Many New Beginnings


When Xander returned to his demi-plane, he was refreshed from seeing
Kushina. He had put in place a clone to watch over her with as full
access to his powers as he could manage. If she summoned and he failed
to appear, the clone was under orders to manifest in his place.

Now he was back home and looking for the clone he had sent in search of
an explanation. When the house-clone informed him that said clone had
left into the hell-plane, Xander reached out to his mind directly. The
clone curtly advised him to check his memories, as he was in a delicate
situation.

So Xander let the house guide him to a comfortably appointed sitting
room, and sat in a recliner. It conformed instantly and delightfully
to his shape, and he realized that he did not actually have any
recliners, and had not sent any clones on shopping expeditions, so
how? The house reminded him that his will was made manifest here on
his demi-plane, and when he had desired a sitting room, the house had
simply become aware of another room within itself, and guided him to
it.

Shrugging that off with a thought to investigate it later and see if he
could get television somehow, Xander let the chair lay back, and tried
to remember things from the perspective of the investigatory clone.

It came in snippets at first, scattered, but with some effort Xander was
able to pull the memories together and sort out the bits that belonged
to other clones.

---

Xander looked about his . . . well, sort-of his, mansion. He had been
assigned to try and figure out why Xander had been summoned. His first
task, of course, was to check the cartouches. Thinking back, he
remembered caching them after Kushina had summoned him, which was before
he had the house, so he headed down the dungeon path that led to the
cavern and through the mists into where the house now intruded into the
demon-plane.

Unfortunately, as he looked about the chamber, he realized that the
house had not been idle here. "You've been digging in on this side," he
thought at the house. "How come?"

"Within our demi-plane, I have to work in co-operation with the
plane-clone," the house replied.

"We should just call you House and Plane," he responded. "Easier that
way."

"Fine," House replied, "then you can be Cartouche. Anyway, over here it
is just I, and I can poke around and do as I like without anyone looking
over my shoulder."

The newly renamed Cartouche nodded, accepting his moniker, and the
explanation. "I suppose you've retained the external appearance?"

"Yep, pretty much. Tightened things up a bit since we don't need an air
gap to get outside anymore. Been thinking about whether at some point
Xander'll want to show off here, so I've been designing some appropriate
looks."

"Why would we want to do that?"

"Because these demons have powers? Because they train to fight? Maybe at
some point Xander will need to field a defence force to protect Kushina.
What if he depends on just clones, and some ninja down there has a
one-shot technique that disrupts clones, or blocks them from forming, or
entering an area, or who knows what? We could do with some independent
actors, people that think differently. Think of how many times we've
wished we had Willow? What if we could have minds like Naamahalat
working for us, helping figure out a way home?"

"Fine, you think on that. Meanwhile, I've got to find those cartouches.
I don't suppose you actually know where they are?" He looked around,
trying to work out from the radically altered interior of the
demon-plane hideout where the original elements had been, but there was
practically nothing left at this point of the original look.

House offered a mental shrug. "I didn't really worry about that, just
absorbed what was here then started reshaping it. As it stands now, the
entire external structure of this rockpile is actually part of me, so I
can give an eye to the outside anytime. Even better, I've found I can
pinch off a bit of chakra and assign a task and it works. Kind of
simple, really, but not too generally useful, needs simple instructions,
like let me know if this view changes, but it makes it reasonable to
basically watch all the approaches. I've been more worried about
managing that than preserving any of the original structure."

"So basically, the cache he made could have ended up in any portion of
yourself that extends into the demon-plane?"

House nodded. "I checked with Plane, he is pretty sure that I've not
drawn anything back into the demi-plane, so yeah, it should be around
here somewhere. I'm not feeling anything from them, no energy or buzz or
achy feeling, or so on."

"Well, Xander didn't really notice anything when he put them on in the
first place, except their physical weight, so I'm not surprised."

The remembered conversation ended at that point, and Xander pushed
forward, trying to remember finding the cartouches. Obligingly, that
memory floated forward, as Xander remembered finally locating what
seemed to be a supply closet containing everything Xander had lying
around in the hideout, neatly shelved, though disorganized.

