SMARTALECK PRODUCTIONS
Destiny "rewrite"
By Arun <arun2110@sancharnet.in>
Chapter #02 <Completed on 12/08/2002> <Revision #3>
A Ranma 1/2 - Sailor Moon crossover with a pinch of
Ramayana.
Disclaimers:
Ranma one-half and Sailor Moon belong to their
respective owners. I do not own them.
Author's notes:
Here's the second chapter. It's significantly larger
than the older version and I can honestly say that my
pre-readers and I are satisfied with it. I hope that
you, the reader, are too. ^_^
Now, on with the story...
There is a beauty, innocence, and an aura of serenity
around a child that one can never find anywhere else
in the world. To gaze into the eyes of one's child is
to be afforded a peek into heaven. There is nothing
quite like it and there can be nothing that can ever
compare to it.
It was no wonder then, that Shian's aquamarine eyes
seduced Ranma as soon as his eyes met hers. Even
though her pupils were yet to focus, Ranma felt like
she was gazing into the deepest, darkest corners of
his soul, he felt light all over.
"She's beautiful," he said, wondrously. If Shian's
eyes represented a wilderness and he was lost in it,
he would never bother to find a way out. Who would
ever want to live the pain-filled existence that is
life when one could forever float in the bliss of
heaven?
Lein heard her husband's voice. It sounded so
distant, even though he was so very near her. She
looked at him and smiled dreamily. This was the way
families were meant to be. Husband, wife and progeny.
She bathed in the moment, wanting to savor it for all
eternity.
Shian, completely unaware of the spell she had cast
on her parents, continued feeding, gurgling once in
satisfaction. Ranma heard her soft voice but once and
blissfully lost himself in the throes of fatherhood.
His eyes feasted on the tiny bundle of fluff and love
in his wife's hands, and soothing words of love and
adoration for his tiny angel came automatically to his
lips. He caressed his daughter's cheeks and watched
her antics with her mother's breasts. Lein sighed in
contentment as Shian played a tug of war with her
breasts and Ranma shifted his gaze to his wife's face,
a vacuous, contended smile adorning his face.
"She looks just like her mother," he whispered. He
bent down, and kissed both his wife and his daughter
on their foreheads.
Annoyed at the disturbance, Shian gurgled again and
pushed away the intruder with her tiny rose petal
fingers. Then, she turned her attention towards the
task at hand. Meal served!
"I love you," Ranma cooed to his wife. He tenderly
took Shian Huei's feather-soft fingers in his hand and
caressed them ever so tenderly against his cheeks.
"I love you, too," Lein whispered back.
Little Shian Huei gurgled once again and snuggled
closer to the warmth provided by her mother's body.
And Ranma, seeing her, just shook his head in wonder.
'To think that she's all mine and no one else's,' he
thought. At that moment, he felt like his heart could
burst and shatter into a million pieces in pride.
'I'm a father...' he thought as another ripple of
love hit him. As he basked in the warmth of this
feeling, he remembered that it was time for his
classes.
"I have to go now," he reluctantly said to Lein,
straightening himself. Shian grasped his index finger
ever so slightly and the heaviness in his heart grew a
thousand, no, ten thousand fold. 'I'm a father...' he
thought druggedly once again. It was like meeting Lein
for the first time all over again, only this time, his
affections were a hundred times more powerful.
Lein shot her husband a forlorn look.
"Must you?" she asked. She was very reluctant to let
him go.
Ranma nodded.
"The classes... They cannot wait... I'm taking the
bare minimum already and..."
Pause.
"Yes, I have to go," he replied unhappily, giving up
on explanations. He hated being away from his wife and
daughter, but he had a duty to the village too, and he
could not abandon one for the other.
Lein nodded with great reluctance.
"I suppose... Come back soon," she whispered softly.
Ranma nodded. He bent down to kiss his wife and
daughter one last time before leaving the house.
Shian's eyes hypnotized him once again, as he kissed
her, and he had to visibly shake himself out of his
stupor. He caressed both their cheeks with the back of
his hand and without looking back, hurried out of the
house. The sooner he got to his students, the sooner
he would be back with his family. Exiting the house,
he turned left and was about to exit the street when
Shi Huu's voice stopped him.
"So tell me, Son-in-law, how's my great, great, great
grandchild doing?" she asked a wee bit too loudly as
she pogoed up to him on her staff.
"She's doing just fine," Ranma replied with a
pleasant smile, followed by a bow. He then
straightened, looking uncertain for a moment, and
locked eyes with his 'mother.' He had taken to calling
both Shi Huu and Yein Luo by that title soon after his
marriage, and neither of them quite objected to being
referred to by that title. "Mother, may I... Can you
spare me a moment of your time? I wish to speak to you
in private."
Shi Huu nodded immediately without hesitation. She
had noted Ranma's struggle over some decision for
about three days ago and had actually expected him to
come to her sooner.
"Come with me," she said, starting toward her house.
Her plans to visit Shian would have to wait just a
while longer. "I think that Lein and Shian can wait a
little longer," she said over her shoulder, as she
pogoed past Ranma.
Ranma nodded and followed Shi Huu without a word. The
Matriarch led him to her house and once inside, sat
him on a wooden chair.
"What's bothering you, Son-in-law?"
"I... It finally dawned to me that I'm now a father.
I don't know whether I'm ready for the role and..." he
let his words trail off. It was not the way of his
people, both the Musk and the Joketsuzoku, to speak so
freely of matters of the heart, even to close friends
and relatives. However, he needed advice and was
desperate enough to venture into uncharted
territories. As 'cocky' as he was, he was wise enough
to realize that when it came to raw emotions, he was
an absolute idiot.
Shi Huu burst into laughter, finally understanding
Ranma's difficulty in approaching the subject. She had
thought that it was something serious and was very
relieved to hear that it was not.
And Ranma's plight in the matter was completely
understandable. In fact, the whole village knew that
Ranma, as skillful as he was in The Art of War and The
Art of Peace, was a dumb ass that was as clueless as
they came in The Art of Love. There were even a couple
of jokes about how one should never go to 'Honorable
Ranma' for advice on love and women.
"What happened to your vaunted confidence,
Son-in-law?" she asked, lightheartedly.
"I... It's not easy for me, Mother, to come to you...
Or anyone else for that matter, for help..."
Pause.
"I... I feel so helpless and I have all these
doubts... I guess I know a lot from watching father
raise Shin and I, but still..."
Shi Huu frowned. The situation was much more serious
than she thought. Ranma was displaying facets of his
character - fear and uncertainty - that he had never
before shown and the Ranma she knew did not fear even
the mightiest of enemies. He would have marched
single-handedly into battle to face the entire Phoenix
army without any hesitation. 'This new Ranma, then,
must be the socially insecure one; the one who grew up
without close friends and companions!' As a member of
the royal family, Ranma would have been respected and
obeyed, but would have had few true friends.
"You'll do fine," she said, positively, after mulling
over this latest development for a couple of seconds,
"I saw the way you looked at my great, great, great
granddaughter, when you first laid eyes on her. You
fell in love with her that very same moment... I could
see it in your eyes..."
Pause.
"Trust me, Son-in-law, you'll make a great father,"
she said, patting Ranma on his shoulder. It was a very
un-Matriarchal thing to do, but she felt that the
situation demanded it.
"Thank you for your words of wisdom and counsel,
Mother. I'll intrude into your time no more and will
take my leave now," Ranma said politely and
respectfully.
Shi Huu smiled cheerfully in return. As far as she
could tell, the insecure Ranma was gone and the
confident one had returned. It felt nice; the feeling
she got whenever she helped people.
"Won't you stay and have some tea?" she asked.
Ranma shook his head, ruefully. It was common
knowledge that Shi Huu's housemaids made the best tea
in the village, but he was already late for his
classes and dared not procrastinate any longer. 'Oh,
the sacrifices I have to make in sake of The Art!'
"I am afraid that I must humbly decline your offer,
Mother. I'm a good half-an-hour late for today's class
as it is..."
Shi Huu tilted her head in a nod. She understood
perfectly. The Art was more important than mere
pleasantries, which could be exchanged anytime.
Moreover, the sooner Ranma completed his classes, the
sooner he could return home to his wife and daughter.
Family was very important to the Joketsuzoku and The
Council wanted Ranma to have a very, very large one.
***********************************************************************
Time passed in the village and Shi Huu's words proved
prophetic: Ranma turned out to be a very doting
parent, who always fussed over his daughter.
Little Shian, for her part, became an overnight
celebrity in the village. She was the village
sweetheart, and everyone spoiled her with hugs, and
kisses, much to Lein's consternation and Ranma's
pride.
Ranma, as time slowly ground forward, skipped classes
just so that he could spend time alone with his wife
and daughter. And sometimes, he took them to the
mountains and showed them around. In fact, there was
nothing else in the world that Shian liked better than
soaring over the tree-tops with the wind howling in
her face and playing havoc with her hair. Everyday, as
soon as Ranma walked into the house, she would pester
him for a piggyback tour, courtesy Ranma airlines, of
the woods around the village.
The days passed happily by, but as in everything in
life, the happy times did not last forever. Things
began to take a turn for the worse and a sense of doom
fell on the village. Phoenix intrusions into Musk and
Joketsuzoku lands begun to increase at an alarming
rate, and soon, skyrocketed to levels unheard of in
the history of the two nations. Everyone seemed to
realize that war was just around the corner, and with
grim hearts, began to prepare for it and the terror it
wrought.
***********************************************************************
"Honored One, did you summon me?" Ranma asked,
completing his bow.
Shi Huu nodded, absently. They were in the village
square and she could not risk making public the
information she has in her hands. As such, her
attention was focused more on the environment than on
their discussion, and her eyes scanned the area for
interlopers, both accidental and intentional.
"Yes, I did. I want to show you 'something,'" she
replied, belatedly.
The Matriarch's tardy reply surprised Ranma and
raised his shackles, as she was usually quite
attentive, but he did well to hide his reaction.
'What's so horrible about this 'something' that mother
does not wish to speak of it in public?' he thought,
apprehensively, dark clouds of doubt forming in the
recess of his mind.
"You'll understand when you see it," Shi Huu added
out loud, answering his unspoken question. Motioning
Ranma to follow her, she led him to a secluded hut
located on the far end of the village.
"Go in and see for yourself," she said slowly in a
measured voice. There was something in her voice that
Ranma could not quite fathom and he found it very
disconcerting.
Ranma opened the door and a wave of putrid air
crashed on him, assaulting his senses. Automatically,
he took a step back. He shot a questioning glance at
Shi Huu, but seeing that her attention was focused on
whatever horrible thing that was inside the hut and
not on him, he took a deep breath and stepped into the
darkness.
A minute passed and Shi Huu began to lose a modicum
of the already stretched reserves of her patience.
Another minute passed and still, there was no sign of
Ranma. On the verge of losing her self-control, Shi
Huu opened her mouth to call Ranma, but before she
could make a sound, he stepped outside. His face was
pale and his knuckles, white.
"Who?" he asked, his voice crackled. It was hoarse
with raw emotion.
Shi Huu shot a look at him from atop her staff, but
did not reply.
"Who?" he asked in the same voice again. One of the
victims had been pregnant with a child, and
infanticide was considered the most heinous of crimes
by both the Musk and the Joketsuzoku.
"The Phoenix..."
"I thought that the border outposts were
strengthened..."
Shi Huu nodded. She did not break eye contact with
him.
"They were... Those men and women were on sentry duty
near Ox lands."
"Are The Ox and The Phoenix in cahoots then?" he
asked, narrowing his eyes. The Joketsuzoku and the
Musk would be in dire straits if their two traditional
enemies were.
"We don't know for sure... A patrol found their
remains," she pointed to the hut, "the day before
yesterday along with this," she said. She produced a
Phoenix sword from the confines of her robe and handed
it, handle first, to Ranma. "The patrol found no
evidence of Ox involvement, but we can't be sure - The
incident happened very close to their border, after
all. And without proof, The Council can't make a
decision, for as you well know, they will insist on
seeing some definitive proof before I can call for a
vote."
"And you want me to get it for you?" Ranma asked. He
finished scrutinizing the sword and returned it to Shi
Huu, hilt first, as he spoke.
Shi Huu nodded.
"Yes. I have already sent runners to the Musk to
inform the Emperor of this latest development. I plan
to call The Council to a war meeting on your return.
Based on the evidence you're going to collect, we'll
decide whether to declare war on The Phoenix and, or,
The Ox."
Ranma nodded and bowed.
"If you'll excuse me, then, Honorable One," he said,
politely on straightening.
Shi Huu nodded in reply.
Ranma turned and without another word, headed off to
his house, walking at a very brisk pace. Scarcely
half-an-hour later, he bade his wife and daughter
farewell, and took off unobserved towards Phoenix
territory.
***********************************************************************
A day later on the Phoenix side of the
Joketsuzoku-Phoenix border...
It was a strange sight: two Phoenix, one
six-foot-seven and the other five-foot-nine, standing
face to face in the middle of the forest with the
smaller one figuratively looking down upon the bigger
Neanderthal.
"Well?" the smaller, older one asked. "What do you
have to say for yourself, Shi Ho?"
He had brown eyes and as fair a complexion as one
would expect on a soldier, which he definitely was. It
was also obvious from the small one's imperious tone
that he was the one higher up in the chow chain. And
he was dressed for the part, too, looking very much
like the high-ranking officer that he was with his
rich brown woolen cloak and the royal insignia that
held it attached to his shoulder.
"It will not happen again, Lord Ka Ka Ree," Shi Ho,
for that was the tall one's name, replied with a
penitent bow.
Shi Ho had hazelnut eyes and wore ordinary clothes,
as would befit a man of his standing - a head foot
soldier - in the army. His face looked young and
rugged, and it bore two faint scars that ran down the
right side of his face - remnants of mistakes made in
his childhood while under the tutelage of his Ox
masters. From his hips dangled a pair of hefty looking
maces and his upper body had more muscle than one
would ever believe possible.
"And if it does..." Ka Ka Ree trailed off. He hated
taking Shi Ho to task, especially since the giant was
one of the few good soldiers he had under his command,
but it could not be helped. Shi Ho had brought it upon
himself by sleeping on the watch at a very sensitive
time. Moreover, he had been caught red-handed by none
other than Lord Hou Ho, the Supreme Commander in Chief
of the Phoenix Army.
Shi Ho nodded. He did not need to be told what would
happen if ever he were to be caught sleeping on his
watch again. Death would be a much more pleasant fate
than the thousand whip lashings and the public
humiliation that he was sure to endure.
Ka Ka Ree looked at Shi Ho long and hard. Finally,
after a long stretch of thoughtful silence, he nodded.
"Very well."
Pause.
"You have a very good future ahead of you," he said,
"don't spoil it by doing something stupid - like
sleeping on the watch."
Shi Ho nodded, keeping his eyes pointed towards the
ground in a show of respect.
"Our family has a proud tradition of serving Lord Saa
Fuu Lang dutifully, honorably and courageously, Son,"
Ka Ka Ree continued in a softer tone, "you do want to
honor our ancestors, don't you?"
Nod.
"Good! 'Cause if you do, you will not allow yourself
to be caught napping on the job again... I saved you
once, but I cannot - will not - save you again.
Understand?"
"Yes, Father."
"Excellent," Ka Ka Ree replied with a nod, "now..."
he stopped in mid sentence for a moment, "what was
that?"
Shi Ho looked around. His senses were on alert. He
heard nothing.
"What was what?" he asked his father confusedly.
Ka Ka Ree did not reply. On the guard, his eyes
scanned the edge of the thicket for nearly a minute,
before he relaxed. They were far removed from The
Phoenix camp as it was - he chose this particular
secluded spot because he could give his son the
dressing down that he so needed in private - and it
was not possible that someone unseen was with them. It
had to be his imagination, which had been under a lot
of stress that was acting up. He thought he had heard
something, but there was, obviously, nothing out there
that he could sense with his ki and it was a false
alarm.
"Nah!" he said aloud to reassure himself, "it was
probably nothing. Shi Ho..."
There are things that a father should never see -
things like his son's death. Those who do see their
son, or daughter, die are the unlucky ones. Going by
this notion, one must consider Ka Ka Ree to be truly
unlucky, for just as he turned his attention back to
Shi Ho and began to address him, a pointed stake
appeared as if by magic in the center of Shi Ho's
chest. A fine mist of blood exploded outwards,
splattering Ka Ka Ree's face and dress. Ka Ka Ree's
eyes closed reflexively, but the damage had been done.
His unconscious mind made the connection between the
blood and the stake, and the cognitive part of his
mind retreated to the dark recesses of his psyche, to
hide behind a veil of shock and disbelief.
It took several moments for the shock of the
experience to settle into his system and when it did,
Ka Ka Ree shot open once again. He could not have
opened his eyes at a worse moment, as at that very
instant, another stake impaled Shi Ho in his throat.
Blood gushed out and splattered everywhere, and Shi Ho
fell to the ground, clawing at his neck in a vain
effort to gain air into his lungs. He did not scream,
however, as the first stake had stolen his power of
speech from him.
'He's not going to make it,' the precise, clinical,
military half of Ka Ka Ree's consciousness realized
detachedly, as he watched his son asphyxiate in front
of him. Altogether, the whole scene was all too
surreal and dreamlike, and it did not even once occur
to Ka Ka Ree that he had to help his son or at least,
comfort him in his final moments.
Snap!
Immediately, Ka Ka Ree swung around towards the
direction of the disturbance. It was possible that the
disturbance had been caused by an animal, but animals
normally kept their distance from Phoenix camps and
Phoenix soldiers. It had to be human and with all that
had transpired, it had to be an intruder.
"Show yourself," Ka Ka Ree said; whispered. He
slipped into a stance and a dark corona of power - his
ki - began to pool around him like a thick cloud. The
air around him rolled off in waves and the
surroundings darkened a wee bit, as his ki began to
drain the energy from his environment.
Snap!
Ka Ka Ree spun around. The sound had come from the
opposite end of the thicket this time.
'There can't be more than one enemy out there,' he
thought, 'no two people can be that skilled.'
Snap! Rustle!
The disturbances seemed to be coming from everywhere
and Ka Ka Ree tried to keep up with each new threat as
it came. He spun round and round, until finally, he
stumbled over Shi Ho, whose life had slipped away by
then. The sight of his son's lifeless body and those
lusterless eyes staring back at him broke the ice that
had settled over Ka Ka Ree's mind. He collapsed to his
knees and with his fingers, tenderly caressed Shi Ho,
the blood of his blood. He cried in despair and
cradled his son in his lap, blocking out the world and
ignoring the enemy that was all around him.
"My son," he wailed repeatedly; despondently, unaware
of the shadow that crept in on him, "my son! My son!"
The shadow, for its part, closed the distance between
Ka Ka Ree and itself ever so slowly, until finally, it
fell upon and over him. Ka Ka Ree turned and...
***********************************************************************
"Honorable One?"
Shi Huu paused in her knitting and turned her eyes
towards the figure highlighted against the sunlight in
the doorway.
"Yes, Guu Lin?" she asked the five-foot-six
raven-haired woman with green eyes who stood in
attention before her.
Guu Lin bowed, 'safed' her spear and cleared her
throat. Her eyes were black. Her lips were small and
sensuous, and she was well endowed. She had a hip long
mane of lustrous black hair, and was quite the looker.
In addition, she was dressed in warrior's garb with
the Emblem of The Elders, a sign of her station as an
Elite, stuck between her breasts.
"Honorable Ranma has returned from his 'expedition.'"
Shi Huu nodded, albeit slowly, digesting the
information. As a member of the elite team of warriors
that served as the personal guardians of all Elders,
Guu Lin was one of the few in the village who knew the
true purpose of Ranma's 'expedition.' The rest of the
village had been fed a bunch of garbage about bears,
man-eating tigers and thieves.
"Where is he?" she asked, laying her needles and
woolen threads aside, her work unfinished.
"He's safely hidden from all prying eyes, Honorable
One. I personally escorted him to The Dump, before I
came to appraise you of the situation." The Dump Guu
Lin spoke of was an old mud building at the far end of
the village. It served as both the prison and the
village slaughterhouse.
"It is well," Shi Huu said with a slight tilt of her
head. As usual, Guu Lin had handled things perfectly
at her end. "Inform The Council of Ranma's arrival and
beckon them to The Dump on my behalf."
Guu Lin nodded silently in understanding. She did not
need to be told that she had to be discrete. That went
without saying in her job.
"As you wish, Honorable One," she said, bowed and
exited.
After Guu Lin departed, Shi Huu waited a couple of
minutes, before setting out on her own. Wary of
curious eyes, she took the most roundabout route
possible. Yet, she managed to reach The Dump in good
time. Once at her destination, she stopped and scanned
the area with her ki for tails. Finding none, she
quietly stepped into the dark building. It was very
badly lit, despite the fact that it had three large,
iron-barred, circular windows and it was a sunny day
outside. There was a stench of death that hung about
the room, which could not be removed, ever, and taken
together; it gave the room a creepy feel.
With a dismissive shrug, Shi Huu shook off the little
wells of irrational fear that rose in the pits of her
stomach and extended her ki senses. Like before, she
detected no one both inside and outside the structure,
which was exactly what she expected.
"Ranma," she spoke aloud into the darkness, "how did
it go?"
No sooner had the words escaped her mouth then the
lamps on her side of the hall burst into flames,
flooding the room with light. The sudden influx of
light blinded her temporarily, and Shi Huu had to give
her eyes a couple of seconds to adjust before her
vision returned to normal. When it did, she conducted
a visual survey of the room.
Sure enough, she saw Ranma standing at the far end of
the room. His form was heavily shadowed and sinister
looking. By his side sat a very distraught looking
Phoenix officer.
"It went well, Honorable One," Ranma replied,
inwardly smiling to himself. His sometime student and
sometime teacher, the Matriarch, had done very well,
indeed.
Shi Huu nodded.
"Shall I begin?" Ranma asked after a pause, casting a
sideways glance at his prisoner, as he did.
"No," Shi Huu replied with a shake of her head, "the
rest of The Council must arrive before you can begin."
Ranma shrugged; nodded and the lamps went out with a
fizz, as his cold ki quenched their fires. And once
again, the cloak of darkness descended upon the room.
The Council took an hour to assemble. Anyone else
would have considered the pin drop silence that
reigned in the hall during that one hour boring, but
to Ranma, it was a godsend. The psychological impact
it had on the prisoner was priceless after all.
Finally, when the last member was seated and the
hushed gossiping silenced, he ignited the last four
torches in the hall and beckoned Guu Lin to his side.
"Hear and pay heed, O' Phoenix," he spoke,
ceremonially, "I am Ranma Saotome Qin. You are
currently being held as my prisoner in the Village of
The Councilors. Answer my questions truthfully and no
harm will come to you."
Ka Ka Ree glared into his captor's face, his eyes
burning with unfathomable remorse and hatred. They
dared to speak to him about honor and truth after
killing his son, his only son, in cold blood. The
bastards!
At that moment, Ka Ka Ree decided to take his life
and in the process, take part, if not all of The
Council with him. However, when he tried to access his
ki, he found to his horror that he could not.
Ranma observed the anger, hatred and surprise
reflected deeply in Ka Ka Ree's eyes. He smiled,
divining the cause of it.
"Don't bother. The pressure point I used on you
prevents you from accessing your ki," Ranma said, a
pleasant smile on his face, "ever."
Pause.
"What's your name?" he asked. His voice did not sound
threatening at all.
Ka Ka Ree drew back his head and spit on Ranma's
face.
Ranma straightened himself. He wiped his face clean
with a rag and addressed Guu Lin, never taking his
eyes off his prisoner.
"Break one of the birdie's wings," he ordered. His
voice was softer than the spring breeze and colder
than the winter hail, and it made more than one in the
room shudder at the heartlessness of it.
Guu Lin stepped forward. She bent down and grabbed Ka
Ka Ree by his collar, easily lifting him off the
chair. He punched her in her face, but she was too
close to him and without his ki to boost his strength,
he could inflict no damage to her. She snorted at him
and threw the Phoenix face first into the stone chair
he had sat on before. Then, she grabbed hold of one of
his wings with her arms and twisted.
A tsunami of unbearable pain assaulted his senses,
and Ka Ka Ree screamed as bones snapped like twigs.
Ligaments and muscles did not fare any better, and
they, too were torn, adding to the pain.
Guu Lin did not stop.
Ka Ka Ree screamed louder, as she continued to twist.
Finally, when there were no more bones to break, Guu
Lin released her hold on his wing and, as calmly as
she had stepped forward to heed Ranma's commands,
withdrew.
Ka Ka Ree's screams did not die, however. He
continued crying at the top of his lungs for another
couple of minutes, until his throat gave out and his
voice grew hoarse. Even then, he whimpered. And Ranma,
for his part, stepped up to him, waiting patiently,
until the last of Ka Ka Ree's whimpers had died down.
"Your name?" Ranma asked, again. His voice was still
calm and serene.
"Bastard!" Ka Ka Ree moaned. His voice had become a
hoarse whisper from the incessant screaming.
"Yes," Ranma nodded, "that's a fitting title for all
Phoenix, but I must insist: What's your name?" As he
spoke, he applied a little ki to Ka Ka Ree's voice
box, healing it of its ill treatment some.
Ka Ka Ree did not answer.
"Guu Lin?" Ranma said.
Guu Lin stepped forward. Ka Ka Ree's face whitened.
The memory of the last session was still too vivid in
his mind. He did not want that sadistic psychopath
anywhere near him. He quickly ran over his options
through the haze of pain that clouded his mind and
decided to tell them his name. There was no harm in
revealing his name, except for the loss of his honor,
and that did not seem very important in the face of
the pain.
"Ka Ka Ree," he replied with a painful gasp.
Ranma smiled. The first step in breaking the prisoner
had been taken and from here on, the journey would
only get easier.
"Station?"
Ranma waited patiently for a reply, but received no
answer from the prisoner. He looked at Guu Lin and
nodded.
She stepped in, again.
Ka Ka Ree saw her, but as afraid as he was, he did
not want to tell them his station. Honor, what little
remained with him, as well as The Code, demanded that
he speak no more. [1]
Guu Lin spit on his face, insulting him and grabbed
hold of his other wing. She twisted it in exactly the
same way as before. And just like before, she did not
stop until all the bones were broken.
Ka Ka Ree was able to control himself from screaming,
and he tried very hard to outlast the pain, but it
kept on increasing, until it became too much to bear.
He fainted.
Guu Lin stepped back. She spit on his face for the
second time and with a disdainful glance tinged with
hatred that she shot at the Phoenix, withdrew.
Ranma stepped in as soon as Guu Lin stepped back. He
held a bowl of ice-cold water in his hands. He used it
to drench Ka Ka Ree and bring him back to the land of
the conscious.
"Station?" Ranma repeated, when Ka Ka Ree gained a
semblance of consciousness. If the prisoner
cooperated, it would be much easier on him and on
them, but prisoners seldom cooperated, until most of
the bones in their body were broken and they were very
close to death.
"Head foot soldier." Feeble cough.
Ranma knew that a Phoenix who lost use of his wings
was considered an outcast in the tribe. It was assumed
that he, or she, had lost his honor when he, or she,
lost his, or her, wings, and most of those with broken
wings committed ritual suicide, rather than live as
outcasts in The Phoenix society. He idly wondered if
his prisoner belonged to the former category. If he
did, it was possible that he would clam up and refuse
to speak further. Ranma knew, however, that his
prisoner's beliefs would not make any difference
whatsoever. Pain was a very good motivator for anyone,
even one intent on ending his or her life.
