Deep in the heart of Nerima crossdressers go bump in the night. Or at least Tsubasa did, earning marks of 7.3, 8.2, and 3.0 from the east German judge for style and control of fall. Konatsu deftly avoided that fate, simply fading into the shadows, unnoticed, unseen, invisible, able to see an opponents eyes at forty feet, and then hide in their blind spot. He could do this while sprinting, but chose not to. Sprinting meant a greater risk of detection. Not that he needed to hide, but the habit was ingrained by now.
Konatsu was one of the best of his school teahouse ninjitsu, despite the flaw of his gender. Konatsu on a mission for his Ukyo-Sama would have reduced his instructors too awed plebes. He could do things that weren't even conceivable to the average person with the ease we might have whistling. But then he lived in Nerima, where over eighty percent of the population could perform near miraculous feats of strength, skill, and/or power. Hence Shampoo noted him. Konatsu was good, he shook Shampoo off inside of three streets, following his circuiticious route to Ucchan's.
Shampoo was better. And all appearances to the contrary, very intelligent. Her cat form was safely ensconced in the ceiling tiles of Ucchans' by the time the kuonichi completed his roundabout return. When Ukyou finally persuaded him to stop bowing long enough to deliver the message he carried Shampoo was already starting to regret her outburst at her airen the day before. She was also starting to harbour nasty suspicions....
But first, Hibachan had to be told...
Effexor entertainment presents
A Prozac production
Ranma: Endless Complications
Written and directed by
Someone who doesn't sleep nights...
Ranma 1/2 and Sandman are copyrighted to their respective creators
Episode Five:
"When the Wives collide, send George Childs to his bride, it's time for some terrible thrills..."
Dawn broke softly across the rooftops of Nerima. No martial artist leapt from roof to roof. Super-powered foreign princes were conspicuous by their absence. Even in the outskirts of the small district, towards Tomobiki, a princess of the Oni slept the sleep of the just. Her fiancee slept the sleep of the just electrocuted, but even this was peaceful. And for them, normal. The sun was a soft golden light, playing across the much abused tiles like a mothers healing kiss. Late night workers bowed politely to early rising salarymen, delivery people smiling happily to the recipients of their goods.
Tendo Akane stared sightlessly out of her window, unseeing, uncaring, unsleeping. Dry eyed she watched the view from a deep place where no-one could reach. Slowly, softly, a single finger was raised to her cheek and wiped absently at a dried line of tears. The act seemed to consume all the volition she possessed. Her hand fell gently down beside her, and she fell deeper into her sightless reverie.
Ranma awoke feeling good. Not the sort of good that comes from merely getting an extra hours sleep, nor the sort of good that follows the completion of a really tough task. It was more the sort of good you feel when somebody very annoying has been removed from your presence with a backside so padded it looks like a beachball on each buttock. It was the good you feel when you don't have to listen to them snore all night, combined with the happiness of knowing that for once he would actually get to eat breakfast as a male without worrying about being jump-kicked into the koi pond by his Martial Arts obsessive father.
At least that's the physical side. When Ranma stops to think about what's happened he's going to feel like hell. His life is about to implode, several his female friends are about to come after him with either murder or marriage in their minds, and more than one of them with both; plus he still needs to work his way through Telute's little bombshell a little more. However since he gets so little time off let's leave him here half-dozing happily into his sheets. The poor boy periodically turned unwilling girl never gets the equivalent of the Sunday morning snooze in. And being the haplessly loveable sort he is, he probably won't worry to much about his mortality, or possible lack thereof, until it becomes an issue of instant import.
Let us instead gently pan back as he draws the covers over his head. If we remained focused on him then we'll feel it necessary to drop a rival, or a scantily clad female depending on how evil you're feeling, on his head; that would be... unfair. Instead let's shift our attention slightly lest the attention brings down the attention of the creator, or at least the attention of the more lecherous of the fan girls, or possibly fan boys depending on preference and water. There are other people out there after all... And for once they're going to play a pivotal role...
Kho Lohn was beginning to feel her age. She was the eldest of the elders, a title that had come about purely and simply due to the fact that the Nichieuzu had been waiting with baited breath for the last 300 years for her to drop dead. The Amazons had history that went back three thousand years... and she remembered far too much of it for her own comfort. Still, the games she played with the young ones always left her feeling renewed, one of the reasons that she'd allowed the lunacy to play itself out for as long as it had.
But today she was old. Death had come to town, and seemed to be preparing for an extended stay. When you were as old as her that caused concern. She'd seen her children's children's children's children live to be old enough to pass away naturally.. In all she was old enough to know when to worry. The Endless didn't make casual jaunts... although Delirium was known for coming to perform tasks and forgetting what she was doing halfway through, Jusenkyo being one of her less dangerous mistakes. Dream had been known to come and search for companionship in his endless vigil over the dreams of mankind... There were even Rumours that Destruction himself had helped found the original Greek Amazon tribe.
