I have two favours to ask:
   Firstly, if any of my readers are familiar with
Incan civilization, I should appreciate it if you
could tell me an appropriate female name from the era
and area.  (NO Spanish extractions or alterations,
please; you'll see why as you read.)
   Secondly, *PLEASE* comment and critize!

And please enjoy!

Raye

----------------

A Different Path

by Raye Johnsen
raye_j@yahoo.com

******
	'Ranma 1/2' is copyright Takahashi Rumiko, Shogakukan
and Viz Communications.  'Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon'
is copyright Takeuchi Naoko and other interested
parties.  If you think I'm making any money or have
any rights to any of this, you are very, very wrong.
******

Chapter Four: You Can't Change The Colour Of Your
Destiny

	Nadeshiko paused for a moment, holding the broom she
was sweeping the temple courtyard with to her chest
and leaning on it, gazing out into the distance.  It
was hard to imagine that it had been less than a week
since she had come here.

	Oddly, it felt as though she was in the place she was
meant to be - and Nadeshiko was surprised to find that
this sense of 'place' was an entirely new sensation. 
She'd never meditated upon her ambitions before. 
Before Ranma had come, she'd expected to reopen the
Tendou School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, and make
of it the successful venture she remembered from her
childhood.  After Ranma came, and she had seen how
poorly-qualified she was, she had been drifting into a
future that was both her greatest dream and worst
nightmare.  

	In discarding the doujou, she had also discarded
every future she'd ever seen for herself.  Chiba
Nadeshiko was completely unencumbered, and could do
whatever she wished.  It was kind of scary.

	Here, in the serenity of the temple, she thought that
becoming a permanent shrine maiden, as Rei-san
intended, might be a nice thing to do.  /Am I going to
always be influenced by my surroundings?/ she
wondered, amused at herself.  A self-depreciating
smile touched her lips.

	The small group of fans gathered under the torii at
the top of the steps leading to the temple sighed. 
Nadeshiko-san, in the week that she had been attending
Juuban High, had attracted a small but fervent group
of admirers.  Her manner, subdued with small flashes
of fire, caught at those who were not attracted to
Minako's, Makoto's or Usagi's more vivacious
personalities, and who felt too intimidated by Ami's
reserve.  The lingering sadness in her face was
intriguing and her residence, at a temple, lent her an
air of mysticism.

	In short, her fans were the romantics of the school.

	Nadeshiko didn't know whether to try to drive them
all away or to begin to date one or two of the
better-looking ones.  Until she made up her mind,
she'd decided to simply ignore them in their group,
and be polite to them when she encountered them
singly.  Contrary to her experiences in the past,
these boys seemed content to be ignored.

	Which proved yet another depressing aspect of her
original hypothesis.  Here in Juuban, she didn't
attack the boys and they remained civilized and
polite.  In Furinkan, she had responded with hostility
and violence to the first attack and the cycle had
escalated.  Even with Kunou's encouragement, she
clearly was at least partly responsible for the whole
mess.

	/How long does it take for someone to *grow up*?/ she
thought savagely, standing up straight again and
attacking the dirt, twigs and leaves that the wind had
blown onto the neat paving stones of the courtyard.

	"One of them annoy you?"  Yuuichirou-san had come up
behind her.  He began to sweep beside her, nodding
towards her fan club as he asked the question.

	"No," Nadeshiko replied, shaking her head.  "I'm
just... annoyed at myself."

	"Ah," Yuuichirou said, and the two of them finished
sweeping in silence, neither feeling the need to
speak.  Nadeshiko relaxed as she performed her half of
the chore.  She'd never needed to speak with Ranma,
either; each time they had managed to make peace with
each other, they had not spoken, and it was not for
lack of things to say.  It was just that there was no
need to talk - and a little fear, too, that they would
shatter their fragile peace.

	She looked up at Yuuichirou through her eyelashes. 
He was cute, and understanding, and he was trying to
learn.  If only Ranma had been more like Yuuichirou. 
She sighed.  Rei didn't know what she had in the palm
of her hand.

*****

	Haruna-sensei had taken a transfer to Juuban High
School because the pay was better.  She was actually a
little startled to find herself assigned to a
classroom containing three very familiar faces.  She
would have been most surprised if anyone had suggested
it might be for another reason.

	Setsuna had been very pleased with herself for an
entire week after she had arranged that little detail.
 She didn't see why Haruka, Michiru and Hotaru had
objected to her harmless gloating.  It was just *nice*
to arrange things so people stayed in contact with old
friends; and this little piece of arranging was
positive for all concerned.  It did *not* warrant an
ambush with supersoakers.

