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Silver Rimmed with Crimson [Ranma x Sailor Moon]

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jmcdavid said:
Like Luna's reaction to hearing about multiple betrothals, the seppuku oath, and the Neko-Ken.
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Luna: "I hadn't expected those aspects of the Venusian culture to still be around."
Ranma: "Death pacts and crazy training?"
Luna: "No, multiple spouses tying more than one family line together."
Ranma: "Monogamy is the norm here."
Luna: "Oh so it's more like a gender-swapped version of Noble courtship selection on Mars. When is the first arena fight to winnow down the applicants?"
 
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Baughn said:
All nine of the senshi are incarnations of cosmic phenomena squeezed more or less subtly into a human-esque shape. We get to see the souls of several, and they have nothing in common with that of any regular sapient animal.
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Oh hey, someone else who subscribes to the same head-canon as I. Neato.
 
Grounders10 said:
... That's not head-canon. That's a fact from the manga.
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TBF, I know the series mostly from the Animes, and have been waiting for a sale to pick up the books and go through.

But the fact that's textually supported is awesome.

Definitely interested in seeing how you explore it.
 
Fellgrave said:
TBF, I know the series mostly from the Animes, and have been waiting for a sale to pick up the books and go through.
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There are significant differences.

Sure, the basic plot is the same. Senshi destroy Beryl, etc. etc. But did you ever consider that the Silver Millenium was a multi-planet polity, with starships and so forth, and Beryl was able to achieve victory anyway?

Sure... she's lost a lot of power. You still wouldn't expect the girls from the anime to defeat her.

...

But that's the anime. In the manga you get to see one of them do a literal orbital dropkick. I don't recall which one—may have been Usagi—but it hardly matters. Point is, think less 'magical girl' and more 'girl-shaped weapon of mass destruction which happens to be a barely sealed cosmic horror'. They are, each of them, a reusable strategic weapon.

And then there's Saturn.
 
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I always figured that the Senshi never figured how to get out of the Training Wheels Setting on their transformations and that each one was individually capable of wiping the entire enemy force they were facing at the time, they just didn't know it.
 
hum never knew that bit about the Sailor Senshi good to know going forward in reading the amazing Kitsune's work
 
Baughn said:
But that's the anime. In the manga you get to see one of them do a literal orbital dropkick. I don't recall which one—may have been Usagi—but it hardly matters. Point is, think less 'magical girl' and more 'girl-shaped weapon of mass destruction which happens to be a barely sealed cosmic horror'. They are, each of them, a reusable strategic weapon.

And then there's Saturn.
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Yeah, Saturn was the "shit's fucked" button. If the others could be compared to nukes, Saturn was a planet cracker.

Literally.

She was, without hyperbole, the concept of death given living form. She was not like the other senshi at all. It's also why she dies whenever she uses her full power. No living thing can survive channelling Death in such an absolute form, and it is solely because of her nature that she can endure long enough to ensure that her target dies with her.

Even the anime couldn't hide from the cosmic horror of the setting entirely.
 
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I still say that my favorite Ranma/SM fic of all time has to be "No Chance for Fate" by a person called Tribun over on FF.net. The summary at the start of chapter 1 sets much of the tone and while it provides a much more human outlook for both Ranma and the Senshi it manages to easily sidestep many of the most utterly stupid anime and manga tropes of both series while retaining both charm and humor.
 
My favorite Ranma/Sailor Moon crossover actually would be one where the SM part is important but fairly minor in the grand scheme of things. No Need for Destiny is a Ranma/Tenchi crossover mainly but also has Sailor Moon, Slayers, Naruto, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and many others. Is also the main reason I ship Ranma/Nabiki.
 
@ChaosStar0 No need for Destiny is a good fic indeed but the author hasn't updated any of his fics in years and that one's been dead for over a decade. At least No Chance for Fate got completed. Personally I think Innortal just kept writing himself into corners and had to abandon his fics because he saw no way out. Happens to a lot of authors. Well, that or "I have too many ideas and got bored" syndrome :D from even authors on here such as MP3.1415player or Grounders10 ;).

Now if you want a good Ranma story that has plenty of crossover goodness with slightly f****d up Senshi that will make you laugh I'd go for Desperately Seeking Ranma which is good for all sorts of laughs. Pity it's been languishing in Limbo for 5 years now :sad:. Fair warning, the sort of Sailor Moon crossover doesn't start for a while and it's definitely not a regular one :whistle:.
 
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Chapter Two: "It's Not a Shopping Date!"
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    A
    Ranma ½ x Sailor Moon
    Crossover

    Silver Rimmed With Crimson

    By: Grounders10

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    Chapter Two

    "It's Not a Shopping Date!"

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    "A talking cat? Really?" asked Akane.

    "It wasn't a cat," Ranma replied as he lay back on the porch. The morning after the strange visit by the 'Mau' was a bright and sunny one with birds chirping and flying through the yard. Probably due to the fact they hadn't been startled away by his father throwing him out the window and into the pond that morning. Which might have had something to do with the fact that his mother had been half lying on the panda that morning.

    In one hand he was holding the brooch the Mau had given him, holding it up to examine against the light pouring down.

    "But it looked like one," his fiancee deadpanned, "How come you didn't…" She made a vague hand gesture as she tried to dance, unsuccessfully, around his entirely reasonable fear of cats.

    "It wasn't a cat. It didn't have the same sort of Ki," he said. Or the magic for that matter.

    "That didn't stop you with the ghost cat," she noted as she took a seat.

