Here's the final official chapter of "Relentless", also 
posted on the  website. C&C is most welcome.

The first epilogue will arrive next Sunday (May 15th). 

- Grayson Towler
http://www.talesfromthevault.com/relentless

               =========================
                      RELENTLESS
                A Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction

                   By Grayson Towler
               =========================


-----------------------------------------------------------
                     CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
                       Living Scroll
-----------------------------------------------------------


Akane would remember the days they spent waiting for the 
Reikoku to come as some of the best time she ever shared 
with Ranma. In spite of the impending dread of the fight 
that was to come, of knowing that soon he might be taken 
from her, the days they shared in that quiet valley felt 
almost enchanted. 

They made their camp next to a silvery stream of 
crystalline water, so cold and clear that it took the 
breath away to sip from it. Though the air brought a chill 
in the morning that froze the dew on the leaves, the sun 
turned the forest into a charmed wonderland when it rose. 
Food was plentiful for the three warriors. Birds of all 
sorts flitted between the trees, from tiny sparrows to 
golden-winged pheasants, while deer, rabbits, and other 
game populated the forest floor. 

It was the calm before. A storm was coming soon that would 
bury the little valley in snow. And something worse would 
be here soon as well.

Akane was glad they had things to do in preparation. She 
and Ranma, as close as they had gotten, still didn't quite 
know how to act around each other. They both tried so hard 
not to fall back into the familiar patterns of bickering 
and sniping at one another that they ended up feeling 
awkward and shy. Perhaps it would've been easier if they 
had been alone, but it felt very strange to show too much 
affection in front of Shampoo.

Although Shampoo didn't seem to mind. In fact, she kept 
trying to nudge them together. It seemed to be some point 
of pride with her.

Still, even if her former rival hadn't been there, she and 
Ranma probably would have been just as clumsy around each 
other. And there were other reasons that it was good to 
have Shampoo along. The Amazon girl showed them a talent 
for healing that neither of them had realized she 
possessed. It only made sense - she had studied the Amazon 
arts under Elder Cologne, knew acupressure and herbology, 
and had been good enough to be Dr. Tofu's assistant for a 
while - but Akane had never seen Shampoo use her skills for 
anything other than mischief. It hadn't occurred to her 
that the girl might be a healer.

It was good that she was, since Ranma needed all the help 
he could get. A martial artist learns a certain level of 
first-aid as a matter of survival, but he needed to be 
completely recovered from the wounds he'd taken in his last 
battle with the Reikoku if he was going to be in top form 
to fight it again. Shampoo's treatment sped up his recovery 
time significantly.

Even more importantly, she knew ways to help him revitalize 
the ki-energy he'd spent in that fight. Ranma's natural 
inclination was to simply eat like a steamshovel until he 
felt strong again, but the Amazon girl knew other things to 
help him. When she began to teach them ki-replenishing 
exercises, Akane was just as interested as Ranma.

"What do you call this?" Akane asked as Shampoo 
demonstrated a stance.

"Is Chinese medicine practice. Called 'Chi-Kung.'" She 
shifted slowly from one pose to the next, then waited for 
Ranma and Akane to follow suit.

"Huh," Ranma said. Akane knew that he usually didn't have a 
lot of patience for the meditative side of martial arts, 
but when his survival depended on him being in top form, it 
seemed to have a remarkable effect on his concentration. 
"So this is s'posed to help my body make more energy?"

"Not just that," Shampoo explained. "Chi-Kung really made 
to be practiced in places like this." She gestured at the 
forest around them. "Outdoor, in nature, you can draw in 
the energy of world around you."

"Hey, yeah?" the young Saotome asked. "So then it's kind of 
like that ki-draining stuff that Happosai taught to Miss 
Hinako?"

It was barely noticeable, but Akane saw Shampoo's left eye 
twitch at the mention of the Furinkan teacher's name. She 
recovered her composure almost instantly. "Is not so 
powerful," the Amazon admitted grudgingly. "Her techniques 
is more advanced... but is also dangerous to self. Look at 
what happen to her body. You think that good for you?"

"I was just askin'!" Ranma raised his hands defensively. 

"I teach better method," Shampoo said. "Is not about drain 
some other person, like you is mosquito." She made a 
disgusted face. "Energy of natural world is... clean. That 
what you need to heal."

Whatever the reason, Shampoo's treatments and exercises 
worked wonders. Ranma's recovery was remarkable, even for 
him. His strength returned as they spent the days together, 
and his internal energy even seemed to be increasing. <He's 
changed a lot during this journey,> Akane thought as she 
watched him work his way through a series of intricate 
martial arts forms. <We all have.>

They sparred a bit, but not seriously. They didn't want to 
exert Ranma too much before his final battle with the 
Reikoku, or risk that he might injure himself in some way 
during the training. Apart from their times of exercising 
and stretching, they mostly just spent the time talking. 
Not about their feelings or emotions - they still lacked 
the words for that - but about martial arts.

Akane took distinct pleasure in the fact that she finally 
had something to teach Ranma about martial arts... and that 
he wanted to listen to her. She talked about her training 
with the Bakusai Ten-Ketsu, and how Dr. Tofu had helped her 
understand what was really going on when you set off the 
Breaking Point. She told him about her training with 
Natsume and Kurumi, and the Elements of the Soul school 
that they practiced. They had a good time trying to figure 
out which element best matched Ranma's skills and 
personality.

"The adaptability of water!" Ranma proclaimed in his best 
Kunou voice, shaking his fist in one direction. "The free-
spiritedness of air!" He shook his fist the other way. "How 
can I choose between them? I... must have them both!"
   
Shampoo had plenty to add to their conversations as well. 
The Amazon tribe had a tradition of martial arts mastery 
that went back thousands of years, and even Ranma and 
Akane's interactions with an elder like Cologne had only 
shown them a fraction of what Shampoo's people knew. She 
confirmed some of what Dr. Tofu had speculated about how 
the Bakusai Ten-ketsu was a foundational technique, 
which could be expanded upon for the more refined feats of 
environmental control that they'd seen out of her great-
grandmother. 

"Most Amazon techniques like that," Shampoo explained. She 
held up a single finger: "First there is basic 
application," she then opened both her hands to spread the 
rest of her fingers wide, "then you learn much more from 
there."

"Like I've done from the Hiryuu Shoten-ha," Ranma said. "My 
One-Man Dragon arts."

The young Amazon frowned. "Shampoo not so sure she likes 
that name."

"What's wrong with it?" 

She crossed her arms. "What if woman want to use those 
skills?"

"What, you mean if I'm in my girl form?" Ranma scratched 
his head. "I'm still a guy."

"Yeah," Akane cut in. "But what if you have to teach those 
skills to an Amazon?"

