[FFML] Quantum Destinies 31 - Mirror Images

[Jurai Knight]

*** Interstice Zone



Bernkastel gazed around at the dark orange field surrounding her, one
filled with a myriad of silvery crystals lying on the soft, loam-like
surface that she stood upon. She bent down and picked one up at random,
casually turning it around in her hands. An image of a smiling Ranma
Saotome appeared in one of its irregularly-shaped facets, caught in a
frozen moment of time, dressed in a familiar, red, Chinese-style tunic.
Turning it a bit revealed within another facet a frowning Akane Tendo in a
yellow sundress, a smirking Nabiki in the next and then others, each one
appearing as if suspended in clear amber.



She casually picked up another crystal in her free hand. This irregular
piece of quartz-like material showed a much different version of Ranma in
one of its facets, his face contorted into a rictus of tormented madness
and splattered with blood. Shampoo’s face appeared in the next facet,
staring upwards sightlessly, sprawled out dead in a pool of gore. An image
of Ukyo Kuonji, rivulets of crimson fluid running down the sides of her
face, her right hand stretched towards the viewer as if in pleading, filled
the next. Other facets contained even more such sad images.



It amazed her how this one boy managed to appear in so many alternative
timelines. She could pick up any crystal at random, and he would likely be
there. Not in all of them, but far more often than would be expected of any
one person. Often he was a hero, sometimes he was a villain and
occasionally he was an unimportant nobody. But he was practically
ubiquitous. She knelt and set both crystals back down upon the ground and
then stood back up straight. She idly smoothed the cloth of her pale blue
kimono.



Surrounding her in an infinite mosaic were even more crystals. Slowly
floating down from the pale orange sky came additional ones, each of them
forming after a timeline split occurred after some critical event, each one
a window to a different world. It was a ‘farm’ of sorts that she tended, a
vast menagerie of timelines she could enter and exit at will. The people
shown within the crystals were trapped inside the boundaries of Time,
unlike her. They were her playthings, to be manipulated, used or even just
merely observed for her own amusement.



She removed a crystal concealed within her obi and studied it solemnly,
seeing the Shogun of the Dark within one of its irregular facets. His
frozen image stared off to one side coldly, unaware of her regard. She
hated him utterly for spoiling her fun, for seeking to destroy all of her
many wonderful playgrounds and replace them with his own designs,
attempting to imprint himself as the source of all reality. He had
unwittingly forced her to play against him, an action she had done
cautiously to avoid revealing herself to him and making the conflict more
difficult for her, and their many games had gradually became ever more
intricate.



Turning to another facet, she beheld Ranma Saotome in the scenario she was
currently involved with, the boy dressed in the blue uniform of an Imperial
Academy science cadet. She had tossed the dice with him against the
Shogun’s latest iteration, but she feared she was reaching the limits of
what she could do to load them in her favor. If she interfered much more,
she was concerned she would step across the unseen boundary upon her
abilities that prevented her from taking too direct a hand in orchestrating
things, allowing the Shogun to escape her yet again. She ached inside to
finally finish him off and prevent him from jumping back again and creating
yet another timeline tangent, starting their game anew. She had grown tired
of playing against him and wanted to move on to other games.



She currently had her hands full with eliminating all of the remaining
‘echoes’ of the Shogun, versions of him in the alternative timelines
branching off from the initial one caused by each of his temporal leaps
backward. Every time he returned to his starting point, it necessitated her
having to prune away a myriad of such echoes, like she was doing on the
current iteration of their conflict. Fortunately, those she could eliminate
without fear of causing even further splits, her powers able to prevent
such an occurrence. It was only when the final one remained that he somehow
moved beyond her grasp. To defeat that one and finally end this seemingly
never-ending contest between them required an agent within that branch of
Time to deal with the Shogun while she exerted the fullness of her powers
from outside. That would prevent another split from occurring, as it had
previously before she finally gained an understanding of her limitations,
one timeline forming where her enemy lived and a second one where he died
at her hand.



However, she feared this iteration of their conflict might be evolving
beyond her control and permanently changing the parameters of the game.
Ranma’s creation of the resonator device had been initiated by a partial
superscription of memories from another scenario, one long since concluded
with the Shogun’s defeat there, forcing him to leap back and restart his
schemes. And now, after countless restarts and the many resulting worlds
that were created between the efforts of both her and the Shogun to
influence things, this transmission had allowed her to subtly introduce
elements of other iterations of history against her foe within the context
of the present scenario.



She had altered numerous events in order to acquire that superscription of
memories for this scenario, using her powers to interfere with the boy’s
existence and his experiments. The resonator had enabled her to graft
additional elements of her choosing from numerous other timelines into this
one, turning a genius-level but combatively unimpressive young man of
scholarly ambitions into a honed weapon that could better serve her needs.
Ranma turned out to be so much better than she had hoped for in this
regard, this version of him showing a previously unsuspected ability to be
heroic when he chose to save the youngest Tendo’s life from her otherwise
fated death at the hands of the Kashuoh boy’s minions. Perhaps his
willingness to help a girl who had tormented him for weeks should have been
her first clue that Ranma was becoming far more of a hero than she had
planned for, still possessed of flaws though he was.



To be honest, before the changes caused in him by his experiments, the boy
had been self-interested and somewhat cowardly, having been raised to stay
away from physical conflicts by his father, a man who had his own reasons
to avoid violence. Then again, Nabiki had been a rather horridly
cold-blooded young woman before her own changes. Bernkastel realized that
her error had been to focus on what she could do in order to improve
Nabiki, to mold her into becoming a hero in this scenario, not realizing
that this version of Ranma had so much hidden potential to be heroic as
well. The fundamental changes in him had even attracted the attention of
the Tenjou girl, another young hero in the making, and that was another
unexpected bonus. Her original plan had been to use Ranma’s altered nature
to initiate changes in Nabiki and incite the Kuonji girl to want to remain
in Tokyo, to use one of them as her focal point to channel events down the
course she was charting. Everything had worked almost perfectly up to that
point.



Then something completely unforeseen happened, but perhaps it should not
have been so surprising to her. The clues had already been laid out, but
she had not put them together ahead of time. The fight in the warehouse had
been anticipated to only involve either Nabiki or Ukyo, causing one of them
to be cursed and becoming the nexus of events as had happened on other
worlds, but Ranma had taken their place due to the unanticipated
interference of his quantum-jumping female analog, Ranko.



When the critical crux point came, Ranma was the one right at the center of
it, inadvertently pushed there by Ranko. Now the boy had a gender-changing
Jusenkyo curse to go along with having her memories within him, the
combination instilling within him a perspective on his magical affliction
that was perhaps unique out of all the versions of him she had seen, being
able to function with equal comfort mentally and physically as either male
or female, to have either state feel normal to him. While his self-image
still saw itself as ‘Ranma’ all the time, the ‘Ranko’ aspect of his
personality became more pronounced when he was in female form, subtly
shifting those views to that of a girl, as if linked to the curse,
eliminating the fear and self-loathing other versions of the boy with this
magical affliction experienced and leaving ‘her’ comfortable as female.



Other alterations done to him by that vat of modified Jusenkyo water had
enabled him to defeat Shampoo, which would have been just beyond his reach
before. His televised battle with the Amazon had initiated far-reaching
changes within the scenario, one such outcome being to draw in Perfume and
Mousse. In turn, Perfume’s actions had then resulted in an alteration of
how Ryoga would participate in upcoming events, and she wondered if the
Seer’s prophetic warnings given to the pink-haired Chinese girl had been
done with this particular outcome in mind. Experience had taught her a long
time ago that the Seer was not her enemy, but he and his counterparts in
other timelines were complicating factors her plans had to allow for, an
annoyingly enigmatic third party influencing the shape of history in
addition to her and the Shogun.



On balance, Bernkastel was pleased with the new developments and the
unanticipated direction things were going, choosing to allow this situation
to continue developing rather than abandoning it and making her
preparations for the next world. While there were still ways she could
forcibly terminate this scenario before the Shogun attempted apotheosis
once again, compelling him to leap back and start anew, she was grimly
determined to make this one the last world, to finally achieve endgame
against her ancient foe.



The unexpected developments with Ranma were entertaining and novel, giving
her an impetus to push them even further along and see where they led, so
long as they did not negatively affect using the boy and his peers as her
pawns. Her gifting Ryu Kumon and his lethal Taiwanese girlfriend with
scrolls stolen from another world that detailed the Yamasenken techniques
was an improvisation, an indulgence of her sense of drama. Dealing with the
Kumon boy should compel Ranma to seek out Genma’s aid to counter the
Yamasenken, becoming even stronger, and perhaps also Nabiki or Shampoo
would increase in ability as well.



However, something strange was germinating within the scenario, and it
caused her some concerns. Her original, carefully-chosen additions seemed
to have invited other unexpected alterations to occur, and numerous people
from different timelines were beginning to interact in unpredictable ways.
Past scenarios she no longer cared about were now comingling with the
present one and with each other. Other worlds the boy had touched with the
resonator had also begun to drift into new paths, like ripples spreading
out on a previously still pond when a pebble was dropped at the center of
it.



The Kuno girl’s appearance had been one such unplanned addition to her
schemes, coming to this world from a nearby tangent where the Shogun’s echo
there had already been eliminated. In that alternate version of history,
Japan’s vast empire had quickly begun to implode soon after that echo was
killed. Her foe had apparently created a contingency plan that activated
immediately after his death, apparently one intended to vindictively punish
that timeline for failing to provide him with his apotheosis, and a nuclear
apocalypse was soon to occur there. As the Kuno girl’s altered character
was a clear improvement to the version of her that had been previously
present in the current scenario, she chose to leave the matter alone.



The revisions in Kodachi’s personality had affected how her brother and
others associated with her would interact with Ranma and the others,
potentially quite significant alterations as events proceeded. What was
happening with the Sanzenin boy and the delightfully twisted Saginomiya
girl were direct outgrowths of this. They were not even supposed to be part
of the scenario she had originally envisioned, but now they were active
antagonists within it, intent on honing their fighting abilities for use
against Ranma and Kodachi.



Hikaru Gosunkugi was another oddity to her. The boy was a bystander on most
worlds, or sometimes a lackey to the likes of Tatewaki Kuno or others
seeking a minion. The time-traveling spirit of Simon Magus had changed that
in this tangent, the wizard questing vainly to rewrite his place in history
and save himself from his recorded death in the past. He did so by
possessing others throughout the ages in search of a means to alter his
fate. He had intended to steal the boy’s body and life, taking it over for
himself as his latest ploy. It was possible he would have even evaded her
attention due to her concerns with other, far more important characters in
this drama, if it wasn’t for the wizard’s chance encounter with a certain
Chinese sorceress, the girl’s path crossing his that night.



The opportunity for adding additional drama to the scenario had simply been
too delightful to pass up, which was unfortunate for Simon Magus. Even as
she forcibly expelled the arrogant sorcerer from the boy’s body, she had
ripped away from him his magical abilities and knowledge before casting the
unfortunate Simon away to fulfill his fated death in the past. She then
grafted those purloined abilities and knowledge into the boy’s mind. While
the spells and glamours that Gosunkugi had then been able to cast on the
warehouse were a relatively minor improvement upon her prior plans for the
conflict that took place there, his budding love triangle currently
developing with his two teenaged female cohorts promised to be both
potentially useful and quite entertaining to watch play out.



Switching Professor Saotome’s personality with a less honorable version of
him originating on another tangent had been part of her plan all along, one
of its central components. Creating the various engagements that now
complicated the boy’s life was the anticipated outcome, and Genma had
performed exactly as expected. However, he had also shown some surprising
initiative, like bringing the other Soun over to this world as well as
setting into motion events that brought Shampoo into direct contact with
Ranma. The two men demonstrated a quite remarkable ability to cause trouble
for their offspring, believing their actions to be for their children’s own
good. Since she had no care for that other tangent once these two
transitions had occurred, she had ceased observing it after tidying up a
loose end or two out of habit, focusing her efforts back to pruning away
the remaining echoes of the Shogun and refining adjustments to the present
scenario where she still could.



That had proven to be a mistake, but she was uncertain how serious it was.
While seeking to return his real father home, Ranma had attracted the
attention of warships from the Solnoid Matriarchy and the Musk Dynasty, two
mighty empires locked in a ferocious struggle to the death with each other.
Both ships detected his resonator signal and managed to send agents to seek
out its source and report back. Shampoo’s personality had been unexpectedly
altered as a result, infusing the memories of a young Matriarchy officer
into the far less complicated personality of the Joketsuzoku girl native to
this timeline, creating a new gestalt that was far more educated and
thoughtful but much less easily predictable as a result.



Herb, in his new incarnation as Ginseng, was the other unanticipated engram
immigrant. After dealing with the initial self-loathing and identity
confusion brought on by having a female form on this timeline, the former
Musk nobleman was now settling into this tangent quite well in this new
identity and gender role. She still appeared exceptionally intent on
finding Ranma, but now she wanted to become a part of his life here, a
revision to her previous motivation to find him and return them both to the
Musk Dynasty. While initially it was a rather puzzling thing to witness,
the girl’s willingness to wear a rather revealing fighting outfit that
displayed her female assets so blatantly, doing so with an almost masculine
level of aggressiveness and body language, suggested an odd fusion of male
and female characteristics had occurred within the person now known as
Ginseng.



In scanning back through events, the incident of the bullet creasing her
skull had apparently altered the direction of Herb’s still forming identity
gestalt, causing a paradigm shift within it from male to female to occur. A
fortunate side-effect of this was that her feelings towards Ranma had
evidently transformed from familial love to something more romantic in
nature, turning the pigtailed scholar into someone viewed now as being her
ideal mate instead of as her beloved adopted brother. Assuming Ginseng
truly did retain Herb’s more aggressively masculine determinations within
her female persona, which all signs seemed to indicate she did, it should
prove to be entertaining when the Musk girl began interacting with Ranma
and the others around him.



Helping Herb to acquire her new identity as the Arena contender Ginseng
(aka Jin Tseng) had actually been an entertaining diversion for her to
indulge herself in. The original Jin Tseng had been a rather villainous
young woman with a ruthless and somewhat bloodthirsty disposition, a
promising candidate for Shadowlaw that would have eventually ended up
opposing Ranma and the others, so her sudden demise and replacement by Herb
was actually an improvement to the scenario in Bernkastel’s view. Since the
‘revised’ Ginseng was an even more powerful fighter than her predecessor,
she should be very helpful to the Saotome boy, assuming he was wise enough
to accept her aid and enlist her to his cause. While she had become even
more attractive to Shadowlaw’s overseers as a potential enlistee due to her
heightened abilities in combat, conflict with that group should serve to
strengthen the boy and his companions. Ginseng’s intentions for Ranma
should also act as an additional spur to Nabiki and the other girls to
achieve even greater levels of ability before the curtain rose on the final
act.



With the recent abduction of Professor Saotome and Director Tendo from that
other timeline and their being conveyed to the homeworld of the Solnoid
Matriarchy, this scenario was now at risk of becoming further entwined with
the decades-old genocidal conflict still raging between the Musk Dynasty
and the Solnoids. Many scores of worlds were already either directly or
indirectly involved in that savage war, making for a snarled region of
timelines impinging upon each other. It was perhaps ironic that events
would circle back to there, since Ranma’s version of the resonator had its
birth amidst the Musk-Solnoid War, a legacy unwittingly bestowed upon him
from a now dead analog of his there.



Bernkastel mused briefly upon that war, one she had initiated to deal with
a long ago iteration of the Shogun. The citizens of the Solnoid Matriarchy
had once been rather idealistic explorers, until one of their vessels had
erred in its navigation across timelines and fallen into Musk hands. This
event had not been chance. She had engineered it.



