Author's Notes


This is a rewrite of book2 for those who hate Ranma/Ranko splits.
Actually, it is a rewrite of book2 because of certain ideas that
occurred to me as a result of the complaints of those who hate
Ranma/Ranko splits, but what the hey. Details, details.

Anyway, the first few chapters actually backtrack and rewrite the ending
of book1 slightly, so if they look disturbingly familiar... that's why.
No, it's not plagiarism. It's my own work, for crying out loud. ^_^




Culmination


Early in his sixteenth year, Ranma came to the decision that it was time
to try and free the Lady Alana. He told her not to invite the next
Master. He was going to need the next three months... She acquiesced,
though he did not tell her why he wanted this. The rest of that day he
spent wandering amongst the halls, looking for the right place. He knew
much of the castle by heart, of course, and had explored nearly all of
it over the years. Still, he did not necessarily trust his memory, trust
that the vague recall of once-seen rooms would be enough to make the
correct choice. So he prowled the halls, focusing always inward and
downward, away from the windows and sunlit halls. 

His needs were many. The room must be secured, which meant it would have to
be able to be completely enclosed. He would use magic to ensure that the air
did not grow dead. It needed to be far from the actively used halls, so that
no attention would be drawn to his activities there. It must be unused in
its own right, that no-one might have call to go there and the same must
hold true for the rooms in its hall.

Most importantly, it needed to be large enough. It must be constructed of
heavy stones, massive enough, and numerous enough, to hold the power he
would need. That dictated a certain size and also led him to the lower
levels of the inner castle, where the largest stones had been used, in the
oldest halls. More than that, though, it needed to be large enough the Lady
Alana. Of course, he did not know how large she would be, but finally he
selected a room. It was deep in the castle, it could be readily warded from
scrying, and it was large enough to hold the Lady Sylie. He hoped that Alana
would not be much larger, though it would be able to handle some difference.

That night, at dinner, he was silent, responding in mono-syllables. Though
unresponsive, he was not unattentive. In fact, he spent most of the meal
staring at the Lady Alana, his eyes flickering with blue fire. She guessed
what he was about, and did not press him about it. He was examining her
chains, looking more closely than before, trying to follow the courses of
the threads, and predict where the other threads would need to be, to
complete the pattern. He was still wholly unable to see the other threads,
but he had some reason for hope.

The next morning, he spent several hours in the study, sketching the
bonds from memory and then drawing possibilities for the feminine bonds
on thin onion-skin sheets, laying them over the male bonds, trying to
guess the best match. When he could remember no more he went to the
gardens and practiced a kata to clear his mind and prepare himself. He
noticed once again the small, low-walled garden, that held only a single
column, on which sat a single vase, in which rested a pure white rose, a
promise still unfulfilled.

Filled with resolve, he went to the room, and spent several hours
cleaning it, removing all foreign materials. He scrubbed the stones, and
then used his ki to create a wind that dried the room quickly. Then,
locking the iron door securely, he sat in the center of the room, in
lotus position, and released his hold on his aura. 

It swelled and filled the room with a blue glow. Relaxing his seventh
sense, he focused intensely on the sixth. He reached outward with this
sense and whereever he came upon life, he held it with his ki and using
a single thread of magic, moved it to the outside of the room. If it was
too small to thus grasp, he focused his ki and burned it out. 

He relaxed his sixth sense finally, the room cleansed completely of life
except for himself, and focused his seventh. He concentrated on the
small holes and pores in the stones, filling them with his aura one
after another, until it truly filled all the room, down to the smallest
crack. Once the room was completely bathed in his aura, he sought out
his center and entered a state of meditation. He meditated for five
hours, letting the rock bathe in his ki, becoming steadily more attuned
to him, even as he developed his own sense of the room into a deep
familiarity. When he felt at one with the room, feeling, knowing to his
depths every strength and weakness it held, he stood. Still bathing the
room in his ki, he used his ki claws to carefully carve glyphs of
warding and protection into the stones, one after another.

Selecting the purer stones, he carved glyphs of power into them. Over
the next several weeks, he would steadily charge them, that when
necessary, he might release their power to replenish his own. 

That evening, he again watched the Lady Alana with his ki gaze from the
moment she entered the room. This time, he did not proceed to his bed,
but went directly to his study, where he again drew the chains from
memory. He did not look at the previous drawings he had done, at all,
nor did he try to draw the possible female chains. That would wait until
the morning. Finally, he went to his bed, exhausted, and slept a 
dreamless sleep.

Sleep came less readily to Alana. She was striving to fight her growing
feeling of hope. She knew he could not free her. He could not see the
female principle still, she knew that. But he knew that too and yet he
was still determined to try. She had heard from Mardo and Liliana. He
had opened the door, finally, without destroying it. He had become the
cat again, just to be able to let out the roar of triumph, but that
power had not been necessary. It was hard to suppress her hope, but she
knew that she had to. When he failed, he would be crushed and if she too
were crushed under a weight of disappointment, she would not be able to
support him. So she focused on the fact that he had watched them cast
the door. That must have made the difference.

When she finally slept, though, she dreamed again of flying as a
dragon, only this time, Ranma was with her, a dragon himself, flying
about her as if born to it. She felt again, in the dream, the ache of
wanting him, so long buried under maternal love, but she recognized it
for what it was, even in the dream, and it did not trouble her.

The next morning, Ranma again spent several hours working on his
drawings of the chains, trying to picture where the strands and threads
of invisible magic would need to go to have the appropriate effect. When
he again went to the garden, to practice his katas and clear his mind,
he noticed that the Lady was on a balcony above, watching him.

He smiled to himself as he powered through the motions of the kata. He
knew that she knew why he was behaving as he was, and he admired her for
remaining silent about it, allowing him to proceed in his own fashion.
She was so unlike the teachers at the Mage Towers. She never tried to
force him to learn theories that might or might not be anything like the
truth. She merely urged him to learn what he needed to know, and he had
quickly come to respect that in her. Everything she had pushed him to
learn had come to have importance to him shortly thereafter, in sharp
contrast to the theories of the Mages of the Towers. He had done his
best to forget much of what they had sought to teach him. 

He knew that she did not believe he yet had the power to free her. He
knew she was wrong in that. He did have the power... he just wasn't
certain of being able to use it without harming her. He was no more
sanguine than she about his ability to succeed in this. It was founded
on hope, the hope that once he began, and after having seen for himself
the innumerable ways that the feminine principle could be wound about
the male threads he could see in her chains, he would be able to find
the true weaknesses. It was doubtful, but he had to try.

For nine years this coming event had been the single overriding goal of
his life. Everything he had done and learned had been focused towards
this day. He would pour everything he had into freeing her, and if it
killed him... well, then she would be free, and he would have achieved
his goal. He hoped it wouldn't come to that, but he knew now that he
would not hold back from it. He would give absolutely everything he had,
and more, if it meant her freedom.

He completed his kata and returned to the inner room. There, he spent
two hours charging the first of the power seals, pouring his ki into
the spiritual battery in a slow steady trickle. Then he meditated again,
bathing the room in his ki. With his ki penetrating the stone that held
his power bound within it, it felt like he was holding a glowing ember
in his hand, and he welcomed the pain of holding that concentrated
power. He knew he would feel pain when he reabsorbed the power, and he
wanted to be ready for it.

He went around to each power stone, and carved into each four runes of
strength, to prevent the power one held, that shortly all would hold,
from overcoming their structure and destroying them before he could use
them. This took considerable time, as he had to draw up the magic and
bind it into each rune after drawing it. 

Finally, he spent time on each of the scrying stones, carving in smaller
runes to strengthen each individual stone against one particular variety
of scrying. One he bound with a rune to strengthen it against the use of
water, the bowls and pools that were the delight of some. To another he
added a rune to strengthen it against the use of mirrors, the province
of the truly strong. Another he bound against crystals, yet another
against the power of the mind. So he went, to each in turn, and added a
strengthening rune, drawing up the threads of magic to power each.

He left the room, locking the iron door behind him, and binding it, as
he had done the two days before and would each day after, with a
powerful spell of holding, modeled after the work of Mardo, and a spell
of warding and shielding.

The uses of iron in magic were among the few things he had learned in
the Mage Towers that he had retained. He had learned how iron was
anathema to channeled magic, where the magic-user drew on the power the
threads held and used his body as a conduit for that pure power, rather
than using the threads themselves. He had learned how to use iron to
combat true spells, though to do so was often to destroy everything
around them, as well as the spell. He had also learned the proper ways
to truly enchant iron, to bind the threads into it, and how much power
could safely be held by the iron. An iron-bound spell was extremely
difficult to cast for most mages, but worth it to those who could, for
the iron's resistance to magic would then fight the dispelling of the
power it held.

This pattern of silent dinners eaten with burning eyes, late nights
spent drawing on parchment, mornings spent sketching on onionskin, kata
watched by the Lady, and long days spent slowly increasing the power of
the room continued for nearly two months before all was in readiness.

Finally, Ranma came to the Lady Alana one morning, and told her that he
was ready to attempt to free her. He took her to the room he had
prepared, and in spite of herself, she was in awe at the power it
exuded. It was powerfully warded against every manner of outside
interference or scrying, and large enough to hold her true form. 

