[FFML] Quantum Destinies 33 - Hearts Of Darkness

[Jurai Knight]

*** Earth 0.000, 0.000 (-17.12329 Years)

Nodoka lay awake in her futon, lying on her side and gazing out the window
of her hotel room. Her view overlooked one of the more scenic regions of
Kyoto. Tears stained her pillow, and her eyes were puffy from another
sustained bout of crying. Adding to her discomfort, her skin had started
itching again. She absently scratched at her neck.

A few blocks away, one of the largest Shinto shrines in the city could be
seen from where she was, lit up like a beacon of hope against the dark
night. It was meant to symbolize that the multitudinous gods of Japan were
watching over and protecting the home islands of the Empire. Such a
glorious sight would normally be a soothing image for her, but not tonight.
Not anymore, because the gods had abandoned her.

For the past several days, she had been spending her time visiting a number
of shrines, temples and even once visiting a Christian church in her
desperate quest to assuage her troubled spirit and find forgiveness for the
sins of her youth. Her dishonorable activities of long ago had finally
given rise to a demon that sought to destroy her. It had been working its
dark mischief on her for weeks.

Unfortunately, none of these holy places had helped her. She still felt
just as lost and miserable as she had been before making her trip here,
knowing the demon lurked somewhere around her. Her innocent child’s life
had already been ended due to her past misdeeds, and she feared her
punishment would claim others before it was finally through with her.

Throughout the months following her miscarriage, Genma had tried so hard to
support her. He had taken time off from his work, sought out doctors to
assist her in healing her wounded soul and otherwise done everything a
husband could be expected to do. Even while crushed within the depths of
her own despair, she realized he was enduring his own pain at the loss of
their child, and so she was even more grateful for his efforts on her
behalf.

However, deep down, she doubted that any man truly had the capacity to ever
understand this tremendous sense of loss she was burdened with. Her
bereavement was caused by the sudden absence of the child she had carried
within her own body for a few months and had been looking forward to
raising someday. No man could ever really comprehend such a thing, this
facet of being a woman. One might as well ask him to flap his arms and fly
away to the moon.

Despite that limitation inherent to all those of his gender, she loved
Genma for his striving to be there for her, how compassionate he had been
towards her in her time of need when this all began. He cared for her so
much, and she could recall so clearly seeing his love for her every time he
looked at her. But lately those tender gazes only seemed to cause her pain,
knowing that she was guilty of dishonoring herself. Whispers in the
darkness had told her so each night, and that Genma would be destroyed too
as part of her punishment for her sins.

Others had been supportive of her as well, such as her Aunt Furuderika, a
reclusive relative she actually knew very little about. There were also the
new friends she had made in the quaint, little village of Hinamizawa while
she stayed there in the vacation house that she and Genma had built with
assistance from her aunt, enjoying a quieter life away from bustling Tokyo
while she struggled to recover. They had all been so very kind to her. Even
a busy woman like Oryou Sonozaki had taken time out of her schedule to
visit with her every few days for tea and pleasant chats, and the two of
them had gradually developed a close relationship, one sometimes almost
feeling like they were mother and daughter.

However, none of it seemed to do Nodoka any good for long. She wanted to
trust them, to open up and tell them what was really going on within her,
but she could not seem to bring herself to. She held her pains and fears
buried deep down inside, and everyone’s concerns only seemed to add to her
burden. To ease their worries about her and get them to back off a bit, she
had finally begun putting up a pretense of regained wellness, an act she
started a few weeks ago.

During that same time, she began fearing that even Genma had finally
started to turn his heart away from her, despite his many earlier
protestations of undying love. Even if he had, she knew it was not his
fault, and nothing he ever said to her during the day had led her to this
conclusion. She had only come to believe this was the case when, late at
night, she started hearing the demon speaking to her using Genma’s voice,
telling her quite solemnly in the darkness what it thought of her. She
began remaining awake and only feigning sleep for the first few hours each
night, waiting for her husband to slumber. Then she would sit up in their
shared futon as the darkness loomed around them, listening to the chilling
words the demon spoke to her in Genma’s voice while he slumbered.

Those words mirrored the dreads she held buried within her heart. She
eventually realized that the demon tormenting her must have started to
possess her loving husband, likely planning on turning him against her.
Suspecting it would eventually use Genma to punish her further, hurt her,
maybe even kill her, she knew she had to do something to stop it. Nodoka
loved her husband too much to let him be so used, knowing she was the
guilty one.

When she had gazed into Genma’s eyes on that very last day with him in the
airport, about to board her flight for Kyoto, she finally saw it, the
demon, taunting her from within his gaze. Her husband’s eyes had seemed
briefly catlike as unspeakable horror filled her at the sight, and she knew
beyond a doubt that the demon intended to destroy them both unless she took
drastic action. She had hugged and kissed Genma and then fled for the gate,
fervently praying to find a miracle cure in Kyoto with every step.

As she ran, she heard the demon’s mocking laughter behind her, although no
one else seemed to notice it. That only added to her horror. Once she was
seated, she began silently praying, beseeching the gods for help.

Everyone was so worried about her, and she wanted to lay their concerns to
rest. It was for this reason she had come to Kyoto, to make this solitary
pilgrimage in the hopes of freeing herself from the demon that sought to
destroy her and Genma amidst some of the holiest places in all of Japan.
Surely walking among the blowing cherry blossoms and visiting the grand
temples and shrines would cleanse her soul of the darkness that sought to
claim her.

However, over the past days, something had finally become abundantly clear,
like it was a revelation sent to her from the heavens in answer to her
pleas. Losing the child that she and Genma had been happily looking forward
to having was all her fault, and no amount of prayers she offered now would
alter that. As her body had been deemed healthy for childbearing by all the
doctors, it must only be her spirit that was unworthy of becoming a mother,
and she was already beyond redemption. She also finally knew the reason
why, one she had suspected after this long nightmare began but never told
Genma.

The truth was that she secretly treasured all the violence she had been
involved in during her youth as an unruly teenager. When she recalled those
glorious days, she remembered them with great fondness, sometimes wondering
what had happened to all those foes she had once battled with so fiercely.
The only person she still kept in touch with from then was Achika Masaki,
who had become her very best friend by the end of their schoolgirl lives.

There were others she had let slip away with her youth, to her everlasting
regret. Not friends, far from it, but rivals in combat that were kindred
spirits to her own. As she considered the memories of their faces, one such
rival stood out more clearly above all others.

If she closed her eyes, Nodoka could still recall her many savage duels
with the haughty Kenseiko, arguably her fiercest, bitterest rival. Oh, how
the two of them had loathed each other, almost constantly battling and
beating each other up over one thing or another. But those brutal struggles
with the other girl, as troublesome as they had seemed at the time, were
some of her most glorious memories, and she greatly missed having that sort
of heart-pumping excitement in her life.

When she thought about the colorless woman she had grown up to be, she
sometimes secretly despised herself. But she now knew that her enjoying
such brutality had been wrong, causing a dark, lingering stain on her
honor. She had been taught in her childhood that a truly honorable warrior
never took any enjoyment in violence. Kenshin Himura, her noble ancestor
and a mighty warrior, had never reveled in the bloodshed and brutality he
had been required to mete out to others in the performance of his duties to
the Empire. Knowing her sin now, she felt unworthy to have his blood
flowing within her veins.

There was only one thing she could possibly do to cleanse her soul. She
would redeem her tainted honor in death. Her dear, sweet husband would be
freed of his burden, being married to a flawed wife like her, and she hoped
he found a more worthy woman to be the recipient of his love someday. What
she had done was truly all for the best. Her demon would have its prize, so
it would hopefully leave her beloved Genma alone in peace to live out a
long, happy life.


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 0.000, 0.000 - The world of Scholar Ranma (Baseline cluster)
Earth +4.612, +4.509 - The world of Shampoo 1/2 (Ranma 1/2 cluster)
Earth +6.444, +5.611 – The world of Pax Sinica (Musk Dynasty 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. The previous chapter showed some of the results of actions
taken even earlier in the story.

A few more details of Ranma’s birth were examined in the prologue. The
mysterious Nanashi had a visitor and more of his past was revealed. Tiger
finally remembered how things ended between her and Ranma and suspected she
might be pregnant with his child, and she made plans for her future.
Kodachi looked back at her history with the White Lily and experienced a
resurgence of the Black Rose during a dream sequence, altering her
personality when she finally awakened. Shizuko Hibiki revealed that she
will be joining the Tendos as their new stepmother, prompting introspection
on the parts of Ryoga, the two Tendo sisters and the others in the
household. Ranma was visited by a sinister figure and a familiar pair of
deadly girls, two novitiate nuns of the Church of Christ the Warrior.
Cardinal Synn (the disguised Shishio Makoto) made Ranma an offer of
training, to teach him mastery of the boost.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chapter 33 – Hearts Of Darkness

     For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
     principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
     darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
     places.

                                King James Bible
                                Ephesians 6:12

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


*** Earth 0.000, 0.000 (-17.12320 Years)

The witch Bernkastel gazed down icily at the dying form of Nodoka Saotome,
briefly noting the empty bottle of pills sitting upon the nightstand. Her
expression slowly transformed into a terrifyingly menacing scowl as she
pondered what she should do now. She had only intended to check and see how
the woman’s recovery was progressing, instead discovering this sad scene
when she appeared.

Nodoka had seemed to her to have finally turned a corner and begun mending
emotionally over the past several weeks, so the witch had not maintained a
closer watch on things or made any additional efforts on her behalf.
Looking at the livid scratches on the woman’s neck and wrists, it was clear
that she had horribly misjudged things. Sometime after her arrival in
Hinamizawa to enjoy the more peaceful clime there, Nodoka must have
violated the prohibition ‘Aunt Furuderika’ had imposed against drinking the
local water. Combined with the stresses caused by the woman’s lingering
depression over her recent miscarriage, this ugly incident had resulted,
and now it fell to the witch to clean it up before her whole scheme
imploded right before her eyes.

She had come too far to abandon all her preparations for the planned
scenario now, so she needed to do something radical to salvage things at
this point. To make her gambit work, it was imperative for Ranma Saotome to
be born into this world, but for that event to come to pass mandated that a
Nodoka Saotome was there to do it. To her dismay, Bernkastel realized she
would now have to take an even more direct hand in events in order to
ensure Ranma’s nativity.

Unfortunately, simply going back and just undoing this event would not
repair things sufficiently. Too many other details would have to be
researched and adjusted to repair this version of Nodoka sufficiently.
Luckily, there was a more straightforward option she could employ to fix
things.

Tendrils of light extended from Bernkastel’s hands and began examining
Nodoka as the already unconscious woman suddenly slipped into cardiac
arrest. Several of them sank into Nodoka’s skull, beginning to harvest her
memories as she convulsed, gasping for air. Bernkastel began muttering
unladylike imprecations under her breath as she realized how Nodoka had
fooled everyone around her by feigning that she was getting better instead
of growing worse. Even as she studied what the other woman had been going
through, the witch was worriedly pondering how long it might take her to
find a close enough temporal match to enable her to patch this hole in
causality that had been created by Nodoka’s unforeseen actions.

Plucking out this version of the woman from the timeline and grafting in
another was her best option, after the chosen replacement’s memories were
suitably tailored to fit, of course. It was a brute force approach that
would lack any sort of finesse or artistry, but it was the only solution
she could see to do that would quickly repair this wretched situation
before too many bifurcations of the timeline occurred for her to easily
deal with. As each one represented an additional world she would now need
to visit and purge the damnable Shogun from, she had to work very fast to
repair causality before things cascaded and grew even more complicated than
they already were.

