"You know he was lying," Ranma snarled, and was startled when the man nodded. The man allowed his aura to fade away and Ranma was quite startled to realize that she recognized the face. While he was taller, she thought, then she had been as a man, though she couldn't be certain, as she wasn't clear on how much shorter she now was, the face was unmistakably her own . . . or what hers had been.
She felt a sudden heat in her eyes, and fought back tears. Was it all over now? Was this man going to take her place as Saotome Ranma? She certainly couldn't be much of a man for her mother now. Nonetheless, even if the reasons behind her need to be a man might be beyond her reach, she still would not allow the tears to fall. She could not release her control, or she might never get it back.
"Who . . . Who are you," she demanded, painfully aware that based on his aura, and the fact that he had made it visible with so little apparent effort, not to mention the fact that he was her . . . well, err, his twin, she had little chance of defeating him. It simply was not in her to give up.
"I think you've guessed that already, Ranma, or close to it," he replied, and she felt a sudden sharp wave of relief flood her as he called her by her name. "I'm you . . . from a different world, with different experiences. I'm here to help you . . . but I'm also here to lay a burden upon you."
Ranma allowed herself to relax slightly. He had made no threatening moves, and she had difficulty believing that she would ever really attack herself . . . though she wasn't entirely convinced. He could be something else, masquerading as her twin. After all, he had those peculiar white wings, and that unbelievable feeling of power that she had felt coming from him, that made her wonder if he wasn't really a kami or something.
"Can . . . can you cure my curse?" she asked, barely daring to hope, though he could see the pain and the desperate desire in her eyes. A quick mental probe and he learned why she was so fearful, and he smiled softly.
"Hai, Ranma, I can . . . in a sense," he answered, and he noted the visible flood of relief and joy that spread through her, and its sudden halt when he qualified his words.
"What do you mean, 'in a sense?'" she asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
He sighed. "First of all, let me say that I intend to hold Genma to the promise he made to me. You are mine, by the contract he signed." He cut off her imminent and furious protests. "Hold up, Ranma! Please, don't get angry at me, this is for you, not me! This is your shield, Ranma," he continued, handing her a copy of the scroll, "your protection against your father's stupid schemes. One of the clauses in this document, that he didn't bother to read, is that it supercedes any and all prior arrangements. There is a second sense, though, in which I want you to be mine."
Again he had to head off her visible anger. "Not like that, I assure you. It is simply that I want you to be my avatar, my hand in this world. I want you to take up my task. I am here, Ranma, because without my intervention, this world will be devoid of all life in a little under thirty years. Nothing will survive."
He sighed again, noting her disbelieving expression. "I don't have time to try and convince you that what I say is true. I must make you my offer, and you will have to decide whether you can accept me on faith, or not. There are three paths forward from this point, Ranma."
"One, I can dissolve this agreement between your father and myself, and you can return to him, and deal with this curse, the engagement he is taking you to, and all of the pain and misery that he has accumulated for you, including the fact that due to an agreement that he made, that I can see you at least have some inkling of, as long as you still have that curse, he will force you to hide from your mother, who, by the way, is still alive."
Neither individual noticed the approaching Jusenkyou guide, who had been deliberately led astray by Fey before the father and son reached the valley. He was nervous at the sight of the winged man, and kept his distance, but watched and listened.
"Two, I can use the curse to split you into male and female. Both will still be you . . . it will be as if you were cured, and yet you were not. Then the Ranma that is trapped as a female can bathe in the Nannichuan, and become cursed to be male, and come with me, while the male Ranma returns to your father. Only one of you would ever be able to see your mother again, for obvious reasons, and would have to put up with all that your father has done, and the other would have to put up with being a girl cursed to be a man."
"The last option is that I can split the curse from you, and use the body to revive the spirit of the poor girl who drowned here so long ago, the spirit that has been trapped in this pool for centuries upon centuries . . . at least fifteen hundred years, by what I can see. You can choose to free her, and together, you will go to your mother, and you will have this agreement to shield you from all that Genma has done. However, Genma would be hurt by this choice, for he would have no-one to fulfill all of the pledges he has made, and would have to answer for them himself. Furthermore, I will only do this if you agree to work for me, to dedicate your life to saving the world."
