========================= RELENTLESS A Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction By Grayson Towler ========================= ----------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Phobia ----------------------------------------------------------- The late autumn weather in China seemed bent on making Saotome Ranma's life a lot more dangerous. Snowstorms in the mountains had forced the cancellation of the last two trains he'd intended to catch, and transportation by road to the next major town had all but ground to a halt. Black ice on the bridges had scared most drivers into parking their vehicles and waiting for this cold snap to pass. Ranma didn't have the luxury to stay in one place, though. If he couldn't hitch a ride, he'd just have to make his way on foot. he told himself as he trudged along the snow-packed road, keeping his eye peeled for any driver who might be willing to take a chance on a foreign hitchhiker. If he saw one, he'd be sure to transform into his girl self - it was always easier to bum a ride that way. Right now, though, he needed the longer stride his male legs provided to make the best time he could. He braced himself against a harsh gust of wind, angling his back towards the pale cliffs. The road wound along the edge of the mountain range, through rough country made rougher by the treachery of ice. The footing here was awful, even for someone with Ranma's uncanny sense of balance, and his old canvas shoes were not much for traction. he grumble inwardly. The map he carried was adequate for telling him where the roads, rivers, and train tracks were, but was conspicuously deficient in information about topography. Ranma found himself revising his travel routes all too frequently once he actually saw the terrain he intended to cross. He had made a conscientious effort to keep to the back country in his journey in order to avoid leading the Reikoku through populated territory, but he wondered how long he could expect to keep that up. If he just let himself travel in the more civilized regions of China, he wouldn't have so much problem finding transportation. He might even be able to get a bike, which would really improve his average land speed. he chided himself. Still, heading south for the winter was assuredly a good idea. Happosai was probably doing the same - the old lecher didn't care much for women in heavy coats and boots. he told himself as he paused to double-check his map again. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. "Uh oh," he muttered to himself. The undergrowth rustled madly with the sound of fleeing animals. A hawk took to the skies, beating its wings and shrieking in terror. The taint of a familiar, corrupt aura seeped through Ranma's skin, raising gooseflesh all across his body. He heard himself growling softly. Slowly, deliberately, Ranma turned towards the source of fear. he thought grimly. This wasn't his ideal choice for a battleground, but he was on a relatively flat patch of road without too much snow and ice. It was as good a place as he was going to find, and there was not much chance he could outrun the Reikoku. In a way, he was looking forward to this fight. The thrill of challenge had always burned in the heart of Saotome Ranma, and here was a foe he knew would demand his finest effort. Yet he felt prepared, confident. He was faster and stronger than he'd ever been in his life, and he had a whole new suite of combat techniques to unleash upon his adversary. Best of all, his improved arsenal boasted an impressive array of long-distance attacks, which would keep him out of range of the monster's grasping arms and lethal claws. With any luck, he could get through this fight without letting the Reikoku land a single hit. He focused his ki into pulsing auras of hot and cold around his fists, preparing to execute his One-Man Dragon attacks. He could feel the dark presence of the Reikoku like a blanket of needle-sharp claws being dragged across his skin now. It was very close, almost close enough for him to smell its rotten, briny reek. It would be coming into view very soon. part of him asked. There was no time to be distracted by irrelevancies. He could see it now, shambling up the road, less than a hundred meters away as it crested the closest hill. Ranma's fingers curled into hard claws, ready to rake the beast who dared to challenge him. Its black-robed form lurched forward, its pace as maddeningly unswerving as ever, its three terrible eyes burning hot against the utter void beneath its robes. Ranma let out a feral hiss. he shouted to himself. The pig-tailed martial artist edged backwards, back hunched and eyes blazing. The desire to fight and kill thundered through his veins, crimson and sweet. His enemy was there, edging closer and closer. It would soon be within range of his claws. What was left of his rational mind was screaming, desperate to assert control. Somehow, the impulse to flee pierced through the veil of feline fury which had fallen over Ranma's mind. With a bestial screech, he whirled and dropped to all fours, bolting down the road away from the black-robed horror of the Reikoku. It pursued, as it always did, unstoppable and implacable in its quest to hunt down its prey. As he gained some distance from the creature and threw off the effects of its psychic aura, he drew himself up and began to run like a human again. His cat-self slipped back into the recesses if his mind, ebbing away along with his Reikoku-induced fear. Clarity of thought returned, and he railed angrily at his own folly. he berated himself. Ranma's heart thundered in his chest. He knew that he'd been a hair's breadth away from death. If he'd lost control and fought that creature in his Neko-ken state, all his new techniques would have been useless. The Reikoku would not be beaten the same way twice. Ranma's foot landed on a patch of ice, sending him sprawling down a steep, rocky grade. He scrambled to right himself, kicking up clumps of snow in every direction. Casting a furtive glance back over his shoulder towards the abomination which pursued him, he climbed back onto the road. he thought desperately. Panic had burned way too much energy already. Trying to run on this terrain was a dangerous gamble, and fighting the Reikoku's fear aura was even more tiring than running. His breath was already coming in heavy gusts. How long was it to the next town? How long would he have to keep this up? Somewhere past the din of his own hammering pulse in his ears and the wheezing of his breath, Ranma caught the sound of something else. He stopped running for a moment, focusing on the noise with a desperate sense of hope. Gritty tires grinding against the ice, the churning throb of an engine... it was coming from down the road, back the direction he'd already traveled. he realized. Ranma knew that whoever it was would almost certainly turn around and run once he began to feel the Reikoku's fear aura. He didn't have much time. Ranma cast desperately about for an alternate path to take so he could double back around the creature and get to that driver before it was too late, but the terrain was not in his favor. On one side he faced inhospitable, icy cliffs, and on the other he would have to contend with waist-deep snow and broken ground. If he was going to get past the Reikoku with any speed, he'd have to do it on the road, where his footing was the best. Under normal circumstances, he'd have felt good about his chances of dodging the monster's strikes long enough to get by, but not today. If he tried that, the Neko-ken would consume him well before he got near the Reikoku, and he would surely die. he thought. With that, Saotome Ranma focused his concentration and sprinted towards the Reikoku. His feline instincts surged as he plunged into the monster's battle aura, growing stronger with every step he took. The pungent reek of fish bombarded his nostrils, and he felt the hairs on his neck standing up like needles in a pin-cushion. He couldn't get much closer than this and hope to keep his sanity. Mustering all the will he had left, he focused his battle aura onto his hands as pockets of blistering heat and freezing cold. He kicked off, leaping and twisting into the air. "SOARING ONE-MAN DRAGON!" It was another extension of his One-Man Dragon arts, once again very similar to the Hiryuu Shoten-Ha from which the techniques originated. This time, though, he made no effort to control the ki of his self- generated whirlwind so it wouldn't affect him. Instead, he let the winds take hold of his body and hurl him through the sky. When he'd first thought about applying his technique in this fashion, he'd assumed it would be for some high-energy soaring kick. It was a sound theory, but this time his flight was completely out of control. He barely had enough concentration to keep his mind human, with nothing left over to assert his will over his own body and the raging winds he'd unleashed. Ranma hurtled through the sky, buffeted and pummeled ruthlessly by the furious storm he'd created. It was hardly an elegant flight, but it did take him clear over the Reikoku. The winds released their cruel