She knew more timelines were already appearing as she dithered. Some were
even likely attaining permanency instead of being absorbed again by others
of stronger probability. She had to hurry.

The witch vanished in a swirl of light.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Earth +0.006, -0.002 (-17.12320 Years)

Nodoka murmured softly in her sleep, enjoying the feel of the strong arm
wrapped protectively around her midsection. She snuggled happily against
the younger man cuddled up behind her, feeling contented and warm. Outside
the window of their shared hotel room was the skyline of Kyoto.

Bernkastel appeared in a swirl of light, gazing at this version of Nodoka
Saotome entwined intimately together with the youthful male form of Yumi
Kuonji’s Jusenkyo-cursed body. She raised one eyebrow at the sight, noting
the distinctive scent of pheromones still lingering cloyingly in the room’s
air. The two had clearly been busy rutting like animals on their shared
futon, likely for several hours judging from what she observed.

Gesturing, tendrils of light snaked out towards this Nodoka. The witch felt
a sense of relief wash through her when her preliminary probes responded
that this analog should fit her needs for a causality patch. Far too much
of her subjective time had already passed for her tastes since she had left
the dead body of that other Nodoka, attempting to find a suitable
replacement brood mare that would eventually become Ranma’s mother.

She scanned the sleeping woman’s memories. Other than a few relatively
minor discrepancies here and there, this one’s life had been nearly
identical to the Nodoka of the other timeline until shortly into her
marriage to Genma. In this world, having missed one of her periods, she
thought she was pregnant and had proudly told Genma, but that error was
corrected a month later. It had only caused this version of the couple some
relatively minor disappointment when the supposed pregnancy turned out to
be a false alarm.

Fast forwarding to recent weeks, she saw that this Nodoka had taken a
solitary trip to Kyoto to visit relatives while Genma was busy with a
symposium, and she had decided to pray at a few of the shrines for a child
while she was here. By chance, she had encountered Yumi Kuonji, her old
flame from when they were both teenagers, the Jusenkyo-cursed woman
apparently spending the day in her male form as she played tourist here.
The sight of Yumi-kun had somehow shattered the old memory blocks
established during Nodoka’s youth, and this version of her had suddenly
recalled everything from those days.

Events then followed their natural course. The two were unable to deny
their mutual attraction, although Nodoka fought against it pretty hard for
a few days, clearly torn because of her love for Genma. After an intimate
dinner last night, one this version of Nodoka had believed would be a fond
goodbye, it instead led to the two of them winding up in bed together.

Withdrawing her tendrils of light, Bernkastel pondered for a moment,
tapping a finger thoughtfully on her chin. She then shimmered and vanished,
heading off to double-check on some things.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Earth +0.006, -0.002 (-17.12238 Years)

Yumi-kun gazed at Nodoka with regret. Standing beside him was Cherry,
dressed in an expensive suit that looked slightly rumpled, which was
actually a common look for him. The pair watched pensively as the Mobius
Institute cleaner agent went about her work, the woman holding her hand
gently to the unconscious Nodoka’s forehead, using her psychic powers to
rebuild the blocks on her old, recently-recovered memories as well as
adding new ones to bury her newer experiences.

“I’m afraid it’s time to go, Kuonji,” said Cherry gruffly, a faint tinge of
sympathy in his voice as he spoke to the cursed woman. “We have another
mission coming up that requires your skills.” There was a pause. “Thank you
for keeping her occupied until we could get someone out to wipe her
memories again.” There was another poignant pause when the cursed woman
still did not respond. “You know that this is all for the best.”

“I know,” Yumi-kun whispered resignedly. “Goodbye again, Nodoka-chan.” The
cursed woman turned away and walked out the door behind Cherry. This was
the course of the life she had chosen for herself, and there was no going
back now.

Bernkastel watched invisibly and silently from the corner, cloaked from all
senses, even those of the esper now working on Nodoka. She frowned darkly
at the cursed woman as Yumi-kun left with Cherry.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Earth +0.006, -0.002 (-16.35074 Years)

“Congratulations, Saotome-hakase! It’s a boy!”

Genma knelt next to Nodoka, manly tears welling up in his eyes as he gazed
at their beautiful child. He had a son! He imagined all the many wonderful
days they now had ahead of them, and he looked forward to teaching the boy
about the universe and its wonders. In his heart, he vowed to be the very
best father he could possibly be for his child, far better than his own
abusive, miserable excuse for a father had ever been to him.

Bernkastel watched from the corner, noting the date on the calendar on the
wall, her presence in the room cloaked from all senses. A thin, invisible
tendril of her powers gently touched the sleeping baby boy. She looked
thoughtful and vanished. There was only one other thing to check.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Earth +4.612, +4.509 (-16.35074 Years)

“Congratulations, Saotome-kun! It’s a boy!”

Genma gazed down at the baby held in Nodoka’s arms, his hand resting on her
shoulder. He had a son! As soon as possible, the boy’s training in the
martial arts would begin. When he was through, Ranma would be the finest
fighter in the world, no matter what he had to do to accomplish this. Plans
whirled through his mind.

Bernkastel watched from the corner, encouraged to see the date on the wall
calendar was a match for the other world. She extracted a tendril of her
powers to snake over to touch the sleeping baby boy. After a minute or so,
she nodded with satisfaction at what she found and then vanished in a swirl
of light.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Earth +0.006, -0.002 (-17.12312 Years)

Gesturing, a wicked smile was upon the witch’s face. The sleeping woman
shimmered and then was instantly exchanged with the body of that other
Nodoka. Bernkastel then shook her head in false sympathy at the cursed
woman in the bed, unaware of what had just befallen her. An anonymous tip
had already been phoned into the local authorities, and they should be
arriving soon.

What a surprise the cursed woman would have on her hands when she woke up
next to a corpse and had to deal with the police and a likely murder
investigation, but perhaps this could be considered a form of karmic
retribution for what Yumi had done in that other future, seducing another
man’s wife and then abandoning her. It promised to be quite an amusing
show, and the witch felt it was well worth the divergence that had just
been created. She made a quick mental note to return and observe the
resulting fallout of her handiwork when she had a bit more leisure time to
enjoy it.

With a shimmer, the witch departed to finish tidying up the last bits of
mess she needed to deal with.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Earth 0.000, 0.000 (-17.12299 Years)

Tendrils of light began withdrawing from Nodoka’s sleeping form, and
Bernkastel nodded in satisfaction. She would have to verify with some
additional jaunts forward in this timeline, but she believed that the
causality patch she had just crafted would hold nicely. The replacement
Nodoka’s memories of recent months had been very carefully revised to more
closely approximate the history of the dead one’s life, removing the
paranoia and hallucinations the other one had suffered. Nothing should seem
out of place to her or others when she returned to this world’s Genma
tomorrow.

She finished up her work by amping up Nodoka’s libido somewhat. As the
woman was approaching the height of her current fertility cycle, the next
phase of the scenario should now play out as originally planned. Ranma
Saotome would be born within the next nine months, as scheduled.

Like in countless other worlds, Ranma’s father in this one would be Genma
Saotome. After seeing as many variants of the boy as she had come across
during her travels, perhaps Ranma was even somehow destined to be born to
the couple. In her experience, certain events had a kind of inertia that
replicated them across alternate timelines, and perhaps this boy’s birth
was one such pervasive event.

Now all she had remaining to do was to go and eliminate the Shogun from the
new variant worlds that had cropped up with sufficient probability in them
to attain permanency. She hoped it wouldn’t take too long to kill them all.
It was such a bother, like crushing cockroaches.

The witch hoped no further surprises occurred like this last one as she
vanished.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Earth 0.000, 0.000

A snifter of fine cognac rolling gently in one hand, its faint bouquet
wafting up to his nostrils, a silent figure stood gazing down from his
penthouse at the blackly beating heart of his kingdom, the city of
Roanapur. Throughout its winding streets the inherent corruption of mankind
was laid bare. Acts of greed, lust and violence were committed daily upon
each other by its inhabitants in one part or another of its regions.
Whether such deeds occurred in its filth-stained alleys or behind the
closed doors of its wealthiest inhabitants, the miserable pack of animals
known as mankind enjoyed its freedom here to revel in its basest nature.

The Shogun of the Dark took a sip from his glass, savoring the subtle
flavors on his tongue briefly before swallowing. The endgame was slowly
approaching and everything was finally drawing to a close. He could feel
it, sense his almost Sisyphean ordeal arriving at its inevitable
conclusion. At long last, after countless millennia of frustrated
struggling and failed schemes, using and discarding countless worlds ever
since he began this epic quest, he was almost to his goal.

Godhood would soon be his. His will to achieve it would not be denied much
longer. Nothing would stand in his way this time.

He glanced at the other occupant of the room. “Report.”

Standing there displaying the mix of cravenness and sycophancy that his
master preferred to see in his servants, the Shogun’s majordomo, a man of
exceedingly handsome features of European descent, his long, blond hair
tied back into a ponytail, took a quiet breath and then began recounting
the status of his master’s kingdom and the projects he was interested in.
He was somewhat new to this position, one occasionally beset with a rather
disturbingly high rate of turnover at times, so some amount of caution was
understandable on his part as he spoke. With any luck, he would last longer
than some of the previous holders of this position had in times past.

The shortest time on record was twenty seconds.

As the man reported, the Shogun only listened with a portion of his total
attention. Most of his thoughts were on what remained to be done before his
upcoming attempt at apotheosis. However, something he heard caused him to
turn away from the window. He swirled the remaining fluid in his glass
slightly.

“Repeat what you just said about Herb and the Jusenkyo facility.” While his
tone was mild, for a moment the majordomo looked like he was about to wet
himself at the sudden comment, but he quickly recovered his poise. The
Shogun waited impatiently for an answer.

“The facility has been shut down and its personnel relocated to other
duties, save for a small contingent of guards maintaining the perimeter
around the pools,” replied the majordomo smoothly. “This was done after the
deaths of Herb and the other two detainees were confirmed, Master. The
security team sent out to retrieve them was killed in a firefight with the
trio. Herb and the other two are dead.”

“I see. Continue your report.” With that, the Shogun turned and looked out
through the window again. The loss of the Musk trio was a setback, but only
a relatively minor one. Even so, it was disconcerting that they had somehow
managed to escape from the facility only months before his bid for
ascension would occur. However, as variations of this event had sometimes
happened on previous iterations of history, he suspected he already knew
who the culprit was.

It looked like he would need to summon Shang Tsung and see if the nefarious
sorcerer was up to something that could undermine his plans. While he was
useful and relatively loyal, like his other minions the man could
occasionally be vexing in his pursuit of personal power. The final stage
was fast approaching, only months away now, and nothing could be left to
chance at this point.

“Leave me.”

Bowing obsequiously as he left the room, the other man departed with haste,
grateful to still be alive after delivering what turned out to be bad news.
He hastily headed off to his chambers, looking forward to enjoying some of
the perks of his position, like the two beautiful women waiting there who
would surely ease his tensions. As he strode away from his master’s
chambers, his posture firmed and became more commanding. Servants bowed low
to him as he passed and avoided meeting his fearsome gaze.

When he was alone, the Shogun softly muttered a few words. Magical light
enveloped him for several moments. When it faded, he appeared as a robed
and hooded figure, cloaked from the senses of others. He needed to check on
some things.

