, I promise." There was a thump somewhere below deck and muffled voices, followed by another thump. "But I asked Barret and Cloud to help me with a special project, and they've been working on it for the last two days in the hold."

There was one more thump as Cloud and Barret appeared at the stairwell leading below deck, carrying… something wrapped in burlap. The two men stood it upright on the deck, securing it to one of the masts beneath the cover. "You sure Shiro said this was okay?" Barret asked. "Don't wanna wear out our welcome while we're still at sea."

Ranma nodded. "I talked to him about it when I mentioned we'd be doing training here to get ready for when Sephiroth shows up. We'll be fine." And with that he stepped forward and yanked the burlap cover off the object.

It was a little over a meter and a half tall. It was made mostly of an unpolished but reasonably well-sanded log of some kind of hardwood. Three thick 'arms' of the same material protruded from the body, one dead center both vertically and equatorially to the log, the other two at slight angles about a half meter up. A long bent 'leg' stuck out from the bottom, resting against the deck. Everything above the top set of arms was wrapped in a layer or two of thick cloth, which appeared to have some kind of padding inside it. A second such cushion sat between the second and third arms. Aerith thought it looked like a particularly shy coat rack.

Tifa tilted her head. "This is one of your Earth things, isn't it?" she asked, her eyes flickering back and forth between Ranma and the strange object he had unveiled.

"What is it?" Aerith asked, glancing at Ranma.

"It's a training dummy."

Five sets of eyes looked upward. Yuffie was positioned atop some of the rigging above them, crouched low for stability. She dropped down, slowing her descent by grabbing the rigging as she passed by, before landing on her feet in the middle of the deck. "I don't recognize the style, but that's what it is, ain't it?"

Ranma grinned. "Yep. I named him 'Chun,'" he said, gesturing to the dummy. "It's in the style of one of my world's martial arts, called Wing Chun. The style is one of my personal favorites, and the dummy should be pretty helpful for the kind of training you've got in store."

Yuffie walked straight between Ranma and his students, staring at the dummy intently at close range. "Hmmm…" she rubbed her chin in thought as she scrutinized the design. She slipped one arm between the two upper limbs, pressing her body weight against it firmly, before grabbing both upper arms and slowly raising one knee up to the dummy's midsection, adjacent to the center limb. "Uhhh-huh…" She turned back to Ranma, an appraising look on her face. "I can see it. It's good. Can Wutai have it when you're done with it?"

Cloud was staring at it as well. "You know, it didn't make sense when it was lying on its side in the hold, but now that I can see it standing up, I think I understand too."

Barret shook his head. "Yeah, I'll jus' leave y'all fightin' masters to it then, 'cuz I helped build the damn thing an' I still don't see shit," he grumbled, waving his good hand dismissively as he disappeared below deck again.

Ranma chuckled in embarrassment as Aerith stared at the dummy with a confused expression. "I don't see it either… how does it work?" she asked.

Ranma raised both hands to forestall any more questions. "I won't go into the tradition and its history or any of that stuff," he said, stepping into the space directly in front of the dummy. Tifa and Aerith circled around to either side, watching as Ranma moved similarly to Yuffie's actions a moment ago, but with much more focus and intent in his motions. One forearm snaked between the upper limbs, the other moving down in a cross-arm guard to collide with the middle limb; the movements were so well coordinated that the clack of wood rattling from both strikes sounded like a single impact. With hardly a moment's hesitation, he stepped to the opposite side of the dummy, reversing the movements of his arms, the upper arm striking the outside of the right limb, and the lower arm hitting the center limb from the opposite side. "But it's to mimic what it's like to attack someone who's moving to attack you." He slapped the uppermost padding in demonstration, and said, "Head…" before pushing outward from center on the two upper limbs, followed rapidly with a punch to the center padding, "...arms… torso…" and followed it up with a hard shove with one hand to the center limb, while one leg snapped out in a kick to the lower limb, "...and legs. It ain't perfect, but it means you can focus on what it'll take to open up an opponent, to make them vulnerable."