She could see the immense power held in each of the spiritual batteries.
She was aghast at it, in fact. Each held nearly as much ki and magical
energy as Ranma's body, and she had never seen him as exhausted as he
should have been from filling them. She realized he must have been
filling them a little each day. There were ten of them, so this room
held more than ten times the raw magical power and spiritual energy that
Ranma held himself.

There were numerous cushions in a heap on the floor, and he bade her
make herself comfortable upon them. When she did so, he sat before her
on the stone floor and she noticed with surprise that the stone he sat
upon was itself heavily ensorcelled. He pulled his calves onto his
thighs, lotus style, and began to meditate. In moments, his ki began to
flicker, blue tongues of flame licking about him, as his eyes
burned with blue fire. 

Ranma released his hold on his aura then, and once again, it filled the
room. Alana stifled her gasp of awe... his ki was easily dragon 
strength and he had no dragon-blood, she knew that. She knew he had
grown steadily more powerful... she hadn't realized how very much,
though. She still didn't truly know. He had not yet released the
eleventh dan, and she could not see the power bound up in it. He focused
his sight, looking beyond the physical, until he could again see her
bonds. He could see the dragon curling in her ki. It seemed stronger and
more vibrant as it bathed in the light of his own, and the chains that
held it seemed even blacker in contrast.

The chains reached out from her to lace about him as well, as they bound
her to him. He looked deeper, until he could see where the threads were
coming from. He selected a single knot, and examined it, seeing in his
mind the innumerable onion skin overlays that spoke of how the female
threads might mingle and strengthen the male threads.

He reached out with his ki, tapping lightly at the obvious weak point.
He knew this would not succeed and indeed it did not, but he watched
carefully, how the knot began to fall apart and where and how it seemed
held together. He focused again on the onion skins in his mind,
considering which ones might result in that kind of a pull, in those
resisting forces. He tapped again, at another point, a lesser weak
point, and again watched the interplay of the visual threads, gaining
clues as to where the feminine threads must be. 

He teased steadily at the knot, touching here and there, watching the
reactions, searching for clues to the invisible threads that held it all
together. Finally, he began trying in earnest to break the knot,
picturing in his mind the complete tangle, male and female threads, and
guessing at where the weak point must be. 

He could see that he was closer now. As he hit these guessed points, the
knot came ever closer to falling apart, but always it resisted in the
end. Finally, after hours of exploration, he concluded that the final
weak point must be located amongst the female strands, where he could
not see to touch it.

Refusing to even consider feeling despair, he moved on to another knot.
Surely they could not all be thus. Again he began the delicate process,
tapping the knot here, and there, and watching as it tried to fall
apart, but was held together. By the time he had given up on that knot
as well, he was feeling weak and drained.

He reached out and released the first of the power stones. He bit his
tongue, and tasted his blood in his mouth as he fought to stifle a
scream. The energy, fresh and rich, burned through him like a fire,
through limbs that were too tired to contain it. He lost some of it,
burned off to the air, before he regained control, gasping for breath.

He fought down the pain, and grimly selected another knot, that seemed
to have more male fibers, less room for the female threads to
intertwine, and began again. 

Over and over he repeated this process, and each time, his body grew
weaker, as the fresh energy raced through his tired system, ever on the
verge of collapse. When he released the tenth stone, tears were openly
running down his face, but his eyes still burned with blue fire.

Knowing this was his last chance, and he was failing, he desperately
tried to reach deeper. He pushed his ki sight deeper and deeper, 
striving to reach the beneath the layers of male threads. If he could
just see the source of the female power, he could trace it upwards, into
her bonds. He sunk ever deeper, and as he did so, he slowly released
the eleventh dan, giving him the power to reach further still, searching
for the ultimate source of the power, until finally he reached too far.

He lost himself in the immense scale of what he was sensing, the deep
throbbing power that lay far beneath the tapestry of his world. It was
vast and grand, and he was nothing compared to it. Looking on it, he
ceased to exist, and became one with this final ultimate power, the
power that lay behind all that was, a power far beyond this world, or
the world he came from, that lay beyond all possible worlds, beyond the
planes where the gods dwelt, beyond the pits where demons warred, beyond
everything, and he lost himself in it, until finally he heard a voice, a
single soft voice, gently calling his name, and he remembered once more
who he was, and why he was, and for its own reasons, the power released
him.

He came back to himself then, for just a moment. His eyes suddenly
cleared and he could see the Lady cradling him in her arms. "You should
have let me go," he said in a harsh whisper, the words tearing his
throat as he spoke, "you would have been free, Lady." 

Darkness took him and he fell into blessed sleep, as his body struggled
to recover from his ordeal. He did not feel the Lady's tears on his face
as she held him to her.

She had known that he would never give up, unless he finally failed,
utterly and completely, and so she had let him try, hoping that when the
time finally came, he would be able to move on, to live, finally, for
himself, and not for her. Had she ever imagined that he would be so
selfless as to willingly accept death to free her, she would have never
let him try. "How could I live," she asked softly, knowing he could not
hear her, "if I let you die for me?"

She would have thought him dead were it not for the slow rise and fall
of his chest. His skin was nearly black all over, and in places it was
burnt and charred, split from the heat, the searing and charring
reaching even to the bone. 

He lay in a pool of blood and the moment she tried to take him in her
arms she realized that he would not survive being moved. He needed
healing, now, or his sleep would deepen into death. She called out to
her sister but the walls blocked her words and a great pain overwhelmed
her. "You cannot die," she said, even as she gave up on finding an
uninjured spot to lay her hands. Taking his head in her hands she
chanted a spell of healing. The pain within her grew greater still when
the spell was absorbed in a flare of brilliant white flame and his
wounds did not change. She tried again and again but her spells seemed
to do nothing, though thankfully the white fire that consumed her spells
did not further char his flesh.

She had felt him go beyond her, for an endless moment, and when he had,
his body had burst into flames, real flames, as it burned from the
inside. It was a miracle he had not died. She could feel that he had
been changed. There was a fire burning in him still, that she could not
put out. Not a fever, really. It was more like a fire in his ki, a fire
that defeated her every attempt to aid him. She didn't know what it was,
or what to do about it. So she just sat, and held his hand, hoping.




Sacrifice


When Sylie arrived, she was told that no-one knew where the Lord Fey or
the Lady Alana might be. This startled and alarmed her. What could they
have been attempting that they had not even warned their closest
advisors? Brushing aside their various protests, she used her great
speed to quickly lose them then began homing in on the source of the
terrible emotional pain she could feel from her sister.

It led her deep into the dark interior of the castle, far from the outer
and inner walls alike and below the level of the ground. There she found
a door of iron. To her great shock, it was bound and warded with spells
more powerful than she had ever seen. For a time she was near to
distrusting her senses, for her knowledge to this day said that iron was
anathema to spells of such power, that it could not be used in such a
way. Her astonishment grew when she ceased fighting her senses and
accepted the door for what it was, accepting at the same time that she
would never be able to open the door without bringing this portion of
the castle down around her ears.

She cast a swift scrying spell to peer through the boundaries of stone
and iron and see what lay within. To her surprise, the probe was
deflected. She could feel her sister's pain, which surely would not be
so if the room was shielded, yet further tests convinced her that the
room was indeed shielded and proof against every form of scrying she was
competent to attempt.

This brought a sudden realization to her, a realization that instantly
had her pounding on the door, heedless of the danger, and calling out
for her sister. The terrible pain that she could feel from her sister,
the mind-numbing agony that had reached her, three kingdoms away, was
muffled. She was feeling only a portion of what her sister felt.

Luck was with her, for though the door was held against her, against its
being opened from without, it was not silenced, nor was it bound with
active defense spells. Its wards merely deflected the brunt of her
force, rather than retaliating to destroy the one that attacked them.

Finally the iron door opened before her and her sister stared out
unseeing at her, her face a mask of pain and self-loathing. The sudden
wash of emotion that poured over Sylie with the opening of the door
nearly drove her to her knees. She staggered then leapt forward as Alana
collapsed, her grief and pain overcoming her at last.

The Lady had been by Ranma's side for four hours, by that point. Sylie
was shocked by his condition. It took her a long time to manage to get
Alana calmed down enough to tell her what had happened. She was
appalled, but truly impressed. Maybe the boy really did love her.

Sylie did what she could for the boy. Her healing was as ineffectual as
Alana's had been, but she bound his wounds and did all that could be
done for him conventionally, before carrying him to his bed, leaving him
there with Alana. She proceeded to take over the management of the
castle, to ensure an orderly running of the household. She took care of
everything the Lady Alana usually did, and then she took care of Alana,
forcing her to eat, and rest. If Sylie hadn't been there, she figured
Alana would have sat by his bed until she collapsed.

Each day, Sylie spent some time trying to heal the boy, and draw him
back from the darkness. On the third day the flame burning in him
finally ceased blocking her spells and she was able to aid in his
recovery. Still his body resisted her spells and they had far less
effect than she expected. She feared to cast too much lest his
resistance cause a dangerous reaction. He improved rapidly, however, in
spite of the limits of her spells, showing visible gains each time she
saw him. She guessed that on his own he would have recovered in under a
month. His powers of recovery were truly remarkable, but sorely tasked
by the massive draining of both ki and magical energy that he had gone
through.