Ranma turned towards The Council and nodded. The
Phoenix was obviously lying. Only cowards told the
truth this early into the interrogation and he was
willing to bet his life on the fact that this Ka Ka
Ree, who had lost his son by his interrogator's hands
just hours before, had a lot more fight left in him.
Still, he decided to humor the Phoenix. It would
further break his spirit when he realized that all his
efforts had been for naught.
"What do you know of the attack on one of our
outposts near Ox territory?"
Silence.
"I told you before, Phoenix-bastard!" Ranma said,
narrowing his eyes just a little. His voice sounded
threatening for the first time since the start of the
interrogation. "Cooperate and I will let you live.
Now, will you answer my question, or should I call my
lovely assistant?"
"I'll speak, I'll speak," Ka Ka Ree answered; wailed,
fearfully looking at Guu Lin, who stood just behind
Ranma. It was clear that he was not going to survive
the torture. Seldom anyone did. He did not regret
dying, however, though he did not want to go down
without doing his part in avenging Shi Ho's death. The
only way he could do that now was feed the Joketsuzoku
a bunch of believable lies and make them buy it. If
they did, they would be ill prepared for the main
Phoenix attack and god willing, the Musk and their
hated allies, the Joketsuzoku, would be wiped out from
the face of the earth within a fortnight.
"Well," Ranma asked, leaning forward and playfully
flicking Ka Ka Ree's matted hair, "I'm waiting."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Ka Ka Ree
moaned, looking up fearfully at Ranma.
Ranma narrowed his eyes. He rose up and pointed a
finger accusingly at his prisoner. The temperature in
the room dropped by a good twenty degrees to near
freezing.
"You lie!" he accused, "we know that The Phoenix
slaughtered all those men and women."
Pause.
"I ask you again: What do you know of the attack on
our outpost?" he asked.
"Nothing," Ka Ka Ree lied, again. He pooled what
little strength he had in preparation for the beating
ahead and clenched his jaws to bear the pain. The only
way he could sell them the story was by telling
believable lies at irregular intervals, and the only
way to do that was by shutting up and getting beaten
to within an inch of his life.
"Very well," Ranma spoke, thoughtfully, "I can see
that contrary to your words, you're not going to
cooperate. Don't worry, though. We have other methods
of making you speak..." Ranma said and paused, as if
in deep thought, "break his leg, Guu Lin," he added,
almost as an afterthought.
Guu Lin stepped forward. The dim light played a
mesmerizing dance on her face, giving her a sinister,
evil appearance. The serrated knife she had on her
hands did not look welcoming either. She bent down and
looked deep into Ka Ka Ree's eyes, searching them;
exploring them.
Ka Ka Ree stared back at her. Now that his mind was
made up and the pain of his last beating only a dull,
throbbing remainder, he was able to think past his
fear and his loss, and concentrate on the job at hand.
He was not going to lose a staring contest to some
Joketsuzoku bitch.
Guu Lin did not intend to lose, either. She took a
piece of rough leather she had around her waist, and
ground the knife slowly, deliberately and methodically
against it, checking its edge against the light every
now and then. Finally, her eyes caught the slight
flicker of fear in Ka Ka Ree's eyes and she smiled,
letting go of the leather pad.
"This will hurt," she said; whispered to him. She
pulled one of the Phoenix's legs from under him and
caressed his skin with the cold metal blade.
Ka Ka Ree did not break eye contact with her.
Guu Lin smiled, looking into his eyes.
The blade pressed into Ka Ka Ree's skin with just a
little more.
And the staring match went on.
It pressed harder still and drew blood just above the
ankle.
And the staring match went on.
It cut through the thin layer of skin and flesh that
protected the Achilles tendon from the outside world.
Tendon and blade finally met. Searing hot pulses of
pain shot up Ka Ka Ree's spine.
He screamed in agony, his rejuvenated throat aiding
him in his endeavor. When he inflamed his voice box
again, he stopped screaming and broke the staring
match.
Guu Lin's smile grew larger. She had won the match.
She sawed through the tendon and then, her task
completed, retreated. She looked at Ranma for approval
and he nodded. This way was much better, he felt, as
there was no way that the Phoenix would ever walk
again. And the bonus was, the prisoner knew it, too.
Ranma bent down beside Ka Ka Ree and used a little
cold ki on the wound to stop the bleeding. He did not
want his prisoner to die in the middle of the
interrogation after all. That would be most
unfortunate.
"Will you answer my questions now?" he asked, looking
into Ka Ka Ree's eyes and healing his throat for the
second time.
From behind the thick veil of pain that clouded his
senses and dulled his thought processes, Ka Ka Ree
heard Ranma. He nodded.
Ranma knelt down.
"Good."
Pause.
"What part did The Phoenix play in the attack on the
outpost?" he asked.
"The Ox asked for our help in planning the attack. We
refused..." Cough.
"You lie. I see that your words are meaningless. Guu
Lin, break his leg."
Guu Lin stepped forward.
"No, please!" Ka Ka Ree begged, crawling away from
the Joketsuzoku female.
"Then answer truthfully."
"I told you the truth," Ka Ka Ree screeched
hysterically and loudly, or rather, as loudly as his
strained voice box would allow.
Ranma shook his head.
"You lie. Guu Lin?"
Guu Lin took another step forward. This time, she
bore a rusty, old iron rod in her hands.
"Please..." Ka Ka Ree pleaded with Ranma, looking
towards Guu Lin fearfully.
Guu Lin shot a glance towards Ranma.
"Nope," Ranma said, shaking his head for emphasis,
"can't help you if you don't cooperate. Carry on, Guu
Lin."
Guu Lin nodded. She raised the rod over her head,
ready to bring it down upon Ka Ka Ree's kneecap at a
moments notice.
"Please," Ka Ka Ree pleaded again.
"Stop," Ranma ordered.
Guu Lin stopped and looked at Ranma, confusion
plainly written in her face. Did he or did he not want
her to break the prisoner's leg?
"I can make her stop," Ranma said, kneeling down and
looking deep into Ka Ka Ree's eyes. He did not bother
clearing Guu Lin's doubts, "but you have to work with
me. Tell me the truth and I'll order her to withdraw."
"I told you the truth," Ka Ka Ree replied; wailed;
pleaded.
"Break his leg," Ranma ordered casually, turning to
his assistant.
The rod fell. There was an audible crunch as bone
shattered. Ka Ka Ree fainted and his leg swelled to
grotesque proportions.
Guu Lin withdrew.
"Some more water, please," Ranma asked aloud.
Someone handed over another bowl of ice-cold water to
Ranma. He thanked the person, and then turned to Ka Ka
Ree's unconscious form.
"Wake up," he said, drenching the Phoenix once again
with water.
Ka Ka Ree coughed and woke up. He moaned in agony and
tried to get up. Waves of searing hot pain shot
through his spine, numbing his senses and his mind
with their intensity. His head rolled to the side and
he lost consciousness, again.
Slap!
"I said, wake up!"
"Uh!"
Slap!
"Uh! Uh!" Ka Ka Ree groaned.
"Are you awake, now?" Ranma asked.
Ka Ka Ree moaned in reply.
"Answer me!"
"Water..." Ka Ka Ree whispered, "Give me some water."
Gasp.
Ranma brought forth the bowl, now half filled with
water, and held it just out of the Phoenix's reach.
"Answer my question and I'll give you all the water
you need," he said, softly and reassuringly.
Ka Ka Ree nodded, slowly.
"What role did The Phoenix army play in the assault
on the Joketsuzoku outpost?"
"The Ox wanted to confuse you by using a small party
of Phoenix foot soldiers in an attack. They thought
that they could then attack you while your attention
was focused on us and they promised us the land east
of the Village of The Councilors in return." Gasp.
"Lord Huo Ho accepted their offer and about a hundred
Phoenix were sent to The Ox to participate in the
attack. I don't know what happened after that. Now,
please, give me the water..."
"Are you sure you're telling the truth? I mean, you
wouldn't be trying to lie to us, now, would you?"
Ranma asked.
"I swear..." Ka Ka Ree croaked, his head rolling from
side to side. "Water..." he gasped.
Ranma stared at his prisoner for a long moment, the
expression on his face unreadable. Then, he spoke.
"You know something," he said, his voice soft, "the
more skilled warriors in the Joketsuzoku ranks can
sense one's ki clearly enough to tell whether they are
lying or telling the truth."
Silence.
Ka Ka Ree slowly looked up, the implication only now
setting down on him. His face grew pale and his eyes
began to fill with despair.
Ranma caught the look of utter dismay in his
prisoner's eyes and smiled in satisfaction. Half his
job accomplished.
"Yes," he added, "that's right. Everyone in this
room, myself included knows that you were lying about
everything but your name." He upended the water on the
floor out of Ka Ka Ree's reach. "Guess you won't be
getting the water, huh?"
Ka Ka Ree did not reply.
"You're cursing me and everything that I hold dear to
me, aren't you?" Ranma asked, playfully caressing the
smooth finish of the bowl. He looked at Ka Ka Ree and
his gaze hardened. "I don't think too well of
Phoenix-scum either. You want to know why?" he asked.
It was the tone in which Ranma spoke that sent
shivers down Ka Ka Ree's spine. Something was very
wrong with it; it did not sound human.
"Because you are heartless bastards, the whole lot of
you."
Pause.
"You afraid?" Ranma asked. He kept staring into Ka Ka
Ree's eyes and did not even once blink. "Well, you
should be, you know..."
Silence.
Ranma's eyes hardened.
"I'm giving you one last chance. Speak the truth and
tell us what you know. If you do, I'll make sure you
die painlessly."
Ka Ka Ree's eyes met Ranma's eyes. There was fear in
them, but gone was the look of submission and
resignation that he had feigned before. There was now
hatred, pure and unadulterated hatred, in them. They
remained thus for the longest time, locked in a
contest of wills. Finally, Ka Ka Ree's his tortured
body began to tire. His eyes hardened. He spat
defiantly for the second time on Ranma's face,
unwilling to admit defeat.
"Go to hell," he moaned, painfully propping himself
against the cold mud wall by the door into the
skinning room in such a way that his wings did not
touch the surface.
Ranma passed the bowl to Guu Lin and grabbed Ka Ka
Ree by his collar. He stood up, dragging Ka Ka Ree
with him.
Ka Ka Ree groaned in pain.
"I know it's very painful for you, standing on your
legs, one broken at the knee and the other broken at
the ankle. However, do you know what'd be more
painful? Having to stand on your 'crippled,' 'useless'
legs without my hand on your collar to take some of
the load off them," Ranma said and paused, looking
into his prisoner's eyes, "that's why I'm releasing my
hold on your collar," he continued, doing exactly what
he said.
Ka Ka Ree screamed and fell down. Ranma wiped his
face clean.
"See, I told you it'd hurt," Ranma's voice was calm
and collected. There was not a trace of emotion in it.
He bent down and picked up Ka Ka Ree by the scruff of
his neck. "Now," he continued in a hardened voice,
"I'm going to ask you some questions and you're going
to squeal me some answers. Do you understand?"
Ka Ka Ree did not reply, only barely able to keep
himself from screaming. He writhed about in agony, but
managed a hateful glare at Ranma.
Ranma, for his part, brought his face so close to Ka
Ka Ree's that their noses touched. His hold on Ka Ka
Ree's collar tightened and he snarled as he spoke.
"It appears that we're still not communicating
properly. Perhaps this will remove some of the bad
blood that stands between us," he snarled, clamping
his fingers around Ka Ka Ree's neck in a vise-like
grip, essentially shutting off the blood supply to the
Phoenix's brain. He remained thus for a nearly a
quarter of a minute, even as the Phoenix struggled
desperately against him. Finally, just before Ka Ka
Ree lost consciousness, he let go. "Enjoy the
experience?" he asked his prisoner, tauntingly.
Ka Ka Ree did not reply.
"You want more," Ranma asked, narrowing his eyes at
Ka Ka Ree's stubbornness and placing a well-aimed kick
on Ka Ka Ree's abdomen.
Ka Ka Ree was slammed against the wall by the force
of the kick and he slid down, vomiting blood. The kick
had been so aimed as to rupture his spleen.
"Oh," Ranma said. His face was all smiles. He had
long stepped past the boundaries. He was, for all
purposes, a demon in human disguise and not an
interrogator, interrogating his prisoner. He did not
regret the transformation, however, just as he did not
regret at all, the pain visited upon the Phoenix.
After what the bastards had done at the outpost, every
one of them deserved what Ka Ka Ree was going through
and a whole lot more. "I see I hurt you bad. Oh,
well..." he said, his voice dripping with mock
concern. Then, with a shrug meant to signify that he
could have cared more about what happened to a rabid
dog than to a Phoenix, he said, "bet the area around
the kick feels tender now... You know what that means,
don't you?"
Ranma looked at the Phoenix's face for a sign of
comprehension. His smile grew even bigger when he saw
it.
"Yep," he said, looking down upon the prisoner like a
man would a worm, "your spleen is ruptured. I'd say
that you have less than a day to live. And I bet it
hurts; a lot."
Kick.
"Get up, Child-killer," Ranma barked. His face still
had that cold, sneering look, even though tiny specks
of blood marred it, now, "I'm not done with you yet,"
he said, grabbing Ka Ka Ree by his hair and pulling
him up. "What's your name?"
Ka Ka Ree moaned something inaudible. Ranma leaned in
to hear well.
"What?" he asked.
"Go to hell," came the reply.
Ranma smiled. It was not a pleasant smile.
"You first." Kick.
"Ah!" Ka Ka Ree screamed. The kick had been aimed
right where the first one hit - at the spleen.
"You like that, huh?" Ranma asked, in a taunting
manner. Except for the last one, he had been using the
flat of his foot in his kicks. That had dampened the
force of the strikes a little. The last one, however,
was delivered with the knife-edge of his toes. It hurt
a lot worse and had caused far more internal damage.
Ka Ka Ree did not reply. The pain was too great to
bear and all he could do was moan. He tried to crawl
away, but Ranma would have none of it.
"Oh, you can't leave now," Ranma said, blocking the
Phoenix's path. "The interrogation's just began, after
all." Kick.
"Answer me!" Ranma said, menacingly, raising his
voice just a little. "What's your name?"
Silence.
Slap. His prisoner's teeth, Ranma observed, either
had very bad roots, or he had used a little too much
force in the slap, for a couple of them jettisoned out
of the Phoenix's mouth and fell to the ground.
Punch. Moreover, his ear was not that well connected
to his head, too. The punch just about tore the left
one off his face.
Twist. And his right arm was not the strongest, or
the most flexible in the world. It did not even turn
ten degrees backwards before it dislocated.
Punch. Kick. More hits. The power behind each blow
kept on increasing. Blood splattered everywhere, as Ka
Ka Ree coughed, and he screamed every step of the way,
but Ranma ignored him. He went about his work in a
clean, methodical manner, even going so far as to ask
some water from Guu Lin after he let go of the
Phoenix.
"Pathetic," he said, finishing the bowl of water in
one long, slow sip. He spit some of the water on Ka Ka
Ree's face to awaken him, as he lay semiconscious on
the floor. "Did you hear me?" he barked. "You're
pathetic, you
miserable-mother-fucking-child-killing-son-of-a-fatherless-whore."
Ka Ka Ree groaned in pain and vomited some more
blood. The fight was still in his eyes, however, and
he shot Ranma a look of loathing and hatred.
Ranma smiled unpleasantly at the sight of Ka Ka Ree's
show of defiance.
"I like you. You're strong and you resist. I can beat
you up some more," he said, stepping on Ka Ka Ree's
broken knee.
Ka Ka Ree's scream went off the audible range and
into the ultrasonic scale. Everyone in that room
remembered that soul-rending scream until the day they
died.
"Damn!" Ranma cursed; complained, "The bastard has
the constitution of a lamb. He can't even take a
little punishment. Oh, well, Guu Lin, get me some more
water, will you?"
Guu Lin looked into Ranma's face for the longest
time, quite unable to believe the brutality she had
seen him display just moments before with the man she
had known both as teacher and friend for years.
Finally, she nodded. She summoned one of her adjuncts.
She produced another bowl of water. Ranma took it and
splashed the water on Ka Ka Ree's face.
"Wakey, wakey up."
Ka Ka Ree groaned.
Ranma bent down and grabbed Ka Ka Ree by his hair. He
pulled his head up so that their eyes met.
"Ready to talk?" he asked.
Ka Ka Ree nodded, his eyes clouded by pain. The fight
was over and he knew it. He had lost, but he did not
care. Nothing mattered anymore, not even his honor. At
least, if he cooperated, he would escape the pain a
little sooner and die.
Ranma smiled and nodded.
"Guu Lin, bring me another bowl of water, will you?"
he said, turning to Guu Lin.
The water was produced in short order. Ranma took it
and brought it to Ka Ka Ree's lips. He drank it
greedily. When he had finished the bowl, Ranma spoke.
"What's your name?"
"Ka Ka Ree."
"Station?"
"Adjunct to Lord Huo Ho. I plan military operations."
"What do you know of the attack on the Joketsuzoku
outpost?"
"Lord Huo Ho planned it..."
"And..."
"It was meant as a diversionary attack. We thought
that if we hit you near The Ox border, you'd focus
some of your attention on them, leaving you vulnerable
to attacks from our side."
"And The Ox had no part in it?"
Ka Ka Ree tried to shake his head, but the pain was
just too much to bear. He groaned.
"No, they did not know what we were going to do."
"Why did you attack us?"
"I told you before: It was a diversionary attack."
"Yes, but are you planning on making war with us?"
"Yes." Cough.
"How long ago was The Phoenix Army mobilized?"
"A year."
"How strong is it?"
"Nine, maybe ten thousand strong."
"How many men and women will be committed to the
attack?" The question was a reasonable one. The
Phoenix had other neighbors, after all, and not all of
them were as friendly with them as The Ox.
"Seven or eight thousand."
Ranma raised an eyebrow.
"That big?" he asked. "Saa Fuu Lang certainly wants
to do us in this time, doesn't he?" he observed aloud.
"How do you plan to attack us?"
"I don't understand," Ka Ka Ree said and coughed.
"By land or by air?"
"Land."
"How? Where?"
"On the eastern side."
"Through The Devil's canyon?" Ranma asked, impressed.
The canyon was so obvious a point of attack that the
Joketsuzoku had never given much thought about an
attack from that side. It was just too obvious and it
made for a perfect trap.
"Yes."
"When?"
"Two, maybe three weeks from now."
Ranma shook his head.
"I need a better answer than that."
"The night of the full moon."
Again, Ranma found himself impressed by the Phoenix
plan. Traditionally, The Phoenix attacks came from the
air in the dark of the night and since moonlight gave
them away, they never attacked during the full moon.
The Joketsuzoku were so accustomed to fighting them on
moonless nights that had The Phoenix launched a land
based attack through The Devil's canyon during a full
moon, there would have been almost no resistance to
buy the Joketsuzoku and the Musk the time they needed
to gather their forces for a counterattack.
"Anything else?" Ranma asked The Council, looking
pointedly at Shi Huu.
Shi Huu shook her head and Ranma focused his
attention on the scribe.
"Got all that?" he asked.
The scribe nodded and Ranma turned towards Ka Ka Ree.
"You want me to take away the pain?" he asked. There
was something in his eyes that might have been
mistaken for compassion; only it was tinged with the
dark.
Ka Ka Ree nodded with what little strength he had.
Ranma formed a ki blade in his hand. He pressed one
hand on Ka Ka Ree's chest to keep the Phoenix from
struggling and used the other to drive the blade into
his right ribcage, just below Ka Ka Ree's breast.
Ka Ka Ree's mouth snapped open and he gasped in pain.
Ranma pulled out the blade.
"I punctured one of your lungs just now," Ranma said,
softly. He cauterized the flesh wound, effectively
closing it. "You know what that means, don't you?"
Ka Ka Ree nodded, gasping in pain, as small bubbles
of air began to escape into his ribcage.
"I sensed traces of your ki on one of the victims,"
Ranma continued, staring into Ka Ka Ree's eyes.
Pause.
"She was tortured... Her body was covered with little
cuts that slowly bled her to death."
Pause.
"She was pregnant with a child when she died," he
added.
Ka Ka Ree did not answer. It hurt so much that he had
stopped listening.
"Die slowly and painfully, you Little Fuck," were the
last words he ever heard, before the struggle to
breathe became too great and he stopped caring about
everything else.
***********************************************************************
Based on information Ka Ka Ree had given them, The
Council planned an ambush that very night. The
combined forces of the Musk and the Joketsuzoku would
attack The Phoenix where they least expected it - the
previously unguarded Devil's canyon. More runners were
sent to inform the Musk of the plans and the next
three days were spent preparing for war.
"Honorable Ranma?"
Ranma turned around. He picked up Shian Huei, who was
now three-years old, as he did.
"Yes?" he asked.
"The Musk Emperor has arrived."
Ranma's eyes widened.
"This fast?" he asked. It had been less than five
days, since the runners were sent to warn the Musk.
The armor-clad Joketsuzoku nodded.
"Yes, Honorable One. However, it appears that he has
brought only a small detachment with him," she said.
"Oh!" 'The main force will take another two or three
days to arrive, then,' he thought. "Where is he?"
"At the Hall of The Councilors. The Honorable
Matriarch bade me to inform you of his arrival and to
bring you there."
"Very well," Ranma said with a nod. "Lein?" he
shouted, turning his gaze away from the pale blue
haired female warrior before him.
"Yes?" came the muffled reply. There was some
scuffling from the kitchen and Lein appeared shortly
at the head of the stairs. "Did you... Oh! Hello..."
"Mother has called for me, Lein," Ranma stated.
"Oh!" Lein said slowly, shooting a rather cold glance
at the messenger. She was still angry with Shi Huu
over Ranma's role in the interrogation. Rumors about
Ranma's brutality spread around the village like
wildfire and naturally, she had gotten very upset on
hearing them. It had been unsettling, the realization
that her husband was a cold-blooded killer. Even
though she had always known the truth in the pits of
her stomach, there had always been a very small part
of her that assumed otherwise. The 'interrogation' had
proved that part wrong.
"Don't worry," Ranma said, smiling at his wife. She
was too big an idealist and she could not understand
the fact that some people were better off dead than
alive. "I'm not going to 'interrogate' anyone." He
turned towards the messenger. "Inform the Honorable
Matriarch that I'll be with her shortly."
Lein relaxed a little, a fact that Ranma did not fail
to notice.
The messenger nodded, bowed and disappeared. Ranma
watched her exit through the front door before turning
towards Lein.
"My brother, The Emperor of the Musk, has come. He
must have asked for me," he explained.
Lein nodded and smiled, relaxing her guard a little.
She knew her husband missed his brother very much and
on some unconscious level, he actually welcomed the
war, for it gave him a chance to meet his brother.
Moreover, she had wanted to meet the enigmatic Shin
Nan for a long time, too.
"Here," Ranma said, walking up to Lein and handing
over Shian Huei, "I'll be back in an hour or two and
I'll bring Shin when I do."
"Okay. I'd better prepare a very big meal, then,"
Lein replied with a smile. Now that she knew that her
husband was not off to 'interrogate' someone again,
she felt a lot happier.
"Yeah, you'd better," he said, smiling, "if his
appetite is still as big as I remember, I expect that
nothing short of a royal feast will satiate him."
Lein nodded, adjusting Shian Huei into a more
comfortable position on her hips.
"And you, my dear, sweet Princess," Ranma cooed to
Shian Huei, "dada's going to meet your uncle and your
grandmother, but he will come back soon to you very
soon," he said, kissing her forehead and Lein's.
"Dada go?" Shian asked in that cute, undecipherable
language that little angels from heaven use.
Of course, Ranma, being her parent, understood it
completely.
"Yes. Dada's going out."
Shian Huei's eyes began to water.
"Ah! Don't cry, angel. Dada will be back soon and
he'll take you flying when he comes back."
Immediately, Shian Huei's face brightened and her
tears disappeared as if by miracle. She just loved
flying and pushing dada's buttons into taking her
flying was just so easy. Smile.
"Ogay!"
Ranma smiled and Lein sighed in exasperation. If
Ranma pampered Shian some more, she was going to grow
into a very spoiled child.
"You're spoiling her, you know that?" she observed.
"Aw, c'mon, Lein. Who else am I going to spoil but
you two?" he asked, planting yet another kiss on both
their faces.
Shian cooed in reply and Lein smiled gently,
caressing Ranma's face with the back of her hand.
"Well, I'd better go, then. See you two, later,"
Ranma said and, giving his wife and daughter one last
glance, walked out of the house.
***********************************************************************
"Honorable Matriarch, did you summon me?"
Shi Huu paused mid-speech and shot a glance in the
direction of the door. She nodded her acknowledgment
at Ranma, who stood at the entrance of the room, his
body silhouetted against the sunlight.
"Yes, I did. Please, come in, Son-in-law."
"Thank you, Honorable Matriarch," Ranma said. He
stepped into the room and bowed to her.
"How do you do, Brother?" a very masculine voice
asked from the far-off corner of the room, just as
Ranma completed his bow.
Ranma turned towards it, temporarily forgetting the
Matriarch.
"I'm as fine as can be, Brother..." Ranma replied,
keeping his voice neutral and regarding his brother
with a critical eye.
Shin stepped out of the shadows. His and Ranma's eyes
met.
"You haven't changed a whit," he observed, nodding
once in Ranma's direction.
Repeating the gesture, Ranma shot his brother a warm
smile.
"And neither have you," he replied.
Then, at some unspoken signal, they, as one, turned
to face Shi Huu. There would be opportunities plenty
for pleasantries later, but now was not the time for
such things. There would be only a brief exchange
between them now and nothing more.
"Shall we begin, Honorable Matriarch?" they asked,
simultaneously.
Shi Huu motioned them towards their seats around the
table.
"Perhaps we should wait, until the entire Council is
assembled," she suggested.
Shin glanced at Ranma. He nodded.
"Yes, perhaps we should," Shin admitted.
"We wait then," Shi Huu said aloud, taking her
traditional seat at the head of the table.
The rest of The Council joined them soon after and
the meeting began in full earnest. By early evening,
all plans were prepared and the strategy for the
coming war finalized. Shi Huu adjourned the meeting
and the two brothers set out for Ranma's house.
***********************************************************************
"I'm home!" Ranma announced loudly, opening the front
door with a flourish.
Shin, who stood behind him, gave his brother a
bemused expression. It appeared that Ranma had not
lost his flair for the dramatic in his years away from
the palace.
"Coming," came Lein's muffled shout from the kitchen.
It was followed by the silenced thumping of running
feet against the stone floor.
Ranma nodded out of habit, even though he was out of
Lein's line of sight, and entered the house, followed
by Shin. As the Emperor stepped inside, Ranma turned
around to face him, and gave his brother a warm,
welcoming smile. Just then, the door to the passageway
that connected the hall to the kitchen slammed open
with a loud thud. Out came Shian Huei, the little
hurricane.
"Dada!" she squealed excitedly in delight, quickly
latching onto Ranma's leg lest he flee.
Ranma smile grew bigger, as he first looked at his
daughter and then at Shin.
"Shin, meet your niece, Shian Huei. Shian, say hello
to your uncle, Shin Nan, the Emperor of the Musk."
"'Allo," Shian said, shyly exploring the nooks and
crannies of her nose with her index finger and looking
up at her uncle. "Enferor of the Musk."
Shin laughed.
"Hello, Little One. I'm Shin Nan and I'm your uncle.
You can call me Uncle Shin."