	The retaliatory strike with waterbombs had, however,
been most satisfying, and she had gotten photographic
evidence.  Haruka didn't look good at all as a drowned
rat, and her fans in the racing world would have been
delighted to find that out.

	Haruna-sensei been pleasantly surprised by Chiba
Nadeshiko's academic transcript, and even more pleased
by the fact that, although she seemed to have quickly
become a friend of Tsukino Usagi, she did not pick up
that young lady's habitual tardiness or her
indifference to homework.  In fact, she seemed more
inclined to urge Tsukino-san into study.  Not,
however, that Chiba-san seemed to have any more luck
than Mizuno-san or Kino-san had throughout the past
three years.

	The new student was settling in nicely.

*****

	That afternoon, Nadeshiko was walking home alone.

	Makoto-san had cooking club ("You don't *need* it!"
Nadeshiko had said, to which Makoto had replied,
"Cooking is fun, and I can always learn *something*
new!") while Ami-san had juku, and Minako and Usagi
were spending an extra half-hour re-doing their kanji
test.  Nadeshiko had passed, but was very well aware
that it was because she was studying with the Senshi
that she had.

	Climbing the steps that led to the temple, she was
surprised to see a small trail leading off into the
wooded area that bordered the steps.  /It probably
leads to the Senshi Training Ground they said they've
got set up behind the temple,/ she thought, and then,
/I wonder what it's like?/  Without any other
conscious thought, she stepped off the stone steps and
walked up the tiny path.

	She did not look behind her, and so didn't see it
vanish as her feet left it behind.

	She walked along the tiny path for far longer than
she should have, but somehow the thought of turning
back, or of checking her watch, just didn't enter her
head.  The landscape was pale, almost pastel, as if it
were a classic watercolour rather than solid earth and
growing trees.

	It didn't seem that long before she came to the cave.
 The entrance was dark and small, barely big enough to
admit her.  Nadeshiko walked in fearlessly.  The
darkness was old and sad, the result of a mistake made
too long ago and not yet set right.

	She did not even think why she thought that.

	The passageway was short, and opened out onto the
most magnificent grotto Nadeshiko had ever seen. 
Limestone chandeliers adorned with giant crystals of
precious gemstones adorned the ceiling, and painted
panels edged with precious metals, crystals and gems
made up the walls of the chamber.

	One panel was of a beautiful woman, with hair painted
with leaf-of-gold and eyes of silver.  She stood not
on the earth, but on a cloud, and birds, painted so
well they seemed about to fly away, perched upon her
hands.

	The next was a woman of flame.  Her hair was red and
so, oddly, were her eyes.  Her skin was a strange,
bronzed-red colour Nadeshiko had never seen before,
and she carried herself with the bearing of an
Empress.  She stood in the centre of a lake of lava,
deep within a volcano's caldera.  Flames danced on her
fingertips.

	The next picture was obviously meant to represent an
undersea landscape, as kelp almost seemed to wave in a
current as it grew, tall undersea bushes. 
Multicoloured fish wove like living jewels among the
fronds and the pale, pale hair of the woman in the
picture, her deep, almost navy-blue eyes as ancient as
the ocean she was almost a part of.

	The next woman's picture was startling.  Her dark
skin was the colour of rich earth, her ivory teeth
flashing forever in a laughing smile.  Her dark hair,
tied in many tiny braids, fell so far down her back
that the beaded ends of her plaits rested on the
ground she sat on.  She was sitting on a plowed field,
her booted feet resting in the furrows, while in the
distance, men plowed the fields beyond her.  Worms and
insects scurried at her feet, while those animals that
ate insects stood a respectful distance from her.

	An obviously Chinese woman's portrait was next in the
circle.  Her golden skin made a startling contrast to
her black hair and eyes, while her midnight-blue robes
blended with the star-studded night skyscape behind
her.

	As Nadeshiko turned to the next painting, she
couldn't help feeling there was some significance here
- something she was missing.  She turned to the next
image, this one of a woman sitting in a cave with
seams of copper, gold, silver and iron running through
it.  She herself seemed made of metals - her hair was
new-minted copper, her eyes were gleaming gold and her
skin was warm bronze.

	A ghost seemed to be within the next picture, until
Nadeshiko realized it was simply a woman with no
colour about her at all, her hair platinum blonde and
her eyes pale, pale blue, with skin almost the colour
of snow.  The diaphanous white robes didn't help much
either.