grip on Ranma's body, sending him tumbling to the earth. He slammed into ice-covered stone at a fearsome velocity - the collision drove every cubic millimeter of air out of his lungs in a single agonizing gasp. The pig-tailed martial artist bounced end over end, tumbling like a football down the winding road until he finally pounded head-first into something heavy and metallic. Ranma flailed groggily against weather-beaten steel, desperate to get his bearings and mentally clawing to keep a hold of consciousness. He pulled his face out of the bashed-in grill of the truck which had stopped his fall. He flopped up halfway to his feet, scrambling on the hood for support. A man's voice was shouting something in Chinese. Ranma didn't have the strength to even try to speak. He staggered around to the passenger door, his legs flopping like rags as his feet slid on the ice. With a bloody hand he clutched desperately for the handle, praying it wasn't locked, and hauled the door open. The little old fellow in the driver's seat beat on Ranma uselessly with his straw hat, shouting a string of bitter curses in Chinese. Ranma thought wearily. He didn't have to wait long. The old man stopped mid- sentence, his hat raised for another angry blow, and stared out his grimy windshield. The Reikoku was little more than a black speck approaching on the road, but the creature's psychic aura was already washing over them. Ranma heard himself growling. The old man didn't know what was happening, but he knew enough to be terrified. He jammed the stick shift into reverse, backed up to make the turn, and floored it. The battered old truck groaned in indignant protest, but it clattered obediently down the road, leaving the Reikoku behind. The driver was throwing more questions at Ranma, but at least he wasn't hitting him anymore. The young martial artist didn't have the energy to explain himself just yet - he simply curled up in his seat and listened to his body aching. he thought foggily. He really didn't like having to turn to a complete stranger to bail him out, and he wasn't too keen on going back the way he'd come, but right now he was immensely grateful for the ill-tempered old farmer and his rattletrap truck. he thought as weariness overwhelmed him. - - - - - - Ryouga fidgeted as he watched Ukyou dangle the earring before her, waiting for its natural swinging to stop so they could see which way it pointed. They stood at a y-shaped fork in the road, with towering pines and knotty bushes growing thick on either side of them. Autumn winds hissed softly through the evergreens, rustling the dry needles to make an anxious sort of whisper. He cast a nervous look at the sky. "How long does this take?" "Just a second, okay?" The okonomiyaki chef peered at the little teardrop shaped accessory as it settled into place. "I think the pull's getting stronger. We're getting closer." "Which way, though?" Her divining complete, Ukyou tossed the earring up and snatched it in her palm. "That way," she pointed towards the path which lay south-east of the fork in the road. Ryouga let out a small, relieved sigh. "Lucky break." "What do you mean?" The Lost Boy gave a furtive glance at the other path they might have taken. "More clouds to the north. It might rain on us if we go up that way." He smacked his fist into his palm irately. "Damn it! Why didn't I think to ask for an umbrella when we were in the Amazon village? I need to pick a new one up when we get somewhere with a market." Ukyou thought. Ryouga took a couple of steps down the path and turned back to give her a questioning look. "Well? What are we waiting for?" "Hold up for just a minute there, sugar," Ukyou said, trying to keep her voice as soothing as possible. "I got something to talk to you about." The bandanna-clad martial artist turned to face her as she approached him, a confused look on his face. "What's wrong?" Ukyou paused for a moment, weighing the different ways she might best phrase this. With a shrug, she decided to go for the direct approach. "I think I'd better just show you," she said. With that, she drew her water flask and splashed her unsuspecting companion square in the face. The newly-transformed Ryouga-chan staggered back, spluttering incredulously. "Bwee!" she cried angrily, purely from reflex. "Bwee... bw... uh... huh? What the...?" Ukyou thought that Ryouga-chan's metamorphosis was a little less severe than Ranma's. Though his hair didn't change color, it did get substantially longer. He didn't shrink nearly as much as Ranma did when he changed - his girl form was only a few centimeters shorter than his male body. It seemed that an appealing figure came with the territory for this particular curse, though. she thought. Ryouga-chan stood there, blinking in astonishment as trickles of water made their way down her face and neck. "Um, you see," Ukyou explained, struggling to phrase things as calmly as possible, "when we were at Jusenkyou, you got splashed. Well, we all got splashed, but Ranchan and me weren't affected, of course... anyway, you were out cold at the time. That's part of the reason the Amazons got all upset. See, they thought you were a girl at first, but then they found out... um..." Her friend barely seemed to be registering anything she was saying. Ryouga-chan kept staring blankly around, eyes wide as saucers and jaw hanging loose. "Hey," she said, a little more forcefully. "Are you okay? Are you listening, here? You got splashed with water from a different spring!" "Splashed?" the Lost Girl squeaked. "Yeah," Ukyou said, still trying to be reassuring. "It ain't so bad, really..." Ryouga-chan suddenly lurched toward her, a frenzied look in her eyes. She gripped Ukyou by the shoulders - she wasn't quite as strong as she was as a boy, but there was still superhuman power in those hands. "Hit me!" she cried, her fingers digging painfully into Ukyou's shoulders. "Hey... it'll be okay!" Ukyou tried to reassure her. "HIT me! Hurry!" the young chef thought, bewildered by this turn of events. Well, sometimes it helped to smack a hysterical person, she thought. Ukyou reared back and slapped Ryouga-chan firmly on the cheek. "Not like THAT!" the fanged girl wailed, giving her a bone-rattling shake. Ukyou felt her temper rising. "Hit me for real!" "Fine!" she agreed. Had to remember who she was dealing with here - a little smack was nothing. This time, she planted her feet, reared back, and laid a haymaker right across Ryouga-chan's jaw. The bandana-clad girl's head barely moved. "Harder! she demanded. Ukyou thought, her pride stung. It was time to go all out. Her fists suddenly moved in an impossible blur, striking over and over again with a rapid-fire string of powerful blows. As she unleashed her attack, she cried: "DON'T-KNOCK-MY-SMOCK-OR-I'LL-CLEAN-YOUR-CLOCK!" she thought vaguely. She wasn't wearing a smock, after all. Though Ukyou didn't like the idea of shouting about chestnuts when she executed the Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken, the impromptu names that her mind had produced so far as substitutes still left much to be desired. Whatever she called it, the technique did the trick. Under the hailstorm of blows, Ryouga-chan's body hurtled away from her, sailing through the air until she crashed into a pine tree. The trunk shuddered and cracked, then the tree toppled directly onto Ryouga-chan's head. A split formed along the length of the trunk, which then fell into two uneven halves on either side of the Lost Girl. "I... felt that," the fanged girl said in wonder, fingering the small lump forming on her scalp. "I must be awake..." Ukyou thought in wonder, but she felt sorry for her friend's plight all the same. She advanced tentatively. "It's not a nightmare," she said softly. "You just gotta... oh geez..." Ryouga-chan turned away from her, head buried in her hands, shoulders trembling. Strange little hitching sounds came from her throat. "Huh... hu..." "Ryouga!" Ukyou called, working her way through the tangle of branches. "Please, you have to..." "Huh...heh... heh... ha... ha ha... ha HA HA!" The bandanna-clad martial artist threw her head back and howled with laughter. "AH-HA-HA-HA-HA! AAAH! I'm CURED!" "What?" Ukyou asked, dumbfounded. "FREEDOM!" Ryouga-chan cried, shaking her fists at the sky in triumph. "At last, AT LAST I am free of the pig! Goodbye, P-chan! Goodbye, humiliation!" She belted out more peals of joyous laughter, hopping from one foot to the other in a strange little victory dance. Ukyou reached out and touched Ryouga-chan's shoulder. "You mean to say you're.... waaaah!" The young chef found was startled to find herself hurled into the air. Ryouga-chan grabbed her by the waist and launched her skyward like a cheerleader, then caught her and tossed her into the air again. "I'm cured!" she cried between throws. "Cured! Cured!" "Put me down, you moron!" Ukyou shrieked, but she was laughing as well. "Cut that out or I'm gonna puke!" Ryouga-chan caught her from the last throw and set her back onto the road. "Sorry, all you crazy cooks out there," she giggled to herself, waving erratically at the world in general. "No bacon for you! Ha ha ha