The cartouches were still there, undisturbed. Having found them, the
clone's task was now to find some other explanation for why Xander was
summoned, something that he assumed was merely because Xander somehow
fit the parameters. Yet Xander had not been in the demon-plane when he
had been summoned, and it should not have been possible to pull him out
of his demi-plane, where he was basically all-powerful, though clearly
it had been.

The only place the clone could reasonably hope to find such answers was
with the demons themselves, as they were the only beings to whom he had
access, that were regularly summoned, and Xander realized as the memory
trailed off that this explained why the clone had been so curt with him.
It was currently infiltrating the demon camps, or the fortress, or some
other such source of demonic information.

He would allow it to continue, as it . . . er, he, had clearly been
doing a competent job. He could not blame the House for pushing its
orders to the limit either, he should have considered more the
consequences of copies of his mind getting bored. He was probably just
lucky the House and Plane had not started playing pranks on him yet,
which gave him yet another reason to figure out a way to get television
service.

He had an idea about that, as well as what to do about Kodachi. As with
Mayu, he was clearly responsible for her now, but hopefully he could
avoid having to take her out of her school, or any other greater
disruption of her life.

That she would not want anything more to do with a brother that had
effectively sold her, soul and all, to a being he had no reason to
believe was not a demon was fairly likely, but he suspected she had
other friends with whom she would not want to lose touch.

Reaching out, he located one of the clones on Kodachi's world and
directed it to enlist the aid of the old lady and the girl, Nabiki, that
Ranma had trusted to help him, to find a large home on a fair chunk of
land to purchase. Hopefully, if he could find such a parcel, he could
link it to the House, allow the House to basically absorb it, and
thereby have a safe place for Kodachi to stay where she could still
easily commute to her school and interact with her friends.

It would also, he hoped, give him a means to get television service, and
thereby provide a way for the House and Plane to keep entertained.

Sighing at the thought of becoming a mere manager of his many clones,
and wondering how right his House-clone was to worry about the ninja
having a clone disruption technique, Xander tried to think over the
different activities he had going, and what needed doing about each.

Pulling out his little pad from his pouch, Xander again made a series of
notes. He needed to check for a Sunnydale on Kodachi's world - while he
did not think that there were ki-sorcerers on his world, he had not
thought there was anything that could pick someone up, grant them
immense power, and then cast them out across the planes either. He
needed to find out why he had been summonable, and why it had been able
to take effect while he was in his House, on his own demi-plane. He
needed to get a house on Kodachi's world. He needed to actually talk to
Kodachi again, and explain her situation. That thought made him groan,
and he decided to put that off until he could offer her a room in an
extension of the House onto her world, and the return of her usual,
normal life.

He needed to make up his mind about the House's suggestion, and whether
he should seek to recruit demons, knowing that he would need a fearsome
reputation to manage it, and would likely need to eventually field an
army to take part in the war games there, since that was theoretically
the reason for any demon being in that semi-normal area of the plane
anyway. He would eventually have to get a look at the House's plan for
its shape on the demon-plane.

He still needed to actually find a spot and form a connection from the
House to his new Pirate's Cove on the ninja world.

He had pretty much promised that he would return and remove the curse
from Shampoo, and while Ranma should now be capable of that, if he had
any reason to refuse, Xander ought to follow through.

Looking at that last one, Xander realized that setting his
responsibilities on his clones was probably a trap to avoid. He reached
out to the clone he had assigned to communicating with Nabiki and
Shampoo's Granny, and finding that it had not yet reached them, told it
to desist, that he would do it.

His own father had always avoided his responsibility, and Xander did not
want to be at all like him. It was alright, he supposed, to use clones
for his own ends, to search out answers to his questions and such. But
Kushina had summoned him, and while a clone would be better than nothing
if something legitimately interfered with his answering that summons, it
would not suffice to answer the word of his contract with her, he
expected. A clone was also surely not equal to his promise to Shampoo,
nor his duty to Kodachi. He shifted guiltily, thinking of Mayu. He had
rather pawned her off on a clone as well.

Making a note to check on her, he slipped his notebook back in his pouch
and opened a portal to Kodachi's world. Grinning when it opened without
any effort, he stepped through, got his bearings, and headed to the old
lady's restaurant, since he did not know where Nabiki lived, nor even
what her last name was.