    "That thing felt like a cat," he sighed. The ghost cat that had tried to make several of the girls its bride, starting with Shampoo, had been quite annoying. It had even tried to go after him at one point. Well, her anyway. It was hardly the first or last time someone tried to kidnap her for marriage or sacrifice, but it was usually Akane who got that kind of treatment.

    "And this talking cat didn't?"

    "Nope," he replied, the p popping as he said it, "She said her name was Luna and that she was a Mau. Said something about reincarnation and royalty and some kingdom on the moon or something." There was more to it, but he didn't feel like sharing too much at the moment. Like hell he was going to admit that the cat thought he was some reincarnated princess. His mother was one thing, though in hindsight that may not have been the best idea to mention it to her.

    "Ugh, I'd hoped the weirdness was slowing down," Akane moaned. She rubbed her face with both hands. He nodded. The last few weeks since Ryugenzawa had been oddly quiet by their standards.

    "Quiet before the storm?" he mused.

    "With your luck?" She snorted. "I owe Nabiki," she said a few seconds later. He turned and raised an eyebrow. She shrugged. "I had money on a phoenix prince."

    Ranma snorted. "Well, we've had everything else so far," he admitted. After a moment's hesitation, he added, "You can add 'mistaken for reincarnated princess' to the list now."

    He could practically hear Akane's train of thought derail as her head whipped around to face him, her eyes wide and staring with confusion. "What?"

    "You heard me," he groaned, sitting up, "I said I got this from a talking cat last night. Well the cat, which calls itself a Mau, said this thing can provide proof. Some kind of magic doohickey."

    "... and you accepted?" she asked in the tone one gets when they're trying to imply you're an idiot. Unfortunately, he couldn't say she was wrong. Not yet anyways.

    "I haven't tried to use it," he pointed out.

    "So? Toss it."

    "The cat said it would be watching. Want to bet it'll just retrieve it and try again?" he asked, flipping the brooch in his hand once before holding it out to Akane. "Here, it seems safe for the moment."

    Akane inched backwards. "Keep that away from me," she snapped giving it the sort of look normally reserved for mamushi, or live bombs. He chuckled and held it in his palm. The morning sunshine sparkled off the inset gemstones.

    "She gave me an activation phrase for it, and I'm not stupid enough to say it while I'm holding it," he said, giving her a sideways look as she went to reply.

    They sat there for a few minutes as Ranma examined the brooch. Slowly Akane inched back over and eventually they were both staring down at it. "It is rather pretty, I'll admit," Akane eventually said, "But this seems rather dangerous, Ranma. Weird artifacts from a talking animal? I don't trust it."

    "Neither do I," he agreed.

    "So what are you going to do with it?" she asked.

    He flipped it over once more before sliding it into his folded space again. Akane blinked as it seemed to roll behind a finger and disappear. "Going to get my books and poke it," he paused, "Carefully. If I can't figure it out I'll take it over to the old ghoul. If anyone's heard anything about talking cats and kingdoms on the moon it'll probably be her."

    Akane nodded. "Want to go after lunch?" she asked with a calculating tone. He stifled a snort. She was probably worried about Shampoo attempting something. Or him attempting something with Shampoo. It was hard to tell what she thought was actually happening between him and the Chinese Amazon most of the time.

    "I'll need more time. At least until tomorrow," he said as he stood up and stretched. He looked down to find Akane looking at him. She blinked, went pink and looked away.

    "Just be careful. Who knows what that thing will do," she muttered, standing up quickly and hurrying away.

    Mildly confused, he shrugged and headed back inside.

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    Silver sparks drifted off the parchment scroll as the ink used for the Kanji burned away without harming the scroll as Ranma released his tenuous control over the magic. He let out the breath he had been holding and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Maybe it was because he was a guy at that moment, but trying to control magic for these rituals was really taking it out of him.

    He glanced out the window where the sun was pouring in and across the scroll he had laid out on the floor in the center of the room. He would have much preferred to be out in the city looking for something to do, or perhaps in his girl form scamming ice cream from gullible ice cream clerks, but this wasn't something he could ignore.

    Glancing down at the incense burners and candles whose smoke was making the room feel stifling and claustrophobic despite its size, he amended that thought. He could ignore this, but it would likely bite him in the ass at a later date, like it always did.

    He sighed. The three rituals he had pulled from the books were simple, basic rituals. The first had simply told him it wasn't demonic. The second had clarified that it wasn't from a spiritual outsider, though he still wasn't quite sure what that meant, and the one he had just completed confirmed it was magic.

    He picked up the brooch from where it lay in the center of the scroll. "What are you?" he asked. The Cat had said it was a magical focus for her 'Sailor Crystal', but he hadn't found a reference to it yet. Whatever it was was more than likely some high-level magical theory, but he had expected to be able to feel more magic from it. Magical foci were rare, but always held some form of an innate magical power of their own. That was the basics of the basics. Good magical foci, whether swords, staves, talismans, or other more esoteric items all had significant amounts of power bleeding out of them when in reach of a compatible user. It was a sympathetic reaction rather than a directed one and not indicative of a conscious mind within the foci. Most of the time, at least.

    The brooch had magic, but in his hands it was sluggish and unresponsive. Even with the third ritual he had barely been able to tell it had magic at all. Whatever means it used to enhance and focus these 'Sailor Crystals' was unusual, to say the least.

    That, or he wasn't compatible, which was weird. He was a guy right now, but he was still, as far as he could tell based on his readings, magically the same person whether male or female. Sure, his experiments had suggested that his Jusenkyo curse might allow some cheating when it came to gender-specific rituals, but a magical foci that drew out his magic shouldn't have a gender restriction on it…

    He ran a finger over the design. The entire thing was fairly feminine, admittedly, but there should still have been more of a reaction. It was his… Crystal, thing… He really needed to know what those were. He bit his lip then reached over to the small pitcher of ice water that Kasumi had left him earlier. With a degree of trepidation, like everything he had done around this thing, he dunked a hand into the water. The not-there tingle of the familiar transformation ran over her.