With a gesture, he vanished.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Heaven 0.000, 0.000

Urd yawned as she waited for a minor bit of code to compile, so she could
integrate it into Yggdrasil’s processes. She only had a little while
remaining before her dinner date with a certain rather serious god she had
her eye on, hoping to loosen him up with good food, some warm sake and her
beautiful companionship. She was looking forward to their upcoming tryst to
provide some distraction from her life.

Things had been so agonizingly quiet and dull lately with Belldandy still
on Earth. Antagonizing Skuld just wasn’t as much fun without their other
sister around to smooth things over again, so a date with a handsome
warrior god like Raiden would hopefully relieve her tensions for a while,
if she played her cards right with him. He could probably use some tension
relief as well, if she was as good a judge of men as she believed she was.

Even Mara had been strangely silent for some time as well, not causing her
usual amounts of mischief. Not that Urd particularly cared about the
demoness, but it was unusual for her to be so restrained. After she had
attacked Belldandy several weeks ago, she had just dropped out of sight
completely. She was likely just sulking somewhere and would be back causing
trouble again soon enough.

Off to one side from where Urd was lounging somewhat indolently in her
chair, the Shogun’s cloaked form silently materialized. Ignoring the
pale-haired goddess, he calmly strolled over to an unused terminal out of
her sight and began accessing the system. Text began scrolling up the
screen. As he read, he frowned.

“What are you up to, Yggdrasil?” he muttered.

The Destiny Protocols had seen significant spikes in activity over the past
few months, beginning shortly after his last visit. While it was likely
nothing for him to be concerned about, the timing of it all was curious.
Yggdrasil went through such recalibrations occasionally, using mortal tools
as it made adjustments to Midgard’s reality paradigm. They had never
interfered with his plans on any prior iterations of history, and sometimes
they even helped him move his schemes along when he was able to subvert
those individuals into serving him.

Vexingly, he could not pull up the list of recent inductees to see who he
might draw into Shadowlaw’s web, something that happened now and then due
to irritating coding snarls in the system. They would eventually clear up,
although sometimes that could take a while, and he could waste no more time
on this matter. He felt strong temptations to incinerate the recalcitrant
terminal surge up within him at his repeated failures to view the list, but
he did not act on them.

Once his apotheosis was finally achieved, he planned to scrap the
intractable pile of junk and start anew when he was God. That would be a
more fitting revenge upon it. After failing one last time at obtaining the
information he desired, he finally gave up, frustrated.

As he had disabled Yggdrasil’s abilities to be aware of him a long time
ago, something he always did immediately after rewinding time, he remained
invisible to the awareness of the higher powers of both Heaven and Hell.
Let Yggdrasil keep its secrets for now, he had his apotheosis to achieve.
He shut down the terminal he was using and then vanished, heading off to
check up on other things.

A corner of Urd’s screen flashed a notice. Someone had just accessed the
system with a root-user login, performing several quick status checks, one
of which was an attempt to peruse the Destiny Protocols list.
Unfortunately, the list was currently veiled due to a recurring system
problem that kept cropping up at random intervals. Urd logged the error and
promptly dismissed the notification. She suspected it had been Belldandy
using an alternate access code to conceal her identity. It was nice that
her sister was still keeping involved while away on her secret mission for
Kami-sama.

Maybe she would pop in for a visit and check on Belldandy soon. It might be
fun to surprise her and see what she was up to in the mortal realm. Any
diversions from her current tedium would be welcome.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Jurai 0.000, 0.000

The Shogun shimmered into being. His face was solemn as he gazed about,
studying his surroundings with a profound feeling of satisfaction welling
up within him. Ruins lay strewn out around him for countless miles, the
lifeless, still radioactive wreckage of the capital city of Jurai. A
gleeful smile gradually lit his face at seeing the scorched remnants that
were once known as the Royal Trees of Jurai, at one time the source of the
ruling family’s immense power.

“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” he quoted from an old Earth
poem, one that seemed very appropriate here. The Shogun considered his
handiwork for several enjoyable moments and then laughed long and loud.
Ever since his first time instigating the ruination of Jurai on a long past
iteration of history, every time he saw this world in such a fallen state
had always felt enormously satisfying to him, and this time was no
exception.

Several centuries had passed since he last stood here, shortly after the
cataclysmic war that claimed Jurai and rendered it’s once lush beauty into
its current, lifeless state. The various empires of the universe, tricked
through his delicate machinations into fighting each other to the death for
dominance, had laid waste to Jurai during those struggles. Its destruction
stood amongst the countless other casualties claimed by that unimaginable
war as it had raged across the heavens, leaving the few survivors too
fatally weakened at the end of it to even enjoy their pyrrhic victory for
very long. The dying lights of their civilizations eventually guttered out
one by one in the aftermath, the last of them finally fading to nothingness
a few centuries ago, leaving him free of their interference to pursue his
goals.

Good riddance, he mused.

Only a single remnant of Jurai’s former greatness remained: Prince Yosho
and his pitiful handful of descendants that were trapped on that
ignominious lump of rock called Earth. As for the other, once-great powers,
they were even less of a concern to him. Their civilizations were nothing
but ashes, and whatever small fragments of their peoples remained alive
were far too busy struggling simply to survive to spare any attention for
his schemes.

No matter. Their feeble attempts to endure would soon be at an end, and he
would put them out of their misery. It would be his final gift to those
pitiable survivors when he finally ascended to godhood.

With a twinkle in his eye, the Shogun vanished.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Earth +6.444, +5.611

Nabiki eyed the recumbent form of Kaneda Tendo, slumbering peacefully on
the disheveled four-poster bed, and she mused with deep satisfaction on
their recent, shared intimacies together. Gazing at the young man’s face
gave her an odd feeling, almost like looking into a mirror, seeing someone
who looked nearly identical to the cursed form of her analog on that other
world she had seen through Ranma’s resonator device. While this person’s
hair was shorter, lacking the warrior’s braid that the Nabiki of that other
world had, his body was pleasingly muscular to her eyes. His frame bore the
unmistakable signs that indicated extensive training in the martial arts.

Just looking at him aroused her a bit on several levels. Absently, now that
her sexual hungers had been temporarily sated, she found herself wondering
what a fight to the death with him might be like, her hands briefly curling
into fists, their tendons crackling lightly. That quite unexpected thought
intrigued her, and she grew a bit more curious about how good he might be
and what it would be like to battle him.

He might prove to be a challenge for her, but she felt confident she would
emerge victorious in any such life-and-death struggle with him. After all,
her martial artist analog had been able to defeat every foe she had ever
battled seriously, and those skills were now hers. Her genetically enhanced
physique was another advantage she had over most other people. Combining
those two things together with the rigorous training she had undergone over
the past year under Hinako’s tutelage had rendered her into a supreme
warrior, and she doubted any of her analogs, male or female, could overcome
her in a fight.

Her guest had arrived at her new home just a couple of hours after she had
completed her bathing, following the disposal of the body of her other self
and erasing all evidence of the murder using her skills at tradecraft. He
had surprised her while she was relaxing with a cup of tea and musing on
where her life’s next steps should go. She had only just begun a detailed
review of the other Nabiki’s recorded log entries and familiarizing herself
with more recent events in the other girl’s life when he had suddenly
appeared at her door and entered without even knocking first.

Seeing her apparently waiting for him in the kitchen, freshly bathed and
dressed in nothing but a casual kimono, had apparently given the young man
an unintended impression of how his rendezvous with her would proceed. He
had grinned quite lecherously at the sight of her and then swept her up
into a passionate kiss just after she stood up, clearly expecting no
resistance to his advances. So startled was she by his unexpected
brashness, not even knowing his name though recognizing his face, she had
come close to permanently unmanning him, holding off only at the last
moment.

It had been a very near thing, restraining her urge to drive her knee up
into his groin with every ounce of her considerable lower-body strength.
Fortunately for him, his actions had spoken of an intimate familiarity with
her, not a random pervert trying to steal a smooch and grope. So she had
decided to allow him to continue while she pondered the situation, deciding
she could always deal more violently with him later.

The open-mouthed kisses they had exchanged and her unexpectedly intense
arousal resulting from them had quickly reminded her of the recent promise
made to her libido, of finding a handsome young man and having her way with
him to celebrate escaping certain death on the world she had left behind.
Since this unknown young man gave every impression of being someone who
already knew her analog on an intimate basis, her responses had quickly
become far more ardorous, which further inflamed her guest’s passions.
Strangely, kissing with him felt perverse in a way, almost incestuous, but
that feeling of wrongness only seemed to further stimulate her desires for
him.

Then he had suddenly forced her up against the wall, pinning her there as
his hands had pawed at her body, the two of them kissing long and deeply
together, his tongue wrestling insistently with hers. In that moment of
shared passion, her concerns had melted away in its flames. She had found
herself no longer caring about his similarity to that other Nabiki’s cursed
form. She had only wanted more of him at that point, more of his touches
and more of his kisses.

Things had eventually ended up with the two of them entwined together in
bed, acting on their desires for each other with libidinous abandon. While
she was no innocent, blushing virgin after all the times she had spent
satisfying her needs for such carnal activities with the Kyosuke of her old
life, her cravings for such things had been sent into overdrive by the
unprecedented torrent of passions that being around this young man wrought
within her. And when it had finally happened, intercourse with him was an
almost indescribably intense experience, each of them performing together
like a choreographed duo, their sweating bodies working with an unconscious
synchronicity as they scaled towards a crescendo of pleasure together.

She had quickly lost track of time, unable to think of anything else but
satisfying her libidinous hungers for this young man, even as her handsome
new lover strove diligently with her to reach the Clouds and the Rain
himself. Bliss had overwhelmed her from their sensual efforts, her body
riding building waves of erotic ecstasy, each succeeding peak higher in
intensity and power as his body had moved against hers. She had felt
tension gradually tautening within her like a slowly-drawn bowstring.

Without words being spoken between them, occasionally they would stop their
efforts for a time and cool off a bit when he had drawn too close to the
precipice, only to start again to climb towards the Clouds and the Rain as
soon as his crisis was past. Eventually, when her partner could take no
more of this, unable to resist the biological imperatives their union
ignited within his body, she had felt his motions become more ragged. Then
he had suddenly gasped and shuddered against her. Orgasm had claimed her
then too, as if triggered by his, its ecstatic power taking her breath
away, a rapturous pleasure electrifying her nerves.

It took many hours of such activities before her new lover’s libido was
finally spent, and his virility had been a marvelous joy for her to
experience. The carnal demands he had made of her were intoxicating, to be
needed so strongly by this handsome young man. After only a brief stint
within his embrace, she had no longer cared how familiar he looked to her,
like the twin brother she never had. When both of them were finally sated,
they had slept nestled in each other’s arms for many hours.

After awakening, feeling refreshed by their rest, they had consumed some
food and drink and then went at it again. She had been amazed at his
restored stamina during that brief time when she was a bit more
clear-headed, her thoughts freed of the heady cocktail of endorphins and
pheromones they generated in each other. Her new lover had proven himself
to be both a skilled and virile partner in bed, and she felt a shiver run
up her spine at the remembered sensations he had been able to kindle within
her body during their torrid tryst together.

Her thoughts abruptly snapped back to the present. Naked, Nabiki padded to
the bathroom for a hot shower and a soak in the furo. Food would then be
her next need she would have to fulfill. Her stomach growled briefly with
privation.

Bathing was a soothing thing that always allowed her to think better. As
she let the hot, cleansing spray from the showerhead pound against her
shoulders, she pondered what she had learned during her few, brief attempts
at pillow talk with the young man. She still did not know his name,
something she would have to correct as soon as possible, in order to
maintain her guise as his lover and not arouse his suspicions.