Remembering the old lady's comment about him not fitting his body, 
Xander adjusted his form to his own teenage appearance before 
entering the restaurant. A bell jingled lightly above the door as he 
stepped in, his eyes adjusting to the dimmer interior.

A voice caroled a greeting that meant nothing to him, startling Xander 
since he thought he had already adjusted to their language here, and 
he had previously thought it had been one of the potions whose effects 
had become permanent. Obviously he had still not quite figured out 
what was going on. Swallowing another draught to understand the 
purple-haired girl's language, as she came over, he was again startled 
when her speech remained broken and choppy. "Demon-boy back again? 
Want table?"

Xander shook his head. "I want to speak to your Granny," he told her.

Shampoo nodded. "Shampoo go get her, you go to curtain table again."

Xander made his way though the fairly full restaurant crowd to the table
they had used previously and slipped behind the curtain and into the
booth seat. He was joined a bit later by the old lady.

"I'm sorry to say, I did not get your name last time," Xander apologized.

The old lady chuckled hoarsely. "My name is Khu Lon, but you can call me
Cologne," she told him. "May I ask how you managed to return here? Is it
not normal for demons to be returned when their summoning is complete?"

Xander was surprised at her bluntness, but remembered that she had been
present during his recap for Nabiki, in which he had claimed to be a
human who had learned some tricks to survive in a demon-plane.
Presumably this was making her more confident. Or maybe she just had
plenty of experience sending demons packing.

"The reward I was promised turned out to be a girl and not a sword, as I
thought. I am linked to this plane now through her."

The old lady scowled deeply. "And what do you intend to do with her?"
she asked icily, her fingers tightening on her wooden staff.

"I intend to find and purchase a home here in this city, preferably in
this local area, so that she can continue at her school, and continue to
meet her friends. She is my responsibility now, and I will act as her
guardian." He shrugged. "The force of the magic still binds her, as far
as I can tell. It may release when she reaches adulthood here, if that
normally would free her from her Head of House's control. Otherwise it
may bind her til I give her away in marriage," Xander hurried to
continue when Cologne's face darkened even more, "to someone of her
choosing of course." Xander suppressed a sigh of relief when the old
lady relaxed a bit at that.

"You are speaking of Kodachi Kuno, I believe?" the old lady asked, and
Xander nodded.

"Though as I understand it, she is not a Kuno any longer."

"I believe she attends St. Hebereke Girl's Academy, a rather expensive
private school for girls. Will you be able to fund her studies there?"

"It should not be a problem, though I need to arrange to convert hard
goods to currency here. I can readily obtain coins of gold, silver,
platinum, or other metals, as well as cut gems, or liquid and gaseous
fuels such as oil, gasoline, kerosene, natural gas, and the like, but as
I am not from this planet, I've got no provenance for any of it. I hoped
that either you could assist in this, for a reasonable cut of the
proceeds, or perhaps you could help me contact the young lady, Nabiki,
who helped Ranma with his dilemma, and she could assist me."

The old lady had an impressive poker face. It was not as though her face
went still or expression-less. Uncle Rory's poker games had taught
Xander to read faces, and sudden stillness was a loud tell to an
experienced gambler. She had to have a strong reaction to an offer of
considerable wealth, but her face remained relaxed, not even a twitch of
an eyebrow betrayed her. Of course, that put her earlier reactions to
Kodachi's plight more in the light of an open threat than an emotional
reaction of concern.

Xander fidgeted as she continued to sit silently for several minutes.
Had he inadvertently insulted her? If he had to find this Nabiki by
himself, would he have any hope of doing so?

Finally the old lady sighed and relaxed. "As much as I would like to
agree," she said, "my ability to accomplish such things is considerable,
but only in China, quite some distance from here. The Tendo girl would
probably be better able to accomplish your goals swiftly here in Japan.
I suppose I don't need to warn a demon familiar with summoning contracts
to be careful of the terms of any deal with Nabiki?"

"Before you leave," she said, standing and bowing to him, "I thank you
for the gift you gave my son-in-law, and through him, my granddaughter.
It was most generous of you to interpret the terms of your contract so
favorably to them."

Xander nodded and thanked her for her time. "I was also hoping I might
get some assistance in locating Nabiki?"