Ranma blinked. "Why would I do that?"

That was when Akane remembered that nobody had ever 
explained the obligation that an outsider incurred when 
learning the secret techniques of the Amazons. She figured 
it was about time that somebody cleared that up for them. 
After all, if Amazon girls started showing up at the Tendou 
Dojo someday, it wouldn't do to have Ranma jump to the 
wrong conclusions. If he survived that long, of course...

<He WILL,> she told herself. <I can make this work. I've 
got to.>

And so they passed the days and nights, preparing for the 
most dangerous foe Ranma had ever faced, watching the 
clouds gathering to the north that heralded the coming of 
the first great storm of winter. Akane tried to capture 
each moment in perfect clarity in her mind, hoarding them 
like jewels in the treasure vaults of memory. The training, 
the healing... the talks with Ranma and Shampoo, the 
crackling of dinner cooking over an open fire... the touch 
of Ranma's hand as it brushed hers, the furtive kisses 
stolen as night fell. She cherished every second, holding 
them in her heart, ever-conscious of how each moment spent 
took them closer to the terrible time of reckoning that 
loomed before them.

She had one more task to complete before the last battle. 
She had gone over it a hundred times in her mind - 
visualizing, practicing, planning out exactly what she 
intended to do. If Elder Cologne was right, she could make 
the difference for Ranma between life and death. Tendou 
Akane would not allow herself to fail in this.

Just before dawn, on the day the Reikoku would arrive, she 
went to him in his tent. She needed to have time before the 
fight to achieve what Cologne had instructed her to do, but 
it was critical not to have TOO much time. She felt 
nervous, but refused to let it slow her down. 

She wasn't surprised to find him awake, even though sunrise 
was still almost an hour off. "Hey, Akane," he greeted her 
quietly. 

"Hi, Ranma."

He peered at the bundle she had tucked under one arm. 
"What's all that stuff?"

She took a deep breath, then let it out, steadying her 
nerves.  "I told you that Elder Cologne gave me something 
to help you with your last fight, right? Well... it's 
time."

He leaned forward, interested. "Yeah? The old ghoul gave 
you some kinda special Amazon artifact or somethin'?"

Akane shook her head, settling down so she was facing him 
as she knelt. "No. She said that such things wouldn't be 
any help against the Reikoku, especially at this final 
stage. This is... it's a technique she taught me." She 
pulled out a little three-legged brass stand, then set a 
candle on top of it. 

"What kind of technique?"

"Have you ever heard of Martial Arts Calligraphy?" she 
asked.

Ranma grimaced. "Ugh. Yeah. You paint some stupid drawing 
on your abdomen, and it pumps up your power levels." He 
flinched, giving her a sort of worried look that she didn't 
understand. "Not that I've seen it in person or anything. 
Anyway, it has a fatal weakness. I don't know if it's gonna 
work for this..."

"This isn't the same thing," she said. It was good he'd 
heard of Martial Arts Calligraphy - that would make this a 
little easier. "This is a secret Amazon version that works 
on the same principle. They call it 'Living Scroll of the 
Legendary Warrior.'"

"Yeah?" His eyes lit up. "So what do you do?"

She swallowed. "Um... take off your shirt."

Ranma fidgeted a little bit. "Oh... okay." He pulled his 
sleeping shirt up over his head. It was odd, thought Akane, 
how often he'd gone around their home back in Nerima half-
dressed. Now that they were alone together, in the cocoon 
of warmth formed by the tent, she felt butterflies in her 
stomach as she looked at his bare chest. 

"Right," she said, keeping her voice even. "Now... um, 
you're going to look into the candle, and just try to keep 
your mind clear. And I'm going to start writing the 
characters on your... your body." She withdrew a brush and 
a pot of ink.

"What's gonna happen?"

"I'll explain as I work," she told him. "Just hold still. 
If you flinch around, I'm going to mess up." She heated the 
pot a little bit over the candle, so the mixture would be 
warm when it touched his skin.

"That candle," Ranma said. "It smells kinda... like incense 
or somethin'."

"It's like that," Akane told him. "The Amazons get them 
from the Yakusai village. You know, where Pink and Link came 
from? Don't worry... it's not poisonous. It just helps with 
the ritual."

"Got it."

She withdrew a night-black feather and showed it to Ranma. 
"A crow's feather," she told him, holding it behind the 
candle so he could see it without losing his focus on the 
flame. "This is what I use to stir the ink. It represents 
the link between this world and the spiritual realm. The 
Amazons use this to empower the ritual." She dipped the 
quill of the crow's feather into the ink and slowly swished 
it around. The subtle shades of the different ingredients 
blended, merging into a single, rich hue, like the darkest 
of chocolates.

She dipped her brush into the warm, dark solution in the 
little clay pot, swirling it gently to soak the fibers. 
"This ink comes from the herbalist's village, too," she 
said. "Elder Cologne says it takes years to get the mixture 
just right, so it'll contain the magical power necessary 
for the Living Scroll ritual."

Ranma's eyebrow raised, and he turned to get a better look. 
"Really?"

"Hold still."

She chose a spot on his arm first. The brush glided across 
his skin, leaving a dark, glistening trail in its wake. She 
followed the contours of Ranma's muscles, relaxed but still 
hard as rock, and slowly traced the first calligraphy on 
his body. 

"The idea," she said quietly, "to bring out your full 
potential as a martial artist."

"What if I've already reached my full potential?"

"Nobody has," Akane told him. "Even Elder Cologne says that 
she is still far below her greatest potential. You've grown 
so much stronger since you left home. What if you trained 
for years at the same pace? How much better would you be?"

Ranma blinked, then settled his gaze back on the candle.

"Just think about that," she whispered. Her brush dipped 
back into the ink. She kept it steady as she chose a spot 
on Ranma's back, guiding it across the strong lines of his 
shoulderblades, then his spine. She felt herself breathing 
in time with Ranma, felt herself falling into the rhythms 
of his body as she painted the characters along his warm 
skin. 

"Think about how good you can be." Her voice came almost as 
a sigh. "The flame from the candle will guide you. The 
potion on your skin will bring out your inner strength. 
Your body itself will become the Living Scroll, telling the 
story of the Legendary Warrior. That's you, Ranma... that's 
you..."

"That's... me."

Akane kept speaking quietly as she covered his upper body 
with her calligraphy - characters of power, sigils of hope 
and glory, all drawn with loving perfection on the canvas 
of Saotome Ranma's skin. She stroked her brush across his 
chest, his belly, then onto his bare thighs. She traced 
delicate words onto the soft skin of his neck, feeling his 
pulse through her brush as she painted. 