    Shaking the water from her hand she set to work remaking the ritual. The silver-tipped brushes were drawn from her sleeves with a flourish. They were as responsible for her tiredness as the effort to control her magic. She was hardly in danger of passing out from using them, but they drained a noticeable amount of her ki with every stroke. She could see how ordinary people could be killed attempting to use them.

    It took another twenty minutes of painstaking work to replace the ink array, followed by another fifteen arranging things so that the surrounding paraphernalia were in their correct positions and burning fresh incense. She released the breath she'd been holding as she placed the brooch into the center of the array. Right, one more time.

    She closed her eyes, placed one hand upon the scroll and began the soft chant again as she pulled on her magic and sent it flowing into the array. The ink began to glow, first the areas closest to her hands, then the rest. Kanji by kanji the entire array lit up with a brilliant silver fire that cast the sunlight filtering into the room into shadow. Small flickering streams of light drifted off the page and entangled the brooch, sinking deep within the metal and gemstones.

    Unlike before something responded, reaching out towards her. Threads of silver light flowed back out to meet her probe. She shivered as her magic met that of the brooch. The threads of magic flowed outwards and pressed against her senses. She could feel something within it, something…

    Her mouth moved without conscious thought. "Moon."

    It was strange, an almost whisper buried within the threads of magic.

    "Prism."

    She could feel it right there on the tip of her tongue. She could almost say it.

    "Power."

    She tugged slightly on the magic. It was there, so familiar that she could just taste it.

    "Mak-" Her mouth shut with the clack of teeth on teeth as her eyes flew open and she threw herself back from the artifact. She stared intently.

    The ink had long since burned away and the incense was almost gone, but the brooch was shining with a burning silver light that washed over her, its magic leaning against her like a warm blanket, eagerly waiting for her to finish the incantation.

    Luna's voice appeared in the back of her head, 'To activate it say Moon Prism Power, Make Up.' She had nearly said it, entirely instinctively at that. She shuffled further away from the eagerly pulsing source of silver light. The worst part was that she didn't feel bad for nearly saying it. In fact, something deep inside her was aching to say those last two words.

    Just say it, the magic whispered, the not-voice within the threads of silver energy so audible to her as she stared. No, it wasn't the magic of the brooch. It was the magic within herself that was saying it. A constant whisper that burbled up from within, winding its way through her thoughts as the brooch slowly stopped glowing over the next few minutes. Even after it had disappeared the ache didn't. Like a hole she hadn't realized was there until then.

    It was with very careful hands she slipped the brooch into her ki space and left the room to find the nearest source of hot water, in the hopes that it would help. It did, to a degree, but his sleep that night was full of black not-cats, silver light, and the pleading face of a woman with silver hair.

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    The next day came far too soon for Ranma's taste, even if his sleep hadn't exactly been restful. Dawning bright and early it had begun with a splash in the pond since his mother hadn't fallen asleep across Genma's panda form that night. A twenty-minute fight in his girl form had seen him dunked another five times. If asked he would have blamed poor sleep, but the truth was that in girl form the ache in her heart redoubled. It was a pulsing distraction that had made her sloppy, and given her less skilled father a number of unwanted openings to exploit.

    The bath afterwards had been welcome, but the lingering feeling of something wrong was still haunting him by the time he gathered he was pulling on his shoes several hours later. Some shred of his discomfort must have been showing when Akane

    "Did everything go alright yesterday?" she asked as she pulled on a green and pink jacket.

    He hesitated. It went great," he said with as much confidence as he could fake, "It's definitely magic, but I can't figure out what it's for."

    "You sure?" He looked up as Akane leaned down to frown at him. "You looked rather pale last night." She poked him in the shoulder. "And you didn't say anything about it. How bad did it go?"

    He rubbed his shoulder as he stood up. "It went fine Akane," he said with a shrug, "I was just a bit tired afterwards." Going off of the frown and shake of her head she didn't believe him. That was fine. Normal even. "Come on, let's go see the old hag." He hurried out the door, pausing to shoot her what he hoped looked like a confident grin before leaving.

    He really doubted he was fooling her. Honestly, the only time he could fool her was when she was angry, and she did most of that to herself.

    The walk to the Cat Cafe took twenty minutes. They weren't in a hurry, and honestly, neither of them was exactly eager to speak with the Amazons. Odds were that Shampoo would try and seduce him every second he was there and Mousse would more than likely try to stab him with… Something. You never could guess what Mousse would pull out of those billowing sleeves. It was like rolling dice or the world's worst slot machine. What flavour of metallic death would it be today?

    Ranma turned the corner of the street with the Cat Cafe and immediately stepped back, pulling Akane with him.

    "What?" she demanded as he peered around the corner.

    "Shampoo," he hissed as he stared with one eye down the street. Standing outside the Cat Cafe tying down a delivery box of ramen to the back of her bike, was the purple-haired amazon. She was dressed in her usual tight-fitting silk pantsuit and white apron that made men and women passing on the street stop and stare for about as long as it took them to realize she was a teenager. At least, those that cared enough to realize. More than one boy would find himself getting elbowed.

    Ranma, on the other hand, was virtually immune to her charms after a combination of turning to a girl, having said amazon try and kill him for months, and just having had to put up with her for over a year. Really, familiarity was an effective deterrent when it came to the nutty amazon.

