Summonses, Expected and Un


Knowing that this was Kushina summoning him for her demonstration before
the other ninja to prove that she could in fact summon, Xander wanted to
ensure it was impressive, so he went invisible before allowing the
questing energies to latch on to him.

When he appeared, and confirmed that Kushina was there before a crowd of
ninja, he summoned a great cloud of smoke, reshaped himself, solidified,
and then blew it away, revealing himself. Even as he did this last, he
summoned a mass of chakra to surround him, focusing on the idea that it
should feel overwhelmingly powerful, knowing that the ninjas would be
sensitive to it.

Kushina was grinning widely in relief and happiness that her summoning
had succeeded, here at this most critical juncture, where her future as
a ninja was at stake.

A snide voice broke the stillness. "So she can summon, he doesn't look
like much to me. What's the point of summoning a wimp?"

It was clear from the impressed looks on the faces of the other ninja
prior to the speech that they had detected the power of the chakra he
had produced, and that this was false bravado on the part of someone who
had an interest in seeing Kushina fail. After all, Xander was in his own
form here, as he had appeared to Kushina, the form of a man optimized to
the peak of physical condition by the super-soldier serum. It was true,
of course, that these ninja were also in top physical condition,
reducing the disparity he had over them, and his musculature and the
absence of fat were to an extent concealed by the black garments he had
created, including what he hoped was an impressive Darth Vader style
black cloak. Still, he was by no means a wimpy or weak figure of a man.

It was equally clear that the heckler had failed when with a glance from
Xander, he was ejected upwards as if he had been sitting on a
rocket-powered ejection seat, and sent flying.

An older looking ninja wearing an odd hat-Xander thought he might be the
village leader Mizuna had mentioned-cleared his throat, bringing all
eyes to him. "Perhaps now, Kushina-chan, you can demonstrate for us how
your partnership with your summon works?"

He gestured, and turning to look in the indicated direction, Xander saw
what looked almost like a traditional old-West shooting gallery, a
display of fake buildings, with ninja mannequins sprinkled throughout.

Xander glanced at Kushina, willing to take her direction in how she
wanted to deal with this. He was not sure if she would prefer an
overwhelming show of force, or a display of precision.

She grinned up at him, moving closer, and leaned forward. He leaned down
and she whispered to him, "Can you just blow the whole thing away at
once? Like it's insulting to have to fight just one ninja?"

Xander nodded, grinning. They had no fluid in them, aside from a bit of
air in the padding, so tossing them individually as he had done with the
snide idiot would have taken some effort, but just blowing everything
away was as easy as pie.

Before generating a wind, Xander grabbed all the air in the vicinity
of the fake ninja, quintupled its density and then pushed it away at
six hundred miles an hour. Knowing that hurricane force winds were one
hundred and fifty to three hundred miles per hour, he was confident
that doubling that would be enough to be impressive, especially after
he thickened the air, and indeed, it not only took out the fake ninja
but the entire setting; false buildings and all were blown away in a
single tremendous rush of roaring wind.

"Hmm... impressive," the old guy said. "Very well, Kushina, you have
demonstrated an ability to summon, a skill well beyond most genin. As
such, it is clear that you can no longer be held back," at this he
glared at several of the group of ninja around him, "and are therefore
promoted to the rank of genin. Congratulations, you are now a kunoichi
of Whirlpool."

Kushina cheered and spun, leapt at Xander and gave him a crushing hug,
then targeted her teacher Mizuna for more of the same. As the other
gathered ninja began wandering away now that the show was over, Kushina
said, "So I get missions now, right Mizuna-sensei? Real missions?"

Mizuna nodded, but warned her, "Your first missions will be pretty
boring and safe, Kushina, but if you acquit yourself well in doing them,
eventually you will graduate to harder missions."

"Including ones out of the village?" Kushina begged.

Her answer was cut off by an angry shout. Xander looked up to see the
heckler returning, looking quite the worse for wear, but unfortunately
uninjured.

Xander was willing to ignore him, until he realized the fool had more of
those odd throwing implements in his hands, and if he threw them at
Xander, they might hit Kushina or Mizuna. Well, that simply was not
going to be happening. A few of the other ninja had stopped at the
realization that the loudmouth was returning, so there was an audience
as Xander lifted his hand and the idiot was jerked off the ground, and
held motionless.

"I don't think I like this one," Xander commented to Kushina,
deliberately ignoring the man. "What do you suppose I should do with
him?"

Kushina giggled while Mizuna shook her head slowly. Xander did not wait
for an answer, instead turning back and drawing the man swiftly across
the intervening space to a conversational distance.

Xander teased the man for a minute, continually easing off his control,
waiting for the idiot to open his mouth to shout something, and then
forcing his mouth closed and still again. "Ah, ah, ah, no shouting,"
Xander ordered. He glanced at Mizuna, then back to the blowhard. "Is
there any reason I should not just stop your foolish heart?"