Sunrise came. Dawn broke across the valley as the hours 
crept by, and still Akane drew her marks upon Ranma. She 
knew that time was short, but she did not rush. She made 
each calligraphy as perfect as she could manage, losing 
herself in the flow of her words to Ranma as she drew, 
caressing his body with her brush, feeling the power of his 
aura rising as she painted each symbol.

And with each passing moment, the Reikoku drew closer.

- - - - -

The pickup truck rocked and bounced as it careened down the 
dirt road, kicking up plumes of dust in its wake.  The 
driver was a Chinese woman whose name Ukyou had never even 
caught.  She and Ryouga, along with Natsume and Kurumi, had 
piled into the back of the truck mere minutes after the 
plane had touched down, heading towards the location that 
Ranma had told Kasumi he was heading for when they spoke last.  

All in all, it had only taken about three days for the crew 
of young martial artists to get to the remote part of China 
from where Ranma had last contacted them. The speed with 
which the Temple of Three had managed to secure air passage 
and a driver for them had gotten Ukyou thinking.

"They could help Ranma travel," she explained as she held 
onto the side of the pickup's bed for balance.  "Get him 
flights, hire cars and boats and stuff.  He could go 
wherever he needed."

"He couldn't run forever," Ryouga said.  "He wouldn't want 
to."

She shook her head vigorously.  "Not forever, no.  Just 
long enough to train.  They could get him teachers, fly him 
around to find martial arts masters.  The Temple has to 
know all sorts of people."

Natsume nodded.  "We do," she said.  "Our resources aren't 
infinite, though."

"But we'd help him," Kurumi insisted.  "Priestess Nariko 
said we would."

Her elder sister looked concerned.  "But... defeating the 
Reikoku at the fourth stage.  Is it possible, even?  How 
much training would he need?"

"He can do it!" Ukyou asserted, turning to Ryouga.  
"Right?"

The Lost Boy frowned, clearly thinking of the struggle he'd 
endured with the creature during his initiation trial.  "If 
anyone can... it would be Ranma," he said.  It wasn't the 
ringing affirmation that Ukyou would have liked to hear, 
but it was good enough.

"If we find people like old Cologne to train him," she 
continued, "he could do it.  Maybe it would take a while.  
He could fly over to America... it'd take that thing 
forever to cross the ocean at the rate it goes.  They could 
get a car... everyone drives around at a hundred miles an 
hour in America, right?  Then when he's done there, you 
just fly him somewhere else.  It can work!  I know it can 
work..."

"No," Ryouga said gravely.  "It can't."

She rounded on him, her voice rising almost to a scream.  
"Why NOT?  Damn it, WHY do you always have to be such a 
FATALIST?  He..."

Ryouga grabbed her hand, looking into her eyes with a 
mixture of dread and sorrow.  "Look," he said.  "Look 
around."

They had crested a hill and were looking down into a valley, 
rugged and stony with a silvery trickle of a river running 
through thick patches of heavy forest.  Ukyou stood up in 
the pickup bed to get a good look, and saw the birds.  They 
rose from every copse of trees, every patch of high grass, 
from the surface of the river and the small lake farther 
off.  Great golden-feathered pheasants, tiny swarms of 
sparrows, silent-winged owls roused from their slumber, 
cranes and hawks and ducks... as far as the eye could see, 
they watched the birds rise. From horizon to horizon they 
took to the sky, filling the air with the sounds of terror 
and flight.  

The grasses rustled as mice and rabbits fled.  Leaves 
sprayed from the bushes as families of deer bounded past on 
long, nimble legs.  The high-pitched squeal of a wild boar 
in flight reached their ears.  All were running or taking 
wing, all the animals for miles and miles...

"No..." Ukyou whispered.  She could feel it too now.  The 
truck had stopped, the driver suddenly overcome with terror 
and unable to continue.

Ryouga clenched his fists as the shadows of fleeing birds 
darted across his face.  "Only one thing could cause such 
horror," he said.  "The Reikoku in its final incarnation."

"Then... we're too late..."

He nodded, leaping out of the truck.  "Come on!" he 
shouted.  "We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot!"

She followed, heading into the aura with Natsume and Kurumi 
in tow, but her heart told her the truth.  All they could 
do now was witness.  Saotome Ranma was beyond their help 
now, if the Reikoku had entered its fourth stage.  The 
battle was already underway.

- - - - -

The Reikoku's aura didn't just increase as it closed the 
distance - it exploded like a psychic bomb. Ranma heard 
Akane let out an involuntary shriek as it hit her, 
accompanied by a cry of shock from Shampoo. The wide valley 
came alive with terror as all living things recoiled from 
the approach of the Reikoku.

The black-robed thing seemed to grow as it approached him, 
swelling with darkness, its robes thrashing about it as if 
caught in the grips of some chaotic wind. The three crimson 
eyes burned with the fury of hellfire, zeroing in on 
Saotome Ranma with their hideous glare. The sheer power 
that pulsed from the monster beggared the imagination.

Ranma braced himself and prepared his first attack.

<Time to get a feel for what this last stage is like,> he 
thought. He needed to have a better idea of what he was up 
against. <So, what'd you do to adapt to this...?>

"DRAGON-CLAW STORM!"

Ranma formed a single tight disc of swirling air and cast 
it towards his enemy. This was taking a bit of a risk - the 
Reikoku often adapted in ways that not only neutralized 
one's own attacks, but actually turned those advantages 
against the one who fought it. Still, his advantage was 
that the individual Dragon-Claw Storms were not that 
dangerous. By launching just one, he felt he could 
withstand the backlash even if the monster did turn the 
technique against him.

He'd weighted the single Dragon-Claw with the energy of 
cold. The Reikoku responded instantly by launching a splash 
of the tarry black adhesive it had used before to intercept 
the whirlwind. The Dragon-Claw struck the blob, freezing it 
into a spray of ice shards on impact. They streaked through 
the air haphazardly, burying themselves in the earth.

<Right,> he thought. He could imagine the results if he 
launched a barrage of Dragon-Claw Storms - the Reikoku 
would intercept them with its own missiles, which would 
then shower the field of battle with dangerous shrapnel. He 
had every expectation that the monster's sticky gunk would 
also burn if used against one of the hot Dragon-Claws, 
filling the air with fiery debris.

The Reikoku continued its advance.

<It's always pressin' closer,> Ranma thought. He had no 
idea what sort of deadly attacks would greet him if he 
allowed it to narrow the distance between them. 
Fortunately, his training had focused on long-ranged 
techniques that would allow him to strike without having to 
linger in the Reikoku's killing range. 

