Genma growfed as he pulled his pack from where it had caught on a branch. Another gi, ruined by his sudden size increase. He slashed the tree, gouging its bark in irritation. If that stupid branch had not caught on his pack, he would not have been doused by the water lurking on its leaves. As if the rain was not bad enough, he finally got back to human after it stopped and splash, he was a panda again.
He shook a furry paw at the sky, cursing vociferously--if incomprehensibly given a panda's vocal apparatus--at whatever gods had chosen to make him their plaything.
It did not help that the branch had pulled the pack off his arm. He could not get the pack back on both shoulders in this form, though if it was already on when he changed, it would stay. Of course it was then quite a challenge to get it off again, but it made traveling easier. With his sloped shoulders, when his pack was only on one arm, it had a tendency to slide down his fur and fall constantly. Having wet fur certainly did not help that in the least, either.
He was only five paces further on when he suddenly stopped, and turned back to look at the gashes he had left on the tree. Why did that seem familiar to him? He stared at it with bleary eyes for several long minutes, but nothing further came to him, and eventually he moved on.
"Damn that ungrateful wretch of mine. Why the devil did he pick now to grow a spine? And how the bloody devil did he avoid leaving tracks?"
The lack of tracks had not stymied Genma for long, after he found again the clearing where he had fought his son. He had not even looked for them until after he had gone over the traces left by the fight, looking for clues to the changes in his son, but he had been quite startled when he realized that there were no apparent signs that his son had ever left the clearing, aside from his obvious absence.
Then he had gone back and examined the signs in more detail, and confirmed that the wolf-tracks were indeed made at the same time that some of his son's tracks were laid down. Putting that together with the apparent presence of the single wolf, with no sign of any of its packmates, and the earlier indications that he had been trailed by a wolf for a short time before reaching Ranma, and most of all, being hit from behind by a sneak attack while facing Ranma, he reached some interesting but not entirely accurate conclusions.
He had momentarily believed that Ranma had succeeded in moving fast enough to leave behind an image of himself, and that he had been the one to make the strike from behind. Finding the wolf's tracks and recognizing the timing told him otherwise. Ranma had a partner. Genma wondered if it was that same man, the one Ranma claimed had been a kami, but he did not think it likely. That man had possessed too great a power to conceal it so easily. No, Ranma had acquired a new partner somehow.
So now he was following the wolf's tracks, and for some reason the cuts he had scored into that tree kept popping into his mind. He growfed angrily and moved to slash another tree to work out his frustration. He stopped, staring with his mouth wide open. The tree was already scored twice over, a little above the highest his panda form could reach, with four parallel grooves, already darkened, weeping long, sticky trails of sap.
"He's in the trees," Genma said, reaching as high as he could. He could not touch them, and did not know why he thought they indicated his son's presence, but he felt sure of it now. His son was traveling through the trees, which meant that Genma had been right to follow the wolf tracks, and that he was on the right trail.
---
Ukyou carefully concealed her spatula, and her mini-spatulas. Tools of her trade they might be, they would still not be accepted where she was going. Looking around herself to be sure no-one was watching, she quickly rose and walked away, trying to seem as if she were merely passing through.
Wishing she looked like she belonged, but knowing that her garb, even for a man, was anything but appropriate to the doors she intended to pass through, she worked on psyching herself up as best she could as she approached the stone stairs. Unfortunately, she was concentrating too hard, and she bumped into someone who was as engrossed in the book she was reading as Ukyou was in her mental preparations.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Ukyou apologized, bending over and grabbing the book the girl had dropped, and then offering her hand to lift the other girl up.
The other girl, a short, and short-haired, girl with glasses and a thoughtful expression, accepted her help and apologized for not watching where she was walking. A warm blush lit her cheeks and nose, and Ukyou could not help but smile at her, recognizing the signs of a girl entranced by Ukyou's apparent bishonen good looks.
"I'm sorry. I was just going in . . ."