"Take all the time you need to decide," he continued gently, smiling down at her, "in the meantime," he held out a kettle to her, "all it takes to reverse the curse temporarily is hot water."
She snatched the kettle from him, and poured it on her head, and sighed in relief as she changed and shifted, and became a man again. He walked over to sit beneath a tree, mind whirling with all that his lookalike had said to him. Neither Saotome nor Fey Ranma noticed the sudden bubbling of the pool, as the spirit trapped within desperately cried out to Ranma to free her.
It took everything she had, trapped in that void of nothingness, to cause any impact on the outside world, and her efforts went unnoticed by all save the Guide, who stared at the pool, and moved slowly and carefully away, afraid that if the bubbling increased, the water might splash in his direction.
She didn't have much hope . . . after all, who would want to take such a burden upon himself . . . surely he would choose to walk away, and if not, then he would choose the second course, wherein he could save the world and his honor alike. She tried not to hope, but couldn't resist. It had been so long, so long spent knowing there was no way out, she would be here for all eternity, never to know the peace of death, never to be born again, never know even the blessedness of sleep, that she couldn't resist grasping at the thinnest strand of offered hope.
It was all so strange. It sounded like a dream, and that was what the first option was like. He could pinch himself, and awaken from the dream . . . except that he'd still be in the nightmare. He'd still be turning into a girl . . . His lookalike had said hot water only reversed the curse temporarily. Ranma wondered how long it would take before he was a girl again, as he looked at his hand, that only moments previously had become something strangely unfamiliar, for all it had remained his hand . . . well . . . her hand, anyway.
The second option wasn't so bad, and to an extent his honor said he should take it. After all, it was a martial artist's duty to protect the weak, and if the world really was due to end, then he couldn't in good conscience take the first option. Yet it would mean that he would still be cursed while he fought to save the world, and surely Genma would plague the Ranma that went with him for the cure, and what was that about an engagement? He was too young to be thinking about marriage, though he already had an inkling, given Genma's behavior, and his love of sake, as to why Genma would want a marriage. He wanted to live off the sweat of Ranma's work, no doubt, wanted to be lazy all day, just sit around drinking sake.
Ranma was not naive enough to think that this was another engagement like several he recalled in his youth, that Genma had used to get free food and shelter for a while. No, from what he said, the agreement had already been made . . . and well, it just wasn't like Genma to worry about fulfilling an agreement. He always made sure that he got something out of an agreement right away, and once he was done with whatever that was, he forgot about the agreement entirely. The fact that Genma would remember and try to honor this one after who knew how many years sent a thrill of foreboding down Ranma's spine.
Besides, his duty as a martial artist really insisted on the third option. He had to help save the world, which meant either the second or third option. He also had to help protect the innocent, which meant if there was a girl trapped in that spring, and he could save her, he had to do so. He worried for a few minutes about the failure of honor of not fulfilling his father's promises, and what his mother would think, then realized that the scroll his lookalike had given him was more than a protection against those Genma had made promises to, it was also a safeguard for his relationship with his mother. She could not insist that he had to fulfill the agreements his baka oyaji had made when he had proof that Genma had signed away Ranma's right to do so.
He stood, and walked up to his winged lookalike. "Alright, I'll do it," he said firmly. "Free her. Cure me of this curse and free the spirit, and I'll do my best to save the world for you."
Fey grinned. He had hoped that he'd judged his counterpart in this world rightly. He had searched for a warrior or martial artist with the right degree of potential, the necessary power level, the rapidity of learning, and found a number of them. When he deepened his search, and looked for the personality that would lead one to choose the fight to save the world for the right reasons, and not the fame or glory that might seem due the position, he had been startled when it was the name of Saotome Ranma that had floated to the top.
"Very well, but there is yet one more task to be taken care of, before I can do that. You see, there is a strong possibility that the spirit, having slept in silence for so long, may have lost many of its memories of its life . . . yet I need her to be effective, and ready to be trained, right from the beginning. Therefore, I am going to give her access to your memories of your life . . . it will also, I hope, help the two of you stay close, that you will have someone who truly understands all that you have been through."
