Ranko leapt easily to the rooftop and grinned widely when she saw Ryouga shifting into his half-wolf form and retaining almost perfectly human legs, aside from their becoming suddenly hirsute.
Bathing in the eerily silent town had been a nerve-wracking experience for her, but her uneasiness fled completely as she rejoined her companions. "You're doing great, Ryouga," she congratulated, smiling. Ranma nodded.
"We're not too far from being able to wrap him in a cloak and pass him off in the city," he commented.
"I don't know, Ranma," demurred Ryouga, a frown furrowing his once again hair-free brow. "I've met more than one demon hunter in my travels. I don't think I'd fool one of them and they'd probably take my hidden appearance as proof of my evil." He grew more depressed as he spoke, and so it was with surprise that he looked up at Ranko's light laughter.
She flowered into her half-tigrine form and purred, "Fey gave us these forms for a reason. We will face things we cannot defeat without them and we will not have the option of hiding. Facing demon hunters is inevitable, no matter how skilled you become at partial transformation."
Ryouga nodded reluctantly, and shook off his depression, even as he marveled at the beauty of Ranko's form. He grew into his lupine shape again and looked down at his now human-form legs. He shivered deliberately, causing his fur to ruffle, then he stamped his feet and the fur on his legs dropped back into a rich, smooth black fall.
He looked up at his two friends. "That's as much as'll be of use right off," he stated. "It would take too long to get rid of the fur and the change in my face," he continued, running his hand along his extended muzzle. "So what now?"
Ranko looked over the village and sighed unhappily before turning to Ranma. "I wanted to help them, to clean up for them, but I'm afraid that using enough magic to make it right will be too visible. I checked and the black growths are gone from the fields, so it looks like Yao Mo Wen was telling the truth and they won't have dark magic blocking their rebuilding. I've been thinking about it and after that cleansing I cast, I think it would be wise if we were quick to set off a larger bit of magic . . ." She hurried on before Ranma could interrupt, "not that much bigger! But a larger bit of magic some ways from here. Just in case we did attract something." She rubbed her hands against her furry upper arms. "I'd hate to draw another monster here so soon after ridding them of one. Better to draw it away, to somewhere where it won't find the villagers."
Ranma hardly paused before replying. "If you think it best." She had been the one who wanted to clean up anyway. He was not particularly interested in it, aside from it being an opportunity to practice his granted magic. Even with that, however, he would prefer to be learning spells of attack and defense, though he had been willing to go along with it.
He glanced at Ryouga, who nodded. Both were more interested in sparring and making progress towards Japan than in rebuilding a village. They did not live here and they did not feel any great obligation to the people who did. Granted they had been through hard times, but the three teens had surely done their part.
Ranko sighed with relief when Ranma acquiesced. She had not expected a long argument about it, but she had been worried that he might have had a deplorably male reaction to her changing her mind.
"I guess we ought to go tell the villagers they can have their land back, then, right?"
Ranma shook his head doubtfully. "What about Jiaohou? Do we take him with us? I can't . . . I can't seem to decide what is right. Is it better to leave him to the villagers, angry as they'll be? Or is it right to hide him from them, and deny them the chance to get justice?"
"Would it be justice?" mused Ryouga. "I've seen mobs before. I can't see that group listening to his side of the story."
Ranma nodded. "That's what I've been thinking, but damnit, we don't know that he's innocent, either. I hate to think of helping the murderer of Jun Lo Wen's wife and child go free, if this was all his doing in the end."
"We could cast a spell to get the truth from him," Ranko answered shakily, "but do we have the right to be his judges?" She had avoided thinking of Jiaohou. Though she had argued in his favor when they were considering torching his house, she could not help but feel that it would have been better, for him and for them, if he had died when Yao Mo Wen took him, or when he was torn from him.
"Judges . . . ," murmured Ranma thoughtfully. "What about the seer?"
Ryouga shook his head. "No good. They went to the seer for help only when they were out of options, and you remember how even after we showed up some of them were still grumbling about following her advice! I can't see how they'd want to go for something they have no question about."