Cologne agreed, and Xander found himself again following the high-speed
cycling of Shampoo, her purple hair streaming behind her as she sped
along the fences and wires. She had dismissed his offer to do something
about her curse, as apparently Ranma had already used his power to give
her conscious control over it, and with that it became more a blessing
than a curse.

---

Nabiki was hardly bothering to concentrate on her classes. Her mind was
focused on a tiny stone, carefully concealed on her person. She was
unaccountably nervous. She knew Ranma's father, Genma Saotome, regularly
searched the house for money or other valuables he could pawn to fuel
his drinking binges. Likewise, her undergarments were always at risk
from Happosai, and the rest of her clothes at risk from collateral
damage from the constant fights.

Yet she could not bear to part with it. She had immediately gone to have
it appraised. It was apparently only 2.04 carats, but the jeweler
declared the cut was ideal, and he gave it the highest rating, FL for
flawless, in terms of inclusions, and a D for color, again the highest
rating. Had it had minor inclusions, or been even an E, the next highest
color ranking, he told her he would rate it at about 3 million yen, but
as it was, he offered her 6 million yen up front.

Nabiki was terribly torn. It was enough to pay most of her college
tuition up front, and with her savings, would pay for it comfortably.
Yet it was the most valuable thing she had ever owned, and to part with
it for money that would have to be spent was hard indeed.

Yet even her sense that it was real when the demon had offered it to her
in return for her solution to Ranma's problem had not given her a real
idea of its worth. She knew that small diamonds could be had for six
hundred thousand yen and up, so she was sure it was worthwhile, as long
as it was not fake, which she was not certain of at the time. But 6
million?

Her mind kept replaying the demon's appearance in her mind, and 
though it had looked like a gaijin, Ranma and Shampoo had both agreed 
that he had looked different before, like the Germanic Ubermensch 
that the Westerners liked, then changed to look like a dark-haired 
gaijin teen. If he could change his appearance, then it would not 
matter so much.

But it was not his face she kept seeing, it was his hands, his left 
hand specifically, where he had teasingly held a second chocolate, 
identical to the one she had made Ranma suck clean for her. Had that 
been another diamond, equal to the first? How many of those could he 
have?

She felt like squealing like a teeny-bopper seeing their favorite idol,
inside, though outwardly she maintained her disinterested demeanour.

He was gone now, but Shampoo had revealed that he might return.
Unfortunately, he had claimed he would return to remove her curse, and
Nabiki herself, in her foolishness, had offered a solution that removed
the need for him to come back at all!

It had taken Ranma only a short while after getting a handle on his
cursed form's new abilities to alter Shampoo's curse so that she too
could transform at will, though it had made him shiver to do it, as
apparently he could now sense the cat within her, and of course, when
she had tested the change, he had stiffened up in fear. She had
promptly changed back of course, and, her clothes having fallen off,
had glomped on to him, totally nude, squealing her thanks.

Nabiki had been quite surprised when Akane failed to pop up out of
nowhere to smack him for that, but Cologne had done the job after a
moment, rapping her daughter on the head and making her get dressed
again.

There was also a little bit of frustration, since she did not feel like
she had earned the diamond. She had not conned it out of him, or trapped
him in to it, but neither did she feel that the service she provided had
matched its value. It was not a big deal when the reward she demanded
far exceeded the value of the service provided when she had maneuvered
someone in to it. It still felt like she had earned it then, as a reward
for being cleverer, more tricky, or just plain smarter than the dull
people around her.

This time, though, in spite of getting far more than it was worth, she
kept seeing that chocolate rolling around in his hands, as though he had
been ready to give it to her, as if somehow he had gotten that service
at half the price he was willing to pay, and that irked. She should have
held out then, but she and everyone there knew that diamond was far
more than a just payment.

When the bell finally rang and they were let out for lunch, Nabiki
collected her lunch box and headed out to the yard. Theoretically, she
should be discussing the odds for betting on the inevitable fights, but
somehow it was hard to work up the urge to think about something that
would make a hundred yen difference when she had a virtual loss of 6
million yen weighing on her mind. Yet another thing to hold against that
cursed demon. He had ruined her with one tiny stone.

The ringing of a much smaller bell caught her attention as she was
finishing off her rice, and she looked up, expecting to watch the
Amazonian girl, Shampoo, land her bicycle on her claimed husband Ranma.
Instead, Shampoo leapt over the wall on her bicycle headed directly for
Nabiki herself!

