The problem, Bloodmaker decided, was that Doctor Ono Tofu was just too
dedicated to his work to accept happiness when it kicked in his door,
declared its intentions out loud, picked him up, kissed him, and
practiced a whole chapter of the Kama Sutra with lips and tongues alone
while stripping him naked so fast that air friction had to be
considered, but still slightly less time than it took for him to faint.

#I told you that wouldn't work,# Kasumi mused.

#Yeah, well, it had to be tried.#

Kasumi mentally sighed.  Truth be told, she was getting a little
impatient with the way all of her advances on the doctor had gotten
nothing but silly replies.  Bloodmaker had sworn not to take over their
life, but she had allowed Bloodmaker to try her way this time out of
desparation, even though she knew this would be the result.  #I don't
suppose you have any other ideas?#

#Tie him up, slap him around until he wakes up, then take him before he
can faint again?#

#No!  I don't want to hurt him!#

#Wuss.#  Bloodmaker looked at the body in her arms.  #Okay, skip waking
him up.  He's a man.  He'd probably respond in his sleep.#

#Umm...I was kind of hoping he'd remember our first time.#

#Hmm.  You have a point.  It's not that fun when they're out of it.#

#And...I was kind of hoping to focus on the things leading up to it,
more than the act itself.#

#You're admitting you'd actually look forward to the foreplay?#
Bloodmaker smiled.  #There may be some hope for you yet.  But that gives
me an idea.#

---

"Dearest Ono,
  Thank you for a wonderful time.  I never dreamed such heights of
  passion were possible, but now I look forwards to achieving them with
  you again, possibly several more times in one night up to the limits of
  our endurance.  I have gone on a training trip, since I would like to
  have more practice with a whip before using it on either one of us for
  real.  When I return in two weeks, I shall let you know the results of
  the pregnancy test.
  Love,
  Kasumi Tendo
  P.S.: I think we skipped the feather duster.  Something for next time,
  perhaps?"

Nabiki blinked wide eyes as she finished reading the letter.  "This is
her handwriting, alright."

Genma slapped Tofu on the back, earning dirty looks from both Ranma and
Akane.  "And you're sure you don't remember a thing?"

"Just blacking out after seeing her.  Even though I'm not in control of
myself at the time, I can usually remember when dear, wonderful Kasumi
is near..."  Tofu's glasses steamed up for a moment, but only a moment.
Still, most of those present edged ever so slightly away from him.  "But
this time, the words that sweet voice formed seemed like a dream, until
I found this letter.  Say, where's her father?"

"Watering the koi pond.  What'd you think?"  Ranma pointed out the
window, where Soun's bawling over his daughter's lost virginity and
intercourse outside of wedlock had long since lost all coherency.

"This is a prank," Akane supplied.  "It has to be.  I mean, come on:
feather duster?"

Ranma shook his head.  "I can actually see it.  I once ran into this guy
who was working on a technique for fan-shaped objects, including feather
dusters.  He had this one move where-"

"RANMA NO HENTAI!"

"But I didn't even do anything!" Ranma protested as Air Mallet-sama
carried him towards a distant lake, all expenses paid.

---

#You know,# Kasumi wondered as they walked along a back alley, #they'll
probably worry about me.#

#Don't sweat it,# Bloodmaker replied as she casually swung her sword
above her as if waving a baton in a parade.  #We left a note with
Nabiki explaining how we had to lay low for a couple weeks due to yak
problems.  She's about to have enough money to order take-out for the
next couple weeks - and I think she was starting to get bored of your
cooking.#

#Bored?  Are you sure?  I've been doing most of the cooking for years
and Nabiki's never been bored.#

#I could see it in her eyes.  Don't worry, it happens.#  Bloodmaker
leapt up, bouncing from wall to wall to wall and falling back to the
ground, eliciting a *crunch* from her landing surface each time.
#Besides, you've been wanting to take a break for a while, haven't you?#

#I...guess...but I have so many duties!#

#All taken care of.  Remember, Nabiki's got signature authority on
checks made out to your account, and you did add 'Bloodmaker' as an
alias.  So, she can cash the bounty check.#  She spun on one heel,
thrusting her sword into dark shadows behind her four times, then spun
back and walked on as if nothing had happened.

#And you're sure no one will come looking for us?#

#Disguise magic.  Everyone who knows you just sees you, even when you're
me.  No one really knows me, so no one can track me down.#  She spun
her sword once more at high speed to wisk the blood off, then waved to
the alley.  As if given leave, the yakusa toughs in her wake fell over
dead.  #But just in case, let's skip the country for a while.#

#We'd need a passport!  And money for the tickets, and-#

And they were elsewhere.  #Teleportation.  Never leave home without it.#

#Where are we?#

#Australia.  Remember that article you read about how they've been
overrun by rabbits?  I've got a taste for rabbit meat.  Raw and still
kicking.#

#...#  Kasumi pouted inside the mental shell her other self had
constructed for her.  She had no way of forcing Bloodmaker to surrender
control, and even if she did, she had little will to fight.  This
latest bout was typical: give Bloodmaker a little control, and she just
kept going on and on until she got tired.  Her vow not to seize control
was, Kasumi decided, just a way of saying she could not, no more than
Kasumi could take it from Bloodmaker without mutual agreement.  This
'vacation' promised to be nothing more than another excuse for some very
unladylike behavior.