He would, however, have to get in close for a very 
dangerous moment. <Nothin' for it,> he thought, girding 
himself. <Here goes...>

The young Saotome charged his battle aura, focusing intense 
heat on one hand and biting cold on the other. He threw 
himself towards the Reikoku, every sense alive to the 
possibility of attack. The creature responded by extending 
a trio of hideous grasping arms that grew out of its main 
body like limbs from some diseased tree, sprouting ugly 
clusters of thorns along their length even as they grew.  
Ranma dove and spun, weaving his way between the attacking 
branch-arms, until he was in range to execute his strike.

<This is the hard part,> he thought. He summoned all his 
speed, wanting to perform the spiral pirouettes that 
allowed him to unleash this attack as quickly as possible. 
He was faster than he'd ever been - he could sense the 
power of the Living Scroll in him, and took heart in the 
strength he felt from the mystical symbols on his body. But 
no matter how much speed he mustered, he still had to be in 
one place for a moment.

It almost cost him his head. The creaking mass of one of 
the Reikoku's attack arms writhed towards him, swiping at 
his upper body with fearsome speed. The strength behind it 
would have ripped him apart if it had hit cleanly. Ranma 
ducked at the last instant, dropping low as he spun in his 
spiral.

"ONE-MAN DRAGON ASCENSION!"

This was the solo version of the Hiryuu Shoten-Ha, allowing 
him to create a tornado almost as powerful as the original 
attack without needing an enemy's hot aura to fuel it. The 
fury of the sudden storm burst to life around him as he 
executed the icy uppercut to unleash the attack, catching 
the Reikoku in its lashing winds. 

<Nailed it!> he thought. Some part of him registered the 
bursts of pain along his back, where the Reikoku's attack 
had glanced his skin, but that seemed far away compared to
his excitement at pulling off the One-Man Dragon Ascension. 

Powerful, furious winds tore at the monster as they 
carried it skyward. Its branch-limbs twisted and gave
under the onslaught, wrenched from the creature's body
as if pulled off by some savage giant's hand. Mighty winds,
charged and controlled by Ranma's battle aura, twisted the
monster's body in a violent spiral.

This technique had one more tremendous advantage over its 
parent, the Hiryuu Shoten-Ha. By repeating the hot-and-cold 
air spiral, Ranma could reinforce the energy vortex created 
by the One-Man Dragon Ascension, renewing it when the 
wind's power began to wane. Essentially, he could keep it 
going indefinitely. 

<Once I get you in the air,> he thought giddily, <it's all 
over!> He could just keep battering the demon with one 
tornado after another, floating it high in the air where it 
couldn't reach him, until the savage power of the winds 
finally destroyed it for good...

Something crashed into the ground behind him.

Ranma spun, peering through the twisting clouds of dust 
kicked up by the whirlwind. A cord of armored flesh lanced 
down from the sky, stabbing into the ground with a hideous 
splay of spines. The limb was segmented, like some 
unthinkable centipede, with deadly edges protruding from 
each of its innumerable joints. The moment he spotted it, 
half a dozen more of the chitin-covered tentacles speared 
into the ground around him, all emerging from the black 
mass of the Reikoku above him.

<It's anchoring itself!> he thought - but it was more than 
that. The segmented arms continued to hurtle down from the 
creature above him, forming a razor-edged cage around him. 

He looked up, and to his horror he saw that the beast was 
pulling itself back to earth along the path of the 
tentacles. It launched more and more of them, piercing the 
whirlwind and securing themselves in the ground. He had to 
dodge and twist his body to avoid the arms as they 
descended on him.

<Surrounded!> he thought desperately. In a few seconds, he 
wouldn't have any room to dodge, and one of the Reikoku's 
anchor-arms would pin him right to the ground. He saw no 
opening, no way to evade, no spot in the ever-thickening 
forest of death around him that he could throw himself 
through to escape the prison...

There was one technique he remembered that might save him. 
The problem was, he'd never done it.

<Gotta try it!> he thought frantically. <If this Living 
Scroll stuff is really workin', I should be able to pull 
this off!>

"VIOLENT DANCE OF THE DEMON-GOD HORDE!"

- - - - -

Tendou Akane watched as crescents of force suddenly sliced 
through the writhing mass of insectoid arms that had 
enveloped her beloved. These air-blades spat in every 
direction, carving through the Reikoku's armored limbs as 
easily as she had once seen them split wood and stone. Her 
heart, which had been filled with dread mere seconds 
before, soared with hope.

<It's working!> she thought. <It's... uh-oh!>

A huge object came hurtling towards her through chaos that 
followed Ranma's use of the Dance of the Demon-God Horde. 
One of the air-blades had sliced off an immense chunk of 
boulder, which had been kicked into the air by the roiling 
remnants of the winds generated in Ranma's One-Man Dragon 
Ascension. She stepped in front of Shampoo, finger extended 
to meet the tumbling mass of rock.

"BAKUSAI TEN-KETSU!"
    "BAKUSAI TEN-KETSU!"

The stone burst into a fine powder, which was then swept 
away in the churning winds. Akane turned, surprised at the 
voice she had heard beside her, and saw an equally 
astonished Hibiki Ryouga standing next to her, his finger 
extended beside her. Both had used the Breaking Point 
simultaneously to destroy the boulder.

"A... Akane?" he stammered.

"Ryouga!" she called back. "How did you get here?"

She turned, and saw three other figures running up towards 
the fight close on Ryouga's heels. To her astonishment, not 
only was Ukyou with Ryouga, but so were her two adopted 
sisters. "Natsume? Kurumi?" she asked. "What...?"

"What was THAT?" Ukyou interrupted, gesturing with one hand 
towards Ranma. Her other arm, Akane saw, hung in a sling, 
wrapped in a cast. Both she and Ryouga were bandaged and 
bruised in many other places, clearly having recently 
survived their own deadly battles.

"Those marks on his body," Natsume asked. "What are those?"

Akane had no time for catching up on news, but she could 
answer their questions. She raised her voice, shouting loud 
enough for Ranma to hear as she watched him sprint free 
from the decimated remains of the Reikoku's murderous trap. 
"Those are the signs of the Living Scroll of the Legendary 
Warrior!" she told them.

"Is ancient, most secret Amazon technique," Shampoo chimed 
in.

"They bring out his full potential as a warrior," she 
bellowed. "You can see the results! Ranma is able to pull 
off attacks like the Dance of the Demon-God Horde that 
he's only witnessed before. The Living Scroll turns him 
into an invincible fighter!"

"His full potential?" Ryouga echoed, turning to watch the 
battle. "Maybe... maybe that will be enough..."

"Of course it will!" Akane shouted.

"Yeah!" Ukyou agreed. "You can do it, Ranma!"

Ranma didn't acknowledge them, though Akane felt certain 
that he had heard them. That was good... she wanted to 
reinforce his trust in the Living Scroll technique. 
Because, she knew, his faith in the power of the Living 
Scroll was the whole key to this battle. He had to trust it 
- he had to trust HER - in order to keep fighting like 
this, pushing past the limits of his own strength and 
speed.

