Ranma grumbled to himself as he packed up their camping gear. His father was dragging him along to yet another 'famous training ground,' only this time, he didn't seem to have the foggiest clue what made it so great. He would only say that no-one trained there anymore, which must mean that it was terribly dangerous. Ranma wondered whether it might not actually mean that the training ground was merely inacessible, like that one cave they had tried to reach. There had to be some reason that it was no longer used, and since there were always idiots like his father willing to do something no matter how dangerous it seemed, the idea that its hazards were the reason it was no longer used seemed far-fetched to Ranma.
Besides, it had been ten years, and Ranma was feeling anxious about the imminent return to Japan. As he finished tightening the last tie on his backpack and shouldered the burden, he wondered again whether his mother was still alive, and what she would be like. He could no longer remember her, and Genma would never speak of her, so there were no facts to fuel his speculations, and his mind soon moved on to planning out how to defeat his father this time.
It had been some time since Genma had been a real threat to him. He had been beating him in sparring regularly for a number of years by this time. Nonetheless, he had to stay with the old man . . . after all, he was his father, and for all the stupid things he had put Ranma through, he still loved the old man.
He followed his father, who was a thickly built man, only slightly overweight, wearing a bandanna around his bald head, and glasses. They both wore training gi, largely because Genma was too cheap to buy both ordinary clothing and gi, though in this case they were in fact heading towards training.
Genma looked upon his son as they walked side by side, now that they had encountered a clear path, and he no longer needed to lead the way. His son had grown strong, through all of the challenges that Genma had thrown at him, and Genma felt a strong swelling of pride. He proceeded to thoroughly mangle that sensation. It would not do, it absolutely would not do to allow the boy to learn that he had already surpassed Genma's expectations. Why, if he knew that, he might get cocky, he'd start slacking off, and he'd listen to Genma even less. Better make sure he wasn't getting a swelled head.
"Foolish boy!" Genma snarled, swatting the back of Ranma's head, "It took you far too long to get packed this morning! Why, we didn't even have time to spar before setting out," stated Genma, ignoring the fact that he had basically been lazy, and not assisted his son, not feeling like putting forth the extra effort needed to get the camp put away quickly enough to allow a morning spar.
"You'd better impress me at this new training ground, Ranma! For it is here that I will decide if you are yet man enough for us to return! You must be the best!"
Ranma grumbled silently, not deigning to respond. His father was always rambling on about how Ranma needed to be manly, and nothing Ranma ever did seemed good enough for the old man. The slightest sign of unwillingness or hesitation, though, and it was 'Oh, I'm so ashamed! My son is acting girly! What are you boy? A girl? Or a man!?' Ranma had long since grown sick of it, but he could not deny that he had become a skilled martial artist through his father's teachings. He just couldn't quite decide if it was because of his father's training, or in spite of it.
Genma vacillated between a brooding silence, as he considered their imminent return to Japan and his son's likely response to the news of the boy's engagement, which given the boy's recent reactions to the occasional downside of the training was likely to be painful for Genma, and thinking about the boy himself and how proud he was of him, which inevitably led to a short round of insults.
Ordinarily, Genma would have soon grown concerned at his boy's uncharacteristic silence, his lack of response to Genma's insults, but Genma was preoccupied. In fact, Ranma had been growing steadily more taciturn for the last several months, not that Genma, ever perceptive individual that he was not, ever noticed. The only insult that consistently got a rise from Ranma was when Genma questioned his manhood, calling him a girl. Had Genma been aware that this was because Ranma had eked enough details out of Genma over the years to recognize that his ever seeing his mother again depended upon his manhood, Genma would have been startled at the boy's perceptiveness. As he was not aware, he remained blithely confident that the boy had no particular idea why it was so important that he be a man, and he further remained blissfully unaware of Ranma's feelings on the subject.
Soon they stood together at the beginning of a downward slope that led into a valley cloaked in dense white mists. As they continued down the trail, the mists parted before them, and by the time they had reached the bottom, the rising sun had burned off much of the mists.
Ranma tried to stop for a moment to take in the view. One of the parts of this trip that he had truly appreciated had been the sheer natural beauty of some of the places they had visited. Unfortunately, though not in the least bit unusually, Genma interrupted his attempt to enjoy Nature's splendor.
"Come on, boy, don't stand around all day! Let's spar!" Genma looked out over the vista of innumerable pools of various sizes, with freshly cut and trimmed bamboo poles rising from them. As he leapt up to land balanced easily upon one of the poles, he noted two things to himself. First, that in spite of what the brochure said, this training ground must remain in use, or there would not be freshly cut staves of bamboo rising from each pool. Second, that this would be a good final training ground, perfectly suited to the aerial nature of the Musabetso Kakuto Ryuu that the Saotomes practiced.
It would not, he could see, be like many of the places he had gone, where Ranma had been put through hellish experiences that tempered him as the forge tempers steel. Still, it would be a good site, in that it would act something like a cooldown after a good spar, letting Ranma down easy in terms of ceasing his heavy training schedule. Rather than it simply stopping outright, they would enjoy this last training ground, fine tuning their skills, as a way of allowing Ranma to ease into his new life. After all, he would still be sparring with his son regularly . . . but the heavy training was over.