But that was all beside the point, the fact was that she was going to have to talk to Death, and there was no special manoeuvre that could defeat her. Grimly Kho Lohn began updating her will. If all failed then Xian Pu would have to know of things that she had shared with no-one over the course of her very long life.
Assuming she deemed it safe enough to let her out of the cage...
Happosai watched the early bathers Atami beach and grimly held himself in check, if he went out now then he'd miss out on the main bonanza around midday! He drooled a little cackling quietly to himself, before sucking happily on his pipe.
No-one was going to stop his fun today!
Telute paused in front of the Tendo furo. She politely tapped at the door waiting for an answer and receiving none before entering and washing. A few minutes later Nabiki walked in.
"Oh... sorry to interrupt you," she murmured to the woman in the bath. She turned to leave and flipped the sign to 'occupied'
"Hey, not a problem," smiled Death. "Look, pull up a chair and talk... you look a little... stressed, and I'm a pretty good listener."
"Erm... are you sure?" Death nodded, smiling pleasantly. "Okay..." Swiftly, and with no wasted motions, Nabiki walked back in, stripped and began to wash.
"So what do you want to talk about kid?"
"um... I don't know.." said Nabiki very quietly.
"You're sure about that? The great Tendo Nabiki lost for words?" Teased Death gently.
"Yes!" she barked. Backing down she continued in a more conversational tone. "It's just... what could I have to say to you that would be worth it. You're DEATH for Kami's sake! I'm just me, the Tendo mercenary..." She added bitterly, distaste and loneliness seeping through her words like water through a badly made barrel.
" I could try to pump you for the secrets of the universe, but I don't think you'd bite, or I could sit here and yell at you for what happened to my mother... but then you don't kill people.. you just take them when they're done, and how the hell can i get mad at you for just doing your job, it's not like you killed her or anything!" Nabiki flushed as she hastily gathered the shreds of her control back around herself. She hadn't meant to be so accusing, but now the words were out there was no way to recall them.
"You're right."
"What?!" Nabiki's thoughts hiccuped a she tried to accept the idea of someone who she didn't have to fight with to make things come out the way she wanted. Dragging her mind back to business, she watched as Telute continued.
"Nabiki, you resent me. You don't have to lie, it's perfectly normal." She sighed. "I truly am mortality personified, and very few people like being reminded of it. So when I show up it's a bad thing.... And you have more reason than most not to like me. After all there was your mother..." She sighed again, softly, mind adrift between the encounter of now, and the memories of then. Nabiki's reaction was rather more pronounced; she stiffened and turned a long slow glare at her companion. Death held up a forestalling hand.
"I know it hurts. I had to take my brother recently, he'd been there for me for... well, for a period of time greater than there's been life on this planet.... and it hurt to have to take him. I know it hurts to lose family. It hurt when I had to take my sister as well. But there is no choice. I don't have a choice in the matter either, there's no justice, there's just me, always me. It's part of who I am; it IS what I am. Do want to know the punchline?" She smiled bitterly. "All I can do is be there and let people go with a smile. Do you really think I enjoy doing what I have to?"
Nabiki glowered slightly, but there was a slight crease to her forehead that hadn't been there earlier. With a small grunt Nabiki upturned the bucket of cold water over herself, before deliberately lowering herself into the furo... at the opposite end to Death.
"So why are you still here."
Death winced slightly.
"Well?"
"Ranma. He was one of the first people to be nice to me in what feels like an age, even knowing who I am. I like being liked... it's one of the things I'm GOOD at, helping people over the transition is nice, and usually they're nice for a awhile, but it always ends... I just want to be around someone for a while who doesn't have to go in five minutes..." She looked down at the surface of the water sadly. She reflected on the distorted reflection for a moment before raising her face to continue.
"Nabiki, I know scores of people who don't die, there are gods, angels, spirits, all of whom I could know, and do know... but immortality is a special kind of curse. We tend to do the same things over and over, or we're trapped by our roles, Destiny is cursed by his foreknowledge, Angels are highly restricted in their roles, Demons are constrained by their natures... Mortals are different. You're... well... Alive! Once every century I'm allowed to become mortal for a day -"
"So who carries out 'The Duty' while you're mortal?" interjected Nabiki sceptically, her lightly sarcastic tone not as cutting as it's normal wont. Feeling somehow that what she was hearing was the one hundred percent unglossed truth was a rarity that she wasn't quite prepared to deal with...And these truths that she was one of the few people to know. It was a slightly dizzying thought.