That was a dangerous thing for a woman to do here, as misogynistic as this
culture was. Fortunately, she had kept him far too preoccupied to think
about much else other than what they had been doing together for the past
couple of days, and talking with her did not really seem to interest him,
only using her body. It was something she suspected had been a common part
of the relationship between him and her analog here.

After taking their fill of the glorious pleasures they had been giving each
other, he had startled her as they had been drifting off to sleep by
muttering the name Ranma Saotome. Hearing that had been shocking enough to
pierce through even her spent state at the time. Pillow talk had given her
very little more, just that a version of the young scientist apparently
existed here. He was a warrior of some note here, and his father was a man
of supremely high station in the government.

Intriguing possibilities occurred to her from that knowledge. There had to
be a way she could use this to her advantage. The thought excited her.

She would first need to learn more about this version of the Saotome boy
and study her target at length from a safe distance before she made any
moves on him. When the time was right, she felt certain she could turn him
into an asset, one she would then be able to utilize for her own purposes.
Perhaps her new acquaintance could be persuaded to share more a bit
information about him, if she coaxed him. Extracting such information from
him would be an excellent test of the skills Director Ninomiya had
instilled in her, not to mention being a pleasurable activity.

Nabiki grinned wickedly at the thought of ensnaring her target, just as she
had once seduced another Ranma into giving up his most precious secrets to
her, allowing her to experience the wonders to be found through the
resonator. The device had granted her powerful martial arts skills, skills
strong enough to survive the end of her world. But she also had other
abilities available to her, such as her talent at enticing men.

A sensuous giggle burbled up from her throat. Teenaged boys were such
amusing toys to play with, so weak-willed and pliable whenever it came to
them dealing with an attractive young woman, all helpless thralls to the
demands of their frothing hormones. Show an adolescent boy some attention,
perhaps even display a glimpse of forbidden flesh to his lustful gaze, and
he was putty in a girl’s hands. Her Kyosuke had been almost pathetically
easy to manipulate.

Weaklings, all of them, she mused with sudden disdain. Her expression
became grimly serious as her hair fell forward in front of her eyes, hot
water streaming down its lengths. She was better than any boy.

Nabiki was certain this version of Ranma would be no more difficult to deal
with than the last one she had successfully enraptured. Capturing the heart
of the young centurion would likely not even take her very long. She
doubted he would prove to be any kind of a challenge for someone of her
intellect and burgeoning abilities at seduction, even if he was a warrior
of notable skill. More than likely that meant he was pathetically
unschooled at dealing with girls.

She found herself looking forward to meeting him, her smile appearing once
again as she raised her gaze, her hair hanging down wetly over her eyes.
Her hands closed into fists at her sides, her nails pressing against her
palms. The future looked bright.

It was good to be Nabiki Tendo.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hearing the shower running, Kaneda’s eyes slowly opened. A languorous
feeling of satisfaction ran throughout his being, and he still felt a bit
spent despite his sleep. Nabiki had been truly amazing this time, the two
of them having their longest and most intense tryst yet. He smiled at the
memories of her gasps and animalistic moans sounding in his ears, feeling
her nubile body shuddering against him from his efforts. Her trimly
muscular, dancer’s physique was always a thrilling marvel for him to hold,
one he could never seem to get enough of.

Fortunately, savoring his beautiful analog’s charms was enough to push away
his dark feelings for a time, one of the reasons he kept returning to her
embrace. His looks turned more serious at recalling what he now was, what
he had been forced to do for the sake of his ambitions. There was no
turning back now.

Patricide was an ugly crime in any culture, even among a people who were as
ruthless and Darwinian in their attitudes as the Musk had become in their
quest for dominance over all others. But for Kaneda, it had simply been an
expedient way to move forward with his schemes. No one knew what he had
done, and none thought him even capable of such base treachery.

The authorities currently suspected his father’s mistress had been the one
to do the dark deed, aided by subtle clues Kaneda had carefully left for
them to find. He had been cautious, not making it too obvious. Leading the
authorities down too easy a path would have aroused their suspicions that
they were being duped, so he had given them just enough to steer the fools
into following the trail laid down for their witless eyes to see. So far,
they had done exactly as he had planned they would.

Now that he was in control of the family’s wealth, siphoning it off for his
own purposes became simpler since he no longer had to hide his
extracurricular activities from his father. No one could know what he was
doing with it until the deed was complete, or else they might try and stop
him. His father had lacked the vision to comprehend the grandeur of his
scheme, so murdering the man had simply been the most expedient way for him
to proceed forward. After assuming control of their family’s assets, he had
accelerated his efforts, liquidating assets and laundering the money
through numerous dummy accounts as he pretended to squander it. Once the
funds were rendered untraceable, they could then be used to enact his true
plan.

Destroying the Solnoids was the fondest dream of many Musk men, and he had
come across a means of eliminating them all in one fell swoop. A brilliant
renegade scientist he had come into contact with possessed plans for a
weapon of terrible might he had invented, needing only sufficient funding
to bring it into being. Assuming it worked as advertised, its chaotic
forces would dissolve the barrier separating one timeline of the Matriarchy
from those around it. The effect would then explosively expand outwards,
and the weapon’s unleashed energies would repeat the process across a
growing wave front, engulfing more and more timelines until it reached its
maximum expansion.

What would be the result of this? That entire region of the multiverse
would simply implode inwards upon itself, those worlds disintegrating back
into the quantum foam. It would be destruction on an unimaginable scale.

At least dozens, perhaps even hundreds of timelines would vanish into that
expanding maw of oblivion the weapon would create, gone as if they had
never been. Then, as nature abhorred a vacuum, once the weapon’s chaotic
energies dissipated, the void should then evaporate, the wound to the
multiverse healing itself seamlessly. Those worlds within the blast radius
as well as their populaces would be irretrievably gone, countless trillions
of lives snuffed out in mere minutes.

The Matriarchy would then no longer be a concern, and the Musk could swoop
in at their leisure and attack any surviving worlds, slaughtering what few
scattered Solnoid forces might remain. Scattered, demoralized, the women
would be easy prey for Dynasty troops. Those who managed to survive could
then take their proper place as the property of their new Musk masters.

The prototype weapon was nearing completion and would soon be ready for its
test, but his search for a vessel that could transport it outside the
Dynasty’s boundaries into the uncontested regions beyond the control of
either the Musk or the Solnoids was proceeding far too slowly.
Unfortunately, finding a smuggler of both sufficient skill to evade
official patrols and also sufficient trustworthiness to do as he was paid
to do was proving to be a more difficult challenge than he had expected.
However, Kaneda was certain a solution would eventually be found.

After the test was completed to his satisfaction, likely destroying only a
handful of timelines with the prototype, a much larger weapon could then be
speedily constructed. That would require using up the remainder of his
family’s wealth, tossing the dice that his plan would succeed. However,
once he presented proof of his deed, he was certain the Dragon Emperor
would richly reward him, leaving him wealthier than before. He also
expected to receive at the very least one of the open positions on the
Tribunal, or perhaps even getting a plum spot on His Imperial Majesty’s
council of advisors.

People thought him a fool and a wastrel whose only skill was combat on the
front lines. Let them. It was a guise he had carefully cultivated for many
years, preparing for this day. He would show them all how much more he was
capable of when the time was right. Then his enemies would fall before him
like scythed wheat as he rose to power.

Once he had received his reward from His Imperial Majesty, his primary
target, Ranma Saotome, would fall. The Tendo boy would make certain of
that. His younger nemesis had regularly bested him whenever they engaged in
one of their many physical contests of martial arts might, humiliating him
time and again. But there were other ways to fight, using much subtler
methods than brutish strength.

Treachery was a far superior weapon. Planting evidence implicating the
Saotomes in the deaths of the Dragon Emperor’s heirs should not be too
difficult. Genma Saotome had made several enemies that should eagerly
accept the accusations and condemn him. Perhaps they might even send Tofu
Ono to deal with the father and son.

Destroying that misbegotten family would be a sweet revenge for all that
Kaneda had endured ever since his first meeting Ranma when they were young
children. When he was finally through with his plans for them, the Saotome
name would be nothing but a fading memory in the Dynasty, their once-proud
clan blown away like fine ash in the wind. Then the Tendos would take their
place in the Dynasty, with Kaneda in charge, of course.

Despite his profound hatred of the other boy, he was considering leaving
his younger nemesis alive, magnanimously offering Ranma the chance to live
out the rest of his days as an indentured servant. This would happen after
the young centurion was properly broken and humbled, and perhaps blinded as
well, of course. The Saotome boy’s precious harem could easily be sold off
to one of the many bordellos in the city, but it was probably safer to just
have the girls killed, except for Kasumi, Kaneda’s sweet but rather naive
older sister. She would be returned to her proper place among the Tendos
until he could find her a more suitable husband than Ranma Saotome had ever
been.

The Tendo heir placed his hands behind his head and gazed upwards at the
ceiling. He contemplated the absent Nabiki, an attractive girl first
brought to his attention at a party some time ago, only later learning that
she was his analog. While he was well aware there were those who did not
approve of his relationship with her, considering such romances with female
analogs incestuous and even blasphemous, he did not care. All that mattered
to him were the exquisite pleasures they shared together, and how much he
yearned for her when they were apart.

A lecherous grin lit his face at the thought of her nubile form naked in
the shower. He fantasized about that for several moments. His heart rate
sped up and his breathing deepened as he grew more excited.

Perhaps he would join her, he eventually decided. They could start with a
shared bath, her soaping his back with that magnificent body of hers. It
would be like having a personal bubble girl from one of the local
bathhouses attending to him. Then they could have another sensuous romp
together.

The thought of such pleasant activities with her further invigorated him.
He allowed himself a few more moments to fantasize about Nabiki. His grin
grew broader.

When his plans reached fruition, he would take her as his bride. Let his
peers wag their tongues about his blasphemous deeds then. He would not
care. The future looked bright to him.

It was good to be Kaneda Tendo.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

At that same time, a certain young centurion was awake as well, driven once
more from sleep as he sometimes was by a nightmare involving cats ripping
at his flesh with their claws and teeth. Ranma sat solemnly in the
windowsill of his bedchamber, his nude figure bathed in silvery moonlight.
The girl in his bed slept soundly, utterly untroubled by his somber
presence. Her keen, highly-trained senses were aware of him on a certain
level but did not find him to be a threat to her, allowing her to remain
deeply asleep despite his brooding company.

Absently, Ranma turned and studied Ukyo’s exposed backside, recalling with
fondness her efforts to please him in bed earlier that night. He smiled at
the memory of her willing submissiveness to his desires. He could do
anything he wanted with her, and she would accept it without any resistance.

While he could only see one of them from this angle, he knew there was a
pair of tattoos inscribed with an amazing level of detail upon her lower
back. They were located just above her pert derriere, put there by her
former masters before he had acquired her. Made of some magical, night-dark
ink, they writhed and twisted of their own accord beneath her skin now and
then.

He had asked her about them once, and she had been unusually reluctant to
talk about them, a rarity for her to resist him so. However, his insistent
coaxing of her had eventually led her to reveal that they were tokens of a
forbidden order that existed among the ninja clans of her world: the Goju.
The tattoos supposedly drew upon the primordial nothingness that preceded
existence, something she remained stubbornly evasive about discussing in
greater detail despite his best efforts at learning more about it.