She came skidding to a halt even as Nabiki leapt to her feet, her heart
pounding in her chest. Was the unpredictable woman-warrior going to
attack her?

Her eyes tracked a new source of movement, as the demon who had ruined
her, Xander, such a strange name, suddenly appeared behind Shampoo, and
stepped forward, his eyes meeting hers.

Her mind staunchly refused to consider the lines of his face, the
chocolate-brown eyes that so resembled the source of her frustration, or
the lines of his body. She was not in the least attracted to this
demonic gaijin!

"Xander," she greeted him coolly, and smirked when she noticed several
nearby students making signs to ward off evil and chanting prayers for
the sake of the gaijin's soul. Did demons even have souls?

"Hold, vile demon!" A loud voice proclaimed. Nabiki groaned, and turned
her head, seeing, as she expected, Kuno Tatewaki striding forward,
his bokken, a type of wooden practice sword, held at the ready. "Thou
hast failed the demands laid upon thee by Heaven, now face Heaven's
Judgement!"

"I freed the pigtailed girl from the foul sorcerer, as agreed," stated
Xander. "If that was not what you actually wanted, you should have been
more careful in your phrasing." Xander gestured, and Kuno's garments
fell empty.

Nabiki's heart fell to her feet. Had he killed Kuno, so casually? What
could any of them do against someone who could do that with just a
wiggle of his fingers? She stared at Kuno's traditional kendo garb in
dismay, only to feel a deep sense of relief when Shampoo snatched them
up, and a small black kitten tumbled out.

"Stupid stick-boy almost not annoying like this," she proclaimed,
ignoring the kitten's furious mews, "but should pick something what not
makes noise."

"He'll return to himself in a few hours," Xander said, ignoring the
increased muttering of the other students. Crossing his fingers, a move
Nabiki's sharp eyes caught, he continued, "I have a business proposition
for you."

He had just casually turned Kuno into a kitten, which should have
worried her about what he might do to her, but after thinking that he
had simply killed Kuno, finding out that he had only transformed him was
such a relief that Nabiki's fear had evaporated. Seeing him cross his
fingers before offering a business proposition reassured her that she
once more had the upper hand.

"Fine, we should talk, in private," Nabiki said, intending to get a
restaurant meal out of this at least. Xander, however, had other ideas,
and there in front of everyone he produced a portal and gestured for her
to precede him.

Unsure, Nabiki glanced at Shampoo, trying to conceal her nervousness.
Giving up her home-ground advantage was not what she had in mind,
especially not to step into the unknown with a demon. But if she did not
return, Shampoo knew who had her, so she could expect Ranma to rescue
her, and maybe whatever he had to offer would be interesting enough to
compensate her for the loss of attraction in her usual activities.

She stepped through, followed by Xander. She found herself in a large
entrance foyer. A chandelier hung overhead, hundreds of prisms hanging
without visible support, light from the wall-sconces transformed by it
into a display of dazzling brilliance.

The walls looked to be of fine marble, smooth as glass, and the floors
were of a cut green stone that she thought might be jade. Could this
possibly be real? A pair of stone staircases swept around the sides of
the room to the second floor, and doors and arched openings lined the
walls top and bottom.

She held her mouth, suppressing any urge to comment, knowing that
showing that she was impressed or awed would reduce the strength of her
position. Just focus on the money you can get from him, if this is his
home, she told herself.

He seemed to pause to think for a moment, then guided her through one of
the ground floor archways and down a long hall lined with intricate
doors. He turned in at a door that opened in front of them and closed
behind them. It was not a sliding door, but a hinged door, and Nabiki
was bemused to see that it had no apparent armature to accomplish the
opening and closing, and she wondered if it was somehow hidden in the
hinges, maybe a pulley system run by wires in the walls, or if it was
genuine magic. She was not really sure which would more impress her.

The room they entered was a surprisingly small and intimate dining room,
containing only a single dining table with two chairs, laid out as
though they belonged in a high-end restaurant, with a set of restaurant
style swinging doors at one end.

Xander held out her chair for her to sit, and as Nabiki took her seat,
she wondered what he might want from her to go to all this trouble.