"So was I," Ukyou interrupted her. "And I was not watching where I was walking either. May I escort you?" She offered, and the shorter girl blushed deeper, but linked her arm with that of the, to her, handsome guy.
Ukyou definitely did not like leading girls on, though it often seemed to happen in spite of her best efforts, but she rather enjoyed giving the shy girls a boost to their self-esteem. Her own picture of her femininity was so shot that helping uncertain girls feel better about themselves sometimes made her feel like she was helping herself; or at least, doing for others what she wished someone would do for her.
"So," asked the short-haired girl as they passed through the scanners, "what are you looking for?"
"I need to find someone. A friend of mine has not seen his mother in many years. I have to find her, prepare her. He's coming back, and well, it would really suck if she had a heart attack because he popped up out of the blue."
"Wow! That's very nice of you," she commented. "You know her name?"
"Yep. Saotome Nodoka, wife of Genma, mother of Ranma. Hopefully that'll be enough to find her. It's about all I know."
"Oh, I'm sure it will be, I . . . oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to give you my name. My name is Mizuno Ami."
"A pleasure, Ami-chan, I'm sure. Kuonji Ukyou is my name."
Ami led Ukyou to a bank of computers and very quickly had multiple searches running. "Wow, you really know your way around these," commented Ukyou. "I was expecting to have to flip through piles of folders." She did not mention that she had done exactly that to find what schools had a Saotome Ranma registered.
"Aha!" Ami exclaimed, pointing happily to the screen. "Here we go, let me just print this off for you."
"That was quick," Ukyou blurted, staring at the screen in disbelief. "I was expecting to spend hours here." She looked at Ami, noting her blush and the slight disappointment in her eyes. "You saved me a lot of time. Will you . . . will you let me buy you dinner, as a thank you?"
---
"You think we'll see them again?" Ranma was looking over the clearing where the villagers had been encamped, but both of his companions knew he was speaking of the deities they had just visited.
Ranko nodded as she finished placing everything back in her pack, having hidden the bag of seeds in the lining on the bottom. "I think so. After all, if you knew something terrible was going to happen, and you also knew that there was absolutely nothing you could do about it, then suddenly you got the opportunity you were told you could never have, would you take it?"
"Hell, yeah."
"Well, Bastet has not yet actually done anything. I don't know if we'll see Shen Long again, but I have a feeling we'll be seeing her."
"Great. So, we good to go?" Ryouga's affirmation was less than enthusiastic. He was not on the cat-goddess's list, after all. He was a wolf, not a cat.
"Not yet. I still want to expend a hefty dose of magical energy here, to draw off any consequences from that blast back at the village."
"Draw them to the temple instead?" Ranma asked, turning to look up at the stone structure, wondering how Shen Long would react to having enemies drawn to his temple.
"Why not? There's nothing here for them to kill."
"Maybe not, but there is a nicely trampled line of grass leading right back to the village!" Ryouga pointed out.
Ranko frowned as Ranma looked about them. "There's actually a lot of evidence that people were here," Ranma commented, "and it does lead back to the village. So . . ."
"We cast a spell to clean it up?"
"Exactly."
Ryouga shook his head nervously, and glanced at the doors to the temple. "We? Ehrm, shouldn't Ranko do this by herself?"
Ranma and Ranko laughed at Ryouga's nervous behavior. Clearly he was remembering what his pack had gone through when Ranma summoned it. "Not to worry, Ryouga. When Ranko guides my visualization, my spells work just fine."
Ryouga just shook his head, picking up their packs, his own already on his back, and loped over to stand beneath the overhang of the temple door. "Why don't you guys cast from in front of me, that way," he suggested, pointing ahead of him at the trampled ground.
"Yeah, sure, Ryouga. That'll do fine, I think," agreed Ranma, looking to Ranko with a grin.