Tifa turned to look at Cloud. "Didn't you tell me once that Shinra had training robots or something?" she inquired. Cloud nodded in response. Tifa continued, "The way you described them to me, I kind of thought they'd look like this, but in metal. And, you know, with moving arms and having guns or blades or whatever you were training for."

Cloud hummed in thought for a moment, and nodded. "They do kind of look like that, yeah," he confirmed. "Thinner, though, and on wheels."

Ranma smiled and cleared his throat, drawing attention back to himself and the new dummy. "So, I'm going to explain your goals first, and then we're going to talk about how ta do it." He walked up to the dummy and placed his fist in the space between the two upper limbs; the entire space was maybe five or six centimeters wider than his fist. "Tifa, when you can hit this spot with both hands, at full speed, without touching either arm on the side, you'll know you're ready. Six strikes with each hand, in one second, to that spot."

Tifa's jaw dropped slightly, but she recovered after a moment. "You really think I can do that in the time we have left?" she asked, smiling weakly to cover her nervousness.

Ranma gave her a thumbs-up. "Oh, I know you can," he answered. Tifa smiled in response, folding her hands behind her and preening slightly, as Ranma turned to Aerith. "Mind if I see your staff?" Aerith nodded and handed the staff to Ranma, who squared up against the dummy again. "Out of the two of you, Aerith, you're going to have the harder time on this part. But you've been usin' a staff longer than you've been trainin' with me, so I want to see what you can do with it." He moved the staff slowly, weaving the center of the rod through and between the limbs, before striking with the speed of a snake. Four wooden thumps sounded in quick succession, and there were indents in the padding where the attacks had connected; one on either side of the 'head', and one on either side of the 'torso'. All four hits had come through weaving the staff between the limbs, rather than around it. "That's what I want to see you do with this skill," he explained. "Four hits, three times in a row, in two seconds, moving through the guard."

Aerith blinked in disbelief, her reflexive doubt somewhat more apparent than Tifa's had been. "That looks… really difficult."

"It is," Ranma answered plainly. He turned to face the dummy and focused his chi into his arms only, and took a centering breath. His arms blurred, and there was a loud sound that to Aerith's mind sounded like a woodpecker's beak bashing against a bag of sand. Exactly twelve impacts later, Aerith caught up to the fact that the sound was Ranma demonstrating what he wanted to see out of her. The padding was somewhat deformed by the ferocity of his attack. "But I believe you can do it."

Aerith swallowed. "Okay, I'll do my best!" she responded with a warm smile.

Tifa shifted to a slightly more relaxed stance. "So how are we going to do this, then, sensei?"

Ranma smiled. And walked each of them through it.

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"Hey, Cloud?"

It was late that night. Tifa had rolled over onto her side in her hammock and saw her friend laying there. Cloud barely moved, clearly having found his ideal sleeping position with his arms behind his head, supporting his neck. Regardless, he responded, "Hrm? What's up?"

Tifa smiled in the near darkness. "Do you remember, back home in Nibelheim, the festival of lights?" She paused for a moment, but Cloud didn't answer. "Lighting the candles on solstice night, giving offerings to lost family and friends…"

Cloud was silent for another long moment. "I remember, yeah," he answered finally. "I remember putting a candle on my dad's gravestone the year he died… and I couldn't bring myself to do it after that."

"Yeah, I remember that too, you were always kinda private when it came to him." Tifa shifted slightly, tugging her blanket over her legs. "But Ranma talking about his world's celebration next week made me think about it. I wonder if we could do something like that here."

"Not a lot of trees on board," Cloud pointed out.

Tifa let out a huff. "No, I mean the festival of lights," she clarified. "It's… I haven't done anything like that since Nibelheim was…" she trailed off for a moment, looking away.

"Since Sephiroth."

"...yeah…" Tifa shook her head sadly, trying to dislodge the memories of the fire. "But the solstice is only the day after tomorrow, so I think it'd be a good idea. Maybe our families need that… Goddess, maybe you and I need it. And maybe we can include the others."

Cloud remained silent for a while, and Tifa wondered if somehow he had fallen asleep while she was talking to him. Finally she saw him turn his head slightly, looking at her from his hammock. "I think it's a good idea too," he agreed. "I'll talk to the captain in the morning and see if he'll let us observe it on the ship."