The man paled, and Xander relaxed his control, dumping the fool on the
ground. "Attack me again, and maybe we'll see if you can still be a
ninja without eyes." While he spoke, Xander used his food power to
produce two realistic looking eyes of sugar and gelatin, and held them
out as if he had just plucked them from his pouch.

Kushina and Mizuna both gasped, and the man paled further, scrambled to
his feet and ran away. Xander laughed and slipped the eyes back into his
belt pouch. That was a good prank, and he might find use for them again.

He turned back to Kushina, who was again talking to Mizuna. She looked
up, noticing his motion, and grinned. "Thanks again, Xander! That was
great, and now I'm a genin, for real! That's all I needed right now, but
I'll summon you again later, okay?"

Xander nodded, and watched her make a handsign. This time he again felt
much more clearly the bonds of the summons loosening and returning him.

Xander expected to reappear in the house, but instead, even as he felt
those bonds loosen, he sensed a new summons latching on. He was shocked
and disturbed. What could possibly have caused Kushina to summon him
again so soon?

Knowing that something had gone wrong, he offered no resistance, and
indeed used those moments of subjective time to good effect, so that the
instant he appeared, he created several voice deepeners, two sand
blades, and several compressed air explosives held at the ready before
looking for targets.

"You have got to be kidding me," Xander dead-panned, staring at an
emaciated goth-wannabe. Was that a candle on his head? "You really need
to get out more," he told the skinny teen, marveling at the depth of the
bags under his eyes.

Recognizing the lack of understanding on the goth's face, Xander
swallowed another language draught, even as another teenage boy standing
nearby started a loud speech, though a moment later he realized that 
he had understood the first few words even before he swallowed the 
draught, and guessed that perhaps the language draught required him to 
hear a language before he could speak it.

The candle guy murmured, "It actually worked!" before promptly fainting.

Xander dispersed his sword and explosives, glancing over the chalk
circle drawn rather poorly on an uneven wooden floor. It was obvious
that he could break this summoning circle without any great
difficulty, but of course, doing so would lose him his chance of
setting in place a foothold here. The question, of course, was whether
it was worth it.

He had not even really begun to explore the knowledge available on the
ninja-world, and had not really planned on being summoned again.
Nonetheless he had been summoned, and as he stared at the chalk outline,
his mind vaguely processing the florid speech of the excited teen ranting
in the background, he realized that somehow, he knew things about the
summoning, without any indication how he knew.

It was not like a voice in his head explaining things, nor as if he was
thinking questions and then knowing the answers. He simply knew, looking
at the chalk, that he could break this summoning and return to his home,
but he would not then be able to get back to this place, as he would
have no link to it, though he might reach some other place with
alternates of these two individuals. He could make a deal with his
summoner, either through blood, word, or written contract, to perform
some task for some remuneration, and that whether he was ejected back to
his own plane on completion of the contract depended entirely on the
wording, and not the summoning itself. If the contract specified he
return to his own plane and his remuneration was not supplied, he would
be able to return to seek it, free of restraint. If the contract did not
specify his return, then whether he was free of restraint would again
depend on the contract, and whether it specified any restraints.

Further, he could see that he could make a deal with either of the two
present; apparently they both qualified as his summoner.

Focusing his attention on the conscious teen, he saw that he was waving
around a wooden sword. He looked Oriental, though Xander could not place
the specific region of the Orient. Paying more attention to his speech,
Xander realized the boy was ranting about his girlfriend being held in
captivity by an evil sorcerer, though apparently a different evil
sorcerer from goth-boy.

Prepped now to speak in the boy's tongue, Xander made sure his
voice-deepeners were still up, and stopped him, trying to match the
weird style of his speech, which did not seem to be fully translated, as
though perhaps the goth boy and the sword guy spoke a slightly different
language, and having tuned in to the lingo of the goth boy, Xander was a
bit out of tune.

"Hold! A bargain must be set. You wish your pig-tailed girl free of this
foul sorcerer? State clearly your demand, and what you will reward me
with for such a boon!"

The dark-haired boy stopped and paused as if in thought. He was taller
and looked substantially more fit than the unconscious boy, who was now
shifting and murmuring as if in the grip of a dream, murmuring about
colors. "Very well, I have decided. As my noble but demented father is
long absent, I am the head of my house. Free the pig-tailed girl from the
foul sorcerer Saotome, and you may have my short sword."

Xander frowned. A sword seemed a poor reward, but the boy was acting as
if it was a great gift. Maybe it was a magical sword? At any rate, if
there was in fact a pig-tailed girl--Xander really hoped that referred
to a hairstyle, and not an actual pig's tail--being held captive, then
he would have freed her for nothing, were it not that the summon could
only be fully activated by such a bargain. "Agreed. When I have freed
this girl from her bondage, I will return and you will give me what you
have promised."