Because there was really no magic to Living Scroll of the 
Legendary Warrior at all.

Elder Cologne had explained it to her as she instructed 
Akane on what she had to do. "Even for one as self-
confident as Ranma," the old woman had said, "the thing 
which holds us back the most in anything we do... is the 
weight we put on ourselves. Our doubts. Our insecurities. 
Our fears. If one could truly set these things aside and 
act to his fullest potential, he would reach heights that 
he had only dreamed possible."

That was the purpose behind the Living Scroll ritual she 
had performed with Ranma. The candle, the ink, the symbols 
- all were just props, designed to help him descend into a 
trance of sorts. She had helped him self-hypnotize, 
convincing himself that the mystic power of this ancient 
technique was really unlocking his hidden strength. So long 
as he believed it... it really was true. 

<And it's working,> she thought. <Just look at him!>

The Reikoku sent several more of its anchor-arms towards 
him as it finished its descent to the ground, but by now 
Ranma had freedom to move. He dodged the deadly appendages, 
launching a Demon-God Multiple Strike attack at them to 
sever them before they could reorient on him. 

<He never trained in the Yamasen-ken,> she remembered. 
Kumon Ryuu had used those techniques based on power, which 
Ranma had countered with the stealthier Umisen-ken moves. 
But both of those martial arts styles had been designed by 
Ranma's own father, and he understood the principles behind 
them. Thanks to the elevation of his belief in himself, he 
had managed to instantly master those devastating arts in 
the heat of mortal combat.

It was just as Cologne had hoped. "Ranma picks up on new 
skills so quickly," she had said. "He innovates on the fly 
in combat so well. If we can somehow enhance that innate 
gift through this Living Scroll gambit, he might be able to 
conquer even the Reikoku."

- - - - -

Ukyou felt like she hadn't blinked in minutes. She couldn't 
tear her eyes away from the fight that unfolded before her, 
didn't want to look away for a split second. On one side, 
there was Saotome Ranma - moving like a streak of 
lightning, his battle aura brilliant as the corona of the 
sun, unleashing insanely powerful techniques that she'd 
never even heard of. If there ever was a god that touched 
down his feet upon the surface of the Earth, she thought, 
it must've looked something like Ranma did now. 

But on the other side, there was a demon more terrible than 
her worst nightmares. The aura of sheer terror that pulsed 
from the Reikoku dwarfed the power of anything she'd felt 
from it before, setting her every nerve burning with the 
primal need to flee for her life. Unthinkable energy 
emanated from its dark-shrouded body, an aura of raw power 
that froze her breath in her lungs every time she looked at 
it. It seemed less like a single being now, and more like 
some moving portal rent in the fabric of space, through 
which one horror after another streamed in an endless 
onslaught. 

In every other fight with the Reikoku, the creature had 
changed its form to adapt to its enemy. This time, though, 
it didn't just stop at one mutation - it adapted on the 
fly, generating a never-ending quantity of new and deadly 
appendages to attack its prey. 

But for every attack, Ranma devised a counter.

It produced two huge, pillar-like arms, even more massive 
than the magnetic one that it had used against Ukyou in her 
battle at the Temple of Three. They smashed great craters 
in the ground as they struck, moving with a velocity that 
was terrible to behold for things of such bulk. Even when 
Ranma dodged them, the titanic impacts kicked up massive 
waves of debris that pummeled him, threatening to bury him 
in waves of displaced earth if he let an impact strike too 
close.

"SOARING DRAGON SPIRIT!"

The wave of blinding power that Ranma blasted forth was 
like the breath of some immense dragon, catching both of 
the Reikoku's wrecking-arms in its fury.

"That technique!" Ryouga exclaimed. "It's one of Prince 
Herb's!"

Ukyou didn't know much about Prince Herb of the Musk 
Dynasty, but the attack Ranma mimicked from that foe packed 
enough sheer power to blast the maul-arms into thousands of 
harmless fragments. <Is that related to what he was working 
on with his hot-cold aura training?> she wondered, but she 
barely had time to think about it further. The battle raged 
on.

The Reikoku didn't miss a beat after the destruction of its 
battering limbs, instantly sprouting another host of 
attacking arms. Four multi-jointed limbs erupted from its 
central mass, each ending in four-fingered grasping claws. 
The digits on each finger stretched eerily, as if it were 
made of rubber. That flexibility clearly threw off Ranma's 
ability to predict where the arms would strike.

Ukyou heard herself screech in dread as one of the 
Reikoku's grasping barbs hooked Ranma around the ankle, 
catching him by surprise. The impossibly long arm twitched, 
and the young fighter's body went hurtling through the air 
at a fearsome velocity. He crashed through the trunk of a 
pine tree, detonating it into a cloud of splinters and 
needles with the impact.

The claws converged on Ranma for the kill, but he was up 
and moving... and countered with claws of his own.

"TALONS OF FIRE!"

Cat-like talons of pure energy sprouted from Ranma's curled 
fingers, blazing with fiery energy. His hands moved in a 
blur, leaving trailers of flame with every motion, as he 
lashed out at the Reikoku's grasping arms. The rubbery 
flesh bubbled and melted with each hit, peeling away into 
smoking ribbons with each strike.

"He mixing arts again!" Shampoo shouted. "Using hot aura 
with Neko-ken!"

<Neko-ken?> Ukyou thought. She didn't know where this "cat 
fist" stuff came from, but it clearly packed a serious load 
of power. Within moments, the Ranma had hacked the 
Reikoku's quartet of claw-arms down to virtually nothing...

... only to see it counter with another spray of limbs. 
Four more appendages writhed forth, tentacles made of some 
sort of translucent slime, whipping through the air to trap 
Ranma in their hideous grasp. He lashed out with his Talons 
of Fire, but the oozing liquid only sizzled as the heat 
passed right through them, the wounds closing almost the 
instant they were made. It was like trying to make cuts in 
running water with a knife.

Ranma let out a hiss of pain as one of the tentacles 
brushed his arm, his own flesh puckering with blisters at 
the touch. That stuff had some sort of acidic property... 
if it got a clean hit, it would eat right through to the 
bone.

"TALONS OF ICE!"

Suddenly, the fire disappeared from the cat-claws that 
Ranma had produced from his fingers. They turned a deep, 
silvery blue, crackling with arctic cold. When he swept the 
air with the Talons of Ice, they left a trail of snow 
crystals in their wake that was oddly beautiful to behold. 

They also proved an antidote to the Reikoku's slime-
tentacles. The caustic goop froze solid on contact, then 
shattered an instant later as Ranma raked through with his 
feline claws. He struck out with both hands and feet, 
sprouting Talons of Ice from his toes as well. Soon, he had 
defeated the all four of the thrashing acid arms.

