Sacrifice


When Sylie arrived, she found the castle in a bit of disarray. 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, healing the worst of the wounds,
and bandaging the rest. Then 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. 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. Its 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. It is like you are two separate people now, male and female...
like, like brother and sister. Only she is trapped, sleeping in the
darkness of your mind."

"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?"

"I can awaken her, Ranma, or teach you how to do so, but you must
understand that if I do, you will have to share your body with her. It
will be hard on her... she will be a young woman, but in a man's body, 
with a man's memories."

"Lady... Is it possible to set her truly free? To give her a body, that
she not be trapped in mine?"

"But Ranma... Don't you see? She IS you! If I awaken her, it would be
for you to get to know her, that eventually you could accept her, and
become a whole person again. If you can achieve that, then you might be
able to cast the spell. If I split you apart, you could never become
whole. Each of you would always be only half a person."

"Will it not be cruel to her, to trap her in the body of a man? I would
not like to be trapped in the body of a woman. Even if she is me, how
can I do that to her? Is there a spell I can cast, that would change
this body into that of a girl for her, for a time?"

"No Ranma. You know that those spells cannot truly change you. They only
change your outward appearance. You would still be a man inside, and she
would feel that."

"Then is there nothing I can do? I want to set her free, but I don't
want to torture her!" 

"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 will not manage the changing of the mind
though. It would be up to you and her to do that. If you do it, and she
becomes too frightened and retreats, or you or she is sleeping when the
change occurs, you might each be forced to deal with the other body."

"But she would know that she simply needs water to get her body back.
That would work. But what about you? You can send me there... I can send
myself back. But I cannot take you with me. I cannot let you die for
her."

"You could 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
akieved 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 and free
you!"