After torturing the crew for information and carefully examining the ship,
the Musk Dynasty was able to reverse-engineer the technology to traverse
the boundaries between worlds and began their glorious reign of conquest,
quickly bringing them into conflict with the Solnoids. It had been a novel
strategy on her part, one she was still quite proud of, and it had worked
out very well. After enduring decades of savage warfare against the Musk,
the Solnoids had evolved from the peaceful idealists they had once been
into truly ferocious warriors capable of barbaric acts of astonishing
violence, their former naiveté lost amidst their struggle for survival
against such a cruel and unrelenting foe.



Through their refinement in the crucible of warfare, the Solnoid women
became mighty weapons to unleash upon that past version of the Shogun. Her
ancient foe had become preoccupied with working the ritual meant to achieve
his apotheosis and had been utterly confident of his imminent victory,
having unified that timeline and numerous surrounding ones under the flag
and jackboots of Musk rule and eliminating all visible threats to his
ascension. This arrogant illusion was rudely shattered when, by using a
hidden pathway she provided them through an agent of hers, over three dozen
heavily-armed Solnoid vessels snuck past the Dynasty’s defensive lines to
rain death and destruction upon him and his crony, the pompous Dragon
Emperor who led the Musk Dynasty as the Shogun’s figurehead. They poured
countless megatons of firepower into that effort to destroy the two, but
the Shogun survived. Facing his imminent death just as he was on the verge
of victory, her enemy had been forced to travel back once again to preserve
his life, abandoning everything he had accumulated over several millennia
and starting over anew in the past, the ashen taste of failure still fresh
on his tongue.



Despite her disappointment at failing to eliminate him, it had been a
rather satisfying crushing of her foe’s ambitions. She had left that region
of worlds behind her to sort itself out, no longer concerned by the war and
relegating it in her thoughts to the realm of successful gambits she had
enjoyed. After all, of what matter to her was that conflict now? It
involved only two hundred or so different Earths, while countless millions
of worlds that had never heard of either side remained to be played with.
She was confident the war would eventually burn itself out, the two sides
having achieved a rough deadlock with each other, both of them unable to
divert resources in sufficient quantities to expand their holdings quickly
enough to overwhelm their enemy while also striving to fend off their
nemesis at the same time. A long and grinding battle of attrition had been
taking place over the past few years as the two adversaries slowly wore
each other down, expending themselves against each other in their struggle
to the death together.



Now that the Musk-Solnoid conflict was suddenly impinging itself across
such a vast cross-temporal distance into the current scenario, she would
have to revisit it and see if there was something she could do with those
abandoned game boards to improve the status of her current game. She would
study them a bit for now, involving herself only if necessary to achieve a
better result in the current scenario. While she possessed sufficient power
to return Professor Saotome and Director Tendo back home immediately, that
would involve taking too direct a hand in things in her view, so she needed
to abstain from that.



The dice were still tumbling and success was within sight. But so many game
boards were now in play simultaneously, including scenarios that had not
received her attention for a long while. Even she could not police them all
with as much delicacy as she had done with Ranko’s interference. Her
abilities were not infinite, so she had to conserve her power and use it
only where it would be most effective. Ranko had been a relatively
localized problem, a symptom of a much larger issue at work, one quite
easily contained with selective memory alterations once the girl had been
returned to her home tangent. While killing her and vaporizing the remains
would have produced nearly the same result, Bernkastel preferred to avoid
wasting pieces that might still be useful to her in the future.



The present scenario had begun evolving on its own now towards some unknown
conclusion, and it was working like a kind of gravitational singularity,
drawing in additional elements from other worlds into this one. So far she
had resisted the urge to take a look forwards towards its end. By doing so,
she would hinder her ability to use the remaining uncertainty of developing
events to her advantage. Each change she made to alter something she had
observed happening ran the risk of hardening the timeline against any
additional interference on her part, and that became more likely when
critical temporal event points were involved. The Shogun’s upcoming
apotheosis attempt was one such moment.



As a time traveler capable of moving between a multitude of worlds and able
to traverse eternity to any moment she cared to, she felt severely
frustrated at having to wait for events to sufficiently ripen before being
able to act, but the alternative was worse. She would not lose this chance
to finally rid herself of the Shogun’s threat to her. Then she could go
back to peacefully playing with her many beautiful worlds, freed of any
challengers to her continued existence.





xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



Quantum Destinies

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic

By S. Thesken aka Jurai Knight (qd_author at hotmail.com)



Ranma 1/2 and its characters are owned by Rumiko Takahashi. This story is
inspired by her works and the stories from some of my fellow fanfic
authors. Among these are D.B. Sommer’s “Shampoo 1/2”, Jim Bader’s “A Very
Scary Thought -aka- Nabiki 1/2”, and John Biles’ Elseworlds series. All C&C
is welcome.



Other chapters of this story may be found at this website, or you can email
the author for them:



http://www.fanfiction.net/u/3764932/





The list of worlds reoccurring in this chapter:

Earth +0.003, +0.001 – The world of Scholar Kodachi (Baseline cluster)

Earth +3.002, -3.002 – The world of Actor Ranma (Co-Prosperity cluster)

Earth +3.184, -3.223 – The world of Slave Shampoo (Unification cluster)

Earth +4.612, +4.509 - The world of Shampoo 1/2 (Ranma 1/2 cluster)

Earth +6.123, +5.298 - The world of Solnoid Prime (Matriarchy cluster)





What has gone before in this story (or at least what will help you
understand what is going on):



On a parallel Earth that diverged from the standard Ranma timeline over
five hundred years ago, the Empire of Japan rules almost half the world and
has done so for almost a century. Theorizing that one could travel to
alternate timelines by possessing counterparts in them, a young scientist
named Ranma Saotome, through use of a device of his own invention,
accidentally obtained the skills and memories of a martial artist version
of himself. Frost and Minami continue developing their relationships with
Gosunkugi and each other. Kyosuke and Yohko take their connection to the
next level. Ranma and Shampoo make some enemies and share a kiss. Shampoo
begins her training in the Amaguriken. Ryoga arrives at the Tendo household
and makes friends with Akane after a sparring match, not knowing that
Perfume pursues him. Ukyo receives a shocking letter from her
great-grandfather. Ayaka and Godai exchange deep kisses and advance their
relationship another step. Meanwhile, Soun meets with Ryoga’s mother and an
engagement agreement is signed, promising him to Akane. Ginseng (Herb)
acquires a manager and prepares for the move to Hong Kong’s Arena, bringing
her closer to Ranma. Kasumi and Hinako have a violent confrontation over
Hinako’s affair with Tofu. Touga Kiryuu visits Nabiki. Finally, Ranma-chan
is confronted by Mina Li, showing herself to be an enemy of the cursed boy.





xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



Chapter 31 – Mirror Images



     I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge

     to make you like me, to push you out of the light.



                         - Rene Belloq: Raiders of the Lost Ark



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx





*** Earth +6.444, +5.611



“Genma, what are you doing?” Nodoka cried out, held back by a pair of
nearly identical catgirl liliths. Tall, blonde and athletic, their dark
green paramilitary uniforms bore the symbol of Clan Saotome on their wide
lapels. “I can give you a son! We can have other children! Don’t kill her!”



“I’m not going to kill her,” said Genma coldly, looking back briefly at
Nodoka in irritation as he held a crying infant in his arms. “I’m giving
her a great gift and taking away her inherent weakness, as a devoted father
should always help their offspring become better. Let other, weaker fathers
choose to raise daughters. My firstborn child, the firstborn of Clan
Saotome, shall not be female.” He then plunged the baby into a basin of
water in front of him for several moments. When he lifted the small body
back up in his hands, the baby girl had become a baby boy, the infant at
first shivering from the cold water and then beginning to bawl again, very
loudly.



The two uniformed liliths continued holding Nodoka tightly by her arms and
shoulders as her will to resist suddenly collapsed. She sagged in their
grip upon her, but they did not relax their holds. As she watched the scene
before her in horror, Genma pulled out a ladle (borrowed for this occasion)
and then dipped it into the water in the basin. After pulling it back out,
he poured water liberally from it over the infant, who sneezed once and
then began to cry once more.



“Your name shall be Ranma, my son,” he said with fatherly affection to the
crying baby, smiling. “I will devote my life to making you the finest
warrior that the world has ever seen, and I will purge from you every last
trace of female weakness.” He handed the infant to another lilith, this one
smaller than the others and dressed in white robes, which took the baby
tenderly and began to comfort him as she carried him away to care for him
in the nursery.



Genma approached Nodoka and lifted her chin with one hand. “This was the
result of my sin. My love for you corrupted me, weakened me and allowed
this to happen. It is the gods punishing me.” His gaze grew even more
pitiless as he continued gripping her chin. “Ranma will surely become a man
among men without your presence to weaken him like you did me. I must purge
myself of this sin, so I can forge our son into the greatest warrior the
world will ever know. He must be nothing less than magnificent, merciless
and unyielding.”



“Genma, what are you-? Urk!” Nodoka’s eyes grew wide as her husband’s hands
moved to lock tightly around her throat, his expression remaining cold. She
tried to resist but was still held fast in the iron grips of the two
liliths, who grinned slightly as she choked and gasped, her dying struggles
failing to free her. When it was finally over, she was carried away by the
pair to be disposed of as Genma had ordered, and he calmly watched them
leave.



“I will raise our son well, Nodoka,” he said softly to her departing
corpse. He then turned to face the observer. “Make sure you save the
recording of this. Seeing it when he is old enough will help the boy
understand his place in the world, and the sacrifices that I have made on
his behalf. It will make him stronger.”



Centurion Ranma Saotome watched as the video came to an abrupt end. His
gaze was as cold and pitiless as his sire’s had been in those final images
as he reached out and shut off the monitor. It was not the first time he
had viewed this recording, and it would not be his last. His father had
given it to him when he turned eleven years old as one of his birthday
gifts, saying that seeing it would teach him a valuable lesson, that only
the strong deserved to survive.



While sitting in the chair at his desk, he looked down at his hands. His,
he reiterated in his mind. He was male, not female. The girl he might have
become was long gone, replaced by him through the power of the Holy Waters.
He was a loyal soldier of the Musk Dynasty, heir to the Anything-Goes
School of Martial Arts founded long ago by Great Master Happosai, and
someday he would inherit Clan Saotome and all of its vast holdings.



Closing his hands tightly into fists, Ranma regarded them. They were not
the weak ones of a female but hard and callused ones fit for a killer,
someone who had survived many bloody and brutal battles. Many of those had
been fought for his own purposes while still more were done in service to
the greater glory of the Musk Dynasty. Fighting was his meat and victory
was his drink, and he enjoyed them both with the savage gusto a true scion
of the Musk Dynasty should, as his father had raised him to do.



He was Ranma Saotome, the only one truly worthy of that name. During his
sire’s tutelage, he had overcome countless horrific trials and numerous
hardships to become the man among men he now was. Enemies fell before his
might, hewn down by his preeminent fighting skills. Women yearned to be
his, recognizing his virility and burgeoning physical might. He was now on
the cusp of manhood, a future filled with even greater glory lying spread
out before him, ready to be seized.



His father, cruel and harsh as he was in his teaching methods, had worked
tirelessly to forge him into the man he was today. Although he would
someday kill his sire in a lingering and exquisitely painful fashion as a
reward for the tortures Genma had inflicted upon him, he was still grateful
to him. He had no desire to be anything other than what he was, nor could
he even imagine ever wanting to be different. He knew that his sire had
rescued him from a life as some man’s plaything and property, the fate of
all women living within the Dynasty. A brief shiver of atavistic horror ran
through him at the thought of that, of what might have been.



Ranma mused that the day of bloody reckoning between father and son was
drawing ever nearer. Someday he would end Genma’s life and seize Clan
Saotome for himself. He looked forward to his father’s inevitable end. It
would be the completion of his journey into manhood, to finally be able to
chart his own course into the future, capturing the reins of his life and
making them his. Despite his youth, there had already been many memorable
milestones in his life, each one adding to his strength and forging him
into the man he was today.



At age six, the Nekoken training had been one of the most important
milestones in his life, a crucible of terror and pain that almost broke
him, but he had triumphed over that challenge. He had emerged from it
purified, arising from that charnel pit reborn, having passed through
madness to a new state of awareness and mental clarity. That training had
purged from him the last of his emotional frailties, ending his childhood
with vicious brutality, and he had never cried since.



Thoughts of his analogs came to his mind. He mentally sneered at them,
pondering them going about their daily lives in blissful ignorance of their
blessed state, enjoying the priceless gift of being born male, never having
suffered anything to make them truly worthy of the honor, only receiving it
as an accident of chance from an uncaring universe. Even those of them who
fancied themselves as warriors and had gone through a few meager trials of
their own could not truly understand the scope of what he had gone through,
what it meant to him to be male.



Manhood was the pearl without price, a lesson taught quite harshly within
the borders of the many worlds already conquered by the Musk Dynasty. The
Solnoid Matriarchy heretically denied this divine truth, proposing instead
that females were the superior gender. Someday they would understand their
error, after their foolish pride was finally crushed beneath the power of
the Musk’s unyielding military might.



On that glorious day, every Solnoid woman would be forced to bow down
before the proven strength of men and confess her inherent inferiority.
Each of them would then become brood mares, birthing the Dynasty’s future
generations that would go on to conquer ever more worlds. Those that
refused this chance at redemption would die horribly, their slow, torturous
deaths used as examples to any other women who might still wish to resist.
The Solnoid men, sad and pitiful creatures that they were in Musk eyes,
were only fit to be used as slave labor, working in the mines, farms and
factories that fed the Dynasty’s vast war machine.



Ranma hated his analogs bitterly, but those within the clutches of the
Solnoid women received even more bile in his thoughts, viewing them all as
even more pathetic shadows than others. Some of them might even be female,
but he had never encountered a female analog to his knowledge and sometimes
wondered what she would look like. Within the zone of control the Musk
Dynasty ruled, every analog he had was male. Thoughts of his many other
selves awoke again a familiar ache deep inside him, an unquenchable desire
to prove his strength against theirs.



A few of the analogs he had fought so far in his life had managed to give
him a decent amount of challenge, but they had all fallen before him at the
end of their fierce struggles together. The sensation of their hot blood
splashing upon his skin and the sounds of their bones breaking as he
hammered powerful blows into their bodies were glorious memories. To hear
their final, dying breaths inspired something akin to a religious ecstasy
within him. Slaying his analogs always gave him a feeling of cathartic,
savage glee.



The search for the one that would finally take him to the limits of his
abilities would go on. Someday he would know with absolute certainty he was
truly supreme, the superior man. But, until he found that other self, it
would be an entertaining journey spent ending the lives of those
contemptible reflections of him, all of whom undeservedly wore his face.



After all, he was Ranma Saotome, the only one truly worthy of the name.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



Tribune Genma Saotome, recently elevated to that lofty rank in the Musk
Dynasty’s still unstable power structure, ate his breakfast with solemn
purpose. The marvelous flavors of the food in front of him made little
impression on him due to his other concerns. He ate quietly, focusing
himself inward.



His only companions were Ana and Uni, a statuesque pair of liliths he had
acquired many years ago who served him loyally and acted as his bodyguards.
Being around them made his son a little twitchy, so they had proven to be
an excellent preventative measure against Ranma making a move against him.
He knew the boy intended to kill him when the time was right, but he
preferred to delay that day of reckoning until he felt his heir was truly
ready to rule Clan Saotome.



These were turbulent days within the Dynasty. The sudden loss of the Dragon
Emperor and the Shogun of the Dark, obliterated in a surprise Matriarchy
attack while they performed some sort of bizarre ritual in China, had left
the political situation in a very precarious state. To safeguard stability,
the Imperial Tribunal had seized the opportunity and assumed complete
control of the government and its bureaucracy, portraying their actions to
the public as a necessity. They decreed that they were merely assuming a
stewardship role in order to maintain order while the many self-proclaimed
heirs to the throne winnowed down their ranks.