Shian nodded, latching even tighter to Ranma's leg.
She was a little afraid. Why did dada have to bring
strangers into the house?
"She doesn't like strangers," Ranma explained to
Shin. He bent down and releasing the tight hold Shian
had on his legs, picked her up.
"Hello?" Lein said, wiping her hands with her apron,
as she entered the room.
"And this," Ranma said, proudly, "is my wife, Lein.
Lein, this is my brother, Shin."
"A pleasure to meet you," Shin said, bowing to Lein.
"And a pleasure to meet you, too, Brother. Ranma has
told me a lot about you. Please, sit down," Lein said,
joining her husband.
"Thank you," Shin said, politely, with a smile and a
nod of greeting.
"You're welcome," she replied, politely.
The four sat: The three adults on the cushioned
bamboo chairs and Shian on her father's lap.
"Dada, take me flying," Shian cooed, exploring her
nose some more.
Shin raised an eyebrow at his brother.
"We'll go flying as soon as we finish dinner, Angel,"
Ranma cooed back and turned to Shin. "I promised her
that I'd take her flying today."
"Oh! She's certainly a little angel..." Shin replied;
observed with a nod of comprehension.
"That she is," Lein replied, "and a little devil when
she wants to be, too."
Shin grinned.
"Is she now? Little One, you don't cause too much
trouble to your mommy, do you?"
Shian shook her head vehemently. The innocent look on
her face told a different story, however.
"Only last month, she poured wax into her great,
great grandmother's ear," Ranma explained.
Yein Luo had raised quite a bit of fuss about the
incident, but Shian, as usual, had quickly won her
over with a couple of smiles. Ranma still had belly
laughs whenever he thought about that one.
"Well, I'm sure that Shian was absolutely within her
rights to do that," Shin said with a knowing smile.
Wax hurt a lot, but only for a few moments if you knew
how to cool it with your ki. Extracting the solidified
mass would be a problem, of course, but everything has
its downsides, right?
Ranma and Lein laughed.
"She was. I believe great grandmother refused to play
with her, opting instead to sleep," Lein explained for
Shin's benefit.
"There," Shin triumphantly pointed out, "she'd dare
do that to my niece. Come, Angel," he extended his
arms to Shian, "we'll go and beat up great, great
grandmother, right now!"
"Unhuh!" Shian vocalized agreeably. She even went so
far as to try to get off Ranma's lap.
The three adults burst out laughing at Shian's
antics.
"Later, Angel," Ranma cooed, readjusting his precious
load so that she was more comfortably seated. "You and
your uncle can go beat up my great mother-in-law after
supper."
Shian pouted, and pinched Ranma's cheeks. She really
wanted to beat grandma up. Justice must be served,
after all!
"Come," Lein said standing up, "we can talk over
supper."
Shin nodded and rose up.
"That we can."
They went to the dinning hall, a symbol of stature
and a rarity in the village, and sat down. The table
was filled with roast duck, boar, noodles, tofu,
turkey and soup, and as Shin sat down, he couldn't
help but deeply inhale the heavenly smells in. 'Wow!'
he thought. 'The chefs at the palace would have been
hard pressed to cook so delicious and mouth watering a
feast at such a short notice.' Either Ranma was the
biggest glutton in the world, which was saying a lot
since Shin considered himself the biggest one, or Lein
was an absolute genius in the kitchen. And since Shin
was a dragon, it had to be the second one that was
true.
"This is really good," he said, chewing a piece of
roasted duck.
"Thank you. You're too kind," Lein replied with a
smile.
"Nonsense, Lein," Ranma cut in. It never hurt to show
off one's wife, especially if you were in front of
'The Emperor.' "You're a very good cook and now, even
The Almighty Emperor of the Musk knows it."
"Oh! Be quiet," Lein said, hitting her husband with
the business end of a ladle.
"Hey!" Ranma mock complained, rubbing his offended
pate. It did not hurt, but reflexes learnt in
childhood did not easily go away. After all, one
cannot teach an old dog a new trick.
The action drew a chuckle from Shin. Ranma had never
lost his propensity to be hit, either, it seemed.
Still, he had to agree with his brother.
"Ranma's quite right, Brother-Wife. Modesty is not a
quality we dragons hold in high regard."
"That's something I'm very familiar with," Lein said,
shooting a glance at her husband.
Ranma caught his wife's sidelong glance and blushed a
little in embarrassment.
"Dada," Shian interrupted from her throne atop the
dinning table.
"Yes, Angel?" Ranma asked. "You want me to feed you?"
Shian nodded, emphatically. Food tastes much better
when your mother, or your father, feeds you. Why else
would God give parents hands if not to feed their
children?
"All right," Ranma said, taking a thin slice of meat
between his chopsticks. "Now, open your mouth...
That's it, good Girl."
"You, too?" Shin asked.
"Chai Hu, too?" Ranma asked in return. Chai Hu was
Shin's son.
Shin nodded and shrugged. Had Ranma expected things
to be any different in his house?
"There are commands and there are commands. I may be
Emperor, but to Ma Huang and Chai Hu, I'm nothing more
than their husband and father."
"True," Ranma said in agreement, "you have spoken
very little about your family, since your arrival,
Shin. I believe that now is as good a time as any to
tell us about them."
Shin nodded. He took a deep breath and began.
"Well, Ma Huang's not a..." he shot Lein a little
glance, "you know..."
"She's not a hybrid?" Ranma exclaimed in surprise.
"Yes. She's a Long. In fact, her father's the Long
Emperor."
"You married into royalty?" Ranma asked, feeding
Shian another mouthful. "Man, how did that happen?" he
was genuinely surprised. No king, or for that matter,
no human had ever given his daughter in marriage to a
Musk.
"The Ox."
"Oh!" Ranma said, understanding the implications of
Shin's laconic answer.
"What?" Lein asked. What did The Ox have to do with
The Musk Emperor's marriage to a member of the Long
royalty?
"The Ox," Ranma elaborated for Lein's benefit, "must
have threatened their country and Ma Huang was used as
a political bargaining tool to gain the support of the
Musk in case of a war against The Ox."
"Oh!" Lein said, slowly. That made sense, she
supposed. Especially given the manner in which the
outside world treated women.
Shin nodded.
"It was a distasteful affair at first, but I grew to
love her and she grew to love me. Now, I can't imagine
living another day without her."
Ranma flashed a knowing smile. He knew how Shin felt,
for he felt much the same way himself.
"And Chai Hu?"
"Chai Hu was born in the first year of our marriage.
He's four, now, and he's every bit the little devil,
always playing pranks and wreaking havoc around the
palace..."
Shin looked regretfully at Ranma, who returned the
gaze. They sat silently, looking forlorn for a long
time before Ranma spoke.
"We missed every single important event in each
other's lives, didn't we?" he observed, solemnly.
Shin nodded, his face clouding with even more regret.
Silence.
"Now that you're here, who's in charge there? Your
wife?" Ranma finally asked, changing the topic and
trying to break the uncomfortable silence.
Shin shook his head.
"No. She's still learning the intricacies of the Musk
court... Father's the acting regent."
"Father?" Ranma asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes," Shin replied with a nod. "He's still as
capable as always..."
"Then why the secession?"
"He was losing his edge as a Commander in the
battlefield, while at the same time we were proving
ourselves as very good replacements... He grew old and
we were ready for the responsibility, or so he felt,
Brother."
Ranma nodded, silently, feeding Shian mechanically.
As happy as he was living with the Joketsuzoku, he
sometimes wondered how life would have been if he had
not been banished.
"Dada?"
"Huh?" Ranma said, waking up from his trance. "Yes,
Angel?"
"I want no more..."
"But, Angel, you have eaten so little and your
tummy's not yet full... Just four more bites, okay?"
he cooed lovingly, putting on that concerned face
every parent puts on when their son, or daughter, does
not eat his, or her, full.
Shian pouted, but nodded.
"That's a good girl," Ranma said with a smile. "Now
open your mouth..." he said. Shian did and he quickly
fed her the four mouthfuls. He tried sneaking a fifth
one in, but she stopped him.
"No more," Shian said, shaking her head.
"Just this one, Angel. Now, say ah!"
"Un-huh!" Shian said and shook her head. 'Bad dada!
Trying to cheat her like that! Bad, bad dada!'
"Okay, I can see when I'm beaten," Ranma said
resignedly and laid down his chopsticks.
Immediately, Shian's face lit up and at once she
stood up on the table.
"Don't think that you're out of the woods just yet,
Young Lady," Ranma continued in a wee bit stern voice,
his arms encircling her protectively lest she fall.
"You still have to drink milk before you go to bed."
"Ogay," Shian replied with a bright smile that
immediately melted Ranma's heart. He lifted her up,
kissed her on her cheeks and handed her to her mother.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Shin asked when Ranma
wearily rubbed the edges of his eyes.
"I will, thank you," Ranma replied, a little tritely.
"Behave yourself," Lein said; commanded and hit Ranma
lightly with the ladle.
Ranma rubbed his pate, lightly. He looked at Lein, a
pout on his lips, and in a meek voice said, "yes,
Mother."
Shin burst out laughing at the sight. Ranma and Lein
exchanged glances and joined him themselves.
"This is fun," Shin said, when he finally had his
laughter under control.
"Yes," Lein replied, eyeing her husband with an evil
smile, "we should do this more often."
Shin burst out laughing once again and Ranma groaned.
The reunion was not going the way he had imagined it
would turn out. There had been spectacular explosions
and lots of punches and kicks in the other one, but
instead, here he was, being hit by the ladle, again
and again and again. 'Oh, God, not that I'm
complaining or anything, but is this humiliation ever
going to end...'
Finally, Shin calmed down. He fixed his eyes on
Ranma, a serious expression on his face. Even though
there was still some mirth in his eyes, it was
tempered and not all consuming as before.
"The Matriarch told me about the interrogation before
she sent for you. She is troubled by what you did and
so am I," he said.
Ranma placed his chopsticks on his plate, clasped his
hands together and turning to face Shin, shrugged.
"He deserved it, the Child-killing-bastard!" he said.
Pause.
"You were not the one to see firsthand what they did
to the people in that outpost, Shin. If you had, you
would have done the exact same thing."
"That bad?" Shin asked, noticing out of the corner of
his eyes Lein's uncomfortable squirming. Truth be
told, he was a little uncomfortable about what Ranma
had done. While it was true that interrogations were
always brutal, there was a dark line that
interrogators were never supposed to cross. Ranma had
crossed it.
"Remember the time we came upon that wolf pack with
the half-eaten Han carcass?"
Shin nodded with a wince, remembering that terrible
evening.
"How could I ever forget?" he asked. The sight of a
pack of frenzied wolves fighting over the remains of a
child had been one of the worst moments of his life.
"This one was much worse than that. At least, those
wolves were not capable of thought and remorse..."
Shin nodded in understanding. Even though he had not
been there, he could accept why Ranma did what he did,
now. In his eyes and Ranma's, there were three kinds
of people in the world: People who deserved to live,
people who deserved to die and people who deserved to
die in as painful a way as possible. Apparently, Ranma
thought that his prisoner belonged to the third
category and if his allusion to that terrible day was
correct, then Shin was inclined to agree with him.
Such remorseless bastards were better off dead!
"Come, let's not talk about such things now," he said
and turned to Lein, "Brother-Wife?"
"Yes, Brother?" Lein asked, pausing in her meal. She
looked as if she was in deep thought. Perhaps Ranma
had been right in doing what he did to that Phoenix,
after all.
"Please, pass me the roast duck... And how do you
feel about being married to a dragon?" Shin asked.
Lein shot a smile at her brother-in-law. She passed
the duck and began. The conversation drifted onto less
distressing topics from then on, and the feast
continued, as the three reminisced about the past and
the brothers spoke about all that they had missed in
each other's lives.
Shin slept that night at Ranma's house and stayed
there until the day he left the village for Musk
lands.
For Ranma, the days passed quickly, and he spent most
of the time with Shin and his family - In his house,
or in the Hall of The Councilors, planning, and
co-coordinating the Joketsuzoku and the Musk forces
with the Matriarch and his brother. Soon, the combined
forces of the Musk and the Joketsuzoku were ready for
battle.
***********************************************************************
The Devil's canyon, two weeks later...
The nightscape was brightly illuminated by the full
moon. If one concentrated a little, one could see the
individual faces of the men and women on the other
side of the canyon.
Ranma stood atop the canyon walls, towards the exit
of the pass. Huge lines of Musk and Joketsuzoku
stretched behind him. He was in his hybrid form and
was dressed in the ceremonial battle clothes of a
Joketsuzoku Military Commander. He carefully diffused
his ki into the cold night air, using it as both a ki
bank to be drawn from, and a cloak to hide the men and
women around him from prying eyes. Simultaneously,
with infinite patience and care, he keyed in his
attacks into his ki constructs.
When he completed his work, he spared a glance at the
two thousand strong force of Musk and Joketsuzoku
warriors gathered on either side of the canyon. All
around him, he sensed the pooling of ki, as the
combined armies of the two nations prepared for battle
and knew that they were as ready as they were ever
going to be for the battle to come.
He took a moment to scan the area actively with his
ki, verifying the positions of his troops. Then, he
turned his attention inward and mentally went over the
planned ambush. 'Trap them, bombard them with ki,
decimate their ranks and pick off stragglers one by
one... Sounds easy enough. I wonder what secret weapon
The Phoenix have in store for us, though...' he
thought.
A trio of ki signatures flashed in the distance just
then, breaking Ranma's train of thought.
'This soon? My, my, The Phoenix certainly are an
enthusiastic lot,' he thought, signaling his
acknowledgment to the others with a scarcely
discernible twist of his ki. Even if The Phoenix were
skilled enough to detect the minute change in the
alignment of the ki flows in the area, which they were
not, they would never make the connection. His ki was
spread too thin and it would take an extremely skilled
person to detect such minute changes in the ki flows
at this distance.
"Dang Shen?" he whispered.
"Yes, My Lord," the wolf-like Musk warrior said,
bowing submissively. Even though Ranma had been cast
out of the Musk lands, he had not been thrown out of
the Musk nation and was still considered a prince of
the royal bloodline.
"The Phoenix are upon us. Spread the word around
quietly to prepare for battle."
Dang Shen nodded. He cupped his hands and hooted five
times, owl-like.
A couple of seconds passed before the replies - hoots
- came back.
"It is done, My Lord," Dang Shen said.
"Very well. Withdraw, and position all men and women
within a stone's throw behind me."
Dang Shen looked unsure. He did not think that it was
the right thing to do. After all, they needed to use
every able ki adept they had in their ranks to deal
the greatest amount of damage in the least amount of
time.
Ranma sensed Dang Shen's unwillingness.
"You don't want your people fried by my ki attacks,
do you?" he asked without batting an eyelid.
"No, My Lord."
"Then, I suggest you move them. Quick, the enemy
draws near."
Dang Shen nodded nervously and scrambled off. From
what he had seen and heard of the 'spars' between Shin
Nan and Ranma in their youth, he knew that both of
them were capable of doing what Ranma said and much
more.
Ranma watched his 'aide' run off and turned to face
the opposite walls of the canyon. He twisted his aura
back and forth in rapid succession, and waited for a
reply.
He did not have to wait long. The other dozen or so
big auras acknowledged his message with twists of
their own before they became static. Once again,
silence descended upon the pass and the night.
Presently, The Phoenix host, unsuspecting of the
enemy that awaited them atop the canyon, entered its
confines. Ranma waited, patiently, watching them
silently from his position as a predator would its
prey, until most of the Phoenix army was in the trap.
Only then did he activate the constructs.
Hell broke loose.
***********************************************************************
Wu Zhu Yu marched proudly at the head of the Phoenix
forces. It filled him with no small amount of pride to
think that his unit, a small band of eighty, had been
selected to lead the all-powerful Phoenix army into
Joketsuzoku occupied territory. The fact that they
were paving the way for the almighty Lord Saa Fuu Lang
himself only brought that much more pride to him and
his men.
A hundred years before, after centuries of steady
encroachment into Phoenix territory by both the
Joketsuzoku and the Musk, Lord Saa Fuu Lang declared
war on his neighbors. That 'war' turned out to be
remarkably short and one-sided, as the better skilled
armies of the enemy defeated and humiliated the more
numerous armies of his people. It had been a very
painful lesson, but His Lordship learned his lessons
from that catastrophic failure and ever since then,
his people had trained with the great masters of the
outside world, including those from The Ox.
After a hundred years, the soldiers of The Phoenix
army were much better fighters than their predecessors
ever were. In fact, they had become so skilled that a
small party of two hundred had been able to easily
overcome fifty highly skilled and well-entrenched
Joketsuzoku in the surprise attack on an outpost near
Ox lands. With only a couple of casualties on their
side, no less.
'The hour grows near. A thousand years of injustice
will be avenged tonight,' Wu Zhu Yu thought somberly,
as he led the army towards the entrance of the canyon
while simultaneously probing the night landscape with
his ki.
At the mouth of the canyon, he paused and looked up
at its looming, foreboding outline that stretched
against the dark of the night sky. He sounded a
momentary halt to give the men and women behind him
time to reorder their ranks, and looked around. He was
not the only commander who was wary of the canyon. The
canyon made for a perfect trap and the other field
commanders, too, checked out the canyon with no small
degree of suspicion.
Finally, after several minutes of probing, Wu Zhu Yu
was satisfied. He looked around and saw that the other
commanders were, too. The order to march was then
sounded, and the men and women began to trickle into
the canyon.
Wu Zhu Yu, for his part, shivered once, as the cold
and uncertainty of the night got to him, and took a
deep breath to calm his nerves. Extending his ki
senses, he entered the canyon, only to pause a couple
of hundred yards from the canyon entrance. There were
at least a dozen separate ki signals at the top of the
canyon walls that he could identify and they were all
fairly large. He ordered a halt and sent a soldier to
consult with the other commanders, feeling that
further investigation was necessary. They, in turn,
referred to His Lordship, who ordered the march to
continue.
Unwillingly, Wu Zhu Yu led his men, idly noting that
the ki signatures seemed to follow them as they moved.
'Joketsuzoku spies,' he guessed, incorrectly, 'as long
as they don't try to warn their compatriots, they can
observe all they like,' he thought to himself.
Having thus satisfied his inner fears, Wu Zhu Yu led
his men with newfound confidence. Soon, most of The
Phoenix army was within the canyon.
'Just a few more minutes and we'll be out of this
hellhole. Maybe then, we can take care of those
annoying Joketsuzoku whores,' he thought, as they
neared the end of the pass. Given their own
vulnerability while they were inside the canyon, the
other Phoenix commanders and he had been hesitant
about dealing with the Joketsuzoku scouting party, but
that would change as soon as The Phoenix army was
outside the canyon walls.
However, before he could form an attack plan in his
mind, Wu Zhu Yu's ki senses flared. The ki signatures
at the top had grown to monstrous proportions
triggering off his danger sense, and Wu Zhu Yu
realized too late the danger facing his men and
himself. The entire Phoenix army had unwittingly
walked into an ambush.
In the few moments he had, Wu Zhu Yu tried to shout a
warning, but when he looked around, he saw that his
men were already forming tight groups optimal for
defense. The ki signatures were so powerful that even
the worst ki adept had sensed them, he realized.
Opting not to dwell on that little bit on information
and feeling very grateful towards The Ox for the never
ending drills that they had put he and his men
through, Wu Zhu Yu had just enough time to tilt his
head upwards before all hell broke loose.
The first ki attack was small, not even big enough to
hurt a fly. It landed a dozen yards from the nearest
Phoenix. Too bad, it was only the feeler and not the
main attack.
The second one was much bigger and it was aimed much
better. It hit right in the middle of a large group of
men and detonated with an ear-shattering crash,
sending pieces of men, dirt and debris high into the
air. Wu Zhu Yu threw himself on the ground, even as
the earth shook and the attack began in earnest.
Hundreds and hundreds of ki balls, each the size of a
large boulder came crashing down from the sky,
saturating the air with ki and the crack of
explosions. It lasted only a dozen seconds, but to the
shell-shocked Phoenix, it might as well have lasted a
million years. When the debris stopped raining down,
Wu Zhu Yu raised his head and dared to look around
him.
Everywhere he looked, he saw a wing, a hand, a leg,
or some other piece of flesh that lay around, sans the
rest of the body. Some of the Phoenix soldiers
staggered around the killing field. They had dazed
expressions on their faces. All of them had dilated
pupils and looked more like zombies than living
beings. That scene, in itself, would have been more
than enough to make even the strongest men and women
puke, but that was not the end of it.
There was more.
A skull, a Phoenix skull, with flesh still attached
to it, lay facing him just a few feet up front. Its
front was partially caved it, partially seared away,
leaving a hollow that was identifiably Phoenix. Blood
and phlegm dripped from torn blood vessels and the
sinus cavity, and Wu Zhu Yu turned his eyes away from
it. He dry heaved a couple of times and staggered to
his feet.
'We'll be massacred if we remain within the canyon,'
his thought processes screamed at him, but he did not
pay attention to them. Rather, he looked around slowly
in a drugged manner, taking in the carnage around him
and when he could look no more, he turned his gaze up
towards the night sky. A Phoenix ran in front of him
just then, screaming hysterically, as his wings burned
behind him.
"Charge!" someone shouted in the far-off background.
No one responded. All were too shell-shocked to care.
Wu Zhu Yu did not stir, either. He collapsed to his
knees and remained motionless until someone pulled him
up.
"We have to attack, Wu," a voice; a familiar voice
shouted.
"Huh?" Wu Zhu Yu asked, dazedly.
"C'mon, snap out of it." Slap!
Wu Zhu Yu turned his head around. It was his second
in command, Shiu Liu, who had slapped him.
"Huh?"
"We have to take to the air and attack. We're being
slaughtered here!"
"Oh!" Wu Zhu Yu said, snapping himself out of his
daze. "Spread the word around and gather everyone you
can find for a counterattack."
"Gather? They'll just pound us with ki blasts and
wipe us out," Shiu Liu replied, ominously.
"Tell them to gather in small groups. Go," Wu Zhu Yu
ordered. He watched Shiu Liu run off and turned
towards a foot soldier that lay cowering on the
ground. "You," he shouted. An explosion only a few
dozen yards away punctuated his shout, signaling the
start of the second wave of attacks.
The Phoenix did not stir. Wu Zhu Yu crawled as fast
as he could towards the cowering Phoenix, drawing his
sword as he did. More explosions rocked the
background, sending smoke and clods of earth high into
the night sky.
"You," he shouted again, when he reached the Phoenix,
"what's your name?"
"Ka Ra Ka," the soldier stuttered and stammered
fearfully, after Wu Zhu Yu had given him a couple of
fierce slaps.
"Get up, Ka Ra Ka. And come with me," Wu Zhu Yu said.
He stood up and lifted Ka Ra Ka off the ground. The
second wave of attacks had stopped and he guessed that
it was safe to stand up.
Ka Ra Ka stood up, unwillingly. Wu Zhu Yu grabbed him
by his elbow and they ran towards the next nearest
surviving Phoenix. Soon, the two of them together had
managed to gather fifty-seven foot soldiers broken
into nearly twenty groups, all of whom were busy
recruiting survivors of their own.
By now, a second lull had fallen upon the
battlefield. The Joketsuzoku and the Musk seemed to
have sensed that something big was about to happen,
and they had stopped firing in preparation for the
Phoenix counterattack.
"Anything?" Wu Zhu Yu asked Shiu Liu, when, finally,
he came crawling back to him.
"Yes. Lord Saa Fuu Lang is about to order the
counter-attack."
"How many survivors?"
Shiu Liu shrugged.
"Probably four thousand... Maybe five..." he said,
shrugging again.
Wu Zhu Yu nodded in silence. The Joketsuzoku enemy
had managed to wipe out nearly a third of The Phoenix
army and had most probably lost not even a single
warrior in the exchange. Things could not have looked
any worse than they were.
"Guess we'll have to make do with what we have and
pray that the heavy hitters really come through."
Shiu Liu nodded in acquiescence, but before he could
reply, a huge explosion shook the canyon walls at the
far end of the canyon. It was followed in quick
succession by nearly half a dozen more. Commander and
executive officer looked at one another and nodded as
one.
"Charge," they shouted, rising to their feet, their
swords pointed towards the heaven.
There was a huge cry among the surviving Phoenix
soldiers and the whole of them took to the air. The
counter-attack had begun.
Wu Zhu Yu rose into the air, his wings flapping. He
was one of the first to clear the canyon walls, but
before he could attack the enemy, an arrow struck him
in his ribcage. Waves of raw pain centered on his
chest cobwebbed all over his body and he gasped. It
was too much to bear and it only grew worse, when he
tried to flap his wings. Naturally, Wu Zhu Yu's wings
failed him and he fell to the ground. As the ground
rushed to meet him, he screamed in agony and terror,
his arms and legs flailing uselessly, and then, he
hit. The last thing he heard was a crunch and he knew
no more.
***********************************************************************
Ranma watched from afar, as the canyon wall at the
other end of the canyon disappeared in a huge
fireball. Thankfully, the field commanders had
anticipated such an attack and had withdrawn their
forces, except for a small group of archers, from the
wall edge. Ranma did not have time to think about
those men and women, and mourn their loss, however, as
at that very instant, the entire Phoenix host shouted
their war cry and rose to the air.
The counterattack had begun.
On Ranma's side of the canyon, hundreds and hundreds
of Phoenix rose into the air in a thick cloud. The
archers positioned at the edge shot down some of them,
but they were easily overwhelmed by the Phoenix
through sheer force of numbers in less than a dozen
seconds. Ranma ordered a desperate attack to cover the
retreat of the archers and led it, charging at full
speed straight into the Phoenix ranks.
In mere seconds, he was upon them. A Phoenix warrior,
catching sight of Ranma, screamed hoarsely and tried
to run him through with a spear. Ranma was far faster
and far more skilled. Without even slowing down, moved
a few centimeters to the side. He blocked; deflected
the spear with his right hand and got into the
Phoenix's defenses. He leaned to his right, pivoted
and swung his foot at supersonic speeds at his enemy's
head. The Phoenix soldier stood no chance against such
a brutal attack, and his skull caved in and exploded,
splattering blood all over.
Ranma, for his part, paid no attention to the crunch
of bone under his leg and continued the swing of his
legs, using his momentum to execute a mid-air roll. He
easily avoided a trio of shooting stars aimed at his
mid section and as the last of the spinning
projectiles passed him by, he shot a hand out. The
move slowed his spin at once and he grabbed the
shooting star between his thumb and index finger. He
retracted his arm, and as soon as his feet touched the
ground, he tensed, absorbing the energy of impact and
storing it in his tendons. Using the same energy and
adding a generous amount of his own, he jumped back;
somersaulted backwards into the air. In mid flight, he
turned around, charging the shooting star with ki as
he did, and with a flick of his wrists, threw it at
the ground beneath a trio of Phoenix trying to sneak
up on him.
The shooting star exploded on impact, wounding the
middle one grievously and splattering the other two
with red-hot metal fragments. Even before the pain
registered in their brains, Ranma completed his spin
and landed, driving himself a couple of inches into
the ground to absorb the momentum. He summoned his
aura and standing his ground, barked, unleashing a
white-hot pillar of ki at them.
The Phoenix did not survive contact.
Then, snatching a spear hurled at him out of thin
air, he flooded it with ki and spun it around at
supersonic speeds, raising an impenetrable cloud of
dust. The dozen or so Phoenix who had surrounded him
hesitated, opting to wait at the edge of the cloud
rather than entering it and risk being sliced, diced
and saut�ed.