ha!" "Man, I can't believe you're so happy about this," Ukyou said. "Ranchan thought you'd blow a fuse once you found out." "Heh," Ryouga-chan chuckled, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "I've always said that Ranma doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. He has no idea what it means to be really cursed." "But you're still cursed. You aren't REALLY cured," Ukyou pointed out. "Maybe not," Ryouga-chan said, nodding. "But I'm human." "You aren't upset at all that you're a girl now?" Ukyou asked. The Lost Girl spread her hands. "Compared to being P- chan? Give me a break. How bad can it be? I mean, you obviously don't mind. You've been a girl all your life, right?" "Well, more or less," Ukyou muttered. "It's not the perfect cure," Ryouga-chan admitted, "But just think! Now that I'm a girl, nobody will ever try to eat me again!" Ukyou gagged and spluttered. "What?" Ryouga-chan asked in confusion. "Did I say something?" "Nothing!" she wheezed, waving him off. "Never mind! I'm... I'm really glad you're taking this so well." Ryouga-chan fingered her longer hair, then inspected her hands curiously. "I wonder what Akari-san will think," she murmured. "Will she be upset?" Ukyou scratched the back of her head nervously. "Um... about that, Ryouga." "Hmm?" Ryouga-chan was now inspecting her wrists and forearms. "Some of the things I said before about her," Ukyou said, twiddling her fingers anxiously. "I don't know if I really meant to... hey, what are you doing?" Ryouga-chan had begun a more thorough inspection of her new body. She poked her chest tentatively, eyes growing wider by the moment. Ukyou looked on as Ryouga-chan pulled back the collar of her shirt and scrutinized her own torso with tremendous interest. "Hey!" Ukyou cried indignantly. "Knock it off!" Ryouga-chan withdrew her head from her collar, dazed and grinning. "Heh," she managed to articulate, raising one wobbly finger for emphasis. She then toppled backwards like a plank, blood flowing from her nose. "You idiot," Ukyou grumbled to Ryouga-chan's unconscious form. With a resigned sigh, she grabbed her friend by the ankle and turned to trudge down the south-east path, dragging Ryouga-chan behind her. They had a lot more ground to cover today. - - - - - - One of the reasons that Nabiki had given up on being a martial artist so long ago was her unwillingness to devote so much of her life to training. She liked to keep in shape, but she refused to go to the insane extents to which the expert martial artists in her life went to remain in fighting trim. She'd thought Akane was bad enough, with her incessant practicing and daily workouts. When Ranma had arrived, though, she'd realized just how zealous a person could be. Her little sister's fiancee couldn't perform the simple act of walking from one place to another without finding some fence to climb, height to scale, or precarious platform upon which to balance. Natsume and Kurumi, she realized, were just as bad. The past few mornings she'd asked to walk with them to school. This represented a deviation of pattern for her adopted sisters - they tended to race one another to school every morning, sprinting at top speeds and seeking shortcuts over rooftops to try to shave off a few seconds from their previous best times. Of course, they had to slow down to accommodate for Nabiki's traveling speed. To compensate for this, they made up little practice games for each other as they walked. Today, for instance, they were making use of autumn's abundance of fallen leaves. The game seemed to involve Natsume sweeping a handful of leaves up in a little dust-devil she created by twirling her rugbeater, then keeping them aloft while Kurumi tried to pick out the most brightly-colored leaf in the bunch by snagging it around the stem with her ribbon. Many people stared and muttered. The two fighters didn't even notice. Nabiki sighed - that was par for the course in a martial arts family. Still, she had a few questions she really wanted to ask these two, which was why she'd arranged to accompany them in the first place. A little unwanted public attention was the price she'd have to pay. "So you're saying you never even met him?" Nabiki asked. Natsume nodded. "I wish I had. It would have made it so much easier to search for our father if I had any idea what he looks like. That photograph is the closest we ever got, though." Nabiki recalled the photo she was talking about - a blurry image showing a portion of a man's back, with the two young girls in the foreground. "Didn't that turn out to be a picture of Happosai?" "Yes, I guess so," Natsume admitted. She lashed out with her rugbeater, swirling another smattering of multi-hued leaves into the air. "I just got used to thinking of it as father. So I guess we don't even have any clue." "Mmm," Nabiki hummed thoughtfully. "But Kurumi's a few years younger than you. That means your father had to come back to see your mom sometime when you were very little, right?" The tall girl shrugged. "If he did, I don't remember it." "Your mother never talked about him?" Nabiki prodded. "Hardly ever. She died shortly after Kurumi was born," Natsume explained. "I wasn't old enough to remember much. There was only one thing I ever recall hearing her say about our father." "And that was?" Natsume let her whirlwind dissipate as Kurumi plucked a bright red leaf from the pack. The rest of the leaves, all the colorful orphans of fall, scattered away in the wind, wafting aimlessly through the air towards their uncertain destinations. She propped her rugbeater on her shoulder, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "She said: 'His thoughtless words broke my heart.'" Nabiki furrowed her brow. "That was it?" Natsume just nodded, then began to walk again. "Hey," Kurumi piped up as they rounded the corner towards the entrance of Furinkan High School. "Does that sound like a big crowd to you?" Nabiki cocked her head and listened, her heart sinking. Sure enough, she caught the familiar babble of her fellow students, assembled in force upon the front lawn of the school. Inevitably, such impromptu gatherings heralded the onset of some spectacle or another. Since Ranma and Akane weren't here anymore, it was a safe bet to assume that today's festivities were somehow going to center around... "Aloha, Miss Tendou Natsume!" came the staticy, megaphone-amplified voice. "You wanna be steppin' up here to talk to da headmaster, wahine!" Nabiki thought, burying her face in her hand. Principal Kunou was not the kind to forget a grudge, and he had yet to pay Natsume back for freezing him in up to his neck in the Furinkan pool. The headmaster was no mere martial artist, who might simply challenge Natsume to a fight - his revenge would no doubt be twisted, elaborate, and diabolical. The headmaster of Furinkan High, resplendent in his eye-shattering tropical ensemble, stood with a megaphone in hand behind a hastily-erected podium. He'd positioned himself beside the outdoor pool, which was currently covered with a thick tarp. The students and faculty milled about curiously, both nervous and eager to see what scheme the Hawaiian Horror had devised this time. Natsume strode across the turf as a warrior, unintimidated and unafraid. "What do you want with me, headmaster?" she called out, her strong voice cutting through the buzzing chatter of the throng. "You don' wanna be takin' no disrespectful tone wit me, child!" the principal scolded, strumming a few notes from his ukulele for emphasis. "I know all `bout you!" Natsume idly twirled her rugbeater in her hand. "And your point is?" "Heh heh heh," the tanned taskmaster chuckled, wagging a finger at her. "You been a bad li'l sista. You wen' transfer to da Kahuna's school widdout fillin' out da proppa forms!" Natsume raised an eyebrow. "Forms." "Dat's right!" the principal proclaimed. "If you wanna transfer in as an upperclassman, you gotta fill out da upperclassman form! Unless you wanna be goin' back ta freshman year, wahine. Incredulous muttering trickled through the crowd. A paperwork snag was hardly worthy of one of their headmaster's demented plots. The other shoe was bound to drop in a moment. Natsume rolled her eyes and shook her head slightly. "Fine, fine. I have to sign another form. So where do I get it?" "Wa ha!" the Kunou patriarch exclaimed. "I am glad you ask dat!" With that, he leaned over gave a mighty tug on the tarp covering the outdoor pool. The assembled crowd craned their necks to get a good look at what was revealed, and the murmurs intensified. What was once a simple swimming pool had become a giant-sized tropical tidepool. Exotic underwater plants, enormous anemones, and colorful coral decorated the walls and sand-coated bottom of the pool. At the center of the deep end rested the most prominent feature of this dazzling ensemble - a tremendous clam, almost two meters across, with its shell open wide. Resting in its cavernous maw was a small packet of papers, protected by a waterproof plastic bag. "Now you want dem forms, li'l sista?" the Big Kahuna asked. "You goan right down an' get `em!" "A giant clam!" exclaimed a member of the Furinkan High