An Unremembered Act


Ranma awoke with a start, sitting up in a sudden but smooth motion.
Before his bleary eyes could clear, he heard a thick, sultry voice.
"Ah, you're awake, Master." He rubbed his eyes, and looked
around. He only got to the point of noticing that he was sitting on a
huge bed, wearing nothing but a black wrist guard, before noticing the
stunningly beautiful woman sitting on the edge of the bed, even now
leaning alluringly toward him, her silk nightrobe hanging loose, giving
him a perfect view of her assets. She had lustrous black hair that
reached down to her waist, and smooth white skin, and a tightly
muscled stomach, and full breasts. He dove beneath the covers. "I'm
sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't see nothing, really, honest, uh, please, uh,
please don't hit me, I'm sorry, I wasn't looking." Finally he paused for
a moment. 

Whenever his father had been caught looking at a woman, the lady would
instantly start to attack him. But he hadn't been attacked yet. He heard
a soft, low chuckle. "Why does the Master fear his servant?" she asked.
He felt her hand on his shoulder through the blankets and sheets, then
he felt her drawing them back, uncovering him. He realized with
sudden shame that he was wearing no clothing, nothing at all, and sought 
desperately to cover himself, as she pulled away the covers. "You seem
uncomfortable, Master. If you do not want to be unclothed, why do you
not clothe yourself?" 

He looked around frantically, still covering himself, looking anywhere
but at her. "Where are they? Where are my clothes?" 

"Master?" she asked, looking confused. "What do you mean? You know you
have only to think of it, and your clothing will appear."

He looked at her finally, desperate, and saw the honest confusion in her
eyes. Could she be right? It didn't make any sense, any more than her
constantly calling him Master. He kept expecting her to suddenly realize
that he wasn't whoever she thought he was, and attack him for deceiving
her. But she didn't. Hoping frantically, he concentrated on picturing
what he needed most, and suddenly he was wearing a pair of black silk
boxers. He breathed a sigh of relief, then asked, "Wha... where...
where'd they come from?"

As he saw the confusion deepen in her eyes, he tensed, again expecting
her to suddenly realize that he was not who she thought he was, and
attack him. While he sensed no real fighting ability in her, the fact
that they were on this bed said to him that they were in at least a
large house, and there were probably others within easy calling
distance. If she called out, he might be forced to attempt a quick
getaway, a very difficult thing when he had no idea of the layout of the
house. When he saw sudden comprehension dawn in her gaze, he pulled his
legs beneath him, ready to leap, his eyes darting suddenly around the
room, taking in the huge closet, the massive wardrobe, the open paper
door to a large bath, and the massive oaken doors that must lead
outside. "You are not the old master in a new form," she breathed out
slowly, and he gulped, and prepared to leap, "You are a new master."
She smiled suddenly, and it seemed to light the whole room. "You must
have defeated him! Such power in one so young. Is this your true
form?"

He looked at her aghast. She had realized that he was not her master,
and then simply decided that he was anyway? This made no sense. "True
form? What'd ya mean by that?," he asked, edging slowly backward, toward
the edge of the bed. "Who'd I defeat? I don' remember fighting nobody." 

"But you must have. You wear his clothing, the spells that bound me to
him now bind me to you. You must have defeated him," she said, almost
desperately, looking around with wild eyes, as if expecting someone to
suddenly appear. "He can't just be playing with me. He can't! He would
never have given you his clothes, not even to play a trick on me. It
would be too dangerous." She was breathing rapidly now, and he could see
her fear rising. 

"Don' worry. Don' be afraid. I'll protect you from him." he said
suddenly, wanting to stop the tears he saw glistening in her
eyes. He hated to see women cry. "Jus don' cry. Please don't cry." 

She suddenly reached out, and gathered him to her, holding him
tightly, as tears fell from her eyes. Sobbing under her breath, he could
hear her chanting, "He must be dead. He must be dead." He could feel her
heartbeat, thudding against his back, and the warmth of her pressed
against him. It caused no response in him though. He was still to young
for that. He felt only an urgent desire to stop her tears, to comfort
her, to erase her fear, and thought desperately, trying to think of a
way that he might have defeated someone and yet not known it. 

He tried to remember how he had come here, and finally he remembered
sitting at the fire with his father, having just finished their meal,
when a large wildcat had appeared. It was foaming at the mouth, and his
father had jumped up shouting "Rabies" and run from it nearly as fast as
Ranma himself had.