She laughed softly. "Why not, come on, Ranma." Taking Ranma's hand, she drew him up the steps to stand in front of Ryouga. Turning slightly, she cast a coy gaze behind her. "You sure you want to stand there? We'll be blocking all the action. You won't get a good view."
"That's alright," Ryouga demurred, laughing nervously, "I'm fine right here."
"Okay, Ranma. I would have us visualize this area the way it was before they came and use some sort of restoration concept, but since we never got a chance to see it unspoiled, we're going to use nature instead. We need to picture the jungle moving in, growing over all the signs of human presence, taking it back, but," she turned and put her hand on his face, looking into his eyes, "you must be very clear in your mental image, that the sun is staying where it is in the sky, that the bamboo they left behind is staying just as it is, aside from what the plants do to it.
"I don't want to take any chance of the spell messing with time. That would be a very different sort of magic, and might not have at all the same signature. If we focus on plant growth, I think we can accomplish much the same thing, but it should have a signature very similar to the healing magic I used earlier.
"I also want you to remember the feel of Bastet, how it felt to be near her, and how it felt when Fey showed up unexpectedly, and took his tiger form for us for the first time. That should help ensure that you call upon divine magic, and not demonic."
"Right, gotcha. Plants growing, jungle moving in, big, scary cats. Uhmmm... heck. We gotta go cat for this, Ranko, if I'm gonna be picturing them in my head."
Ranko mewed at him and grinned at noting the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "You ready?"
"I guess so. First time to cast together. You sure we can do this?"
"If we can't, it'll just be two spells overlapping. Shouldn't be a problem."
Ryouga pressed back against the door, especially nervous now that Ranko had given him an image for the worst case scenario. If he was out there, he would be swallowed up by the jungle at the least, but if Ranma screwed up and let the idea of time passing get in there, he might die of old age before he ever . . . Well, best not to think of that.
A flush burned across Ryouga's cheeks as Ranko began guiding Ranma through the visualizations, drawing up as it did images and feelings of Ranko, resting in his lap as she tried to guide him through casting a spell, and then the sweet feel of her lips on his neck and the ecstatic pleasure that followed swift on the heels of the minor pain of her teeth entering his skin.
His fingers felt moisture, and he realized that he had driven his claws into his palms when he had clenched his fists in a vain attempt to drive off the memories.
Desperately he wrenched his vision forward again, only to shrink back against the door as the forest seemed to rise up before them, vines shooting through the air like the tentacles of some monster of the ocean's depths, while trees shot upward, cracking the ground with the growth of their roots, burrowing out from their center.
Grasses burst from the ground, turning as they rose as if to follow the movements of an unseen sun, but they quickly turned brown and withered away, as smaller, bright green shoots appeared. Swiftly they twirled and rose, splitting now and again, lashing out and sinking sudden growths of thorns into the trees that as quickly swallowed the clinging vines in a rush of bark.
The speedy and competing growth led to some startling results, as several trees interfered with each other, swallowing each the other's branches and looking as though they had stabbed each other through the heart, while many of the trees had in their swift rise drawn the bulbous roots of the vines that foolishly ensnared them up through the earth, even as the growth of the vine reached back for the soil, leading to chains of fat roots, in appearance like unto a mad artist's rendition of the abdomen of an ant queen full with eggs, while higher up thin shafts of green speared out from bark, from bole and branch, to spin rampant swirls of emerald leaves around and occasionally through the branches, reaching towards the sun.
An almost constant rain of leaves fell from the deciduous trees as they passed seasons uncountable. The swift decomposition of the leaves upon the floor, as they choked out the last of the grasses and smothered the short-lived growths of bushes, was most disturbing to look upon, especially as the growth and movement of the tree roots beneath the soil gave the decomposing mounds the appearance of an unwholesome life.
Ranma and Ranko stood together before him, arm's out, chanting, until the trees reached the height of the surrounding forest, then finally they stilled. "That . . . was amazing," breathed Ranko.