scuba team helpfully. "One of the great terrors of the depths! Any poor diver who gets caught in its grip is helpless to escape!" "That fiend!" exclaimed another student. "Is there no limit to the depths he'll sink?" Natsume made her way to the edge of the pool, peering over the edge thoughtfully. She sniffed the air gently. "I have to get those forms?" she asked, casting a sidelong glance at the principal. "You got my drift," he affirmed. "Unless you wanna join you li'l sista in da freshman classes." "Be right back," she said with a grin, then dove into the pool. The crowd watched with great anticipation as Natsume made her way towards the deep end. Nabiki turned to Kurumi, who was fidgeting nervously. "I think your sister's fast enough to snatch those papers before the clam gets her," she reassured the small girl. "Even underwater?" Kurumi wrung her hands anxiously. "I hope so. She seems confident..." "In spite of their great size, the giant clam can shut its mouth with deceptive speed," the scuba member announced, borrowing a microphone to address the crowd. "Even fast-moving tropical fish fall victim to its deadly trap. Can any human hope to survive an encounter with such a menace?" "I wish he'd shut up," Kurumi growled. Natsume, for her part, didn't seem to be making much effort to hurry at all. She kept to the bottom, swimming in easy strokes towards the great shellfish, until she finally paused before it, hovering in the water and regarding it thoughtfully. A few bubbles rose to the surface as the crowd held its breath. The long-haired martial artist reached slowly, deliberately into the maw of the mammoth mollusk. She plucked the papers in their plastic bag from the lower shell, made a bit of a show of examining the creature for any other treasures, then turned and made her way to the surface. The giant clam didn't even move a centimeter. Jubilant cheers erupted from the crowd as Natsume emerged from the water, prize in hand. To the delight of the onlookers, she closed her eyes and concentrated, spinning her rugbeater around her head with one hand. Whistling winds kicked up instantly, swirling about her body and thrashing her ponytail like a whip. When she emerged from the small tornado, she was almost completely dry. Natsume held her form aloft for the students to behold. The relieved applause was tinged with mutterings of confusion. "Incredible! Just incredible! How did you do it?" cried the scuba team member, advancing with the microphone in the manner of a television interviewer. "Was it some martial arts trick? Did you somehow hypnotize the giant clam?" "No," Natsume explained. "Nothing like that. That clam isn't going to catch anybody. It's dead." "What?!" Disbelief rippled through the crowd. Natsume fished a pen from her bookbag and advanced on the principal, smiling with triumph. "You made one fatal error in constructing your trap, sir. The giant clam is a saltwater mollusk." Principal Kunou slapped his forehead with his hand. "Wadda dumb Kahuna I am! I wen' forget to change da watta in da pool!" "Exactly," Natsume said, favoring the Furinkan headmaster with a smug look as she scrawled her signature along the bottom of the form. With a snap of the wrist, she tossed the paper in his direction. "Anything else?" The principal scrabbled in the air for the form. He let out a long, defeated sigh as he examined it, shaking his head sadly. Then, a mischievous spread slowly across his face, and he began to chuckle. Natsume took a wary step back. "What?" "Like a moth to da flame," he said, then laughed out loud. "What do you mean by that?" "You wen' forgot ta read da fine print, wahine!" the principal exclaimed, making a scolding motion with his finger. "Watta big, fibbin' Kahuna I am! Dere ain't no such-a thing as a upperclassman form!" "Wait a second!" Natsume exclaimed, her cool composure cracking. "Then what did I..." Headmaster Kunou brandished the form before him triumphantly. "Dis here be a nice agreement ta let da Kahuna cut yo' hair! Snip, snip, li'l sista!" Gasps of shock and dismay rose from the throng. Natsume clutched her ponytail protectively and edged backwards, her rugbeater held defensively before her. Kurumi charged up to her side, hand poised on her ribbon. The principal advanced with a shear in one hand, the paper in the other. "Now don't be goan away, keiki!" the headmaster warned. "I gonna do a REAL good job wit' you!" Natsume shook her weapon at him, casting about frantically for an avenue of escape. "If you think I'm just going to let you..." "I got it all in writin', wahine!" the principal crowed, rattling the document. "Ain't no way you be gettin' outta dis..." "Hold, I say thee! HOLD!" With that, a blue-and-white blur streaked between Natsume and the advancing menace. Something ripped the form clear of the principal's hand. "Hootah!" he shouted indignantly. "What you think you doin', Tacchi?" The young kendoist skidded to a halt with the paper in his hand. "Demented father of mine," he pronounced. "Dost thou not know that so long as I, Kunou Tatewaki, the Dynamic Dashing Duelist of Furinkan High, attends this school, that no tyrannical haircut rules shall be allowed to stand? Observe my wrath!" With that, Kunou cast the offending document aloft, then drew forth his mighty bokken. In a frenzy of precise and deadly strikes, he did cleave the onerous paper once, twice, then hundreds of times, until naught was left but a fine mist of confetti-sized shreds wafting gently through the autumn air. "All my plannin' goan to waste!" the headmaster fumed. "Curse you, Tacchi! I'm gonna teach you a lesson!" He advanced on his son, clicking his shears angrily. "Do your worst, principal of evil!" cried the samurai. And thus, the battle was joined. Wood clattered against metal as father and son lunged and parried on the Furinkan lawn. The student body looked on in awe at this display of combat prowess. Kurumi edged up to her elder sister. The tall, stately martial artist looked rather dumbstruck. "Hey," Kurumi whispered. "You okay?" "Uh..." Natsume had to think about this one a while. "Yeah." "He came to your rescue," Kurumi observed. "I noticed." She grinned and elbowed her big sister. "Kind of cool, isn't it?" "Er..." The battle raged on between the two mighty warriors of the Kunou clan. The headmaster parried his son's signature fast-strike assault with a spectacular flurry of shear-work. He caught the kendoist's incoming swing in a pincer-block with both his weapons, then pressed his face close to his adversary's, grinning maniacally. "I know alla dem fancy kendo moves, Tacchi," he announced. "You doan got nothin' I ain't seen before!" Kunou strained forward, teeth clenched. "I, too, have studied your style, my evil father. Long have I contemplated a strategy by which I might best you on the field of battle! In my meditations upon past clashes with the treacherous Saotome Ranma, a new technique has revealed itself to me by which you shall be defeated!" "Oh yeah?" his father countered. "What you goan try' now, keiki?" "Just this!" Kunou trumpeted. "Boot-to-the-head!" With that, the glorious Kunou Tatewaki did apply his boot to the diabolical head of his malignant cur of a father. Well did he apply it, with great force mustered behind the mighty boot. And lo! The hellspawed headmaster was indeed caught completely by surprise, not suspecting to be faced with such a subtle and wily strategy from his foe. His loathsome body did hurtle through the sky, until his recently- booted head truly collided with the stout walls of that noble institution of learning, Furinkan High. And so it was that his head did become buried in the concrete, and lost unto him was his consciousness. The mouths of hundreds of students dropped in shock. "Well, that was certainly at twist," Nabiki muttered. Natsume and Kurumi blinked about, failing to comprehend the source of their classmates' astonishment. "What? He just kicked him." "This is Kunou-chan we're talking about," Nabiki informed them. "He hasn't done anything but straight kendo for as long as anybody can remember. I've never seen him break the rules like that... hell, he probably could've caught Ranma off-guard with that one. Will wonders never cease?" The general disbelief of the crowd faded, replaced by a growing round of sincere applause. Though Kunou Tatewaki was hardly as beloved a figure to the student body as he believed himself to be, he was still better liked than the principal. Anybody who thwarted the designs of the head-shaving headmaster was bound to enjoy a burst of popularity at Furinkan High. The young kendo champion rested his wooden sword on his shoulder and basked. Kurumi nudged her sister insistently. "Hey! You should thank him, dummy!" "I will, I will," Natsume hissed back. "I'm just..." The rugbeater-wielding martial artist was distracted from completing her thought by the abrupt appearance of a bouquet of red roses, sailing through the air in her direction. She snagged them from their flight, a surprised look on her face. "Roses?" she said in a hushed voice. "For me?" "Hey, he gave you flowers!" Kurumi observed brightly. "Nobody's ever give you flowers before." "For