A great deal of blood had been spilled since that day nearly a year ago.
The timing of the Dragon Emperor’s death could not have come at a worse
point. In an apparently insane attempt to foment a civil war, captured
individuals later identified as agents sworn to the Shogun of the Dark’s
service had decimated the ranks of the official heirs only hours after the
death of the Emperor had been reported, assassinating all of them and
anyone who happened to be with them at the time. The speediness and
efficiency of the action suggested a vast conspiracy was at work, and more
sleeper agents of the Shogun were still being rooted out to be captured or
killed. Interrogations of those captured were still ongoing, but
disturbingly little had been learned from them so far. Analogs of the
Shogun were being sought after by the Ministry of State Security, but so
far none had been found within the Musk Dynasty, which some considered to
be a curious thing. Those without at least a single analog were rare.



Full-scale civil war had fortunately been avoided through the draconian
efforts of the Tribunal’s sinister collection of agents working with those
employed by State Security. After the assassinations of the heirs, even
before the last body had finished cooling, numerous analogs of His Imperial
Majesty and their sons had then pressed their claims to assume control.
While there was no historical precedent to look to for dealing with such a
calamity, someone needed to claim the Jade Throne and the Mandate of Heaven
that went with it. Inter-marriages over the past few decades between
various analogs populating the core worlds of the Dynasty had muddied the
waters of inheritance, precipitating the succession crisis.



Finally, after months of intensive fighting and countless deaths, Herb, the
eldest son of one of the fallen Dragon Emperor’s deceased analogs, a boy
whose mother was a distant female cousin of the former Dragon Emperor, had
recently emerged as the one strong enough to assume the Jade Throne. Prior
to his crowning, to prove to the Imperial Tribunal his fitness to claim the
Mandate of Heaven and lead the Musk Dynasty on to future glory, Herb had
first slain all other contenders for the throne in single combat and then
went on to kill every last one of his own analogs found within the borders
of the Dynasty for good measure, eliminating them all save for one.



That last remaining potential challenger to now-Emperor Herb’s rule had
departed months before the succession crisis, taking a ship and crew on a
vainglorious quest to find his adopted brother, Sage, claiming that his
sibling’s engrams were trapped in an analog on some far distant tangent.
That quantum doppelganger of Emperor Herb had never been seen or heard from
again within the Dynasty’s borders. While the youth was presumed dead, he
had been declared outlaw by His Imperial Majesty, just in case, to be
executed on sight should he ever return and seek to claim the throne.



During the interregnum between occupants seated upon the Jade Throne, the
members of the Imperial Tribunal realized they preferred guiding the ship
of state themselves, including prosecuting the war against the defiantly
heretical women of the Solnoid Matriarchy. In order to keep His Imperial
Majesty preoccupied and away from taking a more direct hand in things, many
of the most beautiful, unmarried daughters of the various noble families
were offered up to him, creating the largest harem in Dynastic history. It
was presented to the young emperor as a precaution against having another
succession crisis, and that it was His Imperial Majesty’s duty to sire
several male offspring as soon as possible. It was an audacious scheme, but
it had worked well so far. Emperor Herb had not even left his private
chambers in well over two months.



The fortunes of the Saotomes had risen greatly by this point, and Genma had
worked tirelessly to exploit every last scrap of opportunity he had come
across during the political tumult. Wedding his son to the eldest daughter
of Soun Tendo had been one of many of his successful schemes. Kasumi was
the personification of the idealized Japanese woman, a pillar of feminine
grace and loveliness who would always act in the best interests of her
husband, just as she had been brought up to be. She soothed Ranma by her
mere presence and strengthened his mental stability, and his occasional
rages had dwindled off in frequency and finally ceased altogether because
of her.



Whenever the boy was home, Kasumi would be there for him, always giving him
one of her endearing smiles. She cooked tasty meals for him and gave her
body to him freely to satiate his lusts, satisfying the two most primal
hungers given by the gods to men. When he brought home two attractive
prizes won in battles fought upon other worlds, it was Kasumi who had taken
charge of their indoctrination as his consorts, ensuring that each girl
would understand her new role and learn to embrace the proper place of a
woman within the Musk Dynasty. Both times she had done her duty to her
young husband without a single word of protest.



Ukyo had proven to be an eager pupil for Kasumi. On the world she came
from, the Kuonji girl had been sold to a geisha-run teahouse by her
impoverished family at a very young age. She had been trained by them to
obey and be charming. Whenever asked, she performed the tea ceremony
flawlessly, and she was always demurely feminine. In many ways, she rivaled
Kasumi in that particular aspect, in being a pristine example of
traditional Japanese womanhood.



What was not discussed outside the household was that she was far more than
she appeared to be. The teahouse where Ranma had discovered her had been a
cover for much darker activities than serving tea. It was actually a
training ground for kunoichi, every one of them a deadly assassin and
preternaturally-trained in the martial arts. Fortunately, Ukyo had held no
love for any of her teachers or peers there. When Ranma encountered the
girl, she fell in love with him and came back with him willingly.



Ever since then, she had proven her great worth on several occasions,
quietly eliminating those opposed to the interests of Clan Saotome with an
astonishing level of skill. She had also demonstrated herself to be a
peer-level combatant to Ranma, providing him with a capable sparring
partner whenever he felt the urge to do so. And on one particularly
memorable occasion, when quieter methods had not been practical, she had
broken into the target’s demesne, overcome a small legion of guards on her
own and then beaten that target to death in the final conflict without
using a single weapon. As the target in question had been a fighter of some
repute, it was a further demonstration of just how lethally useful Ukyo
was, in addition to being able to brew a truly delectable cup of tea.



Perfume, a Joketsuzoku that Ranma had claimed from a world near the Solnoid
Matriarchy’s border zone during a raid, was a different story. She was a
young woman almost brimming with barbaric passions and savage independence,
and she had required stern measures to bring her to heel. A highly-trained
and powerful warrior with a bloodthirsty edge to her, she was mostly inured
to any pains of punishment inflicted upon her due to some Joketsuzoku
special technique she had learned. As a result, it had taken some time for
Ranma and Kasumi to finally tame her, and even now she was only a
semi-trusted member of the household.



According to Ranma’s after-action report to his superiors, the girl had
been encountered accompanied by a lavender-haired beauty named Shampoo, the
pair in the midst of escaping from their village when his squad had found
them. When Perfume had been interrogated later, it was learned that she and
Shampoo had been imprisoned for murdering a matriarch of their village.
They were awaiting execution when Musk forces had attacked and razed the
place as an example to others in the region. In the ensuing brutal
conflict, Ranma had been forced to kill the other girl before subduing
Perfume, dragging the young Amazon back to the Musk Dynasty in chains as a
consolation prize.



Genma had noted that his son enjoyed engaging in full-contact sparring with
the girl, and the two of them had a sadomasochistic quality to their rather
dysfunctional relationship. Violence constantly lurked below the surface
between them, but there was also a powerful physical attraction they held
towards each other. More often than not, a brutal sparring match between
them would transform into a far more intimate sort of struggle.



When he was done with his meal, Genma got up from his chair, dabbing
briefly at his face with a cloth napkin and then letting the household
liliths clear off the table. With his two blonde bodyguards in tow, he
walked to the gardens to continue his musings. The slightly sweet smell of
the cherry blossoms in late bloom tickled at his nose.



He felt regretful that his ally and fellow student of Great Master
Happosai, Legate Soun Tendo, had perished last week, expiring suddenly
under suspicious circumstances, suggesting a successful assassination plot
had been carried out against him. It was most unfortunate. There were so
many schemes they had been planning to implement together to further their
mutual interests. It was uncertain at this time just who might have done
it, but the main suspect was Soun’s former mistress, Akemi Roppongi. By all
accounts, she had not taken her fall from his favor well at all, being
replaced by the far more sensuous Hinako Ninomiya.



Genma paused in his musings over Soun at the thought of Hinako. The woman
was a young courtesan they had encountered together while at a court
function celebrating the elevation of Emperor Herb to the throne, and she
had proven herself to be a most captivating female, witty as well as
supremely sensuous and beautiful. Now that Soun was no longer an issue in
the matter, he realized he should pay her a visit in the near future and
offer his patronage. He smiled lustily at the thought of her exquisite
physique and the many ways she could repay him with it in exchange for his
benefaction.



If she served him well enough, he might offer her the opportunity to become
his official consort. After all, the beauty and desirability of the woman a
man possessed affected his status among his peers, and Hinako Ninomiya was
a magnificent woman indeed. Having her on his arm at social functions would
arouse both envy and respect at his being able to own the favors of such a
statuesque beauty.



In addition to freeing up access to the Ninomiya woman without causing
conflict between him and his friend, another upside to Soun’s death had
been the elimination of any conflicting loyalties that might remain on
Kasumi’s part. With her father and mother both dead and Clan Tendo already
beginning to teeter and fall apart under the mismanagement of Soun’s only
son, her fate was growing more tightly linked to that of the Saotomes and
its sole heir, Ranma. After mourning her father for the requisite amount of
time with the proper amount of grief shown, she had then regained her
former equanimity and gone back to her duties in the household. She had
clearly been raised well.



Genma mused that the same could not be said for Soun’s heir, Kaneda Tendo,
a boy a year older than Ranma who had long born the stigma of having almost
all of his analogs within the Musk’s borders be female. Even though there
was no scientific reason to view it so, it was seen by many among the Musk
as an ill-favored thing to have. Kaneda was a brooding, hostile youth as a
result of this, occasionally getting into needless fights to prove his
manhood and other such foolish endeavors.



However, his most frequent sin was dissipating himself, engaging in
liaisons with a certain young courtesan he knew instead of forming his own
proper harem as Ranma was doing and building a lasting legacy for himself.
By all accounts, the girl was quite beautiful, and she had been only
recently introduced to the boy during a social gathering by her mentor,
Hinako Ninomiya. However, their liaisons were considered unseemly by some
because the girl was a female analog of Kaneda’s, a rather sordid
perversion that far too many Musk men decadently indulged in and Genma
personally did not approve of, finding the notion to be repulsive. The
Tendo boy was clearly heading for a bad end.



Although he had been friends with Soun, Kaneda had long been Ranma’s
adversary, and the two boys had nursed a bitter rivalry with each other for
many years, ever since they were young children. They would get into some
truly vicious fights with each other, sometimes over the smallest things.
And yet somehow they had managed to avoid permanently maiming or killing
each other. To this day, Genma wasn’t sure if it was sheer blind luck or
both of them holding back just enough to avoid any serious bloodshed and
igniting a war of retribution between their two Clans, one that would
likely have destroyed them both.



It didn’t matter anymore to Genma. Soun’s son had provided Ranma with a
capable foe up to this point, and Ranma’s rivalry with him had helped hone
his abilities to a very fine edge. But his son was now growing in skill
beyond Kaneda’s ability to keep up, and it was perhaps time to finally end
their petty feud and allow his heir to focus on the future of Clan Saotome.
As the heir of a recently-elevated tribune, he had a promising future ahead
of him in the Dynasty’s political structure. The risk of a self-destructive
piece of trash like Kaneda Tendo possibly getting lucky someday and killing
him in some senseless brawl was now too great to allow. It was a shame to
destroy his friend’s legacy, but Kaneda was already doing quite well at
that himself. Soun’s heir needed to die quickly in order to preserve as
much of Clan Tendo’s resources as possible. Then their assets and business
holdings would find far better management as part of the Saotomes’ growing
affluence.



He had considered presenting it as a test of Ranma’s manhood. Comments such
as those were always able to provoke the boy into an astonishing level of
brutality and sheer viciousness. Aroused so, Genma was sure Ranma would
finally kill the other boy.



The only concern in following through with such a plan would be Kasumi’s
reaction. To be married to the man who killed her brother could arouse
dissension from her, damaging a valued asset. Having Ranma carry out the
dark deed would thus not be the optimal solution.



However, having Ukyo do it would be. Genma nodded at that thought. The
Kuonji girl had not eliminated anyone for him in a while, and she had never
liked the Tendo boy and his lecherous regard towards her anyway. He would
request her to terminate Kaneda in his sleep in order to avoid provoking a
needless fight. After all, why take unnecessary chances?



The matter decided, Genma moved on to other considerations. Ranma was
growing up physically fit and strong, and that was good. Instructing him in
how to deal with the political challenges he would face in his future was
the next step. He had already proven himself to be a capable leader in
combat, earning the rank of centurion despite his youth and inexperience
through his own merits and a properly ruthless attitude in battle. But
politics would be a much more subtle battlefield to contend with and would
require a far defter hand to navigate its many potential minefields than
the boy currently had.



He took his ease in a shady spot of the garden. The sound of cicadas
sounded from the greenery around him. His female bodyguards stood near him
with almost quivering alertness, ready to defend him as he relaxed.



The boy had responded well to the experimental treatment that he and Soun
had plundered years ago from another tangent and given to their heirs in
secret. The symbiote that now thrived within Ranma’s body had greatly
increased his strength and speed, raising them to an almost inhuman level.
Once Kaneda was gone, the Saotome heir would take his proper place as the
forerunner of a new breed of humanity within the Dynasty, a veritable
superman capable of seizing whatever he wished or inflicting a properly
savage vengeance on anyone who dared offend him. Although it was treasonous
to even think it, perhaps the boy could someday be installed upon the Jade
Throne as a future Dragon Emperor.



Genma had to admit that the fugue state his son could enter into when
sufficiently angered was an even more powerful weapon in Ranma’s arsenal
than even the Nekoken. To see how the boy had used it to destroy opponents
had been both breathtaking and glorious. Combined with his training in the
Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts, no one his age had been able to stand
against Ranma and even most adults would be foolish to try. Oh, Great
Master Happosai could still toss him around with only moderate difficulty,
but Genma had not dared to spar with his son since he was thirteen.



He smiled coldly. It had been educational to introduce Ranma to one of his
analogs within the Musk Dynasty after he had learned the truth of his
origins, another student of the Anything-Goes School on his home tangent
and reputedly a capable warrior of note. While the match had been somewhat
challenging for Ranma at first, the other boy had gradually found himself
outstripped in physical ability. And then his son, apparently grown
frustrated at the prolonged duration of the contest, had finally killed his
analog in mere seconds once he had entered his fugue state, the ‘boost’ as
Soun had called it.



The boy was twelve years old at the time.



Genma could still remember it so vividly. Ranma’s hands had still been
dripping with his analog’s blood as that other Genma had rushed to aid his
fallen child, and it was like a light had gone on within his son even as he
coolly observed the corpse of his doppelganger. After that, Ranma had
thrown himself even more heavily into his training. Other deaths had later
followed, each one attributable to his son’s growing abilities.



However, after those few initial wins, Ranma’s brutal reputation had
quickly spread amongst the Musk worlds and matches dwindled away to
nothing. That had forced the boy to keep aware of any new conquests in the
offing. Eventually he had joined the military to hunt down more analogs of
himself as well as find other challenging opponents that he could test his
abilities against.



Genma could not be prouder. Everything he had done for Ranma had been to
craft his son into the perfect warrior, thrusting the boy into the forge
again and again to purify his will, to cleanse him of every last emotional
imperfection. Finally, all of his years of dedication, the many personal
sacrifices and patient efforts were paying off. Ranma was maturing into a
man among men, and someday he would emerge to take his place as a legendary
hero of the Musk Dynasty, perhaps even its ruler.



After all, who could possibly stand against him? Genma felt a supreme
certainty deep within his soul that his son’s destiny was to overcome all.
And that conviction filled him with fatherly satisfaction that he had done
what was right for his offspring, preparing Ranma to fulfill his role in
whatever was to come.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



*** Earth +4.612, +4.509



Nodoka sipped her tea and eyed Cologne’s wrinkled face. The matriarch had
appeared at her door shortly after Ranma and Shampoo had left for school,
introducing herself. After initial pleasantries were over, the two had
settled down to have tea together and discuss the situation with Shampoo
and the destruction of the Joketsuzoku’s village.



She had been tempted to let Shampoo stay home and continue grieving for her
people, but it had been several days already. People might think Nodoka
harsh for refusing, but she truly felt it was better to have the girl out
among the living rather than for her to hide away and persist in mourning
the dead. Fortunately, Ranma had agreed with her.