Despite his doubts about her tale of any such primeval entity, he could not
dispute that the tattoos granted her powers and abilities that rendered her
into an even more formidable ninja, among them an arsenal of weapons she
could craft from solidified shadow and the ability to vanish into the
darkness like smoke. But her powers, while formidable, remained incomplete.
He had apparently liberated her before she could receive her final tattoo
and complete her training, becoming a vessel of that primal force, what she
had told him the non-Goju ninja of her world called the Lying Darkness.

His father had used her now and then to end the lives of his political
foes, but the specifics of how she could accomplish her missions still
remained a secret that she had only shared with Ranma. She was the blade he
kept hidden in plain sight, to be used only when he finally made his move
against his father. In the meantime, she served his sire to prove her worth
to the household, all part of the Saotome boy’s schemes.

Despite the spooky nature of her preternatural abilities, out of all three
girls he claimed in his harem, perhaps paradoxically she was the one he
felt the most comfortable with. Ukyo, even as exquisitely deadly as she
was, allowed him the chance to relax his guard for a time. That made her
quite precious to him. He actually trusted her, one of the very few people
he did.

However, she was a little boring to him. He knew she ached to please him,
like a faithful hound lounging at his feet. Every tiny scrap of affection
he showed her only seemed to strengthen his grip upon her soul. He could
see it in her wistful gazes at him, the love she held for him, and the
animal desires he knew she felt regarding him.

He was certain she would fight and even die for his sake, should he ever
ask it of her. Perhaps he would someday. While such a high level of loyalty
was gratifying, it did not seem to satisfy his emptiness inside.

All of the girls in his life were too easily predictable to him by now.
Maybe that was why he felt unsettled. He needed a new conquest, a new
challenge to occupy himself with, like tracking down that very comely
redheaded wench who had evaded his patrol weeks ago.

While she had most likely been a Matriarchy spy due to the manner of her
getaway via a quantum tunnel, the memory of her unabashed beauty as she had
escaped him haunted both his waking moments and his dreams at night ever
since. His enhanced abilities at recollection enabled him to evoke the
details of her beautiful face and lush physique with great clarity. Closing
his eyes, he could almost see her once again standing there before him, the
gorgeous girl that got away.

He was unsure why he would feel this way about a mere female, to be so
drawn to her. It was puzzling and extremely perplexing to him. So, to
distract himself from thoughts of the girl, the young centurion considered
instead the other two young women he already possessed.

Kasumi was his confidante and advisor, at least as much as he allowed her
to be, coming as she did from the family of his most bitter rival: Kaneda
Tendo. For the most part, her nature was sweet and demure, and her face was
beatific in its countenance. However, that was simply a pretense she
skillfully maintained, keeping her darker urges restrained and concealed.
She only allowed herself to satisfy them in locations far away from the
public eye, such as her boudoir. There, the two of them had enjoyed various
kinds of decadent pleasures together since their marriage, but even such
exquisitely depraved activities with her had gradually lost their savor.

The Joketsuzoku outcast, Peh Fum, still aroused his passions more than the
other girls, but not as much anymore as she once did. When she had first
arrived at the household, still chained and snarling her defiance at her
fate, her fiery, unquenched spirit had driven him to forcefully master her
anew every time they were together during those first few months he owned
her. He had enjoyed those times spent subduing the savage girl, seeing her
defiance of his will eventually crushed when he was inevitably victorious
over her in their brutal struggles together. Battling the pink-haired
barbarian used to be somewhat of a challenge, but he was familiar with all
of her fighting tricks now and could vanquish her with relative ease
anymore.

Ranma turned his gaze to study the moon, idly recalling that the next
generation of warships would soon be rolling off the lunar assembly lines.
Those new vessels and their crews would augment existing forces and allow
the Musk to finally begin paying the enemy back for their sacrilegious
murder of the Dragon Emperor and the ageless advisor to the Dynasty since
its founding days: the Shogun of the Dark.

It was still difficult for Ranma to accept that the Shogun was truly gone.
The man’s immaculate wisdom had guided the Dynasty’s ambitions of conquest
for thousands of years, going all the way back to their humble origins in
an obscure region of China. Through heeding his advice, the village of
Joketsuzoku had been the first of many to be vanquished, their proud women
taken captive millennia ago and made to bear sons for their Musk masters.
The other tribes in the region had then fallen one by one. Each such
conquest had left the Musk stronger, their dominion slowly spreading to
finally engulf the world. Once the heretical Solnoids and their perverse
society were finally dealt with, the Dynasty would go on and claim all of
the endless versions of Earth in a glorious campaign of subjugation and
bloodshed that could go on forever.

However, with the unexpected loss of the Shogun, that future of the Dynasty
had been left suddenly in shambles. While there was now a new Dragon
Emperor seated upon the throne, it remained uncertain just what sort of a
leader he would be. During the interval between the previous Dragon
Emperor’s death and the ascension of Emperor Herb, lacking a clear line of
succession following the unexpected massacre that had occurred amongst the
uppermost ranks of the nobility right after the Dragon Emperor’s death, the
Tribunal had quickly stepped in to fill the power vacuum before things flew
apart. Once they were firmly in control of the machinery of state, a bloody
pogrom of Shadowlaw, the Shogun’s secret police force, had begun,
scapegoating them for the deaths of the heirs to the throne.

Ranma found it impossible to believe that the Shogun and Shadowlaw would
ever do what they had been accused of. What would be the point? It made no
sense.

Fortunately, he had kept it well hidden since his initiation to their ranks
that he was a novitiate of the secretive organization, telling absolutely
no one close to him. Ryu Kumon, the last person remaining who had known of
Ranma’s true allegiances, was killed at the end of the government’s
relentless pogrom. The other boy had taken to his grave the final link
between Ranma and Shadowlaw.

Conveniently, the Kumon boy had died while resisting capture by one of the
Tribunal’s most sinister agents: Tofu Ono. He was a heartless, sadistic man
who always smiled with a discordantly kindly look whenever he was killing
someone, and it was said he knew ten thousand different ways to destroy a
man using merely his bare hands. Ryu’s execution had saved Ranma the
trouble of killing the other boy himself to hide his dark secret from the
Tribunal’s minions.

The Shogun’s end and Shadowlaw’s obliteration were two very bitter pills
for the Saotome boy to swallow, to know that he would be unable to serve
his master as he had once sworn to do. Until he could find a means to
fulfill those oaths and covenants he had made with Shadowlaw, they would
remain an indelible stain on his honor that could never be erased. It was a
Musk belief that a man’s honor was carried into the afterlife, and,
whatever else might be said of the young centurion, Ranma Saotome valued
his honor highly.

Noticing Ukyo stirring, he quickly slipped back into bed with her. Being
with the girl would distract him from his worries for a time at least.
Before she could speak, his lips pressed tightly against hers in a
passionate kiss, silencing her murmured query before it could be uttered.
Only half-awake, she immediately welcomed his attentions and embraced him
warmly.

Ranma was grateful for that. He had no desire to hear her whispered words
of concern for his well-being right now, only to feel her lovely body
answering to his caresses, to know she belonged to him, body and soul. His
other worries could wait. Right now he wanted to use Ukyo to forget about
his frustrated oaths to the Shogun and Shadowlaw for a time.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Standing at the railing of his private chambers, Emperor Herb gazed out
solemnly over the sprawling capital city of the Musk Dynasty, the moon
illuminating the powerfully-beating heart of his domain. Behind him in a
capacious, silk-draped bed, four young women of exquisite beauty slumbered,
each girl chosen from a different racial group to satisfy his needs for
variety in his playmates. They slept deeply, exhausted from his carnal
efforts with them earlier.

Arrayed around the chamber, two heavily-armed and armored guards stood
attentively grim at each entrance, twelve men in all, each pointedly
ignoring the young lovelies sprawled out upon the bed as they watched for
any intruders. Every guard was a muscled brute beneath their armor, bred to
kill at their emperor’s command. Whenever he felt bored, Herb would pick
several of their ranks to fight him in his personal arena, finding six of
them at once to be a decent workout.

He sighed with slight melancholy, taking a sip of plum wine from the
jeweled goblet in his hand. The drink was enjoyably sweet and cloying upon
his tongue, just as his time with the four women from his harem had been
sensuously pleasurable. He was certain his advisors would tell him once
again he should be content to enjoy such indulgences and luxuries, yet
instead he felt restless. Sleep refused to embrace him tonight, so he was
drinking in hopes of encouraging it to claim him.

The path to the throne had been arduous and brutal, a triumph of his
unyielding will to prevail, and it had been a satisfying victory at the
end. The opening had come so unexpectedly and suddenly, like a gift from
the gods. After hearing of the sudden deaths of the official heirs, he had
quickly seized his opportunity, acting with decisiveness as a true Musk
should. Facing down his analogs as well as the other challengers for the
throne and killing them with his bare hands had demonstrated his divine
right to rule, proving that he possessed both the necessary strength and
the ruthlessness needed to command the fractious peoples of the Dynasty.

Now he was the new Dragon Emperor, the supreme ruler of all that he
surveyed. Dozens of worlds were his demesne. Their subject populaces
existed to serve him, just as they had served all prior rulers of the
Dynasty. Vast armies and navies staffed with battle-hardened troops awaited
his command to conquer new worlds and destroy their enemies, and the
Mandate of Heaven was his.

He had bided his time and recovered his strength after what he had gone
through in seizing the throne, allowing himself a leisurely vacation to
enjoy some of the fruits of his hard labors. His silk-garbed advisors from
the Tribunal foolishly believed they now had him comfortably under their
control, like a hawk kept captive in a gilded cage. To keep him contented
in his private chambers, they had provided him with bevies of beautiful
women brought in from across the Dynasty, copious amounts of sweet wines
and banquets of superb cuisine.

Their intent had been glaringly obvious from the beginning. They wanted to
lull him into complacency, to render him into becoming their pliant puppet,
content with being their figurehead as they ruled the Dynasty through the
machinery of state. All of it done in his name, of course.

However, they were quite wrong to think him their creature, like some
weak-willed woman like those in his harem. He would soon teach them this
fact. The Dynasty was his, as was the Mandate of Heaven. He had earned both
by right of conquest, and he would not relinquish either to their
pleasant-seeming treachery.

He took another deep drink of his wine, musing on his missing analog. It
was a mystery as to what had happened to that other Herb, the only one who
might have successfully defeated his claim to rule. The ability of that
analog as a warrior had been superb. Having left the Dynasty on his quest
for his brother, Sage, his fate remained unknown to this day.

No matter. That other Herb had been declared outlaw by Imperial Writ now.
He would be a fool to ever return to the worlds of the Dynasty, only
achieving his own death.

The young emperor pondered, sipping his wine. Soon he would begin finishing
the work started by their ancestors and finally end this interminable war.
The heretical women of the Solnoid Matriarchy, descendants of the
Joketsuzoku tribe on their perverted version of Earth, would finally be
subjugated and placed into chains, just as their analogs had all been
crushed on other worlds now ruled by the Dynasty. As an example to others
who might foolishly choose to defy the Musk in the future, he would see to
it that the Solnoids’ homeworld was burnt to the very bedrock and their
seas boiled dry, recording the destruction for posterity.

Once the damnable Amazons were finally out of the way, nothing would stop
the Dynasty from claiming the multiverse.

Any who tried to stand against him, he would destroy.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*** Earth 0.000, 0.000

Lying in shadow, the room lit only by a sliver of moonlight that made its
way past the closed curtains, two figures could be seen next to each other
on a bed, their bodies covered by a thin sheet. One shape was clearly
female, the other male. While both were asleep, that slumber was not sound
for one of them.