"Those leaves were disgusting," Ryouga responded, "and it stinks."
Ranma laughed, and grinning at Ranko, he chanted loudly, a look of concentration on his face that put Ryouga in the mind of his look when he fought Ranko. He was obviously giving equal thought to what he was doing and to the reaction he expected from Ranko when he was done, Ryouga decided. Though his chant was crude, the effect was anything but.
First arose a soft breeze that whispered past their faces, lifting Ranko's hair teasingly into her face. A change in the air was felt, as if a heaviness were dissipating. The air shifted, coming now more from the north and west, a light feel to it, though it was stronger, moving their clothes about and wresting leaves free from the trees here and there.
With it now came a smell of spring and freshness, the soft scent of a woodfire burning and the slightly sweet scent of rice left to rot in the fields, that would be overpowering or cloying respectively, were they but more strongly present. This wind held steady but for slight natural variances in strength and the miasma of rotten leaves was swept away before it, leaving the air feeling clean and just lightly moist.
Ranko clapped delightedly, throwing her arms around Ranma. "That was excellent, Ranma," she cried out joyfully, her voice suffused with her pride in him. "I knew you would get it eventually."
"Well, I guess I've just got a good incentive now," he said softly, looking into her eyes. A mischievous glint crept into his eyes as he turned to look at Ryouga. "After all, I can't let my greatest rival have something to hold over my head, now can I." His gaze rested squarely on Ryouga's backpack as Ranko and Ryouga burst into laughter.
"We're done here then," pointed out Ranko, as she finally stopped giggling. "So let's not stick around to see if our magic attracts anything. We've got some distance to make up, especially," she paused, looking at Ranma appraisingly, "if we want to stay ahead of your father?" She made the last a question, and both he and Ryouga recognized what she was asking. Did he think there was more to learn from his father? Or, if not, was he ready to take vengeance?
Ranma shook his head. "I'd just as soon avoid him. The more he's near us, the more chance for him to learn what we're doing. If he realizes where we're heading, he could get to my mother before us. I'm hoping that my revealing that I know about the pact will convince him that I won't dare to go near her."
"Right," Ranko agreed, "best not to give him the opportunity to interfere."
"Let's go then," Ryouga said, handing his friends their packs, before turning to bow to the temple. Ranko and Ranma followed his lead, bowing respectfully to the old stone structure before taking to the trees. "Just a moment," Ryouga called after them, and they turned to look back at him.
He pointed at his bare feet, now more human in appearance, though still clawed and furry. "I'm gonna be leaving kind of distinctive tracks now. I mean, two-legged wolf tracks are bad of enough, but how hard can it be to follow a claw-footed man? Can you do something so I don't leave any tracks?"
Ranma cocked his head to the side, looking at Ranko. "If we can manage it, that would mean the only two-legged wolf tracks would be those leading to the village, where they are not trampled by the villagers."
"Right, and they don't leave the village. That would be a nice puzzle to leave the panda, if he has even recognized the wolf tracks in the first place."
Ryouga breathed a sigh of relief when Ranko leapt down from the tree. In spite of Ranma's earlier demonstration, he felt more comfortable having the unquestionably more skilled and experienced Amazon casting spells on him. She murmured at his feet and he yelped when he felt himself rise suddenly. "What?"
"Well, I don't know for sure what it would take to make a spell that would prevent tracks on different types of terrain without visualizing each, and I would almost certainly miss one. So I just added a cushion of air beneath your feet. If you simply don't touch the ground, you won't make tracks and the terrain won't make any difference."
"Cool," said Ranma, "Better than I would have come up with." He was rewarded with a bright smile. It was strange, he mused as Ranko jumped back into the trees and Ryouga started off at a steady lope beneath them, how much her smiles had come to mean to him. He might have been tempted to try to prove himself the best to win her, had he not already known that she had all his memories. Knowing that he already had her, that she was willing to be with him, left him free to look for the things that brought smiles to her face, rather than the things that would impress her the most.