They did not have to wait long.
The roar of the spear died away scant moments later,
only to replaced by a mighty cry, as Ranma fell into
their midst from the heavens, clutching the end of the
burning spear with both his hands and striking the
ground with a fiery bark. The immediate area shuddered
as if hit by an earthquake and as the Phoenix jumped
away from him, desperately trying to regain their
footing and mount some sort of defense, Ranma released
his left hand and swung the spear exactly ninety
degrees, gutting one of them with the sharp edge.
The soldier fell screaming, his wounds cauterized by
the hot ki. The flames licking the surface of the
spear gutted, as a blast of cold air centered on the
dragon exploded outward in all directions. Ranma
smirked at his opponents and brought the spear to his
side, using the residual ki in it to jumpstart the
Hiryu Shoten Ha.
Phoenix, dirt and more Phoenix were picked up and
flung in all directions, as the winds rose to a
crescendo. And Ranma, having taken care of his
assailants, simply quenched the tornado with another
burst of ki, when the last of the Phoenix disappeared
into the night sky. He dropped the now blackened spear
and looked around, scouring the battlefield for more
enemies to kill.
A lone Phoenix warrior sporting a respectable battle
aura charged Ranma screaming from his side. Ranma
obliged him, catching the punch meant for his nose, a
killing blow, with his clawed left hand, centimeters
away from its target. Smirking at the shocked
expression on his enemy's face, who had obviously not
expected his blow to be blocked, he applied pressure
on his opponent's fist, crushing it, and twisted,
provoking a howl of pain from the Phoenix. The Phoenix
stood up on his toes to reduce the damage, thus
dropping his guard and leaving himself open for
Ranma's follow up attack. Ranma took notice of the
obvious hole in his opponent's defense and dutifully
extended the claws of his right hand, disemboweling
the Phoenix with a clean swipe. He flung the body
aside and dropped into a stance, shooting a wicked
glance at the next Phoenix duo that dared to face him.
***********************************************************************
The sword sang through the air, its intricate
movements a blur to even the trained eye. The Phoenix
soldier was obviously very skilled.
Shi Huu, however, was much better in The Art and even
though she was much smaller than the Phoenix facing
her, she had the advantage of age and experience,
which is always a potent combination, on her side. She
dodged most of the blows and used her short dagger to
block her opponent's strikes whenever she could not
dodge, waiting for the slightest sign of hesitation,
or mistake on her opponent's end.
She did not have to wait too long.
A small stone, no more than the size of a fist,
caused him to stumble when he accidentally stepped on
it, and Shi Huu, seizing the chance, moved into his
guard. A quick slash later, the sword was out of his
grasp and his sword-wielding wrist was attached to his
hand by a very thin shred of skin. The Phoenix's sword
fell and Shi Huu jumped into the air, her battle dress
fluttering madly about her. She swiveled and extended
her legs out at the last second, kicking his ribcage
with enough force to collapse it.
The soldier went flying through the air. He crashed
to the ground and Shi Huu landed softly on the ground.
She remained there for just the briefest moment, just
enough time to gather her bearings, before charging to
meet her next opponent, a Phoenix female who was
plowing through the archer ranks as if they were mere
cardboards.
Still, as fast as she was, Shi Huu was not fast
enough and the Phoenix female decapitated two more
archers with her blooded sword before the Matriarch
reached her. Rage and hatred filled Shi Huu's heart,
and she summoned her aura, screaming in ecstasy, as
the power coursed through her veins, invigorating her.
The female Phoenix turned, and realizing Shi Huu for
the threat she was, summoned her own aura, which
burned an angry red black.
Then, without further adieu, the Phoenix charged.
Shi Huu stood still at the face of her opponent's
charge, until the last possible moment, and just as
the distance between them decreased to a mere ten
feet, kicked up the dirt in the ground and flung it
with a flick of her leg at her opponent's eyes. The
Phoenix, blinded by the dirt, slowed down, brought her
arms to protect her eyes and Shi Huu used the failure
on her opponent's part to her own advantage. She burst
forward at Amaguriken speed, driving her knife to the
hilt into the right side of the woman's abdomen. Her
rival's mouth opened wide to scream, but no sound came
out, as the force of impact had knocked the air out of
her lungs. Her eyes met Shi Huu's and she saw in them
the same madness - the berserker rage - that had been
on her face mere moments before. The demon and the
insanity that clouded the Phoenix's fell then, and
even as her blood wet the Matriarch's clothes crimson,
Shi Huu tore the knife out of her opponent's body,
taking care to do as much damage as possible.
***********************************************************************
'This is the third one that's run away from me! The
Joketsuzoku and the Musk are cowards unfit to die at
the hands of the Wrath of Heaven,' Ka Ra Kee,
Commander of The Phoenix army, thought to himself, as
he chased after his third opponent. He was completely
unaware of the fact that his enemies ran away not from
him, but from his blade. The Wrath of Heaven was one
of the most powerful spirit weapons in The Phoenix
arsenal, and all Joketsuzoku and Musk foot soldiers
were under orders to run away from whoever wielded it
to alert the elite warrior nearest to him.
That elite warrior turned out to be Shin Nan, Emperor
of the Musk, and unlike his two previous compatriots,
the third Joketsuzoku foot soldier managed to evade Ka
Ra Kee long enough to warn Shin Nan about the weapon.
Shin Nan, who had been observing the proceedings of
the battlefield from a distance as the commander of
the reserve forces, summoned his aura and leapt into
battle, swirling The Spirit Bane in an impressive arc,
as he stepped up to meet Ka Ra Kee's challenge.
Ka Ra Kee, for his part, was startled by the sight of
the Musk monster that stepped out of nowhere to meet
his challenge. Truth be told, he was more than a
little afraid, for Shin Nan, with a towering vortex of
burning ki that engulfed him in flame and reached into
the heavens above, looked like a demon straight out of
hell. His aura crackled with arc and ball lightning,
and a whirlwind blew about him, picking up the dust,
sized stones and whatnot from his surroundings.
"I'm Emperor Shin Nan of the Musk," Shin announced
himself.
"I'm Commander of The Phoenix, Ka Ra Kee," his
opponent replied.
Shin nodded, accepting the wordless challenge. He
drove his staff a dozen inches into the ground in one
smooth flourish of his right hand and calmly waited
beside it for his opponent to make the first move.
Ka Ra Kee stood where he was, observing his opponent
guardedly. He slowly began a kata and danced, holding
the Wrath of Heaven in both his hands. He waved it in
an arc to his right and then to his left at a slow
speed. He repeated the process three times and each
time, he did it a little faster than before. When the
third arc ended, Ka Ra Kee barked, summoning his ki,
which erupted into a nova of blinding white several
feet thick around him. He slashed down vertically with
the curved blade, bringing it to rest with the blade
parallel to the ground. The sword glowed a blinding
shade of blue white, easily lighting the surrounding
area for hundreds of yards around.
"Shall we begin?" he asked.
Shin nodded.
Immediately, Ka Ra Kee charged in a diagonal, his
sword held to his left, pointing down. Shin Nan drew
The Spirit Bane from the ground and leapt to meet his
opponent's challenge. The clashed midway and the
battle was joined.
***********************************************************************
The spear is a very potent weapon. The advantage
given in the battlefield by its reach alone is
incalculable. Combine it with a very skilled pair of
hands and one has a nigh invincible weapon in one's
hands. Still, the traditional spear has one major
disadvantage: Only the tip is made of metal and the
rest is made of wood. And against a skilled opponent,
that one shortcoming can prove fatal.
Enforce the wood with ki, lots of it, however, and
one has a very strong and flexible weapon that can
powder, or cut granite into slivers, or whichever way
one prefers it. This is exactly what Shi Ho wielded: a
wooden spear with an edge of obsidian so sharp that it
could cut through iron as if it were butter and that,
too, without ki reinforcing it. And the wood that made
the stock was no laughing matter either. Legend had it
that it was cut from the very first Neem tree in the
world, blessed by the Gods themselves in the
southernmost corner of Hindustan. It was very old and
it was very, very powerful.
Still, despite the great age of its individual
components, the weapon, The Bearer of Light, was
scarcely a hundred years old. It was one of the most
powerful weapons in The Phoenix arsenal and Shi Ho,
adjunct to Ka Ra Kee, Commander of The Phoenix army,
had been specially trained to wield it in battle from
a very young age. And did he wield it? The few bold
men and women who dared fight him fell like cannon
fodder, while the intelligent ones ran at the sight of
the hellish flame of bright blue ki that burned and
consumed the land around him.
He was in every sense of the word, invincible and he
reigned supreme in the battlefield.
And he expected the battle against the ancient
woman-troll dressed in the ceremonial battle dress of
the Joketsuzoku to fare no better. As his luck would
have it, however, the woman was none other than Shi
Huu and even though he did not know it, he was in for
a very tough battle.
The first sign that things may be wrong and that the
battle may not be as easy as he thought it would be
came when Shi Huu sidestepped his opening move, a
lightning fast thrust aimed at her heart, and then,
jumped over the counter side-slash that should have
sliced her body in two. It missed her body, but not
her robe and he noted with a small amount of
satisfaction that part of the shredded robe floated;
fluttered to rest on the ground.
Shi Huu, for her part, did not waste her time
worrying about the near miss. She somersaulted twice
away from her opponent to put some distance between
him and herself, and landed softly on the ground,
almost kneeling to absorb the energy of impact. She
assumed a stance of her own and waited for her
opponent to do the same.
"I am Shi Ho of The Phoenix," her opponent announced
with a slight bow. "With whom do I have the honor of
dueling?"
"I am Matriarch Shi Huu of the Joketsuzoku and I am
honored to do battle with you," Shi Huu replied in
cultured tones with a slight bow of her own. She had
brought her rage and hatred against the enemy under
control since she ran amok, and was back to her calm,
calculating self, which was good, for her senses told
her that the warrior before her was a very dangerous
and very skilled one; one that her berserk self would
surely have fallen against.
"I am much honored that the Matriarch would choose to
challenge me in combat," Shi Ho replied, following The
Old Code to the word. "Shall we begin?"
"Yes," Shi Huu replied.
Shi Ho leapt in without further adieu and the battle
was joined.
***********************************************************************
There are 311 bones in the body of an adult Phoenix
and Ranma reckoned that he had broken just about every
single one of them on his latest opponent. Being
thrown against a huge, very sturdy looking rock will
do that to one, especially if one were a Phoenix with
hollow, light weight bones. Light immediately went out
of the Phoenix's eyes and he slid off the smooth rock,
his blood lubricating his passage towards the ground.
He collapsed on the cold, hard earth and lay still.
Ranma's eyes remained on his opponent for a mere
fraction of a moment; the time it took him to verify
whether the Phoenix was alive or not, before he turned
his attention elsewhere. As much as he hated what the
Phoenix had done to the people at the outpost and as
much as he wished death upon all that was theirs, he
was a warrior and did not take pleasure in seeing his
victims suffer in pain in the battlefield. A quick,
gory death in battle was much easier on his
consciousness and it struck fear deep in the hearts of
his enemies. [2]
The Phoenix male was indeed dead and Ranma turned his
eyes away from the dead body, scouring the area for
more enemies. Not a great many Phoenix remained
standing on the battlefield, though all that stood
were skilled and were giving as good as they got. In
fact, one of them, the one closest to Ranma, evaded
the attacks launched at him by his three opponents
with ease, while slowly gaining the upper hand, as he
forced them towards the edge of the canyon with his
counterattacks.
Ranma just shook his head in wonder. The Joketsuzoku
warriors were some of the most skilled in the world
and if the guy had the skill to not only defend
himself against three of them, but also actually win,
then he must be very, very skilled.
'Only one way to find just how skilled he really is,'
Ranma thought to himself, as he cleared the ground
separating them with huge leaps.
The Joketsuzoku and the Phoenix must have sensed him
for the Joketsuzoku gave way and the Phoenix actually
turned his back on his opponents in the middle of the
fight to regard Ranma.
"I'm Masara of The Phoenix Royal Guards," the Phoenix
warrior said without preamble when Ranma landed in a
crouch front of him.
Ranma looked appraisingly at the twenty-fiveish
birdman that stood before him and nodded once at the
Joketsuzoku who had been fighting him. Immediately,
the three of them withdrew from the battle.
"I'm Ranma Saotome Qin of the Musk and the
Joketsuzoku," he said, introducing himself.
Masara nodded and summoned his aura, which roared to
life in an incandescent cloud of blinding white that
arced with florescent blue strokes of lightning around
his body. Dirt and pebbles rose into the air, and a
whirlwind rose around him, reaching out to the night
sky. Finally, his aura ready to heed his every beck
and call, he slipped into a battle stance and waited
for Ranma to summon his battle aura.
Ranma raised an eyebrow at the fireworks. The young
Phoenix was powerful. However, he did not call forth
his ki, as he slipped into a stance of his own.
"Shall we begin?" he asked.
Masara saw red at the obvious insult. And his ki, in
response to his anger, burned bright red, painting his
surroundings crimson. Who did this Ranma think he was
to face off against one of the most skilled warriors
in The Phoenix ranks without the full benefits of his
ki?
"Today, you die. I will kill you," he announced;
growled, controlling his anger and channeling it
towards his enemy. He always fought better when he was
focused and his opponent had unwittingly signed his
death warrant by insulting his honor.
"On the contrary," Ranma replied with an
ill-disguised condescending smirk. The Phoenix was
powerful, but he was nowhere near as strong as he
needed to be to pose a serious threat to Ranma. "I
think it is you who will die today, Little Boy."
***********************************************************************
At the start of the duel, Ka Ra Kee had expected it
to last very long, but in the end, he had expected to
win it. Now, roughly half an hour into the fast paced
battle, he was beginning to have second thoughts. That
damned staff his opponent bore in his hands seemed to
be none other than The Spirit Bane and it was wielded
with just as much skill as Ka Ra Kee wielded the Wrath
of Heaven.
All the ki blasts Ka Ra Kee shot at his opponent were
either deflected, or blocked, either with The Spirit
bane, or by Shin Nan himself. And the Wrath of Heaven,
which was supposed to be the sharpest blade in all
existence able to cut through anything and everything,
had not even made a nick on the staff. To further add
to Ka Ra Kee's woes, Shin Nan was very, very skilled.
He was, quite simply, the most skilled warrior the
Phoenix had ever seen in his life. Still, the
Commander of The Phoenix was not discouraged, for Shin
Nan, for all his skill and prowess, could scarcely
match the raw power of The Wrath of Heaven.
"Yield and I'll be merciful," Ka Ra Kee said, drawing
in deep breaths and eyeing his opponent critically, as
he stood two dozen feet afar. They had withdrawn from
each other in an unofficial temporary truce in order
to catch their breath.
Shin Nan laughed, wiping the trickling blood from his
lips. It was a painful remainder of the terrible
weapon his opponent held in his hands, he thought,
remembering the attack that had drawn blood. If he had
been even a fraction of a second slower, he would have
perished under the enormous ki blast that The Phoenix
Commander had managed to produce from nowhere. As it
was, he barely managed to block it, because of which,
his robe was shredded beyond repair. It clung to him
by the tiniest of threads, and his lips as well as
most of his upper body bled from lacerations.
"Nonsense," he said, waving Ka Ra Kee's offer away,
"the Emperor of the Musk does not yield," he
announced, proudly and took a stance, "come and make
me."
Ka Ra Kee, having got his breath back, was only too
glad to oblige.
The two opponents closed the distance between them in
the wink of an eye. The ground tore and a cloud of
dust rose in the wake of their passage. They met
midway, striking each other with their respective
weapon. Like so many times before, neither could break
through the other's defenses and they withdrew back
shortly only to unleash huge ki blasts at one another.
The air sizzled with ki and huge fireballs, each hot
enough to melt the flesh off a body, rose into the
night sky, punctuating the dark of the night with
blinding flashes. When finally they stopped, Shin Nan
sneaked a glance at the surrounding area out of vanity
and saw that what had once been a lush green land was
now reduced to a field of smoke, dust and death. It
would be centuries, if ever, before the land
recovered.
On the other hand, Ka Ra Kee's anger was growing
steadily by the minute.
"Die, damn you!" he screamed, throwing obscenities at
Shin Nan, who watched his opponent's verbal outburst
with a detached expression on his face. Finally, The
Phoenix Commander could bear it no longer and he
launched himself high into the air. He raised his
sword above his head at the apex of his flight and
came down on Shin Nan, slashing downwards with the
Wrath of Heaven.
Shin Nan deflected the razor sharp blade with The
Spirit Bane, holding it in one hand. He released a
small ki blast at the ground with the other and jumped
back, just as the ki blast exploded. As he came down,
he focused ki into the tip of his staff and struck at
the ground, producing a thunderclap of an explosion.
The earth shuddered and split, covering the distance
between the Emperor and his opponent in a mere
fraction of a second.
Ka Ra Kee jumped up and to his left, moments before
the ever-widening fracture reached him, and even
though Shin Nan was some forty feet away, slashed the
air horizontally with his blade in retaliation. The
air turned incandescent for a miniscule fraction of a
second and glowed with the brightness of ten suns. As
it quivered and expanded explosively, a large number
of vacuum blades, each charged with a generous amount
of ki, rocketed out of the blossoming bubble of plasma
towards Shin Nan.
Shin Nan did not bother to dodge. The blades were
just too numerous and trying to dodge them would have
been suicidal. Instead, he stood at the head of the
fracture line and twirled The Spirit Bane between his
fingers, digging deep into his ki reserves as he did.
The ki-storm around him became a tornado in the
fraction of the second it took the vacuum blades to
reach him and he successfully deflected; blocked all
of them. The deflected ones tore into the ground
behind him and exploded, further devastating the
already mortally wounded land, whereas the blocked
ones exploded against his ki barrier, scorching the
land beneath his feet and vaporizing it.
Even before Ka Ra Kee's attack ended, Shin Nan
charged forward, using his ki to propel his body to
godlike speeds. His opponent did not even have time to
flinch before the Emperor was upon him, attacking him
with animalistic fury. The ground exploded under Ka Ra
Kee's feet, as the force of each strike forced his
knees to buckle. He tried to counterattack with a ki
blast, but Shin Nan did not even attempt to dodge it.
Instead, he took the blast head-on and still came at
Ka Ra Kee, looking very much like a demon from the
netherworlds.
Faced with such a brutal onslaught, Ka Ra Kee began
to falter. The tide of battle began to turn in Shin
Nan's favor, and within a trio of minutes, it was all
over. All except one very important thing, that is...
***********************************************************************
Block. Parry. Strike. Counter-strike. Slash. Kick.
Jump. Duck. Block. Retreat. Pause.
"You cannot win against me, Matriarch. The only
reasonable thing to do is yield," Shi Ho said,
confidently, "I bear The Bearer of Light in my hands
and with it, I'm invincible."
Shi Huu did not reply; she was too busy trying to get
back her breath. Even though the boy wasn't as skilled
as she was, the spear perfectly complemented what
skills he had, and he wielded it with such prowess and
conviction that he matched her every attacks every
step of the way. It did not help her cause any the
fact that the spear was also a very good focus for
channeling ki. She glanced at his barely sweating form
and pulled herself together, getting into a stance.
"I do not yield," she said, indignantly. The very
thought filled her with revulsion.
"Very well," he replied, his voice calm and
collected, "then you die."
He bee lined for the Matriarch even as he spoke and
tried to impale her with a thrust of his spear. She
dodged, escaping the tip by a mere fraction of an inch
and he countered by swinging the spear in an arc at
her. This time, she was not able to evade successfully
and wood, reinforced by ki and having the power of a
dozen elephants behind it, hit her torso. It knocked
the air out of her lungs and were it not for her ki,
it would have killed her for sure.
Shi Huu staggered and Shi Ho took advantage of her
breathlessness by repeatedly thrusting the spear at
her. It was all the Matriarch could do to evade.
Finally, just as her lungs felt like would burst, Shi
Huu, in desperation, launched her dagger at The
Phoenix.
Shi Ho sensed the blade too late and even though he
tried to dodge it, he could not move fast enough and
the dagger made a deep cut in his left bicep,
effectively putting the arm out of commission.
Moreover, it severed an artery and if left untreated
long enough, the wound was severe enough to bleed him
to death.
Biting back a scream of pain, Shi Ho stopped his
assault and somersaulted backwards a couple of dozen
feet to put some distance between the Matriarch and
himself. He then took a moment to observe the bleeding
and confirmed his initial prognosis: The wound could
prove fatal if left untreated. Ruthlessly, he struck
his spear into the ground and summoned a blistering
hot ball of ki in his hands, which he used to
cauterize the wound. The pain was excruciating and he
nearly blacked out, but in the end, the wound was
sealed and the bleeding stopped. He would survive.
Finally, after taking a couple of seconds to compose
himself, he pulled the spear in his hands and slipped
into a stance. Crippled and in pain as he was, he was
still confident that he could win the duel.
"Shall we begin?" he asked.
Having taken the slight reprieve to catch her lost
breath whilst her opponent tended to his wounds, Shi
Huu looked a little better off than before. She
nodded, acknowledging the Phoenix's words and slipped
into a non-threatening looking stance of her own.
Immediately, Shi Ho leapt at her with his spear. He
jumped a great height and came down on her with his
aura blazing around him like a white-hot pyre. Shi Huu
leapt back and the ground she had stood only a second
before erupted under the force of Shi Ho's landing, as
he landed in a crouch. He barked once and a huge blast
of ki, centered on the spear exploded outwards in all
directions. The Matriarch stood her ground unflinching
at the face of the giant blast and crossed her arms,
summoning her ki barrier to ward off the powerful
explosion. The two walls of ki met and with a
thunderous clap, exploded. The resulting shockwave
shook everything for hundreds of yards around.
Eventually, the shaking stopped and the dust slowly
cleared, revealing Shi Ho with his spear thrust into
the Matriarch's leg. He smiled, relishing the taste of
success, and began withdrawing the blade, further
tearing muscle and blood vessels.
Victory was in his grasp now, or so, he thought.
His celebrations did not last long, however, as Shi
Huu tore herself off the spear, self-inflicting
massive amounts of damage on herself. She grabbed The
Bearer of Light near the tip, and swung it and its
owner around with all her strength, smashing Shi Ho
against the hard ground. The attack was too unexpected
and Shi Ho, ill-prepared for it, lost hold of his
weapon, as he hit the surface. Pain flared anew, as
the cauterized arm wound tore again, and copious
amounts of blood began to gush out of it.
He tried to get up, but failed. His legs were
dislocated from impact.
"Yield," he heard the old woman's voice say, as he
struggled to get off the ground.
Shi Ho turned towards his victor, and saw that she,
too, was limping very badly and managed to stand only
because she was using the spear; his spear, as a cane;
her staff, she had lost in the fight. Her eyes bore
deep respect for him and it filled his heart with
great pride. He may have lost, but he had lost
honorably.
"Yield," she asked, as she stood over him.
"Never," he said, hoarsely. He would die honorably,
rather than live with the shame of having surrendered
to a foe.
Shi Huu looked into his eyes for a long time.
Finally, she nodded, accepting his choice.
"Very well," she said. Quarter had been offered and
refused. There was only one thing left to do. "Blessed
is your name."
"Blessed is yours," replied Shi Ho.
Shi Huu bowed to her youthful opponent and without
further adieu, closed the distance between them,
limping. She stood over him and with one hard blow to
the back of Shi Ho's neck, broke it. Shi Ho gurgled
and fell on the ground, dead.
***********************************************************************
Fighting against a dragon, Masara discovered was no
walk in the park. Especially if the dragon was a
walking God of The Art - just like his opponent was.
No matter what he tried, or how he tried it, Ranma
evaded his attacks by a cat's whisker and as more and
more attacks missed, Masara began to lose his focus.
His desperation began to reflect in his attacks and he
began burning up his ki that much faster.
This went on for ten minutes and Masara threw all
sorts of ki attacks at the dragon during that time.
Ranma, for his part, evaded or blocked them all with
apparent ease, but never once did he retaliate.
Finally, at the end of his reserves, Masara
temporarily halted his attacks, taking the time to get
back his breath.
Ranma watched his opponent carefully, as he stood
panting a couple of dozen feet away. He had taken his
own sweet time with his opponent thus far, as the
combined armies of the Joketsuzoku and the Musk had
won the battle in every sense of the word. However, he
knew that he had to end the duel sometime and as he
watched his opponent from afar, he decided to end it
soon. Accordingly, he slid into a stance for the
second time since the start of the duel; this time, it
was an aggressive one.
"It's time to end this," he stated, his voice
neutral.
Masara looked up. His eyes met Ranma's and the
Phoenix nodded, slipping into a stance of his own.
Ranma noted absently the absence of fear in his
opponent's eyes, even though Masara knew that he was
most probably going to die.
The two opponents began to circle each other,
watching and waiting for the other to make the
smallest mistake to take advantage. They remained thus
for a couple of minutes, until quite suddenly Masara
attacked. He took a couple of steps forward and
jumped, aiming to break Ranma's ribs with a powerful
kick. However, unlike the previous instances where
Masara had tried this particular attack, Ranma did not
dodge. He waited until the last possible second before
turning just a whisker, safely letting Masara pass by
him. The Phoenix tried to react and improvise a
defense, but Ranma was much faster. He grabbed
Masara's legs in his hands and swung him around once
before letting go.
The move simultaneously altered Masara's trajectory
and removed the control he had over his flight. Masara
could only cringe, as he watched in morbid fascination
the ground, which quickly ran up to greet him. The
impact knocked the air out of his lungs and dislocated
his leg, bouncing him off the ground like a wooden
puppet for a couple of times before depositing him in
a heap on the dirt-ground.
After releasing his hold on his opponent's legs,
Ranma withdrew a couple of yards and waited. He had
not given Masara the honor of a warrior's duel, but he
would give him the honor of a warrior's death.
Masara, for his part, grunted in pain and got up on
his feet, leaning heavily on one leg. The Phoenix
hopped forward, balancing clumsily on his one
undamaged leg and swung his right fist at Ranma. Ranma
bent back slightly and brought his hands together in a
cross like that of a pair of scissors, effectively
capturing Masara's fists. He then maneuvered his right
hand around and grabbing hold of Masara arm just above
his elbow, twisted, dislocating and breaking the arm
at the Phoenix's shoulder. The bone snapped and Ranma
released his hold on his opponent's arm.
Masara fell.
Ranma withdrew.
Masara blinked.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
Masara blinked, again. All the world but Ranma seemed
to vanish.
Blood from where his bone had broken through his skin
dripped down his arm to the dusty ground.
The roar of the cold night breeze rose to a
crescendo, blanketing what little sound that existed
in the world.
Masara rose up and tried to connect with a punch with
his other arm.
Ranma blocked it with his right hand and grabbed hold
just below the elbow, effectively preventing Masara's
escape. His left hand came down and then up to catch
Masara's fist. He applied pressure and a series of
pops punctuated the silence, as the bone structure in
Masara's fist collapsed under the vise-like grip.
Masara blinked again, as wave after wave of
excruciating pain flooded his mind. He did not scream,
however.
More blood dripped on the ground.
Ranma released his hold and Masara fell.
He looked up into Ranma's eyes.
Ranma's right hand rose and grabbed Masara's hair.
Masara flinched not as the dragon repositioned
himself by his side.
The dragon's left hand rose up and stopped.
The winds died.
Time stopped.
"Blessed is your name," Ranma said. His voice,
although a whisper, sounded very loud to Masara's
ears.
"Blessed is yours," Masara replied, staring straight
ahead, his head held high with pride.