"I do. It's ... complicated. I am Death... And while I try to be there for the people, and other intelligence's I don't go for everything usually. I tend not to turn up in person for plants, but I'm still aware of their passing. And even limited, I still have to be in a million different places all at once. Just accept that I can be all those places, and be all those various 'me's at once. Then imagine that just one is allowed to be a mortal, to live. To experience time, not to have to worry about being the grim reaper as your people so quaintly put it... " She raised her head to Nabiki, who was astonished to see a single tear roll down her face, tracing the outlines of the oddly compelling spiral tattoo's under her eyelids.
"And then I have to come back. I have to die myself. And then I have to keep going, separating those who are from those who were."
Nabiki despite herself began to feel pity for the being... the Woman opposite her.
"Then wonder why I'd want to stay with someone who knew all that and accepted it, who could allow me to feel even a little alive myself.. even if it's only for a little while."
Death rose and towelled herself off, then left the furo. Nabiki leant back and began to honestly consider what she'd been told. Inside herself she actually felt pity for someone who was the closest thing to omnipotent she could think of. Then she thought of her mother and sighed.
"You... you're...I do resent you. But I don't know anymore..." Nabiki raised her eyes to the ceiling, meditatively watching the steam rise off the surface of the furo, gently twisting under her exhaled breath. She slipped under the water, covering herself completely, before surfacing with a clean movement. Slowly her face returned to it's customary mask.
"And why does it always come back to Ranma?" She asked rhetorically...
Ranma paused in his early morning warm up, sneezed and blinked owlishly around him. Frowning, he dismissed the fleeting impression of being watched and continued to fold his body into shapes more appropriate for a car crash than practice.
Ukyou stood in front of a large mirror reflecting in more than one sense. If Konatsu was to be believed, and he'd never lied, then something awful had happened to her Ranchan, something she had to save him from! Visions of Cologne animating his poor dead body, forcing him to dance to her tune beyond the pale, visions of Akane feeding him that garbage she called food... Visions of Ranchan in exquisite agony while the black fruitloop danced on his grave...
"I swear I'll protect you Ranchan!" She vowed, trying to force the vision out of her head.
But still, she asked herself... what if it were all a mistake? Worse? If it were actually TRUE! There would be bloody vengeance, swift, sure, and almost certainly okonomiyaki influenced. She knew her strengths and played to them. Currently her best bet right now was to try and find out what happened... and then try to save Ranchan even from himself. Possession by oni, devils, youma and mystic beings was not unknown in Nerima.
Yes, she would be the anchor that her Ranchan would pull himself up by, then he would love her and they would finally have their happy ever after! Wiping a small tear away from her eye she tested an experimental smile. Good. She was the very *picture* of the cute fiancé.
She bounded through the Ucchan almost ignoring the critically bonked Transvestites in the corner. She paused. Konatsu had really been looking out for her interests when he tapped her knockout point, calming her from her murderous frenzy. He didn't really deserve to have an unconscious Tsubasa thrown on him.
"I don't know why I put up with you, useless, obsessive weirdo..." She grumbled to the lurid pink snoring mess on the floor. Opening the door and aiming for a soft landing area she applied bakers peel to brainless posterior. There. Tsubasa could have a nice day at the beach, Konatsu could take care of business when he woke up, and she could beat the holy heck out of anyone who would hurt her Ranchan. nodding happily Ukyou stepped out into the beautiful Nerima morning.
A withered figure stood at the doorway to the Tendo house. An aged hand shook as it reached for the doorbell, not from the passage of time, but from the uncertainty it felt. A sense of fatalistic gloom fell across the features of the visitor. Just for once it would be nice to relax and not have to worry about the confounded boy/girl, but family was all after all... The door opened, revealing Kasumi in an apron, eyes shining brightly, although *something* about them suggested deep depths tightly locked away. Kasumi recognised her visitor, and with more than her usual cheerfulness she welcomed her.
"Good morning Cologne-Sama."
"Good morning Child, I have come to speak to your guest. May i come in?"
"Of course, would you like tea?" Offered Kasumi politely, as a good hostess.
Cologne nodded and smiled pleasantly to the eldest Tendo child. Then she stepped into a the metaphorical lions den.
"I do hope you'll be patient while I go and fetch our visitor," worried Kasumi seeing no-one around in the lounge. "Please help yourself to biscuits. I should only be a few - Oh good morning!" she said happily to the newest guest at the Tendo home.
"Good morning Tendo-San, good morning Kho-Lohn, matriarch of the Joketsuzoku." Announced Death cheerily in her pleasant voice. Kasumi flushed happily at the display of good manners, Cologne momentarily forgot to swallow, and started to cough.
"Yes, good day Lady Telute, I am honoured by your greeting" She managed to return, with none of her usual aplomb. Kasumi gestured her guests to be seated at the table, then left to get the tea things. Kho-Lohn looked everywhere but at the reason for her visit. Death waited cheerfully for the matriarch to come out and ask her questions. She also began to eat Kasumi's biscuits, rather astounded by the flavour. She reached for a second, then swiftly for a third.