With those words, the circle of chalk, poorly drawn as it was, flashed
brightly, and Xander actually felt a weight, like that of a light
backpack, settle on his shoulders. To his surprise, he actually found an
image in his mind of this pig-tailed girl, a rather pretty girl, also
obviously Asian, though with such vibrantly red hair that Xander was
surprised it was the styling of the hair that the sword-boy used to
identify her.

Flipping into an airy form, ignoring the surprised shout of the youth,
he drifted up and out the nearest gap in the building's construction.
Much to his surprise, given the talk of foul sorcerers, the summoning,
and the appearance of the two boys, he found himself in what appeared to
be a fairly modern city. It was of a style unfamiliar to him, that
looked like it belonged on Willow's mother's coffee table, but there
were cars, albeit tiny ones compared to what he found familiar, and
buses and trucks and such, and power lines and mass-produced fencing,
asphalt and concrete roadways, sidewalks, any number of little things
that said this was a far more similar place to Sunnydale than Kushina's
village had been.

Curious if the sense he had of being held here until his task was
completed, of the weight he felt as being chains holding himself here,
was accurate and would impact his ability to cross the planes, Xander
reached out. He found he could feel his other selves, far away, but he
could not move into them, he could not shift his essential self from
here to there.

He slipped into an alleyway, which was curiously prosaic, resembling an
alley in Sunnydale in feeling much more than the streets resembled
Sunnydale streets, and after verifying that he was alone, attempted to
produce a portal to his hideout. It failed, and Xander felt a sudden
sense of urgency. What if Kushina needed him, and tried to summon him,
and he could not come to her aid because he was still stuck here? He
should have stuck with his first instincts, that he did not need to
explore further summonings until he was done with Kushina's world. He
was fairly certain that he was as immortal as he liked now, given
Wolverine style healing, magical healing, and the ability to basically
rebuild his body on demand, so he had no reason to rush.

The stories he had learned made it clear that time travel was an almost
inevitable thing when traveling between planes, and if he had any hope
of returning to the aid of his friends, he would have to master it
before his return anyway, unless he simply got preposterously lucky, an
outcome he felt was massively improbable, given what the Powers had done
to get rid of him.

With renewed urgency, Xander formed a number of fluid selves, giving
them different appearances, forming an eye to spy on the street to match
clothing styles and colors to help them blend in, then pumped them up
with chakra clones.

"All right, let's find this pig-tailed girl," he ordered, and they
slipped out the alley in ones and twos, while he drifted up invisibly,
to get a higher overview.

He was at a loss as to how to find this foul sorcerer here in a normal,
modern city, where he had expected to be looking for an obvious wizard's
castle or tower or something, but an explosion in the distance caught
his attention, and he quickly zipped in that direction.

He soon found that he was paralleling a young woman with shockingly
purple hair who was riding a bicycle along the walls and even power
lines, also clearly heading for the distant explosions. There was
something odd about her, and Xander found himself strangely certain that
she was a small purple and white cat, in spite of being able to clearly
see that she was a beautiful girl.

Realizing that even if his target was at the conflict he was heading
for, he would not be likely to be alone, and that confrontation would be
better alone, Xander produced another five clones and sent them in
search of a quiet space where he could have a face-off without creating
a lot of collateral casualties.

A moment later, Xander was reminded that first, he was in a world that 
had cars and such, and therefore at least had a chance to be his, and 
second, that while he had verified he could not get back to his other 
selves, he had not tested producing a portal within this plane. He 
popped off a quick portal to Southern California and just as quickly 
banished it, pleased that it had been produced with no effort, but a 
bit disturbed that the cycling purple-haired girl had noticed and was 
looking around as if searching for something, though she had not 
changed the direction or speed of her travel.

They crossed a busy lane of traffic, Xander merely flying over, while
the cyclist literally jumped the roadway, crossing from one line of
power lines to another across the street, a very impressive feat of
precision landing and balance, and then they were at the scene of the
conflict.

A familiar looking young man with a pig-tail, that could have been the
pig-tailed girl's brother, given the identical hair-style and the very
similar clothing style, which did not match the others present, though
of course Xander had no frame of reference for how common such a style
was amongst the local population, aside from the few he was seeing, was
leaping and bouncing around a solid looking fellow in a bandanna.

Both of these two, who appeared to be in a street fight in a very
Oriental, martial arts type of fight, had that weird sense about them,
as if there was another being there, or as if they should be something
different. The pigtailed boy was a girl in this strange view, and the
boy was a pig.

Xander looked about the others quickly to see if perhaps all the people
on this world were like that, and he simply had not noticed it with the
first two. One of the others, a boy in white robes throwing knives and
other weapons at the pig-tailed boy looked like a duck, but the
pony-tailed boy with the big shovel did not, nor the angry girl swinging
what looked like a bookbag.