Ranma's eyes, unable to meet Masara's, and yet,
unwilling to look away, as that would insult his
opponent's honor, met the Phoenix's. His fist came
down hard. There was an audible crunch, as Masara's
larynx and throat were both crushed.
Masara gurgled once, twitched and fell forward, dead.
Ranma bowed once to his deceased opponent and rose.
The ground exploded behind Ranma and flung him high
into the air. As he sailed through the air, a searing
hot wall of pressurized air hit him and sent him
tumbling towards the earth. The ground came up fast to
meet him and Ranma tucked his body into himself,
landing hard on his legs. He let his momentum carry
him forward, rolling on the ground a good fifteen
meters before coming to rest. Immediately, he bounded
to his feet and dropped into a stance, ready for
battle. He quickly gave himself a cursory examination
and found that his body had sustained only minor
injuries from the surprise attack. The state of his
clothes was another matter, however. His shirt was
gone and most of his pants were, too. What remained
smoldered and looked ready to burst into flames. Ranma
cooled the smoldering rags with a burst of cold ki,
while at the same time, scanning the horizon for his
attacker with his eyes.
He caught sight of his opponent hovering a hundred
yards in the air. It was...
***********************************************************************
Shin Nan surveyed the bloody mess that stood in front
of him. He himself was bleeding from numerous wounds,
but his wounds were nowhere near as bad as Ka Ra
Kee's, who looked like a walking miracle with a
multitude of cuts and lacerations all over his body.
"Yield," he said, compassionately, knowing the answer
even before he popped the question. Even though there
was no loss of honor in losing to a superior opponent,
Ka Ra Kee, like the warrior that he was, would not
view it as such. As far as he was concerned, he had
lost his honor the moment he lost the duel and one did
not live after one lost one's honor. It simply was not
done.
Ka Ra Kee shook his head, slowly. His wounds were
fatal, he knew and so did his opponent, but to abandon
him to a slow death from loss of blood would be the
act of a dishonorable coward. A warrior, such as he,
deserved quick and honorable death in combat and not
the slow, lingering one off the battlefield. So said
The Old Code and so it had been in the field of battle
for countless ages.
Shin Nan nodded. It had been an honor to fight with
someone of such skill and power as Ka Ra Kee, and he
was not going to tarnish both their honors by
abandoning his opponent to a slow death from his
wounds. He had to repay the debt he owed Ka Ra Kee by
killing him.
"Very well," Shin Nan said and advanced with slow
measured steps.
The Phoenix Commander stood tall and proud. Not a
trace of fear flashed upon his eyes as his nemesis
halted before him.
"Blessed is your name," the Emperor said, raising his
hand over his head for the killing blow.
"And blessed is yours."
Strike.
Darkness.
***********************************************************************
"Saa Fuu Lang," Ranma whispered in awestruck
reverence, his eyes focused on the hovering God.
Ranma's awe was not misplaced, for indeed, Saa Fuu
Lang looked majestic dressed in his battle fatigues.
His armor was crafted out of thin plates of the finest
teak tied together with strands of pure gold. In the
center of his chest was an emblem that sported the
image of a rising Phoenix. His aura bloomed around him
in a flood of azure, blue and green. It was half
blinding, half awe-inspiring. Air sizzled and rolled
off in super hot waves around him, lifting his hair
and buffeting it against the pale, cloudless, moonlit
night sky.
Most awe-inspiring of all was the very powerful
looking incandescent ball of mana that The Phoenix God
held in his right hand. His attention was completely
focused on Ranma and his wings fluttered lazily
against the night sky to keep him aloft, as he stared
down upon his opponent.
"You killed my son," the God-king said; whispered,
"you killed my son, and you and all that is yours will
die for it."
It did not take a genius to figure out that Masara
was Saa Fuu Lang's son and that the God-king was
speaking to Ranma. And Ranma, awed by the God's
presence as he was, was not the kind to take such
threats lightly.
"You'll never lay your hands on my family," he
replied, bravely, digging deep into his ki reserves.
However, behind his imposed veil of bravado, Ranma did
not really think that he could defeat the God-king.
The only advantage he had was his phenomenal skill,
for Saa Fuu Lang outgunned him completely in the power
department, and skill alone could not bridge so large
a gap in power levels. "I'll never allow you to lay
your hands on my family and friends as long as I
live."
"Then die," Saa Fuu Lang said; whispered.
The Phoenix God's voice was completely devoid of
emotion. Ranma, as he ran to his left and dived post
haste to avoid the searing hot pulse of mana aimed at
him, wondered whether the God-king was really alive or
not. The ground behind him exploded and as Ranma
rolled away, a huge fireball, perhaps a hundred meters
in diameter, soared into the sky, briefly illuminating
everything for miles around. A massive concussive
blast of super hot air hit a moment later, searing
everything in its path and Ranma hastily summoned his
ki shield to protect himself against it. The shield
was sufficient, and withstood the brunt of the blast,
plus the smoking clods of red hot earth and rock that
rained down just about everywhere. When the cloud of
dust that hid Ranma from the Phoenix king's eyes
finally cleared, Ranma was shocked to see a crater
that was easily thirty meters wide. If Saa Fuu Lang
was capable of launching many such powerful blasts at
barely a moments notice, then he was done for.
"Nice blast," he commented wryly, hiding his shock
and goading the God-king on into even greater heights
of fury, hoping to send him into a mindless berserker
rage, "but your aim's very lousy."
Saa Fuu Lang did not deign to reply, opting instead
to swoop down from the sky, his corona of power
glowing more powerful than ever. Ranma fell into a
loose combat stance and awaited his opponent on the
ground.
He did not have to wait long.
Saa Fuu Lang closed the distance between them in the
wink of an eye and tried to disembowel Ranma with his
talons, but Ranma slid to his left, easily dodging the
fatal blow. He retaliated with a supersonic kick to
the God-king's torso that sent his opponent
ricocheting off into the opposite walls of the canyon,
a hefty two hundred meters away. Saa Fuu Lang hit the
granite walls with a mighty crack and slid off the
face of the canyon to plummet only to plummet
headfirst to the pass below. His descent triggered a
landslide that followed him with a thunderous roar
into the crevice.
Any mortal would have died immediately either from
the kick, or the impact against the canyon walls. Saa
Fuu Lang was no mortal. And Ranma knew even as he
executed the follow-through of his kick, which nailed
the God-king, that Saa Fuu Lang would most probably
survive the devastating attack. Moreover, if his
opponent were any other, Ranma would have allowed them
time to catch their breath, but allowing Saa Fuu Lang
to catch his breath in any fight was tantamount to
suicide and Ranma did not feel suicidal. He had a
family to mind, after all. Therefore, he ran after the
God and jumped into the canyon after him.
Ranma allowed himself to freefall through the air
with his arms spread out to break his descent and
searched for Saa Fuu Lang with his ki senses. Sure
enough, there was a single mana source trapped inside
the canyon and Ranma fired a large ki powered vacuum
blade at it. The blade hit the target and Ranma landed
softly on his legs, effectively storing all the
kinetic energy he had acquired during his jump in his
ki. Thus prepared, he waited for his opponent to
emerge from the mound of debris and flames that
entombed him.
As before, he did not have to wait long.
Within moments, Saa Fuu Lang stumbled out of the
flaming pyre created by the vacuum blade, his numerous
wounds and lacerations healing at an unbelievable
rate. He looked up just in time to see Ranma reach the
apex of his jump. Ranma extended his legs in a kick
and as he began to descent, maneuvered himself so that
his foot was aimed straight towards The Phoenix God's
face. Hard foot met soft flesh, and Saa Fuu Lang's
facial structure collapsed. Simultaneously, the God's
neck snapped back and broke with an audible snap.
The God-king fell and Ranma landed lightly behind
him, his knees bent to absorb the energy of impact. He
had used all the stored kinetic energy in his last
attack and would be very surprised if enough remained
of Saa Fuu Lang's face to identify him.
'I won!' he thought jubilantly. This was one time he
would not regret wrongly judging an opponent.
There was a groan.
Time slowed.
Ranma turned.
A huge blast of mana rammed into Ranma's ki shield,
which the dragon had risen reflexively, and threw him
skittering against the hard ground for several hundred
feet. Thankfully, the attack was not powerful enough
to pierce Ranma's defenses, and he survived, even
though his pride did not.
"That hurt a lot," Saa Fuu Lang's voice echoed across
the canyon, just as Ranma painfully rose to his feet,
"and I'll be sure to inflict twice as much pain upon
you whilst I'm pummeling you to death."
Ranma snarled in reply and dropped to the ground,
catlike, on all fours. He was intent on exacting
painful retribution and he was intent on exacting it
fast. His claws dug into the ground and he pushed back
his center of gravity as far as it could go before
shooting forward, straight as an arrow, at Saa Fuu
Lang. He sprinted faster than he had ever before.
Saa Fuu Lang, who had been expecting the dust to
settle before the next attack, was caught completely
off-guard at the sight of the pouncing dragon, and his
shocked metal faculties reacted a wee bit slow. Too
late, he tried to jump to the side to put some
distance between his opponent and himself, but his
efforts were to no avail for Ranma was upon him even
before he tensed his legs. Claws sharp enough to
reduce granite to fine powder dug deep into the
God-king's abdomen and tore him up, disemboweling him.
Saa Fuu Lang screamed in agony and fell.
Ranma made another pass, snarling; screaming in
animalistic fury. He grabbed hold of The Phoenix God's
nearest wing with his claws and tore; twisted it until
the bone structure collapsed completely. He let go
then and withdrew a single step, content at having
extracted painful revenge.
The wing remained exactly, as Ranma left it without
returning to its normal position.
Ranma smiled at the sight of the damage he had
inflicted and raised his hand for the killing blow,
but before his claws could connect with his opponent's
heart, Saa Fuu Lang's aura exploded, pushing Ranma off
him and sending him tumbling away.
Ranma somersaulted to gain his balance and landed
lightly on his toes. Saa Fuu Lang, rejuvenated once
more, shot forward to engage Ranma with a feigned
punch. Ranma, playing along, feigned a block and when
The Phoenix God pulled his punch at the last second,
brought his right leg up to block Saa Fuu Lang's real
attack - a powerful kick aimed at Ranma's groin. Saa
Fuu Lang grunted, as his leg ground to a halt against
the unexpected obstacle, and Ranma retaliated by
plunging his claws, now powered with ki, into Saa Fuu
Lang's ribcage. He twisted it, tearing apart his
opponent's lungs, to prolong the agony and Saa Fuu
Lang collapsed to his knees at Ranma's feet. Ranma
withdrew his claws, tearing apart flesh and bone as he
did, and summoned a ki blade. He plunged it into the
God-king's throat, half-decapitating him with the
killing stroke.
Still, the Phoenix God refused to die. The wounds
healed just as fast as Ranma inflicted them and Saa
Fuu Lang slashed with his three-clawed hand, digging
deep into Ranma's thigh.
Ranma bit back the reflexive scream of agony that
came unbidden to his lips, ignoring the pain just as
he had been taught. He concentrated beyond it, and
retaliated by dropping to his knees and delivering a
devastating open palmed strike to Saa Fuu Lang's
thorax that completely collapsed his ribcage. Saa Fuu
Lang flew through the air a dozen feet and when he
hit, cart wheeled thrice before coming to a stop some
thirty feet from Ranma. There, he lay wheezing.
Ranma, for his part, cauterized his wounds with hot
ki, never once taking his eyes off his opponent. The
'treatment' hurt just as much as the wound and the
burn wounds would take a lot longer to heal, but now,
he could fight without the threat of dying from blood
loss and that was all that mattered.
Painfully and wearily, Ranma shifted his body into a
fighting stance. The lost of blood had sapped his
strength some and he felt slightly weak. His eyes
warily tracking the movements of The Phoenix God, as
he rose to his feet. The God's crushed ribcage had
healed in the few moments' respite that he had from
the fight and he looked ready and raring to go.
However, before Saa Fuu Lang could take the offensive,
Ranma unleashed a ki powered vacuum blade at his
adversary and jumped high into the air, using the
smoke cloud that sprang up to cover his movements. At
the apex of his jump, Ranma summoned a ki spear in his
hands and dived down, aiming to skewer the God-king
with it.
Saa Fuu Lang, however, had other ideas. He allowed
the vacuum blade to hit him. It exploded, flinging him
away from Ranma and the dust cloud, and allowed Saa
Fuu Lang to spot Ranma in the air. He tracked his
opponent's flight through the air, produced a large
ball of mana and let go.
Ranma tried to dodge, but the ball had only a small
distance to cover and he did not react fast enough.
Mana and ki shield met. There was a brilliant flash of
violet white. It had the intensity of a thousand suns.
Within a fraction of a second from the start of the
explosion, the width of the pass, for a radius of
several hundred feet, expanded by roughly twenty
meters as enormous quantities of granite vaporized. A
huge blast of scorching hot air exploded outwards,
tearing up the ground and sending an enormous fireball
raging into the night sky. The blast met the canyon
walls and vaporized more rock before turning sideways,
as the canyon walls proved too formidable an adversary
to overcome. It continued upwards and to the side,
eventually exiting out of the pass's two entrances and
leaving nothing standing in a straight line for nearly
a mile. When it was all over and the earth finally
stopped shaking, the rough landscape that had once
greeted travelers to the pass had been replaced.
Yet, for all its power, the explosion claimed very
few casualties. The canyon walls had prevented the
worst of the blast from reaching the two armies and
only a few dozen had been lost who were close to the
edge of the canyon walls during the time of the
explosion. It was a fact that both sides were
immensely grateful.
Ranma, for his part, barely survived. His body was a
mass of burns and lacerations, and his right arm was
bent at an unnatural angle just below the elbow.
Still, he survived the explosion, thanks to his ki
shield and all the ki he could muster, though as he
faced the Phoenix God, he knew that the last attack
had tipped the fight decidedly in the God-king's
favor. He had lost, a little voice told him, but Ranma
refused to listen to it. He refused to give up and
die.
'There has to be someway of defeating him,' Ranma
thought, feverishly. Ki attacks were out of the
question, as he had no ki to attack with, and he did
not think that Saa Fuu Lang would be stupid enough to
get into a hand-to-hand fight with him, when he could
just vaporize him with another attack.
"Feeling cocky now?" Saa Fuu Lang sneered. "I'm going
to enjoy beating you to death."
'Okay, maybe he is that stupid,' Ranma thought,
mentally preparing himself to receive the beating of
his life. 'At least, this'll buy me some time to
think...'
Saa Fuu Lang's first punch hit Ranma clean in his
jaw. Ranma staggered at the force of the blow,
blinking at the stars that seemed to sprout out of
nowhere.
'Or maybe not.' The Phoenix God was not physically
strong, but he did not need to be. His mana reserves
more than made up for his physical shortcomings.
"C'mon, Bastard," Saa Fuu Lang screamed. He flexed
his aura, and began to absorb mana from the earth and
the air to replace what he had lost. For all his
bravado, his mana reserves were nearly depleted from
all that regenerating and that last attack, too.
"Fight me."
There was a pattern to the way the God absorbed the
mana, Ranma saw. His mind drifted back to a
conversation he had years back with the Matriarch and
he recalled her words of advice: Your body has learned
to not only generate huge amounts of mana, but also to
manipulate it subconsciously... 'Yes, that's it!' he
thought, excitedly, barely able to keep himself from
screaming in delight. With a great deal of effort, he
managed to remain silent and keep his face neutral,
opening his mouth only to spit in the God-king's face.
Saa Fuu Lang's anger rose to a whole new level. He
summoned a small, non-lethal ball of mana and fired it
at Ranma's chest.
Ranma was too busy observing the patterns in the mana
lines to pay attention to the blast. That proved
costly. The mana ball hit him square in his chest and
threw him hard into the glass walls of the canyon. It
was not a pleasant experience.
"That all you got, Bastard?" he goaded, ignoring his
spikes of pain that shot up his spine, as he struggled
to his feet, his dislocated arm flailing uselessly by
his side.
Saa Fuu Lang frothed in his mouth, too angry to
reply.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Do you even know your mother, or for
that matter, do you even have a father?" Ranma
continued, leeringly.
Saa Fuu Lang's aura darkened considerably at the
remark. He was mighty pissed off and the object of his
anger, Ranma, was right in front of him to vent upon.
Too bad for Ranma.
"Oh, oh!" Ranma muttered, visibly cringing. Still, he
did not take his eyes of Saa Fuu Lang.
Saa Fuu Lang was too far-gone in his berserker rage
to notice. If he had, he would not have stopped
absorbing mana from the air and the land. However, he
did not. He stopped absorbing mana, thereby teaching
Ranma how to stop absorbing mana, and he stepped up to
the dragon, grabbing hold of his neck and choking him.
Ranma struggled against the God's tight grip to no
avail. The God was too strong and he had too little ki
to make any difference.
Finally, when Ranma's lips turned a shade of gray,
Saa Fuu Lang let go. Ranma fell to the ground, gasping
for much needed air.
"Think this is funny now?" Saa Fuu Lang shouted,
kicking Ranma hard on his ribs. "Think I'm funny now?"
he frothed, his eyes promising a great deal of pain
and a slow, agonizing death.
Ranma's eyes watered, as he felt his ribs crack, but
he did not cry out.
Saa Fuu Lang noticed this. He kicked Ranma again.
Ranma coughed up blood, but still did not scream.
Saa Fuu Lang smirked. He summoned another small ball
of mana and fired it at Ranma's feet, flinging the
dragon into the air. Ranma flew through the air and
came crashing down on some particularly jagged looking
pieces of glass. The razor sharp edges of the glass
lanced Ranma's body, perforating it further and
drawing more blood.
Ranma groaned and with a stifled gasp of pain, rolled
over from the glass stakes. He slowly staggered to his
feet. He looked like he had been put through a cheese
grater, but he never took his eyes off Saa Fuu Lang,
and the way he absorbed the mana and manipulated it.
Saa Fuu Lang smirked at Ranma's apparent plight and
closed the distance between them. He spit on Ranma's
face and slapped him, to add insult to injury, and
when Ranma glared back at him, he grabbed hold of
Ranma's neck again and squeezed.
"I'm going to skin you alive, Landling. I'm going to
skin you alive and then, I'm going to roast you over a
nice, hot fire. Moreover, no matter how you plead, I
will not allow you the luxury of death... No, I'll
make you live forever, and I'll force you to watch me
destroy your family and friends. I'll throw your woman
into my dungeons and she'll be my army's whore..."
Saa Fuu Lang did not get any further. Ranma's battle
aura exploded outwards, throwing him with explosive
force into the rock surface on the opposite side of
the canyon. It was composed entirely of mana.
"You shouldn't have said that," Ranma said; whispered
from where he stood. His eyes were closed and his head
lowered in introspection, as he 'felt' his mana for
the first time. All his wounds were healed, too;
thanks to the large quantity of mana he siphoned off
his surroundings in a tiny fraction of a second.
Saa Fuu Lang staggered to his feet. He saw Ranma and
the aura he sported, and his mouth swung wide open. It
worked feverishly, but no sound came out.
Ranma raised his head, his eyes confident and
victorious. He eyes met Saa Fuu Lang's and he smiled,
thoroughly enjoying the expression on the God's face.
The tables had turned once again and this time, he
intended to it keep that way.
"Let me guess," he said, taking slow, deliberate
steps towards the God-king, "you're shocked. Tell you
what, I'd be shocked if I were in your position, too."
"How?" Saa Fuu Lang stammered, finally. His opponent
had been at the very end of his reserves less than a
minute ago and now, he was literally overflowing with
raw power.
Ranma pointed at himself.
"Oh, you're asking how I got his huge aura... Of
mana, no less. Well, I guess there's no harm in
telling you. I'm now a true master of The Art," Ranma
smiled broadly at Saa Fuu Lang, relishing his next few
words, as they escaped his lips, "and it's all because
of you."
Saa Fuu Lang did not understand. How could he have
helped the bastard become a true master of The Art?
Ranma snickered. It was not a pleasant one.
"For a God, you sure are an idiot, do you know that?
You should have killed me when you had that chance,
but, no, you had to get your revenge and you had to
have your say first... You forgot the golden rule of
war, Saa Fuu Lang: Do not give your enemy any
reprieve."
Still, Saa Fuu Lang did not understand.
"I learned how to manipulate mana by seeing you
manipulate it," Ranma smiled, "how's that for irony?
You wanted to kill me real slow and inadvertently made
me immortal."
Pause. Ranma's eyes hardened.
"And now, you're going to regret it," Ranma said.
Ranma's mana amplified his voice so that his words
reverberated across the canyon. "Hear me, Saa Fuu
Lang, Lord of The Phoenix, you'll never again step on
either Musk or Joketsuzoku soil with intent to
conquer. Moreover, you'll take your warriors and go
back to your lands, forever ceasing all aggression
towards my people from this instant. So say I, Ranma
Saotome Qin of the Musk and the Joketsuzoku."
Saa Fuu Lang nodded. He had lost and he knew it.
"If ever you should break your word, I'll kill you in
such a way that you can never be reborn again," Ranma
added.
Saa Fuu Lang nodded in supplication, again. He was
special among the Gods, but like all of them, he, too,
was not immortal in the true sense of the word. He was
merely long-lived, very, very long lived. Ranma, with
his newfound knowledge of mana, had the capacity to
kill him and do a whole lot more.
"Furthermore," Ranma continued, "for threatening the
lives of my family and my people, I sentence you to
death in this life. Die."
Ranma's aura began to spin in the anti-clockwise
direction at an ever-increasing speed. It coruscated
in a brilliant shade of blue with arcs of lightning
flashing across its surface and a wave of super cold
air washed over the glassy walls of the pass, freezing
everything in its path. Thick slabs of ice began to
grow everywhere, and Saa Fuu Lang's flame, his aura,
flickered on and off for a couple of seconds before
abruptly going out. The God-king collapsed to his
knees. His breath came out as a cloud of mist and thin
icicles began to form on his body. Within seconds, he
was frozen solid.
Ranma's aura grew to monstrous proportions, as the
energy he absorbed from the environment rejuvenated
him. Then, suddenly, it fizzled out. Ranma raised a
hand towards Saa Fuu Lang and the God-king's frozen
body exploded, shattering like a very large piece of
glass. The crack of the explosion echoed through the
pass and then, all was silent.
The Phoenix had lost and their enemies, the
Joketsuzoku and the Musk, had won.
***********************************************************************
Three years passed. Lein became pregnant with another
child. Yein Luo detected certain complications during
her third trimester and ordered Lein to stay at home,
which Lein reluctantly did under Ranma's watchful eye.
Still, in spite of all the care she received, Lein
went into labor a month too early.
Ranma walked back and forth in agitation. It had been
three hours since Lein went into labor and the tension
had slowly built up, until, finally, he thought that
he could not bear it any longer. The decreasing pitch
of Lein's voice and the fall in her ki was not helping
matters any, either. Something bad was happening to
his wife and unborn son, and he was helpless to do
anything about it.
Finally, the screams stopped and Ranma turned to look
expectantly at the building. Nearly a minute passed
before Yein Luo walked out of the building. Her hands
were crimson and her expression was pale.
Ranma did not need to look twice at her face to
realize what had happened. Lein and the baby were
dead. Still, he dared to hope and walked towards his
'mother.'
Yein Luo shook her head.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Ranma choked back an anguished cry. His eyes filled
to the brim with tears and he blinked, turned away and
took a deep breath.
Yein Luo took him in her arms to comfort him.
"I'm so sorry, Ranma. I couldn't save them."
Ranma withdrew from the hug. He clasped Yein Luo's
shoulders in his hands and looked deep into her eyes,
searching.
"H... How did they die?" he asked, biting his lips to
stop himself from bursting into tears.
Yein Luo held up her hands and showed it to him.
"She lost too much blood. The baby... My grandson
suffocated before he was even born."
Ranma choked back another cry.
"Can I see her?"
Yein Luo nodded.
Ranma released her and walked inside. Yein Luo's
helpers parted silently for him.
Inside, the room was dimwit with animal fat lamps,
which were scattered just about everywhere. A small
cloud of smoke hung about the room and in the center,
on a stone block, rested Lein. Her face looked
peaceful and serene, though it was a little pale. A
silken cloth covered her up to her chin. She looked
asleep and Ranma convinced himself that Yein Luo had
been lying to him. It was the only possible
explanation, his mind told him. She could not have
died while he was alive and even if she did, she would
have said her goodbyes to him, her husband, first
before closing her eyes forever. The healers must be
playing some sort of sick joke on him and Lein must be
conspiring with them.
"Lein?" Ranma asked, hesitantly, stepping up to her.
She did not reply.
Ranma stepped closer still. He caressed her face with
his fingers and adjusted a stray lock of hair. She was
always concerned about the way her braid looked and he
did not want her to give her any cause for worry when
she woke up; when he woke up. It had to be a dream.
Everything had to be a dream. That was the only
possible explanation. Nothing else made sense. Lein
could not have died.
"Lein?" he asked, again. "It's I, Ranma."
Silence.
"C'mon, Lein, you have to wake up. I... I need you.
Shian needs you," he began to shake her, a little
panic seizing him in its dreadful grip, "c'mon, Lein,
this isn't funny anymore."
Lein did not answer.
Ranma continued to shake her.
Still, no matter how hard he shook her, she did not
reply.
Tears began to flood Ranma's eyes. They cascaded down
his cheeks and onto Lein's forehead.
And yet, she did not wake up.
"Wakeup, Lein! Wakeup!" Ranma was screaming now and
Yein Luo rushed into the room.
She tried to pry him away from his dead wife, but
Ranma did not relent. He just kept screaming and
screaming for Lein to come back.
"Ranma," she said; tried, unsuccessfully, "she's
dead. She can't hear you."
Ranma swung around to face her. His face was set in
stone and his eyes promised death to anyone who dared
say that his wife was dead.
Yein Luo was not cowed down, however. She looked
right back at him, heartfelt compassion in her eyes.
Her hands reached out to him and he swatted them away.
"I don't need your pity," he shouted, "she's not
dead," he continued, shouting his voice hoarse,
"you'll see. She's just sleeping and playing dead.
Tell them you're playing, Lein, tell them," he said
repeatedly, sobbing, "tell them!"
"Please, Ranma," Yein Luo said, laying her hands on
his shoulders.
Ranma swatted the offending hand away.
"Leave me be," he shouted, "leave me be with my
wife." Then, without waiting for a reply, he turned
his attention back to Lein. "Wakeup, Lein. It's I,
Ranma. Wakeup!"
Yein Luo shook her head. Ranma was getting
hysterical, and had to be subdued for his own safety
and for that of other's. She turned towards her
assistants and nodded once. The healers surrounded him
and before Ranma could react, Yein Luo hit all the
sleeping points she knew on his body. With his mastery
of ki and mana, he might have been able to ignore
four, or five of them at once in his present state,
but there was no way he could overcome all sixteen of
them, she thought.
Her decision was justified immediately. Ranma slumped
to the floor, unconscious, and Yein Luo ordered him to
be carried away to Shi Huu's house.
***********************************************************************
Eleven days passed...
"Daddy?"
Ranma turned away from the funeral pyre that was
consuming Lein. His cheeks were streaked with tears.
His eyes were bloodshot from crying for hours on end
and from lack of sleep. He picked up Shian, who, too,
was sniffling and wiped away the tears in her eyes
tenderly with his fingers.
"Yes, Angel."
"I want momma," Shian said between sniffles.