The girl’s grief was understandable, and the world was still on the edge of
panic over the immense devastation that had recently occurred, waiting to
see if more meteors would fall. The news organizations had finally settled
on calling the meteor strike in China by the rather sensationalized name of
“Second Impact” in their reports, taking the designation from certain
scientific papers that discussed the theorized massive meteor collision
billions of years ago that created the Moon. The name quickly stuck.



Weather patterns around the globe had been altered to varying degrees as a
result of Second Impact, and there were even reports of increased storm
activity in the China Sea, possibly even typhoons forming. Over the
intervening days since the meteor strike, Japan had begun getting far more
rain than was normal for this time of year, with no end in sight, which
Nodoka was sure would not be pleasant for the two cursed teens living with
her now. There were also unconfirmed reports on the news that lawlessness
was breaking out in parts of mainland China as warehouses and stores were
looted of food and other necessities by the panicked populace, something
the Chinese government was rather strenuously denying, stating that order
was being maintained in all regions. Combined with the immense relief needs
arising in towns near the impact crater and dislocated populations fleeing
the affected area, there were fears that China could be getting pushed to
the breaking point.



The JSDF and the United States were on alert right now, watching to see
what the Chinese would do next. The Russians were being exceptionally wary
as well now about their southern neighbors. Offers of aid from other
countries had not yet been accepted by China’s government, and rumors were
flying on reasons why there was any reluctance.



Despite all that was going on in other parts of the world, her main concern
was still the mystery of Genma’s disappearance. Where was her husband? He
and Soun were both gone, vanished without a trace and without a single word
of goodbye. Ranma was concerned too, although he was feigning disinterest
in his father’s continuing absence. He had respected her wishes and
refrained from taking a leave of absence from school and conducting a
search. Shampoo’s emotional state was currently distracting him for the
moment from his father’s disappearance.



“You have a lovely home, Saotome-san,” said Cologne with sincerity,
interrupting Nodoka’s musings, setting down her teacup and bowing to the
other woman. “I am grateful that my great-granddaughter has obtained refuge
here with you.”



“She is a charming girl, and quite strong of spirit to have dealt so well
with everything she has had to face so far in her life.” Nodoka replied
calmly. “I know this is a difficult time for her.”



“Yes.” Cologne gazed down at her half-empty teacup. “It is a difficult time
for many people.” There was silence between them for a brief time.



Nodoka studied the elderly woman for several moments before speaking again.
“If I may ask, how are you doing during this time, Matriarch Cologne? Do
you need a place to stay?”



“Thank you for your concern, but I have already obtained lodgings in the
area, Saotome-san. I’ve actually been living here for a while, spending my
time observing Shampoo from a distance. I am comfortable where I am living
now.” She picked up her tea and sipped from it delicately.



“Are you aware of any other survivors from your village?” Nodoka asked
gently.



“Not with any certainty.” The answer seemed to hang in the air. “I believe
that Shampoo and I might be the last of our people.” Grief rose within her
once again at the thought of that, but she forced it back down. She had to
remain strong and not give in to sorrow, maintaining the cynical mask she
had worn for so many years. Sorrow would have to wait until a future time
when she was alone and could indulge herself in such things. For now, she
had to focus on gathering and preserving what was left of the Joketsuzoku.



While she was aware of Mousse’s presence in the area, living with the
insane Kuno girl, the blind fool was a mere male and not really worth
considering in her calculations. Perfume was another likely survivor, the
girl having headed out on her hunt for Shampoo many weeks ago. It was
possible she was even lurking in the area, but she had made no attempts at
contact. If she was indeed alive, there was an increased chance of survival
for their people’s genetic heritage as well as their lore.



It was a rather distasteful notion to consider such a thing, being a breach
of the very same law that her great-granddaughter had already been deemed
in violation of, but these were very desperate times. While Shampoo’s curse
prevented her from having a child herself, perhaps it offered an
opportunity to combine the Joketsuzoku’s two remaining bloodlines and a
path to rebuilding as a nation. That is, assuming she could get both girls
to cooperate, an uncertain prospect at best, even at the behest of a
matriarch and being done to pull their people back from the very brink of
oblivion.



Nodoka sipped at her tea, uncertain what to say as the elderly woman
ruminated.



“Do not be concerned for me, Saotome-san,” said Cologne suddenly, her gaze
rising. “I am old. My sole remaining purpose now is to see Shampoo and any
other survivors remain well. She and I had a falling out over her curse, so
I don’t feel it is good for her that I intrude upon her new life here, not
until she feels ready to see me.”



“And when will that be?” Nodoka eyed the elderly woman.



“Someday soon, I hope.” Finished with her tea, Cologne stood. “I should go
now. There are other matters I must attend to.”



Nodoka stood up. “Should I tell Shampoo you were here?”



“You may.” Holding her staff, she ambled slowly to the door. “Tell her that
I am well.” There was an awkward pause. “And tell her that I love her and
always have.” There was another uneasy silence and then Cologne continued
her way out the door, pausing just outside to turn around. “I will check in
with you from time to time, to see how things are going. Just let me know
at one of my visits, if Shampoo wishes to speak with me.”



Nodoka nodded. “I will. Farewell, Matriarch Cologne.”



“Farewell, Nodoka Saotome.” Cologne then pogoed off and leaped away,
disappearing quickly.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



*** Earth +3.002, -3.002



Bored with waiting, Ranma studied his surroundings once again. He was
sitting in a comfortable chair in an expensively-furnished office, dressed
in a nice suit. Seated on the other side of the desk in an ergonomic
leather chair was his agent, Soun Tendo, currently yelling at someone on
the phone.



“And I’m telling you to take your offer and shove it!” He gave Ranma an
aggrieved look and then went back to shouting. “I said no!” There was
another pause. “Stop telling me to be reasonable here, Sanzenin! If you
want to see one more frame of my client on film, you’re going to have to do
a hell of a lot better than five percent of the net on his next contract!
I’ve seen your studio screw over too many people with that arrangement!
Because you’re being such a lowlife, we want six of the gross instead of
the five I asked for before, or else we walk!” He then slammed the phone
down.



Ranma’s last film, “Big Trouble in Nekonron, China” had finally been bumped
from the marquee by newer movie offerings, after earning an impressive pile
of yen over a record-breaking numbers of weeks. He had only received a flat
amount up front of five hundred million yen, but he had received an
additional billion yen as a bonus later due to its incredible success at
the box office. His agent and manager, Soun Tendo, had been very busy for
the past several weeks conducting the negotiations with his current film
production company for a new contract, his first having expired with this
last film.



“How’re they taking it?” he asked, wondering what Shampoo was up to while
he was out of the house. She’d mentioned something about doing some clothes
shopping with her friends. He hoped she bought some sexy outfits for their
upcoming trip to Hawaii. He briefly fantasized about her in a bikini and
other revealing outfits.



Soun shook his head and promptly lit up a cigarette. “I swear, Ranma,
producers are assholes and greedy bastards, every last one of them. But
luckily, I’ve got an ace in the hole. That slimy Sanzenin doesn’t know I’ve
got him by the balls yet. If he doesn’t pony up the cash, I’ve got a couple
of sweet deals lined up with other studios to prove we mean business. And
that indie film we’ve been talking about will show people you can do far
more than action and comedy roles.”



There was a staccato rap on the door.



“Ah, there’s opportunity knocking now.” Soun got out of his seat as he
stubbed out his cigarette and straightened his tie. He nodded at the boy.
“Just let me do most of the talking, but feel free to chime in if you think
you need to, Ranma.”



The door opened and Hinako Ninomiya came in, dressed in an expensive,
tailored outfit that showed off her impressive physique very nicely. Ranma
found himself aroused by the mere sight of her. “Soun-kun,” she purred.
“It’s been ages. How’s the family?” The two exchanged brief bows and then
she kissed his cheek.



Ranma blinked, seeing the sensuous girl coming in right behind Hinako,
Kodachi Kuno. She wore an eye-catchingly short and tight black skirt that
only reached down a few inches on her thighs, dark green stockings that
started a little below there, and ankle-length, black leather boots, all of
it calling attention to her athletic legs, shapely hips and derriere. Her
dark green silk blouse showed off her upper torso’s female assets in a
teasing, translucent fashion, as if daring a man to stare at them. Despite
her current outfit, she was the kind of girl who could wear a floor-length
gown and still manage to look completely naked.



Her hair fell down her back in a smooth, lustrous ponytail, tied with a
dark green ribbon that matched her blouse and stockings. A slightly mocking
smile was on her lips as if permanently affixed there. She gave him a look
with eyes that were clearly sizing him up.



“Hello,” Ranma said, offering a sly smile at the girl, regretting for
several agonizing moments that he was married and couldn’t... shouldn’t
play with such a dangerous beauty. But, oh, how he found himself aching to.
She radiated a sultry sort of splendor that called out to him and made him
imagine a sensual riff of saxophone music had been playing ever since her
entrance. She responded to his greeting by coming over and sauntering
around him, her expression solemn and judging, her lips pursed slightly in
thought.



“You’re not as tall as I thought you’d be,” Kodachi finally remarked to him
after several moments, sounding disappointed. She then commented to Hinako,
“How do you expect me to work with someone like him? He’s just too short to
be my leading man. I have my career as a serious actress to think of, you
know.” She then flounced down into a chair and crossed her shapely legs,
giving him a momentary glimpse of her green panties, looking at him with
disdain very apparent in her gaze.



“Uh.” Ranma was surprised. He was used to girls practically throwing
themselves at him, even after he was married, which didn’t please Shampoo
very much. Still, to be dismissed like that by such a sultry beauty
intrigued him even more. He had always relished a challenging conquest,
feeling himself ache again inside to bed this girl, imagining those shapely
legs wrapped around him as they did naughty things to each other.



Kodachi rolled her eyes. “Great. I’ve been here a couple of minutes and all
he’s uttered is a single word and a grunt like an animal. Hinako, what are
you doing to me? This guy clearly can’t do serious roles with dramatic
dialog. He should stick to being a monosyllabic tough guy and doing his
comedy shticks.”



A frown adorned Ranma’s face at her continuing, casual dismissal of his
abilities as an actor. It was annoying, but it was also inflaming his
desires for her even brighter than before. He looked at Soun.



“Why don’t I take the young lady to lunch? She and I can talk in a more
casual environment.” He turned back to face Kodachi. “Would that be all
right with you, Kuno-san?”



Soun smiled and looked at Hinako. “I think that sounds like a fine idea.
What do you think?”



“I agree,” Hinako said, nodding. “You two kids go grab some lunch and get
better acquainted. We’ll talk business here.”



“I haven’t agreed to anything,” Kodachi protested, one eyebrow raised.



Ranma gave her another sly smile. “Are you afraid to be alone with me,
Kuno-san?”



She harrumphed, but her eyes flickered with a modicum of interest. She
stood up gracefully and tugged briefly at her short skirt to straighten it.
“All right, Saotome-san, I’ll give you two hours to impress me. You’d
better make every minute count. I’m a girl who doesn’t impress easily.”



After the two youths left, Hinako sat down across the desk from Soun and
removed a cigarette from her purse, looking at him. “So, what do you think
of her, Soun-kun?”



“She’s certainly a charmer, I’ll grant you that.” He reached across the
desk and lit her cigarette with a gold lighter taken from his pocket. He
watched her puff delicately on it. “She certainly has a high opinion of
herself too.”



“Well, after already winning an Oscar for best actress at her age, she can
afford to be, I suppose,” Hinako replied. “At least that horrible mother of
hers is finally out of the picture. She hung herself after she was put
behind bars for embezzling all that money.” She shook her head. “Stealing
from her daughter, what a horrible bitch she was. The girl doesn’t even
miss her, and I’m glad I don’t have to deal with the woman anymore. Her
father is much more sensible and stable.” She took another puff of her
cigarette and smiled coquettishly. “He asked me to marry him.”



“The poor, love-struck fool,” said Soun with a smirk. “Or could it be that
you love him back, Hinako-chan?”



“He’s actually been quite a gentleman towards me, unlike some men I know.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, her tone teasing.



“Hey, I always paid for dinner and the room when we were dating,” Soun
protested mildly. He paused a moment and studied her, his expression
suddenly becoming more serious. “I never really thanked you for pulling me
back from the brink after my wife died, did I?” He sighed. “I was such a
mess after her accident. I almost lost everything. You saved my career and
my family.”



“Oh, Soun-kun.” She smiled at him. “That’s what friends are for.” She
paused as well. “You know, you can still call me anytime for that sort of
thing, or even just to talk, if you’re ever feeling lonely.”



“Maybe I will.” He pulled out a cigarette for himself and regarded her with
curiosity. “So, what did you tell him?”



“That I’m still thinking over his offer,” she replied, taking another drag
of her cigarette, letting the smoke emerge from her nose as she exhaled,
dragon-like. She looked at him directly. “I might be waiting for someone
else to make me a better offer.”



He looked startled. “You never admitted being interested before.”



“A woman can change her mind.” She crossed her long legs and rested a hand
on one knee. “It’s been a couple of years. I’m older and wiser now.”



His gaze dropped briefly to regard her legs before returning his gaze back
to her face, briefly pausing at the sight of the full swell of her bosom
artfully displayed by her tailored outfit. “Perhaps we could talk this over
later, someplace with better ambiance?”



“I’d like that.” She smiled at him warmly; her eyes alight with a bit of
amusement.



“So, did you bring the new script you were telling me about?” Soun lit up
the cigarette he had been absently holding for the last few moments as he
suddenly changed the subject. “The boy’s been excited about doing something
different from his last few roles.”



“Right here,” she replied, unbothered by the redirection of their
conversation, pulling it out of her purse and dropping the modest sheaf of
typewritten papers on his desk.



“When They Cry: Abducted By Demons” was its title.



Soun glanced down at it and smirked. The story was a compelling mixture of
murder mystery, horror and psychological thriller, all tied together with a
supernatural twist. It was a fantastically creepy tale, one that was
already a bestselling novel, and there was word a new sequel would soon be
released. The author had written it under a pen name, claiming to have
based the entire story on journals that were recovered from the site of a
dead village, one where over two thousand people perished in some sort of
volcanic gas eruption several years ago. There were many conspiracy
theorists who thought there was more to the tale than the official one, and
the author had crafted a fascinating, fictionalized recreation of some of
the people who once lived there and their final weeks alive.



Being in such a controversial film would shake up the boy’s career and
prove to his detractors that he could do far more than action-adventure
heroism or comedy farce. He just had to get along with his prospective
co-star, the girl who owned the rights to the script and had options for
the film rights on all future stories written by the author, but Soun had
great faith in the boy’s abilities there. In addition to his fantastic
martial arts skills, Ranma had an amazing talent at getting along with
women and inciting them to love him.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



*** Earth +0.003, +0.001



“You know, you only have yourself to blame for this,” said Nabiki as she
examined her face in the mirror, dressed in the blood-spattered uniform of
a Security Directorate officer. She frowned at the livid bruise she saw on
one of her cheeks and the numerous splashes of dark crimson staining her
uniform jacket. “I tried to be reasonable with you, Hinako-sensei. I
really, really did. You just wouldn’t listen.”



Turning around, she looked down with regret at the uniformed body of
Security Director Hinako Ninomiya as its eyes stared blankly, the woman’s
neck twisted to one side at an unnatural angle, a trickle of blood still
oozing from her mouth. She had been very badly beaten before her death,
with numerous bruises showing as well as dried blood spattered darkly on
her clothes. Several other men and women, all of them dressed in the dark
uniforms of the Security Directorate and laying dead in the room in various
distorted postures. They were the former Director’s former bodyguards.



“I mean, why would you ever question my loyalty to you? After I killed my
very own father to gain your favor all those months ago, that was just
mean. You taught me so much, and I would have done anything for you.”
Nabiki picked up the dead woman’s abandoned purse and began rooting through
it. “And then trying to kill me?” She frowned more deeply. “That was just
stupid.”