Once he had taken his seat, she noticed him swallow nervously, then he
said, "You can order whatever you like." 

Xander had swallowed a potion intended to enhance his power to summon
food by permitting him to summon food that would match another's
desires instead of his own. This had never become an issue with
Naamahalat, as she had been most pleased by the novelty of what he
made for her, and the few things she wanted to have on hand she was
willing to allow him to sample first, and then he could produce them
to order.

Now, though, he needed to match Nabiki's desires, so as to impress her,
though he had no idea what food in Japan was like, particularly. She
only saw his swallowing as a sign of weakness, and had no way to
prepare.

"Anything?" she asked, glancing around to confirm the absence of a menu.

"Whatever you like," he confirmed.

She put him to the test, ordering the most exclusive and expensive cuts
of sashimi, the most delicate rolls of sushi, and then a small piece of
richly marbled Kobe beef. She would have liked to order a larger steak,
but she could only eat so much, even when someone else was footing the
bill.

He managed everything; whatever she mentioned, was brought in a 
moment later as if it had just come from the chefs, carried in by a 
waiter wearing a Japanese Oni mask.

After she had finished with a piece of one of her favorite pastries,
that she would have sworn had been made in the very shop in Nerima from
which she normally obtained it, the only one in Nerima that carried it,
she waited while the waiter removed the dishes, then folded her hands on
the table.

"Very well," she said, "I am ready to hear your proposition."

Her stance was arguably insulting, or would have been seen so by a
Japanese businessman who had just paid for such a meal, but as she
expected, Xander showed no sign of offense. Not, she thought, because he
was unusually phlegmatic, but merely because he was not Japanese. As his
appearance implied, and in contradiction to the Oni mask worn by the
waiter, he was a very Western, a very gaijin demon.

Xander was very glad for his power over fluids at this point, keeping
him from visibly sweating. "Do you know Kodachi, the sister of the guy I
turned into a kitten?"

Nabiki nodded, leaning forward as her interest was caught. She knew the
haughty spoiled princess all right, but why would she interest a demon?
When would he even have had a chance to see her, or learn of her?

"She is my responsibility now, my . . . ward, I guess you could say. I
want to keep her in St. Hebereke, if she wants, and that means I need
money."

Xander reached into a small pouch on his belt, and rolled a handful of
gold coins on the table. "Money is not a problem for me, exactly, but
acceptable money for your world is. I need help converting goods, for
which I can provide no legal provenance, as they have no history on
your world, into a substantial and legitimate bank account, so I can
purchase a large piece of property, set up a house, fund her
schooling, and maintain a presence on your world."

Nabiki suppressed a shiver. It was obvious what he was asking now, and
just the thought of handling those kind of funds, that much gold,
jewels, who knew what else, left her squealing in excitement inside, but
she knew better than to show it. Far less did she want to show her
reaction to his statement of having a continuing presence near her, of
having access to this man for whom wealth was 'not a problem for me,
exactly.'

"You would probably need to set up a company to manage the funds, employ
a bookkeeper, and pay taxes on the hard goods as if they were income, as
if they were being supplied from elsewhere," Nabiki supplied clinically,
noting that he had not actually made an offer yet.

Xander nodded. "And I would need someone familiar with Japan, its laws
and its ways, to manage it for me, to maintain a steady growth of
wealth. I also want to use this presence to obtain things your world can
offer that my plane cannot, such as your entertainment. I have to keep
my minions happy, after all." Never mind that he only had one minion,
technically, at the moment. He would have more, if she took the bait.

"Someone with the skill to manage such a complex operation would
certainly not be a cheap investment," Nabiki said leadingly.

Xander laughed. "I expect she could name her price." He grinned at her.
"I can see you're having fun fencing with me, but let me be blunt. This
home is my dominion, my will rules here. I've got a link to your world
now, and there is nothing keeping me out. I can connect Cologne's home
in China, where-ever it is, to Tokyo with no trouble. It is not as
though you are my only option. But you helped me, you gave me an out
that did not force me to hurt anyone who did not deserve it, and got me
out quickly, which is what I cared about then. Work for me, and you can
be as wealthy and powerful in your world as you like. As long as you
build my accounts in a way that doesn't leave me fighting the law, I
don't mind paying for your school, or homes, cars, travel, and so on."