thee, fair Tendou Natsume," Kunou affirmed. "In honor of the loveliness and fierce, warrior spirit which I have seen in thee." "They're nice," Natsume squeaked. "You're blushing!" Kurumi exclaimed, bouncing up and down. Natsume elbowed her in the head, but this failed to dampen the small girl's enthusiasm. "And so do I take this moment," the samurai orated, "to declare before all my fans, admirers, and fellow students, my intention... to date with thee!" "Date...?" Natsume managed. "He asked you out!" Kurumi bubbled. "Oh wow! Nobody's ever asked you out before!" "Just tell the world, why don't you?" Natsume snarled, her cheeks flushed. Amazed whisperings flickered through the assembled students like flashes of lightning in a thunderhead. It had been a while since anybody had seen Kunou make a good impression on a girl, especially a martial artist (and a Tendou, no less!). And here was the normally composed and austere Natsume, blushing and tongue-tied in the face of Kunou's bouquet-and-date routine. Nabiki was simply unable to leave well enough alone. "Aren't you forgetting someone, Kunou-baby?" "What say thee, Tendou Nabiki?" She crossed her arms and gave him a sly look. "My sister, perhaps? Not to mention the ever-popular pig- tailed goddess." The noble warrior touched his fingertips to his forehead and closed his eyes. "Like spring was the pig-tailed girl, vibrant with color and bursting with life, the spirit of rebirth made tangible in a petite, vigorous body. Like summer was Tendou Akane, with a warm embrace and a fury like a thunderstorm, her beauty and radiance stretching in endless bright days before all who viewed her glory. Yet autumn is all but gone, and whither these two lovely stars in the firmament of our lives? Vanished, like the leaves from the stark branches of trees, with only the memory of their resplendent majesty left to comfort us in the chill of the lengthening night. As do the seasons pass on, so does the heart of a man." Natsume's left eye twitched slightly. "But now," the samurai trumpeted, "the dawn of winter is upon us, enfolding the world in a blanket of pristine glory! And like winter is Tendou Natsume, pure in heart as the newfallen snow, fierce in battle as the pounding hail, beautiful in body as a horizon of white mountains! So do I, Kunou Tatewaki, declare my love for thee! Allow me to share with thee a token of my devotion!" With that, the lovestruck samurai drew forth a parchment from the folds of his robe, and from it he read in a proud voice: "An Ode to Love! Bereft of my loves, my heart `twas so gloomy But then did thou come, my fairest Natsume! Alone in the dark, thy luminance drew me Like a bug to a bug lamp, oh radiant Natsume! Mine passions were bottled, but thou did unscrew me And let them flow forth, sweet maiden Natsume! Now the buds of my heart are roses in bloom-y, Oh gardener of romance, thy name be..." So immersed was Kunou in the throes of his own poetic rapture that he failed to notice that his object of affection was now thrashing on the ground in the grips of convulsive seizures. Nor did he manage to register the approach of Kurumi, desperate to protect her sister from the onslaught of Kunou's verse, armed with the headmaster's podium. The diminutive girl wielded the podium like a hammer, pounding the kendoist into the ground like a tent peg until his mouth was buried below the dirt. The small girl cast her battered weapon aside, heaving with exertion. The crowd was engaged in a round of robust chatter about the spectacle they'd just witnessed, especially Natsume's unexpected paroxysms. "What happened to her?" someone asked. "Is she all right?' Kurumi knelt beside her spasming sister protectively. "Oh, she's fine!" she chirped. "Really, it's nothing, to be worried about, ha ha!" "It looked like an epileptic fit or something," a freshman girl speculated. "Did it have something to do with that poem?" another boy wondered. "No!" Kurumi insisted. "It's... uh... she's allergic to shellfish! That's the problem." She made a show of scolding her sister. "Now, now, what got into you? You shouldn't have gone anywhere near that giant clam, you silly thing." "Ergh..." Natsume grunted, trying to unclench the muscles in her jaw. "What, did she take a bite of it while she was down there?" the scuba team member asked. "Oh no!" Kurumi said, waving her hand in a vain attempt to seem casual. "No, it was probably just the dander!" The students regarded each other with dubious looks as they absorbed this explanation. "Clam dander?" "I've never heard of a shedding clam." "Ha ha ha!" Kurumi laughed in a very strained voice. "Well, it's almost time for class, wouldn't you say? Come on, sis... we'd better get moving!" She hauled Natsume up to her feet and practically dragged her towards the door. "Good one," Natsume managed to grunt through clenched teeth. "You need to work on your improvisations," Nabiki observed, moving in to help Kurumi haul her sister up the stairs. "Sorry," Kurumi whispered. "I just didn't want them to know her weakness!" "Oh well," Nabiki said, shrugging. "No harm done, I suppose. An interesting morning overall, wouldn't you say, Natsume?" "That's one way to put it," the tall girl replied. She was beginning to get motor control back in her legs. "Try not to dwell on it," Nabiki soothed. "Just think of something else. Like... well, have you ever considered trying some modeling? You have such a striking figure, you know. I'm something of a photographer, you see, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in posing for a few snapshots..." - - - - - - Now that it was just the two of them on the road together, Ukyou and Ryouga had to divide their daily labors a bit differently than before. In spite of Ryouga's experience at foraging, his dismal sense of direction made it too risky to send him out looking for food and supplies. As a consequence, the Lost Boy stayed back at camp to set things up while Ukyou did the hunting and scavenging. She found it to be a rather refreshing change of pace. It hadn't taken her anywhere near as long this evening to find game as it had the past couple of nights. This was another benefit of the rigorous training she'd endured - her senses were far sharper than before, and now she was good enough to bisect a horsefly at fifty paces with a throwing spatula. The hare she'd snagged for dinner hadn't even known she was there. Ryouga was just about finished with the preparations when she returned to camp with the spoils of her hunt. The bandanna-clad martial artist had set up the tents and finished gathering the wood for the fire. "Hey, sugar," she called. "I got dinner right here. You ready to light that up?" Ryouga gave a curt nod. He was kneeling before the fire pit, concentrating intensely. Ukyou was surprised to see his battle aura simmering to life around him. With a powerful cry, he thrust his hand into the kindling, and his aura flared bright and hot. When Ranma had practiced this technique, the results had been like dropping a torch onto the dry wood. With Ryouga, it was more like a small grenade. Twigs and chunks of burning timber exploded in every direction, spiraling out of a plume of dust and smoke. Ukyou yelped in shock and dove for cover. The dust settled fairly quickly. Ryouga plopped back on his rump, looking somewhat dazed. "You moron!" she upbraided him as she stamped out a few stray embers. The concussive force of the explosion had pretty much blown any fire out which might have ignited, but it was best to take no chances. "What do you think you're doing?" "Whu... dizzy..." Ryouga managed, blinking. "Of course you're dizzy, you dolt," she chided. With a sigh, she began to gather some more sticks for the fire. "You're still recovering from your injuries. You should know better than to try a stunt like that right now." Ryouga seemed to have recovered his equilibrium pretty handily, and was glowering at the fire pit. "I can't afford to be injured forever. I have to start training again." He gave her a sharp look. "You can't afford to neglect your training either, you know." Ukyou got out her matches to start the fire in a more conventional fashion. "Yeah, I know. I've been working on it. You know, meditating and all to try to get my balance, so I can do my ki-spatula without having to sit there like a lump for five minutes first. It's hard!" Ryouga scratched his head thoughtfully. "You shouldn't focus on it by itself, I think. You should try to work it in while you're doing other exercises, so it comes naturally when you need it." Ukyou pursed her lips, considering this. "That's an interesting thought. Still, I was hoping maybe I wouldn't even have to use that technique if I fight the Reikoku again." "What do you mean?" She shrugged. "Well, if I can get by without it, then that's the best idea, right? I mean, the more you can hold in reserve, the more surprises you'll have left for it if you have to fight it again..." The young chef was surprised by the intensity of Ryouga's response. He took her by the shoulders, shaking his head vigorously in denial of what she'd just said. "Ukyou-san! You can't think like that!" "Wha... what?" "That