Ranma looked startled, then pleased, as he thought of having a friend like Ucchan or Ryouga, but that actually understood him, then he realized that there was a grave danger in what his counterpart was saying. "But . . . what about the N-N-N-Neko-ken?"
"That," Fey smiled, pleased to see that his estimation of Ranma's intelligence was not off, "is the task that must be taken care of first." He had hoped that he was right, that Ranma, even one who'd been in Genma's care all that time, and in spite of his having received such a dismal report from Nabiki, when he had used her to learn of Ranma's life, was not actually dumb, but merely ignorant.
After all, the described speed of his rise in martial arts implied great intelligence . . . but it was possible that it was an autistic form of intellect, as with those people who could perform very intricate math in their heads, and yet be clueless in every other field.
Ranma paled at Fey's words. What was his counterpart going to do to him? The main impetus of his fear came from the fact that his own father's attempts to cure him of his fear of cats had been based on the simple plan of throwing him back in the pit with more food, after allowing the cats to starve some more, again, and again, until he got over it. Only finally learning the Neko-ken, and using it to savage his father, had ended the cycle of pain.
"Not to worry, Ranma, I don't intend to throw you in a pit. I think I can proceed a bit more delicately than that. Come," Fey said, dropping easily into a lotus, "sit before me, and clear your mind." Fey spread his wings out after discovering to his mild dismay that he could not sit with them folded behind him but showing no sign on his face of the momentary pain that had flared in his wings when the tips had bent against the ground.
Ranma did as he was bid, and tried to clear his mind. Having little experience with meditation, he was not very effective, but Fey had been expecting that. It was Ranma's preoccupation with trying to clear his mind that Fey had been after, for it would prevent Ranma from noticing his work.
Fey reached out, and gently probed the mind of his other self, finding easily both the darkness within which Ranma's mind would retreat in his fear, and the cat. Moving closer, and with the aid of his divine senses, Fey was surprised to discover a slight hint of divine magic about the cat-spirit. Probing deeper, Fey came to the conclusion that the reason that Ranma managed to come out of the Neko-ken without going permanently insane was that some divinity had interfered and placed the spirit of one of the dying cats into Ranma, to fill the void left when Ranma's mind and soul retreated into the darkness.
Fey touched the cat-spirit, and judging its reactions, decided that he was right. This was not some malevolent spirit, but a playful though easily frightened house-cat. It was then that Fey really got a sense of what the Neko-ken was . . . Not the version that he had mastered, but that taught by the pamphlet . . . for if the divinity had not intervened, then there would have been a hole in Ranma, a space waiting to be filled.
Given the stories of what those suffering from the Neko-ken did, killing even those they loved in some cases, and causing massive destruction, as well as the similarities to possession in general, Fey decided that the manual was probably a demonic plant designed to lure foolish masters into opening their students to demonic possession. Ranma had been lucky indeed, as had Fey. He would have to discuss this with Neko when he returned, and see if his memories and experiences matched.
As it was, Fey suppressed the fear that Ranma felt, then slowly drew the two spirits together, to allow communication. It would take some time, but without the fear, Ranma would be able to face the cat, and perhaps, something more could be done.
Ranma found himself quite suddenly standing in darkness, and he heard a cat mewing somewhere nearby. He tensed to run, then slowly loosened up again, as he realized that strange though it was, he was feeling no fear. The sound wasn't triggering flashbacks of his time in the pit, wasn't reminding him of their tearing claws, their flashing eyes, their dagger-like teeth. In fact, it . . . it sounded almost . . . piteous.
Feeling a sudden surge of compassion, Ranma tried to move toward the sound, and to his surprise, the movement was almost instantaneous. Hardly had he formed the intention than he was beside the cat. He crouched beside it. It was a tiny thing, compared to him, its ribs easily visible through its side, and it meowed again, stumbling about as if searching for something.
Ranma wished he had something to give it, and suddenly he found himself again draped in fish sausages. He shivered for a moment, but steeling himself, looking at the pitiable cat, that was scarcely a danger to him now, and pulled off a sausage. He set it before the cat, and watched it devour it. It felt like he should be shivering in fear, watching it eat, but he could not feel any fear . . . only sadness.