    To his relief, once she was finished loading up her bike she took off in the other direction, riding down the street before bouncing onto a nearby fence and shortly thereafter a passing car than a rooftop before disappearing into the distance. He let out a sigh of relief before turning back to Akane.

    "There's one problem gone for now," he said. She snorted.

    "You realize she'll be back?" she snarked.

    "Well let's hope this doesn't take that long then," he said, fully aware of the fact that it would take Shampoo at most ten minutes to reach anywhere in Nerima on that bicycle of hers. "Come on."

    The Cat Cafe was fairly empty as they walked in. Several adults and a pair of children were seated at a table in the corner. Mousse could be seen in the kitchen stirring a pot, his thick glasses perched atop his head. Sitting on the counter beside the register reading a teen girls magazine with her long staff perched on her shoulder was the two-foot-tall old woman they had come to see.

    Cologne looked up from her magazine. "Oh, son-in-law, you just missed Shampoo," she said with a knowing tone.

    "Still not married to her Old Ghoul," he replied wearily. She cackled and tossed the magazine aside.

    "So what brings you two here to my little cafe?" the old amazon asked.

    "Ranma had a weird encounter a couple of nights ago," Akane volunteered before he could say anything.

    He sighed. "Can we take this somewhere private?" he asked. She eyed carefully.

    "What have you gotten into now, son-in-law?" she asked.

    "I have no idea," he answered honestly.

    "Hmm," she tapped her staff against her shoulder, "What sort of weird encounter? This city has a lot of strange things it considers normal."

    He leaned against the counter and dropped the tone of his voice. "A talking cat that claimed to be an alien," he said softly, "its Ki sure as hell didn't belong to a normal one."

    "Demon?"

    "The ofuda I tried didn't work, so probably not," he said.

    "Ofuda? Delving into magic now son-in-law?" the old woman asked with a hint of amusement, "A risky endeavour, even at the best of times."

    "With how often we see demons and monsters around here? More like a necessity," he replied. After the numerous times that a lack of magical knowledge had placed him at the mercy of people he'd rather not deal with, there was no way he wasn't going to learn. His continued survival in this insane city pretty much rested on it.

    "Mr. Part-time, take care of the cafe," she shouted at Mousse. He kept stirring the pot without seeming to notice any change. The magazine next to the Old Ghoul bounced off his head a moment later. He turned around, rubbing the back of his head and cursing quietly as he pulled his glasses down onto his nose.

    "Saotome? What the hell are you doing here?" he asked as he pulled earbuds from his ears.

    "Talking cat. Might be magic," Ranma replied unhelpfully.


    "Oh god, please tell me it isn't that ghost cat again? I swear I'll find a way to kill it if it goes after Shampoo again," Mousse snarled.

    "Nah, not the ghost. Might be an alien though," Ranma said.

    Mousse gave him a flat look before sighing. "Aliens, great… Just… try to keep Shampoo out of it," he grounded before turning back to his work.

    "He says that like I can tell her what to do," Ranma complained to Akane as they followed Cologne into the back of the restaurant.

    "Have you ever tried?" She asked with a sarcastic lilt.

    "Yes! It doesn't work." He pointedly ignored Cologne's snickering. This was why he hated going to the Cat Cafe. Unfortunately, the Old Ghoul's knowledge was just too useful, so he kept coming back… And the food was good, very good.

    The room she led them to had probably been an office at one point. Now, it was a small workshop where Cologne kept her many magical items, potions, and reference books. He had been there a few times, usually only for a couple of moments before he was promptly kicked out. Candles that never seemed to burn down were in the corners of the shelves and a chemistry set in the corner quietly burbled away, boiling some green concoction. The first time he had made a quip about witches and cauldrons. That had earned him a smack on the head from a very hard wooden staff.

    Now, as he crossed the threshold, the magic presence of everything inside the room slapped against his senses like walking through a waterfall. He stumbled, and nearly knocked a stack of books off of a table by the door.

    "Sorry," he said as he steadied himself.

    "If I doubted your magical attempts, that reaction told me exactly how successful you've been," Cologne mused as she hopped up onto the large desk in the corner. "I have quite a few things in here I'd prefer to keep out of the hands of certain entities. It can be an interesting experience for the newly initiated."

    "Um?" Akane glanced between them. Cologne waved her off.

    "Magic, girl, magic. Now, sit and tell me what really brings you here," she said, pointing to the other chair in the room.

    "I'll stay outside," Akane said after giving the room a nervous once over. She ducked out through the door. It closed with a click.

    Ranma sighed and took a seat as Cologne chuckled. "Not the best around magic, is she?" Cologne mused with a shake of her head, "Ah, well. I can understand why. You visited Ryugenzawa recently, I believe?"

    "Yeah."

    "Hmm, your life is never quiet, son-in-law," she mused, eying him with sympathy, "So, you mentioned a talking cat? I take it that it isn't the same nuisance that bothered my great-granddaughter?"

    "Nope… It happened as I was headed to bed the day before yesterday," Ranma said, launching into an explanation of the encounter. Cologne remained silent until the end.

    After it finished she said, "Show me the brooch." He pulled it out of his ki pocket and hurriedly placed it on the table. The old woman took it from the table with a cautious hand and examined it closely. "You've inspected it with magic?"

    "It seems to be gendered," he replied. She looked up for a second.

    "Oh really?"

    "It responded more when I was a girl," he said, unconsciously rubbing his chest over his heart as he could feel the ache again. It wasn't physical pain, but it was distracting.