Tifa's smile returned. "Thank you, Cloud," she said. The two of them turned over in their respective hammocks and started to go to sleep. I wish I could believe that you remembered that, Cloud, she thought to herself.

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[ ν ] - εγλ 0007, December 20

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The next morning, Aerith and Ranma stood on the deck, just before dawn. The Shiva materia was slotted into the center of the staff that rested across their laps, and they sat waiting for the sun in the frigid air. The horizon was cloudless and the light of pre-dawn lit up the sky, slowly washing out the stars above.

Aerith stared at the sky in wonder, letting her legs sway gently with the motion of the boat. "You can't see the sky like this back in Midgar, that's for sure."

Ranma nodded in agreement. "Tokyo's the same way," he replied. "Can't see anything except the moon if you're in the city, and ya can't see much at all in the sky until you get out to Nagano or Hokkaido or somethin' like that."

"Still, it sounds a lot better than Midgar," Aerith commented. "At least your Tokyo doesn't have the giant metal plate over top blocking out the sun and even the fresh air…"

Ranma let out a grunt of affirmation, the heat of his breath misting before his face in the cold morning air. "Yeah, but Tokyo ain't perfect, either," he added, "an' I don't wanna sugarcoat it, give you the wrong impression. Besides the kindsa problems I have followin' me around, you got the Yakuza, bands of organized criminals that do shady stuff… ya got people fightin' over land and money and whatever else they can… an' in spite of alla that, I think I'd still take Tokyo over Midgar."

"I think I would too," Aerith responded with a smile. The tip of the sun began to creep up past the horizon, and the light inside the Shiva materia swirled and grew, until a few seconds after dawn, the light filled the red orb completely. "All right, that should be good to go…" Aerith adjusted the staff until it was centered evenly between them. "So can you show me how this new summoning thing works?"

The martial artist took a deep breath. "Okay, I want you to think about the way you put mana into a summon," he began, putting one hand onto the staff. "And instead of using your mana, you're going to do it with your chi. Aside from that, it's… actually pretty much the same. I figure if we both do it, then Shiva oughta show up for both of us… but I'm kinda guessin' on that last part."

Aerith nodded, putting one hand on the opposite side of the staff. "Well, you haven't been wrong about this kind of thing yet," she reminded him. "Let's give it a shot and see what happens."

Ranma inclined his head once and began focusing his chi through the staff and into the Shiva materia. As he did, he could feel Aerith's chi coming from her side of the staff. It was… an entirely strange feeling to him. This was the first time he had ever performed a chi technique with a second person, rather than against someone. The two strands of energy swirled in equal strength around the ruby-colored sphere, blending in subtle ways, and in almost no time at all the summon spell snapped into being.

Aerith watched in awe as Shiva, much reduced in size but still statuesque in her appearance and demeanor, descended from above, standing on the deck. The spirit turned and faced Ranma, regarding him with what could only ever be described as an icy gaze. "I did not expect you both," she said, the sound of her voice seeming to reverberate without actually having that much to bounce off of. "But you are clearly an adaptable one, so this will do."

Ranma smirked slightly at the unexpected praise. "Yeah, I do my best."

Aerith was at a loss. Shiva was speaking. She was hearing Shiva speak. She was hearing a summon spirit speak. How many other truths do we believe that are actually lies? she thought, struggling to focus with the weight of so many preconceptions being pulled away. "O Great Shiva," she began.

Shiva raised a hand in interruption. "Please dispense with such propriety, child of the Cetra," she requested in a calm voice, "else you shall waste what little time we already have."

Aerith blinked, but shook her head, recovering her train of thought. "My friends and I are trying to reach the Promised Land, to protect it from someone who wants to claim its power for himself."

Shiva nodded her head, and met Aerith's gaze directly. "The one your companion called Sephiroth…" she said. "Kin to calamity… we hoped that power would be locked forever, but it seems we failed."

"Shiva, please, can you tell us where the Promised Land is?" Aerith asked, a hint of desperation in her voice. "We think it might be in Wutai, we're going there now, but if it's somewhere else, we want to head in the right direction. Can you please tell us where it is?"