"You do seem to like Kasumi's baking." Began Kho-Lohn in her native tongue, looking for a way to break the silence. Language was irrelevant to the woman she had come to see, and the translation between two languages was never exact - the images and desires of her Chinese mind never quite entirely meshing with the Japanese tongue she had learnt so long ago. She looked up, watching closely for any subtle clues that would help her.
"Yes, I haven't tasted anything this good since the last time I ate with Dream." Sighed Death in remembered sorrow, before forcing herself to go on. "I'm amazed by the skill she has, Dream's servants tend to have centuries to practise, so for one so young to be so capable... " She smiled. "... But why talk waste time talking of biscuits - that's not what you're here to talk about is it?" she asked shrewdly.
Kho-Lohn paused and *looked* at Death, the smiling eyes, the concerned look, the innocence that survived even her awesome task and was shamed. "No," she admitted. "That's not why I'm here at all." Gathering herself, she looked Death with a gaze as close to equal as she could.
"It's about my great grandson-in-law."
Death looked ready to respond, until with a puzzled frown she looked out of the window. "I think we might need to talk to him right now."
Shampoo meowed and hissed at the walls of her cage in a fury. Temporarily paralysed by great-grandmothers vast knowledge of pressure point strikes, switched to her cat body then trapped in this damn cage! She swiped with all of her strength at the walls, producing nothing but a grating noise as her claws scraped across the tempered, wire reinforced glass. In her current form the damage she would produce by using the Bakatsu Tenketsu would almost certainly be fatal, and it was far too difficult to break through by use of her puny cat strength.
Mousse snored in the far corner, and would for hours yet, so was not going to be terribly useful, normal for him really... Calming she tried to fit her paws through the metal door and twist the key in the lock of the padlock, so tantalisingly close...
She had to get out and help protect her grandmother! The imperative drove her to fury once more, pacing the small confines of her temporary prison while she tried to think of a way out. It didn't look hopeful. Her grandmother had designed this trap to well. In all, she should be thankful that she had left that idiot in a position to help her... and that was worrying. It implied that Kho-Lohn, one of the greatest ever matriarchs of the Niechezu wasn't sure she was coming back...
Once again she lashed out at the walls.
"Heya Ucchan!" Called Ranma cheerfully to his long-time friend. "Whatcha doin' here so early?"
Ukyou closed the back gate to the Dojo grounds behind her. Inwardly she smiled brightly. Ranma stood so hale and hearty, athletically bounding across the well manicured garden, smiling as brightly as the early sunshine reflecting off the pond. He was all right! He wasn't dead! The thought consumed her, and she grinned stupidly to the world. Ranma's smile faded a little, shaking her out of her reverie.
"Oh, sorry, got side-tracked by a dumb thought. I just came to see my fiancee, and see how he's doing," *damn girl, but that's wrong track, his smile's really starting to fade!* She held up an small insulated box. "...And I brought you something to eat as well," look at the eyes, why aren't they brightening? Ranchan always smiles when I bring him something to eat...
"Oh." Said Ranma sadly. He knew how much this was going to hurt his old friend, and hated what he was about to do.
"What's wrong?!" asked Ukyou in concern, moving swiftly to his side, and taking his arm. Unusually Ranma didn't look uncomfortable at the affection, his eyes deeply reflecting pools of sorrow, mightier than Jusenkyo. Ukyou began to shriek inside. "The rumour... it can't be true - nothing can kill you, right?" she tried hopefully, attempting to provoke her Ranchan's brilliant, cocky, devil may care smile. Instead Ranma patted her hand and began to walk.
Ranma led the highly discomforted Ukyou by her arm to a seat overlooking the small stone garden, and gently sat her down. For Ukyou this was the last straw. She flung herself crying at his chest. She knew. his words were just nails in the coffin of her dreams.
"Yeah, who'd have thought it - I guess I'm dead...."
She screamed and wept faster.
"...Kinda."
"Indeed, son-in-law, I would like to hear more of this," added Cologne from the top of her staff. Ranma's head span around at the unexpected interjection. The old ghoul sneaking up on him he could credit, but Telute didn't have the martial arts skill to do it, he'd seen enough of how she moved to know that. Ukyo's head raised itself over Ranma's shoulder, her puffy eyes narrowing at the unwelcome interlopers.
"Who're you," she sniffled in miserable jealously.
"My names Telute, and you're Ukyou aren't you?" She looked at the sobbing chef compassionately. "Here have a hanky, and then lets get your face washed up dear, you look an absolute fright." Ukyo sniffled, a rather wet sound, provoking compassionate looks from the two women, and a small smile from Ranma. Smiling in embarrassment she followed them all inside.