She pulled out a compact and began applying some makeup to cover up the
bruise on her face. After all, a girl should always try to look her best.
Her face brightened suddenly into a smile at the results.



“It really was fortunate for me when I snuck into Ranma’s lab months ago
and tried out his little device,” she said as she checked the purse for
some lipstick. “If I hadn’t, I’d probably be the one lying there instead of
you, but I’ve always been a pretty lucky girl. If you can call me anything,
I’m a survivor.”



Not liking the color she found, thinking it too garish, she checked the
belongings of the other dead female agents. “You’re lucky that other
version of me isn’t here. She was well on her way to a bad ending, and I’m
sure she went out in a blaze of glory from what I witnessed of her
situation while I was spending some time in her skin. That girl was messed
up in her wiring. Something went really wrong in her head a long time ago.
Fortunately, I’m much saner.”



She grinned when she found a lipstick color she liked, taking it from the
broken body of one young woman by the door even as she continued her
monologue. “But she sure knew how to kick ass. After ten years on a
training trip from hell with that world’s Genma Saotome, nobody could put
her down, not that any of her enemies were left in any condition to try it
more than once.” She began applying the color from the lipstick carefully,
not wanting to overdo it and look like a whore or something. “Combining her
skills with what was done to me by Project Phoenix made for one mean bitch,
but I don’t really have to tell that to you, now do I?” She paused briefly
as if waiting for a reply and then shrugged her shoulders and continued.



“I know you were upset after I killed Ranma, but what could I do?” She put
the lipstick away into a pocket when she was done. “If he had found another
world where one of his analogs had gone on the training trip instead of one
of mine, he would have been a danger to me, and I just couldn’t have that.
How was I supposed to know that the mousy little Kuno girl would jump to
another world like that and leave behind a virus destroying the resonator’s
software? That just wasn’t my fault.”



She barely restrained herself from snarling at the thought of Kodachi Kuno
outmaneuvering her, a rage suddenly filling her. The pathetic weakling had
managed to get away during the confusion after Ranma’s murder, somehow
mustering up enough courage to carry out her impromptu escape plan, leaving
behind a mindless shell that later died. It simply infuriated Nabiki to
have been outfoxed by the other girl. She had been planning to steal the
resonator and hide it during the turmoil after Ranma’s death, keeping it
safe in case she needed an emergency exit.



The Kuno girl’s abrupt departure had left a huge mess behind her, and
Director Hinako had been looking for answers and someone to blame for it
for weeks. Despite her best efforts at redirecting the investigation away
from her, sacrificing allies like the Gosunkugi boy and even the
ever-faithful pair, Yuka and Sayuri, Nabiki had failed to find a good
enough scapegoat to satisfy her mentor’s suspicions. The result of this was
the rather violent parting of ways with Director Hinako that had just
concluded. Fortunately, long before the brutal confrontation had finally
occurred, she had managed to hide an ace up her sleeve.



Her eyes brightened when she heard a groan from one of the fallen bodies,
Kyosuke Kasuga, her boyfriend, a relationship that had arisen soon after
she had consoled him after the horrific death of Yohko Mano at the hands of
a conjured demon months ago. While she had initially only done it as
practice in seducing men and as a means of enlisting him as an ally to her
cause, he had since fallen deeply in love with her. Although she did not
feel the same way towards him, she did like having such an attentive and
loyal boyfriend around, especially someone with esper powers willing to do
her bidding.



Eventually, a few months ago, she had submitted herself to his fumbling
advances, letting him think he was the one actually in control of the
encounter. Hinako had been instructing her on some of the finer points of
seducing men, and she had been practicing her lessons diligently upon
Kyosuke. When she felt the time was right between them, she had “closed the
deal” with him, giving her virginity to him and claiming his in return,
feeling certain it would cement his loyalty to her.



One night, while watching a movie at his house, holding hands had led to
passionate kissing and then far more erotic things. He had responded quite
eagerly to her apparent acquiescence to his advances, even as she was
subtly urging him on, and the resulting encounter with him had been both
educational and physically gratifying. Although their first effort had been
clumsy, slightly painful for her and a rather embarrassingly unskilled
effort on both their parts, subsequent endeavors that night had gotten
progressively better.



Since then, she had used him to satisfy her burgeoning desires every few
days. While their intimate encounters were hardly the stuff of fantasies
like it was portrayed in romantic stories or movies, she had enjoyed
herself a great deal and been extremely pleased to discover how eager he
became to stay in her good graces. She considered it a sincere compliment
on her desirability as a woman.



She mused that it was a very good thing she had encouraged him to fall in
love with her. It was quite likely she would have died without his aid, his
telekinesis holding Hinako back from striking at a critical point during
their struggle with each other, letting her get in the fatal blow that
ended their fight instead. He had been shot in the back by one of the
bodyguards and knocked out moments later, and she had not been able to
check on him at the time, being busy with fighting for her life with
several of the remaining bodyguards at once. She hurried over to his side
and knelt down next to him, her expression swiftly shifting to form an
appropriate mask of apprehension.



“Kyosuke-kun,” she said softly, projecting the proper amount of concern for
him in her voice and countenance as she studied his injuries. “I can’t
believe you’re alive. I thought you were dead.” She could tell after a
brief examination that his wounds were very grave, but he had somehow
regained consciousness. She lifted him up and hugged him rather gingerly,
not wanting to hurt him further, getting even more blood on her clothing.



“I can’t believe... I’m alive either,” Kyosuke croaked. He felt one side of
his face pressed up against her bosom as she cradled him in her arms and
inwardly exulted at the experience, distracting him from the agony in his
lower torso. “I thought... you were going to die. I’m glad... you’re all
right.” He reached a hand up to caress her breast as he snuggled his face
closer, feeling comforted by her caring and grateful that she was
apparently uninjured. He knew she had her flaws, but he was certain she
wasn’t nearly as bad as people always said she was. Feeling her arms around
him, he felt sure she really loved him after all.



Nabiki let him fondle her, inwardly smirking. Boys were remarkably easy to
deal with even in such serious situations, if you were willing to put up
with some perversion. He was clearly dying and had sacrificed himself to
save her life, so she felt it was a small price to let him touch her there.
The sensations were actually rather nice and inspired surprisingly powerful
sexual urges within her, likely the result of surviving such an intense
situation.



However, that would have to wait until she was out of her current
predicament. Then she planned to find the first good-looking young man she
could and have her way with him until he begged her to stop, and maybe not
even then. Her mental smirk then transformed into a more lecherous grin at
the thought of indulging her body’s needs. She hoped her chosen target
would have enough endurance to satiate her desires. Kyosuke had always
tried valiantly to satisfy her, but his endurance was never sufficient
enough.



While she considered herself in all honesty to be a heartless girl, her
time using Ranma’s resonator had shown her that other versions of her were
just as bad. That was oddly comforting to her. The only one who had been
worse in her eyes was the Jusenkyo-cursed martial artist version of herself
she had briefly inhabited, who had killed Akane for trying to warn Ranma
about her analog, shoving her in front of a bus. That one was really
screwed up in the head, she mused.



The thought of Akane suddenly made her feel odd for a moment. Her little
sister had died a few months ago on this world, her corpse discovered in an
alleyway only a few blocks from their home. She had been beaten pretty
badly before her death, one of her arms was broken and she had apparently
been killed by a knife wound to her chest. The culprits were never found by
the authorities.



They never would be, Nabiki grimly mused, letting no sign of this show on
her face. She had made sure of that, tracking down each one of her sister’s
killers and ending their lives as painfully as she could. Her improved
fighting abilities had made their executions almost laughably easy, and she
had been able to take her time and really savor it.



She supposed she should feel sad about Akane’s death, but she didn’t, not
really. Kasumi’s death troubled her more only due to the questions raised
by her murder. All the authorities knew was that her sister had apparently
been brutally beaten to death by a person who could not exist. A still
image of Kasumi’s killer’s face had been taken from the video recording of
her death. It was later identified as that of a woman, an Arena fighter of
some fame many years ago: Colt Remington. But, somehow, she had not aged a
day since then. How was that possible? And why had she murdered Kasumi?



They both suddenly heard the distant wails of warning sirens sound once
again. The attack coming from Europe was almost here, and the missiles
would soon be falling. She had to leave.



“Kyosuke-kun,” Nabiki said softly. “I think it’s time you pulled out an
esper trick to deal with this. We’ve got to get out of here.”



“Yeah, I think you’re right.” With her help, he rose slowly to his feet.
There was something he could do, a power he had only used once in his life
before by accident and almost didn’t make it back without his grandfather’s
help. It might not work now, but the only alternative was to wait to die.
“We’re going out that window.”



“What?!” Nabiki snapped out, surprised. “Why?”



“I think I can take us away from here, but it might not work.” He looked at
her steadily. “I can jump us to another world, maybe a better one.” He cast
his gaze around them, remembering how horrible people like the ones piled
around them had started murdering espers in their homes and in their beds,
including his mother and grandfather, blaming them for the Empire’s fall,
looking for any scapegoat they could find. “However, we need to literally
jump from a high place.”



“Terrific,” she muttered. “All right. Let’s do it.”



He smiled encouragingly, a trickle of blood leaking from his mouth. She
deserved to live, the only person he valued left in the world. He loved
her, and he would do his best to save her life one final time.



For a moment, he found himself mourning the death of Yohko Mano. Her
gruesome demise had opened the door to his relationship with Nabiki. If she
had lived, maybe things could have been different.



“Here we go,” he said in a croaking voice, blasting the window open with a
powerful burst of telekinetic force, the effort causing him to feel
something tear in his chest. He coughed up some blood as Nabiki held him up
and then they stepped out into space and fell. He focused his will to send
her away to another world, desperation allowing him to reach far deeper
inside himself, using more of the Power than he ever could before. She had
to survive.



Nabiki’s form flickered and vanished midway down. Kyosuke had only a moment
to feel contentment before he lost consciousness and died from the strain
of his efforts combined with his fatal injuries. The girl he loved would
survive. That was all that had mattered to him.



His body slammed into the pavement several stories down.



A brief time later, a flash of actinic light ignited the sky as the first
nuclear warhead went off, one of several targeted at Tokyo.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



*** Earth +6.444, +5.611



Two versions of Nabiki suddenly found themselves face to face with each
other. One girl, her uniform blood-spattered and disheveled as she stood
there on unsteady legs, faced a second Nabiki dressed in a silken robe,
having just emerged from the bath and preparing for a relaxing afternoon at
home. The two stared at each other for a single moment.



The robed girl felt icy terror run through her at the sudden appearance of
her twin out of thin air. Had the Matriarchy’s High Command somehow
discovered her duplicity against them? Had they sent another spy to replace
her at this post? She had been posing for many months as a courtesan after
disposing of her vacuous analog here, feeding her superiors information
gleaned from her close relationships with the powerful men she was now
involved with. What had gone unreported was that she was growing enormously
wealthy from their many gifts of money and jewelry to her, enough to
someday soon escape the war and retire in luxury on some distant tangent
that had never heard of either the Musk or the Solnoids.



Reacting faster than the robed girl, Nabiki leaped forward and kicked her
doppelganger in the face, stunning her and preventing any scream before it
could be uttered. She completed the move by landing behind her and grabbing
her arm, twisting the limb up painfully behind her doppelganger’s back in
an arm lock and then wrestling the other girl down to her knees, eliciting
a reflexive grunt of pain. She quickly realized her twin was well-muscled
underneath her shapely curves, built like a dancer or martial artist, a
fairly close match to her own frame. The two froze for a moment in brief
tableau while Nabiki assessed her options and the other girl struggled to
regain her senses and fight back. A decision was reached in mere moments,
faster than the kneeling girl could get her body to respond.



“Better you than me,” Nabiki said softly to her twin before she could
protest. In a sudden maneuver, she grabbed her doppelganger by the jaw and
the back of her skull and twisted her head sharply to one side with all of
her strength. A harsh, wet, snapping sound occurred and then the young
Matriarchy spy convulsed once before she expired. Nabiki eased her twin’s
dead body the remaining distance to the floor and listened for any signs of
awareness of her attack upon the other girl. None were heard.



Finally able to pause to catch her breath, she felt her adrenaline surge
finally fading. Kyosuke wasn’t present, and she wasn’t sure what to make of
that. She stood up and looked around.



Perhaps it was something familiar in the room, some random sight or smell,
but all of a sudden a buried hoard of memories surfaced within her mind.
Nabiki chuckled at the abrupt profusion of knowledge that unexpectedly
opened up within her, a final gift of her time spent playing around with
Ranma’s resonator device and viewing her other lives. It was a good thing
she had attacked first. If she was where she believed she was, then her
dead doppelganger was a cold-blooded killer, a ruthless girl capable of
swift and deadly action in order to carry out her mission. She wondered
very briefly what her dreams would be like tonight. Perhaps she would be
visited by the ghost of another self, one much more like herself than the
last one.



Going to a certain place in the room, she confirmed where she was when a
small panel opened to her seeking touch, the mechanism unlocking upon the
recognition of her fingerprint and opening to reveal a hidden cache that
contained a few personal effects and various miniaturized pieces of
espionage equipment. Among those articles was a small, nondescript
apparatus that would allow minute data storage devices no larger than an
aspirin tablet to be sent and received from the Solnoid Matriarchy when the
paraequipotential flux between timeline tangents aligned just so, an event
that took place irregularly. A small indicator on the device showed that
several more days remained before the next window would occur.



Another piece of equipment found was a Solnoid-designed quantum tunneling
device, pre-programmed to scan for any of the Matriarchy’s signal beacons
when activated but also designed to remain inert if an unauthorized person
attempted to use it. Since it would only work if the paraequipotential flux
was aligned properly, that necessitated planning ahead to use it, but it
could also open a portal to a random world with a much shorter wait time if
necessary. She very carefully replaced everything except for her
doppelganger’s personal journal, recorded on a small video unit. It would
hopefully fill in the gap in her knowledge, since her memories of the other
girl’s life cut off a few months ago.



A quick check of the small house revealed that she was alone with the
corpse, her twin apparently living alone. She returned to the bedroom and
contemplated the body. She had to get rid of it quickly before it began to
smell, but luckily she had available to her a remarkably tidy option. She
would not even need to leave the house.



After rolling up her twin’s corpse tightly in an old blanket, Nabiki slung
the body over her shoulder and carried it down to the basement region.
There she uncovered a large panel leading to the home’s waste disposal
unit, essentially a high-tech furnace that would eliminate any trace that
her doppelganger had ever existed. It would be a tight fit getting it all
within, but the task was doable without cutting the body into smaller
pieces, which she would prefer to avoid. It was ironic, since her
predecessor in this role had used this very same unit to dispose of the
original courtesan as well, taking over her life after remotely downloading
her memories to achieve a perfect knowledge of it, stepping into the other
girl’s place many months ago.



Those memories were now Nabiki’s as well, obtained with those of the
Matriarchy spy. The courtesan version of her had been a self-serving,
somewhat vacuous vixen of a girl, but women living in the Musk Dynasty
frequently used their beauty and sexuality as a weapon, one of the few they
were allowed by the men here, seemingly every single one of them a dogmatic
misogynist. Even so, she realized she could have done far worse in a choice
for a new life, and it would be a good test of her abilities at
manipulation and seduction to survive here for a while. But if things got
too tight, she would bolt and run to another tangent, taking the other
girl’s hidden stash of gold and jewels with her as a stake to start fresh.
But for now, she would take some time to rest and recover while she planned
out her next steps.



Once the corpse was finally dealt with, along with disposing of her
blood-stained uniform with it, she went upstairs to bathe and clean up any
lingering evidence of foul play. Her twin had just taken a bath, so it was
likely she wasn’t expected anywhere soon. Nabiki took her time, enjoying
the use of the expensive soaps and shampoos she found there, letting all of
the dirt and blood upon her body sluice down the drain.



When the bath was over, she felt reborn. Her old life had been washed away,
its many sins discarded with the aid of fire and water. She felt confident
that any karmic price to be paid for her choices had been left behind on
that dying world. She was free.