"What happened to you?" he wondered aloud, picking the cat up and setting it in his lap, feeding it another sausage, "Poor little fella."
As Ranma held the cat, more and more began to appear around them, crying out in hunger, and he moved suddenly, with his full speed, unwrapping the sausages in the merest instant, separating them rapidly, and flinging a sausage in front of each starving cat. Even as he did so, the realization hit him, that these were the cats that had died with him, the cats in the pit, that he had slain when he learned that terrible technique. As he looked at them now, at their scrawny forms and desperate hunger, he felt a growing anger towards his father.
The scene vanished, as Ranma's attention was caught by a flash of light. He blinked against the glare, and realized he was again seated across from his lookalike.
"The first cat was real, Ranma," Fey said, grimly, "one of those cats gave up its spirit to make you whole. Had it not done so, I believe a demon would have filled the space, the emptiness left when you fled into the darkness. That is what your father did, Ranma, he opened the way for a demon to possess you. You are inordinately lucky that someone or something intervened, and you are possessed merely by a cat."
"I . . . why wasn't I afraid?"
"I suppressed your fear, Ranma . . . I want you to reach out, in your mind, try and find the cat. I am still withholding your fear, and I want you to consciously choose to embrace the cat. Accept the cat, Ranma," Fey's voice was low and hypnotic, as he guided Ranma's mind down the appropriate paths, "embrace the cat, remember your compassion, and embrace it."
Ranma's stance shifted suddenly, visibly, even though he was seated. His eyes widened, as he stared at Fey, then held up a hand before his face, and concentrated. Long blue claws flickered in the air above his fingers, barely visible. "But . . . but I'm awake! I'm still here," Ranma protested.
"This is the beginning of the path to the true Neko-ken, Ranma. When you see a cat, do not run in fear, afraid that if you do not, you will succumb to the fear, and release the cat within. Instead, reach out, immediately, and embrace the cat within. Then you will be a cat, but consciously, not sleeping, as you are otherwise, and as a cat, you have no fear of cats."
Ranma's eyes grew wide with startled awe, as he faced this remarkably simple solution to the Neko-ken.
"I have removed my suppression of your fear, Ranma," stated Fey, and Ranma glanced at him, but showed no signs of fear, even though he was behaving like a cat at the moment. Fey summoned a small housecat, and held it out to Ranma. Ranma took it, purring himself, and rubbed his cheek against it.
"But I'm not afrrraid," he protested.
"As I said, Ranma, you have no fear of cats when you are a cat, so all you need to do, is embrace the cat, rather than the darkness. Release the cat, now," he ordered.
Ranma released the cat-spirit, and felt the sudden upsurge of fear at the dangerous, deadly beast in his hands. He made a sudden motion, as if to flee, but his will was stronger than his fear for just long enough for him to reach out to the cat within him. He relaxed, the fear draining away, as a smile grew on his face. It worked, it truly worked!
"You would have been right to fear, to run and avoid the chance of awakening the Neko-ken, Ranma, had Genma succeeded, had not someone or something else intervened, for then the Neko-ken would have been a demon possessing you, and under its influence, you would have slain indiscriminately. As it is, while under the influence, you must be careful, for you will, in certain ways, tend to react as a cat would. For example, if you fall in love, then while under the Neko-ken, you will tend to express that love quite openly, even if you've been hiding it otherwise. And if someone else should threaten your love, you will react as an angry cat would. Therefore, you should practice embracing the cat, and retaining your control."
"I summoned this cat," Fey continued, taking the small housecat from Ranma's hands, "because I am afraid that when I give your memories to the spirit in the spring, that hole will be there again. I do not want to chance a demon filling it, so I will place this cat's spirit within her. This, in case you hadn't noticed," and he grinned, "is a female cat, while the spirit in you is male."
"But," Ranma protested, "that's not exactly fair to the cat, is it?"