It was a week later that he finally awakened, late in the night. The
Lady was only just aware of his eyes opening, before they flicked to
her, with a blue fire and he turned away, curled into a ball, crying.
He had failed her. He had given everything he had to free her, and in
the end, sought to embrace death to free her and even in that he had
failed. The pain of this ultimate failure shattered the walls of ice he
had built against his emotions. She had not seen him cry for nearly four
years, but now his body was racked with sobs that seemed torn from the
depths of his soul and his pain and anguish seemed to rise from him
like waves of heat.

Lady Alana stood, and sat on the bed, pulling her legs up and lifted
him onto her lap. He finally looked whole again. His hair, frazzled and
crisped, which had broken and crumbled at her touch that first night,
was silky and strong. His skin was smooth and unbroken and light again.
She held him and rocked him back and forth through his tears, as she
spoke quietly to him.

"Ranma, had I known you would go so far, I would not have let you try.
Don't ever try to leave me alone again, Ranma. Not like that. Please. My
freedom is not worth your life." He tried to protest, but she lay a slim
finger on his lips and he fell silent, except for his quiet sobs. "You
nearly died. I know you tried. I will never forget what you did for me.
It shames me, that you would go so far, and yet I never told you the
truth because I feared it would be too hard for you." He sat up at that,
looking into her eyes. 

"I knew from the very beginning why you could not see some magic. I know
you've learned, on your own, though I never told you. But you still
don't know why. I do and I did then. I am ashamed I doubted that you
had the strength to hear this."

"Never, Lady. Never be that. I _am_ weak. I failed you." Ranma
protested.

"No, child. It was I who failed you. Never have I seen such strength as
you have, strength of spirit and heart and yet I doubted you, and it
shames me. Now hush, and let me tell you now, what I should have told
you long ago." He stared up at her, his mind blank. He had no idea what
she was going to tell him. He knew why he had failed, knew his
blindness. But what could she know, that went beyond that?

"When you first came to me, Ranma, I felt a problem in your mind. I
thought that if I gave you my love, I might, over time, be able heal
you. I failed... I failed you, Ranma. I failed you, far worse than you
failed me." He looked into her eyes and grasped her soft hands in his,
shaking his head in vehement denial of her words. She had not failed
him. She had always known, always been right, about what he needed to
learn and do. It was he who had failed her, failed to learn as
completely as he should, been unable to free her. But she freed her
hand and laid a finger upon his lips again and he remained silent, and
let her speak.

"There is in every person, Ranma, a balance of male and female, the yin 
and yang your Tai Chi master spoke of. Your ki is in balance, but your
spirit and mind are not. You are only half-awake, Ranma. When your
father tried to force you to be a man, when he beat you for showing
emotion, or crying, or being polite, he kept forcing everything that
was feminine in your spirit and mind away, into the depths of your mind 
where you could not reach them. It's like he just reached out and tore
you in two and now your female half is locked in your mind." 

Tears started rolling down her cheeks as she spoke now. He wanted to
comfort her, to stop her tears, but he had to hear this, had to let her
speak. "Perhaps, had I done more when you first came to me, I might
have been able to simply heal you. But I was a fool, and thought my love
would be enough, be strong enough. It wasn't. As the years have passed,
Ranma, your female half has grown in the depths of your mind, has healed
about itself, as have you, and it will be no simple thing to rejoin
you."

"You mean...," Ranma found it hard to continue. He understood, alright,
or thought he did. Because of Oyaji, he had a sister, trapped in his
mind, but if she awoke, since she was him... well, he could just imagine
what it would be like if he suddenly woke up and was a girl. She would
hate him. "Oh, Kami-sama. That's terrible. Lady, how can I free her?
What must I do?"

"You do not understand yet, I see. Ranma, she is you, she is not a
separate person and even if you could awaken that personality, you would
not be freeing her. You would be denying yourself, rejecting yourself."

He stared at her, his eyes widening slowly. "You... you are saying that
I..."

"You must learn to accept that side of yourself, you must become whole
again. That is the only way you could ever master the magic you cannot
see." Tears stood in her eyes, tears of pain and loss, as she saw the
fear and disbelief in the blue depths of his own eyes. "I am terribly
sorry, Ranma. It would have been far easier if I had forced this on you
when you were young. Instead I let you strive to become what your father
wanted, a man above all. I only made things worse."

"Too far," he murmured then his eyes cleared and hardened. "Then there
is but one thing to do," he said firmly. Alana stared at him for a
moment before looking away.

"What is that?" she asked. She feared this response. No, she dreaded it,
dreaded it with every fiber of her being. She knew what he had learned
from his home world, knew the ways of his people. To accept death was
the mark of a man. Honor stood above life and though she had not
suspected that he felt her imprisonment was so strong a stain on his
honor, she could understand how the honor of achieving the goal he had
set himself could be worth more to him than his own life, whether she
agreed or no. To embrace his own feminine side? Surely he would once
more choose death before accepting something so unmanly.

"I must become a woman," he said. Unbeknownst to her, he indeed felt as
she feared he would, that death would be preferable to becoming a woman.
At the same time, he had taken to heart the pain he had felt from her,
and the fact that she had reached out and drawn him back from death.
More importantly, death, or whatever that power was that had taken him,
had given him back, had returned him to her. That path was closed to him
now.

He looked up at her, gazing into her eyes. "I do not want you,
especially you, nor any of my people, to see me like that," he said,
shivering at the thought of the weakness he would have to embrace, "but
there can be no half-measures. Your pain has been extended long enough,
I will not draw it out for years upon years as I slowly come to grips
with feminine things against the will of my heart. I must become a
woman, I must set aside my manhood completely, lest I resist learning
what I must, for the sake of it." Even as he spoke his words tore at his
heart. Being a man was all he had ever wanted, to be a man his father
could be proud of, to be a man his mother could love, to be the man his
people could look up to, to be a man worthy of the love he had already
been given. 

"I need your guidance now, Lady, more than ever. I know of no spell that
has the subtlety to do this. When I take the form of an animal, I do not
truly change, I do not become the creature. The spells I know only
change the outward form. I was still a wizard wearing the guise of a
snake or a bird. I was not a snake. I was not a bird. If I took the form
of a girl, I would not be a girl."

"That is the difference," she said softly. "The Mages never truly
understood that but we creatures of the wild know it. Masculine magic
draws on the power that is close to surface appearances, that which
gives the detail to the tapestry. It is easy, with such magic, to
produce visible and elaborate effects, to defy expectations. Feminine
magic, when used by one who knows the difference, is deeper and more
subtle in its effects. Where the warp threads, as you see them, make it
easy to call a lightning bolt down out of a clear sky, the woof threads
would bend more easily to the slow production of the proper conditions
for a natural lightning storm."

"So... I need female magic to be able to become a female mage so I can
learn female magic. What about you? Can you cast the spell for me?"

She sighed and shook her head sadly. "You've been changed, we don't
really understand how, but you've resisted even simple healing spells. I
dread to think of what would happen if such a spell were to take
incomplete hold on you."

"Then is there nothing I can do?"

"There is... a place... on your world, called Jusenkyo. There is a
spring there called the Nyannichuan. If you bathe in that spring, then
cold water will give you the body of a young woman, and hot water will
return you to your own. It is powerful, terribly powerful. I looked into
its history and it has been used for terrible things. A dragon was
trapped as a woman by it once, through the use of an artifact called the
Chisuiiton that belongs to a neighboring people that call themselves the
Musk. If it can affect a dragon so, then I think it will affect you
equally. In the far past it was used as a training ground, to train
great warriors to control their ki. Eventually, they would be able to
use their ki to change themselves, or to prevent water from changing
them. If you could manage this, you could hold yourself as a woman.
Otherwise, you could find the Chisuiiton, then find the Kaisufuu, its
counterpart, when you are ready."

She looked deeply into his eyes and saw there the determination and
pride that would not let him back down from this. Though she dearly
wanted to go with him, to aid him in this and to teach him to be a
woman, she could also see in his eyes the desperate shame he sought to
hide from her. The walls of ice were rising once more as he recovered
from the pain of his failure but they were not yet high enough nor thick
enough to hold back her gaze. If she came with him, she would be a
constant reminder of his pain.

"You will cast a stasis spell. I can teach you how. I can survive a week
without you... But for this, it might be a year or more before you
achieved sufficient wholeness to cast the spell. In stasis, I will wait
as long as you need. When you are ready, you could come back for me."

"I think I already know how, Lady. I did it once before. I will do this,
because I must. I will go, but I swear, Lady, I will return. I will free
you!"




The Pools of Sorrow


The Jusenkyo guide looked up in surprise at the brilliant flash of white
light outside his hut. A young man stood there, clothed in a tight 
fitting black shirt that highlighted his strong musculature, and loose 
pants. He was tall, six foot at least. His hair was black and his eyes
a deep blue. He was staring at the pools. "Honored Customer understands
Mandarin, yes?" asked the guide.

The young man turned to him, "Very well, thank you, Honored Guide. Tell
me please, which pool is the Nyannichuan?" The guide turned almost
purple. Customers never listened to him, never heard him until after
they had fallen in. 