Smirking, she suddenly realized that part of that freedom meant she could
no longer even call herself a Tendo now. Her family name was her final
connection to her old existence, and she discarded it without regret. The
version of her native to this tangent, the hollow girl whose life the
Matriarchy spy had appropriated for her own mission for a time, had grown
up with only her mother’s name to call her own.



She was Nabiki Nakakami now.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



*** Earth +3.002, -3.002



“You certainly have impressed me, Saotome-san. You’ve stirred this innocent
girl’s soul with both your charming words and bold actions.”



Ranma gazed up at the ceiling as Kodachi ran her hand across his chest and
then slowly down lower on his body as they both cooled off and caught their
breaths from their recent activities. A quivering of guilt ran through him
at what he had just done, but it was quickly drowned out by other
sensations she was arousing within him by her actions. He rolled over and
looked at her, idly noting the disheveled condition of the hotel room they
were in, their clothing and the bed’s sheets flung about to lie strewn upon
the floor.



He raised an eyebrow as he studied her naked body lying next to his,
recalling what had just happened. “Innocent girl?”



She chuckled, somehow making it sound erotic. “Why, Ranma-kun. Just you
asking that question makes me feel so wicked.” She met his gaze. “I think
we both know how much you wanted me. I could see it in your eyes when I
first walked in the door. I may have dangled out a little bit of bait, but
you were the one who bit hard on the hook.” She lifted one leg and caressed
it slowly down along his flank. “Besides, our liaison was quite pleasurable
for me too. You’ve certainly lived up to your reputation as a ladies man.”
She smiled at him coquettishly as her hand caressed his stomach.



“Oh?” He eyed her, suddenly feeling uncertain again.



“Don’t worry, Ranma-kun. I don’t plan to make any trouble for you or make
any selfish claims upon you. This is just for fun, a one-time thing, to see
how much chemistry we have together. But if you want an encore performance
with me, I suppose something could be arranged. I’ll leave you my card with
my private number.” She continued her actions with her hands, reaching down
lower again, caressing him teasingly with her fingertips as she leaned
forward and began necking with him, sighing into their open-mouthed kisses.
“Call me anytime you want another encore,” she murmured, followed by a soft
moan.



“So, I guess this means I meet your standards for a leading man after all,
Kodachi-chan?” he whispered at the end of a kiss, releasing a deep groan as
he felt himself responding with great virility to her gentle ministrations.
He caressed his hand down her side and then back up her front, stroking her
skin and marveling at its silken smoothness while recalling how incredibly
limber she was. He absently recalled that she was a trained gymnast.



“I suppose you’ll do for the role of Keiichi Maebara,” she said with a sigh
and soft groan, enjoying his touches upon her.



“And what role did you have in mind for yourself?” He then gasped at one of
her more aggressive caresses, his arousal heightening with every moment as
her hands continued their explorations upon his body.



“The character of Rena Ryugu appeals to me,” she said after several moments
spent enjoying what he was doing to her and then opening her eyes slightly,
grinning with playful wickedness. “I like the idea of playing such a
troubled, unstable, violent girl. It will be an amusing change of pace to
act so chillingly insane after my last role as such a pristinely good girl.”



“I’ve heard Ryoko Masaki and her twin sister might be available after they
finish shooting that television pilot they’re working on. I could see them
playing Mion and Shion Sonozaki.” At his mention of them, he then tried
hard not to think further about the sexy Masaki twins, but it was
surprisingly difficult for him, even with the pleasurable things Kodachi
was distracting him with. He stifled a groan at the thought of the pair.
The twins possessed very shapely and athletic physiques, and he had long
held a fantasy about bedding them together.



Kodachi rolled on top of him and smiled lustily, her fingers caressing down
his ribcage, feeling his body shudder in response to her delicate touches.
“That sounds like an excellent idea, Ranma-kun,” she murmured, a bit
breathless now. “I’ll mention your suggestion to Hinako.” She lowered her
face to his and kissed with him once again, their tongues wrestling gently
for several minutes before she pulled back and looked down at him. “So, are
you ready for another bout yet? Some extended creative collaboration
together? You certainly feel ready to me.”



Ranma nodded eagerly, hoping that Shampoo never found out about this. She
had shown herself to be quite a jealous wife with a violent temper many
weeks ago, accusing him of saying another girl’s name during climax when
they had made love together. He had been certain at the time that he would
never do such a thing because he had never done it with any other girl
before her.



However, a thought had implanted itself into his head as he recovered from
that savage beating. Maybe he really had been thinking about another girl
while he was being intimate with Shampoo. He could not really remember that
period of time, likely being half-asleep. After all, he had never tried to
stay faithful to one woman for so long. Perhaps it was a sign of some kind.



Ever since that day, he had been almost constantly fighting down his
desires for other girls he saw, contemplating the most beautiful ones with
longing and growing less resistant to the idea of straying. The proven risk
of his wife’s fearsome wrath only seemed to add to the thrill of it, and he
had to confess that he missed the chase, the seduction and the final
conquest of new girls. When Kodachi had walked into the office earlier, he
just could not seem to resist his urges anymore.



While he loved Shampoo dearly, he realized he would have to keep this a
secret from her. She just wouldn’t be able to understand that he was a
young man with certain needs that one woman could not possibly satisfy.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



*** Earth +3.184, -3.223



A gasp of air was forced from Ranma’s lungs in a cough as Shampoo’s fist
caught him squarely in the diaphragm, the pain stunning him for a moment
and opening up his defenses. Taking merciless advantage of his condition,
she grabbed his head and drove her knee into his face, her strike stunning
him again. He staggered a step, his body uncertain whether to fall forwards
or backwards. She swiftly sprang upwards above him as he stumbled forward,
struggling to keep from falling to his knees, and then the heel of her foot
came driving down solidly into his back between his shoulder blades in an
axe kick, slamming him into the ground as she finished him off.



“Ouch,” murmured Ryu Kumon, reflexively wincing at the sight of his best
friend’s dust-rising impact into the ground after being brutalized like
that by his beautiful, live-in sparring partner. Next to him in the
Saotome’s backyard, Ukyo Kuonji sat at her ease, dressed in a blue gi,
sipping a cold soda. Behind them, the quiet figure of Mina Li knelt
demurely, watching the match with great interest. The Korean girl was
dressed in a casual kimono Ryu’s mother had bought for her.



“Do you think he tried something again?” Ukyo whispered to him, leaning
over and casually touching his arm to get his attention.



“Knowing Ranma as I do, I suspect so.” Ryu took a sip of his own soda,
relaxing as he watched the other boy struggling slowly back to his feet.
Shampoo stood a short distance away, annoyance prevalent in her gaze, but a
hint of something else there as well. He shifted his regard back to Ukyo.
“It must be torture to him, to be so close to a beauty like her every day
and not be able to have her. I’m glad I don’t have his problem.” He grinned
lecherously at the memories of his liaisons with Mina, enjoying the Korean
girl’s plentiful charms as often as he could ever since his mother had
acquired her for him.



“Boys,” the girl next to him murmured with a frown, knowing what he was
likely thinking about from the perverted look suddenly appearing on his
face, feeling angry at him and a little sorry for Mina. “You all think with
what’s down there between your legs. You don’t understand that this is
difficult for her too.” When her companion just looked blankly back at her,
she growled a little at his male idiocy. “Look, dummy, she likes him. She
doesn’t enjoy hurting him.” There was a pause as she sipped her drink.
“Well, except when he’s being a pervert with her, but then he deserves it.”



Ryu raised an eyebrow. Ukyo nodded at him and stood up.



“Looks like we’re up, Ryu-kun,” she said, stretching her arms out in front
of her, her fingers interlaced together, causing the tendons in her hands
to pop. “Ready to get beat by a girl again?”



“You know, it wouldn’t kill you to act a little less gloating,” he said
with a glower at her. “You’re only a few matches up on me.”



“Whatever you say, Ryu-kun,” she replied with mocking sweetness in her
tones, patting him on the cheek, purposely leaning forward to give him a
tantalizing glimpse of cleavage beneath her gi top. Looking forward to the
beating she planned to give the lecherous boy, she sauntered past Shampoo,
currently busy with helping Ranma back to his place at the sidelines to
recover. The two girls nodded respectfully to each other, Ukyo
acknowledging her as an equal despite Shampoo’s much lower social standing,
having grown to esteem her as a warrior.



“Have a good match, Kumon-san,” said Mina without meaning it. She watched
as he stood up and then turned to her. Seeing him smile, she smiled back
only because it was expected of her. Deep inside, she was looking forward
to seeing Ukyo pound the Kumon boy into the dirt again.



“No worries,” he said confidently, taking a moment to admire the Korean
girl’s beauty, the clean lines of her face and her long hair that fell in a
lustrous mane to just below her shoulders. He was so grateful to his mother
at picking this sexy girl for him. “Uk-chan’s being far too cocky. Time to
teach her that she’s not as tough as she thinks she is.” With that, he
strolled out to face off against Ukyo.



After depositing Ranma at the sidelines to rest and recover, Shampoo
stalked over and settled herself down right next to Mina in a kneeling
position, appearing relaxed but ready. The Korean girl glanced at her,
deeply admiring the Amazon’s great ability to fight, wondering what it
would be like to be able to have such strength at her command, to be able
to walk with such confidence and be respected as the other girl was by
others for her skills, even though she was a slave like herself. Shampoo
could even refuse Ranma’s advances, further increasing her envy. She
desperately wanted to be able to tell Ryu “no” sometimes.



The pair watched as Ukyo and Ryu began sparring fiercely, the two fighters
giving it their all against each other. As the girls took their ease in the
shade, they watched the fierce conflict escalate as Ukyo began to quickly
gain the upper hand, the Kuonji girl clearly intent on inflicting some
pain. Nodoka came out and knelt down next to the young Amazon, somewhat
disdainfully ignoring the quiet Korean girl on the other side of Shampoo
who had gone back to watching the match with a slight smile.



“How is he doing today, Shampoo?” asked the older woman calmly, as if
discussing the weather, glancing briefly at her son lying in a crumpled
heap. “I saw he came pretty close to beating you yesterday.”



“Almost, but Ranma get distracted... again,” murmured the Joketsuzoku girl
with a sigh. She shook her head and looked somewhat regretfully at him. One
of her kicks had gone high, exposing her panties to his gaze, and that was
the end of him. “Shampoo know Ranma not really weak, but still have big
problem with sexy distraction.”



It was actually a bit frustrating to her, now that she had gotten to know
him somewhat better over the past many weeks. She had observed him when he
was fighting against other boys, fierce and capable fighters such as his
newest nemesis, the pink-haired kendoist, Utemaro Tenjou. He was able to
beat them all without too much trouble, displaying an astonishing level of
ability. But against her and the Tendo girls, especially with the two
younger ones who played on his one glaring flaw when it came to fighting
with women, he became distracted by displays of their femininity. An
exhibition of cleavage or an unveiled view of panties utterly disabled his
combat abilities, a weapon the two younger Tendo girls in particular rather
gleefully used in their arsenal against him. It was like he was a helpless
thrall to his desires and teenaged male hormones, such displays destroying
his ability to fight with his normal effectiveness.



“Well, since Ranma has some time off coming up when his summer break starts
at the Academy, why don’t the two of you get out of the city for a while?”
Nodoka suggested. “I have some distant relatives you could stay with in the
countryside for a week or two and enjoy the local scenery, just the two of
you. The fresh air would do you both good.”



Secretly, Nodoka hoped that the change of scenery would allow Ranma to
finally beat Shampoo and win the Joketsuzoku girl as a bride. She had come
to know the Amazon a bit better over the past weeks, and she felt certain
the girl would make him an excellent wife despite her currently low social
standing. It was not unheard of in the Empire for a female slave to attain
their freedom through marriage to an Imperial citizen. And if he was
finally able to indulge his desires and exorcise his male urges with the
aid of the Chinese girl, she was sure that would free her son to be the
warrior Genma had trained him to be, able to deal with any opponent
equally, regardless of their gender.



The way he was now, crippled by his sexual desires when fighting with
girls, she feared her son falling prey to some less than honorable woman
who would severely harm him. The two Tendo girls, while they were two of
his most dedicated rivals and unhesitatingly preyed upon his weakness with
females in their tactics against him, had never seriously injured him
during a fight. She actually suspected the pair harbored far gentler
feelings for him than they displayed in public, despite the ugly vitriol
Soun and Genma held for each other. On separate occasions recently, she had
seen each of the Tendo girls lurking near the house, observing Shampoo and
Ranma talking together. The fierce looks she saw on their faces could have
only been described as green-eyed jealousy. Nabiki had glared at the Amazon
as if trying to burn a hole through her with her eyes, and Akane had
gripped a steel fencepost next to her with both hands as if throttling it,
tightly enough to crumple it like an empty soda can.



Shampoo’s lips formed into a moue as she considered the matter. It was not
as if she could really refuse the offer. Nodoka had gone out of her way,
ever since Ranma purchased the Joketsuzoku girl at auction, to make her
feel more like part of the family instead of something he owned. That
kindness was greatly appreciated. It would also be nice to get away from
the city and breathe some cleaner air for a while.



“Where we go?”



“Oh, it’s a charming little village, quite rustic and peaceful. My cousin
and her family moved there from the city several years ago when her husband
obtained a management position at the fusion plant there. I remember
hearing her son married one of the local girls a couple of years ago, and
they have a child now.”



“Sound like nice place.” Shampoo smiled at Nodoka’s description. She
pictured a place like her home village in her head. “What is village
called?”



“Hinamizawa,” Nodoka replied with a smile. “As I recall, they have a local
summer festival of some kind coming up soon.” She gracefully stood up and
smiled. “I’ll go and make the arrangements. We’ll also need to buy you a
nice yukata to wear to their festival. I’m sure Ranma will enjoy seeing you
in it.” And out of it after he’s defeated you, she mused with a motherly
beam.



Shampoo nodded and smiled back. She found herself looking forward to the
idea of a trip out of the city.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



*** Earth +6.123, +5.298



Genma and Soun stared out the large plate glass window in awe at a portion
of the huge spaceport surrounding them, located in Hokkaido, Japan. As they
watched, they heard the distant, rumbling roar of a departing vessel
lifting off, a cargo carrier headed for one of the lunar facilities.
Standing behind them were Kimiko and Nodoka, the latter looking at them in
amusement.



“If you think this is impressive, you should see the shipyards built on
Mars,” said Nodoka proudly with a smile, coming over to stand next to
Genma. “They’re constructing the first interstellar vessel there, the
Britannia, but work is going very slowly because of the war efforts and its
need for resources. In the next few years, High Command hopes to be able to
send out colonies to nearby stars.”



“Really?” said Genma, looking at her, his eyes shining with wonder. He put
his arm around her shoulders and turned back to look outwards at the
bustling activity, forgetting for a moment he was now with a different
Nodoka as she moved closer and snuggled up against him. He was amazed at
the sheer amount of traffic moving through the place. The economy of the
Matriarchy seemed to be humming along pretty well.



Seeing her friend enjoying such familiarity with her newfound husband while
she remained alone, Kimiko tightened her grip on the strap of the small
duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She narrowed her gaze at Soun
wrathfully and glared intently at him from behind, wondering why he was so
annoyingly obstinate about refusing to fight her. Could he fear her
abilities as a warrior? That did not seem right, based on what she knew of
him. Tendons cracked softly in her fingers as they formed an even tighter
fist holding on to the strap.



Turning around, the object of her ire started to ask her a question about
the spaceport and then froze immediately at the fearsome fury displayed in
her fiery gaze. Soun swallowed, feeling suddenly timid, an impression he
was more used to inflicting upon others than experiencing himself. “Uh,
Nakakami-san?”



“What?” Kimiko snapped out, her fierce gaze quickly overpowering his.



“N-nothing.” Soun turned back around quickly, feeling a cold sweat breaking
out on his flesh.