#Hey!  I heard that!#

#Am I wrong?#  Kasumi felt like crying.  #Please, tell me I'm wrong,
that you really-#

#Hold that thought.#  Bloodmaker sniffed.  #Nest of meals, one o'clock.#

---

Bloodmaker was bored.  Perhaps she had picked a bare patch, or perhaps
the problem was not as bad as reported, but there simply were not enough
rabbits in the area to sate her appetite.  By her count, the several
square kilometers of forest she had cleared had contained far less than
one million of the pests, and now there were none.  There were other
meats available, but she had her heart set on her prey.

She had also come looking for a different sort of prey.  One last wild
fling before seriously going after Ono full time.  Unfortunately, what
few men were to be found far from civilization seemed scared of a
leather-clad woman with all kinds of weapons and fresh blood running
down her chin (she made a mental note to wipe it off in the future), and
Bloodmaker had forgotten to brush up on her English before coming here.
She knew she would have trouble negotiating a foreign city for a better
class of entertainment, though Kasumi would have it easier.

Which lead to the real problem: Kasumi had withdrawn, and with her,
Bloodmaker's sense of purpose.  She remembered something about laying
low to protect her family, but the details were becoming fuzzy.  All she
could see clearly was sleeping, eating, procreation, and inflicting
massive amounts of pain on anyone who stood in her way - if she could
remember what that way was.

There had to be more to life than this.

---

Was this what it was like to be dead?

To be trapped in an utterly personal Hell, watching someone take a body
with only tenuous links to your own and acting as you never would.  To
have this other person's life rubbed in your face day after day...

Enough.  There was one, final thing Kasumi could do, and that was to
stop paying attention.  So, she did.  The sights and sounds and smells
and tastes and *feelings*...she did allow herself to tune back in when
Bloodmaker found a willing man, but quickly tuned out when she sensed
even her tormentor was less than satisfied.  Other than that, she
ceased to lend them coherence or meaning, drifting instead in the void
that Bloodmaker had set her in.

Had she once had a family?  No matter: they were in the living world,
and she was dead.  Had she once been interested in a doctor?  If he was
dead, his afterlife showed no signs of intersecting her own.  Had she
once had a harem?  Those she remembered seeing dead before her eyes, but
they were not now here to comfort her.

Nothing was here.  Nothing mattered.

---

Time changes all things, even those things that profess to be eternal.
Take the afterlife, for example.  Where once there were a plethoria of
pantheons catering to countless multitudes of repositories for the
souls of the dead, consolidation of faiths on Earth had likewise
merged most of these repositories into a few.  When those who lived and
loved on Earth went on to separate rewards, they inevitably inquired as
to the possibility of seeing their significant others - either to
continue loving, or to torture each other for all time beyond what any
mere demon was capable of.  The volume of requests had grown so large
that the head dieties had no choice but to initiate official contact,
which in time lead to unification of sorts.

Thus was born the Great Huge Order of Supernatural Things and Stuff.
The last two words of the title were added after a protest from the
leaders of a few afterlives that were not technically supernatural
according to certain dictionaries, which most members took as an example
of just how diverse the organization was.  But even GHOSTS had an
agenda, and seeing one of their experiments in such poor shape went
against it.

Quite a few demons volunteered to go fight Bloodmaker to cheer her up,
but the council heads shook themselves.  Something more was needed.  And
besides, they decided, Brackgaugh had created the mess, so it should
have the honor of cleaining her up.

---

The woman who sprang from the forest could best be described as savage.
Or maybe feral.  Feral savage would also do, but it was unnecessarily
long.

Thus was the first thought of GHOSTS's messenger.  The second thought
was how much it hurt when she bit one's tail.  "I'm not food!"

"Hmm?"  Bloodmaker thought hard - though, from what Brackgaugh had been
told, any thought was now hard for her.  "Not...food?  Oh!"  She began
taking off the tattered leather rags that passed for clothes.

"Not that either!"  It sprang into the air, and hovered above her
reach.  "Listen!"

She leapt up to catch it, only to be dodged at the last second.

"Hey!  I'm trying to tell you something!  This isn't who you were
destined to be!"

Bloodmaker blinked.  "Dest...ined?"  She cocked her head.

"Yeah.  I've been following your case for a while.  You used to be
someone else.  A princess - or close enough - with all kinds of powers
to calm things down and make people happy."

A spark of recognition glimmered in her eyes.  "Bloodmaker dreamed of
this."

"That wasn't just a dream.  It was a memory.  I was sent to help you
become who you once were, to help you meet your old friends."

"Friends?"

"Yeah!  Much better than the guys you chase down around here.  I'll
help you transform, if you're ready."

"Bloodmaker ready."

"Good.  The power's always been within you.  You just have to open your
heart and call it out.  Your true identity is Kasumi; call her with your
heart and she'll respond."

"Ka...su...mi?"

"Yeah, but don't tell me.  Tell yourself.  She's inside you.  Call her
out."

Bloodmaker concentrated...

---

Kasumi knew there was a time when she and her other side had argued over
allowing the magical half to dominate.  Such arguments were long since
past.  Both sides enjoyed the simple pleasures of cooking, cleaning,
pleasant conversation, and other domestic duties.  They also loved wild
bouts of passion, and the man they shared almost all such bouts with.
Even combat, when necessary, brought its own type of occasional thrill,
though they were getting a bit annoyed at Ranma's and Akane's complaints
that she kept defeating most would-be challengers before anyone else
could get in a workout.

One corner of her eye noticed an enemy she had somehow missed.  It
stood, defiant, the speck of dirt mocking her cleansing efforts.
Growling in aggrivation, she reached inside for the power to eradicate
the pest, feeling the vocalizations reach her throat even as her fingers
clenched around what now gathered in her hands...

"KYAA!"  One swipe of a recently-moistened towel, followed by another
swipe of its dry end, and the dirt was gone.


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