    "Hrm…" she continued to examine the brooch for a few minutes before moving over to another table. "The green back book with gold leaf. Right side, fourth shelf from the bottom," she said, pointing her staff towards several shelves of books.

    He retrieved the book and handed it over without saying anything. He waited as she worked, examining the brooch with several small rituals that produced fairly lacklustre results. Certainly nothing on the level of the display she had provoked the night before. And more important than anything else, nothing that made the ache worse.

    After an hour Cologne sat down at the desk again. "This is certainly a vexing item you brought me today, son-in-law," she said, "I know you said that it was a gendered item, but I can't seem to get a reaction that would suggest such a thing. This... Mau, brought it to you and said it was for you specifically?"

    "That's right."

    "Hrm… Describe what happened yesterday when you examined it. In detail, please," she instructed. He hesitated, rubbing the spot on his chest again, before telling her everything. The rituals, his reasoning, the books he had referenced, the reaction and lack of reaction, and then the attempt in girl form.

    "And I can still feel it somewhere in here," he said, tapping his chest, "It's…" The old woman waved for him to be silent, and for once he obeyed, watching as she hummed and hawed for a few minutes over the brooch. Eventually she instructed him to pull down an old heavy tome bound in faded red and silver leather. Large characters in chinese were written in a ritual circle on the front and the spine had a title in a dialect he couldn't recognize. The paper inside was yellowed and felt both dry and slick at once. He wasn't even sure it was real paper.

    Cologne flicked through the book and compared the brooch to several drawings before setting the book aside. "I must repeat myself, son-in-law. This item is most vexing," she said as she turned back to him. "What you have here is a soul-bound focus intended for celestial sorcery."

    "For what?" he hadn't heard of 'celestial sorcery'. In fact, the books he had read were almost science-like at times and steadfastly avoided terms like sorcery, despite their age.

    "God magic, child. God. Magic," she said, sliding the brooch towards him. "Whatever forces it is intended to channel belongs to divinity and is not the realm of mortals."

    Ranma carefully lifted the brooch from the table. "But why is it only reacting to my girl form?" he asked.

    Cologne hummed to herself for a moment before sighing. "I think you know the reason, Ranma," she said with a slight mournful tone.

    He frowned. "So there's something to Luna's claims about reincarnation?" he asked.

    "More than likely, yes. The other possibility is that someone, for some unknown reason, created a soul-bound magical foci to channel Celestial Sorcery and then for whatever reason bound it to your soul, but only when you're a girl and then gave it to a talking cat to deliver to you for unknown purpose," Cologne said, finding a comfortable seat on a red cushion. "The second seems rather implausible, doesn't it?"

    He glanced up from staring at the brooch. "This is Nerima," he replied with a flat tone. Cologne chuckled.

    "I'll admit, this city is rather mad," she conceded, "but I would contest it being quite that mad. This isn't something that happens by accident, Ranma."

    "... I guess not," he allowed before pocketing the brooch, "What about the rest of Luna's story? How believable is it?"

    "The demonic horde and life on other worlds? You are aware that the magic using community keeps alive a number of legends concerning ancient wars and the first demons to plague the world, yes?" she asked. He shook his head.

    "I've been focused on the application of things," he admitted.

    "Hmm, well. To make a very long story very short, long ago the gods waged a war across the heavens. It was a short war, sudden and swift," Cologne said. Her staff tapped rhythmically against the table. "Monsters from some realm that none had heard of rose from the darkest pits at the summons of a fallen princess. They sought to tear the gods from the heavens and are said to have cast many heavenly realms into darkness before they were cast down themselves. The survivors rained down upon the earth and have been a plague upon the land ever since. I cannot say how accurate the tales remain, but the basics seem to match what this 'Luna' spoke of."

    Ranma stared at the table for a few seconds before slapping both hands on his thighs and standing up. "Well, doesn't really matter at the moment, does it? I haven't exactly seen hordes of demons rising up to wipe out everyone on earth. Unless I've missed something?" he asked her.

    "I have heard rumours of an uptick in Youma activity," Cologne replied.

    "Youma?" he asked.

    "Ki-vampires. Said to be the first demons of the world. They feed upon life itself," the old woman replied, "I find it curious that they become more active at the same time as this Mau reaches out to you. Depending on circumstances, you may not have a choice but to use that brooch, Ranma." He grimaced and she chuckled.

    "Don't worry too much. Youma are weak individually, at least when fighting those like you and I," she said with a laugh, "They're Ki-vampires, but they choke easily. Feed them too much ki at once and their essence unravels from within. They're physically capable, but against a proper martial artist? No, individually they stand little chance."

    "And magic users?" he asked.

    She grimaced. "More ki is the only true defense. That, or heavier weaponry than most soldiers carry, even today. They drain ki slowly by the standards of a trained martial artist, but they can drain even an ordinary person into unconsciousness within a few minutes. Mages prefer to utilize wards like those guarding this room to keep them away. Though, it has been theorized that certain magics could block or reverse their efforts in the field."

    "Theories don't help too much," he sighed as he rubbed his forehead. This was not what he wanted to deal with. Just how much of what Luna had said was the cold hard truth? If Youma were the first demons, and the battle she talked about was the same as this legend… Too many questions and not enough details. "Do you have a book on that legend I could read?"

    "Looking to expand your horizons?" Cologne chuckled before directing him to a thick brown book. "A copy of 'Hidden Truths in Ancient Tales'," she called it before waving him out of the room. "If you see my Great-Granddaughter, send her in."

    Book hidden in his ki pocket, Ranma walked back to the front room as he went over what he'd heard. He didn't get far in his thoughts because when he reached the dining area, it was to find the room a disaster zone. Any customers were missing, hopefully fine, and all but three tables and two chairs, all in that corner where the family had been, were on their sides or upside down. Many of them were missing corners.