monster," he began, searching for the right words. "That thing... it's too dangerous for that sort of thinking!" "But it only makes sense," Ukyou protested. "What's wrong with a strategy like..." "You can't afford to think so hard about it! It's not a chess game!" Ryouga insisted loudly. "When you fight the Reikoku, you have to give it everything you've got. No holding back! Only by fighting with all your heart and soul, absolutely giving it your all, can you hope to win. Nothing less will do! Anything else means death! Don't you see?" "Ryouga..." He released his grip on her, settling back to his seat and looking a bit embarrassed by his outburst. "I'm sorry. But that's just how I feel about it. If you're thinking about holding back, you aren't fighting your best fight." Ukyou spread her hands helplessly. "But if you do that, then you have to come up with a whole new set of skills before you fight it again!" The Lost Boy nodded gravely. "Yes. That's true. That's why this thing is so terrible. But that's just how it is." The two of them sat in silence for a while, watching the dying glow of sunset fade from the sky as the flames of their little fire grew gradually stronger. Ukyou began to prepare the rabbit for dinner, setting their little stew-pot on the fire and getting her ingredients together. By the time Ukyou felt like speaking again, the first stars of the evening had already begun to wink to life in the sky. "So what were you trying to do?" she asked. "Hmm? When?" "Just now," she clarified. "With the fire. We never did find out what Ranma was going for with that hot- cold stuff. You already know you can do the hot aura, and you don't know how to do the cold... so what's the deal with the fire-lighting thing?" "Oh," he said. "Better control." "Yeah?" "It was something you suggested before," he went on. "After I used the bakusai-tenketsu in the last fight, when my aura was so hot. Ranma called it a `meteor swarm.'" He considered that for a moment. "That's catchy, actually." Ukyou tilted her head with curiosity. "But you used that technique already. The Reikoku's already adapted, right?" "Yeah," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean I can't think of some different way to try it. Once I get a little better control, that is. It's worth working on." "Have you thought of anything else you want to try out?" He plucked at some stray threads on his sleeve absently. "Have to keep practicing on a new style. Ranma was teaching me some of the kung-fu stances and attacks he knows, so I can change my basic approach. Beyond that..." He finished with a shrug. Ukyou set the lid on the stew-pot and rose to her feet, patting the dust off her legs. "Well, sugar, I have something in mind." He rose beside her. "Oh? What's that?" The okonomiyaki chef wore a pained but determined expression on her face. She'd been thinking about this for the last couple of days, but she hadn't quite gathered up the nerve to go ahead with it. She knew that the longer she waited, the worse off they'd be - time was always of the essence when the Reikoku was involved. Mustering her courage, she reached back and unlimbered her battle spatula. With an air of solemn ceremony, she held it out towards Ryouga in both hands. "Here," she said in a grave voice. "I want you to have this." Ryouga blinked a few times at the weapon. "Your spatula?" "Take it," she insisted, raising it slightly higher. He reached and lifted it from her grasp. The feel of the weapon's weight leaving her hands brought a lump to her throat, but she kept a grip on her composure. "But... why?" he asked. "Isn't it obvious?" she said, trying to sound casual. "I can't use this against the Reikoku again. But you can. You may have lost your umbrella, but that doesn't mean you can't use another weapon, right?" He hefted the flat-bladed weapon in his grasp, giving her a concerned look. "Are you sure this is okay?" "Here, you're holding it wrong," she said, reaching for his hands to adjust his grip. "There, like that. This thing catches a lot of air when you swing it, you know. You have to learn to pivot it like a sail to use that air resistance to your advantage. Otherwise, you can't put your full power behind your swing." "I see," Ryouga said. Ukyou dropped her gaze, her practical demeanor slipping. "This spatula... it's a family treasure. I've been using it ever since I was strong enough to pick it up. I wouldn't be giving to you if I didn't trust you to take care of it, okay?" "I understand," Ryouga said seriously. "I won't let you down, Ukyou-san." The long-haired girl noticed that her hand was still folded around Ryouga's over the grip of the great spatula. With a little embarrassed cough, she jerked back and stepped away, planting her hands on her hips. "Well then," she said briskly. "I guess I'll have to teach you how to swing this thing, sugar. There are some basic forms to start with to get the hang of using the weapon..." "Ugh," Ryouga grunted. "I'm lousy at forms." "Oh," Ukyou faltered. "Well then... er... I guess I can just..." "Which means you should probably teach them to me," the Lost Boy interrupted. "Learning to do forms right will make me have to work for it. I'll have to grow out of my old ways and learn new ways. So that's what I should be doing, isn't it?" She favored him with a lopsided grin. "Well, if you're sure of yourself..." "Heh. Believe me, Ukyou-san," he said. "There's only one thing that I can really do well in this whole world, and that's fighting." She put a finger to her lips, considering. "Oh, I don't know if that's really true." "Huh?" Ukyou waved her hand dismissively. "Never mind that, sweetheart. We've got a little time before that rabbit is ready to eat. Are you ready to start learning how to fight with that thing?" He nodded once, smiling enough to reveal a hint of fang. "Let's go, Ukyou-san!" - - - - - - Washing silk was a painstaking operation, and Shampoo had begun to suspect that certain people were making a point of getting their clothing especially dirty these days. She smoothed the bright red tunic out on the flat stone, checking it carefully for stains and rips in the fabric. She detested needlework - it was better to spend the extra time cleaning carefully rather than having to mend garments afterward. Satisfied that she'd finally gotten the stains out of this one, she smoothed it with both palms, pressing hard to flatten the water out. It did not do to wring silk. Rivulets of moisture ran down the well-worn surface of the stone, back into the rushing river. It was time to hang this one to dry, then move on to the next item in her heaping basket of laundry. she thought as she looked at the pile. It was probably just someone else being deliberately mean. Shampoo was learning a great deal about the nature of spite now that she was shamed, and the lessons were bitter. Most of the people in her tribe treated her fairly enough, it was true, or at the very least with cold indifference. But she was surprised by the number of her sisters who were openly delighted at her fall from grace, and who were not wasting any opportunity to take advantage of her vulnerable position. she wondered. That probably wasn't it, she decided. There was a distinct pattern for which of her sisters bore her the most resentment. For instance, Fo Lesu had been practicing herbalism two years longer than Shampoo, but she hadn't ever mastered any of the higher techniques, like the Xi Fa Xiang Go memory-altering art. Shampoo had gotten the hang of that one in a couple of weeks. A few days ago, Fo Lesu had insisted that Shampoo clean her family home, and it had taken her many long, excruciating hours to remove of the particles of grime which had been wedged between the floorboards. It was probably not a coincidence. Then there was Laidu Lu, who'd been the champion of Martial Arts Takeout until Shampoo had defeated the veteran in the first contest she'd entered. Her former rival seemed all too happy to experiment with new, corrosive dishwashing soaps when she had the use of Shampoo's services. Ma Saigu, who had once been the top student of acupressure in the village, was now fond of testing out new pressure point techniques on the girl who'd so easily eclipsed her a few years ago. All these old rivals had come out of the woodwork, finding ways both subtle and coarse to make Shampoo's life miserable now that she was spending the year as a slave. The intensity of their resentment surprised her, but at least they did not cross the line from being mean- spirited to being outright abusive. There was only one girl who seemed to be working up her courage to go farther than just giving Shampoo exceptionally difficult chores to do. It was pig-faced, bullying thug she'd defeated in the last martial arts tournament, in which Shampoo would have been champion if Ranma hadn't butted in - that girl had a sadistic streak in her. Four years Shampoo's senior, she'd been fond of swaggering around the village with her sniveling toadies in tow, lording over smaller and weaker girls with her unusual size and strength... until Shampoo had reached her thirteenth birthday and knocked the big bully on her butt in front of everybody. The older Amazon had spent the next three years trying to reclaim her title as toughest girl in the tribe, and had failed miserably in every clash. Shampoo hadn't expected some of the others to resent her so much, but she'd known perfectly well that old Dushu Baigu would want to take a piece out of her hide. Shampoo wondered. A few moments later, she realized that wasn't the case. She caught the sound of two more clumsy girls trampling their way through the forest, each about a stealthy as an avalanche. Shampoo thought. She was tired of listening to them whisper to each other in the bushes. It was time to get this over with, whatever was going to happen. She might be forbidden to fight right now, but that didn't mean she had to pretend to be afraid. "//Are you coming out?