"Neko-ken!" he said suddenly. "I could'a defeated him in the Neko-ken
and I would'n a remembered anything. I never do." Her tears stopped, and
she sniffled. A sudden dread fell on him. She had been chanting, "He
must be dead." If he had to be dead for Ranma to have his clothes
(though it disturbed him to wonder how she recognized his boxers) then
that meant Ranma had killed. A cold shiver went through him, and sudden
tears sprang to his eyes. 

"No. No, I didn't. Please no. Tell me I didn't! Oh, Kami-sama, I killed 
him. I'm a murderer. Damn you, Oyaji! I'll probably kill again. I won't
even remember it." She held him through his sobbing tears, rocking him
back and forth, and trying to comfort him. When his tears finally
slowed, she tried to reassure him that the man he had killed had been
thoroughly evil, that he had deserved to die. "Maybe. Maybe it wasn't
wrong to kill him. But I didn't know that. I could'na known. I just
lashed out. It could'a been someone that didn' do nothin'." His look of
sorrow suddenly turned to a look of pained determination. "But I have to
know. I have to know if I really killed him." 

He extricated himself from her arms, and jumped lightly off the bed.
Closing his eyes, he concentrated again, trying to picture himself in
his typical clothing. When he opened them, he found he was indeed
wearing his traveling gear, except that they were all black. "Weird." He
sighed, and turned to the lady. "Please, get dressed. I need ya to help
me find him." She shivered, but nodded, and slid off the bed, and walked
into the closet. He sat cross-legged on the floor to wait for her.
Several minutes later, she stepped out again, dressed in an elegant
kimono of green silk, and held out her shapely hand for his.
He rose lithely to his feet, and she led him out the door.

She watched him as he walked down the halls, turning where she said. He
moved, she thought, with an unusual grace, and an even more unusual
silence. He seemed like an animal, graceful and sure in his movements, 
with an abundant but hidden power. She shivered in delight, remembering
the hard lines of his body as he sat on the bed. She quickly suppressed
the thought. He was too young to want that of her, and his lack of
reaction when she held him confirmed that this was his true form. 

The magic bound her to love him, but as she recognized his unwillingness
to accept her in that role, it allowed her love to take on a more
maternal air. She noticed that he looked small for his age. He certainly
didn't look like he had lacked for exercise... perhaps he hadn't been
well-fed?

She stopped him at the bottom of a flight of stone steps rising between
walls of stone. "I found you, young Master, at the mid-flight of these.
The last time I saw the Master, he was going to the Summoning Room,
which is at the top of the stairs. I suspect we shall find something
there." 

His step as he walked upwards started light enough, but by the time they
reached the landing where he had lain, his step had grown heavy, and his
shoulders had drooped. She paused behind him, feeling for his obvious
pain and depression, as he stared down at the small bloodstains where he
had lain. 

He knew he had no injuries on him, so this blood was not his. This only
served to confirm his fears, and his depression grew. She offered,
though with visible trepidation, to go on ahead, and verify the death,
so that he need not see it, but he cut her off. "I gotta see. I can't
just hide from what I did. I... I gotta face it." 

She marveled at his strength of will, to do what he so obviously wished
not to have to do, with no one there telling him it was necessary. This
was a boy she might have come to love even without the strength of the
magic that bound her to him. His speech was uncouth, but his heart was
pure. 

With a heavy sigh, he walked up the stairs. As he neared the top, his
shoulders straightened and his step firmed, though she could still see
the depression and fear in the soft features of his youthful face. 

He looked up, and started in surprise, then pointed at the door.
"Oh man... No way... Wow! Well, I was definitely in Neko-ken." She
gasped in awe. The three inch thick iron door had a hole slashed through
it, the edges jagged and sharp. A strong light shone through the hole in
the door, glinting off the iron filings that covered the floor. 

So strong, so much power, and yet so young. She felt a momentary twinge
of fear. It was known that some powerful mages, when faced with a
challenge for physical combat, would bind the souls of demons to
themselves, to strengthen and give them great fighting ability. Surely
this must be what the boy had done, for how else could he have appeared
in the summoning room, and how else could he have torn through a door?
Yet she sensed no evil from him, nor even a hint of the demonic, nor had
she even when she had found him sleeping, surely scant hours after he
had been possessed. It did not make sense. 

She watched in silence as the boy walked up to the door, and strove to
open it. He had no magic sense, clearly, or he would have seen that the
door was warded and sealed. Yet he had broken through it. Even now, to
her utter amazement, he was slowly forcing the door inwards. While she
knew the wards would have been weakened by the old Master's death, they
were physical magic, not like the summoning which required constant 
effort. They had physical form, and true power was in them, which did
not need to be held. They would work for anyone, even after their
creator's death, and yet this boy was forcing them backwards. He
certainly seemed too uneducated to be a mage. But then how did he have
the power to carve a path through an iron door?