The woman thrashed around, held in the grip of a nightmare. Her hands
clenched tightly at the sheet covering her up to her chest, her fingers
crooking like claws as they grasped and tugged at the fabric. Low groans
escaped her throat, occasionally interrupted by short, sharp gasps. She
twitched at those times, her head jerking sharply to one side or the other.

With a start, Mina Li suddenly awoke and sat up, uncertain where she was
for a moment, her nightmare already fading. Her bedmate continued his
slumbers in peace, to her immense irritation. His sleep appeared to be
untroubled and relaxed. She was tempted to punch him in the throat for that.

Grumbling, she swung her shapely legs out of bed and stood up. Standing
there dressed only in a silken pajama top, she stretched and yawned,
feeling a bit sore in various places. Tarou, her boyfriend, the young man
still sleeping so irritatingly soundly, had won again last night in a
heated battle against his latest opponent. This most recent victory of his
had maintained his ranking as the best male fighter in their age group (and
his record rivaling that of the top fighters in the Arena overall), so they
had celebrated together in their usual fashion.

A delicious meal at an expensive restaurant had been followed up by a
torrid night of passion between them in her room. As it usually did, the
hard fight and his eventual victory had greatly revved up Tarou’s libido.
While he had been rougher with her last night than she cared for in a
sexual partner, not the first time he had done so, she considered it a
small price to pay for being involved with him.

While there were aspects of Tarou that could stand improvement, his
fighting skills were not among them. Seeing him do battle against other
young men secretly thrilled her, watching how he so skillfully and
powerfully dominated his opponents and brutalized them once he gained the
upper hand in a match, similar to how she treated her own foes. Although
she would never tell him outright and inflate Tarou’s opinion of himself
even more than it already was, it gratified her ego to be his girlfriend,
to know that the strongest boy fighting in the Arena was hers. She felt it
gave her additional status in the eyes of the other girls to add to her own
stellar ranking as a contender.

Even though he philandered with an annoying frequency, only the newest
arrivals ever made the mistake of accepting his romantic attentions. It was
a well-known fact that she dealt very harshly with any girls who caught
Tarou’s interest. Many of the more recent fatalities on her Arena record,
those committed since her arrival in the Battledome, were girls who had
only been guilty of accepting Tarou’s notice. The rest were those who had
simply earned the Korean girl’s ire for one reason or another, both male
and female.

Despite his flaws as a boyfriend (and, if asked, Mina could list a great
many of them), so long as he maintained his high standing in the
Battledome, she would continue to reward him with her company and give him
free rein to enjoy her bountiful feminine charms. All that mattered to her
was how his status enhanced hers. Nothing else about him really interested
her, and his inflated ego occasionally grated on her nerves.

She certainly wasn’t with him for his lovemaking skills, despite what Tarou
might think, she mused with a sardonic look as she completed her brief
stretch. Those were passable at best, even requiring her to fake enjoyment
sometimes. Fortunately, his stamina mostly made up for what he lacked in
talent.

While he frequently strayed, he compounded his sins against her by
insulting her intelligence, attempting to soothe her wrath by lamely
proclaiming in private how much he loved her and that his most recent fling
meant nothing to him, such declarations always seeming to occur whenever
they were being intimate together. Fortunately for Tarou’s continued
existence, Mina was under absolutely no illusions that her relationship
with him was one built on love. She knew his attentions would be distracted
as soon as another curvaceous female ambled past his view.

As for her, the capacity for that emotion had been seared out of her heart
long ago. In her opinion, love made people weak and foolish. She felt
nothing but withering contempt for those brainless girls who deceived
themselves into thinking any man could ever care about them beyond what
they could do for him in the bedroom. In her experience, it just wasn’t
true.

Perhaps that was why the presence of Ranma Saotome annoyed her so much, an
aggravation that had been gradually building ever since his recent arrival
in their little community of combatants. He wasn’t like the other young men
in the Battledome that she was used to, rough, violent sorts accustomed to
its brutal lifestyle. However, he also wasn’t like any of the soft, flabby
Japanese men she knew in the world outside the Arena, wealthy sorts who
paid her exorbitant amounts of money to enjoy her feminine charms.

Ranma wasn’t even much like Ryu Kumon, the other Japanese boy recently
arrived here. During lunch yesterday, Shenhua had been sharing with Mina an
edited account about how well things were going with her new boyfriend, and
their conversation had given the Korean girl some new insight into how
Ryu’s mind worked. The Japanese boy was apparently a bit more ruthless than
she had ever suspected. He also deeply loathed the Saotome boy for some
reason, something that went beyond their recent meetings.

Much less pleasing to Shenhua had been the fact that she could tell Ryu
still held strong feelings for Shampoo, although he was not crass enough to
ever openly admit it to her. Even after the two of them had been beaten up
by Ranma and the Chinese girl in an altercation with the couple the other
day, he had still forbidden Shenhua from harming the Amazon seriously. And
on several occasions, she had even caught him eyeing Shampoo whenever the
other girl came within his view. These things infuriated the Taiwanese
fighter, her already-existing animosity towards the young Joketsuzoku
soaring to new heights each time she caught him.

On that, Mina could relate quite well. Tarou had been not-so-secretly
lusting after Shampoo ever since her triumphant debut here at the
Battledome. It was one of the many annoyances she would someday punish the
young Amazon for having committed, likely fatally.

Returning her musings back to Ranma, the pigtailed boy remained an enigma
and perplexed her. He could fight inordinately well, on a par with the very
best warriors in the Arena, a fact proven by his ability to stand against
someone as indomitable as Shampoo and defeat her. However, he also treated
all the women he interacted with respectfully, something extremely rare
among both Arena men and the lecherous male fans of the sport. He looked
girls in their faces instead of dropping his gaze as most males did and
generally acted towards them like they were people, not merely fleshly
objects that he would gratify his lusts with should he ever be given the
slightest chance.

What frustrated Mina about this chivalrous attitude he had was how he had
responded to her overtures towards him. Over the past few days, she had
made him cozy offers to spend some time with her in a private setting,
managing to catch him alone in the hallways a few times. However, her
flirtations with him always ended in failure. Even when she was standing in
ways that she knew best displayed her magnificent figure to his gaze as she
spoke to him, she had still been rebuffed. The pigtailed boy had even
looked decidedly uncomfortable at her advances before he had managed to
escape her.

His second such refusal and escape in as many days finally earned him her
ire. Who did he think he was? Did he consider himself to be too good for
her? No man refused an offer of companionship from Mina Li! His repeated
refusals made her want to break his neck.

Adding to her vast displeasure over her failures at seducing him away from
Shampoo, the Korean girl had overheard some of the younger female fighters
discussing Ranma last night, expressing their envy at the Amazon’s good
fortune in finding such a remarkable young man. Recalling their comments
made Mina’s guts churn again with resentment towards the Chinese girl. As
Shampoo was well respected by most of the other young female fighters for
her skills, no one else had made a play for the pigtailed boy yet, but that
might not last much longer.

She wondered if Ranma would confess to Shampoo about her advances towards
him, but there were no signs that he had, not that Mina was very concerned
about dealing with an irate Amazon. As strong as her nemesis was, Mina knew
she had gained greatly in strength since their first encounter, pushing her
body further every week. Their next battle would not be as one-sided as
their last one had been.

The boys were even less charitable in their conversations together, a great
many of them seething with bitterness over Ranma being with the Amazon. It
was quite revealing to Mina how many of them utterly despised the pigtailed
martial artist and wished him harm, a sign of just how insufferably popular
Shampoo was with the male contingent of the Battledome’s combatants.
Beating her had apparently been a fond fantasy for many young men. Those of
their ranks that the Amazon had previously fought and defeated seemed to
lust after her the strongest, especially those that Shampoo had trounced
more than once.

Most of the girls in the Battledome were resigned to the fact that the
Amazon was popular with the boys, but the two most obviously covetous of
her, Ryu Kumon and Tarou, had inspired their girlfriends to loathe the
Amazon even more intensely than they already did. Aided by their mutual
animosity towards Shampoo, Shenhua and Mina had been quickly bonding in
their nascent friendship. Unfortunately, as popular and capable as the
Chinese girl was, they knew they would have to bide their time and wait for
the proper moment to exact an appropriately brutal and bloody revenge.

For the past couple of days, Mina had been spending some of her free time
observing the couple eating their breakfasts together before each of them
went their separate ways for training. Joining them on most days was
Running Deer, still a bit glum about the Kumon boy being with Shenhua. This
actually amused Mina greatly as she despised the Apache girl due to her
close association with Shampoo and her insufferable attitude. She had been
overheard the other day talking with the Amazon, saying that Ranma seemed a
good match for her friend.

When Running Deer hadn’t been with them one morning, the new couple spent
their entire meal talking to each other animatedly in Mandarin. Ranma was
apparently quite fluent in the language. Their conversation had looked
friendly, both of them smiling and laughing occasionally.

Only a few days ago, the two of them had been brutalizing each other on the
floor of the Battledome, each of them grimly trying to put the other one
down in a fight to the finish that Ranma had arguably won. They still had
another duel ahead of them in several days to prove which of them was truly
the stronger, a final battle from which only one of them could be left
standing when it was over. But each morning since their first fight they
had been acting like good friends, not two people out to annihilate each
other in their next fight. What was going on?

Seeing the two of them acting so genial together and enjoying each other’s
company made Mina’s guts churn. It filled her with scorn towards the pair.
Also, it puzzled her to see how much the Joketsuzoku girl enjoyed Ranma’s
company, given how violently their relationship had begun.

Shampoo actually looked to be developing a friendship with him instead of
psyching herself up to destroy the pigtailed boy the next time they faced
each other in the Battledome. Even more amazing, given how cool the Amazon
had been towards all other males expressing an interest in dating her, one
of the members of Mina’s clique had seen the duo duck into an alcove
together the other day, only to emerge minutes later holding hands and with
their clothing looking suspiciously rumpled. Such a thing would not have
been notable for any other female fighter, but Shampoo? She was famed for
being practically frigid towards boys showing her any romantic interest.

Could it be that her barbaric nemesis was actually falling in love with
Ranma? Had he thawed the ice princess with his prowess at martial arts?
Like most residents of the Battledome, Mina was well aware of the bizarre
laws of Shampoo’s village, a place where the women were raised to marry the
man who defeated them in battle. Her Amazon code was a very large part of
the Chinese girl’s appeal to her fans, anxiously waiting to see if any man
would ever finally best her in battle.

Was that what was causing Shampoo to act this way? Did she care about him
only because he had beaten her in a fight? Was it just because of that
inane law she followed?

While heading out to a date with one of her wealthy clients the other
night, before Ranma’s arrival at the Battledome, she had unexpectedly
encountered Shampoo in the hallway near the elevator. The Chinese girl had
scornfully taunted her about men paying her for sex when she saw how the
Korean girl was dressed, like Mina Li was just some common prostitute to be
pitied by the likes of a frigid ice princess like Shampoo. Mina recalled
with pleasure how she had swiftly riposted that cheap shot right back into
the Chinese girl’s smug face, along with a few other telling remarks.

It had been quite enjoyable for the Korean girl to point out to her nemesis
that the man her idiotic Joketsuzoku laws required her to marry would
likely be a stranger, some grunting brute of a male who only needed to be
physically strong enough to defeat her. Possibly he would be someone she
had only just met when they began fighting each other. That line of
reasoning had left the other girl fuming, unable to refute it.