"Right. If asking the seer for help were easy or safe, they'd have done so long before things got this bad. They won't want to go through that when they see their way clear."
"Shen Long, then. Put it before the temple. After all, they went to the temple for aid, right? Wasn't that like admitting that they still owe him fealty? At the very least they owe him an honor debt for providing us." Ranma might not be the most learned about local customs or general culture, but the topic of honor was one he knew intimately.
"What do we do if Shen Long doesn't show up?"
Ranko turned and walked to the edge of the roof, staring morosely out over the town. She shuddered, sending ripples through her fur. "They would probably turn to us as his representatives. We'd be stuck doing it anyway."
Ranma cursed again. "I don't want to be his judge."
"Nor I," agreed Ryouga, and Ranko nodded.
Ranma's brow furrowed as he pondered something Ranko had mentioned. "A spell . . ." He looked up. "We could offer that spell you mentioned, Ranko. To the villagers, I mean, as a way to get the truth. You think you could do something like that to make him tell the truth, so they all could hear?"
"Probably," Ranko nodded, turning back to face Ranma. "I think so. Do you think the two of you can keep them from becoming a mob?"
Ranma grinned and shot up as he shifted into his half-dragon form. "Oh, I think we can keep them sufficiently intimidated."
"If we break up any push to be a mob, they ought to be able to listen to him. We'll be there to vouch that his words are truthful . . . Do you guys think you'll be able to accept whatever they decide?"
Ranma's face fell and he looked back over at the unconscious body. "I don't know if I could stand by and watch them kill him."
"I hate this," muttered Ranko, turning away again. "Could . . . could we just insist that if they decide to kill him they give him time to put his mind and heart back in order first?"
"Time?" asked Ryouga, startled. "You really think they'll be willing to wait? I mean, you're talking about coming to terms with mass murder, with causing a plague and a famine! That could be years, if it's possible at all!"
"No, but we could insist that they hold him, and reconsider the question of his punishments in six months. They might make the same decision, but they would not be killing him in the heat of passion then."
Ranko turned to look at Ranma as he fell silent. "Could you live with that? Could you walk away, not knowing what they would do?"
Ranma grimaced, then nodded slowly. "I just can't accept taking the choice away from them. I just don't want them to do something that will only hurt them more 'cause they act too fast." He looked at his hands, slumping back into his human form so they matched his memory. "I know how that feels," he added, his eyes dark with self-loathing as he remembered how so many of his actions looked when seen through Ranko's eyes.
A slight smile curled his lip when Ranko appeared in front of him, laying her red locks against his chest as her slender, once-more human arms encircled him in a tight hug. "No longer," she whispered, and he nodded.
"Doesn't change the past," he answered, but his tone was lighter.
Ryouga coughed, catching their attention. He held Jiaohou in one furry hand. "So, we're decided, right? Hadn't we better be going then?"
Ranma nodded and he and Ranko disengaged, slowly, hands sliding down each other's arms to become entwined as they hung between them. Ryouga shifted Jiaohou to his shoulder, and the three took off.
---
Although there was an immediate outburst of celebration amongst the villagers when the trio came into view, the villagers closest to them quickly began muttering darkly as they recognized Ryouga's burden. Villagers rushed to surround them, but Ranma forged on, heading directly for the village leaders.
"Your village is cleansed," he announced when he reached them, and a massive cheer erupted around them, erasing, for the moment, the muttering.
"Jiaohou was possessed by Yao Mo Wen, but we have cast him out and banished him!"
Again Ranma's words were greeted by cheers, whistles, clapping, and other expressions of joy, so that his next words went unheeded, and he stopped to wait for renewed silence.
Silence did not come. Someone near the trio became certain that Ryouga's burden was Jiaohou, and shouted "Death to Jiaohou! The sorcerer must die!"
The cry was quickly taken up and Ranma looked to the village elders. He frowned deeply when he saw that they would not act. Swelling into his half-tiger form, he demanded silence.
When it finally came, he spoke in a forceful tone, deliberately focusing on one of the leaders and directing his words at the man. "When a spirit comes and takes over your body, throwing you out to watch while he uses your hands to murder your children, should I kill you without questioning your guilt?"