As she ran, Ranko thought about the scroll that Ranma now held. Though she knew that the gift she had been given would be of grave importance to their eventual success, she also knew that the effects of that scroll would be more quickly felt in their lives. He would not pass up the first opportunity to read it, and start practicing, and doubtless she would soon be practicing it as well.
Ryouga, having settled into a smooth stride, was thinking about his own cowardice. His first thought when he had stopped Ranma and Ranko from taking off had been for him to head off in a different direction, with his legs back to how they had been at first, so that if Genma was tracking his movements--he could not see how Genma could track them otherwise--he would be led off course, then to have Ranko find him with a spell and bring him to them.
His own fear of being alone again after finally having true friends had gripped him before he could speak of it, and so he had instead pointed out the unusual tracks he would leave behind. He simply had not been able to get past his thoughts of what would happen if they could not find him again? How would he have reacted to their perceived 'betrayal' if they had been unable to locate him? His own behavior while under the influence of depression disgusted him and if it returned, would Ranma still want anything to do with him?
---
Ukyou smiled nervously at the girl sitting across from her. Even she had to admit that the girl was rather cute, but how did she get herself into these things?
For all her bravado about seeking revenge on the Saotome's, the underlying impetus for her initial desire to have Ranma as her fiance was her own long-held romanticism. Seeing the barely veiled disappointment in Ami's eyes when she had realized that her short-lived connection with the 'hunk' she had encountered was over had simply been too much for Ukyou's romantic heart.
She could not bear to callously hurt a girl so obviously starved for romance; yet at the same time experience told her that nothing good would come of allowing the girl to feed her crush.
In spite of which, here she sat, offering smiles to a girl she barely knew. At least, Ukyou mused, she was not the clingy, gushing romance sort of girl. Romantic at heart she might be, but even she could only take so much.
"Ukyou-kun?" Ami prodded, and Ukyou started.
"Oh, right, occupation . . . I'm a chef, Ami-san. I cook okynomiyaki. Now that I know where Saotome-san lives, I will soon be opening a restaurant nearby. I hope you will be able to come?" Ukyou smiled softly, even as she crossed her fingers under the table in the hope that the address Ami had aided her in finding would be too far from Ami's home to allow her to visit. It was pure luck that Ami's query had given her the perfect lead-in to revealing that she would not be remaining in the area.
"Of course, Ukyou-kun, I would be delighted to," Ami responded with a hesitant smile, though Ukyou detected a tinge of uncertainty in her voice, as well as a hint of sadness.
Ukyou crowed silently, grateful beyond words that her guess had been correct. Now she would not have to try to find a way to extricate herself gracefully from this entanglement, without harming Ami's self-perception still further.
Now feeling more comfortable, assured that she would not be leading this girl to a painful heartbreak, Ukyou focused on boosting her confidence, responding as positively as she could manage to each topic that Ami brought up.
When Ukyou finally walked Ami home, it was with a much lighter heart, as she could see the improvement in Ami's confident stride, in the tilt of her head and the warmth of her smile even in the face of knowing that Ukyou's presence in her life could only be temporary.
"Thank you," Ami said when they stopped at the steps of her apartment building. "I had a wonderful time." With a pretty blush, she leaned up and kissed Ukyou's cheek, then giggled and turning, she ran quickly up the steps, turning, her face still glowing pink, to wave goodbye before she slipped inside.
Ukyou grinned as she walked away, her thoughts returning to Ranma, and his mother, but buoyed now by a strong feeling of hope. Ranma would return, Fey had promised her that, and even if he was not coming back for her particularly, he had not forgotten her, and though he had found a love, it was with a girl that already knew about her, that, if Fey was right, would be pleased to be her friend. The only dark spot was his mother and her father. How would they react to the contract Genma had signed? Would they accept Ranma's freedom from his old man's promises, or would they try to hold him to them?