His guess as to his target was confirmed a moment later when the
bandanna boy shouted "Saotome Ranma, for avoiding your just
punishment, die!" when the pig-tailed boy managed to dodge a bookbag
hit, and promptly attacked with what looked suspiciously like a closed
umbrella.

Xander interrogated his quiet-place searchers, and picking amongst what
they had found, he popped a portal up directly in the path of the
pig-tailed boy. To his disbelief and amazement, the boy managed to twist
in mid-air and avoid hitting it, then shouted in anger when the bookbag
girl stumbled in to it before Xander could disengage it.

The bandanna boy leapt in after her, just as Xander shut it down and
popped up another one, pointing at a different chosen location in front
of the pig-tailed boy, now identified as Saotome, again.

Meanwhile, the Xander at the target location promptly ported the two
unwanted guests back. Unfortunately for Xander, the Saotome boy who had
been about to leap into the portal avoided it the moment he saw the
bookbag girl again. Instantly Xander realized that in spite of her
attacking him, he had been about to go to the rescue, and now saw it as
unnecessary.

The next fifteen minutes were occupied with a continual procession of
wrong people entering portals meant for Saotome, while he adroitly
avoided them, in spite of Xander popping portals up in his path while he
was falling, and using wind gusts in an attempt to push him in.

Finally, frustrated and a little angry, Xander used his power over
fluids to grab the boy and pull him directly into a portal, then
portalled over himself.

Unfortunately, even this direct strike failed, as it seemed the
purple-haired girl was swift enough that she managed to make it through
the portal he himself used, though it had existed for the merest moment,
and now the Saotome boy was accusing her of having 'magicked' him away.

Xander allowed himself to become visible, stopping the argument. "I
brought you here," he told the boy. "It had nothing to do with her."

They both oriented on him instantly. "Shampoo help husband fight new
boy!" the girl shouted, but neither actually attacked. The girl was
clearly in a fighting stance, holding two heavy looking but colourful
stick-balls, while the boy actually slipped his hands into his pockets
and simply stood there, bouncing lightly on his feet, eyeing Xander
suspiciously. Xander realized from the way she said it that Shampoo was
her name, not the substance, and felt a shiver run down his spine,
though he did not know why.

"Look, I've not got a lot of time, there's a little girl counting on me,
so I need to get this over and done with. I was summoned here to free a
pig-tailed girl from a foul sorcerer Saotome, and I'm pretty sure you
are one or the other of those two . . . if not both."

The boy groaned. "Kuno, you idiot! So, you're a demon?" He shot a
significant glance at Shampoo, whose face hardened as she nodded back.

"No, I'm not a demon. I just got banished to a place chock-full of them,
and one way out is to be summoned. Look, I know your name is Saotome, I
heard Bandanna-Boy shout it earlier. Are you the sorcerer Sword-Boy
mentioned?"

"I'm not a damned sorcerer," the boy growled, "I hate magic. Kuno's just
crazy."

Xander eyed Shampoo, who seemed to be further to the left than she had
been, though he had not seen her move.

"Fine. Do you know the pig-tailed girl he mentioned?"

"She's not real," he spat. "Just a damned curse!"

Xander flicked his eyes over to Shampoo and started. She was gone!
Xander instantly went fluid, and just in time, as one of those metal
balls came down and sent bits of him splashing everywhere. Xander
quickly pulled himself together and grabbed them both with his power.

"Damnit, I don't have time for this," he said, worried that the shiver
he had felt earlier was about Kushina. He formed another fluid clone.
"See if you can portal out of here. I can't, but . . ." 

The clone nodded and frowned for a moment, then shook his head. "No
dice."

Xander growled, then reached out to the two child-clones he had left in
the Hidden Whirlpool village. "Check on Kushina, make sure she's okay."

His concentration was shattered by a fist blasting through his head,
splattering it about again. He pulled himself back together and took to
the air, lifting himself up several times to avoid attacks while he
tried to figure out why his control had failed. The purple-haired girl,
Shampoo, was still held, but the boy was somehow attacking him. He tried
again to get a grip on the boy, but his control slipped off.

Shampoo was cheering him on now, and Xander learned from it that this
Ranma was her husband, and a pretty lucky one at that, Xander thought,
considering Shampoo's curves and her obvious skill. He could feel her
doing something, without moving, that was as if she was trying to
wriggle out of his control.

Xander quickly formed a half-dozen fluid clones to try to subdue the
Saotome boy, only to find himself having to push higher still, as the
boy used them as springboards to leap higher. 

About to banish the summoned clones as useless, Xander paused when one
of them objected. "Hey, I'm learning here. This kid is as good as any of
the ninja teachers we've been watching, except he ain't going for
killing moves. This is good stuff!"

Xander sighed and nodded, drifting higher again, even as Shampoo figured
out the trick to it and slipped free of his bonds. Xander was still
puzzling on how to get these two out of fight mode and back to talking
to figure out if what he was seeing, the cat and the girl, were really
somehow present, and if she even could be freed, when he was suddenly
brought back to the fight by a sudden impact of heat and pressure that
sent him up and back another dozen feet.