    Mousse, in duck form, was tied up in chains and hanging from a chandelier. He also happened to be upside down.

    In the center of the room Akane and Shampoo were circling each other, both of them looking scratched up, bruised, and bleeding. Akane looked like she had taken the worst side of the fight with a large black eye on her left eye. The purple-haired Amazon didn't look much better, with her hair completely out of its normal twin-bun style, her apron hanging off one shoulder, and several buttons undone on her dress.

    He stared for a moment as the two girls ignored his presence. Finally, as the two seemed ready to start fighting again he loudly said, "Shampoo, the Old Ghoul wants to talk to you." Both of them jumped and spun to face him.

    "Ranma!/AIREN!" He sidestepped the attempted glomp by Shampoo and the follow up attempt, as well as the hurled table leg from Akane.

    "The Old Ghoul wants to see you," he repeated hastily. Shampoo stopped, both arms held out to grab him. She blinked at him.

    "Great-grandmother?" she asked, glancing around the room with wide eyes, "Now?"

    "Yes now," he said. She stared then wilted.

    "Stupid kitchen-destroyer get Shampoo in trouble," she grumbled, dodging a thrown plate from Akane before leaving the room with a pout.

    Not wasting a moment Ranma grabbed Akane by the shoulder and pushed her to the door. "We're leaving, now."

    "Oi, I had her!" Akane protested.

    "And the room," he replied as he dragged her out of the building. He paused as the quacking duck hanging from the ceiling got even louder. "One sec," he groaned, turning back into the room to untie Mousse. "How the hell did you get up there?" he asked the duckboy as he untangled the chains.

    Unsurprisingly he didn't have much more to say than a few quacks. Mousse, once set down, waddled into the kitchen, head down and quacking to himself sadly. Ranma shook his head and sighed before leaving the building.

    "What caused that?" he asked. Akane huffed and stayed silent, which meant she probably started it. At least he didn't have to put the room back together, but he was going to get so much hell for her injuries.

    -0-0-0-0-0-​

    "You know, I should have expected this," Ranma mused as she started at the front door of the Cat Cafe and the small wooden sign hanging from the door.

    'Closed for Training Trip' was spelt out in clean hiragana.

    It was three days after the last visit and Ranma had finished the book. It had been an interesting read, but all that it had really made clear was that no one was sure what had happened millennia ago. Something had happened, a war most likely, between forces that made even her worry, but the stories contradicted each other on nearly every detail. The only thing she could say for certain, was that the war was responsible for most of what humanity would consider demons.

    With her recent run in with Luna, she had to wonder if 'demon' was just another term for a certain type of alien. Assuming the Mau wasn't having her on, anyway. Or just crazy. Gods knew she ran into enough nuts in this city. The talking cat being crazy would be relatively normal.

    She sighed and looked around. The street was nearly empty. "What to do now?" she mused. She had come out to drop off the book without telling Akane, mainly to avoid the chance of the two girls completely destroying the restaurant again. Clearly she hadn't needed to worry. Though without the other girl to drag her back home this did provide an opportunity.

    A glance upwards confirmed that the sky was blue with a touch of wispy clouds floating along. The air was nice and warm for a spring break day and had a good breeze, plus if she remembered correctly there were usually a few ice cream trucks just around the corner at the local park this time of day. The sort staffed by easily swayed hormonal idiots.

    She licked her lips and grinned cheekily. "Ice cream it is," she said, clapping her hands before spinning on a heel and half-way skipping down the sidewalk for the next hundred feet before she reigned in her enthusiasm just a bit. It would be a bit awkward to explain if word got back home. Kinda like when her pops had learned of her attempts to play Kuno for an idiot by going on a date with him. Or those times with Ryouga.

    But the promise of ice cream was enough to get her to shrug and set her worries aside. Getting caught scamming a few boys out of ice cream was future Ranma's problem.

    The first possible target was a green truck parked on the curbside of the park. It was familiar to her, being a vic- erm, donator to her previous efforts to indulge without spending money. Hers, at least.

    She observed the truck from afar for a few moments before sighing. "Well that ones a bust," she muttered before moving on. The clerk was a girl, and even if she might have been a lesbian she wasn't going to risk the fallout that trying to scam ice cream out of a girl would cause.

    The second wasn't much better. The truck was new, but she recognized the boy from her classes. Pretty much everyone in the school knew about her curse now and unless she really upped the sexiness of what she was wearing, like that bunny costume in the back of her closet, she wasn't going to get anywhere with them. The knowledge that she was a guy with a curse was enough to render most of the school immune to her charms unless she deliberately overplayed her hand and frankly if there wasn't a challenge going on she'd like to keep some small shred of dignity. A double-scooped ice cream cone was not worth getting caught running around in a playboy bunny outfit.

    The third truck, in a park several blocks down, wasn't any better than the first two. The boy didn't go to her classes, but she knew him from previous failed attempts. He was gay and showed a less than zero interest in girls. In fact, her last attempt had seen him raise the price on the spot. She was not paying double for ice cream, no matter how good it was.

    She could feel his eyes on the back of her head as she left that park.

    Feeling more than a little disappointed she moved onto the last postage stamp sized park in the local area. She hated it when the owners learned, but she supposed it was bound to happen. You wouldn't make much money if the boys manning the counter kept melting into puddles of hormones everytime a cute girl came by. And she was cute, very cute, and beautiful like this. Really it was something of a mark of honour that her efforts had prompted these sorts of precautions when entire generations of girls had failed to prompt them.