“I always thought the launch facilities at Kagoshima or Woomera were
impressive,” said Genma with a grin, unaware of the exchange that had just
occurred. “This puts them both to shame.”



“We should hurry, or we’re going to miss our train,” said Kimiko with
forced mildness through slightly gritted teeth.



Genma suddenly realized he had been holding Nodoka rather closely, and he
stepped away with an embarrassed chuckle, unexpectedly reluctant to break
physical contact with her. His mind suddenly conjured up erotic imagery of
her trim physique, distracting him even further. “Uh, yes, Nakakami-san.
You’re quite right, of course.”



“My analog on this world owns a nice hotel and other sorts of ventures not
too far from here,” said Nodoka, picking up her duffel and taking hold of
him by the arm, feeling his muscles twitch slightly at her touch. She could
tell from his looks and the other subtle signs he was giving off that his
need for her was building. She was intrigued that his willpower was strong
enough to hold him back from giving in to his desires for her. Most males
succumbed much more easily to the demands aroused by the herbal concoction
he had consumed the other night. To withstand it showed he was a
strong-willed individual in addition to being a powerful fighter, an oddly
fascinating combination to her.



Well, no matter, she mused. His need for her would gradually continue to
build until she was all he could think of, driven by his rising hormonal
levels caused by the glandular alterations done to him by the herbal
concoction she had given him after his victory over her. Now that they had
been intimate together, a subtle, chemical bond existed between them. While
he could be with other women and avoid her for a time, only her body’s
pheromones would be able to fully satisfy his body’s incessantly growing
cravings, ensuring his loyalty to her. It had worked very well for a great
many generations of women within the Joketsuzoku Order in order to control
their chosen men.



“She’s quite a successful entrepreneur, doing a lot of business with
military types coming dirtside on shore leave, as well as the Fleet
Training Academy near the port.” Nodoka commented as they headed for the
trains.



The group made their way slowly through the mostly female crowd in the
terminal, the two women taking the lead without comment, pushing and
shoving their way past other women in uniform. The two men trailed along
more quietly in their wake. Soun felt female hands groping his behind
numerous times as he made his way through the thick crowd with Genma, but
he grimly ignored it.



The train was more of the same, aggravating him even further until he
wanted to lash out at someone physically or even just unleash his Demon’s
Head attack. The car they were in was filled almost entirely with women.
Many of the ones he saw were tough-looking sorts in uniform who gave him
unfriendly glares if he met their gaze. To make matters worse, Kimiko
stomped on his foot once when she noticed him looking at an attractive
Japanese woman wearing a blue kimono who seemed to be following them. He
remembered seeing her before in the train station, something about her
regard rousing his instincts to sound loud warning klaxons. Kimiko then
turned away immediately with a harrumph when he quickly brought his
attention back to her. Meanwhile, the mysterious woman in the blue kimono
somehow vanished within the crowd in the subway car while his attention was
distracted, and he did not see her again for the remainder of their journey.



Soun growled softly at the Solnoid warrior’s mercurial nature, his hands
closing into fists, irritated by her poor treatment of him and briefly
tempted to take out his ire with his situation upon her. She possessed his
dead wife’s sometimes quite volatile personality to a high degree, one of
the things Akane had inherited from Kimiko, and the woman’s mannerisms kept
reminding him of his wife so much it was eerie. He was sure Genma was
having similar issues, but the redhead was far friendlier to him. He had to
forcibly jog his memory once again that this was not actually his Kimiko
returned to life but a physical duplicate of her originating from an
alternate branch of history.



Perhaps Saotome-kun would agree to have a full-contact sparring match with
him after they arrived at their destination, he mused darkly. He knew it
would be a stress reliever for him to expend his energies in some mock
combat. However, if he wasn’t interested, perhaps he would ask the
irritating Solnoid woman wearing his dead wife’s face if she would spar
with him instead. She carried herself with the bearing of a highly-capable
martial artist, but he dreaded losing his temper and turning it into a real
battle between them. Should he win, his victory would cause even more
complications for his current situation.



It didn’t help matters that he felt so strongly attracted to her. His
awareness of the alluring lines of her face and how excellently her trim
physique filled out her rather tight-fitting uniform was arousing within
him feelings he had thought long dead and buried. In all the years since
his wife died, he had never been intimate with any other woman, refusing to
allow another into his heart to take her place. It was this unyielding
barrier that had served to keep his sensuous rival at the Security
Directorate, Hinako Ninomiya, at a comfortable distance from him.



However, those emotional defenses had never been prepared to deal with a
doppelganger of Kimiko and the myriad little mannerisms this version of her
shared with his deceased wife. His love for her had never truly died.
Instead he had hermetically sealed it away in a box, allowing him to
continue functioning as a human being instead of retreating from the world
like his analog had. Seeing the life of this other Soun Tendo, a man whose
body he now inhabited, how utterly devastated he had been inside at the
loss of his wife and failing to master his sorrow as a man should have,
made his emotional state disturbingly vulnerable.



To then come face to face with a living duplicate of Kimiko, a vibrant
albeit irritating woman, tempted him so much despite her inherent attitude
of female superiority. The box containing his love had been shattered to
flinders after spending some time with her, and he was still struggling
with the aftermath, fearing to open himself up to future emotional pain by
becoming involved with the Solnoid soldier. It was like getting a second
chance to have his wife back in his life, but one he hesitated at reaching
out to claim. If he let this woman into his life, would he be able to
survive losing another Kimiko? Was she worth the risk? And how would his
daughters react to her?



Nodoka spent their journey on the train alternating between looking at
Kimiko with some concern and observing Genma, discovering how much she just
enjoyed looking at him. She found herself idly musing about how handsome he
was and looking forward to their next bout of intimacy together. She hoped
it would not be too much longer of a wait for him to seek her out,
recalling their last time together with smug glee. He had been trained well
as a lover, one who knew all of her likes during coitus by that other
Nodoka, feeling an odd twinge of jealousy strike her at the thought of her
analog on that distant version of history.



She realized she was actually yearning to give herself emotionally to him,
a somewhat surprising thing for her given her romantic history with men,
previously treating them all as disposable toys only kept around long
enough to gratify her sexual needs. Up until this point in her life, she
had been content to enjoy such brief, passionate affairs, satiating her
needs for coitus with comfort males during shore leave, sometimes in
threesomes with Kimiko if they were both in the mood or (as was more often
the case) low on funds. The idea of sharing an emotional intimacy with a
male was a new and exciting concept, and it amazed her that she desired so
strongly to have such a relationship with this particular man.



Turning back to regard her friend, she could not recall ever seeing the
other woman looking so out of sorts and on edge. The two of them had been
through many shared experiences together, going back to their first meeting
as teenagers. A ferociously brutal fistfight had been their initial
introduction to each other, one of many such encounters they had engaged in
with each other in those early days, but, somehow, all those bareknuckle
fights eventually led them to becoming very close friends and even comrades
who could trust each other with their lives. They both still enjoyed the
occasional cathartic brawl with each other, loving the fierce thrills of
battle with a capable foe.



It was a rather subtle thing, perhaps something that only someone who knew
Kimiko as well as Nodoka did would be able to pick up on, but it was clear
to her that her friend had developed feelings of some kind towards Soun,
likely simple lust or maybe something more. She noted her friend frequently
glancing at him whenever he wasn’t looking at her and then blushing, acting
like a simpering, little schoolgirl instead of the battle-tested,
self-confident woman she normally was. However, it had been a while since
their last shore leave, so it was possible that Kimiko was just feeling
sexually pent-up and looking for an outlet for her passions, and Soun Tendo
had happened to catch her fancy. It was probably just a fleeting thing,
nothing as serious as what Nodoka knew she felt for her new husband.



A little while later, the group finally emerged from the subway to find
themselves on a street facing a number of small hotels, restaurants, bars
and casinos. The sun was long past the high point of the day, but the heat
lingered. It was humid as well. Soun was immediately reminded of the
Roppongi region of Tokyo back home mixed with a bit of Las Vegas. It had a
rather tawdry sort of feel to it in the daylight, with a lot of unlit neon
lights in slightly rusty brackets and worn paint that appeared a bit faded
in the sun.



“My analog runs a pretty swanky establishment around here, but I’ve never
been in this area in the daytime,” said Nodoka, looking around a bit for
something familiar.



“Well, what’s the name of the place?” asked Genma, studying the many
buildings on the street. Luckily, the signs were in familiar kanji as well
as the strange script of Solnoid, reminding him that he should take some
time to study this new language, linguistics being one of his hobbies. He
felt a rivulet of sweat start to run down his face from the heat and
humidity.



“The Heavenly Pleasures Inn,” said Soun suddenly.



“Now how could you possibly know that?” asked Kimiko in astonishment.



“Because I just saw a boy that looked exactly like Saotome-kun’s son Ranma
going into the place.” Soun pointed. “Over there.”



Genma blinked. “Really?” He looked at the establishment in question,
adjusting his glasses. It reminded him of one of the more tasteful love
hotels back home, with the additions of a casino, restaurant and bar on the
ground floor. The hotel portion rose high above the street, towering over
them by many stories, and it was quite easily one of the largest buildings
around.



A number of women in uniform were on the streets around them, many of them
quite young. He was startled to see two girls that looked almost exactly
like Ukyo Kuonji suddenly stroll past him while they chatted with each
other amiably about their plans for the rest of the day, both excited to be
on break from classes before exams, the two differing in appearance from
the one he knew by their hairstyles and clothing. One spoke with a Kansai
accent and the other had more of a Hokkaido manner of speech. Both Ukyos
were dressed in the same kind of school uniform, patches on their right
shoulders that were very similar to the ones Kimiko and Nodoka had on their
uniforms. He shook his head, realizing he should get used to such sights in
the future, visiting a culture where inter-universal travel and commerce
was considered to be both normal and commonplace.



“Come on then,” said Nodoka with a grin. “Let’s go check in.” They crossed
the street, dodging a couple of slow-moving cars.



Upon opening the doors to the hotel lobby, the heat and humidity that
existed outside was immediately blasted away, replaced by chilly air
blowing in their faces. Inside, fine tiles, rugs and tasteful décor
dominated the scene surrounding them. Looking around, Genma whistled
tunelessly, a bit impressed. It all looked very expensive and upscale, not
as gaudy or gauche as he had been expecting.



The male desk clerk gave them a professional smile, paying somewhat more
attention to Nodoka and Genma, recognizing them immediately though he knew
immediately the woman was not his employer. “Welcome to the Heavenly
Pleasures Inn. How may I help you?”



“Yes,” said Nodoka, stepping forward and presenting her military ID card.
“I’m Lt. Nodoka Kamiya. I have a reservation for a couple of suites.”



“Of course, Kamiya-san,” he said professionally. He ran her ID card and
then smiled. “I’ve located your reservation in the system. The owner placed
a notation in your file. She’s been very busy dealing with other matters
lately, but she has extended to you an invitation for you and the rest of
your party to join her and her family for dinner this week while you’re
staying here, if that would be convenient.”



Nodoka smiled and nodded. “Please let her know we accept.”



“I shall do so,” said the man, giving her another professional smile. “You
have your usual line of credit established at the casino, if you wish to
use it during your stay this time. Since you are arriving with male
companions, I take it you and Lt. Nakakami won’t have need of any of our
stable of comfort males for use during your stay this time?”



“Uh, no,” Nodoka replied with a grin. “Not this time. We’re covered.”



Genma and Soun looked at each other, both of them silently mouthing
“comfort males?”



Standing to one side, Kimiko blushed and felt irritated at Nodoka openly
discussing such a matter where the two men could hear, trying to keep her
eyes off of Soun. She had spoken with her friend about this before they
left the ship, admitting to the other woman that she hoped a change of
scenery might allow her a better chance to induce him to fight with her. He
had seemed to be getting riled up over something during their journey here,
occasionally eyeing her with a warrior’s spirit glimmering within his gaze,
making him seem even more attractive to her. Win or lose, she needed to
know if he was the one meant for her. If he was, she had brought with her a
supply of Victory Spice to dose his drink with to celebrate his conquest of
her, binding them together just as securely as Nodoka had already bound her
new husband to her.



Unfortunately, it had been a while since she had last been intimate with a
man, and she realized that lack was making her far edgier than normal. A
good fight would at least offer her some catharsis for her raging hormones,
even if she won. And even if he wasn’t able to defeat her, she might still
offer Soun a night with her as a consolation prize that should also
hopefully quell her surprisingly intense desires for him, assuming both of
them were left in sufficient physical condition to be able to perform in
bed after their battle together.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



“Hey, bro, come check out who just arrived downstairs in the lobby.”



Ranma had just returned to the penthouse apartment he shared with his
parents and sister, located on the top floor of the Heavenly Pleasures Inn.
His hair was worn short and styled nicely, and he was dressed casually in a
pair of dark gray shorts and a Hawaiian shirt bought on the family’s recent
vacation there, his skin tanned from days spent swimming at the beach and
lounging around the pool at the resort. His left foot pushed the front door
closed with a soft clunk behind him, his eyes still perusing the male
fashion magazine he had recently purchased.



He had been a bit preoccupied with wondering how he would look in the white
summer-weight suit shown in one picture when she called out to him. The bag
he held in his right hand carried other magazines of interest to him as
well as copies of the latest issues of his favorite manga titles. He
glanced over at his sister when he heard her voice and then redirected his
course towards her location instead of his bedroom.



The black-haired girl, Ranko, was currently lounging a bit indolently on
the couch in the main room, dressed in snug, cutoff shorts and a light pink
blouse. Her legs were bent, her feet resting on the edge of the table in
front of her, and her laptop sat on her bare thighs. Her shoulder-length
tresses were worn braided into their usual pigtail. He smiled at the sight
of her, her body still looking nicely tanned from their recent vacation,
remembering the selection of bikinis she had worn during their trip, a
different one each day.



As he strolled over to her, he admired her shapely figure as he was wont to
do. He knew it was not a brotherly sort of thing for him to look at her in
such a way, but theirs was not an ordinary familial relationship. While
they were legally siblings now, they actually originated from two different
worlds, both of them orphaned when the ravages of war devastated their
original homes along the border zone the Solnoids shared with the Musk.



Their adoptive mother, unable to have any children herself due to a
childhood ailment, had been contacted by the Solnoid government’s social
services in the aftermath of the savage attacks by the Musk that had cost
the two adolescents their original parents. Offered a chance to adopt
Ranko, their mother had ended up adopting him as well when she saw him at
the orphanage and learned he too was a child of another one of her analogs.
So, at the age of ten, the two of them became brother and sister. Most
people just assumed they were born to their mother as twins, and neither of
them ever made any attempts to dissuade anyone of this belief, even their
closest friends and schoolmates.



To provide a proper male role model in their household, Genma Saotome,
their adopted mother’s favorite among the stable of men she maintained on
the premises for the use of female guests, became her husband and took her
name. He and Ranma actually became fairly close over the years since the
two children were adopted. Ranko, coming from a world where men were far
fewer in number than women, was intrigued by the idea of a woman marrying a
man and keeping him all to herself.



After their adoption, a certain period of adjustment for them both had
followed, especially after discovering they were analogs of each other,
even being born on the same day. As each of them was used to being an only
child and not having to deal with a sibling, arguments and fights had
occurred regularly for a while before they learned to cooperate better with
each other. The time they spent together eventually caused them to evolve
into the outwardly familial relationship they displayed in public with each
other, the duo taking on the roles of brother and sister with practiced
ease.



Ranko was currently enjoying a break from going through the books of their
shared venture, the two of them being equal partners in a junior version of
the famed Heavenly Pleasures Inn’s Host Club, one of several thriving
businesses their mother owned and operated. They had come up with the idea
during one of their late-night talks together, discussing ways they could
make some extra money without taking too much time away from their
schoolwork to work a regular job. Since Ranma was already pretty popular
with the girls in the neighborhood and at school, she had mused aloud that
there should be a way they could monetize his masculine charms. The two of
them had then stared at each other, grins appearing simultaneously,
realizing that their mother already ran such a business they could use as a
model. Their version of the Host Club was thus born, providing
companionship, flirting and pampering to teenaged girls willing to pay for
it.