Quiet mutterings arose about them, and Ranma could see sullen resentment on more than one face. "Remember, there is no question about the possession. Jiaohou was possessed. I cast the youma out, I held its throat in my hands before I removed its head."
"But he summoned the youma," a strident voice objected, the speaker hidden within the crowd.
"That, we do not yet know," retorted Ranko angrily. "Should you not find out, before condemning him to die? He may be guilty, yet he may be innocent!"
"But who will judge him? And who will defend him?" piped up another voice, this one female. "We all have reason to hate him. Who here has not lost friend, or family?"
---
"Well? Are you going to let them off the hook yet?" Bastet snarled, watching the situation outside growing ever more tense. She turned to glare at Shen Long, standing beside her, looking out the window.
"I was hoping . . ." Shen Long said slowly, resting one hand on the stone window facing.
"What?!" Bastet snarled, "that they would somehow know exactly what to do? Isn't it enough that they did not try to take justice into their own hands? Do you have to wait until their confidence is destroyed by a failure here? What do you suppose this outsider God will do if that happens? They are children!"
"You're right." Shen Long sighed. "It is time." He was, after all, testing them under Bastet's sufferance, they belonging more truly to her than to himself.
---
A deep thrumming wrought a sudden silence across the contentious group. Dust drifted down as all eyes turned to the temple, visible shaking of the stones knocking loose dust and sending shivers down hanging vines. The light failed about them, though the sky above remained clear.
The three travelers moved quickly to stand between the crowd and the temple when light began to collect on the stairs leading up into the ancient stone building. The crowd drew back, pulling together nervously, while Ranma and Ryouga exchanged glances of mixed hope and apprehension.
The light built up from a thin glow to a glaring pinpoint, streamers of light rising from the ground and stone walls like ribbons, curling and rippling as they were drawn into the brilliant point of incandescence.
Strangely, even as the point seemed to emit ever more light, the area grew darker, creating an ever strengthening contrast, until finally, when all but the three travelers had been forced by the brilliance to turn their eyes away, it swelled suddenly, and with a sharp crack, the gathering shadows fled and the light was replaced by the glowing figure of a man.
The three tensed as they prepared to defend, but the figure made no move to attack. The light emanating from him dimmed slowly, until he was able to be seen. Ranma had barely begun to catalogue what he was seeing when the villagers behind them began to cry out in glad voices. Beside him he heard Ranko murmur a spell and, after nodding at the results, catch Ranma's arm. He grabbed Ryouga, and brought him down with them as Ranko drew him into a deep bow.
"Welcome, Lord Shen Long," Ranko said, then drew the others out of his path.
---
Ranma stared in disbelief at the god, who, having judged Jiaohou, had now returned to the threshold of his temple. Shen Long gestured again at the three, and nervously, they followed him, doing their best to ignore the murmured comments of the crowd around them. Though he was grateful that the god had shown up and taken from him the burden of judging or defending the apparent sorceror who had caused so much anguish, he could not help but feel uncertain of the god's intentions towards him.
Looking at Ranko, he saw the same worry in her eyes. They had cleansed the village at the villagers' request, but they had done so, from the villagers' perspective, at any rate, as representatives of Shen Long. How would he feel about the avatars of a different god saving his people? Had he himself been sending champions, as the villagers seemed to expect? Would he be angry that they had taken his champions' places?
In Ryouga's eyes he had seen that same fear mirrored, but in Ranko's eyes he saw another, deeper fear. How would their benefactor, the Lord Fey, react to their acting in the name of another god? What would he think of them? Ranma could not help wondering if this was how his good fortune would end. Though he now had greater confidence that when it ended Ranko would stay by him, he knew he would feel horrible for having ruined her chances as well as his own.
A scent caught his nose as he passed through the doorway into the dark interior of the temple. Hidden though it was by the glorious smells of rich food that still lingered after nearly four days, he recognized it subconsciously and, in sync with Ranko, he embraced the Neko-ken.