    Though at this rate she was going to have to pay for her own ice cream. She shuddered, the horror.

    She walked into the last park and moments later found herself grinning. She recognized the boy. He wasn't anything special, rather plain and nerdy honestly, which was probably why his brain melted whenever a pretty girl walked up and started talking to him for longer than a few seconds. He kept the job anyway because of nepotism, something about his uncle she was pretty sure. She hadn't really paid that much attention when he'd explained it.

    She checked her braid, adjusted her shirt and strolled right on in as a mother was leading her son away with an ice cream cone. "Heya," she greeted as she walked up, giving him the best ditz impression she could muster. He seemed to have a thing for the slightly dim.

    He turned and she could see the moment he spotted her as something in his head seemed to fail and his expression took on this dopey look. "He-hey. Fancy seeing you here," he grinned in what was probably the cheesiest manner she could imagine and leaned against the counter. Still, this was why she tried this here. She gave him a little bit of confidence, and he gave her a nice triple scoop ice cream. A fair trade really.

    Looking up at the nerd leaning out of the truck she twirled her pigtail around her finger and hummed as she made a show of reading the sign. It was a show of course, she already knew what she wanted, but some things took time and doing them too quickly would make sure the boy still had two brain cells to rub together and come up with a price. She rocked back and forth on her feet, bouncing just a little before replying to the boy. She wasn't even sure if her words registered properly as his eyes were too focused on things lower than her mouth. She could practically see his brain melting.

    He eventually replied with the same thing he always did. Really, it was practically a script, certainly he never had anything original to say. As she let the conversation, well worn and at this point rather rote, play out she caught sight of movement in the corner of her eye. A flash of yellow and black that wandered into her sight. A very familiar yellow and black belonging to someone who could very easily blunder into her little game and ruin her chance of getting ice cream today. It certainly wouldn't be the first time, even with this boy, but it would ruin any chance of getting any ice cream for free for the rest of the day.

    So she tried to ignore the presence of Ryouga Hibiki in the corner of her eye long enough for him to either wander off or for her to finish getting her free ice cream. For the first couple of minutes it seemed to work. But then...

    "Ranma?" She stifled a groan as the nerdy boy looked away from her to the martial artist carrying a backpack that was probably as heavy as the boy in the truck.

    "Hey Ryouga," she said, greeting him with a poorly concealed twitch of her eyebrow. She had been so close too. The Nerdy boy blinked and turned his eyes to the muscular martial artist and blinked slowly.

    Ryouga looked from her, to the boy hanging out of the truck's window, and back to her. He gave her a flat unimpressed look that spoke of knowing exactly what she was doing.

    "What?" she asked innocently, only to watch his expression get flatter.

    "You're shameless, you know that?" he said rhetorically before giving the boy a disgusted look. The nerd gulped loudly. "What would Akane say?"

    "... Get me one too?" Ranma replied with a deadpan. It would have hardly been the first time she'd pulled the trick in front of Akane. Her fiance always got this resigned look when she did it, and after a while she'd simply asked for Ranma to get her one as well. Anyone who claimed that Akane would pass up free ice cream was a fool.

    Ryouga snorted.

    "Uh, right, Ice Cream." Ranma grimaced at Ryouga as the nerd in the window seemed to remember his job under the disappointed stare of the male martial artist. "Erm… Double-scoop wasn't it? That's… where's the price list?" It was a small comfort to her pride that she listened to several heavy items hit the floor as the boy tried and failed to find the pricing list, despite having it perfectly memorized before she showed up.

    "You're a menace," Ryouga idly added.

    "And you're a killjoy," she said, most certainly not pouting at him for losing her ice cream. The boy in the truck fumbled an ice cream scoop, sending the implement flying into a dark corner of the truck.

    Ryouga scoffed, but folded under her disappointed stare a moment later. He grumbled. "Fine. Hey, I'm paying," he said, causing her to blink as he placed a few yen bills and coins on the counter.

    Had pouting at him actually worked for once? Not that she was pouting, but still, it worked? Since when did that work on Ryouga?

    "Uuh, sure. Yeah," the boy inside stuttered, "Anything you want, sir." He held out the ice cream cone to Ranma who took it absently, just barely remembering to spare the boy a smile before grabbing Ryouga by the shoulder and dragging him down the sidewalk to his protests.

    "Oi! Hey, let go Ranma!" The bandana wearing boy protested as she snaked an arm around his and frog marched him down the street while she licked her ice cream.

    "Sure, of course, why not," she offered glibly as she pulled him out of the park. "Maybe after you tell me what's bothering you?"

    "Excuse me?" Going by the altered tone of the sputtering idiot she had hit something on the head. She pushed him towards a bench just outside the park and fell into it herself, one arm over the back of it as she lounged lazily. She eyed him, taking a very long and slow lick of the ice cream. Vanilla, eh, she'd have preferred chocolate or strawberry, but at least he had remembered enough to not give her mint.

    Licking the ice cream off her lips she raised an eyebrow at Ryouga who had gone pink with outrage. "So? Since when do you buy me ice cream?" she asked.

    He scowled. "Do you always have to do that?" he asked, waving a hand back at the park. She took another lick of the ice cream and shrugged.

    "Not an answer," she sang, crossing her legs.

    "What kind of- It wasn't for you! It was for that kid," Ryouga huffed, "Why do I keep coming across you scamming some idiot out of ice cream?"

    "Like they don't enjoy it," she snorted, laughing at the disgusted look she got in return. It was ice cream, what was she supposed to do? Just ignore its existence? It was worth winding a hormonal idiot up for a few minutes.