"No, no, Honored Customer, you must not go to that pool. Is very tragic
story," he said quickly. 

Ranma interjected, "Yes, yes, I know. Very tragic story. Now which one
is it?"

The Guide sighed. Even when they listened, it did no good. He said,
"Very well, Honored Customer, I see you will not listen, like all the
others. Nyannichuan is this way." He led the boy on a careful path 
through the pools, before finally pointing to one. 

He sighed and watched, as the young man set down his pack, then waded in
and dunked his head. She broke the surface, brilliant red hair
glistening in the sun. The Guide gulped and quickly turned away, as she
rose. The shirt that had been tight on the young man was looser on her
slim waist, but threatening to burst under the pressure from her chest.
She looked down. "Damn," she said, feeling the unfamiliar tightness
around her chest, then quickly stripped off the shirt. The Guide
fainted.

Climbing out of the pool, she rummaged in her pack for a minute or two,
found a looser shirt and put it on. Looking over at the Guide, laying in
a pool of blood that seemed to have leaked from his nose, she lifted him
easily to her shoulders, then tromped back the way she had come,
focusing the Juushin Jisei to keep from accidentally falling into any of
the other pools.

When the Guide came to, he was lying in his own bed, a cool cloth on his
forehead, being watched by the beautiful redhead. She was nearly a foot
shorter than her male side, built smaller, but still well muscled.
"Sorry to put you through that," she said, her voice softer and richer
than it had been as a man. He gulped again in surprise. A customer
apologizing to him? That had never happened before. They were always
furious with him, even though he tried as hard as he could to stop them. 

"You... you knew what would happen?" he asked, his fear clear in his
voice.

She laughed, a delightful sound. "Yes, I knew." She reached out and
picked up a cup of hot tea from the table. He had not noticed at first,
in his disorientation, but as he gratefully accepted the tea from the
young woman, he saw that she had apparently cooked a simple meal of
ramen, as well as making tea for him.

She stood and bowed low to him. "I thank you, Honored Guide, for your
assistance. I apologize for the inconvenience I have caused you. Please
accept this meal as a token of my gratitude."

Before he could respond, Ranma had vanished out the door. He needed to
find a place to meditate without needing to worry about being
interrupted. For a moment, he considered simply using the Juushin Jisei
to fly across the pools but he discarded the idea, remembering Alana's
warnings about the nearby tribes. The area was strong in martial arts
and chances were good that if he flared his ki here, someone would
notice. That would not be conducive to his remaining uninterrupted and
if he was interrupted he could not be certain of his effectiveness. His
combat skills would doubtless be hampered by the unfamiliar body. Simply
walking from the pool to the Guide's hut, he had observed that his
center of gravity had shifted and the extra mass on his chest was
especially sensitive to the effects of inertia, which could easily throw
off his balance in a fight.

Holding the Juushin Jisei at the ready to guard against a loss of
balance and uncomfortably aware of the risk of using even this much ki
openly, Ranma began bounding across the pools, springing from pole to
pole as he crossed the valley. Several times he nearly slipped but by
the time he leapt from the last pole to land on the solid ground beyond
the pools, his balance in his new female form was near perfect.

Some distance away still, three young warriors raced towards the springs
of Jusenkyou, towards the source of the powerful ki signature, under
orders from their elder, who awaited their return at the grounds where
they had been undergoing special training, some distance from their
village.

---

In a small cramped cave accessible through a vertical crack in an
otherwise smooth rock face, Ranma prepared to enter into meditation.
Though he had, as Alana had strongly suggested, come to terms with his
responsibility for his female half's imprisonment, he still felt the
need for atonement. He was not bound by grief or guilt over the choices
he had made. He had learned long ago, when dealing with the pain of
knowing he had killed, that guilt is useful only as a tool to urge the
soul to make amends. Not for many years had he allowed himself to feel
guilt beyond the level of a simple acknowledgement of the wrong he had
done and a recognition of what he could do to right that wrong. If he
could not, then weighting himself down with guilt over it would serve no
purpose.

In this situation he had felt great guilt at Alana's first words and
while he had set aside that guilt as unworthy--the decisions he had made
that led to the guilt had been made for the right reasons--he would
nonetheless do all in his power to make amends for the results of his
actions. That was one of the strongest lessons he had learned, one of
the teachings that had been the most difficult at first to accept. No
matter how correct the intentions or reasons behind your actions, no
matter how right you had been to do what you did, it did not excuse you
from facing the consequences of those actions. It was not necessary to
apologize only when you had acted poorly. Even when you did the best
you could possibly do, you were still responsible for the harm or ill
your actions caused.

He had buried his emotions to preserve others from pain and in so doing
he had created a new person. Now she was his responsibility, wholly and
completely, and strange as it seemed, he had to heal that breech and
become one with her, for to try and free her, as had been his first
impulse, would have truly meant rejecting her, casting her aside as
unworthy to be part of him.

He knelt on the floor of the cave and with swift leg sweeps, brushed
aside the accumulated dust. With claws of ki he carved the floor until
he had created a region that was almost perfectly flat, about twice the
diameter of his body. 

On this flat ground he drew a circle in chalk, the precise control
necessary emphasizing in his eyes the tiny size of his fine-boned
delicate hand. At the cardinal points he carefully drew the appropriate
runes, then stood within the center of the circle. He reached behind his
head and pulled off the small band that bound his hair. The glorious
fiery tresses spilled freely in wavy curves over his slim shoulders. 

Placing a prepared flask of water at a certain point in the circle, he
activated the circle, which shielded his ki from detection, then
activated the spell on the flask. Immediately it rose into the air, then
a stream of warm water splashed him, drying immediately as the water was
taken back into the flask.

His eyes flared with lambent blue flames as his attention turned inward.
A splash came again, cold this time, reshaping his body once more. Ranma
was a master of ki and barely ten splashes had passed before his body
wavered and shifted quite suddenly without the aid of water. Three more
splashes passed before warm water fell upon red hair and had no effect.

A wave of his hand canceled the spells as he... now she, dropped to the
ground, pulled her small feet onto her thighs and returned to
meditation. Five minutes came and went before she finally found the
emotional strength to begin one of the hardest tasks she had ever faced.
Within her, the walls of ice shivered. A crack appeared quite suddenly,
running vertically in a sheer translucent blue face of ice. It sealed
over quickly, but another crack formed a moment later, and then another. 

Sweat began to bead on her delicate face as she battled within herself,
fighting her instincts and habit built up over nine years. Tears pricked
the corners of her eyes as a sheet of ice fell away, releasing a wash of
pain and shame. More ice thundered down, leaving a gaping scar in the
wall, a scar that matched the one on her soul behind it, the recent and
painfully fresh scar of her failure, and tears began making slow tracks
down her face.

---

The guide stood at the doorway of his hut, staring across the valley of
pools, the valley of sorrow, thinking of the strange young man who had
come that morning and deliberately cursed himself to become a woman. She
had thanked him, which the victims never did. He was generally expected
to guide Nyannichuan victims to the Niechizu village, the nearest
village of the Joketsuzoku, the Chinese Amazons. She had not seemed a
victim though. It had been quite deliberate and she had shown no signs
of stress over it during the short time he had observed her.

Not that he was any great observer of human emotions; he was used to
people's reactions to being cursed though. Screaming, threats of
violence, actual violence, collapsing in shock, all these things he had
come to expect and understand. Cooking and making tea? That seemed more
than a bit unusual. It occurred to him then, as he watched the sun pierce
through the cloud cover that had recently obscured it and light up the
pools, turning them into a field of liquid gold, that he had collapsed
by the side of the pool and awoken in his bed. It hardly seemed
creditable, given what a small girl the young man had become but she
must have carried him back to the hut. She had had her backpack when she
left, as well, which meant either she had made a second trip through the
pools and managed to avoid the other pools all three times or she had
carried both the pack and himself, and avoided all the other pools.
Either way it was startling.

His attention was attracted away from the pools when he heard youthful
voices. Turning to face them he saw three mouth-wateringly beautiful
young Amazons leaping across the fields. The purple haired one landed
just in front of him. "Which way did the warrior go?" she snapped.

The guide shivered in fear and shook his head. "I did not see," he said
unhappily. Luckily for him the blue haired girl tapped the purple
haired one on the shoulder.

"The ki signature leads across the pools."

He lifted a shaking hand to his brow as he watched the three beautiful
and incredibly dangerous warriors race down the path that led around the
cursed pools.

Lilac lost the trail when they reached a cliff-face. Shampoo and Lilac
split up to walk in either direction along it, while Perfume scaled the
cliff to see if the warrior had gone in that direction.

Shampoo had gone but a little ways when the sound of sobbing caught her
ears. Following it led her to a cleft in the wall and the proximity told
her the sound was female. A sneer crept to her lips as she considered
the weakness of a warrior who would allow themselves to cry. Not that
she did not feel the need of a good cry herself sometimes, but at least
she... she flushed suddenly when she realized that the warrior obviously
had hidden herself away, just as Shampoo would have done. Releasing her
arrogance, Shampoo allowed herself to feel some sympathy for the
embarrassment and shame the warrior would doubtless feel when her
private cry was invaded. She had no choice though.