Mina remembered with pleasure how her taunts had struck home and drew
blood. She had taken great delight in enlightening Shampoo how she knew far
more about the client she was going to see that night than the Amazon would
know about her future husband on her wedding night when he had her on her
back. But with Ranma Saotome, that past gibe had been rendered moot, which
only served to further infuriate Mina at the Amazon’s seemingly charmed
existence.

Of all people, the Emperor himself had intervened, demanding to see the two
of them battle it out to the bitter end in a rematch without any kind of
interference from others. Because of this, their relationship currently
existed in a state of limbo. Instead of Ranma being able to drag the Amazon
off to the nearest bed to satisfy his libidinous rights as her husband per
Shampoo’s silly Joketsuzoku laws, the two of them had been spending their
free time apparently getting to know each other.

The sight of the pair together made the Korean girl seethe inside with
burning desires to end Shampoo’s life, even worse than she had ever wanted
to kill her before. These feelings had eaten at her for the past couple of
days, filling her guts with bile and venom. She had taken some of this out
on her last opponent, dislocating his shoulder and shattering his knee, but
it had not been nearly enough to soothe her fury. Someday she would show
the whole world that the strongest woman in the Arena was Mina Li, not some
backwoods barbarian bitch who obeyed a bizarre moral code.

Mina yearned for that day to arrive soon, and she had played out many
variations of the scene in her mind during idle moments. Ranma’s skill at
fighting had forever shattered Shampoo’s illusion of indomitability,
revealing that the Amazon was not truly undefeatable. And if she could be
beaten once, she could be beaten again. Mina was confident her next match
with Shampoo would not be a repeat of the humiliating beating she had
suffered when they had first faced each other. She had trained intensely
and pushed herself relentlessly to improve her abilities since then,
preparing for her chance to avenge herself.

She was certain it would feel utterly glorious when she finally broke
Shampoo, and she planned to take her nemesis apart a piece at a time,
beating her down slowly, savoring each bone-breaking strike she would drive
into the other girl’s body. Only when Shampoo was reduced to sobbing,
bloody wreckage on the floor of the Battledome, perhaps trying to feebly
crawl away from her, would she then scornfully finish her off. Then
everyone who witnessed their battle would have to acknowledge that Mina Li
was the best and always had been.

When compared to such a moment of glory, who needed love? It was an illness
of the mind, a madness that sapped a person’s strength and left them weak.
Well, Mina Li was not weak. She had learned a long time ago that love was a
cruel delusion, and what she had been forced to do in her life to survive
had burned out her capacity for even feeling it, leaving only the charred
cinder she had in that place inside her soul.

Unlike other girls her age, the search for romance had no place within Mina
Li. She had no need of such frivolous things. A hunger for glory and a
thirst for victory drove her instead.

The foundations of those drives had been laid down when she left behind the
wretched squalor of her birthplace to travel to Paek-Tu Mountain at a very
young age, having heard rumors that a great martial arts master dwelt
there. She had gone to that fabled mountain, an orphaned child alone in the
world and desperate to find someone strong to teach her, wanting to never
have to depend on anyone else ever again to protect her. Along the way, she
had survived several trials and dealt with grim experiences that no girl of
just barely eleven years of age should ever have to face.

Six arduous years later, a far stronger Mina Li had emerged from those
mountains, her body and soul forged into unyielding steel by the hellish
training she had endured there. It had all been worth it. Her abilities at
combat had been honed to a razor’s edge, and she was left with an aching
inside her, to use them against someone when it was finally over.

As fighting was the only significant skill she possessed, her course had
quickly become clear. To quell her need for violence and in order to earn
money to eat, she had entered the so-called dog pits, the lowest rung of
the Arena’s ladder. She fought for coins in those early matches. None of
her fights ever lasted very long, and no opponent ever proved worthy of
very much effort. Even so, it had been enormously satisfying to stand over
their bleeding bodies and soak up the crowd’s praise for her victories.

Over time, her journey up the Arena’s ranks progressed as she cut a swath
through her opposition, leaving behind their broken forms in her wake. She
discovered very early on in her career that she enjoyed hurting those she
fought, even inflicting crippling injuries at times, finding that doing so
made her feel strong. So those she battled would quite frequently lose one
or more teeth, have their bones broken, or have their internal organs
ruptured. Most commonly, her opponents would spill a significant quantity
of their blood during a fight with her. Those who really annoyed her would
suffer all of these things and more before she finally knocked them out,
briefly ending their suffering.

She gradually earned a reputation as a brutal combatant, and that won her
the attentions of stronger opponents seeking to improve their own standings
by defeating her. Welcoming their challenges, she honed her combat skills
even further, at the cost of only two losses on her record. Fortunately,
neither of those opponents inflicted any lasting injuries on her body
beyond a few scars that eventually faded.

The same could not be said of her soul. One of those foes, a hulking thug a
couple of years older than she had been at the time, found her at her
campsite while she was still recovering from their match and too weak to
fend him off. Their struggle had been brief.

When he was finally done with using her, he had been distracted by
something as he was getting up off of her, perhaps thinking her too
traumatized to resist him anymore. That had been his mistake. She had
managed to catch him by surprise in that moment, her solid kick slamming up
into his undefended groin and stunning him, followed up when she laid him
out with a bone-breaking strike to the side of his skull. Seeing her
attacker crumpled there in an unconscious heap, helpless, the knowledge of
what he had just done to her still fresh in her mind, a searing rage had
filled her.

She had taken a long time in killing him, breaking his bones and
pulverizing his internal organs with skilled blows, savoring every moment
of the experience. As her surprise attack had fractured his skull, he was
left unable to resist her. She had been grateful when he proved to be so
durable and didn’t die quickly on her, since she had a lot of fury to
expend by then.

After he was finally dead, she had dragged his corpse off and disposed of
it in the sea, tossing him off a cliff near her camp. As the sharks had
eaten his remains, she had quietly sat there and watched, nursing her
injuries and brooding. While observing the carnage and suffering the
lingering pains from her ordeal at his hands, an epiphany had come over her.

Following that experience, her taste for bloodshed intensified. She began
killing her foes whenever the mood struck her, not merely crippling them,
and the crowds adored her even more. To give her fans an even more
memorable show, she started experimenting with creative ways to end an
opponent’s life, striving for more memorable fatalities. “The Goodnight
Kiss” eventually became her signature finishing maneuver, the finale of
which involved snapping an opponent’s neck while holding them pillowed
against her breasts, and the crowds venerated her for its sensuous
lethality.

Already distrustful of others when she began her career, she had lacked a
coach or manager to teach her how to win the crowd’s favor. Mina had been
forced to learn the value of showmanship on her own, using her burgeoning
beauty as another weapon in her arsenal by watching and learning from other
female fighters instead. She had begun dressing in a sexier manner as she
could afford new clothes, gradually replacing the more mannish garb she had
worn at the beginning of her fighting career.

When she finally reached Hong Kong’s venue, she had become a lethal and
polished contender, her fighting outfits displaying her impressive feminine
assets to their best effect. And ever since winning her first match in a
dog pit, she had grown addicted to the sound of the crowds shouting her
name with loud reverence. By the time she arrived in Hong Kong, she was
already skilled at reading the audience and knowing how to give them a
thrilling show, viciously putting down her opponent only when she could
sense they were ready for the finale.

Long before her debut in Hong Kong, she also learned that being with a man
did not have to be an act of violence and degradation for her, that it
could be quite a pleasurable experience. After one of her matches in the
decadent city of Roanapur, a middle-aged Japanese man in the audience
bought her dinner, a new dress and then took her out for a night on the
town. Afterwards, he offered her money for her company for the night. That
‘one night’ ended up lasting for an entire week, and, while he had been far
from being the best lover she would ever be with, he was capable enough to
show her how enjoyable physical intimacy with a man could be.

As her reputation in the Arena continued flourishing, she started to
supplement her income from matches by renting herself out to a select
clientele of patrons, men and women, enjoying exclusive parties and nights
on the town with them. Alongside her fighting skills, her sexual prowess
became just another commodity she sold. A night of ardor with Mina Li was
something she was able to barter for more and more money as her standing in
the Arena’s world increased.

Right after her debut in the Battledome was when she and Tarou became an
item, recognizing in each other a complement to themselves. Together they
had enjoyed the fruits of being hot commodities in the Battledome for
several enjoyable weeks. It had been a glorious time, and she had spent
every second she could relishing her hard-earned fame.

Her life had seemed so perfect then. After she established herself here by
defeating the previous top-ranked female fighter in their age group,
permanently ending that other girl’s career in a spectacle of brutal
carnage, she had joyously steeped herself in the crowd’s effusive worship
they had paid her that night. Each time she fought after that, her fandom
grew ever larger.

The only difficulty in her life then had been Tarou, who she began arguing
with over her refusal to stop selling herself to rich patrons. To this day,
it still remained a bone of contention between them. While being with him
enhanced her reputation, she was not about to let any man tell her what to
do.

Despite that irritant, it had seemed like nothing could ever end her days
of glory.

Then _she_ had arrived. That damned Amazon. A girl so lusciously built that
men adored her on sight, and a fighter so indomitably skilled that no one
had ever defeated her, although not for a lack of opponents with the
ability and willingness to attempt it. Shampoo had gone up against a fair
number of challenging foes in her rise to fame. Some of them had even come
close to besting her, but none had ever succeeded in the end. She had never
lost a single fight to anyone, male or female, giving her a reputation as a
flawless contender.

When Shampoo had arrived at the Battledome for her debut match, Mina had
been openly contemptuous of the younger girl. But their fight had quickly
proven that the Amazon was every bit as powerful as her reputation had
said. The great Mina Li had been left face-down in record time, a bitter
loss that earned Shampoo the Korean girl’s eternal wrath. Mina’s ego was
only slightly salved by the fact that no opponent since then, male or
female, had been able to take down the Amazon.

Before Ranma arrived, there was even talk of matching Shampoo against Tarou
before the Emperor’s Tournament began. It was a match the Chinese boy had
been annoyingly enthusiastic to have from Mina’s perspective. Such a
conflict would have been a grand spectacle, the Battledome’s strongest
young male fighter against its strongest young female. Fans of both
warriors had said it would be a clash of titans that would go down in
history as one of the Arena’s greatest match-ups.

No one Shampoo had faced had been capable enough to take her down, not
until Ranma Saotome had entered the Battledome. The sports writers had
dubbed him “The Dragon’s Apprentice” in their stories, having learned Ranma
was the disciple of the legendary Jun Fan Lee, holder of numerous Arena
records. Some fans had even begun clamoring for the pigtailed boy to return
to the Battledome after this week, wanting to see him fight against other
youths as a regular combatant.

Tarou was increasingly bitter over being replaced as front page news by
Ranma, and Mina could sympathize with his ire. But the Chinese boy wasn’t
the only one who loathed the Arena’s newest young star. From what Shenhua
had revealed to her at lunch yesterday, Ryu Kumon, the Taiwanese girl’s new
boyfriend, would also be happy to see Ranma Saotome expire suddenly. And
there were also Shampoo’s other would-be suitors in the Battledome to
consider, young men who would doubtlessly be eager to assist Tarou in
dealing with the Saotome boy.

As Ana and Uni were lying injured in the infirmary, the pair recovering
from some sort of mishap in the Arena Director’s office a few days ago,
that left only the regular guards to watch out for Ranma’s well-being. An
unfortunate incident might soon occur, if the pigtailed boy wasn’t careful.
So far he had been very lucky, somehow managing to evade Tarou and his pack
of cronies, but such good fortune couldn’t last forever.