Silence passed between the three of them for a few seconds. Shiva hesitated, leaning back slightly. Ranma wasn't always the best at social cues, but something in Shiva's demeanor told him that there was something the spirit didn't want to say at all. "Oh child of our people, I wish it were not I who had to explain this to you," she began, her voice shifting away from the cold, calculated tone and into one of genuine concern. "There is no Promised Land."

Author's note: The… ahem… knowledge (or lack thereof) expressed by Ranma regarding the origins of Christmas do not necessarily reflect the views of the author. This isn't to say that the author doesn't find Ranma's views hilarious, because she does.

To forestall questions on this front, I was born Catholic, baptized at age 5 in such a way that I still have a modest case of hydrophobia, and raised in lip service. I discovered Wicca in my late teens, partly because it was a thing undergoing a major popularity boom in the late nineties and early aughts, partly because my girlfriend at the time was Wiccan, and partly because a lot of it resonated with me in a way that a lot of Catholicism didn't. These days I decline to label myself in a religious sense except among friends, but I've studied a lot of different religions since I became an adult, and I feel like I've learned a lot more than I would have by staying in one place on that front.

Now that that's settled… hell of a cliffhanger, huh? I did say that I was now ready to tell my own story, and this is a small part of that. There will be more on this going forward.

Ranma's memories of Christmas, both the good and the bad, are referencing the OVA Christmas Special. As with a lot of series, the OVAs seem to occupy their own little pocket of canon, but I decided to use the events for a laugh.

The Nibelheim festival of lights is based loosely on my own experiences with Yule, one of the Pagan celebrations that circle the year, and which falls on or very near to the date of winter solstice. The specifics vary between traditions, but in the group I was with most recently there was a great deal of merriment and food, lighting of candles to banish the darkness, and generally an overnight vigil to see the sunrise. It was a reminder that even though it's still cold and still dark, every day after that one would be just a little bit longer and just a little bit brighter.

I've also put together a slightly different, more involved history of Rocket Town for my story. The original concept is okay, but… when I was writing this chapter, I felt like Rocket Town and its inhabitants needed a little more background to them. Shera and Cid (Shera in particular) always felt slightly flat to me at best, but I hope I've done them justice here. In short, the inhabitants are still, by and large, subject to Shinra rule, but they collectively decided that if Shinra wasn't going to take them to space, they'd damn well do it themselves.

The training robots Cloud talks about after Ranma unveils the training dummy is an interesting case of mixed-up canon. When I wrote the scene, I would have sworn blind that I remembered seeing a robot composed of a pencil thin tower sticking out of the top of a square chassis attached to a pair of tank treads, roughly the height of a teenager, in a battle somewhere in Shinra Tower during the infiltration sequence in FF7. More than a week after writing the scene, and after a bit of wiki-diving, I realized I was remembering the WED-15 Treadwell droid from Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I decided to keep it because it seemed like something SOLDIER would commission the Robotics department to do in order to keep Scarlet occupied between her giant tank builds; an endless supply of extremely weak, vaguely threatening robots that are easily destroyed and easily remade out of whatever scrap is available.

Aerith's Techniques…

Σπάζω (Break) - Aerith's training with Ranma has had the secondary effect of opening her eyes to a broader spectrum of the world around her. As a result, she is learning to tap into the power of her Cetra heritage, granting her access to more powerful abilities. Break is a technique that can chip and shatter different materials by finding the weak spots in their makeup and hammering those spots with a precision lance of energy.

Language Lessons…

Wing Chun - Chinese. An old and well known tradition of kung fu that focuses on flexibility and economy of motion, control of a center line between oneself and one's opponent to expose weak points and maintain maximum defensive options, and fast, sharp strikes along the shortest possible paths. Has been depicted cinematically in many movies and series, and is visibly a part of the base of Ranma's particular branch of the School of Indiscriminate Grappling.

Nanda - Japanese. A crude or rough way of saying 'what?'

Hope you like it! As always, feedback and comments are welcome. I hadn't intended for the post-notes to go this long, but there really was a hell of a lot to cover in this chapter. I'll hopefully have the next chapter ready sooner than later, but one way or another I'll see y'all next time!