According to Joketsuzoku beliefs, the dear ones of a
dead person were not allowed near, or to take part in
the building of the funeral mound except to light the
fire. As such, Shian had not seen the Joketsuzoku
warriors dressed in ceremonial garb cover Lein, his
Lein, with wood.
Ranma choked back a sob.
"Momma's gone, Angel. She won't be coming back."
"But I want to see her..."
"Me, too, Angel," Ranma paused, choking back more
sobs, "momma's gone... Momma's gone to heaven."
"Oh," Shian's face brightened a little, "can we go to
heaven, too, Daddy?" Momma had told her that heaven
was the most wonderful place in the world and if momma
had gone there, she wanted to go there, too.
Ranma had to look but once into his daughter's eyes
before he started crying. The dam burst open and he
sobbed, clutching his daughter very close to his
heart.
"No, Angel, we cannot."
"But I want to see momma," Shian said, sniffling.
Ranma wiped his tears with his free hand and pulled
away from the hug just enough to look Shian in her
eyes.
"Close your eyes, Angel. Imagine momma holding you.
Can you see her?"
Shian nodded.
"Then there's no reason to cry now, is there?" wiping
his and her face, and putting on a fake smile. "You
can see momma anytime you want. Momma might have left
us, Angel, but she's always there with us, in our
hearts. We can visit her anytime we want there."
Shian nodded. Her sniffles died down, and she put her
arms around her daddy, hugging him and resting her
head on his shoulders.
Ranma patted Shian's head affectionately for a couple
of minutes. Then, seeing the mourning party approach
him, he set her down and she ran after one of her
friends to play. Most of the mourners had filtered
away, not bothering to wait past the lighting of the
pyre, but a few, including Shi Huu and Yein Luo, were
left. Ranma turned towards them, immensely grateful
for their being there when he needed their help most.
"Thank you," he said, trying to sound polite. As he
spoke, his shoulders drooped and his voice filled with
sorrow, "for helping me with everything this last
fortnight. I'm immensely grateful for it."
"We did what a friend was supposed to do, Ranma," one
of the women, Guu Luu, a close friend of Lein's, said.
"Still," Ranma replied, "I'm immensely grateful.
Thank you all, once again," he said and turned towards
the priest who began Lein's last rites. Pretty soon,
he, too, finished and everyone trickled back to his or
her homes, some slower than the others did.
Months passed. Ranma slipped into deep depression. He
was animated whenever he was with Shian, but everyone
in the village could tell that the spark had gone out
of his eyes. He stopped taking classes and teaching
Shian and Shi Huu had to take over her training for
him. She and Yein Luo tried to get him out of the rut,
but Ranma had just stopped caring about the world
around him and no matter what they did, they could not
make him respond to them, or warm up to the world
around him. He was, for all purposes, a broken man who
wandered the streets late at night, crying like a
little child.
Still, the days passed slowly by and Shian grew up to
become a beautiful young woman. She grew up into one
of the most promising young warriors amongst the
Joketsuzoku. The Elders took notice of her talents and
recruited her into the Guard, a prerequisite for a
seat in The Council. She fell in love with a young man
named Muu Su in her twentieth year and married him.
Two years later, she gave birth to a beautiful baby
boy.
The arrival of his grandson, Huang Qi, into the world
seemed for a time to bring Ranma out of his
depression, but scarcely six months after his
grandson's birth, Ranma announced his intention to
leave the village on a pilgrimage of sorts. Shian
refused to let him go and so did The Council and the
Matriarch, but Ranma could not be swayed from his
decision. He prepared for his journey and bid his
farewells to his friends and relatives.
"Goodbye, Angel," Ranma said, smiling feebly at
Shian. Her face was teary, he noticed. He barely could
hold back the tears himself.
Shian sniffled, cradling her son in her arms, and
looked past Ranma at the very thin looking backpack
that he had prepared for the journey. Even now, she
told herself, there was still a chance that she could
convince him to stay.
"Must you, Daddy?" she asked, pleadingly.
Ranma took a deep breath.
"This village... Everything in it, it reminds me of
your mother... I see her in you, in my grandson's
face, in the house, in the street, in the trees, in my
sleep, in my waking hours... I see her every second
and I can bear it no longer. It's driving me mad,
Angel, the knowledge that she's dead and I'm not...
That I'll never be... That I can never be with her
again... Never touch her face; never see her smiling
face... Never see her smile at me... I... I... I
stayed here all these years because of you. Now,
you're grown up and you have a family of your own...
There's... There's no reason for me to remain here any
longer," he stammered, his voice raw with emotion.
"Isn't your grandson reason enough?" she asked,
holding out her son to him.
"I so much want to see him grow up... Believe me,
there's nothing in the world that I want more, but...
I cannot. If I remain in the village and watch him
grow up, I'll see you grow old... I cannot even think
what would happen when you grow old..." Ranma trailed
off. Tears were streaking down his cheeks now. He did
not want to see his daughter die. Seeing his wife die
had been torture enough. He did not want to see his
daughter die!
Shian gently wiped the tears from his cheeks with her
fingers. She put her index finger on his lips and
silenced him.
"It's okay, Daddy. I understand. I won't stop you."
Ranma nodded, tenderly hugging his daughter, lest he
crush the precious cargo she bore.
"Thank you," he whispered. His voice was raw with
emotion.
He kissed his daughter and his grandson one last
time, and turned to face the rest of the crowd that
had gathered to see him off.
"I'd better going then. Honored Matriarch..." Ranma
said, bowing to Shi Huu.
The Matriarch returned the gesture as formally as was
possible. On straightening, she and Ranma exchanged
glances one last time and she nodded at him. Ranma
returned it. He turned towards the others, and one by
one, bid his farewells to his friends and family.
Finally, there was only one person left. Muu Su.
Ranma looked at him and nodded.
"Take care of them," he said.
Muu Su nodded in reply.
"Don't worry. I will protect them with my life."
Ranma nodded once in reply and hugged his son-in-law.
Then, having already bid adieu to everyone else and
with no one else to go, he bent down, picked up his
backpack and shouldered it. He hugged his daughter and
his grandson one last time, then left the village
without once looking back.
***********************************************************************
Once outside Joketsuzoku lands, Ranma hitchhiked west
across the mountains. For the next three years, he
wandered from place to place, never staying at a
location for more than a week and even then, only to
earn some money. Towards the start of the fourth year,
he met a group of monks. They were busy building a
monastery and Ranma, having grown tired of the
pointless wandering, decided to help them in its
construction. For fifty years, he stayed with them,
helping them in their endeavors and learning from them
what he could. Finally, towards the end of his
fifty-second year in the monastery, having found his
inner peace once again, he set out on his own.
He walked across China, a silent spectator of the
evils of the era, until finally, he could bear it no
longer. He joined the Chinese Emperor's mercenary
force, which was entrusted with the task of keeping
the law in the backwaters of the country and there, he
shone, raking up more kills than anyone else in his
battalion. For fifty years, he lived the life of a
warrior, wandering from place to place battling
would-be usurpers, thieves, murderers and bandits, and
during this time, he amassed a fortune in gold and
precious gems.
Finally, realizing that one man alone can never
triumph over evil and that evil is as much a part of
life as good, Ranma left the army. He decided to
settle down and bought a house in the capital. He
spent a century as a student of The Art, learning what
he could from masters of both The Healing and The
Fighting Arts. Still, his thirst for knowledge, as
well as his wanderlust refused to leave him, and
towards the time of The Crucifixion, he left the
Chinese mainland for Hindustan, that ancient homeland
of the Hindus. [3]
Through Tibet and up the Himalayas, he walked, until
at last, he entered the Gangetic plain and there, he
sought out the wisest masters of The Art. He spent
centuries traversing the four corners of Hindustan,
honing his mastery of pressure points, ki and mana to
levels that was considered impossible by even the Wise
Ones of the Joketsuzoku. He mastered Art forms so
deadly that to know them was to forever court Death
and hold her in one's hands. At the end of three
centuries of wandering, he settled down in Magadha,
the capital of the Gupta Dynasty, at the dawn of the
Golden Age of Indian civilization, as a pearl
merchant. His wealth increased to yet higher levels,
and as he spent the days living the life of a pampered
trader, Ranma fell in love with the land and its
people.
Towards the end of a very prosperous hundred years as
a trader, the Huns attacked, overthrowing the Gupta
dynasty and laying waste to its capital. Ranma watched
the massacre of the innocents from the sidelines,
saving those he could. When the sack of the city was
complete, he left the ruined legacy of the Gupta's
behind and traveled onwards, continuing his eternal
search for knowledge, wealth and wisdom.
To the north he walked, eventually crossing the
Gangetic plains and the Himalayas. He crossed into
China and settled along The Silk Route, as a trader.
Wealth and power came to him, and even though his
fortune increased manifold, there was always a vacuum
in his heart that refused to be fulfilled. That vacuum
was his wanderlust, and it grew and grew, until
finally, Ranma heeded its call. He left the Chinese
mainland and traveled across the seas to the land of
his birth: Japan.
The court of Japan was plagued by intrigues and plots
of all sorts, and the emperor was powerless to stop
the infighting, as his own power base decreased by the
day. Eventually, the land descended into full-blown
civil war and Ranma, unwilling to take part in a feud
he was not involved in, wandered from one corner of
the country to another for the better part of a
century. He learnt under the masters of The Art and
when the time came to leave the land of his birth
behind, he returned to China, whose four corners he
wandered about, once again.
For the next five centuries, he shied away from human
contact, preferring the solitude of the forests to
human company. He wandered across age-old paths, his
footsteps were never unsure, until he reached his old
home along The Silk Route. There, among the ruins, he
rested for a month, before heading off towards Europe,
where he hoped to find a better world.
His hopes were not realized.
The grass there was the same as the grass he had
trodden on for centuries, and the men and women no
better. Hoping to find solace, he joined one of the
monasteries, but here, too, he did not find the peace
that had eluded him for most of his life. As it was,
thousands and thousands of long days doing nothing but
praying to the good Lord, and singing his hymns
finally broke Ranma's large well of patience and his
indomitable resolve. He turned tail, and ran from the
monks and their ways, swearing never again to don the
robes of a priest. [4]
Luckily, before the other monks could catch and
exorcise the 'devil' from his soul, Ranma snuck abroad
a galleon that was getting ready to put out to sea.
The ship was on a voyage to England, he learnt soon
afterwards from her captain. Once on dry land, Ranma
spent several months learning the native language and
customs as a porter, before he became confident enough
to set out on his own. He became a merchant, making
financial decisions, some wise and some foolish, and
his wealth increased yet again. His wanderlust, always
persistent and always at the back of his mind,
increased during this time, until it became too great
to bear. When the day came when he could control it no
longer, he packed up his belongings and secured
passage on a ship headed to China. He arrived at his
destination full of joy and hope for a bright future,
only to find the Chinese monarchy in decline and the
country under siege by both European nations as well
as the Americans.
Disillusioned with the state of affairs in the land
he now considered his homeland, Ranma turned his eyes
east towards Japan. The inner turmoil's that had torn
the country apart during his last visit were long past
and Ranma, whose business sense had been honed by
hundreds of years of bargaining with some of the
shrewdest merchants ever, saw the immense potential of
the new Japanese economy. Accordingly, he invested a
hefty portion of his wealth in burgeoning Japanese
businesses.
Barely half a decade into his stay in Japan, his eyes
drifted to the western world and under the guise of a
modern businessman, Ranma returned to Europe. He
invested even more of his wealth in businesses there
and set out for the first time towards the land of
opportunities, the United States of America, where he
settled for the next fifty years. His wealth grew, but
so did his loathing for the petty feuds and power
struggles that so often embroiled the war-plagued
western hemisphere. He knew that it was the same
everywhere, but the way the west went about it with
chemical weapons and the lot struck a chord in him.
The loathing grew and grew, until finally, he could
bear it no more and he left the shores of America for
'greener pastures.'
Like a long lost lover returning to be unified with
her soul mate, Ranma returned post haste to India,
hoping to find the proud people he fell in love with
once. To his dismay, India, too, had fallen prey to
the allure of the West's industrial prowess. It had
become a nation under bonds and its people were a mere
shadow of their former selves, quite unlike their
proud ancestors from the days of the Guptas.
Disgusted, yet again by the state of affairs, Ranma
retreated once more into the forests of India where he
found peace and solitude that had been lacking in his
life for centuries. Unfortunately, the peace did not
last long. The Second World War was just around the
corner and even though Ranma tried to ignore the
obvious signs of turmoil at his doorsteps, it did not
take long before it knocked at his door. Appalled by
man's inhumanity towards man, Ranma refused to take
sides in the conflict and could only watch in
horrified silence, the two war-camp's complete and
utter disregard for the lives of innocents. He
traveled extensively during the years of the conflict,
moving from one neutral country to another, until the
war came to an abrupt end with the dropping of the two
Atom bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Immediately, Ranma returned to Japan, intent on
helping rebuild the economy into the juggernaut it
once was. His efforts were aided by the Americans and
Ranma, grateful for their help, invested more of his
wealth in their country, boosting their already
booming economy to even higher levels. Around 1950,
Ranma, his business in America concluded, returned to
the land of his birth. He bought a nice little house
and a small farm in a quiet neighborhood in rural
Japan, and settled there under an assumed name. For
the next fifty years, he lived the life of an ordinary
farmer, leaving the country only infrequently to check
up on his investments in Europe and the Americas.
Present day...
A lone pathway across the Bayankala Mountain ranges
in the Qinghai province of China...
Ranma walked briskly across the beaten path,
whistling a soft tune to himself. It had been over two
thousand years since last, he stepped on tribe lands,
and he could not wait to see the village again. Of
course, he could have visited his Joketsuzoku family
sooner, but it had taken him a thousand years just to
think of Lein without breaking down and it had taken
him a thousand more to will himself to visit the
village of her birth, their home.
He knew that he would never get over his loss and had
long since accepted the pain that came with her death
as an integral part of who he was. Still, even though
he had long been psychologically strong enough to bear
the return to the village, he had procrastinated it
out of fear and trepidation. It was irrational, he
knew, his fear, but as trained as his mind was, it was
not always rational, especially when memories of his
days with his wife and daughter were involved, and as
such, he put off the intended visits, until finally,
he could wait no longer.
Even now, committed, as he was to his path, Ranma, as
he inched that much closer to the village, could not
help but feel the familiar sense of trepidation spurt
and grow in his heart. He pushed it down, recognizing
it, as an irrational thing - a figment of his
imagination. The dye had been cast and he would be
damned if he did not play the hand fate had dealt him.
Once on familiar grounds, Ranma relaxed and as he
approached The Pools, allowed himself a momentary
reflection on the familiar traces of magic. 'Two
thousand years have gone by and the magic of The Pools
are as strong as ever,' he thought, as he walked down
the cliff overlooking The Cursed Springs to the
Guardian's shelter, a small palm-thatched hut.
Slow to begin with, Ranma's steps quickened, as he
crossed the distance between the Guardian's hut and
himself. Something was amiss, his gut told him, and
never having had reason to distrust it before, Ranma
did not question his instincts now. If his gut told
him something was wrong, it must be.
Only when he entered the valley, did Ranma see the
reason for his disturbance. The Pools were all dried
up and he peered into one, out of curiosity, to see
how deep it was, before briskly walking to the
Guardian's front door. He knocked on the door and
waited patiently for the Guardian to open it.
"Umm... Hi, are you the Guardian?" Ranma asked, when
after nearly a minute of silence, a fat, short man
dressed in People's Army fatigues opened it.
The Guardian, or rather, the guide, as he was
commonly referred to, examined Ranma from head to toe,
searching for some marking that would identify the
stranger as either Joketsuzoku or Musk, for only they
referred to him by his official title. He found none.
"Umm... Yes, Mr. Customer. Do I know you?" he asked.
Ranma shook his head, once.
"No, I'm afraid you do not," Ranma said politely,
"can you tell me about The Pools?"
"What about them?" the Guardian asked, a trace of
annoyance creeping into his voice. "You aren't
planning on taking a swim in them, are you?' he then
asked dubiously.
"Swim?" Ranma laughed. "No, I do not plan on taking a
swim in The Cursed Springs. Not at all, Guardian. I'm
interested in the pools for a very different reason."
"Oh!" the Guardian said, heaving a breath of relief.
Then, his features darkened, "what do you want to know
about The Pools, Mr. Customer?" he asked.
"Only this: What happened to them? Why are they dried
up?"
"Tragic story, Mr. Customer..." the Guardian began,
only to have Ranma stop him in mid-sentence.
"Guardian, I'd be most grateful if you'd tell me the
story without embellishments. I'm not a customer per
se and I would like it if you'd be polite enough to
cut out the sales pitch," Ranma said tritely. It was a
little blunt, he knew, his speech, but Ranma had seen
enough salesmen to recognize a sales pitch at first
glance and the Guardian was undoubtedly trying to sell
him the story.
The Guardian stopped and stared at Ranma for the
longest moment.
"Who are you?" he asked finally.
Ranma smiled enigmatically.
"No one," he answered.
"Well, Mr. No One, I can't help you in your quest,"
the Guardian said and moved to close the door.
"Oh, but you can and you are going to, 'Guardian,'"
Ranma said sweetly, blocking the door with his hand,
"just think about your duty to the Joketsuzoku and the
Musk, and what they'd do if you ever were dimwitted
enough to renege on the solemn words your ancestors
made to The Council and the Emperor."
"I... Who are you?" the Guardian asked after several
moments of silence.
"Like I said, I'm no one, Guardian. Are you going to
tell me about The Pools, or..." Ranma left the rest of
the sentence hanging, leaving it up to the Guardian to
fill in the rest of the gruesome details with his
mind.
"I... All right," the Guardian nodded in defeat.
"Excellent. I knew you'd see reason," Ranma said, a
little smile of satisfaction adorning his face,
"So..."
"The Pools dried up about a day and a half ago. I
believe it was the bird-people from Phoenix Mountain
who're responsible for its disappearance."
"Go on," Ranma nodded. He had guessed as much. Saa
Fuu Lang needed the mana rich waters to overflow his
mana reserves and ascend to his adult form.
"They also stole one of my precious family
heirlooms."
"Oh," Ranma said, letting just enough interest leak
into his voice to cajole the Guardian into revealing
more.
"It had been in my family for generations and..."
"And what exactly is this 'it?' Ranma asked.
"The map to the source of The Cursed Springs..."
Ranma held up his hand, making the Guardian pause.
"Tell me, how does taking what is rightfully yours
constitute an act of thievery?"
"Huh?"
"C'mon, be truthful. I know as well as you do that
the map was and always has been the property of The
Phoenix. Are you telling me that you never read the
lore of your ancestors about this valley?" he asked.
"Well, it was theirs, I accept. It was theirs until
five hundred years ago when a Phoenix sold it to one
of my ancestors. It has been in my family ever since.
What have you to say about that?" the Guardian replied
in a confronting tone, trying to get the momentum on
his side.
"Nothing," Ranma replied, smiling enigmatically and
stalling the Guardian's offensive with his unexpected
reply, "don't let me stop your narration. Do go on."
"So I sent my daughter to the Land of the Wa to get
some help..."
"Help?" Ranma asked, interrupting the Guardian once
again. "Why didn't you go The Council with your case?"
"Because they wouldn't have helped, that's why...
Anyways, The Pools ought to return to their former
glory within the week. So, there's no need to worry
about that."
Ranma nodded.
"What makes you so sure of that?" he asked. The lore
said that it'd be at least a month before The Pools
return to normal. The Second Birth took a lot of mana,
and it'd be a month or more before the waters could
reabsorb all that lost mana from the air and regain
its potency.
"My daughter returned a week ago with the help I had
summoned from the Land of the Wa. They have gone to
the Phoenix Mountain to retrieve the map," he said,
smugly.
Ranma looked at the Guardian for a long time as if he
had grown a horn on his head. Finally, he spoke.
"What in the devil made you do that? You wanted to
kill your daughter or something?" he asked, his voice
slow and seething with restrained fury.
"I..."
"Do you realize what you've done?" Ranma continued
accusingly. He paid no attention to what the Guardian
had to say. "You have fired the opening shots of the
first Joketsuzoku-Musk-Phoenix war in over two
thousand years, that's what! God Almighty," he said in
an uncharacteristic show of emotion, "whatever made
you do it?"
"I... I... I don't know what you're talking about,"
the Guardian stuttered.
Ranma eyed the Guardian critically. He was telling
the truth.
"What kind of Guardian are you?" he asked. "You seek
to guard The Pools and yet, you seem to know nothing
about its history, and even worse, you know not the
relation between The Pools and The Phoenix."
The Guardian did not reply, wisely choosing to keep
his mouth shut.
"Tell me," Ranma asked, "did you, or did you not
learn the lore?"
"I did," the Guardian said, "I learnt everything
there was from what remained of them."
"Remained?"
"Yes. About a hundred years ago, most of my
ancestor's records were lost during a freak fire that
destroyed his house and most of his library."
Ranma rubbed his forehead, his eyes closed in deep
thought. He just knew that he was going to have a huge
headache before the day was out.
"Which way did they go?"
"I told you," the Guardian said, "I sent them to
Phoenix mountain."
Ranma shifted his fingers from his forehead to his
eyes, rubbing them wearily and looking as if the
weight of the whole world rested on his shoulders.
"Your daughter and her friends are most probably dead
by now, and The Phoenix army is probably marching
against the Joketsuzoku and the Musk even as we
speak," he announced offhandedly, "this is not the
homecoming I was expecting."
"Huh?"
"You should have consulted The Council before you
sent for help. Do you even know the true extent of Saa
Fuu Lang's power? He is one of the most powerful of
the Gods, and you just sent your daughter and her
friends to steal from him what he considers his
rightful property... How long do you think they'll
survive against an angry God?"
"I... I'm sorry," the Guardian whispered, staggering
back, "I didn't know." His feet gave out and he fell
on a heap to the ground.
Ranma stepped into the hut and guided the Guardian to
his chair.
"There may be hope yet," he said, "so, pull yourself
together."
The Guardian looked up, his eyes full of hope.
"You mean it?" he asked.
Ranma nodded and closed his eyes. Wisps of
fluorescent blue began to dance around his body, and
he remained motionless for a few seconds as he located
and scanned the ki of the 'help crew.' Finally, he
opened his eyes.
"Consider yourself lucky, Guardian. Your daughter and
her friends are unharmed, though I don't know for how
long they'll remain so. They are within Phoenix
Mountain and if I hurry, I might even save them before
they do something rash."
"You'll save my girl?" the Guardian asked with
hopeful eyes.
Ranma nodded.
"Yes, I will."
"Thank you. Thank you," the Guardian repeated
fervently, his voice filled with immense gratitude.
"Say your thanks when I have returned your daughter
to you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go rescue
her," Ranma said and with a polite bow walked out of
the door. Once outside, he took to the air and sped
off towards Phoenix Mountain.
***********************************************************************
Ranma arrived at Phoenix Mountain half an hour later.
Expecting armed resistance, he cloaked himself with a
ki technique he had learnt a thousand years before in
Japan and looked around for the least guarded entrance
into the mountain. He was surprised to see that all
the entrances, save the ones at ground level were
unguarded. Not one to look a gift horse in its mouth,
Ranma silently thanked the Gods for the small bit of
good fortune, and began the search for the Guardian's
daughter and her friends.
He did not have to search for long, as the sounds of
a large battle reverberated across the passageways,
drawing him to their source. It looked like Saa Fuu
Lang had reached his adulthood and now was very pissed
at the intruders who had dared trespass into his
domain. Ranma rushed through the passageways to the
scene of battle and de-cloaked himself, only to find
that he need not have been in a hurry. Now that his ki
senses were not constrained by the technique, he could
tell that Saa Fuu Lang was weak, much weaker than when
Ranma and he fought, and he was growing weaker with
the passing of each second. If his condition kept
deteriorating at the rate it currently was, the
God-king would not survive the day.
Sure, the God-king's attacks were no laughing matter
as they still packed quite a punch, but they were
nowhere near as powerful as the ones Ranma faced two
thousand years before. Furthermore, it did not help
Saa Fuu Lang's cause any, the fact that he was in a
berserk rage. Apparently, the God-king's young
opponent had damaged Saa Fuu Lang's Second Birth
cocoon evoking the God's ire and was even now, goading
the Phoenix king into even higher levels of fury by
taunting him relentlessly. The boy maneuvered away
from the mana blasts that the God-king shot in
retaliation and occasionally rushed in to deal Saa Fuu
Lang a crippling blow.
Ranma narrowed his eyes at the brown-haired boy.
There seemed to be something strange about him that he
could not quite place and his ki seemed familiar
somehow. He shrugged off the feeling of deja vu,
allowing himself to relax a little and enjoy the
experience.
'I needn't have worried about these people, after
all. They seem quite capable and at the rate Saa Fuu
Lang's going, he'd end up burning himself out within
the hour,' Ranma thought. He leaned against the rock
face and bemusedly surveyed the battleground. There
were some minor conflicts brewing here and there, and
if their progress was anything like the main fight, he
need not interfere at all.
The first to catch Ranma's attention, mainly because
he was fighting nearest to Saa Fuu Lang and his young
opponent, was a bandanna-clad powerhouse of a boy, who
overcame all show of resistance by virtue of brute
strength alone. From the way the boy shrugged off
blows that would have felled any mortal man, Ranma
surmised that he had been taught the Bakusai Tenketsu
technique. The revelation came as a surprise, for the
Joketsuzoku had strict rules about teaching outsiders
their techniques, just like the Musk, and the boy was
definitely an outsider.
'Looks like a lot has changed since I left the
village,' Ranma thought to himself and shrugged,
silently filing away the information for later use. He
would worry about the changes in the Joketsuzoku
society later. Now, he had a serious fight to watch
and enjoy.
It was then that Ranma noticed a two-foot Wise One
with well-focused ki mowing through the Phoenix ranks.
Those who stood in her path were quickly overpowered
and knocked unconscious, and as Ranma watched the
seemingly random movements of her body, he began to
appreciate the skill that she possessed.
'She's most probably the Matriarch... Hmm... Her ki
and mana tastes familiar... Yes, of course,' Ranma
thought, excitedly, wanting to half slap himself for
not having seen it sooner, 'she's my great, great
something granddaughter! I wonder what she's doing
here, fighting besides these outsiders, though. And
perhaps I can train her... And that little
brown-haired rascal, too. They both have the
potential...'
Shrugging off the thoughts from his mind, which
seemed intent on wandering from one subject to
another, Ranma resumed his survey of the battlefield.
He sensed two men, both in their middle ages and both
martial artists, next and turned his attention towards
them. One was mustached and Japanese, and the other
was bald, pot-bellied and Japanese. Moustache was
crying over the dehydrated body of a girl who was fast
dying, and Baldy was standing over him, taking down
any Phoenix who got too close to Moustache and the
dying girl in a remarkable display of skill that
belied his appearance.
Ranma shook his head. It was obvious, the cause of
the girl's predicament. The children must have pissed
off Saa Fuu Lang a great deal to warrant such an
arcane form of punishment. 'Hmm... Perhaps I should
start a conversation with the Matriarch. Let's see,
she should be able to sense this,' Ranma thought,
initiating a probe of the Matriarch's ki. He had
learnt long before that it was never a good idea to
enter a battle without precise knowledge and the
Matriarch was as good a source as any.
The results were immediate. The Matriarch came to an
abrupt stop. She made short work of her opponent and
turned towards Ranma.
"Who are you?" she asked, giving him her undivided
attention. The vaguely familiar looking boy had used a
ki probing technique that was known only to a handful
of people amongst the Musk and the Joketsuzoku, and
she meant to find out exactly how he had come to learn
it.