She gave a warbling call, like the cry of a certain bird well-known to
her companions. She waited until they were in sight before slipping into
the cleft to find the warrior.

Ranma was in a haze of pain and sorrow, overwhelmed by nine years of
hidden and suppressed emotions, suddenly freed to torment her. Even in
her unenviable condition, however, she continued to tear at the walls,
to destroy the barriers in her mind. Her judgement was not at its best
at the moment, though, and even as Shampoo approached, the final
barriers in Ranma's mind fell, releasing the Neko-ken into her waking
mind.

She had never experienced the spirit of the Neko-ken, having always fled
into the darkness before it escaped. It was not the same as embracing
the power of the Neko-ken, though that power did indeed fill her body
and her ki even as the spirit filled her soul.

The presence of the cat brought powerful instincts that she was unused
to dealing with, especially after having destroyed all of her usual
coping mechanisms, so she was in no state to resist its influence.
Drawing on her experience, her instincts told her that she needed
comfort, needed affection.

They built on her memories, the love and comfort the women of the castle
had given her contrasting with the respectful praise and guidance her
mostly male trainers had doled out, telling her in no uncertain terms
that only a woman would give her what she was in need of.

Shampoo stepped into the cleft and immediately her eyes were drawn to
the red-haired girl glowing with lambent blue flames, tears pouring
forth from her eyes but making it no further than her soft cheeks before
evaporating. She had only time enough to register shock that she could
actually see the girl's aura and admiration at the girl's figure and
obvious strength, when a sudden and visible change swept over the girl,
as she rolled forward onto her hands and knees, arching her back and
stretching lightly. She gave a single playful yet tearful, soulful meow,
before pouncing with a speed that gave Shampoo no time to react, sending
them tumbling out of the cleft. 

Shampoo rolled to a rest trying to recover her wits to defend herself,
seeing from the corner of her eye her two companions approaching at a
run, eyes wide, mouths open, but both prepared to strike. A deep,
rumbling purr interrupted her thoughts and all three girls stared in
wonder as they realized that the girl was curled in Shampoo's lap,
purring like a cat, rubbing her head against Shampoo's tummy.

"I think she favors you," smirked Perfume, arching an eyebrow at her
training partner and rival.

The girl butted her head imperiously against Shampoo, for all the world
like a cat demanding a caress and before she had a chance to consider
what she was doing, Shampoo found herself stroking the girl's unusually
fiery tresses. The purr deepened. Lilac glanced at Perfume for a moment.

"She hasn't stopped purring since she rolled you, Shampoo," she
commented curiously, "How's she doing that? She has to breathe, doesn't
she?"

"She is breathing," replied Shampoo archly, as she continued to stroke
the strangely behaving girl, for she could feel the girl's breasts
pressing and receding rhythmically against her lap.

"She's... she's also crying," commented Perfume, noticing this for the
first time.

"That's how I located her," responded Shampoo. "I heard her sobs."

Ranma was vaguely aware of the girls and their conversation, and wanted
to talk to them, but she was too emotionally exhausted to override the
cat's instincts and soon succumbed to the pleasure and the exhaustion,
falling into a deep sleep on the girl's lap.

When Shampoo saw that the little girl, who was strangely light, was
asleep, she tapped a shiatsu spot to help her stay that way, then lifted
the girl into her arms and struggled to her feet.

Rolling her onto her back to make carrying her easier brought her face
up to where the other two girls could get a better look at her. "She's
beautiful," Lilac breathed, "but she acts feral. Why would a feral girl
be so trusting?"

"Great-grandmother will know what to do," answered Shampoo with
confidence and her companions nodded. Together they set out to return
to the training grounds.

They were hardly half the way there when Shampoo stopped suddenly and
her companions, halting a few moments later and turning back to look at
her, saw that her burden was shifting in her arms. Shampoo was staring
down at the fiery tressed girl in her arms with alarm and amazement. "I
pressed her sleep point," she protested, "she can't be waking up."

Yet there was no question that that was in fact what she was doing.
Perfume made a snide remark about Shampoo's imminent re-education in
shiatsu at the hands of her great-grandmother, but Shampoo could see in
her eyes that she was as startled as Shampoo herself. All teasing aside,
they all knew that Shampoo had not missed the spot, not on an unmoving
target.

The three girls were surprised and concerned when the redhead's eyes
opened and tears immediately began leaking out. She meowed sorrowfully
once more before shifting in Shampoo's arms, putting her own slender
arms about Shampoo's neck and nuzzling her affectionately. Shampoo
stared down at the girl in surprise, noting absently that in the absence
of the flames the girl's eyes were still a startling shade of blue. The
girl did not move again, though Shampoo could feel the hot tears
trickling down her neck. She moved forward slowly and when the girl made
no protest but rather pressed tighter against her, purring softly, she
picked up the pace and they resumed their return journey.

They entered the clearing where they had been training to see Cologne
waiting by a fire. She watched their approach in silence but with
evident interest. She was mildly disappointed to see that the warrior
they were returning with was female. The girl was being held by her
heir, who was noticeably uncomfortable with the slight girl's
open show of vulnerability and her apparent need for comfort. Shampoo
was quick to attempt to disentangle the girl to present her before
Cologne.

Cologne was somewhat startled when the first look that came into the
girl's eyes when they fell upon the tiny, wrinkled elder was not one of
fear nor disgust, but an almost predatory hunger. It faded almost
instantly into a desperate sorrow that touched even her heart, however,
and the girl was no sooner out of Shampoo's arms than she was behaving
in the strangest and yet most disturbingly familiar manner, remaining on
her hands and feet, rubbing up against Shampoo and mewling piteously,
like a cat begging for attention.

"Sit, Shampoo," Cologne instructed, "I first detected her near
Jusenkyou, we must test her for its waters." The moment her heir settled
onto the ground, the girl was on her like an affectionate kitten,
purring, distinctly purring, a continuous rumble from deep in her chest
that went on and on with no apparent connection to her breathing.

She gave the elder a reproachful glance when the hot water hit her and
she shook herself, an all-over shimmy that won a favoring glance from
Lilac. She hissed when cold water followed and darted from Shampoo's lap
to hide behind her, eyeing her little tormentor suspiciously. It was
Perfume who first noticed the change the elder's behavior brought about.

"She's stopped crying," she said. Shampoo tilted her head back to see
and jumped when her glance was met by a wet tongue against her cheek.
The wetness was immediately rubbed away by a rush of silky hair as the
feral girl rubbed her head against her protector.

At the same time, startlement and chill water had brought a temporary
end to Ranma's mournful reverie, bringing her back to the present. At
first she made no move to take control from the cat, feeling
overwhelmingly startled at the change in her surroundings and further
disoriented by the alterations in her senses.

She would have expected to have no problems there, having attained the
use of the heightened senses the Neko-ken granted during her training
long before but in fact there seemed no comparison. It was not that they
were better, for the improvement was the same. The disorientation was
rather due to the presence of the cat's instincts, linking the sights
and smells into a series of identifications and behaviors. 

The peculiar wrinkled old woman, looking disturbingly like the
grandmaster of Ranma's former school, Happosai, smelled old and leathery
and bad to eat, for all that sight labeled her prey, which together put
her in the realm of chew-toys and playthings, and Ranma felt an urge to
stalk her. The two standing girls smelled pleasant and nice and were
classed as potential pets, toys that could be trained to pet her and
cuddle her and feed her and so should be treated nicely. The sitting
girl, however, smelled nicer still, for she smelled pleasant but also
familiar, she was an actual pet, a proven source of cuddling and
nice sensations.

Ranma was only beginning to work through these feelings and thoughts and
was not yet near to attempting to regain control when a stick thrown at
her triggered a defensive reaction. Her hand lashed out as she hissed in
anger. The stick was sliced cleanly into five pieces, though it came no
nearer than a few inches from her fingers.

Shampoo was startled by the sudden throw but was even more shocked by
her great-grandmother's reaction. She had never seen fear on her
great-grandmother's face before. It took her several moments before
her trained mind recovered from the unexpected sight and analyzed it
properly. "She's not afraid for herself," Shampoo realized, "she's
afraid for me."

Cologne warned the other two girls away with her eyes then crept slowly
closer to her heir, watching the blue eyes that followed her movements
intently. When she was near enough she lashed out with her cane, aiming
for a disabling pressure point.

The cat's reactions were fast but Ranma was accustomed to the boost the
Neko-ken gave him and her trained reaction was faster still when alertly
defending against a recognizable attack. Cologne was alarmed to the core
of her being as she recovered in mid-air, having been thrown across the
clearing by a single finger meeting her questing staff-tip, in a move
she had not seen since the villainous Happosai fled their justice. She
was not nearly so shocked by the unexpectedly skilled defense as by the
fact that a warrior whom she had been certain was under the influence of
the Neko-ken had just used a skilled technique, rather than batting at
her as a cat might, which she had been prepared to defend against.

The three girls were quite simply stunned and disbelieving, unable to
comprehend someone so easily defending against an Amazon elder,
especially someone who looked as young as this girl, who was surely no
older than they.