They started up their operation after first gaining their mother’s
permission, and she had clearly been proud of their entrepreneurial spirit,
even giving them a little seed money to get started. Instead of offering
their services to lonely adult women in the city like their mother did,
theirs catered only to a younger clientele, one comprised almost
exclusively of the cadets from the Fleet Training Academy in town. Girls
who were interested in spending an evening with a charming young man who
would cater to their desires and pamper them began to flock to them. Ranko
handled the business end of things, and Ranma took care of satisfying the
clientele requesting their services.



Most of the time, his clients simply desired a charming companion to spend
time with, going out on dates with them, flirting and otherwise pampering
them with male attention. Eventually, girls began requesting him to
participate in much more intimate activities with them. As word of his
abilities in this area became more widely known, requests for such extra
‘service’ increased.



Providing quality romantic encounters for the young ladies had proven to be
a lucrative operation right from the beginning. However, Ranma had very
quickly discovered he was unable to satisfy the unexpectedly strong demand
from the many girls desiring their amenities all on his own once word of
their business began to spread among the cadets. This had necessitated them
recruiting several of the handsomest boys from their school over the course
of the past year since they opened up, with Ranko personally vetting their
abilities to be charming on one or two dates before they were hired on as
associates.



While both of them had occasionally dated others their age in the past,
they eventually realized a couple of years ago that they preferred each
other’s company. They never revealed anything in public to indicate they
were in any sort of a romantic relationship with each other, not sure how
their classmates or adoptive parents would react, so instead they just
quietly went out together and did dating sorts of activities with each
other. The Hawaii trip had been pretty typical of this, with them spending
their days together at the beach or at the resort’s pool and going out to
restaurants and nightclubs during the nights.



Because of this, Ranma had felt some twinges of jealousy at seeing Ranko
going out with the boys they were considering as recruits for new
associates. It had been an eye-opening revelation for him, that perhaps he
had been developing more feelings for her than he ever suspected. He knew
she was far more blasé about his spending time with other girls as part of
their business, as she came from a version of Earth where the women had
outnumbered the men by four to one, apparently due to some ancient genetic
mutation, and men had drifted from partner to partner like a bee among
flowers. The first time she had gone out with a prospective recruit was the
absolute worst experience for him, even though her date that time was with
one of his best friends, a boy named Ryoga Hibiki.



It had surprised him a little to feel that way, since he and Ryoga were
pretty good friends and had been for several years now. He had gotten used
to helping the other boy find his way around, such as to school and then
back home to the apartment over the shop his parents owned, one that sold
an amazing and eclectic collection of curios from around Japan that they
found during their travels. As Ryoga was frequently left alone due to his
parents sharing his difficulties with direction, he often spent time with
him and Ranko, and Ranma knew he had a little crush on her.



Their date must have gone pretty well, since Ryoga had been rather
annoyingly happy afterwards, and he later became their operation’s first
associate. He proved to be quite popular with a number of the cadets, and
he eventually developed a small cadre of regular clients, boosting his
self-esteem in the process and transforming him into a confident and suave
young man with girls. Ranma had actually been expecting some sort of
spectacular failure to occur, but apparently the Hibiki boy was far more
appealing to girls than he had thought. He suspected that his sister liked
Ryoga a bit more than she had ever previously admitted, but his foolishly
saying so within earshot of her had earned him a rather painful headlock at
her hands, one held long enough to cause him to pass out. She had later
berated him for being a stupid, jealous fool before telling him that the
only thing she had done with Ryoga was to give him a kiss at the end of
their date.



His own entry into adult relationships had actually been due to another of
their circle of friends, Akane Tendo, who was currently finishing up her
studies at the Fleet Academy and was soon to graduate and leave on her
training flight with the rank of ensign. Her family had moved here a few
years ago from another tangent that had recently been admitted to the
Matriarchy and opened up a restaurant. “Kimiko’s Cuisine” was still being
run by Akane’s mother, and it did a moderately thriving business several
blocks away. Her older sister, Nabiki, was a part of the Matriarchy’s
intelligence services and had been offworld doing some kind of secret spy
work for a number of months now. Their father took care of the household
and spent time with Genma, the two of them becoming friends a few years ago.



Akane loved her mother’s cakes and other such sweets, so she used to be a
little bit plumper before entering the Academy, since she never quite
seemed to get enough exercise to offset the calories she consumed. But she
was a very cute girl. While he had always thought so, even when they were
children, it became far more apparent to him after puberty hit and caused
him to recognize her in an entirely new fashion when her figure began
filling out in intriguing ways to him. She was currently one of his more
regular clients, and she always enjoyed spending time with him.



A day before his fourteenth birthday, she had also been the one he shared
his very first adult kiss with. It had occurred on a dare by her, happening
in her room after they had been studying together for an upcoming exam.
Their noses had bumped together and then his breath had tickled her face,
eventually causing her to giggle at him at the end of the kiss.



That had actually been the event that led to him and Ranko becoming closer
than just brother and sister. He had gone to her afterwards and bemoaned
his poor kissing performance with Akane. Ranko had shaken her head, punched
him in the shoulder and then offered to practice with him to help him get
better. While her tone of voice had been casual, she had been blushing a
bit at the time.



That first practice session with Ranko had been both educational and
enjoyable for them both, although they had felt too embarrassed to talk
about it for a while, each of them surprised at just how much they had
enjoyed it. An unexpected outcome of that experience with ‘making out’ had
been to remove an unspoken barrier previously existing between them. As
time passed, they began experimenting more with each other, gradually
learning about what felt good to do with someone of the opposite gender.



Much of their time together was spent kissing, often doing that for hours
at a time, but they eventually progressed to other, more intimate
activities. They didn’t ever consider themselves to be a dating couple then
and knew in the back of their minds they were doing things that siblings or
opposite gender analogs shouldn’t do together, but they were both enjoying
it too much to stop. Their relationship with each other quietly evolved,
becoming something more like two very close friends who happened to be of
opposite genders and were curious about intimacy, gently exploring this
adult realm together with someone they trusted. Both of them shied away
from thinking it could be a romantic relationship, finding the notion of
being in love with an opposite sex analog to be narcissistic.



Sometime after Ranko got her required contraception implant, the two of
them were kissing and cuddling in her room while their parents were away on
a trip for a few days. She got a bit overly aggressive with him, taking
things farther than they had ever gone before, part of an experiment they
had conducted together due to what they were studying in school at the
time. Her all-female class on human biology had been discussing how
powerful the human sex drive was that week. The teacher, a scarred veteran
from her time spent fighting against the Musk, had taken a few minutes to
warn the girls in Ranko’s class to beware when around boys, to not be
fooled by how mild-mannered males within the Matriarchy were brought up to
be. She proceeded to give a misandrist impression that all males were
really lust-driven beasts, cloaking their true nature until it was too late
for some poor, unfortunate girl.



Ranko had teased him about it as they walked back home together. He had
protested that he wasn’t some kind of beast and would never be like that
with a girl. Then he dared her to try and turn him into one, not believing
there was some predatory creature of lust lurking within him.



That day they ended up finally crossing the last boundary between them,
engaging in something that neither of them had planned and seemed unable to
stop, both far more aroused by each other than they had ever been before.
They had talked about it afterwards, when their passions were finally
spent, and Ranma had felt very shy about discussing it, feeling embarrassed
at what they had done. Ranko had smirked at him, greatly amused by his
post-coital demureness. Their talk was a fairly open and honest discussion
about their shared experience together and what it had felt like for each
of them. Both of them had eventually admitted wanting to do it again, and
they spent the next several weeks doing so whenever they had an
opportunity, considering it practice for future relationships. During that
time, they gradually started spending more time together, and eventually
the two of them fell into a romantic sort of relationship without ever
intending to.



Like most other boys his age, Ranma had heard the stories about what girls
raised outside the Matriarchy’s borders were like, that they were not as
assertive as his female peers, especially his sister or the cadets he spent
most of his time with. Admittedly, his relationships with those in the
latter group were not as deep as what he had formed with Ranko. He was well
aware that many of them were stronger than he was due to their Academy
combat training and upbringing in Solnoid society, with its fervent
emphasis on all females being physically fit, but that was okay with him.
He liked being around girls who could protect him if they encountered one
of the local delinquents while on a date with him, since there were a few
all-female gangs of hoodlums in the neighborhood that frequently terrorized
the boys in the area.



Other than what he learned of their horrific deeds and utterly warped
psychology in school, all he knew about the men of the Musk Dynasty were
stories told to him by his mother’s analog, “Auntie Nodoka” as she was
known to him and Ranko. It was a bit horrifying for him to think about,
that somewhere among the Musk might be one or more analogs of his, brought
up amidst their pathologies. Probably brutish misogynists like the rest of
the barbarians, he mused with a mental sniff. He was grateful to live as a
member of Solnoid society and its more refined views on gender roles, to
have women be in charge instead of what went on in the Musk’s perverse
culture.



Returning his thoughts to more immediate concerns as he sat down next to
Ranko, it was looking like they needed to expand their ranks again. He was
considering asking Tatewaki Kuno to join this time. He was a good-looking
boy a year ahead of him in school who really liked to read classical
poetry. He came from a poorer family that could probably use the extra
money, but Tatewaki was rather shy and might have trouble becoming a proper
host, let alone acting as a comfort male if any girl asked for that level
of service. His younger sister, a rather intense and very studious girl,
was soon to graduate from the Academy with honors. She occasionally
requested him, claiming he was an excellent stress reliever before an exam,
and she was one of the girls who requested his ‘extra’ services.



“So, what’s so interesting, sis?” he asked, seeing Ranko had tapped into
the security camera feed and was looking at the lobby. He smiled when he
saw who had arrived. “Hey, it’s Auntie Nodoka.”



She turned her head and smiled at him. “Even better, she brought her friend
Kimiko with her. But check this out.” She shifted to another camera, this
one showing Genma and Soun standing there. “They brought these two with
them as well.”



“Hey, that’s an analog of Pop,” said Ranma with surprise, looking at Genma.
“And that’s Akane’s father.”



Ranko nodded. “Yeah, they are. Maybe while they’re here, we could play a
little matchmaking with them.” She grinned impishly and then paused,
noticing the time. “Hey, don’t you have an appointment to spend the evening
with that pink-haired, Chinese girl, Ensign Peh Fum?”



“Yeah,” Ranma admitted, looking at the clock. “I need to wash up and get
ready. She sounded really upset on the phone. Maybe something went wrong on
her training cruise.”



“I bet you were hoping it was going to be that other one, Shan Pu,” Ranko
teased him. “She seemed really happy with you when she left that morning,
the way she was clinging to you at the door and giving you that last kiss.
You really left an impression on her, bro. She was practically glowing with
happiness when she left.”



“Jealous, sis?” Ranma grinned at her. He was rewarded to see her blush,
frown and then grab a pillow before swinging it at him. It hit him squarely
in the face.



“I’m not jealous,” Ranko stated flatly, her cheeks still reddened. “I know
you get asked to sleep with some of the girls we provide for. That sort of
thing is how we make a lot of our money.” She paused for a few moments,
collecting herself. “From what I’ve heard, you treat them all well,
especially your little harem of favorites, like Akane, Kodachi, and the two
Kuonji girls.”



“Aw, sis,” said Ranma with a frown. “Don’t call them that. It’s not a
harem. They just prefer to spend time with me instead of one of the other
guys. They don’t mean that much to me.”



“I just-” She paused and looked down at the laptop. “Just promise me you
won’t fall in love with one of them. You’re getting to know girls who come
from some pretty wealthy and politically well-connected families, like that
Shan Pu chick. Her mother is a famous general. One of them may offer Mom a
really good dowry for your hand in marriage.” There was a long pause. “I-I
love you, bro. I don’t want to lose you.”



He studied her face, noting unshed tears slowly welling up in her eyes.
Without a word, he pulled the laptop from her grasp and set it behind him.
He reached a hand under her chin and gently turned her to meet his gaze.



“Hey,” he said softly. “I love you too, sis, far more than I care about any
of them.” He gave her a gentle peck on the lips. “Nobody will ever take me
away from you.”



“You really mean it?” She gazed into his eyes. “Your love is mine?”



“Yeah,” he said softly, dropping his gaze demurely. “It’s yours until the
end of time.”



They kissed, long and deeply, wrapping their arms around each other as they
sank down together onto the couch, finding comfort together.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



General Ko Em gazed at the two women in front of her, her expression
thoughtful.



“<Thank you, Captain,>” she said in Solnoid. “<Your report has been very
thorough.>” There was a pause. “<You’re sure of these findings?>”



Captain Saeko Nogami, standing at rigid attention next to Commander Kazue
Nattori, nodded. “<We double and triple-checked before coming to see you,
Ma’am. We believe your daughter is alive. At least an engram copy of her
is.>”



The general let out the breath she had been unconsciously holding.



“<When I heard about the fate of the Huntress, it was one of the worst
things imaginable for me,>” Ko Em admitted. “<Thank you for bringing me
this better news.>”



“<You’re welcome, Ma’am.>” Captain Nogami bowed respectfully to the other
woman, a gesture echoed by Commander Nattori. When she stood back up
straight, she asked, “<What are your orders?>”



“<For now, we will wait and learn more from the two males you brought back,
discovering as much as we possibly can find out about them. We need a much
better understanding of this ‘Empire of Japan’ where they are from, the
point where their world’s history diverged from ours, and what resistance
their Empire might offer us should the decision be made to attack and
conquer them instead of trading with them. They appear to be a far more
egalitarian culture in their dealings between the genders than the enemy
is, so my personal feeling is that it is more likely they could become a
trading partner, possibly even a useful ally for us against the Musk. You
have the pair under constant surveillance, I trust?>”



“<Yes, and two of our finest soldiers are overseeing them, General,>” said
Commander Nattori. “<They have orders to stay with the two males
constantly.>” She smirked. “<Lt. Kamiya seemed quite eager to obey that
order in regards to Professor Saotome.>”



“<Indeed. And what of Lt. Nakakami and this Soun Tendo person? Do you
anticipate either of our soldiers becoming compromised by our visitors?
They could be wily sorts. It would not be the first time that one of ours
chose love of a male over duty.>”



Captain Nogami smirked this time. “<The commander and I feel confident in
saying that it is far more likely that those two will compromise the males
instead of the other way around. Lt. Kamiya has already fed Professor
Saotome a dose of the Order’s Victory Spice after his defeat of her. It
might possibly only be a matter of time before Soun Tendo is delivered to
the same fate as his friend. He carried himself very well, clearly a
capable martial artist as far as I am able to tell, and I believe he has a
better than even chance of standing victorious, even against one as
highly-skilled and strong as Lt. Nakakami is.>”



“<That is excellent news, Captain. The matriarchs of the Joketsuzoku Order
will be extremely interested in learning of a world capable of producing
two men of sufficient caliber to defeat two of their finest warriors.>” The
general turned to face the Kara’s captain. “<Your soldiers are to continue
standing guard around the beacon, maintaining regular shifts around the
clock until further notice. If the professor’s son does indeed come to
rescue him, the boy is to be captured using minimal force and then brought
to High Command immediately. Do you understand me, Captain? I want him in
good health and preferably not ill-favored towards us. With his technology
and willing assistance, we can finally tip this war into our favor,
bypassing the Musk’s resonator jammers and creating legions of fifth
columnists among their populace. The war with the feral males could finally
be over.>”



“<Of course, General,>” Captain Nogami replied. “<It shall be done as you
command.>” She raised her right hand to her left breast, and the commander
at her side did so as well.



“<For the Matriarchy,”> they intoned.



General Ko Em nodded. “<You are dismissed.>”



Later, after the two women departed, Bernkastel was briefly seen amidst the
shadows, having been listening in secret to the entire conversation between
the general and her subordinates. Her expression was thoughtful as she
considered the plans she had heard.





xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



To be continued...
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