One of the clones focused and showed him a mental picture of what had
happened from his perspective. "Fierce Tiger Bullet?"

Xander shifted and focused his senses on the boy, watching and waiting
for another such attack. The boy did not attempt it again until he
managed to get within about fifteen feet, using the girders of a
construction site next door to the empty lot Xander's clone had chosen,
and then he shot off another attack. Xander stopped it in mid-air,
examining it.

It was similar to but different from Ryu's Hadouken, and Xander found it
was trying to dissipate, so that he had to force it to remain so he
could look at it. The silence that had fallen distracted him from his
look, and he banished it and looked up.

The two fighters had stopped, and were staring at him with looks of
startled disbelief on their faces, as best he could tell. His clones had
stopped attacking when they did, and were standing around waiting.

"How did you do that?" Ranma asked.

Tired of wasting time and happy that they were willing to talk again,
Xander allowed himself to drift downwards, wryly thinking as he did so
that before his time with Naamahalat, he would never understand or
realize that in doing so, he was placing himself within their reach
again, deliberately, as a token gesture of peace.

"Being thrown from your home into an unfamiliar place full of demons,
you learn new tricks, or you die. I learned," Xander said. They did not
need to know that he had been gifted with power, and that he could
control energy such as chi or ki was certainly something he had learned
recently, so it was truthful enough that he was not lying.

"Look, I'm bound by my summoning to free the pig-tailed girl, but that
does not mean I have to fight you, or harm you . . . unless you are in
some way holding her by force?"

Ranma frowned again. "I told you, the pig-tailed girl is not real.
Kuno's just nuts."

"I can see her," Xander said plainly. "I can see a red-haired pig-tailed
girl when I look at you, and a small purple and white cat when I look at
you," he continued, looking to Shampoo. "And somehow, this Kuno, if you
are right about who summoned me, must be at times able to see her as
well. What I do not know is what she is, nor how I might free her?"

Ranma sighed, glancing at Shampoo, then nodded. "It is a curse, from
China," he said flatly, and Xander noticed Shampoo wince. "I fell in a
cursed pool, and now cold water turns me into a girl, and hot water
turns me back into a boy. Shampoo," he glanced at the girl again, and
only continued when she nodded, "was cursed the same way, but
deliberately, as a punishment."

"These were pools of water?" Xander asked, startled. He had never
considered that pure water could carry magic. He had used magical
potions, but cursed water was a new one. Ranma and Shampoo nodded, and
Xander grinned. He was tempted to just spray them, but remembered
Ranma's tone when he spoke of it, and decided it was best not to set
them off again.

"Will you let me see it?" he asked, holding out a glass of water
summoned with his food summoning ability. Ranma glared at it for a
moment before nodding, and stepping forward, put his hand in the water.
Xander focused his full senses on Ranma as he shifted abruptly into a
beautiful and very busty young woman.

"Wow," Xander said, grimacing. "That must be pretty miserable when it
happens in a crowd."

"It's a curse," Ranma said, her voice higher and clearer. "Water seeks
me out."

Xander considered that for a moment, exploring the water around, and
indeed, he found that he could sense, without really understanding how
he knew, that if he relinquished his control of the glass even a little,
it would fall in such a way as to splash the purple-haired girl.

"And this pool, the curse is random? I mean, you turn into a girl, and
she's a cat, and I saw a pig and a duck earlier."

Shampoo spoke up then. "Many cursed pools, victim turn into what drowned
there."

"So a girl drowned in a pool . . . and you are cursed to look like her?"

Shampoo spoke up again, moving forward. "No, pool take some . . . not
know word, likeness maybe, of person or thing what drowned, victim get
likeness . . . not likeness . . ."

She looked at Ranma imploringly and he shrugged. "Far as I can tell, I
look a lot like Mom did when she was my age. Prince Herb got splashed
with the same water and he looks like his own sister."

Xander looked at his clones thoughtfully, but shook his head. Too much
risk that it would affect all of him. So he made a normal mud clone, and
had it move away, by itself. Ranma and Shampoo watched this curiously
but without understanding. They were curious about the technique that
allowed the clones, but had no idea what he was attempting.

It took Xander three tries before he figured out that he had to actually
specify that the water carry the curse, not merely that it be water from
where something had drowned. Which made sense once he thought of it, as
otherwise anyone who took a dip in the ocean would be cursed.

Ranma and Shampoo gasped aloud then started shouting frantically when
the curse took and turned the Xander-mud-clone into a beautiful black
and grey northern wolf. Xander focused on the clone, examining it and
found that he could sense the mud-form. Taking a chance, Xander tried to
tug the mud-form forward, and after a moment of his power slipping off,
he figured out the right way to grip it, and the wolf turned back into a
clone of himself.