They would catch him alone eventually, and then Tarou would put the
pigtailed boy in his proper place, as he had previously done with Ryu. But
it was beginning to look more likely that he might do something a bit more
permanent to Ranma. Either way, the pigtailed boy was heading for a clash
with the Chinese youth. After all, only one of them could be known as the
Arena's strongest young fighter.

Shaking her head as she dismissed such musings, Mina strode to the bathroom
and flipped the light on. As the fluorescent bulb flickered into life, she
grabbed a half-empty bottle of pills from her medicine cabinet and shook
one out into her hand. She needed a full night’s rest to maintain her
physique in top form. If she ever let herself falter, another girl might
try to take her place, like Shenhua. She definitely had the talent and the
will to do so, should she be given an opening to unseat her. Letting
Shampoo get the best of her had been bad enough, forcing her to stand in
the Amazon’s shadow ever since. She would not be reduced in status even
further by anyone else.

Adding to her vexation about other things, a mysterious redheaded girl had
recently started popping up here and there in the Battledome complex. While
she carried herself like a capable fighter, she wasn’t a new arrival on the
rosters, and nobody knew who she was. The redhead had slammed her in the
face with a door the other night (a fatal enough mistake on its own), but,
even worse, Tarou had apparently seen the girl walking around and gotten a
really good look at her.

He was later overheard talking with some of his cohorts, apparently intent
on making a new conquest of the mystery girl and comparing her figure
favorably to Mina’s. That moved the redhead into a category reserved for
the Korean girl’s special attention, and she knew she would have to do
something appropriately violent to her new rival for Tarou’s attentions. It
would doubtless be a good stress reliever.

If she had not already been heading out for an evening with one of her
clients in an expensive dress, Mina would have already dealt with the
little vixen when they had encountered each other in the elevator the other
night, messing the redhead’s face and body up so badly that Tarou would
never want to come near her. The other girl had gotten extremely lucky. The
next time would be a much different story.

Swallowing the bitter pill in her hand with a quick gulp of water, Mina
gazed into the mirror defiantly. The drug would knock her out and keep her
asleep for the rest of the night, no matter how horrible her dreams became.
Tomorrow was another day, bringing her one step closer to the day when she
finally destroyed Shampoo. And if she caught that little redheaded bitch
alone again somewhere, she’d get hers, and no man would ever find her
desirable again.

Snapping the light back off, Mina returned to her bed, hoping for better
dreams this time, or at least a dreamless slumber.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A warm cup of tea sat in Hinako Ninomiya’s hands as she pondered the
recording she had been reviewing again, having lost track of the number of
times she had done so. It had been made for her courtesy of her bedroom’s
hidden cameras and microphones recently. She had installed the automated
equipment a few years ago for blackmail purposes, and she still used it on
occasion while in the company of paramours that she had enamored and then
entertained there. Such recordings had proven to be very useful, greatly
aiding her rapid rise within the Security Directorate.

On one segment there could be heard a brief, muffled conversation followed
up by the unmistakable sounds of a fight breaking out, a brutal-sounding
struggle that went on for several minutes. A period of silence had then
followed, and then more muted conversation could be heard. She had run the
recording through analysis software to try and clean it up. While her voice
could be heard in spots, the other speaker had been far too faint and
garbled on the recording for success. She regretted not installing more
cameras and microphones into the rest of her apartment.

Her inability to reconstruct the garbled recording of the second speaker
into something more intelligible was annoying. However, her main concern
was the time-stamp when it had been made. She had no memories of ever
receiving a visitor in her apartment when it had occurred, and the security
tapes for the building had two static-filled gaps that roughly corresponded
to the times when her mystery visitor had arrived and departed. A forensic
examination of her quarters had also turned up nothing. These were all
signs of someone very skilled in espionage tradecraft having visited her
and then eliminating all traces of their presence afterwards.

Her being in a brawl with someone explained the aches and pains she had
felt after awakening on her couch the other day. At the time, she had not
been able to rationalize them, wondering if she had just slept wrong. Her
recent encounters with Tofu had been both torrid and quite exhausting, so a
nap had not struck her as unusual. It was fortunate that she healed
quickly, her injuries fading within just a few hours of her waking up.

What had happened to her during that missing period of time? Who had she
spoken to? If she had been in a fight, who had she fought?

The mystery was at least distracting her from thoughts of Soun Tendo’s
upcoming ascension to the leadership of the Security Directorate. But could
the two events somehow be related? While Soun was too clever by far to do
anything that might directly implicate himself, could her nemesis have sent
someone to interrogate her and then erased her memory of it? After all, he
had once been one of the most effective agents the Directorate had ever
fielded, and he had undoubtedly retained that competency and cleverness
since then. Planning such an operation would not be difficult for him.

Hinako’s gaze hardened when she suddenly realized something. There were two
other possibilities: Kasumi and Nabiki Tendo. The first option she
dismissed immediately as the eldest Tendo girl quite clearly lacked the
needed ruthlessness that made for a successful field operative. From what
she had seen of Kasumi, the girl exuded niceness like an aura. It was
impossible to conceive of her ever doing something like this.

No, the answer was Nabiki. The girl had earned top marks in all of her
tradecraft classes at the Imperial Academy, and it was possible she was a
capable enough fighter to subdue her under the right circumstances. After
all, the girl’s knowledge of martial arts had recently been revealed to be
far greater than anyone had ever previously suspected, even prodigious,
undoubtedly a legacy of her mother’s she had wisely kept hidden from her
peers until now.

The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. And if she had been
interrogated by Nabiki, the irritating child perhaps even using chemical
assistance to loosen her tongue, it was quite possible that her
relationship with Tofu had been uncovered by the girl. That would be very
problematic should she tell anyone, like her sister. Hinako knew she would
have to begin a heightened surveillance on the Tendo girl immediately and
find out more about her activities and what she might know.

With any luck, Nabiki was embroiled in something going on in her life she
would not want revealed to others. Having a little leverage on the Tendo
girl could even open up unseen doors of possibility. Perhaps it might also
give her something she could use against Soun Tendo.

There was also Ranma to consider. Despite the pleasurable distractions that
Tofu had been providing her, she had not given up on her designs upon the
pigtailed boy, merely put them on hold. And putting Nabiki under her thumb
might also allow her another means of access to the brilliant young
scholar, dealing with two problems at once. That was a pleasant thought.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Shogun shimmered into being, looming over the sleeping figure of
Setsuna Meioh in her bed. Drawings lay scattered around the room at his
feet. Idly, he nudged some of them with his foot. They displayed several
people standing on a road, facing away from the viewer.

“How far you have fallen, Sailor Pluto,” he murmured, studying the pictures
briefly before turning again to face her. “You were once in control of the
Gate of Time, the Mistress of Eternity. Now you’re nothing but a broken
doll.”

The girl in bed stirred from her troubled sleep and turned her head to
stare dully, gazing right at him. That startled the Shogun in the midst of
his gloating. No one should be able to sense him, especially not this
beaten girl.

He frowned thoughtfully. Perhaps Setsuna still remained a threat after all,
even as damaged as she was. Long ago, when she was merely a young child, he
had infused her with a minute scrap of his power, the perfect vessel for
his needs. Her mind eventually shattered from the strain of mixing their
incompatible energies, and her resulting madness had been blamed on other
causes. She had then been consigned here, those who cared about her hoping
for a cure that never came.

It was a strategy he had perfected on a past iteration of history and used
to great success ever since. The resulting temporal dissonance caused by
the mixture of his powers with her nascent ones gradually built up as she
matured, blocking her own abilities from ever emerging. Eventually, the
discordance grew strong enough to veil the sight of those with precognitive
abilities, preventing them from seeing the future and possibly interfering
with his plans.

Possibly she thought him a dream. As his body had no requirement for
slumber, he did not really comprehend the need mortals had for it. Perhaps
after his ascension he would finally understand such things.

Seeing Sailor Pluto as she was now, her state reduced to that of a mere
mortal girl, powerless before him, he felt a stirring of satisfaction at
the sight. Along with eliminating other threats to his plans, he had
destroyed this girl’s life as well, removing her ability to challenge him.
Now she was just a mute madwoman, a shell of a girl scrawling meaningless
pictures in an asylum.

The Shogun took a moment to savor this particular victory. While many of
the Sailor Senshi team still lived in this timeline, their beloved Moon
Princess and her bothersome Earth Prince consort were not so fortunate. So,
lacking the presence of Sailor Moon to awaken them and bring them together,
they remained scattered, powerless and of no threat to him. The
fiery-tempered princess of Mars remained a mere shrine maiden, Mercury’s
princess was a mild-mannered scholar and the princess of Jupiter was a
delinquent schoolgirl. None of them were of any consequence to him now.
Those powered by the outer planets had been neutralized as well, living out
their lives as ordinary girls, mere shells of what they might have been.

Among them all, only Sailor Venus had somehow managed to obtain her
planet’s power, a glitch in his plans caused by the talking beast Artemis
somehow managing to escape from his minions and gifting the girl with the
ability to change into her empowered form. Even so, she was very little
threat to him on her own. Minako Aino appeared to be quite content with
destroying demons or the occasional malevolent entity that crossed her path
and was well-regarded as the superhero ‘Sailor V’ by many of her peers
within the Mobius Institute.

The princess of Venus was enjoying her present life as a pop sensation
superhero very much, and the adulation of her fellow cadets at the Mobius
Institute had long since gone to her head, especially all the attention she
received from male fans. The Shogun doubted anything would ever be able to
pull her from the comfortable shell of her own popularity and get her to
care about anyone other than herself. She would never be any sort of a
threat to him in this timeline.

As Setsuna stared dully at him, the Shogun calmly reached out his hand. It
was time to reclaim the scrap of his power tethered to this broken doll’s
soul. He would need the fullness of his might as he prepared to enact the
next stage of his plans.

Fortunately, the temporal dissonance she had been generating would continue
on after he consumed her soul, her embryonic powers reacting discordantly
with his own. It would cause him some recurring pain, but that was a small
price to pay for apotheosis. He would have preferred to put this errand off
longer, but he knew from past experience on prior iterations of history
that he needed some time to reintegrate his powers and prepare himself for
his upcoming tasks.

Grasping her face in an obscene parody of gentleness, a glimmering of
energy enveloped his fingers. Carefully, he began drawing out her soul. He
knew doing it would kill her, as it had on numerous past iterations of
history, but she was half-dead already, her mind destroyed by the revision
he had made to her life when she was still a young child and unable to
defend herself. Only her body retained its vitality, but that was ebbing
fast.

Alarms began blaring when the girl’s heart finally ceased beating, and the
Shogun took a moment to gaze contentedly at her fallen body after he
released her. Savoring such little victories was what kept him going
through the many eons his task had required of him. She appeared to him
much like a puppet with severed strings as her mortal remains fell to
sprawl across her bed, her lifeless eyes gazing upwards into infinity.

As he pondered her face, he suddenly noticed something that gave him pause.
While her eyes were dull and dead now, she wore a strange expression. He
looked closer.

Was she smiling?

No, that was impossible.

He had won. He had beaten her like he had all the others who had ever
opposed him. Her expression was merely the rictus of death, nothing more.
There was no one who could stop him this time.

Shrugging, the Shogun vanished even as doctors and nurses surged into the
room to try in vain to resuscitate the dead girl.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


To be continued...

Help me get Quantum Destinies set up on tvtropes(dot)com and feel free to
add any tropes you’ve seen in the story.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/attachments/20130509/78c540b4/attachment.html>