*Oh dear!* Thought Kasumi as she hastily added more cups to her tray, *I do hope that there's enough food...* Deeper below the mundane thoughts of her day to day life, deep in the little used reptile node of her brain a picture formed. It involved Ukyou finding out just who Telute was, and over-reacting in fine Nerima style. A lone neurone, looking for her libido with Hibiki-esque results stopped in, saw the picture and fled, passing on the message to her higher consciousness, before attempting to hide deep in the medulla corposa.
*I'd better add another plate of biscuits,* was the eventual decision on how to defuse the situation.
Even Kasumi would admit that she was a little... absent.... at times, her vast mental energies consumed in fighting against her emotions, rather than analysing her world. One of the reasons she never realised why that nice Dr Tofu acted was so silly around her, or how she could tell herself that Akane beating Ranma was because she loved him...
Bad example. Just because she was right didn't mean that she knew WHY Akane did it, or what was happening around her. She just thought it was sweet that Ranma wouldn't hit back as he would with almost anyone else who tried to hurt him.
But even she had noticed that people tried not to fight around her. The result of her leaving for more refreshments before the end of the talk would be analogous to the damper rods in a nuclear reactor taking the day off to go to the beach during a meltdown. And as cathartic as it was to see Ranma's friends hit each other, see blood flying, fists doing their best to drive through flesh, feet smash bones....
Kasumi shook herself down. She'd let the bad thoughts in again, the ones that made her hurt poor Saotome-San so much yesterday. Pausing for her mental discipline to firmly re-establish itself, leading to a short hiatus while her mind stopped off in wickedly amused recollections of how flustered Ranma looked when people caught him in the bath (the wanderer finally hitting paydirt), Kasumi was ready. Smiling, she entered the lounge as her guests seated themselves back at the table.
Happosai looked up at the whistling sound of an incoming body. Tracking its motion he fairly cackled to himself when he saw the dress! The pretty lady was going to land just by his cave! Oh joys! oh rapture! He could fondle her now, and not worry about disturbing the main beach - MORE glomping possibilities!
He bounded over to the impact site, before glomping on, opening his chi to the feminine essence of the unconscious young pretty in front of him. A moment later he made a choking noise before passing out next to 'her'. Ranma he could glomp when the boy was female - the chi the body generated was female, no matter how much Ranma protested, and with a pair of bazongas like that Happosai was perfectly content to ignore any male taint to the chi, as long as he got to have his fondle!
But male cross-dressers confused the hell out of his 'little drains' - the equivalent of shoving an AC line into a DC appliance without an adopter.
All in all, Happosai hadn't felt this poorly since the last time he'd eaten a bento Akane had prepared... Sick to his stomach the old lech passed out next to Tsubasa, muttering unhappily about perverts...
Ranma sat at the head of the table, chewing vacantly at a fingernail. To his right sat Telute, Ukyo sat on the other side of the table at his left, next to Cologne. Across the table he faced a smiling Kasumi, who fixed him to his chair with pleasant look, before relenting and pouring cups of steaming hot tea for them.
"..." He offered, hoping someone would say something intelligent he could reply to. Not that he was totally incompetent at communication, he just preferred to respond to other people, it allowed for a greater focus to the interactions. Or put another way, he hoped to god someone else would say something because he hadn't a clue what to do here. It would be too easy to hurt people, and when that happened... Even Ranma had discovered the causal relationship between temper and violence levels in his fiancee's.
Cologne looked across the table at Telute, who was profusely thanking Kasumi for the refreshment. Death was a person who Cologne was not really comfortable opening up to, her usual position of ancient knowledge was hardly one she could assume, and she hated being talked down to, it reminded her far to much of her first childhood, back before she'd met the amazons. She found herself nervously twitching one foot
Ukyo sat and stared at Ranma as if he was a ghost, beyond her reach. He'd seemed that way before, but this was new - Ranma was acing like he was afraid of her, and that frightened her. Always before she'd been the one he came to when things became too bad for him to cope with - he'd always been there to calm him, soothe his hurts and help him. He was also incapable of keeping his mouth shut at times; that he was regarding her with worried eyes meant something was nagging at him that he needed to talk to his 'ole pal' Ucchan about. That he wasn't talking was hurting her - couldn't he se how worried she was for him?
Worse - he could but wouldn't - couldn't - say anything. That frightened her the most.
And who was the woman with the pale skin sat opposite her? Jealousy suggested that if she was here, and invited to a conversation of this importance, then she HAD to be another fiancé for Ranma, and that stirred up dark thoughts as she regarded the good natured woman with hostile eye's. Something in the back of her mind didn't agree though, the timing was just to coincidental to just be that. She might be the person who had hurt her Ranma! Softly, without changing her expression, Ukyo began to glow a sickly green, invisibly to all but the most highly trained martial artists, magi and supernatural beings.