Then Xander focused on the wolf he could now see overlaying his clone,
and after another few tries, managed enough of a grasp on it to change
it from a wolf to a lion before pulling it forward again. The lion
roared irritably, before Xander reached out and this time, sought to
separate the lion from the clone entirely.

After several minutes of wrangling with it, causing not a few changes
back and forth, and resulting in a very irritated and cursing
Xander-clone, he managed to separate out the lion essence, which came
out as a glowing blue ball of water, which he proceeded to dissipate.

Finally returning his attention to the two other teenagers, Xander was
beyond surprised to find them both crying and kneeling beside him,
begging him to cure them.

"Not that I would object," he said, "but I am bound to free your cursed
form. How I do that is up to me, but I need to do so in a way that
satisfies the summoning contract."

Ranma looked to Shampoo but she shrugged her shoulders. Xander sighed.
"If I just remove the curse, the pigtailed girl in question no longer
exists. I suppose in at least one sense that would be freeing, but I'm
afraid if it did not, it would be too late to do anything about it, and
I would be trapped here unable to fulfill my summons. But if you are the
girl in question, then I simply need to free you from yourself, in some
way." Xander moaned, rubbing his forehead. "What I wouldn't do to have
Willow here. She'd figure this out in no time."

Ranma gave Shampoo a long look, then sighed. "Shampoo's Granny would
probably know."

Shampoo glanced at him. "Why you no say Old Ghoul?"

Ranma shrugged. "She's an Old Ghoul when she's trying to trick and trap
me. Nabiki could probably figure it out too, but she would want money."

Xander looked between them. "Makes no diff to me who you want to ask,"
he said, feeling a bit frustrated at what he had just realized. "But I'm
still under the influence of the summons, I can only act towards the
completion of my goal, especially when it involves others. Basically, I
can remove your curse, Saotome, if it fulfills my contract, but I can't
remove Shampoo's unless it's an equal exchange. If I can get the
contract fulfilled though, I should be able to come back on my own, and
remove the curses then."

Shampoo make an almost cat-like mew of displeasure at that, and Ranma
flinched. Xander narrowed his eyes at this, wondering what he was
missing now. "Well, can you guide me to one or the other? Or I can just
do what I am thinking of."

Ranma looked around for a bit, before pointing in one direction and
looking at Shampoo. "That way, I think?"

Shampoo nodded. "Looks right!" she chirped. They took off, and Xander
sped off in their wake, turning invisible again so no one would see him
flying. 

When they paused a moment, not seeing him, he said, "I'm here, keep
going."

They sped off again, and soon had led him to a two-story restaurant.
Xander had not bothered to give himself the ability to read their
language, so he was not sure what the name was, though the characters
certainly looked Oriental.

Returning to visibility, solidity, and the ground as he passed through
the door, Xander allowed Shampoo to guide them to a table. She did not
have to go looking for her Granny, for even as they sat a rapping or
knocking sound was heard, and Xander saw a tiny woman bouncing up,
balanced on a wooden staff.

"So, son-in-law, who is this that you have brought in this time? Another
challenger?"

"Maybe, sort of," Ranma answered her. "He says Kuno somehow managed to
summon him like a demon, but he claims he's not a demon."

"And he maybe can remove our curses!" Shampoo interjected.

The old lady hopped forward and gave Xander a piercing look. "There's
something odd about this one," she said. "You look like one of these
Western body-makers but you do not move like them."

Xander shrugged. Shampoo had led them to a fairly out of the way booth,
and there was a curtain that half-cut off the view of the rest of the
main dining area, but he still checked to be sure no-one else was
watching, then he went fluid, shifted to his original shape, and went
solid again. "That better, Granny?" he asked, grinning impudently.

She shrugged, unphased. To Xander's chagrin, even Ranma just shrugged.
"Ah, man, tough crowd," Xander griped.

"Just like Copycat Ken," Ranma said. "Not as neat as seeing you pull
back together after Shampoo splashed ya."

Xander shook his head. "Getting off topic anyway. I was summoned, and by
verbal contract I must free the pig-tailed girl from the foul sorcerer
Saotome."

Granny grinned at that, a bit scary Xander thought, and said, "Sounds
like you have to get Ranma out from under his father's thumb."

"I told him I ain't no sorcerer," Ranma said curiously, "but what do you
mean about Pops?"

"Well, he is a bit foul," Shampoo said tentatively, knowing that Ranma
shared the general poor opinion of his father, but also knowing that he
would come to his defense if he was pressed too hard.

"And some of his techniques qualify as what the mainland monks term
'ki-sorcery,'" the old lady said, "so he is the foul sorcerer."

Xander sighed. "Unfortunately, if I remove your curse, you won't qualify
to be the pig-tailed girl anymore, and I'm afraid that will leave the
summoning unfulfilled."

"Ehrmm-hmm," a new voice chimed in, "That is easy. 10,000 yen?"