The Reikoku's next attack came in a roar of chaos. It 
seemed to open up some kind of ebon-dark gap in its body, 
spewing forth an endless host of squirming, worm-like 
pseudopods. Each projection was small, no thicker than a 
man's thumb, but there were thousands upon thousands upon 
them. Tiny, chattering jaws opened and closed hungrily at 
sporadic intervals along the length of each snaking 
protrusion, gnashing grey-yellow teeth as they sought prey. 
Getting caught in that mass would be like being dropped 
into the middle of a school of piranha - the victim would 
be flayed to the bone in mere heartbeats. 

Ranma planted his feet, his hands moving in a series of 
blindingly-fast spirals. 

"HUNDRED-HEADED DRAGON!"

Tight whirlwinds shot forth from Ranma's hands each time he 
completed a spiral, one after another, twisting like ropes 
in a current as they hissed their way towards the Reikoku. 
At first, the attacks disappeared into the advancing pillar 
of mouth-covered worms, plunging into the horrid mass with 
seemingly no effect. But as the number of sinuous 
whirlwinds grew, they tore away at the Reikoku's vile mass 
of pseudopods. The winds rent the wormy appendages, ripping 
them apart with their fury even as they lurched towards 
their prey. 

The two opposing streams hung in the balance for several 
long moments - the Reikoku pumping out countless hideous 
worms, Ramma blasting into the oncoming horde with an ever-
growing column of gyrating wind. Finally, the tide of 
repulsive flesh began to ebb, diminishing under the rending 
onslaught of the Hundred-Headed Dragon. The Reikoku pulled 
its robes back over the dark portal from which it had drawn 
the hungering worm-arms, and began to advance again.

Ranma's arms dropped to his sides as he backpedaled.

<He's wearing out,> Ukyou saw with mounting apprehension. 
<Even with that Living Scroll thing, he's taken a lot of 
hits... used up so much energy.>  

She looked at the Reikoku. Already, it had produced a host 
of lobster-like pincers, which clicked and snapped towards 
Ranma on long, armored stalks. <How much more can that 
thing do?> she thought. <How much damage can it take before 
it finally goes down...>

A sudden, terrible intuition came to her. 

"No..." she whispered, struggling to find her breath.

Ryouga turned to look at her, his eyes wide. "Ukyou?"

"No... oh no..."

He gripped her by the shoulder. "What?"

"He... he hasn't hurt it at ALL!" she cried. "The BODY! 
Ranchan!" She was screaming now, desperate to be heard over 
the sounds of battle. "The arms are all just diversions! 
You have to hit its body!"

- - - - -

The moment he heard Ukyou speak the words, Ryouga knew she 
was right. Without realizing it, Ranma had been playing a 
defensive game against the monster since almost the start 
of this fight, concentrating on wave after wave of 
disposable attack arms, while the monster's body remained 
virtually untouched. It had turned Ranma's own strategy of 
fighting from a distance against him, forcing him to deal 
with a never-ending array of hazards while never allowing 
him to get close enough to do any real damage.

Ranma understood as well. Ryouga could see it in his face 
as soon as Ukyou shouted her warning. 

<But does he have enough left in him now?> Ryouga felt a 
sickening feeling arising as he watched his friend - a 
certainty that he was nearing the end of his rope.

Saotome Ranma's chest heaved with each breath. His eyes 
were still bright and alert, but the strain showed in his 
movements. Sheets of sweat coated his body, mingled with 
the smears of blood and earth that punctuated each hit he'd 
taken in this battle. The ink from Akane's Living Scroll of 
the Legendary Warrior technique looked to be intact - it 
didn't smear, even under these conditions - but some of the 
characters had been broken in places where Ranma had taken 
wounds. <Is it like the Mark of the Battling God?> Ryouga 
wondered, thinking about his own experience with Martial 
Arts Calligraphy. <Does it lose its effectiveness if the 
shapes of the symbols are disrupted?>

Most telling, though, was Ranma's battle aura. When he had 
arrived on the scene, Ryouga had seen his friend's aura 
stronger than it had ever been... but now, the phantom 
luminosity of Saotome Ranma's spirit had begun to wane. 
<He's starting to fade,> the Lost Boy thought, <and his foe 
is still pretty much unhurt. Even with the Amazon magic... 
can the Reikoku be defeated at this stage?>

A terrible heaviness closed about his heart. He looked to 
the others, praying to see hope on their faces... but they 
saw it too.

Shampoo's fists trembled at her sides as she watched the 
fight, her expression full of helpless dread. Kurumi 
clutched her sister's arm, quivering in the grips of the 
Reikoku's terror field, her eyes bulging in their sockets. 
Tendou Natsume's face held stern, her critical eye catching 
every aspect of the unfolding battle, but in the sculpted 
beauty of her face he saw no hint of hope. Ukyou screamed 
her encouragement, but each word came as a ragged cry from 
her throat.

When he looked at Akane, he felt like his guts were being 
torn up from the inside. The desperate, agonized hope on 
her face as she struggled with all her might to keep 
believing, to hold on to her faith... the terrified refusal 
to accept what her eyes were telling her... the sobs 
pulsating in her throat as she fought a silent battle with 
herself against breaking down in despair... 

"He can do it," he heard her say in a voice barely more 
than a choked whisper. "Please... please... he can still do 
it..."

Ranma dodged the Reikoku's snapping pincers, ducking in and 
out of the trees to give himself some cover. Ryouga knew he 
was waiting to get his second wind before he mounted his 
attack. The monster advanced, relentless as ever in the 
pursuit of its prey, shearing away branches and trunks with 
deadly armored shears as it drove the beleaguered young 
fighter before it.

"Can't we help him?" Kurumi wailed. "Somehow?"

"Can't gang up on Reikoku!" Shampoo shouted back. "It just 
get even stronger!"

Ukyou's good hand opened and closed spastically. "If... is 
there some kind of weapon we could give him? Anything?"

Natsume clutched her rugbeater reflexively, but Ryouga knew 
it wouldn't do any good. The adopted Tendou made good use 
of her weapon in a fight, true enough, but it wasn't meant 
for this kind of lethal combat. Ryouga remembered how the 
monster had shredded Ukyou's battle spatula, and wondered 
if there was ANY weapon that could make a difference in 
this fight. Maybe a master-forged katana might do the 
trick, since Ranma would probably be able to use it on 
instinct with the help of the Living Scroll technique. But 
they didn't HAVE a master-forged katana. Ryouga had lost 
his umbrella, Ukyou her spatula... there was nothing in 
their traveling gear that could possibly hope to give Ranma 
an edge in a fight like this...