To make his point clear, Xander held out an empty hand, then turned it
over and slowly built a little pyramid, four by four at the base, of
little chocolate balls. Nabiki had to fight an urge to lick her lips,
looking at them, sure that within each was another six million yen
diamond. She thought back to the crystalline chandelier in the front
room. Was it crystal? Or was it diamonds?

She was not letting this get away from her. She could play all the games
she wanted with the executives and politicians who would come when she
had built his funds up, hungry at the scent of money. She did not need
to play with him too . . . though it could be fun.

She nodded sharply. "I can take a percentage, as large as I like, as
long as you have money to do what you want, right?"

"And you keep us on the right side of the law, that's right. I don't
know what types of goods will best serve, so I'll just say I can fill
any sort of container you provide with pretty much any liquid you think
is worth selling, be it perfume, or fuel, or molten gold if you find a
vessel that will hold it."

Nabiki shuddered at the thought of a train car of liquid gold, and
squeaked involuntarily. Sparks flashed behind her eyes and pleasure
flooded her brain, and she fainted.

---

Mayu was a trained kunoichi, a skilled fighter, and a ruthless killer.
She was also alone, abandoned, and dependent. What she was not, was
blind. She had known there was something strange about the improbably
powerful ninja that had saved her for inscrutable and unrevealed reasons.

She was not from one of the powerful bloodline clans. She did not have
one of the great doujutsu, or eye techniques, that allowed some nin to
see the flow of chakra within another ninja's body.

Still, she had enough chakra sensitivity to tell that Ryu, Tarou, and
Sanjuro had such similar chakra that it could not be told apart. She had
been permitted to spar with Tarou, who looked rather like a member of
another Rock clan that had a bloodline ability to form a stone skin,
though he was also hugely muscled, and his bloodline seemed to be
permanently active. Yet his chakra felt the same as Ryu's, the same as
Sanjuro.

At times, it seemed as though she could feel chakra flowing between
them. She was not sure at this point whether they were all actually one
person who had a bloodline that allowed him to control bodies, or
members of a clan, though that would not explain the differences in
their apparent bloodlines, or just weird clones. She did not think
clones was the right answers though, for in her spars with Tarou, who
had poor close combat skills for all he was a mountain of a man, she had
occasionally succeeded in causing visible damage, but this damage seemed
to be healed quite quickly, rather than dispersing him, as she would
have expected if he were a clone.

Granted, there were supposedly advanced forms of clones that could take
real damage, but she had never yet encountered one, so had no way of
being sure if Tarou was one or not. The mud clone could recover from a
small amount of damage, but the way it did so, flowing back together,
usually made it obvious that the nin being fought was a clone.

She was sufficiently uncertain, however, to accept that it was not
safe to treat anyone she encountered as an underling. There was no
clear and visible hierarchy between the various people she
encountered, and if her suspicions were correct, anyone she met might
possibly be her Master in another guise.

That her new Master had more power than most ninja she had seen was
made abundantly clear when he had opened a hole in reality and taken
her through into a different world, so different as to have light
without a sun to cast it, as if it was not already clear enough when
he had stopped that water dragon with no effort.

She had also seen Ryu duplicate her attacks, without handsigns or
vocalizations, and subsequently had Tarou do the same thing in the
middle of a spar when she pulled an attack on him. That they shared
these techniques was more evidence in favor of her theories.

She had no idea where he had come by his new house, nor what the mist
was that infested various parts of it, but she was slowly learning to
navigate it.

It too seemed to occasionally have chakra active where she could sense
it, and that chakra felt just like her Master's. 

She was not altogether certain that her Master actually was a ninja,
however. She was, in fact, leaning toward the theory that she had given
her loyalty to a god, though of what provenance she was uncertain. She
was not sure how he might feel about worship, but she had not been able
to resist setting up a small shrine in the chambers allotted to her.

Of course, those chambers were themselves something out of a fanciful
childhood story. The closet seemed to have whatever article of clothing
she was looking for always at the front, exactly the opposite, it
seemed, of a normal closet. Any feeling of thirst or hunger seemed to
cause food or drink to appear, always well suited to fit her mood.

She had asked for and been led to a room where she could practice her
skills, and here targets would appear in whatever pattern she requested,
even down to faceless enemies. They did not fight like ninja, but rather
like unskilled bandits, but they were supplied in endless waves.