"Nabiki," Ranma muttered, looking at her nervously. Xander examined the
newcomer, a rather pretty teenager with a mischievous if a bit impish
smile, a calculating and very sharp look in her eyes, with short-cropped
brown hair, wearing pants and a tight shirt that hugged generous curves,
though not as generous as Shampoo's. "How'd you find us?"

"Logic, Saotome," she said in a bored tone, before focusing back on
Xander. "You want the answer or not?"

"I don't have any yen," Xander answered, watching her face fall and then
her expression close off. He held out a small chocolate ball. "But if
you suck the chocolate off this . . . but don't swallow it! I think
you'll find it sufficient payment."

She took it curiously, and for just a moment Xander could see temptation
in her eyes, before she clammed up again, and handed the candy to Ranma.
"Be a dear and clean that off for me, Ranma," she purred. Ranma glanced
at Xander nervously, then took the candy, and sucked on it for a minute,
rolling it around in his mouth, then once the flavor was gone, he pulled
it out.

Nabiki gasped and grabbed it from his hands. Her eyes were darting
between Xander and the small, glittering clear stone. "This is just
glass, isn't it?" She said suspiciously, even as she unexpectedly pulled
a jeweler's loupe, a little magnifying device, out of nowhere and
started examining the stone.

She breathed in sharply and hissed, color flooding her cheeks as she
stared at Xander. "This is a real diamond!" she said. "How did you do
that?"

"Is it sufficient?" Xander asked, instead of answering her, though he
let her see another chocolate ball in his hand. "You have an answer?"

"If you really can manipulate Jusenkyou curses," she said, a little
doubtfully, "just give him control over it, or remove the curse and
curse him again without the water magnet bit, and change the trigger to
a snap of the fingers or something. Then he could still count as the
girl because he could become her at will, but he wouldn't be forced to
anymore."

Xander glanced at Ranma. "Would that satisfy you?"

Ranma shrugged. "I don't like the curse, it has made my life
miserable, but it has a few good memories too. Not changing constantly
would be wonderful. Not changing at the worst possible time would be
even better."

Xander nodded. "I can probably do that," he said, "but that still leaves
us with the question of freeing from the foul sorcerer bit."

Nabiki asked to hear the whole thing again, and they explained once more
what Xander was being required to do. She frowned as she thought it over.

"Does it have to be complete? Or can it be symbolic?" she asked. "I
mean, the only way for him to be completely free of the old panda is for
Mr. Saotome to die, and I'm pretty sure Ranma doesn't want that." Ranma
was shaking his head back and forth vigorously.

"But what if it was something smaller, like, instead of being totally
free, he was free from having to constantly listen to him? If you can
manipulate the curses, can you give Ranma the ability to lock and unlock
Mr. Saotome's curse?"

Xander looked at the old lady. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "It
might do," she said. "But better if you could give him the ability to
change the curse's trigger. I have never heard of such a thing, but if
his curse could be made to trigger whenever he was attempting to curtail
the son-in-law's freedoms, that could be reasonably construed as freeing
son-in-law from his manipulations."

"Close enough to be worth a try, and it would not cut off my other
options like simply removing your curse would," Xander said, eager to
get on with it so he could check on Kushina.

Of course, this was also much less obvious than simply pulling out
Ranma's curse, as he had just done with his clone. Rather than trying
to get every detail, Xander decided that the simplest thing to do
would be to use something he knew he could already do, and change
Ranma's curse.

Reaching out and grasping his curse, Xander focused on changing it into
the curse of the drowned young female Master of Jusenkyou, with the
intent that such a Master of Jusenkyou would be able to alter, grant,
and remove curses, as well as change the trigger.

Ranma frowned, feeling something shift internally. Xander sprayed him
with a light mist of water, and he felt the usual shift, as he became
she. "It didn't work then?"

"It may, or it may not," Xander replied. "If all went as I hoped, then
your cursed form is now the Master of Jusenkyou, capable of granting and
removing curses, altering their parameters, and locking or unlocking
them. So your first step should be to alter your own curse, to remove
the water magnet and water trigger and replace it with some other
trigger. But do not attempt to remove your own curse, for it is your
cursed form that has this power!"

Ranma nodded then concentrated. A moment later he became male again, and
whooped, then jumped and danced around, singing "Never gonna be a girl
again, never gonna be a girl again."

"But you are," Nabiki pointed out. "You have to be female to lock the
panda, or change his trigger."

Ranma stopped and shrugged, turning female again. "Had to say it,
anyway." She fingered her pig-tail for a moment, then bowed deeply to
Xander and said formally, "Thank you, Master Xander, for freeing me from
the foul sorcerer Saotome."