//" she called. "//Or do you plan to skulk like weasels in the bushes all day?//" She heard Dushu hiss a reprimand at her two followers for letting themselves get noticed, but then the big girl emerged from the underbrush. Shampoo rose to her feet calmly and turned to face her enemy. "//I was just enjoying the view,//" the beady-eyed girl croaked. "//To see the great Shampoo reduced to doing laundry... I could just watch that all day.//" "//It must be fascinating for you to watch someone working hard,//" Shampoo observed, "//since you're too stuck-up to for that sort of thing, Dushu.//" "//Watch your mouth!//" the older girl snarled. "//You're shamed, remember? You can't talk to me that way.//" "//Whatever you say,//" Shampoo said lazily. "//I've got work to do here, you know.//" Dushu Baigu crossed her arms and glared smugly at her rival. "//Show me some respect, shamed one. Bow before me.//" Shampoo thought. If this was all Dushu wanted, it wouldn't be such a trial. Shampoo was resigned to her fate - she had to show deference to everybody, no matter what their standing in the tribe. She'd done more bowing since she got back than she had in her entire life. "//As you wish.//" When she was completely doubled over, Shampoo felt the splash of ice-cold water on her back. She screeched in indignant surprise as her body changed, shrinking and reconfiguring into the form of a wet cat. Dushu Baigu and her cronies howled with mirth and pointed at her. "//There, you see?//" Dushu crowed, pointing. "//I told you she was trying to cheat on her punishment!//" Shampoo puffed her tail and hissed at her adversaries. When she was a cat, it was a lot harder to remember that she was supposed to be submissive and deferential. She flexed her claws and backed slowly away from Dushu Baigu and her cackling lackeys. "//The shamed one is supposed to be shaved bald,//" Dushu Baigu sneered as she advanced on Shampoo, backing the little cat back up to the river. "//But look at all that hair on you, girl! It's my sworn duty as an Amazon warrior to see you properly punished.//" The big, ugly girl reached behind her back and withdrew a gleaming dagger. Shampoo eyed it warily, her ears pinned back against her head. The three girls had formed a semicircle around her. With the river behind her, she had nowhere to run. "//Time to shave the kitty,//" Dushu Baigu hummed, her eyes gleaming. Shampoo hissed again and raised her paw in warning. "//Oooh, look at the tough little kitty-cat. Come on, kitty. Scratch me.//" "Hey!" came a voice from behind the three girls. "Leave her alone!' The three Amazons whirled towards the speaker. Shampoo recognized the voice immediately - she glared irritably in the direction of the Japanese speaker. She might have preferred to have been shaved bald, rather than be rescued from her fate by Tendou Akane. Akane stomped her way down the road towards the clearing where Shampoo had been doing her laundry, hands curled into angry fists. Her green-and-blue traveling gear was dusty from many hours on the road, but her eyes were vibrant and bright. She stalked towards the three Amazon girls without a hint of fear in her visage. "What you want, outsider?" Dushu Baigu barked in thickly-accented Japanese. "This not your business." "Oh, yes it is," Akane insisted. Shampoo could see the tenseness in the Tendou girl's limbs - she was ready to fight. "If you think I'm going to sit here and let you kill Shampoo, you're dumber than you look!" Dushu Baigu gave Akane a surprised look. Shampoo sighed - Akane had seen them advancing on her with a knife. Of course she'd jumped to the wrong conclusion. "You know Shampoo?" Dushu blurted in confusion. "Who are you?" "Tendou Akane, of the Anything-Goes School of martial arts," the short-haired fighter announced proudly. "I'm not the sort to stand by and let somebody stab one of my friends." Shampoo thought. Dushu recovered her poise and sneered at the smaller girl. "I not sort to let ugly loudmouth foreigner give me order." "Who are YOU calling ugly?" Akane barked incredulously. "Stupid girl," Dushu spat. "You get in way of Dushu Baigu's fun. You obstacle. Obstacles is..." "Yeah, yeah," Akane cut in. "I've heard that one before. Let's just get on with it, okay?" She dropped into a fighting stance. Dushu glowered at her smaller foe, but she didn't seem to be able to think of anything else to say. Instead, she handed the knife to one of her followers. The large girl curled her right hand into a hammer-like fist, then smacked it hard into her left palm. The snap of the meaty impact cracked through the little glade. "Oh, a big noise," Akane observed sardonically. "Is that how you want to start? How about this one, then?" In a sudden flash of movement, the Tendou girl stabbed her finger into the surface of a large boulder next to the river. With a report like cannon fire, the rock burst into thousands of tiny fragments, blown to bits by Akane's baksuai ten-ketsu technique. The Japanese fighter watched in satisfaction as the Amazon girls' eyes bulged wide in shock. "Still want to go through with this?" she asked Dushu Baigu, her voice harder than the stone she'd just annihilated. "How... how you..." Dushu stammered. A new voice cut through the air, ancient and commanding. "I think that will be enough of this nonsense for today." "Elder Cologne!" Dushu Baigu cried. "This girl... she..." The withered matriarch hopped towards the scene on her gnarled staff. Her gaze fell upon the knife that Dushu had planned to use on Shampoo. "Now what might you have in mind for that, child?" she asked. Dushu fidgeted anxiously under the elder's scrutiny. "Was not going to hurt Shampoo," she insisted. "Only make her bald in other body, too." "Is that so?" Cologne queried. "And what makes you think you have the right to do such a thing, hmm?" "Right?" Dushu responded. She set her jaw defiantly. "Amazon warrior have right to do whatever they want to shamed one!" "Perhaps that's so," the old woman acknowledged. "But did you think you would not be judged by how you treat one who is at your mercy, Dushu Baigu? One who calls herself a warrior should know better than that." The muscular girl spluttered incoherently. Cologne withdrew a flask of warm water from her sleeve and hopped over next to Shampoo. The Amazon girl quickly donned her clothes again after she transformed back into a human. The matriarch pivoted to face Dushu and her quivering followers. "It seems there's some laundry here to be done," Cologne observed. "I have need of Shampoo at the moment. You three wouldn't mind finishing up here for her, would you?" "Y... yes, Elder," Dushu said, her shoulders slumping with resignation. She glared balefully at Shampoo, her eyes promising a host of future torments. "Come, both of you," the old woman commanded, addressing Akane and Shampoo. "Time is short, and there is much I would discuss." When they were out of earshot of Dushu and her followers, Shampoo raised a question. "Why you not punish Dushu Baigu worse? She is bully. Everybody know this." "Even one such as her has a role to play," Cologne replied. "So long as her malice does not get out of hand, it's better to let those who would be her victims learn to stand up to her themselves. However, Tendou Akane," she said, turning to the Japanese girl, "I would have hoped you might show more sense than to pick a fight with a woman of our tribe." "I wanted to scare her off," Akane explained. "Besides, I couldn't just let her kill Shampoo." "She not want to kill me," Shampoo said in a surly tone. "And Shampoo can take care of self." "Well excuse ME for trying to help you!" Akane shot back. "Maybe next time I'll just let you..." "Enough!" Cologne snapped. "You must learn to stop bickering with one another if you are to travel together." "What?" the two teenagers cried in unison. "You heard me," the old woman continued. "Tendou Akane, you will need to make haste to find Ranma. A guide is what you need. Who better than Shampoo to help you find your way through China?" "Uh..." Akane scratched her head. "Mousse?" Cologne responded to this with an eloquent snort. "Okay, maybe not," Akane relented. "And as for you, great-granddaughter," the old woman continued, "I think that it may be best for you to spend some time outside the village. Things haven't been going too well for you around here, have they?" "Shampoo... get