Shen Long was continuing forward, passing through the hall and into a stairwell leading upward. As they pressed on up the thrice-turning stair, the scent grew until it reached Ranma's conscious mind, aided by the increased senses of his current state. Somewhere above them was a cat. As they neared the head of the stairs, Ranma felt strange urges rising up in him, reminding him of Lord Fey's first appearance to them in his own half-tiger form, and his and Ranko's instinctively affectionate reaction.
Ryouga, on the other hand, was bristling. His fur was lifting as if electrically charged, standing straight, while the muscles beneath twitched erratically. A low rumble sounded in his throat, segueing into an irritated but uncertain whine, as if vocalizing his confusion at the source of his own agitation.
Ranma placed a hand on Ryouga's arm and the lupine boy blew a whuff of air before drawing in a deeper breath. "Cat," he rumbled as they stepped out into a large open room. Light streamed in through tall, narrow slit windows.
Within one of the beams of light, validating their senses, stood a slender, feminine figure. A long, furred tail, of uniform width, twitched in the sunlight behind her. Ranma's hand tightened on Ryouga's arm, restraining his impulse at seeing the strange cat.
"My name, you know," said Shen Long, drawing their attention back to the finely dressed god. "My lovely companion," he continued, lifting his hand to the woman, who stepped forward, placing her hand in his, "is the goddess Bastet."
The three took a moment to take in the pair. Shen Long showed few signs of his expected true form, aside from slit pupils in his eyes. Bastet, on the other hand, showed considerable evidence of her feline nature, from her furred, triangular, high-set ears, that twitched and turned to focus on them, to the eye-drawing tail, to the soft fur that covered her skin and the claws that appeared momentarily at the tips of her fingers.
"Well, uh, I'm Saotome Ranma, and . . ." Ranma began to introduce himself nervously.
"Oh, we know very well who you are," Bastet interjected. Ranma caught Ranko sending him a glance laden with significance.
"Right, okay . . ." Ranma's eyes flitted between the two. Though he was full of questions, Ranko's warning squeeze on his arm held them back, which left the three waiting in tense silence for the next shoe to drop.
---
"Contrary to what I perceive you to believe, I am not a god," stated Shen Long. "I am the Eternal Dragon. Because I am not a god, I am not bound by quite the same rules and strictures as the gods and goddesses, such as the lovely Bastet here."
"The foe that you are being prepared to face is one that in the proper course of events, would have been faced down and defeated by my champions."
The trio exchanged nervous glances. That sounded like yet another reason for the . . . well, not the god, but the dragon, at least, to resent them. This was not looking good.
"Unfortunately, these enemies were not anticipated here in this world, and at this time, I have no living champions."
Ranma winced at this. The villagers outside had been sent by a seer to sacrifice all but five days worth of food to call upon this dragon to send champions he did not even have?
"Unlike some powers, I do not choose my champions and gift them with great power. Rather, I challenge them, and in the course of succeeding in the face of my tests, my quests, they gain my gifts as a direct result of their own actions."
The dragon in the form of a man sighed, looking between Ranma and Ryouga. "Before all this began, you two were slated to be my champions. You would have faced an ever more difficult series of tests, and in the facing of these you would have grown great indeed. Had you not chosen to follow the Dragon Lord Fey, that might yet have been your course, for the darkness is not set to descend for nigh on thirty years yet; more than time enough for you two to have achieved much, both together, and in the rivalry you would have held."
Bastet stepped forward, standing before Ranma and Ranko, and ignoring Ryouga's low growl, she smiled at them though her eyes were filled with sorrow. "As for me, I would never have known you had not Shen Long brought you to my attention. You are mine also, or would have been, by virtue of surviving the bastardized training of an art I created."
"The Neko-ken," Ranma whispered, a slow light of anger kindling in his eyes.
"Yes, but as I said, that was a bastardized version. The true Neko-ken is meant for my champions, those who are already feline. It is not meant for humans, especially," a tear glistened in her eye, "especially not for children." She reached up and rested her fingers lightly against Ranma's cheek. "It pains me, to see what my children have done to you, though unwillingly. Yet I am glad to see that you were so pure of heart that one of my own gave their soul to save you from the demon that would have taken you."