Fortunately it was scarcely above the level of a normal persons aura, and relatively easy to miss if you weren't looking. Ranma was, and gently reached out to touch her shoulder comfortingly. No-one was rude enough to mention it however, as Ukyo calmed herself enough to merely be suspicious of the 'Goth Girl' as a certain waitress might put it...
The Silence dragged on, disturbed only by the slight rhythmic tapping of Cologne's foot, and the clinking of chinaware. Eventually, after a drawn out pause that could have been seconds, but passed like years, the old amazon spoke up.
"So son-in-law. You have been busy recently... Shampoo tells me that you are dead, You tell me that you are engaged to Death, and now I find you sharing a house with a young woman..." Cologne strove for her usual good natured banter, and, she suspected, failed miserably. "What I would like to know is just going on," here Cologne paused, and breathed deeply, casting a worried glance at Death, "... and if I can help."
Ranma's face shot around to the withered Matriarch, who sat sipping her tea with less than her usual poise. He smiled at her, genuinely smiled as he regarded the woman who had so often made his life hell... But who, he finally realised, only wished the best for him. He found himself regarding the matriarch in a new light, less of a an annoying old ghoul, and more of an irritating family member.
"Er yeah," he replied. "Ucchan, Cologne... I guess I am engaged to her... I'd like you to meet Telute... She's Death."
Cologne sat back with a defeated expression that didn't quite reach her eyes. If one of the endless had chosen Ranma as a mate, then all she could do would be allow it, or end up unpleasantly dead trying to help him. Somewhere deep inside, she found that the prospect of dying trying to help the young sometimes man near her didn't worry her. She'd lived long, she was fond of him, he was family, and it would ensure her name lived in legend forever. After all... With a lot of luck it WAS possible to kill one of the Endless... In theory that it.... Even Death.
Ukyo sat back with a pained look on her face. Another rival?! It was too much - all of these people trying to take her Ranma, and they always brought trouble and heartache to those around. She wasn't sure she could take it anymore! Better to eliminate the obstacle now... Almost without thought her hands began to ascend towards her weapons...
Ranma laid a comforting hand back across Ukyo's shoulder, halting the motion, and resumed speaking.
"I don't think so good, an' Nabiki explained this ta me last night..." He glanced at the blushing Telute, who was softly muttering 'why me' to herself. "Yesterday I was supposed ta die. Telute here saved my life because I was in my girl body. That makes me dead..." Ukyo looked at him with horror in her eyes.
"...Technically. An' that means that I don't have to marry anyone anymore. Dead people don't marry, and it's till death us do part an all that... Ucchan I'm sorry," he continued softly, his face full of concern, "But the engagements off, and you can have your honour back - I'm dead. I'll even tell people that it was you who hit me into the pond if it'll help..."
The crossdressing chef looked at him with pure loss in her eyes. Yes she had her honour back for being abandoned a decade ago, she no longer had to be forced to marry someone for a promise her father had made.
And Ranma wasn't hers anymore. She wailed softly and flung herself back across his chest, weeping desperately.
"But I love you," was all she managed to sniffle out, leaving Ranma with a totally non-plused expression, fading into empathic concern as he rather awkwardly patted his old friend on the back.
Nabiki, paused outside the door shook her head sadly. He'd botched it. All she could do now was try to run enough damage control that she didn't find herself forced to marry the dumb lug. Steeling herself she walked in to the room and began to talk to them.
Delirium settled down into the steaming pool with relief. She loved the mortal world for many reasons, the nice people, the pretty colours, the way that baths didn't tend to up and walk off halfway through, as they were wont to do back in her own realm. Sitting back with a happy sigh she watched the clouds in the sky as they danced and played for her amusement.
"LooK tHerE'S a dRAgoN ClOUd, AnD ThAt OnE iS a kiTTy... aNd ThEY're aLl prEtTy piNK ANd oRaNgE..."
Smiling blissfully to herself she relaxed, and let the tension flow out of her muscles into the pond in little octarine streamlets. She'd been looking for Destruction for a day now, and couldn't quite find him. She'd lost her Gallery back in the pre-history of the world, back in an era when Atlantis was unborn, and couldn't call for her favourite brother. So in one of the bursts of twisted inspiration that so often occurred to her, she decided she'd go and find him herself. And wouldn't he be happy to see her when she arrived!
Delirium contented herself with this happy thought for all of ten seconds, before a small moth fluttered past her nose, causing her to forget all about it. Hopefully she extended a finger towards the moth, that obligingly settled onto her extended digit. With the look of intense concentration of someone trying to thread a needle with a brick, she lifted the finger to in front of her mismatched eyes.