"I can communicate with cats, Ranma, and this one has agreed to what I have asked of it," remonstrated Fey, "it will live far longer within her, and it will no longer need to fear. It is not a domesticated cat, as was yours, but a wild-cat, so I am afraid she will be a bit feistier when under the influence." Fey grinned evilly.
"It hasn't exactly been feisty around me," Ranma argued.
"I've been keeping it calm," replied Fey. "Now, it is time . . . re-enter the pool," Fey ordered, pointing to the Spring of Drowned Girl, as he stood, rising easily from his cross-legged position, still holding the cat.
Ranma turned to enter the pool, and was surprised to see it bubbling. He did not worry about the strangeness though, as he was feeling an unusual amount of confidence in this stranger that wore his face. After all, this stranger had somehow given him conscious access to the Neko-ken, as well as a safer escape from the fear, something Genma had never been able to do.
He waded in, and turned to face Fey, who was focusing some kind of blue light between his hands. Fey drew up the threads of magic, carefully examining the weave of the pool, and teasing it apart, while simultaneously suppressing Ranma's ability to feel pain, splitting him magically, and shielding them all from the reaction of the magic all around them.
He had to very carefully balance his division of Ranma against his unweaving of the pool, lest he either allow the spirit in the pool to escape his grasp completely, or allow the curse to attach to Ranma's male body as he separated them. It was an extremely delicate process, but Fey's powers of concentration, his ability to focus, was unparalleled, and he did not falter.
As he levitated the two unconscious youths from the pool, one clothed, one not, and set them upon the ground, a figure materialized a short distance away. Fey erected a quick barrier around them, staring at the black-cloaked, hooded figure carrying a massive scythe.
"There is no need to fear for them," Death said, in a hoarse whisper, "I am come to warn you. The time of her death," he pointed at the nude redheaded girl, "has come and gone long ago, but the magic of the pools comes from one whose deal with Death prohibits the collection of their souls. Even now that she has been freed, I cannot come for her soul, I cannot give her the bliss of death."
The bony finger shifted to point at Fey, "You must give her some means of regeneration, or the first time she is slain, she will begin to rot, but she will not die, and she will then exist to the end of time, trapped in a decaying body, in an eternity of pain and suffering far beyond what hell might offer. Make her body immortal, or you will doom her immortal soul to great suffering."
Having delivered his warning, the figure disappeared. A quick mental tap awoke the two teens. Ranma sat up, and immediately the nude girl wrapped him in a strong hug, tears streaming down her beautiful face.
"Thank you, thank you, bless you Ranma!"
Ranma was clearly at a loss. He had a naked girl in his arms, crying profusely. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn't want to touch her lest she get angry at him, and he didn't really want to say anything that might call her attention to her state.
Luckily for him, Fey noticed his distress, and rather than teasing him about it, drew up the threads of magic, and clothed her in chinese clothing that matched what he'd seen Ranma wear that day when he and Akane had come to Nabiki's dorm with the three Norns to confront Fey.
She pulled back, apologizing for embarrassing him, then looked down at herself in surprise. She jumped up, and bounced over to the pool, and stood looking down at her reflection in it for several minutes while Ranma tried to collect his scattered senses. She turned and faced Fey.
"Why don't I look like I used to?" she demanded, stamping her foot angrily.
Fey sighed. "Because the only body I had to give you was the one the springs gave Ranma. You look as Ranma would have looked at this age, given his life, had he been born a girl."
She looked down at herself, then moved closer to Fey, glancing at Ranma sadly out of the corner of her eye, and spoke quietly, that Ranma might not hear. "You mean, we're like brother and sister. We can't . . ."
"No," he hastened to reassure her, "you don't share any heritage. The spring draws on the natural appearance of the victim, but I changed the genes . . . well . . . not all of them. Suffice it to say, if you have children, they will be as they would have been if you, in your original body had been the one to bear them, though all else is drawn from Ranma. I rather suspected you might have that desire," he grinned at her, "so I made sure nothing would stand in your way."
Her eyes widened, and she grabbed Fey in a strong hug as well, thanking him quietly, before turning to bounce over to Ranma, reminding Fey that he had forgotten a certain undergarment when conjuring her clothing.