Ryouga's eyes had about doubled in size. Ranma and Ranko knew this already, but Ryouga had not known that the training Genma had put Ranma through had been meant as a conduit for demons to enter the world.
"My own hands have been tied," she continued, stepping back, "by oaths taken and held between the gods and the demons. Yet I may act through those who choose me." She looked back at Shen Long and he stepped forward again.
"I cannot send you on quests now, for your lives are in the hands of another. Yet I will not lightly pass over this opportunity to defend my land against those who would see it destroyed."
"Nor will I," interjected Bastet. "And so, we ask that you consider accepting the gifts that we have to offer you."
Ranma turned to Ranko, a troubled look in his eyes, and saw the same concern in her own. Facing them once more, and drawing his courage about him as he dared the possible anger of two deities, or near-deities. "We cannot accept anything without the agreement of Lord Fey." The three felt as though a hand had taken their hearts in a grip of iron as they waited for the deities' reaction.
---
Ranma, the Lord Fey, prowled the streets, searching for his prey. There was little different between the description he had extracted from the elder Kuonji-san and the girl he remembered encountering again and yet for the first time on the banks of a stream near a pool where he had serenaded a water spirit.
The key difference seemed to be Ryouga, unsurprisingly. Ryouga had encountered Ranma before meeting Ukyou, in this world, because Genma had not lost Ranma, and so had been able to enroll him in the all-boys school where he would meet Ryouga. This Ukyou, then, would not have the benefit of sparring with the lost boy, but from all Kuonji-san had said, she would look little different.
Still dressed as a boy, if not more so than he recalled, she would be wearing the uniform of a traveling seller of okynomiyaki, and bearing a bandoleer of miniature spatulas and one extremely large spatula. As such, he did not expect to have any difficulty recognizing her, if he could just find her in the first place.
Of course, he could have simply avoided all of the difficulty in locating her by requesting her location from Yggdrassil, but he had been warned to limit his use of power, and he was hoping that by finding her without employing supernatural means he would stay below the radar of their enemies, thereby avoiding placing her at risk before she could join up with his champions.
He had felt the surge of power as Ranko called upon him, so he was fairly confident that anyone watching for him would be looking to China.
Unfortunately, he mused as he queried yet another vendor about having seen Ukyou, Kuonji-san had not had any recent pictures of her, so he was forced to describe her verbally.
"No, I ain't seen any boy like that," the vendor snapped, and Fey nodded and moved on, allowing the older woman to return to her selling. Her reaction was hardly unusual. Most of the people he encountered around her had little patience for his questions, especially once they realized he had no intention of purchasing anything from them.
Nor were most of them amenable to questions about someone who, had they seen her, would have been one of their competitors.
The myriad sounds of children at play caught his ear as he continued on his path and when he looked up, he saw that he had reached a middle school, the last level of school for which attendance was mandatory in Japan. He stared at the name of it for several long minutes before he made the connection.
This was the school that the Ranma of this world had attended with Ryouga! Or at least, a school with the same name. He did not recall where that school had been located, having never attended there himself, and so was not certain that this was in fact it. Yet, it seemed an unlikely coincidence, encountering a school with that name, here where he was looking for Ukyou.
Seeing that the gates of the school were closed, he found an alcove, a deep-set doorway across the street where he could wait and watch. When the bells rang for the last time and the gates opened, school-children pouring out onto the sidewalk in both directions, he stood.
They parted before him, he noted with amusement, without seeming to realize that they were doing so. He watched them with curious eyes as he passed through their midst. This was an environment with which he had little experience.
Entering the doors of the school, he noted the racks where the students kept their school shoes, exchanging them for their outdoor shoes on arriving and leaving. The halls were yet noisy, but as he passed down them they quieted rapidly, as the children did not linger long in the hallways.
Heading for the concentration of the oldest ki he could feel about him, not a difficult distinction as the gap between the youngest of the elder and oldest of the younger was still many years, he quickly found the office.
Here was luck with him, for even as he struggled to resist enspelling the irritating clerk who refused to answer his queries about the students that had attended here, the door behind him opened again.
"Excuse me," rasped an artificially rough voice, "is there a Saotome Ranma attending here?"