"Aww... YOu ShOUld bE PrETTy ColOrS Not BrOwN paTChIEs..." A moment later the startled insect was, multihued reds oranges, pinks, NHS wall paint green clashing luridly along the length of its wings. It flew off in a complete daze, its senses confused by the new colours of the fur in front of it's complex eyes, a virulent ultraviolet that confused its altimeter while it tried to process the change. It flew down, and landed in the edge of the pool, wings becoming sodden, dragging it back into the water, where it swiftly drowned.
Delirium, already distracted by a falling leaf found herself changing into a moth. This was not unusual for her, but was rather inconvenient at times, such as now when she was in the bath. She willed her usual form back, but found herself unable to shape shift. Instead hundreds of sodden, miserable, eye-searing moths lurched around the edge of the pool.
'i DoN't lIkE THiS,' she thought to herself, attempting to morph back into her usual humanoid form. This time was more successful. She glanced at the pool suspiciously, pushing the enchantment that had locked her into the moth form away from her, and back into the pool. She flickered out a moment later, transported to realms that half poets would kill themselves with drugs to glimpse, the pool behind her, swiftly forgotten.
Behind her the pool glittered for a few moments, Deliriums magic's sealing the curse into the pond, the clash of energies diverting one of the feeder rivers that fed the area, leaving only the cool Jusendo flow into the valley.
Hundreds of years passed, flint was utilised, Bronze rediscovered, and the little pool remained, luckless animals finding themselves changed suddenly, until all the local creatures gave the immediate area a wide berth. Humans began their inexorable rise towards dominion again, until a small tribe of semi-domestic hunters chanced upon the valley. Seeing the pool as a good place to hunt they set up temporary camp, and began their routine slaughter of the local wildlife.
One of the young men hefted a brace of small nameless birds, and waved them to his compatriots. Then, having gutted and disembowelled the creatures, he turned to the pool, dipped his hands to wash the gore from them... and vanished. His friends startled back in superstitious terror, until eventually, they gathered around the little pool. It was clear save for a dead insect or three, all of most terrible aspect. Deeming this an omen, they swiftly filled the mystic pond in, and fled as far and fast as they could, pausing only to reclaim the days kill.
Decades passed. The area suffered minor erosion and earthquakes, until small depressions began to form. Water from the Jusendo again began to pool in the valley. Animals began to return, safe from the terrible cursed pool. Eventually humans returned as well. A trapper checking to see if he would eat that day, or whether he had failed to catch his supper walked past the pools. As he returned, he startled a a small boar out of the brush, only a small black piglet, but a tasty apéritif nonetheless. Drawing his knife he advanced with a cunning expression and a mad grin. The piglet, understandably fled, its path taking it across the pools.
Half an hour later the trapper rushed into his village shrieking of how a pig turned into a Musk-Ox before his eyes. He was, understandably, laughed at, but he was given the chance to show this magic to the elders.
Shortly after this demonstration, the village ceased its precarious ride along the catastrophe curve, the hunters settled down to become farmers, and all became plump through the use of this blessed pool. Careful experimentation over the next two hundred years revealed how to turn scrawny chickens into pigs, small mice into milk cows, insects into duck. Even better, once you killed whatever you had dunked, it stayed the cursed shape! Early experiments with attempting to drop small black piglets into boiling water showed how to reverse the change, a freak rain shower showed the duration of the curse.
The village prospered for a time.
The magic Delirium had so casually discharged sank deeper into the earth around the area. Filling more pools than the original had lessened the power of the curse, but had also made it more widespread. The warping effect became present in the very people who lived in the region. People became more than their neighbours. A group of women warriors from the west settled down in the area, and began their swift transformation into the superhuman Amazons, fleeing the immediate area once the dangers became known.
The local people found themselves changing too. One soul who was twisted in spirit rather than body learned how to create pools for his own use, showing his people how to use the magic of the pools, this twisted individual changed the simple pastoral people of Musk-Ox village into the demi-human Musk tribe. Women who had scorned the man for his twisted attitudes were driven out or killed, replaced by animals dropped in pools where he had murdered the more vocal of the tribes women. The survivors fled to the Amazons, and began the long series of implacable wars against their old people.
Amazons used the knowledge of magic gained from the pools, along with the knowledge gleaned from the ancient lore of their founder, the Greek goddess Artemis, and created the Kaisafu, hoping to unlock the souls of the women trapped in the cursed bodies of animals. Swiftly after, renegade males of the tribe along with magus of the Musk created the Chiisuiton to preserve the bodies of the women they needed for their continued survival.
Centuries passed, until the original purposes of the two mystic buckets were long forgotten, merely known for the effects they had on locking the states of curse victims. And throughout it all the two tribes hated, and plotted and fought, and died.