Fey turned away, looking down at the small pile of ashes where he had incinerated the soul-less, life-less body of the cat, and summoned a light wind to disperse them across the valley.
Ranma stared at the girl as she bounced back over to him. Now that she was not clinging to him, he was able to appreciate her beauty. He had never gotten a chance to see himself while in girl-form, during the short time he had possessed the form . . . at least, not from the outside. She was beautiful . . . about a head shorter than him, petite yet remarkably well-rounded. Her hair flared out like a fiery halo around an elfin face with large almond shaped eyes of deep blue.
"Hello, Ranma. I am Xian Tal . . . or . . . I was . . .," her cheerfulness collapsed suddenly, and tears brimmed in her eyes, as she thought of all her friends, her family, long since dead and buried. "My . . . my family, my friends, they are all dead . . . you are all I have left. Will you let me come with you?," she begged him, eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"Of course, Sha . . . Shan," Ranma stumbled over the pronunciation of her name, and she giggled, and put a finger on his lips.
"It has been a long time since any knew my name," she said sadly, "and now I have your memories too . . . and we are going to Japan, so . . . will you pick a Japanese name for me?" She had a sudden thought. "What would your name be, if you were a girl?"
"Uhm, well, I dunno really, I mean, I dunno what they woulda picked, but my name is Ranma, and I guess, the closest girl's name would be Ranko."
"Wild Child? I like it," Ranko enthused, demonstrating her pleasure with a strong hug.
A sudden thought hit her, as she realized a deeper implication of the man's reassurance. This was not her body . . . would it still be capable of doing magic? Without her magic, she was not much of a fighter. Maybe that was different now that she had Ranma's memories, but she would feel even more bereft if she could not access her magic, and she stumbled back away from Ranma, staring down at her hands. She was trying to muster the will to reach for her magic, but she was so frightened of losing the last piece of her old life, the last thing left to her, that she could not force herself to reach for it, and tears sprang to her eyes, as her fear of loss overwhelmed her.
Ranma saw the tears in her eyes, and leapt forward to take her hands. "What's wrong, Ranko? I'm sorry, please don't cry, what's wrong?"
"I . . .," Ranko began, but couldn't continue, and pulling away, ran to the man who had freed her. "Tell me! Can this body do magic? I'm afraid to reach for it," she said, eyes pleading with him, even as her mind berated her for admitting to fear, "it's all I have left of who I was."
"Try," he replied, and she shivered.
"But . . . But I'm . . ."
"Try," he repeated. She felt Ranma's comforting hands on her shoulders, and she stilled herself. She could not afford to show such weakness, she was an Amazon, and besides, she had Ranma. Even if she did not have her magic, she had Ranma.
Fighting back her tears, she focused on her hand, and reached deep within herself, forcing her mind to reach for the power in a smooth practiced motion, ignoring all her fears and doubts. Her mind and heart sang in triumph when her hand flared suddenly, yellow flames flickering about it. They were not ki-flames, as had surrounded the man before he had freed her from the pool. They were true, simple flames, and all three could feel the heat of them. The flames seemed to blur, and Ranko realized that she was crying again, out of relief and happiness.
Fey waited for her to regain her composure, then caught the attention of the pair. He handed Ranma a large roll of yuan. "You must keep this from Genma, if he should follow you. Head to Japan. Take a direct route, but there is no need to hurry just yet. Train regularly."
He focused on Ranko. "You have the knowledge, and this body, created from Ranma's, has the muscle memory. You should be able to get up to speed on his style of fighting very quickly. Please do so, do not let this gift go to waste. In the same vein, however, the fact that you are still capable of magic implies that Ranma might be as well. Try and teach him. Oh, and do not go to the Amazon village!"
He focused on them both together now. "Most importantly, train with the Neko-ken often. I will find you, when you are ready for the next step."
Before they could react or object, he vanished in a swirl of blue flame. Ranma swore. "Kuso, I forgot to get his name!"
From all around them, Fey's voice sounded one last time. "You may call me Fey," he said, then repeated, "Do not go to the Amazon village." They were both startled by the voice, not to mention the peculiar sourcelessness of it, though they recovered quickly.