Azure chains sprang into visibility around Xander, snapping him back to
the room where he had been summoned, back within the summoning circle.
The candle-headed boy was there, with a slightly stunned look on his
face, along with the sword-boy, and a tall, beautiful girl in a leotard,
gagged and bound and being carried by a diminutive ninja. The sword-boy
gave a loud cry of triumph when Xander reappeared, as the magics
confirmed to the summoners that the task had been completed.

"As agreed," he said pompously, "Sasuke, hand over my sister."

The ninja threw the bound girl at Xander, and he caught her reflexively.
Immediately the magic chains reappeared, and flung them back to his
demi-plane, in the foyer of his home.

Throwing his mind out, Xander reached out to his clones, and sighed in
relief when he realized that the clones he had made on that plane had
remained there, which meant he had a way back. He quickly unbound the
leotard clad girl.

"I suppose your name is Kodachi, isn't it?" he asked, and she nodded,
confirming what he had realized as soon as he caught her. The 'short
sword' he had originally heard should have been read as a name and not
an object, just as with Shampoo.

The girl stood there a moment, quivering, apparently torn between fear
and fury. "What has my brother done?" she asked, looking about her while
always keeping Xander in her sights. She stiffened, and went totally
still when Tarou wandered in.

"He summoned me to perform a task. You are my reward for completing it,"
Xander explained. "And he must have had the right to do so, or the magic
would not have taken hold."

Kodachi frowned, then nodded thoughtfully. "In my father's absence,
extended since our childhood, he is the Head of House Kuno. But that
does not mean I will go quietly!" she said, her expression darkening,
and from somewhere she drew a whip and laughed madly. "The Black Rose is
no-one's toy!"

Xander growled. "We'll talk about this after you calm down. I have to go
check on Kushina." With that, he had the house relocate her to a new
bedroom suite, provide for her needs, but keep her contained. He did not
need her attacking Mayu and being harmed or killed.

He created a clone and sent it to check on his cartouches and make
sure they were still protected, though he suspected that somehow he
himself had matched the parameters of the summoning, given the
peculiar fit of him being summoned to a world so like his own, then he
slid away to Kushina's world to check up on her, and reassure himself,
as well as create additional guardians for her, in case he was
detained like that again.

---

Kodachi screamed in shock when her surroundings suddenly changed and she
found herself in a bedchamber. Tensely and nervously she turned,
searching out her hidden attacker. Why else would she have been brought
to his bedroom, but to be ravished? Stories of demonic rape flitted
through her head, heavily influenced by erotic manga she would never
admit to owning, much less enjoying.

How had her fool of a brother managed to perform a summoning, anyway? It
was not the first time he had tried, of course. Tatewaki had several
times attempted various ancestor summonings, sure that he was the
reincarnation of Miyamoto Musashi, or descended from Matsuura Seizan,
only to fail completely.

Now she was a demon's prisoner, its reward for some horrible thing. Had
it killed her beloved Ranma-sama?

The thought struck her like a physical blow to the gut, and she fell to
her knees, still looking about obsessively. The rivalry between brother
and sister was long-standing, but there had been love there too, or so
she had believed. Sure, she had ever sought to poison him; but then, was
that not what siblings did?

After all, he was the elder and set to inherit, unless she could
displace him first. Given their father's continued failure to return
from Hawaii, there were only two years or so before he would be declared
legally dead and Tatewaki would have full inheritance, not merely
abusing his position as temporary head as he was now. 

And Sasuke, that little ninja-rat, he sold her out! She bolted to her 
feet and ran to the door, suddenly frantic. She flung it open, and ran 
down the hall, but when she opened the door at the end of the hall, 
she found it opened into the same bedroom from which she had just 
fled.

She heard a sinister chuckle from somewhere, and spun about, her whip at
the ready, eyes searching for a target, but she saw nothing. A sudden
sweet smell teased her, and she spun back around to find that a slice of
berry pie was sitting on a table by a pair of French doors, and she
would swear that neither doors nor pie, nor the glass of milk beside it
had been there a moment before.

She lashed out with her whip, knocking over the pie and milk, furious at
whoever was playing tricks on her, and at her brother. It did not
matter. Ranma would come and rescue her, as he had always done for
Akane, and finally she would know again what it felt like to be held in
his strong arms, to relax against that strong chest.

Her foot bumped into something, and she looked down to find a trashy
romance novel lying on the floor beside her foot. She shrieked and
kicked it away, and spying another door, ran to it and opened it. It was
a bathroom, with a small enclosed privy, and a large shower and a larger
furo next to it, water already steaming.

The only thing it was missing was black rose petals on the water . . .
Kodachi screamed in fury, as the air was suddenly heavy with the sweet
smell of black roses, petals lying on the water as she had just
pictured. She slammed the door closed and stomped away to the French
doors and wrenched them open, looking out onto what appeared to be a
small patio that led into a rose maze . . . a maze of black roses.

She collapsed into a chair beside a small table, staring at the rose
maze, and absently began to eat the berry pie she found there, her mind
whirling furiously.