This was still definitely a higher level workout than the sparring would be back home in Japan, for the air was thinner here high in the mountains, and that water should be extremely cold. Losing focus here would definitely result in a jarring awakening.
Ranma dropped his pack and leapt easily to a pole across from his father, and moments later the two were clashing steadily in the air. Their sparring lasted for some time, as they bounced back and forth across the expanse of poles, and they were near to their starting point when Ranma finally tired of the insults Genma continually threw, and blasting through his father's defenses, sent Genma plummeting into the icy depths of one of the pools.
Ranma dropped easily to a pole a few pools away, waiting for his father to emerge. When Genma did not emerge immediately, Ranma called out to him. "Ano, Oyaji, are we done already?"
The pool frothed suddenly, and a massive shape barreled forth from it, springing to land back atop the pole. Ranma gaped at the black and white panda balanced precariously on the thin bamboo pole. He was frozen in surprise and had only time to notice that the panda was strangely enough wearing glasses and the tattered remnants of a training gi when it attacked him.
Genma leapt from the pool and tried to focus on his son. He felt strange, slightly off-balance, and his sight was fuzzy . . . he assumed it was from the water still dripping from his eyebrows, and the fact that his glasses were askew.
He was about to adjust them when he realized that Ranma had still not moved, much less taken advantage of the opening. What was this?! He had taught the boy to take every advantage in a fight, not sit there gawking! He leapt to the attack, intent on teaching the foolish boy a lesson, and to his great anger, Ranma hardly managed to even attempt to block and was sent flying into another pool for his folly.
Genma growfed angrily, then paused, startled. Growfed? He what? He held up his hand, and looked at it. Not a hand . . . fur, claws . . . he looked down at himself, caught his reflection in the pool, and fell from his pole in shock. He managed to catch it on the way down, and push himself off so that he sailed over the pool that Ranma fell into and onto solid ground.
He spun to face where his son had gone in, mind frantic with horror. His worst fears were confirmed when what rose from the pool was a dainty redhead wearing Ranma's gi, and the shriek she gave off when she opened her gi and looked down would have confirmed her femininity even had her form not done so.
"Oyaaajiii!" she growled, launching herself at him, the intent to main and possibly dismember clear in her still startlingly blue eyes. Genma turned to flee when they were both brought up short by a quietly spoken, "Stop," that somehow seemed to come from every direction at once. In the air before Genma an apparition appeared that frightened him terribly.
Powerfully built, clearly male, the man's features were indistinct due to the writhing aura of blue flames that tore the air about him in eerie silence. Genma did not need to see him, to feel that this man's aura rivaled that of the dreaded Master whose name he did not even dare to think, and even worse . . . this man had wings! Was this some divine kami of retribution come to visit judgement upon him? Genma immediately launched into the only attack in his repertoire that was usable against beings of this power level . . . the Saotome Special Technique - Crouch of the White Tiger!
He fell to his knees before the man, bowing and scraping, kowtowing before the kami. The Lord Fey looked down with disgust on the panda, but nonetheless poured hot water upon him, a stream of steaming water that appeared from his outstretched hand to trickle over the man's head. After all, Genma couldn't offer his son to save his skin if he couldn't speak.
Fey awaited the inevitable, maintaining a stern look, while Ranma simply watched in disgust and mild curiosity. Her disgust was for Genma, and his simpering, while her curiousity was for her father's return to humanity. Could her own curse be so easily cured by this man? She growled low in her throat when she heard her father offering her up to appease the strange man. She knew well what he was about, he had done much the same when they encountered martial artists who held grudges against him for one reason or another and she knew he intended to come for her. She couldn't help her feelings of revulsion, however, when she heard him offering not his son . . . but his daughter, and extolling her virtues, her beauty . . . her compliance?! The bastard!
"I accept, Saotome Genma!" the man said, in a voice that seemed to reach into their very bones and rattle them. He held out a scroll, and a golden quill pen. Genma signed hurriedly. "Now leave," the man growled, and Genma shot Ranma an apologetic glance before racing away.
Ranma set herself in a defensive stance. She could feel the power rolling off the man, but she was damned if she was going to allow some damned man to buy her. Who knew what he wanted to do, but whatever it was, she wasn't having any of it. She was beyond tired of being the scapegoat for Genma's schemes, and this last one . . . well, it just went too far! How could she see her mother now? What would she think?
---
In a village in a valley not far distant from the training grounds of Jusenkyou, Kho Lon stood beside her great-granddaughter, as Xian Pu watched and awaited her next turn in the tournament. Xian Pu was well on her way to winning the tournament, which would be quite a feat. It was quite unusual for any girl to win the tournament in the first year of her participation, and most of those who had accomplished the feat had gone on to become Elders themselves. Xian Pu was determined to make her great-grandmother proud of her, and to take the tournament prize. She would prove to them all that she was the best fighter of her generation.
Kho Lon looked up, startled, when she felt a flare of powerful ki in the Jusenkyou valley. She concentrated on it for a moment, and judged it to be approximately equal to her own. She glanced around, noting that a few of the other elders had also felt it. She wanted to go and see what it was, but she couldn't leave her great-granddaughter without support . . . besides, she had a lot riding on the outcome of this tournament, herself. She would investigate tomorrow . . . or perhaps, she might not need to. The Jusenkyou Guide might bring whoever it was to the village.