	The next and last image was of a woman standing
regally within a gem-studded grotto, and Nadeshiko
frowned as she realized it was the same as the one she
stood in.  This woman had long, wavy, blood-coloured
hair and cinnamon eyes.  She wore gaudy jewellery, a
double-layered collar set with sapphires and
turquoise, with two huge droplets of turquoise falling
from her ears down the length of her neck.  She, alone
of all the women in the portraits, wore a headpiece;
an inverted boomerang of polished black obsidian
surmounted by yet another chunk of turquoise.  Her
dress was tight and very daringly cut, with thorns as
accessories.

	Looking at this woman, Nadeshiko felt a shiver of
commingled fear and sympathy.  Her eyes were hard but
behind the hardness lay a terrible vulnerability. 
This woman had been badly wounded, if not shattered,
and to ensure her own safety, had built a wall between
herself and the world, and in the building had done
some terrible, fear-worthy things.  /Like me,/
Nadeshiko thought.

	|No.  Not like you.|

	The thought rested unbidden in her mind.

	"Who said that?"

	|The one whose place this is.|

	Nadeshiko sensed a feeling of frustrated incompletion
about the answer.  The speaker needed to say things
for which there were no words.

	"If you can hear my thoughts," Nadeshiko said slowly,
"you could've made it so I did not find this place."

	|Truth.|

	"So why am I here?"

	|To take your place.|

	"Huh?"

	She didn't get a chance to say any more as the wind
whirled up around her.  The grotto's blank back wall
collapsed away, and vines and other flowering plants
began to creep visibly over the tumbled rocks.  An
image seemed to paint itself onto the ninth and final
blank panel on the wall - a Japanese girl dressed in
green in a sylvan glade, grasses blooming at her feet,
trees bursting with blossom behind her, holding a
bouquet of nadeshiko, and with Nadeshiko's face.  On
the wall to her right, Nadeshiko saw a ripple of fire
that seemed to leave something in its wake.  She
turned her head and saw, written on the wall:
	Zephyr of Air
	Quetl of Fire
	Amarina of Water
	Vadi of Earth
	Chiuyen of the Void
	Golda of Metal
	Aure of the Spirit
	Beryl of Crystal
And the fire died on the wall, to leave behind it:
"Nadeshiko of Wood".

	Then something felt as if it were breaking open
within her, and Nadeshiko fell to her hands and knees.
 The world spun about her, and then....

	And then, she was half-sitting, half-lying on the
steps of the hill, that led up to the Cherry Hill
Temple.  She glanced at her watch - it was fifteen
minutes later than she would have been if she'd walked
straight home from school.  Just long enough for
someone to sit down and take a short nap.

	/What happened?/ she thought.  /Did I fall asleep? 
*Here*?  I guess... what a weird dream./  And then she
started to climb the steps again.

	She didn't notice then that a wreath of nadeshiko was
looped about her right wrist, and when Rei pointed it
out to her later, she decided she must have done it
while walking up the hill, thus inspiring the dream.

*****

	Setsuna stood in the shadows under the trees,
watching as the Acceptance Ceremony was completed.

	Things were moving faster than she anticipated.

	She frowned as she turned and walked away.

*****

Author's Notes:

	1. The career ambitions of Aino Minako and Hino Rei
differ between the anime and the manga.  In both,
Minako's ambition is to become an idol, but in the
anime, she indicates that she is as amenable to
becoming a sporting idol as an entertainment idol, an
area focus that isn't present in the manga.  In the
manga, Rei has absolutely no interest in going into
show business, and her ambition is to become the head
priestess of her shrine and keep it alive, but in the
anime, her ambition is to become an entertainment idol
and then a happy wife - both goals that she dismisses
in the manga.

	2. Torii are the stylized gates, usually painted red,
that stand over the entrances to Shinto and Buddhist
Temple grounds, and other sacred areas.

	3. In Japanese schools, it is relatively common for
students to create fanclubs for popular or attractive
students in the school (similar to fan clubs for pop
bands and actors in the West).  While students in the
West also admire other students in their schools, they
do not organise themselves nearly as thoroughly as
their Japanese counterparts do, and there is no real
Western equivalent.

=====
raye_j@yahoo.com
http://www.thejohnsens.com/index.html

"It means, I'm in command... where are you going?"
   - C-3PO (to R2-D2), 'Star Wars: Attack of the Clones'

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