With a sudden crack and flare of light, the door burst inwards, and they
both covered the eyes, and then gagged at the stench of blood. As their
eyes adjusted to the brightness, she saw a little man, who she
recognized as the old Master's homunculus, trying to straighten some
books. 

The whole room was in complete disarray. The chemicals on one wall were
spilled and mixing on the floor, contributing to the miasma in the air.
The glass pipes that had held them were shattered, some still hanging in
their fixtures, cleanly severed. The books and scrolls along the walls
were largely shredded. 

On the floor lay two bodies. One, tall and lean, the body of the Master,
a massive pool of blood surrounding his head as he lay face down, the
other a large cat, lying motionless, not even breathing, on the floor
some distance away. She turned back to look at the boy, and watched as
the horror in his eyes faded to anguish, then hardened to a look of
steel. 

"Never again," she heard him say under his breath, then he turned to
leave. "Come on, please, I gotta get out of here," he said in a
trembling tone, then under his breath, "I gotta be strong," then again,
firmer, "I killed him," and he sobbed suddenly, then took a deep breath,
"I gotta bury him." 

He did not look at her as he said this, hands clenched by his side, but
simply turned and walked to the door, and started down the stairs. She
followed quickly after, as happy as he was to leave the stench of death
behind. He seemed to have simply ignored the homunculus, or had he
perhaps not seen it at all? Often those with no magic-sight could not see
beings of such pure magic.

"You need not worry yourself, Master. I will have the other servants
take care of it." 

"Yeah, all right. I gotta think for a bit. Is there someplace I can just
be alone, sit and think? They can get him ready, and maybe get him some
clothes or somethin'. But I gotta bury him." The pain flickered in
his gaze, and she marveled again at his strength of will. So young.
He must want to collapse in tears. How will he be able to live with what
he has done? Yet he is strong. It would be much easier on him if he were
not so good in his heart. 

"Very well, young Master, it will be as you say."

"And after, we can talk about why you keep on callin' me that," he said,
the pain even more evident in his voice. She sensed that it was not the
Master's death that pained him now, but somehow her words that had hurt
him. She shrank inside. She loved him, and yet she had hurt him, but
she did not know how. "But right now I just wanna be alone for a while."
  
So she led him outside, to a small rock garden, and left him there.

---

When all was in readiness, a few hours later, she returned, and found
him sitting on the rocks in lotus position, the calves of each leg
resting on the thigh of the other, focused on a single rock before him.
When she approached, he stood smoothly. "You know," he said in a soft
voice, "I still don't know your name." 

"Nor I yours, young Master," she replied, and this time she noticed the
visible wince at her words. She was troubled. She was causing him pain,
but since she did not know how, she could not stop. There was no
alternative but to ask him. She hoped he would not say that she pained
him by her presence. She did not want to leave him. "Master, what am I
doing that causes you such pain? Please tell me," she entreated him.

"It's nothing," he said, suddenly firm in tone again, "Is the,"
and he paused, a look of agony on his face, "burial site r-ready?" 

"Yes, Master. Follow me, and I will take you to it." He followed
silently behind her, and she wondered why it was so important to him
that he bury the old Master. She did not think it was a mere matter of
symbolism, of emphasizing his defeat. Certainly, he had not insisted
that anyone be there to witness, as a leader might do to ensure that all
recognized the validity of his claim, though she had made certain that
there would indeed be witnesses... all of the castle staff, though not
the Lord Fey's war leaders. No, somehow, he was motivated by his pain,
in a way she couldn't quite understand. 

When they reached the garden, he saw that the man's body had been
clothed in black cloth, wrapped about him, more a shroud than clothing.
His face was covered with several layers, and he lay upon a stone. An
open coffin was beside him. It was made of a dark wood that glistened in
the sun, and the interior was of a deep velvet in a rich red. Further to
one side was a shovel, lying on the ground, and a gravestone, set in the
ground, but devoid of any markings, its flat surface smooth and shiny.

He walked over to the body, and stood before it for several minutes,
oblivious to the large crowd standing some distance away, and equally
unaware that the lady had followed him, and was close enough to hear his
words. "Oh, Kami-sama, I'm sorry. Maybe you did deserve to die, like the
lady said. But I didn' wanna kill ya. I don't know all I did, or how I
got your clothes. But I promise ya, I ain't gonna stop till I'm in
control again. I don' wanna ever kill somebody again. And I specially
don' wanna kill somebody and not even remember doin' it. It just ain't
right." 

Then he turned, and walked over to the shovel, and picked it up. He set
it against the ground in front of the gravestone, placed his foot on
it, and drove it through the grass, and deep into the soft earth.