Ranma smiled.
"Come, Honored One," he said, taking a step forward
and seeming as if he was not paying any attention to
his surroundings. A lone Phoenix guard noticed it and
tried to sneak an attack on Ranma from the side. He
was greeted at the very last second with a straight
fist to his face. The guard flew through the air, hit
the rock face and collapsed, senseless. Ranma took
another step forward, not even taking a moment to
survey his opponent. "Do you not recognize me?"
Guu Long shook her head, imperceptibly, keeping her
eyes on the boy. Whoever he was, he was no ordinary
man. She had not even seen his fist move when he took
out the guard. One second, it hung limp at his side
and the next, it was embedded into the man's face.
"I'm sure I'd remember you if I had met you before.
Who taught you that ki probe?" she replied; asked.
"Oh, but we have never met face to face," Ranma
replied with an enigmatic smile. He was sure that they
still kept that stupid statue of his likeness carved
out of jade by Guu Lin somewhere safe in the village.
It had been crafted soon after the victory over The
Phoenix.
Guu Long's eyes narrowed.
"You haven't answered my question."
"Who taught me the ki probe, you mean?"
Nod.
"No one."
Guu Long's eyes narrowed further. She was not in a
playful mood.
"Don't play with me, Child. You know not who you deal
with!"
"On the contrary, Honored One, I think I do. Are you
not the Matriarch of the Joketsuzoku? Are you not a
descendant of The Dragon?"
Guu Long's eyes widened. For an outsider to know her
station in the village was bad enough, but for an
outsider to know the legends of The Dragon and her
relation to him was unpardonable. Even though the
Joketsuzoku and the Musk societies were not as
secretive and rigid as they were during the time of
The Dragon, they still valued their privacy, and the
boy standing before her was confirmation that privacy
was no longer theirs. Whatever happened, heads were
going to roll when she returned to the village.
"What do you know about The Dragon? Who told you
about The Dragon?"
Ranma's lips curved upwards in a small smile.
"I know everything about Ranma Saotome Qin," he
replied, softly.
Guu Long stifled a gasp of surprise.
"And..." she asked, trying to look nonchalant and
failing miserably.
"Come now, Honored One," he said, jovially, "Can you
still not tell who I am?"
She shook her head. Why was she getting a funny
feeling in the depths of her stomach all of a sudden?
"But the clues are all around you. My knowledge about
The Dragon and my mastery of the technique he taught
your tribe..."
Still, Guu Long's mind did not make the connection.
"I'm your grandfather, Honored One. I'm The Dragon."
That brought up Guu Long short. Suddenly, his face,
which had been vaguely recognizable but implacable
until then, became familiar. She had seen it dozens of
times on the jade statue stored in the village armory.
However, she told herself, the boy standing in front
of her could not be him, The Dragon. The Dragon, her
venerable grandfather, had not visited the Joketsuzoku
in over two thousand years. Why would he want to visit
them now? Obviously, some blabbermouth in the village
had leaked the legend to outsiders along with a photo
of the statue, and the boy who stood before her was a
spy from the People's Army sent to infiltrate The
Council and weaken it.
"You lie!" she said, firmly. She sounded very
convinced.
Ranma sighed.
"Then how do you explain my face? It's obvious that
you recognize it now."
Guu Long smirked. If he thought that the Joketsuzoku
were unaware of the happenings in the outside world
and that he could easily fool her, he was wrong.
"Plastic surgery," she proclaimed, as if everything
was explained by those two words.
"Huh?" Ranma asked. Why was she blabbing about
plastic surgery all of a sudden?
"Don't think that you can fool me," Guu Long
pronounced, victoriously, "It's obvious that you're
from the People's Army. You must have snuck a photo of
The Dragon out of the village and then used plastic
surgery to mould your face in his resemblance."
Ranma blinked. His granddaughter had a healthy
imagination, even for a Matriarch, he had to give her
that.
"Then, how, pray tell, do you explain the ki probe
and my knowledge of your ancestry?"
"That's very easy," Guu Long proclaimed. She really
was on a romp now. "There's a traitor in the village
working with the People's Army! Don't think that you
can fool us, Liar. We..."
Before she could proceed any further, Ranma closed
the distance between Guu Long and himself in the blink
of an eye with every intention of beating some sense
into her wayward imagination. He succeeded.
Twap!
Mrs. Head, meet Mr. Knuckles.
Guu Long looked as if she were about to blow a fuse.
Ranma hit a pressure point on her and paralyzed her
before she could.
"Insolent child, calling your ancestor a liar!" he
said, indignantly. "Why can't you just accept the
truth instead of deluding yourself with lies. People's
Army, indeed!"
Guu Long glared at him.
"You still don't believe me?" he asked her aloud,
knowing that she could not answer. "Well, I have means
of making you believe me. Can a People's Army impostor
do this?" he asked, shifting to his hybrid form for a
couple of moments and reverting back. "Or, can a
People's Army impostor do this?" he asked, releasing
her from the pressure point and pointing towards the
main battle.
She turned. She saw that Saa Fuu Lang bore a mana
ball in his hands and was aiming it at the
brown-haired boy, who was still taunting him. Ranma
produced a small ball of mana in his hands and flung
it between the two opponents. It rocketed through the
cavern in the wink of an eye and exploded, flinging
the two dueling warriors apart.
Both of them were up on their feet instantly, looking
around angrily for the one who had interrupted their
fight.
"Hello, Saa Fuu Lang," he said, waving his hands. His
voice, amplified by his mana, boomed across the
cavern, "long time no see."
Time stopped.
Every eye in the cavern turned to look at the smiling
intruder; stranger, sporting a nasty looking aura of
blue white.
Saa Fuu Lang saw him, too. It took a few seconds, but
in the end, his mind made the connection. The look of
righteous fury that he had sported just a few moments
fell and his face turned deathly pale. He knew whose
voice it was. It was that thrice-damned landling.
Ranma cleared his throat.
"Yes," he said, sarcastically, taking a step forward,
"I'm delighted to see you, too. How fare you, Saa Fuu
Lang?"
Saa Fuu Lang's jaws worked, but no sound came out. A
Phoenix guard tried to charge Ranma, but Ranma shot a
displeased look in his direction. The guard screamed,
as if something powerful hit him, and was flung
through the air into the walls of the cavern. Ranma
turned his attention back to the God and continued
towards him, his steps slow and measured.
"Oh, don't bother," Ranma continued halfway, "I can
tell you're not doing well." He narrowed his eyes.
"And if you can't come up with a very good explanation
for this mess, things are going to turn a whole lot
worse, real soon," he said pleasantly. His eyes
narrowed even further. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I
remember telling you to keep your hands off the
Joketsuzoku and the Musk, Saa Fuu Lang. Yet, when I
drop by to say hello, I discover that you haven't kept
your word. Do your words mean nothing, Saa Fuu Lang?
Are you honorless?"
Saa Fuu Lang's flame, his aura, flickered out as the
God-king quenched it. He took one hesitant step toward
Ranma, then another. His resolve seemed to strengthen
with each step as his confidence returned to him. He
was afraid of the landling, yes, but he was not going
to show it. He was a God and Gods do not fear mortals.
"You dare accuse me of breaking my word?" he began,
boldly, indignantly. "You dare accuse me when it is
the Joketsuzoku who have broken their word!"
Ranma's face remained neutral.
"Explain," he ordered the God-king.
"She," Saa Fuu Lang pointed to Guu Long, "broke into
my domain and she attacked my soldiers. These," he
waved his hands at the Matriarch's 'support' crew,
"hooligans disrupted by Second Birth and because they
did, my people will starve to death. Does that not
break your word to my people?" he asked. [5]
Ranma turned towards Guu Long.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Honored One?"
"These children came to the village," she pointed
towards the 'support' crew, "and asked me to help them
fight the God-king. The Council and I refused."
"Then why are you here?"
"I followed them here without their knowing as an
observer. To make sure that they do not get themselves
killed..."
"Hey," the brown-haired boy interrupted, indignantly,
"we can take care o' ourselves!"
Ranma turned towards the boy and shot him a look. The
boy opened his mouth to say something, but before he
could, he saw the look on Ranma's face. It was enough
to convince him that discretion was the better part of
valor and he quickly shut his mouth.
"Go on, Honored One."
"However, by the time I arrived here, it was too late
and the battle between the God-king and Ryuu," she
pointed to the brown-haired boy, "had already began.
"I stood in that corner over there with the intent of
observing the proceedings peacefully. It was my hope
that I could intervene and save them should they get
into trouble. As my luck would have it, one of the
Phoenix guards," she searched the battlefield and
identified her first assailant. He lay senseless where
she knocked him down, "attacked me and I was forced to
defend myself. And before I knew it, I, too, was knee
deep in this mess."
Ranma nodded and drummed his lips.
"One thing I do not understand, Honorable One. Why
would these people come to you?" he asked.
"I taught him," she pointed again to the brown-haired
boy, "for three years. Obviously, he thought that he
could enlist the Joketsuzoku's help in clearing up
this mess."
"Obviously, he was wrong," Ranma said, his voice
hardening a little, "why did The Council not inform
him of the map's true owner? It seems to me that a
great deal of trouble would have been avoided if you
had revealed to these people that little bit of
information."
Guu Long shrugged.
"That information was only on a need to know basis,
and he did not need to know."
Ranma sighed. Politics. The bane of his life. He
turned towards Saa Fuu Lang.
"As you can see, Phoenix God, the Joketsuzoku did not
attack you, though they are guilty of withholding
crucial information. But the past is past and nothing
we can do can change it."
Pause.
"It seems to me that you have nothing to apologize
for. It is I who should apologize. Please, accept my
most sincere apologies."
Saa Fuu Lang's eyes examined Ranma from head to toe,
judging him against some ancient scale. He remained
thus for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he
snorted derisively and shot Ranma a look of contempt.
"You apologize?" Saa Fuu Lang asked. His voice was
filled with indignation. "What need do I have for your
apologies? Use it to save my people from starving to
death?"
Ranma remained silent.
"Pray tell, Landling," Saa Fuu Lang continued, "what
do I tell my people when they ask me to provide them
light?"
Ranma did not answer immediately. He kept his head
bowed in shame, thinking about possible solutions to
The Phoenix's problem. He, by virtue of being a
Joketsuzoku, the oldest one at that, was responsible
for the actions of the younger ones and by that logic,
he was guilty party, for it was they who were
responsible for The Phoenix's current predicament.
"Your people will not go hungry," he said, at last.
"Huh?" Saa Fuu Lang said. Did he hear what the
landling said right?
"I said your people will not go hungry. The
Joketsuzoku are responsible for this mess and they
will bear full responsibility for it." He turned
towards Guu Long. "Tell me, Honored One, are the
granaries full?"
Guu Long nodded and then shook her head.
"Yes, but they will not be enough to feed the entire
Phoenix nation half through the winter," she said.
"Let me worry about that," Ranma said cutting her
off. He turned towards Saa Fuu Lang. "Send your people
to the Joketsuzoku. They'll give you their surplus
harvest."
"And what good would that do?" Saa Fuu Lang asked,
putting an edge into his voice. Most of his anger was
mollified, but some still remained. "My people will
still starve when the food runs out."
"No, they will not. Send a list of what you need to
me through The Council and I'll see to it that
everything your people need to survive this winter
will be at your doorstep within the next three or four
weeks. You have my solemn word."
Saa Fuu Lang nodded.
"Apology accepted," he said after a pause.
Ranma nodded and without another word, turned towards
the dehydrated girl. He walked up to her. Baldy looked
like he was going to oppose, but before he could, he
saw the look on Ranma's face and silently gave way.
"Is she your daughter?" Ranma asked Moustache.
"Yes," Moustache replied, teary-eyed. His cheeks were
puffy from the crying and he looked near hysterical.
"I'm Ranma," he said, shooting Baldy an
unidentifiable look through the corner of his eyes,
"move back and I'll try to help your daughter as best
as I could."
Moustache wiped away his tears and took hold of
Ranma's hands, his face showing his immense gratitude.
"Thank you, thank you," he said, thanking Ranma
profusely.
Ranma bore the attention good-naturedly for a few
seconds. Then, he gently pushed the man away, and
knelt by the girl, probing her ki and mana lines. Her
reserves of ki and mana were severely depleted, and
her body critically dehydrated, but otherwise, she was
fine.
"I think some water should do the trick," he said,
aloud, "can someone bring me some water from the
fountain?"
The bandanna clad boy rushed off and came back within
seconds with several flasks of water.
"Thank you..."
"Ryouga."
"Thank you, Ryouga. Now, if you'll please step back
and give me some room to work," Ranma said, upending
the flasks one by one over Akane's body. Her body
returned to normal, but her ki and mana lines remained
the same. Ranma sensed that if they remained depleted
any longer, there was a chance that she could die.
'Let's see, a transfusion should do the trick,' Ranma
thought, diagnosing the problem correctly. He summoned
his aura, placed his hand on the girl's chest, and
transferred a healthy dose of ki and mana into her.
Then, he waited.
Within seconds, the girl had regained consciousness.
"There," Ranma said, standing up and turning so that
he faced her father, "your daughter's all recovered.
Allow her some time to rest and recuperate from this
ordeal, and she'll be just fine."
Moustache nodded, his eyes shining with gratitude. He
rushed to his daughter and promptly began to fuss over
her, shedding tears of joy. Ranma looked at the crying
man for a couple of seconds. He shook his head and
turned his attention towards Guu Long.
"Where is the Guardian's daughter?" he asked.
"She's safe in the village. Why do you ask?"
"Well, I gave my word to the Guardian that I'd bring
her back to him safe and sound," he replied.
"Oh!"
Nod.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, Honorable One, I have to
speak with Saa Fuu Lang," he said and without waiting
for a reply, turned towards Saa Fuu Lang.
"Was that absolutely necessary, what you did to that
girl?" he asked, pointing towards the rehydrated girl.
Saa Fuu Lang shrugged. He did not regret the
punishment he gave the girl. It was war as far as he
was concerned; the break-in into the mountain, and one
did things in times of war that one would never do
otherwise.
Ranma looked at the God-king, his face neutral, for a
long moment and nodded. He did not agree with what the
God-king had done, but he understood.
"Could you send a couple of your guards to escort us
out of the mountain?" he asked, changing the topic.
Saa Fuu Lang nodded. He turned towards two of the
still standing Phoenix soldiers and beckoned them.
"Escort these people to the base of the mountain," he
ordered them.
The two guards bowed to their king and moved to stand
along Ranma's side
"Good day to you, Saa Fuu Lang," Ranma said and
turned towards the rest of the 'support' crew.
"C'mon, People, pack up and move out. Our business
here is done. You," he commanded, pointing to Ryouga,
"carry that girl. The rest of you follow me," he said
and began walking without giving the mob anytime to
loiter. Free time, in this case, would be counter
productive and might very well result in a new fight.
The 'support' crew, for their part, shot each other
looks of utter confusion, asking themselves who died
and put Ranma in charge, but in the end, they slowly
trickled behind him, following his lead.
The Phoenix guards, for their part, followed their
orders to the last word. Throughout the walk through
the winding passageways, they did not speak to the
humans once. They simply led the way, until the
entrance was in sight. They pointed Ranma to it and
without a word, parted, leaving the humans to walk out
by themselves. Sure enough, when the team exited the
tunnel, they found themselves at the base of the
mountain.
Ranma called for a short rest when they had put a
distance of two miles between them and the mountain,
and used the time to check up on the girl, whose name,
he learnt, was Akane. She was fine. He exchanged a few
words with her father, Soun Tendo, to mollify his
fears and having done that, retreated to the edge of
the impromptu camp. From there, he beckoned Guu Long
to his side.
"Honored One?"
"Yes, Gran..." she began when she was near him, but
before she could complete the word, Ranma silenced
her.
"There's no need for these people to know who I am,"
he said. He had a vague suspicion about Ryuu and his
father, and if his suspicions were right, there was
every reason that his identity should remain hidden
for as long as possible.
Guu Long nodded.
"Now," he began, "I want you to tell me why The
Council is, for the lack of a better word, screwing
with The Phoenix?"
Silence.
"Let me guess, internal politics."
Guu Long nodded.
"Yes, but that's not all of it," she said.
"Oh?"
"Yes. We have reason to believe that The Phoenix were
getting friendly with the People's Army."
"And so, you decided to do something about it," he
asked.
She nodded.
"Yes, that is correct. If The Phoenix were to align
themselves with the People's Army, then the balance of
power in the valley would shift. We couldn't let that
happen."
Ranma nodded.
"Your concerns are understandable, Honorable One.
However, I do not quite agree with the way you went
about it."
Guu Long shrugged.
"The Council had nothing to do with the Guardian
sending for these people. We just manipulated an
already existing situation for the best results."
"And the best results would be, what, the extinction
of The Phoenix?"
Guu Long shrugged again.
"That was highly desirable, yes, but we were willing
to settle for less."
Ranma nodded.
"And now, what? It's obvious that I have driven a
wedge in your plans; a wedge that can't be removed."
Guu Long smiled.
"There will be other opportunities. The Joketsuzoku
and the Musk have remained all-powerful in this valley
for two thousand years. They will remain so for
another two thousand more, if we can help it."
"The Joketsuzoku and the Musk? Care to elaborate on
that?" he asked. It was the way she said it. Something
had changed between the two nations.
"Yes, Wise One, the Joketsuzoku and the Musk. The
relation between our two nations improved after you
left the nation all those years ago. Now, we are two
nations in name only."
Ranma remained silent, filing this important
information and drumming his knees with his fingers
for nearly a minute. Finally, he spoke.
"Tell The Council that they needn't worry about the
People's Army, Honorable One. I'll take care of them."
"Thank you, Gran... Wise One."
"Now, about these people," he began, pointing towards
Ryuu and his friends. "Who are they?"
Guu Long cleared her throat and began.
***********************************************************************
Ryuuken 'Ryuu' Saotome was feeling very curious; no,
curious was definitely not the right word to describe
the way he felt. Not only had this Ranma appeared out
of nowhere and stopped the fighting, but he also
easily got Saa Fuu Lang off their back. He saved
Akane's life when everyone, Ryuu included, had given
it as a lost cause and again, he did it as if it were
a walk in the park. Not that Ryuu was ungrateful or
anything, but how the heck did Ranma really save her?
And that was not all. Ryuu had been fortunate enough
to see the look on Saa Fuu Lang's face when the
God-king first laid his eyes on Ranma. He recognized
that look easily enough. He had seen that expression
on his friend, Ryouga, many a time before. Ryouga
would assume that 'I am so dead' expression just after
he did something that pissed his girlfriend, Akane,
royally.
Thinking about his pig-headed moron-friend, Ryuu
turned around and looked for him. It would not do if
Ryouga were to lose his way while carrying Akane. The
girl would probably bash his head right into the
ground if he did that. Fortunately, Ryouga was right
where he was supposed to be - between Soun and Genma,
who held onto him with a dog-lease.
Ryuu shook his head, desperately holding back a
snicker. It was probably for the best. Ryouga was
capable of losing himself in a room with a single
door. Ryuu looked back a little further and noticed
Ranma. He and the Elder were bringing up the rear, and
they were discussing something between themselves.
Ryuu stopped and waited until he was on level with
them.
"'Allo," he asked, trying his best to look
nonchalant.
Ranma stopped in the middle of a sentence and turned
his attention to Ryuu.
"Hello," he said amicably. He turned towards Guu Long
and addressed her. "Honorable One, thank you for your
insightful commentary on the subject. I'm very
grateful for it."
Guu Long nodded.
"You're welcome, Wise One."
Ranma bowed, slightly.
"Perhaps we can continue this conversation later?" he
asked.
"Yes, perhaps," Guu Long replied with a deep bow.
Straightening, she shot a parting glance at Ryuu and
with a cursory nod, pogoed off.
"So," Ranma began, turning his attention back to
Ryuu, "how do you do, Ryuu? That's your name,
correct?"
Ryuu nodded. 'Man, that was weird! Why the hell are
the Elder and he so formal? And why did she bow as if
he were higher on the social rung than she was?' It
did not make sense. The Matriarch was at the very top
of the Joketsuzoku social hierarchy and she never,
ever bowed submissively to anyone.
"I'm all right," he replied with a shrug, cataloguing
the incident as just another oddity.
"The Honorable Matriarch tells me that you are a
student of hers. Can you tell me the name of your
school?"
"It's Musabetsu Kakutou Ryuu. I'm not sure whether
you'd have heard of it, though. Not dat many people
practice it."
Ranma nodded as if in deep thought, his face neutral.
'The plot thickens!' he thought to himself.
"No, I have not heard of it before. Oh, pardon me; I
haven't introduced myself, have I? My name is Ranma
Qin," Ranma said and bowed, ever so slightly.
Ryuu noted the bow and the way Ranma bent. The guy
was definitely high up in the food chain, he decided.
His left hand went to the back of his neck and he
tugged at his pigtail. His right hand extended forward
for a handshake.
"I'm Ryuuken Saotome, but you can call me Ryuu. All
my friends call me by that handle."
"Ryuu it is," Ranma said, noting Ryuu's coarse
speech. He clasped Ryuu's hand in his own and returned
the vigorous handshake. The boy was definitely an
outcast in the mainstream Japanese culture.
"So, who are you, Ranma-san?" Ryuu asked when the
handshake ended. Normally, he would not address with
deference someone he had just met, but in Ranma's
case, Ryuu felt that his new friend had more than
earned it.
Ranma smiled. He noted that for some reason, Ryuu
sounded uncomfortable.
"Please, call me Ranma."
Ryuu smiled and relaxed. Ranma noted it.
"Ranma, huh? Okay!"
"So, Ryuu, how did you come to become the Honorable
Elder's student?"
"I was with pops," Ryuu said with a shrug as if his
words were explanation enough.
"I'm not sure I understand," Ranma said.
"Oh, you don't know about my pops, do you?" Ryuu
asked. "Of course you don't. When you do something
pops tells you to, accidents are prone to happen and
you're bound to get into trouble," Ryuu said with a
shrug.
"Accidents?"
"Yeah! Been on the road with my old man as long as I
can remember, except for the last five years, of
course, and it was one stupid accident after another."
"Your father is clumsy, I presume?"
"No, he's not clumsy. Just has no judgment,
whatsoever."
"Oh!"
"Yeah, I got cursed because of him."
"Cursed?"
"Yeah!" Ryuu said, vigorously nodding his head. "It
happened five years ago, just about the time I
celebrated my tenth birthday. Me and pops were on this
quest on sorts - you know, visit all ancient training
grounds and all..."
Ranma nodded his head. In ancient times, it was
common for practitioners of The Art to visit ancient
training grounds. It was a kind of pilgrimage. The
practice had fallen out of vogue a long time ago,
however, and not many did it in the modern era.
"Well, pops bought this brochure-thingy in Chinese
from some salesman and we came to Jusenkyo. Pops said
that it was this very dangerous training ground used
only by the best martial artists. When we got there,
we discovered that it was nothing but a valley dotted
with lots and lots of springs. So, me and pops did
what pops said was the wisest thing we could do under
the circumstances: we took a dip."
"You two took a bath in The Pools? What do you turn
into?" Ranma asked, not even trying to hide his
surprise. 'So, the Guardian was speaking from
experience when he asked me whether I was going for a
swim in the pools, huh? And just when I thought this
trip could not get any weirder, too!'
"Yeah, we did. In two different pools, too, thank
God. I turn into a wolf and pop turns into a panda."
"A wolf and a panda, aye? Well, that's not so bad."
"Not so bad?" Ryuu asked, incredulous and indignant.
"What do you mean not so bad?"
"Yes, well, you could have bathed in the spring of
the perverted old man..." Ranma trailed off, looking
right into Ryuu's eyes.
Ryuu shuddered.
"Is there even such a spring?" he asked.
"Yes, there is," Ranma confirmed.
"Thank God I dinna bath into that," Ryuu said with a
shudder.
"See," Ranma pointed with a knowing smile, "I knew
you would agree with me. Anyways, you haven't told you
what happened after you got cursed."
Ryuu shrugged again.
"Same old, what else?" he said. "I got pissed, beat
up the old man some for coming up with such a stupid
idea. Anyways, we learnt from the guide that the
curses are reversible with hot water, though the cure
is not a permanent one."
Ranma nodded.
"The guide told us he was willing to take us to the
Joketsuzoku, who might have a cure... In return for a
small payment, of course."
Ranma stopped.
"There is no cure for the curse. Why would the
Guardian lie about that?"
"Beats me... Maybe he needed the money or something,"
Ryuu replied with yet another shrug, "Anyways, we went
to the village, but the Joketsuzoku said that they
could not help us with a cure, even though there was
one... Hey, you said there was no cure for the
curse..."
"And I wasn't lying. There is no cure for the curse,
strictly speaking. There is, however, a way around
it."
"Oh! Anyways, pops got mad. He challenged Elder Guu
Long for the cure and she agreed to it, provided he'd
leave me with the tribe for three years if he lost.
"Pops lost, of course. He was simply no match for the
Elder, who was all over him like a Kentucky tornado,"
he said.
Hearing him, Ranma got the distinct feeling that Ryuu
did not respect his father as much as he once must
have. Ryuu's voice certainly sounded disappointed
enough whenever he spoke of his father to warrant
Ranma's suspicions.
"Your father has lost your respect, hasn't he?" he
asked.
Ryuu nodded.
"Yeah!" he said and fell silent, "One can handle one
disappointment, or even a couple, but when one is
disappointed at every turn, one stops caring at some
point."
Ranma nodded in understanding. He also made a note to
himself that behind Ryuu's seemingly gruff exterior,
there was a philosopher just waiting to be found.
"And that allusion to the Kentucky tornado... Where
did you learn that?" he asked.
Ryuu's lips curved upwards in a smile.
"From Bob, of course."
"Bob?"
"Yeah, Bob from the Americas. He came to the
Joketsuzoku village about a year into my stay.
Apparently, he was there to study tribal customs and
such. We became good friends and I learnt some English
from him."
"English?" he asked, switching to English. "Pray
tell, what other languages do you know?"
Ryuu shrugged.
"Japanese, Miao, Mandarin and Sanskrit, Man-o. Gotta
tell ya, tho' dat Sanskrit's some weird shit! And why
da hell are you speakin' all weird and shit,
Ranma-bro?" he replied in English.
Ranma tried his best to look unruffled, even though
he was. 'It figures! This Bob character taught him
Punk English!'
"Tell me, Ryuu," Ranma asked, reverting back to
Japanese, "your friend, Bob, did your friend Bob have
a queer sense of humor?"
Ryuu nodded.
"Ah! I thought as much."
Ryuu shot Ranma a strange look.
"Anyways," Ranma continued, not paying attention to
Ryuu's questioning look, "Do continue with your
narration?"
"Umm... Where exactly was I when we drifted off?"
"Your father lost the challenge to the Elder."
"Yeah! Well, as per the agreement, she kicked him out
of the village without further preamble and took me to
her house. That very night, pop tried to sneak back in
and steal me back. He must have made too much noise,
for the Elder was right behind him. She confronted him
and when he tried to run away from her, beat him to
within an inch of his life. Pops," Ryuu's voice grew
subdued, as if in disappointment, "did not even show
his face in the village for the next three years."
"Oh!" 'If I were you, I'd have been disappointed,
too,' Ranma thought to himself.
Ryuu shrugged. The look of disappointment fled him
and he became cheerful, once again.