Cologne recovered easily, bounding back to land again by the fire, where
she waited, warily watching the flame-haired girl. Staring into her blue
eyes, Cologne became aware that there was a gleam of intelligence in
them in spite of her feral behavior. She sat and set aside her cane.
Immediately, as if perfectly aware of the significance of her actions,
the girl bounded back into Shampoo's lap, purring happily, but watching
Cologne closely.

Shampoo's eyes slowly lost their wide look of shock and refocused on her
great-grandmother, even as the other two girls responded to Cologne's
gestures by sitting near Shampoo. Ranma found herself distracted once
more. She had been trying to focus on the old woman, so obviously a
skilled martial artist, probably the trainer of these three girls, but
the moment the cat felt the nearness of another of the potential pets,
she found herself butting her head against the girl's thigh, then
purring deeply as the girl responded by stroking her brilliant red hair.
Shampoo joined in almost absently, stroking down Ranma's back. If Ranma
had had a tail there can be little doubt that Perfume would have joined
in stroking it, as they began to tell their elder what had happened.

Ranma wanted to listen to their story, once she realized what they were
doing, but she found the caresses too distracting. They were so
comforting, so soothing, that she soon found herself lulled to sleep
once more.

Cologne listened to the tale the girls wove with patient attention and
the growing sense that something was not adding up. The flash of ki that
came when the redhead had slashed apart the stick was almost
unnoticeable and was certainly not something that she should have felt
across such a distance, so it could not account for the surge they had
all felt.

The girl was unquestionably behaving in a feline manner, but she had
reacted to Cologne's attack with a skilled defense. That implied a
degree of intelligence belied by her having yet to say a word. She had
apparently been in the depths of sorrow and sobbing like a human when
she was found, yet she had reacted to Shampoo's presence in a cat-like
manner. A Neko-ken warrior should not react to a sudden and unexpected
presence by seeking comfort from it. Indeed, all Cologne's knowledge of
them indicated that the girl should have viciously defended herself, a
thought that sent a pang of fear and sorrow through the old woman's
heart as she pictured the effect such an attack would have had on her
unprepared heir.

Most certainly, outside of any other considerations, no Neko-ken warrior
should have been willing to go to sleep in the presence of one who had
attacked her.




Joketsuzoku


Ranma awoke to silence. Uncertainty kept her still and breathing evenly,
showing no signs of her awakening, as she strained her senses in search of a
threat. Finding none she shifted slightly as she cracked her eyes. She was
in a bedroom, she realized. She winced as her skin complained about the
rough weave of the sheet that covered her.

Glancing down and drawing one hand from her side up to grasp the sheet and
lift it slightly confirmed that her clothing had been removed at some point.
She rolled on to her side to look about the room and the feel of the cloth
sent her eyes back to the sheet covering her slight form. What had they
covered her with, sackcloth? Yet what met her eyes was no rough and poorly
made cloth but a comfortable looking cotton sheet.

Warily she retreated within her mind, thinking that her senses must have
been heightened by the presence of the cat, as the memory of the earlier
events returned to her. To her surprise she realized that she could sense
the cat but that it slept. Furthermore, the ki technique of the Neko-ken lay
equally dormant.

Returning her attention to the room she looked about but saw no sign of her
clothing. Thinking back to her memories she realized that her pack was
probably still lying in that cleft in the rock face, while the clothes she
had been wearing were somewhere in the hands of the women who had found her.

Instead of a logical consideration of where she was and what she should
next do, Ranma found herself unexpectedly overcome by a sense of loss.
She struggled against the startling strength of emotion, tears
collecting in her eyes as a voice in her mind bemoaned the loss of her
clothes, the absence of the soft silks that would feel so much better
against her skin than the harsh cloth of the bedcoverings.

She threw off the covers in a sudden fit of anger, swinging her legs out
over the edge of the bed and sitting up. The anger passed as quickly as the
sense of loss had, though the tears lingered still in her eyes, and left in
its place a sudden longing for the comforting arms of the girl that had held
her. The sudden realization that she could no longer run through the castle
halls and find comfort from Alana or Mairi or any of the other women who had
always been there for him hit her hard and she sank to her knees as a
terrible loneliness swept over her.

The murmur of distant voices caught her ear and she leapt to the door of the
room. It was with a great effort that she held herself from rushing through
the door to find the source of the voices even as she reminded herself that
she was without clothing. She turned from the door, her eyes catching on the
simple dresser that stood against a wall. The room was mostly empty, devoid
of any personalization giving her the sense of a guestroom, but they just
might have provided clothing. She was stopped by the slowly nearing voices
as they came close enough to be discernable and comprehensible.

"I was startled, as you can imagine, when Perfume returned and said that the
Jusenkyou Guide had indeed seen such a person come from the pools." Ranma
recognized the voice as that of the old woman the girls had taken her to.

"But I thought you said that it had been voluntary?" The second voice was
also female though it sounded younger and stronger.

"I think the initial change was voluntary but as she did not change when I
doused her I think she must have run into the Musk and the Chisuiiton, their
locking ladle. That would explain the state she was in when Shampoo found
her; being locked may have made her realize that she was not as ready to be
a woman as she had thought, or it may simply have been too much for her in
too short a time."

"And what of the cat-fist?"

"I do not see what else it could have been, but though the child behaved
in a very feline manner, she reacted to my test with a move that is not
in any description of the cat-fist that I have seen. But come, we'll
speak no more of it for now, we are getting over close and soon we'll be
within hearing distance of the child's room."

Realizing that they were indeed coming to her room Ranma turned away from
the door, ignoring the dresser for now, and climbed back into the bed.
Forcing aside the rough feel of the cloth Ranma managed to scrape together
enough concentration to put herself back to sleep.

Though her intent was merely to remove any suspicions the women might have
of her having been able to hear them, her action had an unexpected and
unintended consequence; the noise of the women entering the room awakened
the cat while she still slept.

Lotion and Cologne had barely entered the room when Ranma sprang from the
bed only to collapse in a heap on the floor, tangled within her sheets.
Without Ranma awake to supply an overwhelming diet of emotion, the cat was
not particularly interested in the people that had just entered the room.
Clawing the sheets away she sat up and proceeded to lick her hand, pointedly
ignoring the women.

When they refused to take the hint and leave, Ranma blurred into motion,
springing out the door and down the hall, her cat self not the least bit
self-conscious about her nudity, which was, after all, a cat's natural
state. The women followed hurriedly behind, noting in passing the blank-eyed
stare of Shampoo's father.

They burst from the house to see Cologne's heir staring open-mouthed at the
little redhead, who was leaping about beneath a tree, happily swatting at
falling leaves.

Seeing that they were beginning to attract a crowd, Cologne signaled
Shampoo. When her heir approached, Cologne ordered her to entice the cat
back inside the house. Shampoo dutifully stepped into the open doorway.

"Here kitty, come here kitty," she called. Ranma glanced at her for a moment
before returning to her play. Shampoo felt a presence behind her and glanced
back to see her father. She gratefully accepted the small platter of fish
that he had handed her. Grabbing one of the thin slices, she tossed it,
aiming carefully just as Ranma leapt again. The fish slapped wetly against
Ranma's cheek then fell to the ground.

A jeering comment from one of the bystanders awoke Ranma. She was too
disoriented to be feeling much of anything but she quickly realized that she
was still unclothed and looking about, spied the nice cuddle toy in the door
of the house several meters away. A single powerful leap sent her and
Shampoo tumbling into the house. They fetched up against the far wall even
as Cologne rushed back inside in fear for her great-granddaughter.

Cologne slowed then came to a halt watching as the little redhead licked
Shampoo's face while Shampoo tried to fend her off, with little success.
Once more Cologne received an impression of genuine skill, for the slight
girl was avoiding Shampoo's defensive hands with casual unconcern.

Shampoo finally gave up trying to hold off the girl and simply looked
pleadingly at her great-grandmother, while her father collapsed in
laughter. Cologne shot him a dark glance but said nothing. He was not
familiar with the cat-fist and she had to admit that had she not known
the danger her heir was in, the scene would have been quite amusing.

When Shampoo saw that her great-grandmother was making no move to aid
her she gave in and began stroking the brilliant red hair of the oddly
behaving girl. She was quickly rewarded, for the girl immediately
stopped licking her face, and dropped her head, rubbing it against
Shampoo's belly while Shampoo stroked her hair.

Soon it was obvious that the cat-like girl was falling asleep. Both
Cologne and Shampoo were startled when just after the girl's eyes
finally closed into sleep, she rolled off of Shampoo's lap onto her
knees and bowed low to Shampoo.

"I thank you, kind stranger," the girl said in a high, clear voice.
"Please forgive my behavior, I am not quite myself."

"So I had assumed," replied Cologne. The girl swiveled to face her,
raising her head to meet Cologne's gaze steadily. "Given that you have
so recently suffered the curse of Jusenkyou."

The girl flushed and looked down. "It... it was not that. I... I am on a
journey of self-discovery and the second step on that journey was to
tear down all the barriers I had built up around my emotions." She
raised her head again, her eyes azure pools of sorrow without end.

Cologne nodded. That fit with the Guide's description of a willing
victim, but that also meant... "Why then, child, did you not change when
I splashed you with hot water?"