Nabiki smirked as she sat by Telute, legs slipping easily into place under the rim of the table. Nearby Ukyo snored deeply, a recipient of a shiatsu jab by Cologne, who was unwilling to have Nabiki beaten to death before she plumbed her secrets and machinations. That and the fact she hated to see blood before lunch.
"So you want to know just what I cooked up this time eh elder?" she smiled at the old woman, radiating nothing but goodwill and charity. "Nothing. It was something Ranma said - 'Till Death us do part'." Cologne made an inarticulate protest, Ranma winced, Nabiki continued unpeturbed, not deigning to acknowledge the outburst, "I think you'll agree that our guest here," she inclined her head pleasantly to Telute, "has more than adequately fulfilled that role. As I understand it, that means that Ranma is off the hook - dead aquatransexuals don't marry."
"But Ranma is still alive," snapped Cologne irritably, "He didn't die, so he still must fulfil his duties and marry my great-granddaughter!"
"Ranma is dead. He did die. He should be dead. Deals off." Nabiki snapped back, eyes starting to flatten. "If he's alive, I have to marry him, and *that* isn't going to happen."
"Then let Shampoo marry him!" retorted the elder.
"All of his engagements are annulled you say Nabiki?" Telute interjected, halting the fuming Nabiki before she could get into a proper rant. Taking Nabiki's forced smile for assent she continued. "If he is dead, and he was - I would know, then all of the engagements are off... including the one where I have to marry him... " She looked up at Cologne craftily. "Well... Shampoo would never defeat me in a marriage challenge Elder... So I'm sorry.. You'll have to accept it's over Cologne."
Kasumi replaced her teacup on its saucer with a small clink of china, raised a hand to her cheek, and uttered her immortal refrain of "Oh my!" Cologne, perching on her staff froze, then fell in a long graceful arc that ended with her side-down on the floor twitching. 'If I accept them, then Shampoo is outclassed! If I don't then the Son-in-law will get away!' ran through her head.
All appearances to the contrary, Cologne quite liked Ranma, and the thought of playing with lots of little great great grandchildren of his was VERY appealing. Teaching them to fight, watching them grow up, seeing them surpass her in the art, seeing THEM get married, ad nauseam.
Over. The dream was dead. She slowly regained her feet, picked up her staff, and trudged away from the table. She smiled defeatedly at Kasumi, and left.
Ranma watched her go with a sense of sadness.
"I actually think I'm going to miss her." he announced conversationally to the room. Nabiki boggled, Kasumi smiled happily, Telute refilled her teacup. "Not that she hasn't made my life hell, but she's always good in a pinch and she knows lots more moves..." Telute STARED at him.
"Okay," he admitted bashed, "I kinda like the old ghoul... And Shampoo's okay when she's not calling me her 'airen' ..." He paused. "ONE DOWN!" he cheered and bounded out of the room.
"Oh my," said a nameless valium addict who we all know and love, "that was rather rude of him..."
"Yeah sis, but it's Ranma all over," chuckled Nabiki, hoisting the comatose Ukyo over her shoulder in a fireman's lift, (what? you thought she only did aerobics for the fun of it?) and carried the sleeping chef to the guest room (which also masqueraded as the Saotomes room), to sleep of the pressure point strike.
"He is rather lively though, isn't he?" Observed Telute of the madly capering figure of Ranma as he bounced around the grounds of the Dojo. On the whole she was glad it had been so easy With Kho-lohn. if she accepted then Ukyo would be the last person to deal with, and then she could leave without worrying about compromising her honour, or Ranma's.
Somehow that thought felt wrong.
Desire sat cross-legged at the bottom of it's bed and sulked. All that effort manipulating Genma into selling Ranma off, all the effort of setting this up over the ages...
IT WASN'T FAIR! Ranma was supposed to date it's Elder Sister! Desire took this as a challenge. If it didn't act fast then nothing would happen, and Telute would continue alone... It needed just a little tweak... Small enough to be missed, but large enough to work...
Cologne suddenly smiled. So what if the son-in-laws marriage was over? It was a technicality! She'd leave Shampoo to stew for a while, and then send her against Ranma again...
She began to laugh maniacally, before coughing and looking sheepish. Checking to see no-one had seen the slip, she bounced onto a rooftop, staff held negligently in one hand, kicking her heels as she went, cackling gleefully as she bounded towards the Nekohanten.
And it was ALL for the boys own good!
I'm minded to end this chapter here... Hell, why not?
The big bangs come later, they will effect the gang, there will be a quest one of these days, NO I still don't know who Ranma ends up with (if anyone), YES I'm gonna try to write the big Ukyo, Akane scenes (Kodachi? what Kodachi?) but I've been killing myself trying to make this run on... and this seems like a good cut off point. For now. Plus it gets all of you greedy person (singular) to stop asking for more... (why aren't more of you asking for more? *smiles*)
23-10-00
End part 5