"Anyways, the first coupla weeks with the Elder were
painful. I had very little respect for authority, or
for elders, then and the Elder made me learn it the
hard way... Sometimes, I think I can still feel the
sting on my butt from all those beatings!"
Ranma smiled. The Joketsuzoku were very lenient with
their children, more so than most of the other
cultures he had encountered. However, when they
thought that a boy or a girl needed to be taught a
lesson, they taught that lesson. Painfully.
"Yeah," Ryuu continued, "those were the fun times,"
his said as his face fell a little, "anyways, the
three years eventually ran out and pops came back for
me. We spent another year wandering from place to
place training.
"At the end of the year, however, we had a little
disagreement about whether I should continue my
training, or not. Pops said I should and I disagreed.
We decided to make a match of it to see who was right.
If he won, the training journey would continue and if
I won, we would return to Japan. I managed to impress
him enough with my newly acquired skills in The Art,
and we decided that it was time to end the training
trip and return home," he said, his face lighting up
towards the end of his speech.
Ranma noticed the twinkle in Ryuu's eyes and smiled
knowingly. Apparently, the 'impressing ceremony' had
been very painful for the elder Saotome.
"I bet your father did not enjoy it," he said.
Ryuu nodded, emphatically.
"Yep, he didn't. Anyways, we swam back to Japan and
we came to Tokyo. I was thinking that we were going
home to visit mom, but I was wrong. Pops took me to
the Tendo dojo. 'To meet my old friend,' he said. We
met old man Tendo there and Tendo-san invited us to
stay. Pops agreed, immediately.
"I should have known something was up, but I guess I
wasn't paying attention. Anyways, evening came and
Tendo-san's three daughters - Kasumi, Nabiki and Akane
- returned home from school, and bam, pops asks me to
choose one of them to be my fianc�e.
"I was reluctant at first and objected to their
proposition, but pops said it was a matter of family
honor. We would lose face if I did not uphold the
agreement made between him and old man Tendo. Seeing
no way out, I reluctantly agreed.
"Akane was the youngest and even she was nearly three
years older than me. Worse, she had a boyfriend,
Ryouga, and they were going steady. She was out of the
picture, therefore and that left me stuck with Nabiki
and Kasumi.
"Nabiki," Ryuu said with positive distaste, "was not
my type and Kasumi... She's too old. So, I told pops
and old man Tendo that I ain't choosin' no one, not
until I turn eighteen. They did not agree with me, but
I persuaded them to go along with my plan on one
condition, I had to stay with the Tendos to get to
know the daughters better.
"I spent a year with the Tendos, then The Phoenix
happened. The guide's daughter came to us asking for
our help in retrieving the map. We came here and took
the map from The Phoenix and they kidnapped Akane in
retaliation. They held her ransom for the map and we
decided to not abide by her demands but to mount a
rescue mission. We went to the Elder to ask for her
help, but she refused. So, we decided to go ahead by
ourselves and the rest is history."
Ranma nodded.
"So, how do you know the Elder?" Ryuu asked. It
seemed only fair that he asked a question of his own.
After all, he had just bared his entire life story to
the man. In detail, no less.
"Oh, that's ancient history. You don't want to hear
it," Ranma said, maneuvering around the topic. He did
not intend to answer the question.
Ryuu tilted his head upwards and narrowed his eyes at
Ranma.
"That's all you're going to say?" he asked.
Ranma saw Ryuu's expression and burst out laughing.
"Yes, that's all I'm going to say... I won't be the
mysterious figure you respect and admire if you knew
my secrets now, would I?" he said, hoping to pass off
his reluctance as a joke. He did not succeed.
The silence that followed was uncomfortable.
"What techniques did the Joketsuzoku teach you?"
Ranma asked finally.
"Why should I tell you? Last I heard there's such a
thing as give and take."
Ranma chuckled.
"Ah, disappointed, are you? Maybe I can do something
about that. You know I'm very good at The Art, right?"
Ryuu nodded. One only needed to see the way Ranma
moved to tell that he was very good at The Art. His
movements were efficient and similar to a predator
stalking its prey.
"Well, maybe if you describe your techniques to me, I
can help you improve them..."
"You would?" Ryuu asked, his eyes glinting with
excitement and hope.
Ranma nodded.
"Yes, I would," he replied in earnest.
"That's great!" Ryuu exclaimed excitedly before
sobering up, "let's see," he said, counting with his
fingers, "they taught me the Kacchu Tenshin
Amaguriken, Hiryuu Shoten Ha and the Bakusai Tenketsu.
Yep, that's that!" he said, looking proudly at Ranma,
"I asked them to teach me the Splitting Cats Hairs and
stuff like that, but they refused, saying that the
only way I was ever going to learn those techniques
was if I married a Joketsuzoku and became a
tribesman... Let's just say that even though I wanted
to learn the techniques, I did not want to learn them
that badly."
Ranma laughed.
"I'm impressed, Ryuu," he said when he stopped
laughing, "you already know three advanced ki
manipulation techniques at such an young age," he said
in awe.
"Those were the techniques that the Joketsuzoku
taught me. I know other techniques, too."
"Other techniques? Who taught them to you?"
"No one! Pops helped me a little, but I created the
Mouko Takabisha."
"You created your own technique?" Ranma asked. He was
very impressed by Ryuu's achievements.
Ryuu nodded vigorously.
"Yeah! It's a ki projection technique. I use my
confidence to channel the ki into a blast."
"Ah! You mean a chi projection technique."
"Chi, ki... What difference does it make? They are
all the same," Ryuu said with a shrug.
Ranma smiled. Apparently, the Joketsuzoku had not
been as thorough in teaching Ryuu as the boy thought.
"But you're wrong. Ki is the pure, unadulterated
thing. Chi is when you access ki using your emotions
as a proxy."
Ryuu turned towards Ranma.
"So?"
"So," Ranma added with a smile, "ki is much more
powerful than chi. Moreover, if you use chi attacks
long enough, you risk doing irreparable damage to
yourself. Chi, to say the least, is very dangerous
stuff."
"And ki isn't?"
"Ki is infinitely more dangerous than chi, yes, but
if you learn how to use it properly, it's very safe.
There is no safe method of using chi in the world,
however. None."
Ryuu nodded in understanding.
"Oh!"
Silence.
"Whatever gave you the idea for creating the Mouko
Takabisha in the first place, anyway?" Ranma asked. Ki
and even chi projection attacks were not that common
anymore. The skills needed to use them were mostly
forgotten.
"Ryouga learned this technique called Shishi
Houkoudan that uses depression to form a ki... chi
blast. I could not use it, since I'm not a depressed
kind of person as he is. So, I created the Mouko
Takabisha."
Ranma nodded.
"Ah, the miner's technique," he said, "well, you
better stop using it and you better tell your friend
to stop using the Roaring Lion's Bullet Technique."
Ryuu looked up at Ranma, a small pout on his face.
"Do I have to?"
"Yes, you have to. I believe we have gone over this
part, already. Chi is bad for your health, just like
smoking, remember."
"But..."
"But nothing."
Pause.
"Tell you what, I'll give you some pointers on
developing your own ki attacks if you promise me to
stop dabbling with chi."
"You would?" Ryuu asked. "Gee, thanks a lot,
Ranma-san."
Ranma smiled.
"You're welcome. Now..." Ranma began, starting his
lecture on ki and its applications.
***********************************************************************
Ryouga was happy. What reason did he have to not be
happy about? The evil Saa Fuu Lang was defeated, his
girlfriend, Akane, was alive and she was in love with
him. And on top of all that, he was carrying her.
'Yes, today is just perfect!' he thought, happily. He
thought he could drown in happiness and lose himself
forever in it.
Of course, his mind had other ideas. It pulled him
screaming from the world of runaway daydreams to the
world of the living with horrible thoughts that sent
his mind reeling with terror and dread.
Ryouga's mind reminded him what he already knew from
experience: Lady Misfortune followed Lady Fortune
everywhere and she stayed a lot longer than her
sibling, too. With her coming, things have a
'tendency' to take a turn for the worse and given the
way he was enjoying himself, he just knew that things
were going to go very bad very soon. Moreover,
Ryouga's mind told him that he had as much a chance of
escaping his fate as he had of never getting lost
again. Lady Fate could be so cruel when she wanted to
be!
Ryouga sighed, despondently, his feet trudging on the
ground. He knew enough to know that it was better to
resign himself to the inevitable rather than challenge
it. If he did not resist, it'd hurt a little less. His
face fell and he sank into the familiar well of
depression. His shoulder's drooped, and his footsteps
fell heavier, if that were possible, than before. A
thin, scarcely discernible corona of depressed chi
began to condense around his body as his overactive
imagination fed him images of all the horrible things
that could go wrong. Seeing them in his mind's eye,
Ryouga felt like crying.
Tug!
In the midst of this nightmare, Ryouga felt something
pull at his dog lease. Naturally, the lease tightened
around his neck. 'Hmm... The dog lease seems to be
getting awfully tight all of a sudden. I wonder why it
is so... Oh my God! Could it be that since I have
experienced the perfect day, I have to be strangled,
impaled, roasted, skinned alive and diced to death?'
he asked himself and immediately, tears welled up in
his eyes. He did not want to die. There were many
things in the world that he had yet to experience and
he was too young to die.
"Ryouga, if I told you one time, I told you a
thousand times: Keep your eyes on the whoever's
walking in front of you and walk in a straight line!"
The voice sounded far, far away and Ryouga thought
that it carried a slight hint of exasperation. He
recognized it as belonging to Akane's father, Soun
Tendo. It did not take long then for his mind to make
the connection and realize that Tendo-san was calling
to him. He turned to face Tendo-san, shaking his head
at the same time to clear it of the disturbing images
and the nightmarish thoughts. At once, he became aware
of his surroundings, and Ryouga realized sheepishly
that the dog lease could not possibly tighten on its
own. Someone had to pull it and that someone must have
been Tendo-san. He was the one with the other end of
the lease, after all.
"Yes, Tendo-san?" Ryouga asked, turning his head
sideways towards Soun.
"I said: Walk straight, and walk between Genma and
myself," the elder Tendo said.
Ryouga nodded, embarrassedly.
"What were you daydreaming about anyway?" Soun asked
him. "You nearly threw a Shishi Houkoudan there, Son."
Ryouga's face turned crimson.
"Nothing, Tendo-san," he replied, stuttering.
Soun stared at him for a long second and nodded
before turning away with a faraway look in his eyes.
Ryouga saw the look on Soun's face and opened his
mouth to say something, but closed it at the last
instant. Once again, silence descended upon the trio.
'Tendo-san probably has his reasons for discontinuing
the conversation,' he thought.
Soun, for his part, noted Ryouga's half-attempt at
starting a conversation, but paid no attention to it.
He had other things to think about, like his family
and his life. He knew that he had not been the model
father, or even an average father. No father would
have abandoned his daughters to look after themselves
as he did after his wife's death.
Sure, the loss had been heart breaking, but it was no
excuse for the pathetic way he abandoned his family.
His eldest daughter, Kasumi, who was then barely ten
years old, had been forced to become a grown up
overnight because of his cowardice. She had not
enjoyed a single moment of childhood, since that day.
Moreover, the situation was no different with his
other daughters.
Nabiki, too, had been forced to grow up and face the
real world, when she was ill prepared for it. With no
one to guide her, she had fallen upon less than
honorable ways and even though Soun acted as if he did
not know about her activities, he knew that she had a
healthy connection with the Japanese underworld, the
dreaded Yakuza.
Only Akane had been spared the burden of growing up
when she was not physically and mentally ready.
However, she, too, had suffered like her sisters.
Without his guiding hands to show her the way of honor
and guide her down the road, she went astray. She was
temperamental, conceited and hotheaded, though she
could be the kindest, most adorable girl when she
wanted to be.
He was not the father he could have been. He was not
the guide to his daughters he should have been. He was
not...
Tug!
'Ye Gods-in-heaven! Why can't he even walk in a
straight line?' Soun thought with a slight degree of
disgust and annoyance. The disgust was undeserved, but
the annoyance was well warranted as Ryouga had once
again strayed from his position and disturbed Soun's
thoughts. He gave a strong tug and Ryouga, whose feet
seemed to be set on automatic mode corrected his
direction unconsciously.
Returning once again to his disturbed chain of
thought, Soun shot Akane, who was sleeping in Ryouga's
hands, a look of concern, regret and love, and sighed.
Ryouga, for his part, walked mechanically, having
lost himself in his thoughts once again. He daydreamed
about his childhood, remembering a time when he had
been a worse brat than Akane ever was. 'Not that I
think Akane is a brat, of course.'
The entire Hibiki line shared his bad sense of
direction. Right from the first Hibiki, who had been a
fisherman on one of the smaller Ryukyu Islands and who
had been lost at sea, every single one of them had
been cursed with a very, very bad sense of direction.
But seldom had there been a worse case in the annals
of his family's history than Ryouga. His father was
bad with a tendency to get lost inside his own house,
but Ryouga surpassed him easily. He had lost himself
once, to the complete disbelief of his parents and
relatives, inside a cupboard with one door while
playing hide and seek.
Ryouga still remembered that day. His father, his
mother and even grandfather Yoshihiro had laughed at
him. It was still, in Ryouga's eyes, the worse
humiliation he ever suffered. From that day forth,
Ryouga thought of himself as the laughing stock of the
family. He was the freak among freaks, the joke and
the idiot in the village of idiots, and he drifted
into the deep end of depression.
He became so depressed that at the tender age of
seven, Ryouga had more than once thought about
committing suicide. It would have been so easy; there
would have been no one to save him, and all he had to
do was take a knife and cut his wrists. However, he
had never been able to. Something always happened at
the last moment - his mother or father would come
home, the phone would ring, or some salesperson would
knock at the door. It had been frustrating then, to be
deprived even his chance at death, but Ryouga was glad
that he had not went ahead with any of his plans.
After all, if he had committed suicide, he never
would have met Akane.
Ryouga knew that Akane alone was not the reason for
his recovery. The Art and Ryuu had played equally
important parts. True, Ryuu had come only later, much
later, in fact, but the friendship he shared with the
little kid was one of the most wonderful things that
ever happened to him. To that extent, Ryouga was very
grateful to Akane and Ryuu. They had brought meaning
to his life and if the need should ever arise, he
would be more than willing to lay down his life for
them.
As Ryouga imagined these sweet things, Akane's body
began to slide off his hands and he adjusted her to
get a better grip. He closed his fingers when he felt
she was sufficiently well snuggled and inadvertently
made a mistake. One of his hands, the one that held
her upper body up, clasped hard something soft. He
realized his error and tried to correct his mistake,
but it was too late. Akane opened her eyes. There was
pain and promise in them. The pain was caused by
Ryouga's hand crushing her breast. The promise was a
solemn oath to inflict ten times as much pain on him
as he had on her.
"Hi," Ryouga squeaked, a disarming smile on his face.
Akane's face did not soften. Even though Ryouga had
removed his hands, the pain remained.
"Heh... Heh... Heheheheh."
"You hurt me," she said slowly. Her eyes were
narrowed at Ryouga.
"Heh... Heh... Now, Akane-chan, I did not mean to
hurt you," he replied sweetly, sweating profusely.
"You hurt me, Baka!"
"Akane-chan, I'm sorry. Really. You know I'd nev...
Urk!"
Akane's mallet connected with Ryouga's head, cutting
off his explanatory speech midway. His hands
automatically released their cargo as he lost
consciousness, and both Akane and he fell. She landed
on her butt on his chest and he landed on his back on
the ground. If he had been awake, it would have hurt a
lot. Fortunately, he was not and it did not hurt at
all.
Genma, who had been mulling things over like his
companions, snapped out of his trance and stepped
forward to help the duo. He extended Akane a hand. She
grabbed hold of it and rose to her feet.
"Thank you, Uncle Saotome."
"You're welcome," he said, bending down to pick
Ryouga up, "Can you walk on your own?"
Akane nodded.
"I think so."
She took a wobbly step forward and Soun had to grab
her around her waist to keep her from falling.
"Easy now," he said, "You don't want to exert
yourself too much."
"I'm all right, really," she replied.
"Anything I can do to help?" Ranma asked, coming up
along with Ryuu behind them.
"No, thank you," Soun assured him, "I can carry Akane
and Genma can carry Ryouga."
Ranma nodded.
"Is she always this fiery?" he asked.
"Yes, she is," Soun replied.
"I'm not," Akane said vehemently.
"Are too," Ryuu replied. He decided that now was a
pretty good time to jut into the conversation. He had
very big smile on his face.
"Am not," she insisted.
"Are..." Ryuu began, but before he could proceed any
further Ranma laid a hand on his shoulder and he
closed his mouth.
"How do you feel, Akane-san?"
"A little woozy, but I'm all right, I guess."
Ranma nodded.
"You'll feel tired for perhaps another day, whilst
your body rebuilds the reserves of ki you had lost.
Until then, I'd advice you to take it easy."
Akane nodded.
"Thank you..."
"Ranma. Ranma Qin."
"Thank you, Ranma-san."
"Ranma-san saved you when all of us had given up on
you, Akane," her father told her.
"I..." Akane began, but Ranma silenced by putting his
finger on her lips.
"Take rest, Akane-san. We can talk later," Ranma said
and turned to Soun, "Are you sure you and your friend
don't need help carrying your charges, Tendo-san?"
"No, we don't, Ranma-san. Thank you for the offer,
though."
"You're welcome. Tendo-san, Saotome-san," he said,
bowing slightly to both men. He straightened and
turned to Ryuu, "Shall we?"
Ryuu nodded and the two of them began walking away.
After a couple of steps, Ryuu turned around and
flashed Akane a grin.
"Nice hit, Akane. I give you ten out of ten," he
said, sticking out a tongue at her.
Akane was not pleased by the gesture at all. Her face
reddened and she grit her teeth.
Ryuu laughed and pulled his left lower eyelid down,
further mocking her. Then he turned around and wagging
his behind at her, walked away.
"Grr." 'Oh! Just wait until I get my hands on you.'
Genma saw his son's antics and allowed himself a
rueful smile when Ryuu's back was turned on him. The
boy had once been like that with him, but somewhere
along the line, things changed. He had stopped
respecting Genma, and started treating with disrespect
coupled with disgust and a tinge of loathing.
Genma did not know what exactly it was he did that
made him lose his son's love. It would have been easy
to point out if he had made one or two mistakes, but
he had not. His past, he knew, was littered with
mistakes of all sorts, the biggest one of them being
Ranma, of course.
Genma regretted his mistakes. He regretted them all,
but he regretted Ranma the most. His eldest son had
such potential, and worked so hard to please a father
who misused his trust and tortured him in the name of
training until the day he died. The day Genma realized
he was the cause of his son's death was the lowest
point of a life filled with low points. Yet, even that
realization had taken a long time coming.
To Genma's eternal shame, it was not Ranma's death
that made him realize his errors. It was his visit to
Soun soon after Ranma's death that brought that
realization. Soun had then been a broken man. He had
recently lost his wife and he was a lifeless husk who
went about the motions of everyday life as a machine
would. He spent days on end mourning his wife,
refusing food and company until he collapsed from
exhaustion. It took Genma three months to get Soun out
of that state; three months of absolute agony during
which he had never left his friend's side. And when
Soun returned to normal, he had been a changed man.
Those three months had affected Genma, too. In fact,
it was those three months spent listening to the
grieving Soun that made him acknowledge his errors and
the role he had played in his son's untimely demise.
Until that day, he had felt despair, but never guilt.
And it couldn't have come at a better time, for when
Genma returned home, his wife greeted him with a baby
boy, his son, in her arms.
Nodoka took the news of Ranma's death and the story
Genma told her, very badly. For a time, she was intent
on upholding the seppuku pledge he made her, but
ultimately, she relented. After all, Genma portrayed
Ranma as the epitome of manhood in his recital of the
events that led to his son's death and she couldn't
hold that pledge valid after Genma succeeded beyond
her wildest dreams, could she? True, Ranma was dead,
but he died honorably as a man among men, upholding
the Saotome honor to his last breath.
For the new 'moral' Genma, it had been a necessary
evil, lying to his wife, and he did not regret it. He
viewed Ryuu, his second born, as the key to his
redemption, and how could he redeem himself in his
eyes and in the eyes of the Gods if he committed
seppuku. As such, Genma took it upon himself to take
care of Ryuu as he should have taken care of Ranma. He
wanted to raise Ryuu without making the same mistakes
that he made when raising Ranma and he did. Only he
made new mistakes, or in some cases the mutated
version of old ones.
Some of those mistakes were small while the others
where large, like the pledge that promised Nodoka that
he would raise Ryuu as a man among men or commit
seppuku. It was similar to the one he signed on
Ranma's behalf. Only this time, there were a few
additional, more stringent classes. Nodoka was
determined that the mistakes of the past should not be
repeated and she was adamant on seeing her own
additions to the document added. Genma had tried to
dissuade her from altering the document, but when she
refused, he, in an act of great stupidity, tried to
steal Ryuu from her. She caught him and the fiasco
ended with the addition of even more clauses to the
agreement.
That was why when the time came to return to Japan,
Genma took Ryuu to the Tendo's and not his ancestral
home. The document was too stringent and even without
the curses or any of the other assorted misgivings,
Ryuu would not have satisfied all the conditions set
in the agreement. And Nodoka, being the traditional
woman that she was, would have demanded that they
commit seppuku.
Nevertheless, in spite of all of Genma's efforts, the
damage had already been done by that time. Mistakes
had been compounded by mistakes, and trust and love
eroded away until Genma lost the only thing that
mattered to him at that point: Ryuu's love and
respect. The erosion had not been overnight, for if it
had been, Genma would have noticed it and made amends.
It was a slow process that started with his first
mistake and grew until it cost Ryuu's love for his
father.
If the mistakes had driven a wedge between father and
son, the visit to Jusenkyo and the disaster at the
Joketsuzoku village sealed it. The challenge to the
Matriarch had been a desperate gamble on his part to
gain Ryuu's respect. Even before Guu Long ever offered
Ryuu her skills as a teacher, Genma knew her prowess
in The Art through reputation, and when he challenged
her, he had in mind a good showing that would earn his
son's respect rather than a victory. Unfortunately,
Guu Long was too skilled and he had not lasted a
single minute before she knocked him unconscious. He
lost Ryuu's respect that day, Genma knew, perhaps
forever.
Genma sighed, shifting Ryouga a little so that the
boy's elbow did not press uncomfortably against his
neck. 'Oh, how I regret my mistakes! If only I had a
chance to correct them...'
Ranma called a halt then and everyone settled under
the shade of a tree to eat. Conversation started
hesitantly, and soon grew into a raging storm of
laughter and joy making everyone forget their troubles
and enjoy the beauty of the moment rather than delve
in the past.
***********************************************************************
The group walked all that day and the day after,
stopping only for brief rests along the way before
they reached Jusenkyo. Ranma informed the Guardian
that his daughter was alive and well, and that she was
living with the Joketsuzoku. The Guardian was
overjoyed at the good news and wanted to celebrate,
but Ranma politely refused his offer of alcohol. They
had a long walk ahead of them, after all.
"Honorable One, I observed you during the battle at
Phoenix Mountain. I must say that I'm impressed,"
Ranma said.
Guu Long's face beamed with pride as she said, "Thank
you, Wise One."
Ranma nodded. He had a thoughtful look on his face.
They were sitting at the very edge of the camp, about
five hundred yards from the Guardian's hut and about a
hundred-and-fifty yards from the camp proper.
"However, there is still scope for improvement. Will
you let me teach you?"
The Matriarch's eyes widened. Had she heard correct?
Did The Dragon just make an offer to teach her?
"Y... Yes. I'd love to learn under you, Wise One."
Pause.
"Does this mean that you're finally returning to your
people?" she asked.
Ranma shook his head.
"No, I'm not. I'm asking you to stay with me for a
couple of years and during that time, I'll teach you
to improve your skills.
"But surely, Wise One, if you'd come home, you'd help
our people a whole lot better. Many will learn from
you, and the Joketsuzoku and the Musk would grow even
stronger."
"My mind is made up, Granddaughter," Ranma said with
a tone of finality, "I will not return home now. I
wanted to see my family and I have seen you. There's
nothing more to see. The village still holds too many
dark memories and I'd rather not visit it if I could
help it."
"But..."
"I said my mind is made up, 'Granddaughter.' There's
nothing that you can say that'll alter my decision."
"I understand, Grandfather. You still mourn
grandmother's death."
"Yes... Yes, I do. Will you come with me?"
Guu Long nodded.
"I will, but on one condition. I get to bring Shan
Pu, my great, great, great granddaughter with me."
Ranma's lips curved upwards in a smile.
"Done. When we break up camp, I want you to return to
the Village of the Councilors and organize your
affairs there. Make haste, for should the Phoenix
messenger arrive there before you do, things will end
up worse than they were before... Runners use two or
four-wheelers, correct?"
Guu Long nodded.
"Right. Go to the nearest outpost, and secure a
runner and his or her wheels. Make haste to the
village and give them an account of what transpired at
Phoenix Mountain. Tell The Council that I ordered them
to cease all aggressive actions, both passive and
active, against The Phoenix. Prepare them for the
Phoenix messenger and give them this," he said,
handing over a visiting card, "The Joketsuzoku and the
Musk are to treat all Phoenix as they would their
family. Once all of that is done, safely return the
Guardian's daughter to her father and meet me at hotel
Crowne Plaza Chengdu at Chengdu two weeks from now.
The address is 31 Zong Fu Street, Chengdu." [6]
Pause.
"Did you get all that?"
"Yes, Wise One."
"Excellent.
***********************************************************************
Notes:
1. Ka Ka Ree did not protect his son and he did
volunteer his name, which, though useless to Ranma and
the Joketsuzoku, was something that only a
dishonorable man would do.
2. Ranma's killing Ka Ka Ree is different in his eyes
because Ka Ka Ree killed a pregnant woman. In his
view, Ka Ka Ree deserved the death he suffered and a
whole lot more.
3. There are those in India who believe that India
belongs to Hindus and to no other. Do not take my
words in this story to mean that I belong to this
group. <Insert strong personal message here> A whole
lot of people, including myself, do not agree with
you, Bastards! <End personal message>
4. This is the fifteenth/sixteenth century church
we're talking about. Things, as you may realize, were
a lot unhealthier with it then, what with the
witch-hunts and the selling of indulgences and all.
5. Even though Ranma never said that the Joketsuzoku
and the Musk would cease all aggression towards The
Phoenix, it was implied. After all, The Phoenix have
the right to self-defense and if Ranma had denied them
that, it would have reflected badly on his honor.
6. There is a Crowne Plaza Chengdu at Chengdu. It is a
five star hotel. I chose Chengdu because it was there
on the Atlas and it was on the Chinese cities with
airports list. ^_^
For further information on Crowne Plaza Chengdu,
Chengdu, go to
http://www.asia-hotels.com/country/China.asp
The story can be found at the following webs: mine
[When I get around to updating it, which won't be
anytime soon. :p], Darkensis - the Red, The
Penultimate Ranma Fanfic Index, Yoruko's Den
(www.geocities.com/yoruko7), Getzeye's Fanfic
Page(http://getzeye.anifics.com), Lady Cosmos, Ranchan
& Co Crossing Bridges, the RAAC and the FFML
miniarchive.
Much thanks goes to Alex, Chelsea, Getzeye, Lance
Garvey, Steven, Yanslana, Malikite3, RyuJin, Aarik
Ilharess, Yanei Wu, Pete Blundell, Jakub, Lance Smith
and Ranko for making this story what it is. There are
others, too, that have helped with this chapter and I
want to thank all of them.
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