The girl flushed and looked down again, obviously embarrassed. "You are
right, I'm sorry, I'm still not thinking clearly. The meditation was the
third... no, the fourth step, not the second."

"What's that got to do with her question?" put in Shampoo, frowning in
confusion.

The girl flushed even harder. "Sorry, I... The second... no, I mean, the
third step... was to master the curse... then I broke the barriers."

Cologne felt a shiver race down her spine, a cold chill that settled in
her bones. "Master the curse? What do you mean, child?"

"Well," answered the girl, raising her head, eyes glistening with the
hint of tears, "I can't very well learn to be a woman if I change back
to a man constantly, now can I?"

"You... you have control of your curse?" Cologne's voice shook and
Shampoo stared at her in amazement then turned her attention back to the
little redhead.

The girl nodded. "Yes, I locked myself. I will not leave this form until
I am capable of fulfilling my duty."

"Your duty?"

The girl flushed unaccountably. "I... I cannot speak of it," she said,
her voice quavering, tears beginning to slip down her cheeks and drip to
the floor. She bowed still further. "Please forgive me," she said,
choking back a sob. "I can't..."

She seemed to curl in on herself, shivering suddenly. Before her eyes,
where only she could see, hovered the image of her Lady, suspended,
seemingly lifeless, in the depths of a pool waiting to be freed. "It's
all my fault!" she wailed suddenly, sobbing and rocking back and forth,
"all my fault," she sobbed again.

Shampoo glanced at her great-grandmother for permission and then for the
first time she deliberately gathered the delicate redhead to her,
comforting her as best she could, stroking the girl's fire-red hair and
rubbing her strongly muscled back. She glanced up at her
great-grandmother, thinking about what she had just heard. "Was boy,
before?" she asked, mouthing the words. She grinned when her
great-grandmother nodded. She wondered what kind of a man it took to
produce such unbelievable beauty from the springs. A slow smirk grew on
her face as she considered it. She had a man that none of her
competitors even knew existed, a martial artist skilled enough to
successfully defend against her great-grandmother while in the depths of
sorrow, who, if what she had understood was correct, had mastered the
curse of Jusenkyou within an hour of being cursed! And when he was ready
to change back, well, then maybe she would have her Airen, and stupid
Mousse would finally see that he would never have her.

"Shhh," she crooned, "it's okay, it's not your fault." She shifted
slightly, pressing the girl's tear-stained cheek against her bosom. The
girl had been a boy such a short time before, she would still be
vulnerable to Shampoo's charms, assuredly. If she became familiar with
them while Shampoo comforted her, what of it? She would remember them,
when she took back her old form.

Her great-grandmother gestured at her and she nodded. Shifting, she
worked her legs under her and then wormed her arms beneath the girl and
lifted, rising easily to her feet. She followed her great-grandmother
down the hall, but when the withered old lady turned into the guest
bedroom, Shampoo shook her head and kept going. Cologne smiled knowingly
as Shampoo laid her burden down upon her own bed, then pulled the silk
sheets from beneath the girl and tucked them back in about her. She
stroked the red hair out of the girl's face to look at it, then turned
and ran back to the front room, where she spun to face her
great-grandmother.

"What a man he must be!" she cried out. "I hope his eyes are that same
blue."

Cologne smirked at her again. "Careful, Shampoo. You don't want your
competition learning the truth about her, now do you?"

Shampoo shook her head, eyes sparkling as she pictured her handsome
soon-to-be husband. "No, but don't you have something that can show me
what he looks like?"

Cologne hmmed, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "I am not sure, Shampoo.
Perhaps. It will take some time to find, if I do... in the meantime, you
must care for the child. She needs affection while she is learning to
deal with her changes. Keep her inside or, if that becomes impossible,
make sure she is clothed before she leaves. She does not need additional
trauma from some foolish male who believes that outsiders have no
rights."

Shampoo nodded and hurried back to her bedroom. The redhead was not
asleep as Shampoo had expected. Her eyes were red from tears but they
had stopped falling and she was sitting up, watching the door. She
offered Shampoo a hesitant smile, which strengthened when Shampoo
responded with a strong smile of her own.

"No worries, we will help you," she said, flouncing over to her dresser
and pulling out a drawer. "But first, since you are awake," and she
tossed a grin and a wink over her shoulder at the other girl, "we should
get you dressed. You don't need to have worry about jealous women coming
after you because you turned their husbands into drooling wrecks with
another show like this morning's." She smirked as she drew out panties
and a bra and tossed them to the bed, waiting for his reaction, which
she expected to be amusing. Men could be so fun to tease.

After a moment she turned around, pouting involuntarily, to see the
little redhead already wearing the panties. Her grin returned as she
watched the neo-girl struggling with the bra. It snapped and the girl
jumped with a yelp then glared at the offending garment. Shampoo giggled
and bounced over, taking it from her and showing her how to put it on
properly, taking the opportunity to rub her bosom against his arm. She
knew she needed to catch his attention and his attraction before he grew
accustomed to his female hormones. She was not planning on letting any
chances of snaring this man pass unheeded, unless Cologne found a way to
show her his male form and it turned out to be ugly. That was so
unlikely as to not even be worth considering.

Stepping back and looking at the result--the blushing and embarrassed
redhead, clad in panties and a bra, her lithe, powerful form otherwise
fully displayed, Shampoo thought about Perfume's earlier comment. Maybe
waiting was not really necessary. Learning that she was actually a man
had led to a frank reappraisal of the girl as husband material. It was
not difficult to take that a step further and consider the girl as a
lover. Definitely something to think about, Shampoo decided. It might
well cement her hold.

"Shampoo?" The shy question brought Shampoo's attention back to the here
and now and she fought back a blush as she realized that she had been
staring. She nodded as if she had simply been making a decision, and
turned to her dresser, pulling out a silk cheongsam and silk pants to
wear beneath it.

"Here, I think these will fit you," she said, holding out the garments
with a smirk. The little redhead did not rise to the bait. She rose from
the bed in silence and taking the clothes, began to put them on. Shampoo
sighed as she moved to help the girl put them on properly. It would be
more fun if she realized she was being teased, or at least reacted to
it. How can she be so stoic about it, when she was so emotional before?

When the girl was properly attired, she sat back down on the silk sheets
of Shampoo's bed. Shampoo sat beside her. "So, do you have a name? Or
should I just call you Little Redhead, hmm?"

The girl blushed, looking down. "Sorry about that," she apologized, then
paused as if considering what name to give. 

"Worry about a girl's name later," Shampoo laughed, guessing her
quandry, "What is your given name?"

"Ranma," the redhead replied. "Fey Ranma."

"Xiao," Shampoo said, "Spirited Horse... or Chang Ma, maybe... but I
don't know what Fey means."

"But it's still a guy's name," protested Ranma softly, smoothing out a
wrinkle in her cheongsam as if to emphasize her current femininity,
though the gesture was perhaps marred by the way it widened the thigh
high slit, revealing the concealing silk pants beneath.

"We could call you Lie Fa," Shampoo offered, "Fiery Hair is close enough
to little redhead, don't you think?"

Ranma nodded, raising her head and grinning, and though her eyes were still
reddened from the tears she had shed earlier, they were dry, and
sparkling with amusement. "That'll do, I guess, Shampoo. Thanks." Then
she sighed, her shoulders hunching in as she clutched her elbows. "I...
uhm... I kinda didn't wake up until just before I jumped on you out
there... Would... would you mind telling me what I did? I didn't hurt
anyone, did I?"

Shampoo shook her head slowly, not knowing what to make of Leaf's
curious statement. "No, you just ran out of the bedroom, outside, until
you got distracted by the leaves falling from a tree, and started
batting at them."

Ranma, now Leaf, breathed out a sigh of relief. "I'm so glad. I hate
waking up from that, never knowing what I've done, whether I've
killed . . ." Her voice trailed off, her eyes becoming shadowed and
unfocused. A chill ran down Shampoo's spine, as she considered Leaf's
words. It sounded to her like Leaf had, at least once, awakened to
discover she had killed someone. 

Shampoo knew, from her lessons, that her first kill of another person,
which she had not yet made, would have a profound effect on her.
Everyone spoke in hushed, pained tones of their first, and she had seen
the effect it had on one of the girls two years ahead of her, though
generally the girls going through that trauma were brought quickly and
silently into the village and isolated from their unblooded peers until
they were emotionally balanced again.

She remembered the fear for her she had seen in her grandmother's eyes
several times around Leaf, as well as Leaf's curious words. She had
clearly been awake from the moment she left her room, so what did it
mean when she said she woke up just before she had pounced on Shampoo
like a cat on a mouse?

She felt a presence behind her and glanced over her shoulder. Her
great-grandmother was in the doorway, balanced on her staff, looking
at Leaf with what looked startlingly like compassion in her eyes. 

"You know the Neko-ken," Cologne said, stating it as a fact.

Leaf nodded, raising one hand and looking at it with a strange
expression in her eyes. "Yes, I know it. I had mastered it, years ago,
mastered the fear and been able to use the technique at will, the spirit
of the cat kept locked within no matter what happened." She sounded
contemplative, as if she were speaking more to herself than to anyone
else that might be hearing her. "But when I tore down the walls of ice
in my mind, my emotions were too much. I think I lost myself for a while
there. Whatever the reason, I broke the barriers around the cat, as well."