Inspiration struck Ryouga like a bolt of lightning. 
"There... there IS something!" he shouted. 

The Lost Boy tore off his backpack, ripped through the 
buckles to get to the contents inside, his hands 
desperately searching for the thing he sought. If he was 
right... if his guess was right... 

"Ryouga?" Ukyou asked, clutching his shirt. "What? What 
is..."

"GOT IT!" he roared in triumph, scattering his clothes and 
gear as he brandished his prize. "RANMA! HERE!" 

Ryouga reared back and threw...

- - - - - 

Ranma couldn't afford to spare any attention for his 
friends on the sidelines, but Ryouga's shout pierced even 
his shell of concentration. He whirled to see the bandana-
clad boy throwing something towards him, a small object 
that glittered through the late-morning air as it flew. He 
spun away from the Reikoku's pincer-grab and leapt, hand 
extended to catch whatever his friend had thrown him. His 
fingers closed around something tiny, metallic, round...

<A 5-yen piece,> he realized.

He danced away from his foe, trying to gain a little more 
breathing space. The meaning of Ryouga's gift seemed clear 
to him - if he could use this coin in the same manner that 
Miss Hinako did, he could drain a battle aura to amplify 
his own power. He looked at the Reikoku, mercilessly 
reaching for him with its host of limb-severing pincers. 
<He's outta his mind!> Ranma thought. <Even if I could pull 
this off, it wouldn't work!> The Reikoku's very presence 
invoked a primal response of terror. To touch its corrupt 
flesh sent the body into convulsions. Absorbing the battle 
aura of a thing like that would be like chugging down a 
barrel full of radioactive waste. It would kill him as sure 
as one of those pincers around his neck.

Then he heard Ryouga's growl of effort, and turned to look.

The Lost Boy stood with his arms outstretched beside him, a 
bestial snarl rumbling up from deep within. Ranma could see 
his battle aura flaring to life, a bright, pulsing orange 
like the heart of a volcano. It grew brighter and stronger 
with each moment that Ryouga concentrated.

<He didn't mean I should drain the Reikoku,> Ranma thought, 
a spark of hope igniting within him. <He wants to give me 
his OWN power!>

The others figured it out almost as soon as Ranma. First 
Ukyou rushed to stand beside Ryouga, bringing her own 
brilliant green battle aura to life. Then Akane joined on 
the Lost Boy's other side, followed by Shampoo, Natsume, 
and Kurumi. They held hands, their auras mingling and 
surging as they brought forth their battle spirits.

<It's up to me now,> he thought. He'd seen Miss Hinako do 
this dozens of times, and had already learned a related, 
subtler art when he'd practiced Shampoo's Chi-Kung. <The 
Living Scroll of the Legendary Warrior... I can pull this 
off!> He extended his arm, the little coin suspended 
between his forefinger and his index finger...

"HAPPO GO-EN-SATSU!"

It was like he'd plugged himself into a dynamo.

Even as the power surged into him through the tiny aperture 
of the coin, he knew that he wasn't executing a true 
Happo Go-En-Satsu. In spite of the fact that this was the 
most basic of Miss Hinako's skills, he remembered now that 
Happosai had spent numerous training sessions modifying her 
basic physiology to enable her to execute this energy-
draining technique. Even with the Living Scroll, his body 
simply didn't have the tools to pull off a true version of 
the Happo Go-En-Satsu.

But he wasn't stealing anybody's aura. His friends gave 
this power freely... and that made all the difference.

It felt like raw lightning in his veins. His very bones 
felt as if they were pulsing with light. He didn't think 
his body was actually changing, like Miss Hinako's did when 
she absorbed battle energy, but he felt a brilliant charge 
bursting through every muscle, every nerve, every cell. 
Saotome Ranma let out a howl somewhere between ecstasy and 
torment - it felt like he would explode with the sheer 
power.

He didn't explode... but the coin did. Overloaded from the 
relay of energy, the grubby little disc of metal burst into 
tiny fragments.

His friends crumpled to their hands and knees, gasping for 
air, quaking with weakness. Ranma turned to face the 
Reikoku, feeling like some kind of earthbound titan, like a 
living force of nature. It was more power than he could 
hope to contain for any length of time without burning out, 
or perhaps exploding like a human bomb.

<I don't plan to contain it,> he thought. <It's time to USE 
it!>

The Reikoku advanced, pincers snapping. Ranma's battle aura 
roared to life as the lobster-like arms descended, forming 
a barrier of pure radiance around him. The carapace of the 
deadly pincers burst on impact, as if they'd grasped live 
grenades instead of a human being. 

The Master of Anything-Goes Martial Arts charged his enemy. 
The power of six great warriors surged through his blood, 
energizing his battle aura into an unbreachable force 
field. Now, there was no more need for dodging. Now was the 
time to attack.

With an inarticulate roar, he leaped to attack the 
Reikoku's body, driving it down to the earth. His fists 
moved at unthinkable speeds, hailing down blow after blow 
on the monster at a velocity that put the Kachuu Tenshin 
Amaguriken to shame. Each strike landed with a thunderous 
report, sending a burst of force through the monster's 
iron-hard armor and out the other side, into the ground 
below. An oscillating shockwave spread out from the center 
of the attack, blasting away earth, root, and stone in its 
fury. 

Ranma pounded the creature with fists of searing energy. 
The Reikoku countered, throwing a ceaseless barrage of 
attacks at its prey. Claws and teeth, talons and scythes, 
branches and thorns, tentacles and corrosives... an 
inconceivable variety of limbs and protrusions burst from 
beneath the creature's robes to batter against the young 
Saotome's supercharged battle aura. 

It was a question of which one would give out first.

Even with the fantastic levels of power that Ranma had been 
granted, he could feel his reserves beginning to drain. He 
was hurting the Reikoku now - he knew he was - but he 
couldn't tell who would win this final grapple. It was a 
war of attrition, and if he kept fighting like this, it was 
one he might lose.

Instinct told him what to do - and if Saotome Ranma trusted 
anything in the entire universe, it was that inner voice of 
intuition in battle. He had only one way to make sure he'd 
win: to pour all of his remaining energy into a final, 
devastating attack. It would mean abandoning all defense, 
dropping his barrier for a dangerous moment and leaving 
himself open to the Reikoku's onslaught... but only a 
moment. He should be able to survive for that long.

It was a risk he had to take. Ranma drew back his hand, 
mustering the necessary concentration to focus all the sum 
totality of his battle aura into a nova-like aura around 
his fist. 

He felt the creature tearing at him, lunging for him. In 
the split second that it took his fist to descend towards 
the Reikoku, he felt a spike pierce his thigh, jutting 
clear through the main muscle and out the other side. Jaws 
clamped on to his ribs, digging needle-sharp teeth into his 
abdomen. Something raked across his face, and his world 
became a red explosion of pain.