to see Ranma again?" Akane stiffened and pursed her lips. "Indeed," the venerable warrior agreed. "I have been contemplating Ranma's plight, and my conversation with you, Akane. There may yet be a way to guide him clear of the dark path he now treads. A slim chance, to be sure, but better than none. I foresee that he will need both of you to help him find his way." "What do you mean?" Akane asked, her voice tight. "Follow me," Cologne instructed. "I will explain it all tonight." - - - - - - The first hints of sunrise were finally creeping across the Chinese sky, and Ranma was already finished with his meager breakfast. The little farming village in which he'd managed to find an open loft for shelter was beginning to stir, its inhabitants shuffling about in the chilly air to attend their morning chores. He'd managed to cover some ground with his hitchhiking efforts, but he couldn't rely on catching another lift today. Unless he got lucky again, he had to prepare for another grueling day of travel by foot. he mused ruefully. In theory, it was possible to stay ahead of the Reikoku indefinitely. Ranma had begun this journey quite optimistic about his ability to keep a few steps ahead of the monster at every turn. After all, it wasn't like the thing was very fast, except when it was actually engaged in combat. Its shambling gait kept it moving at the speed of a brisk walk. Ranma knew he could run for hours without getting tired, maintaining a pace three or four times faster than the Reikoku's without seriously exerting himself. It had seemed like it would be so easy to keep from getting caught. Now, months later, he understood the insidious nature of the demon that hounded him. Old Cologne had said its purpose was to punish its victims, and Ranma had begun to understand that punishment was not merely death. This was no way to live, constantly looking over your shoulder, waking up in a sweat every time you heard a bird take flight, never daring to stop and relax for an instant. he admitted to himself. If he fought with it again, though, it WOULD be all over with. He was frustrated with this game, but he was hardly ready to rush into the arms of death to end his plight. More training was what he needed. He had to get over his fear of cats once and for all, or he'd never survive another fight with the Reikoku. He wondered if he'd lose access to the Neko-ken if he succeeded in conquering his phobia. Maybe there'd still be some way to invoke the technique without flipping out - after all, the Neko-ken was beginning to manifest on its own now, when he wasn't even thinking about cats. But even if he did have to forfeit the power he gained through the Neko-ken, it was probably for the best. Having a technique he couldn't control was generally more trouble than it was worth. In any case, it was time to apply some new theories to the problem. As luck would have it, Ranma saw a small girl tottering around in front of her home with a tiny grey kitten clutched in her chubby arms. He felt his teeth beginning to chatter. he told himself. The pig-tailed fighter advanced on stiff legs, his awkward gait very similar to that of a wind-up doll. "I... love... cats..." he told himself through tightly-clenched teeth. The little girl pointed and laughed at the funny man. Her kitten yawned lazily, then proceeded to bat a loose string on her shirt. Ranma could see the beast's array of hideous pale claws extending from its paw as it tapped at the thread, flexing in and out in their sickly sheathes, arched sickles of pain like the scythes of a reaper... he told himself. After all, the Soul of Ice technique was meant to allow its practitioner to keep his cool no matter what circumstances he faced. It was based on controlling emotions. He could use it to control his fear. It seemed like such a good idea, anyway. Ranma's smile had degenerated into something rather like a death rictus as he closed within petting distance. With mechanical jerkiness, elbows and knees locked, he covered the last few steps. "N...nice... k...k...kitty..." he stammered. The little girl didn't understand his Japanese, but somehow she got the drift anyway. She let out a gleeful little giggle and held her lazy kitten out in front of her, offering it to Ranma for attention. The kitten focused its yellow eyes on Ranma's quivering pig-tail with curious intent, and reached out for him with its paws. The need to flee surged like a tidal wave in Ranma's mind. He desperately focused all his will upon the Soul of Ice technique, struggling to control the hammering of his heart. His battle aura turned a shocking blue, and he heard a distinct crackling noise. The air swirled around him, frosty crystals coalescing from the vapor onto his skin. In the face of the small grey kitten, Saotome Ranma, the Master of the Anything-Goes School of martial arts, froze himself solid. The little girl squealed with delight and toddled off to tell her mommy about the silly man who turned himself into a popsicle. Encased snugly in his block of ice, Ranma watched her leave. It seemed, he realized, that even the Soul of Ice had its limitations. At least he'd tested it on a cat rather than against the Reikoku - it would have been an embarrassing way to die, trapped in a prison of his own making. With a frustrated sigh, he began focusing his hot aura to melt his way free from his frosty bonds. he thought bitterly as he slowly began to thaw. - - - - - - The last vestiges of sunlight evaporated into the blackness of night, just a bit earlier than they had the day before. As winter extended its skeletal grasp, the dominion of the sun grew stronger and weaker with each passing hour. The blanket of clouds blocked out what scant light from the stars and sliver of a moon that might have illuminated the evening, plunging the small Chinese town into a state of almost absolute darkness. There was something wrong with this night. The animals fidgeted in their stalls, shuffling anxiously in the dry call and whimpering. The fluttering of a bat's wing set a high-strung cat into a panic. Dogs barked and whimpered at the noise. And the animals were not the only ones who felt the wrongness of this too-dark night. Men rubbed their hands together and peered into the darkness, trying to pierce the veil of ebony with the pale, flickering light of their lanterns. Women barred their windows tight, speaking only in hushed whispers to quiet their children. The old crones mumbled and worked their toothless jaws, sensing the strange menace in their bones. There was a presence here tonight. There was something in this place which did not belong. An evil had come to this small town, and it would not be long before it revealed itself. The two watchers on the hilltop overlooking the town sensed it as well, but they waited for a sign. Unlike the hapless villagers who jumped at every shadow, they knew what fiend had invaded this place. It would not be long before the screams filled the night. "//EEK!//" came the shriek of a surprised Chinese woman. "//Panty thief!//" "Hot-cha!" the withered voice erupted. "What a haul, what a haul!" Ukyou turned to Ryouga, barely able to make out more than his silhouette on the dark hilltop upon which they had been observing the town. "Well, that's him all right. The earring worked." She heard a series of sharp, muffled snaps as the Lost Boy cracked his knuckles. "Happosai, you little demon. I've been waiting for this," he said in a low, angry voice. "I'm going to make that troll pay!" The okonomiyaki chef took a hold of his shirt to keep him from charging forward. "Hold on! Just a second." "It's him!" Ryouga protested. "We can't let him get away!" "Hold your horses, sugar," she told him. "We both know how slippery he is, right? We have the element of surprise right now. I say we make good use of it." Ryouga peered through the gloom at her. "What are you suggesting?" She grinned and leaned close to him, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Listen up. I have a plan." - - - - - - end of part thirteen... ----------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR'S NOTES ----------------------------------------------------------- Many thanks to Gary Kleppe for his help with da Kahuna's dialogue for this chapter. COMING SOON: Ranma continues to struggle against his fear of cats, while Akane has her own feline troubles to contend with. Are Ukyou and Ryouga ready for a showdown with Happosai? Will he tell them what they need to know, or will he prove too treacherous for them? All this and more in the next chapter... REVISION NOTES: The biggest change is a rewrite of the scene where Ryouga finds out about his new curse. The previous version of this was almost a direct rip from a scene in the manga - I intended it as a placeholder, but never got around to fixing it to something more original. Better late than never... COPYRIGHT STUFF: All the Ranma characters belong to Takahashi Rumiko,and are licensed in America by Viz Communications. GRT - September 2000 MODIFIED - April 2005 thunderstruck_comic@comcast.net All existing chapters of this story may be found at: http://www.talesfromthevault.com/relentless