She looked up then, meeting Cologne's eyes. "I don't think I'm terribly
dangerous that way right now, though. I'm not sure, but..." She heaved a
sigh again. "I think, maybe, that the cat's reputation is partly due to
the way it only got let out after a bout of intense fear. Right now, it
is like it is just sleeping, and waking, not quite in sync with me."

"It woke up first," Shampoo interjected, not knowing a tithe of what her
great-grandmother knew about the Neko-ken, but able to put Leaf's words
together with what she herself had observed to come quite close to
understanding, "that's what you meant when you said you didn't wake up
until you jumped on me... and when I," she blushed unaccountably,
looking at the top of Leaf's head to keep from meeting her
great-grandmother's gaze, "when I stroked your hair, it put the cat to
sleep, not you."

"Only because I was trying to stay awake, I think," Leaf replied. She
looked at Cologne. "When we're both awake, it's like... it's like the
cat's thoughts are on top of me, or underneath mine." She flushed. "The
cat...," her eyes dropped unwilling to meet Colognes as she continued,
"the cat thinks of you like a toy, Cologne-san... uhm... inedible, but
fun to play with." Shampoo giggled, putting her hand to her mouth and
glancing at Cologne as if fearing retribution, but unable to stop
herself.

"And Shampoo?" Cologne asked, setting aside her irritation at the
redhead's characterization of her in favor of her own concern and
curiousity about her great-granddaughter's safety around the redhead.
Promising though the child might be as both a martial artist, and a
marriage prospect for Shampoo, if her great-granddaughter was in genuine
danger, she would do whatever it took to ensure her safety.

Leaf's flush deepened and she snuck a glance at Shampoo before looking
down again. "Uh... it uh... kinda thinks of her like a pet... someone to
cuddle and stroke it."

Cologne cackled as both girls' faces flamed.

---

A tremor ran through the photograph in Cologne's hand and it was only
the old woman's iron will that kept tears from her eyes. "Oh, my poor
Shampoo," she thought sadly, "this will devastate her." There was no
choice though, no alternative. The law was as clear as the photograph.
The beautiful and skillful and delightfully easy to teach girl that
Cologne had taken into her home was not only in fact a male, as they
already knew... she was a werecreature. A weretiger, from the looks of it.

"I should have pushed that change in the laws through when I first
learned of the werecheetahs, and their ideals. Not all were-creatures
are evil, and I knew it. If I had only... but it is too late now. I am
so sorry, my child." Cologne said nothing aloud but raised her eyes from
the picture and passed it to the elder to her left.

She offered no reaction to the gleeful, malicious look of her primary
political rival amongst the council. There was little doubt in her mind
who to blame for this. She did not know who had taken the photograph but
there was little doubt in her mind that the original accusation stemmed
from Mousse, the frequent victim of Shampoo's protective instincts for
Ranma, and Ranma's for Shampoo.

When the last elder held the photograph in her hand, Cologne's rival did
not waste any time on asking for a concensus. The lack of an objection
from Cologne had already sealed Ranma's fate, and they both knew it. She
moved immediately on to the next piece of her plot.

"The accusation has been made," the elder said, calming her face to at
least the appearance of disinterested objectivity, "that the warrior,
Shampoo, has already fallen under the influence of the vile beast,
coming to love it by its arts." 

Cologne shook with fury but said nothing, already knowing what was
coming and knowing too that there was little now that she could do about
it. "I am sorry, Shampoo," she thought sadly.

"Therefore let that warrior prove herself by dispatching the beast
before the assembled council!"

---

Shampoo stared at her grandmother in abject horror and disbelief. "No,
no, it cannot be," she protested. "She is kind, and..." 

Her grandmother cut her off. "You must make no protests, child. We have
no choice now. If you defend her, they will only see it as evidence that
they are correct, that you are in her thrall and must be exiled yourself."

Shampoo opened her mouth and shut it again, her eyes wide, her hands
trembling. Finally she gave a tremulous nod.

When the elders gathered, they found Cologne and Shampoo already in the
werebeast's room, Cologne just stepping back from having placed one of
the Amazon's artifacts on the delicate redhead's stomach. A small jade
figurine, when activated by a trickle of ki, it would paralyze anyone
that touched it except the one who charged it, and would not accept a
new charge until it fully drained, after several weeks.

When the elders were fully assembled, one of them stepped forward,
holding out on hands covered by a single cloth, a sword of surpassing
beauty, gleaming silver. Shampoo recognized it at once, from their
legends. It was a weapon of power, wielded in times of demon resurgences
by the strongest warrior of their people. She accepted it with no sign
of emotion, but inwardly she was weeping, for it was also a blade of
judgement. Against demons, it would cast them back into the pits.
Against a normal opponent, so it was said, it would cast out their soul,
removing them from the cycle of reincarnation and ascendance, sentencing
them to wander as spirits.

Cologne stepped forward then, tapping a tsubo to bring the child to full
consciousness. Reaching out, knowing that Ranma could not move, she
gently brushed the girl's eyelids, opening her eyes so that she could
face her accusers, even though she would be given no opportunity to
present a defense.

She stepped back and another crone moved forward, holding a scroll, from
which she read in a thin, high voice. "Outsider, evidence has been
presented proving you to be a werebeast. Know that for such an accursed
creature to cross the boundaries of our land, there is only one
punishment." She looked up with a wicked smile. "Death!"

Ranma could not see everyone in the room, being unable to move her eyes.
It was with shock and sudden despair that she saw Shampoo step into her
vision bearing a sword, her face stoic, showing no signs of distress.
She wanted to cry out to her. "You know me, Shampoo! I'm your friend,
I'm not some beastly thing like Krall! It's just a technique." But she
could say nothing.

Ranma stared up her eyes burning, tears of disbelief and pain
collecting. How could they so easily believe this of her? Did the
friendship she had offered mean nothing? She tried to summon up the
energy to destroy them, thinking that a single unfocused burst of ki
should probably undo whatever pressure point they used to freeze her.
She might not make it out alive, knowing the years upon years of
experience held by the ancient warriors facing her, but she could take
some of them with her at least.

She could not find it in herself, though, to harm Shampoo nor Cologne,
both of whom she had come to love as family. She could scarcely credit
that they were going along with this, but she knew of Krall, and what he
had done to her people. If they had been similarly treated by
werebeasts... she wondered how it would have felt if Krall had been a
trusted advisor when his depradations were uncovered, and imagined they
must be feeling no less pain right now, no less a sense of betrayal. She
gave herself over to the coming death, resigning herself to it with the
realization that at least her beloved Alana would finally be freed.

She tried but failed to catch Shampoo's eyes, for her own would not move
to meet them. "At least, then," she decided, "let me make it easier for
her, for she has not seen it."

The collected elders gasped as one, as even as Shampoo's sword pierced
into Ranma's breast, slicing cleanly through on a hard thrust that would
spear her heart, she grew, swelling into a felinoid form, causing the
sword to cut a gash down her chest, ending with it piercing her stomach.
The jade statue shivered and toppled. Even as the elders rushed forward
to prevent the beast's escape, two things occurred simultaneously.
Ranma's soul was ripped out, cast from his body, and the flare of ki at
the unexpected pain cutting beyond his physical body triggered the next
stage. They stared in aghast wonder at the lifeless body of the slain
female dragon, realization coming all too late.

Shampoo lost it then, staring at the unbelievably beautiful body of the
one that should have been her husband, blatantly more powerful than any
male brought into the tribe in the last century, now lifeless, dead at
her hand. She threw herself across it, sobbing uncontrollably. Cologne's
face turned grim as her rival saw her advantage waver and vanish like
mist.

---

Ranma's spirit was torn from her body with terrible force. She finally
came to rest, her spiritual flesh seeming to hang in rents from her
battered frame, only a few feet from an unimprinted spring in Jusenkyou.
Even as she struggled to stand upright, she could feel the waters
pulling at her, eager to take her, to imprison her forever. Shivering in
fear and pain, she stumbled away, avoiding the water solely by the
hungry feel of it, shambling through a white haze that obscured
everything.

"I'm dead," she muttered in dismay. "So why does it hurt so much?" She
stumbled, a cold metallic chill freezing her skin, pain radiating from
ragged cuts and bone-deep bruises. An ominous clanking sound echoed her
fall and she stared down at herself. Her eyes widened, filling with
tears, as her hands slowly rose to clasp the frigid chains that wrapped
around her, searing her skin with a cold beyond that of ice or snow. For
the barest instant she had hope that this was merely some form of
punishment, but as her eyes followed their course, she could see the
chains vanishing into the distance.

"I'm dead, she should be free!" she screamed, pounding her fist against
the ground. She grabbed at the chains and tried to pull them away then
screamed in agony as they reacted, freezing her hands. The pain was
intense beyond anything she could remember. Screaming still, she jerked
back and her hands shattered like fragile crystal. She stared at the
white on white stumps, her voice failing her, and she collapsed in a
dead faint.




Spiritual Journey

Not yet posted.