When she sought an exit from the house, she found the lands around the
house were rolling hills, either grassy or forested, with occasional
streams, and that even here she could describe a bandit camp and shortly
thereafter stumble upon just such a camp and subdue it, though the
corpses would vanish when killed, sinking into the ground as if it were
a muddy bog.

A massive hedge, squared off and flowering with black roses was an
unexpected find, and one she could not resist exploring.

---

Kodachi had finally roused herself from her shock and disbelief. She had
tried again, more calmly, to leave, but as before, walking down the hall
and opening the door at the end led her back into the same room she had
just left.

Frustrated, yet oddly calm in spite of it, Kodachi returned to the
patio, and taking her ribbon in hand, entered the maze of black roses.
She had no idea that the food she had unconsciously partaken of, in
spite of her conscious misgivings about the possibility of being
poisoned, had in fact contained healing magic that was clearing her mind
of the fogging effects of her own concoctions.

Wandering down the softly lit paths, which at first she thought were the
sign of a careful gardener, with a thick well-cropped lawn, Kodachi felt
her mood lighten and she began to notice little details.

There was something odd about the walls, she mused as she took the first
turning to the right. She moved closer to one of the perfectly straight
walls. Surely it was not the straightness that was so odd? That merely
took careful pruning, though that pruning was needed over several years,
which made it very odd that a place she was so unexpectedly taken to
should have roses so very similar to her signature black roses, but that
was an oddness she had already noted and dismissed as unanswerable.

There was something else tugging at the edges of her consciousness, and
when she leaned in to smell one of the roses, she realized what it was.
The rose bush forming the hedge had absolutely not been pruned. Tracing
the path from the bloom back towards the root with a finger carefully
held out of range of the thorns, Kodachi searched for cuts, the flat
edge of a vine where it had been trimmed, but she found none.

It was as if the rose had simply chosen, or been forced, to take a flat
path in its growing. She had in fact seen a similar effect achieved
before, by growing a vine in the presence of plates of glass that
constrained the growth without impeding the light necessary to fuel it,
then later removed. Yet there were signs when that was done, flat areas
where the vine pressed against the glass. All the roses here were in
proper form, the vines neatly rounded, the blooms uncrushed, the leaves
undamaged, but no sign a pruning shear had ever been near.

As she leaned over, tracing the vine down towards the root, her eyes
were drawn to the grass beneath her feet, and she collapsed to her knees
in shock. It too was not shorn to a height, as every lawn she could
remember had been, nor yet was it grown horizontally, like some forms of
runner grass that maintained shorter blades. The ground beneath was
perfectly flat, the blades of grass individual, and all reaching to an
identical height above the ground. It was eerily perfect, and she felt
unsettled and a little disturbed. Gardening might have calmed her, was
one of her favorite pastimes, yet apparently, none was ever necessary
here.

As if to contradict her, dark green saw-toothed leaves sprouted and
spread out into a tiny rosette. As a gardener, she immediately
recognized it as a dandelion, a pernicious weed to a gardener, though
one also used in some folk remedies.

Kodachi scowled and shook her head. Rising back to her feet, she stalked
away into the maze, ignoring the occasional weed that now sprouted to
tease her. The initial perfection of the maze and lawn, and the obvious
and unnatural speed of the weeds in sprouting made it perfectly clear
that this garden could easily maintain itself without her. While she had
derived some degree of pleasure from the effort involved into
maintaining her plants in her greenhouse, she would not be a servant to
makework for a garden that clearly needed none of it.

At the unexpected approach of another person, Kodachi wondered if this
might be a chance to win parole for her apparent offense, as she assumed
her isolation was retribution for her attempted assault on her new . . .
she scowled again, not knowing what to term the demon. He was not the
head of a proper Japanese household, she certainly did not want to think
of him as Master or Lord or, Heaven forfend, Owner . . . captor, yes,
captor would do nicely, her attempted assault on her captor.

She tracked the approaching ki, while distantly noting a second lighter
signal, similar to that of a shrine maiden or priest. Seeing that the
person was clearly leaping the hedges instead of treating the maze as a
maze, Kodachi marked where the newcomer would land, and moved to stand a
few feet away, and watched.