Still, he struck true. Raw power burned white around his 
fist as he drove it into his enemy, trailing a magnesium-
bright streamer in its wake. His blow plunged directly 
through the center of the monster's three burning eyes, 
igniting the void beneath the relentless beast's robes with 
a light like the birth of a sun.

The resulting explosion tore through the entire valley. The 
forcewave blasted leaves and needles from the branches of 
the trees, snapping twigs and branches with hurricane-like 
fury. Immense plumes of dust billowed into the air, caught 
up in the thunderous roar of the final destruction of the 
Reikoku.

He'd won. He'd defeated it.

<...oh god... my eyes!...> Ranma thought in a panic. His 
body was a twisted mass of agony, but the worst injury had 
come in that last instant. His mind thrashed, disoriented 
and afraid. <... it's... my eyes! ... can't see!...>

He touched his face with a trembling hand, and came away 
with a sticky mass of blood.

<... no... no! no!...>

His world had become an ocean of black pain into which no 
light would ever penetrate again. He groaned, inarticulate 
moans of suffering hitching out of his exhausted chest. He 
lolled and thrashed within the void left by the destruction 
of his eyes, mind desperately grasping for any hint of 
vision, of an image...

Three points of crimson light blazed from the darkness.

Helpless panic threatened to engulf him. For a few 
unspeakable moments, he thought the creature had somehow 
risen again to enter his very mind, to hunt his soul for 
all eternity through his dreams. <...no... it's over! It's 
supposed to be over! It can't be...>

But as the terror receded, he realized that he could not 
sense the aura of menace that had accompanied the Reikoku
in his every encounter with the monster. The three red 
points blazed in his mind... and he realized that they 
weren't eyes at all. As they came into focus, he could 
finally discern the true nature of the lights. They were 
runes, sigils of an ancient power - and they represented 
past, present, and future.

Understanding unfolded in his mind as he contemplated the 
symbols before him. These were binding runes, he could 
sense. They had been set in place to channel raw, primal 
energy, to give it form and purpose, and to release it into 
the world. These were the marks of the spell that gave the 
Reikoku its shape, its focus as a hunter.

And behind them lay the true source.

Ranma had thought the Reikoku to be a demon, a creature of 
death, an agent of unthinking destruction. But the power 
behind it that had been channeled to give the creature life 
was old and infinite as the universe itself. Cruel, 
perhaps... merciless even... but it was also the 
fundamental energy that drove all life.

For every cub in a litter that survived where its siblings 
could not, that force was there. For every scuttling 
creature that ran just a little bit faster, a little bit 
farther, to escape the jaws of a predator, that force was 
there. For every lizard that blended into the bark of a 
tree while the more visible cousin beside it was gobbled up 
by a bird, that force was there. Wherever living things 
competed to survive and evolve, struggling to find some 
edge over their natural enemies, their rivals, and even 
those of their own kind... that force was there.

It was there amongst humans as well. It was there when 
martial artists clashed to prove whose technique reigned 
supreme, when inventors competed to see whose product was 
superior, when artists struggled to surpass one another on 
canvas or in clay. It was there with each child who curled 
her tiny fists in frustration, wishing she could grow up 
faster. It was there inside each old man who pushed his 
aging body with exercise, staving off the unrelenting press 
of time for a few more years, just a little longer...

Ranma realized that this was a power beyond the simple 
labels of good or evil. It filled him with a sense of 
wonder, an awe so great that for a moment, he forgot even 
the wounds that had taken his eyes.

And then, he sensed a question. It wasn't like a voice in 
his head, nothing that he could translate directly into 
words. But as the three runes burned in his psyche, he 
understood that he had a choice. 

They were his to command.

<Can... can you fix me up?> he thought with a flicker of 
hope. <Fix my eyes?>

It could not. The power behind the Reikoku was infinite, 
but the binding that gave it this form had been built on 
specific rules. The creature could be given a victim and 
told to hunt, and it would pursue it as mercilessly as it 
had done to Saotome Ranma. But one could not ask it to do 
anything other than its assigned task.

His wish to be healed died in the darkness.  

Somewhere outside this inner space of the psyche, he began 
to hear their voices. They staggered towards him, still 
weak from the loss of energy they had given him to let him 
conquer his foe.

"Is he... alive?"

"I think so.  Ranma?"

"His face... ohmygod SIS!"

"Shh... look away."

"Ranma! RANMA!"

He couldn't return to consciousness - not yet. He had 
defeated the Reikoku in its final incarnation, and now it 
was his to command. His to unleash. An instrument of 
vengeance in his hands... if he chose to use it.

For a moment, he felt sorely tempted. Happosai had put him 
in this mess, had managed to make him pay for whatever 
crime the evil old bastard had committed. Because of that 
withered pervert, he would be spending the rest of his life 
in darkness. He would never see Akane's face again.

<Aw... to hell with it,> he thought in disgust. <I don't 
send monsters out to do my dirty work. Yo, Reikoku?>

The three sigils glowed in silent response.

<Get lost.>

And just like that, the crimson lights vanished, leaving 
him in the lightless void once again.

But not alone. Akane held him in her arms, pressing him 
close to her as she sobbed his name over and over. He could 
feel them around her, even though he couldn't see them. 
Ryouga stood over him, Ukyou knelt beside him, Shampoo held 
onto Akane's shoulder as she looked down at his face. A 
little farther back, the two adopted Tendous watched as 
well, girls who had given him their strength even though 
they barely knew him. These were his friends. These were 
his family.

He reached up, and touched Akane's cheek, wiping away her 
tears. He could feel the first flakes of snow brushing his 
skin, floating gently from the cloudy skies to the earth.

"I'm alive," he whispered to her, and he smiled. "I'm still 
alive."

- - - - - -


                          the end

-----------------------------------------------------------
                      AUTHOR'S NOTES
-----------------------------------------------------------

It's been a long, strange trip, with many obstacles and 
Delays, but we've finally made it. My profound thanks to
all who have supported me in writing this story. Special
thanks to Gary Kleppe, who has been the most consistent
source of helpful C&C. Also my gratitude to all the fans
who have written with your questions, comments, help, 
and demands to know when the chapter was going to be 
done.

Thanks most of all to my wife, Candi. Always.

And that's it! The last chapter of "Relentless." Or is
it?

COMING SOON:  The epilogues. 

COPYRIGHT STUFF:  All the Ranma characters belong to Takahashi 
Rumiko, and are licensed in America by Viz Communications.    

GRT - April 2005
Thunderstruck_comic@comcast.net

All existing chapters of this story may be found at:
http://www.talesfromthevault.com/relentless





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