    Ryouga gave a disgusted sigh and stood up. "Right, I'm off," he said firmly. Her lips twitched into a grin.

    "Really? So soon?" She asked, standing up. As he turned to walk down the street she followed, easily hooking her free arm around his. "You still haven't said what's got you down."

    "Let go."

    "Don't feel like it." She licked the ice cream cone in silence, except for pausing to repeat her question every few licks, as they walked down the street. Those who recognized them in passing gave the pair of them a wide berth. She wasn't sure Ryouga noticed it, but she did. At times she had to wonder if it was Ryouga or just the fact both of them were in the same spot that did it, because she never provoked these sorts or reactions by herself. Either way, it meant more room to needle the other martial artist who was resolutely trying to ignore her presence on his arm. He'd crack eventually.

    He always cracked eventually.

    The street transitioned from residential to boutiques a few hundred feet down the road. They were a mixture, but this particular road was famous for its concentration of clothing boutiques aimed at women and girls.

    Feeling impish, and still annoyed that he was ignoring her questions, she pointed to a nearby boutique with her hand holding her ice cream cone. "Do you think that'd look good on me?" she asked. His eyes unwittingly followed her finger as they stopped.

    He blinked. "That's a sundress," he said.

    "In yellow. I like the white flowers on it," she said conversationally like this was something they discussed every day. Well, they had talked about clothing a few times in the past, but that was usually more practical clothing, for sparring or combat, not… Well, not yellow floral patterned sundresses in a boutique window on spring break.

    "Are you seriously- Why would you even be interested?" he asked her, sounding very confused. She gave him an entirely guileless look and licked her ice cream again, it was starting to run low.

    "Where exactly do you think I get all the dresses you've seen me in?" she asked him bluntly, "I sure as hell don't steal them from Akane or rent them from Nabiki, and do you really think I'd properly fit anything Kasumi owns?"

    "Uuuh," he looked past her to the boutique. She glanced over at the store window and shrugged.

    "Eh, too much like that one Akane loves. Can you imagine her reaction, if I showed up, in that?" she gave an only slightly exaggerated shudder then dragged Ryouga along. She had him off-beat now, excellent. Now to drive it home a bit. "How about this one?" She asked, pointing out a strapless pink sundress.

    "It's… pink?" He said with the tone of someone who seemed to think the world had stopped making sense about five minutes ago.

    "Yeah, nice shade too. The belt at the waist really accents it, though the waist is a little high… hrm... " She looked down and prodded her chest with the point of her ice cream cone. She gave an only slightly exaggerated shake of her head. "Too small in the chest and I don't like the look enough to find a tailor," she said.

    She dragged him further along, pointing out a few more items. "Look at that skirt. Bit short, but the pattern. You know Nabiki might actually get jealous for once," she said giving the black with white vine pattern skirt a thoughtful look. It was silk too, which was always a plus in her book.

    "I- you!" Ryouga had been getting progressively more red as she dragged him along. She elbowed him in the ribs as she tossed back the last of her cone.

    "Well if you aren't going to tell me what's up, then you can at least help me shop," she said blandly as she eyed his other hand that was clenching and unclenching. It was a fine line between tormenting him into talking and driving him into a complete rage, which would probably get her banned from the street for at least six months. Maybe longer depending on how much damage he did.

    Glancing away and back to the stores, she smiled then yanked him along. "So, what about these?" she asked, bringing him to a halt in front of the next store. She let go and stepped towards the large glass windows. She spun and the spot and waved behind her as she faced him. "I think the red one might be worth picking up.

    Ryouga stared at her, his face going completely pink as his jaw moved up and down. "That's a bikini."

    "Yeah, and a nice one. It might actually be in my size for once," she said as she eyed the display pieces critically. Finding things that fit her size rather than his was a trick. Sure, she wasn't any taller or shorter than the average Japanese girl her age, but she had certain proportions that made off the rack purchases tricky to say the least.

    It was mainly her chest if she was being honest, which she was. Frequently.

    "I-You-" Ryouga took a deep breath and slowly unclenched his fists. She raised an amused eyebrow at the display of self control. "If I buy one for you, will you stop this?"

    "I-" She blinked. "What?" This wasn't the script.

    "If I buy you one, will you stop following me?" He asked, a slight twitch to his eyebrow.

    She glanced back at the swimsuit boutique. "... Two," she said. It wasn't the script, but she wasn't a fool either. If she couldn't get the answers to her questions, then at least she could get something out of this.

    He ground his teeth before sighing. "Come on," he groaned, marching towards the store with the aura of a deadman. With an amused snort she followed him.

    "Well, at least I'll get to see someone's reaction when I'm trying them on," she mused aloud, grinning as he stumbled over the doorstep. "You have no idea how rare that is." If he thought she was going to stop just like that, then he really didn't know her as well as he seemed to think.

    -0-0-0-0-0-​

    It was an hour later when Ranma strolled out of the boutique humming, a bag over her shoulder. Ryouga, looking rather done with the whole situation, followed behind her. It had been an amusing hour, from her perspective at least. She was sure that if anyone had bothered to ask Ryouga he would have had some interesting opinions to say the least.

    Without another word Ryouga turned to walk down the street in the same direction as before, a coincidence that was probably more good luck than planning. "Leaving already?" she teased, placing a hand on one hip and giving him a big grin as he turned back.

    "After that?" He shook his head, "You're shameless."

    She rolled her eyes. Wasn't the first time someone had accused her of that. "Like Nabiki isn't worse," she replied with a deadpan.

    "And you want to be compared to her?" That caused her mouth to shut with a sharp click of teeth as she frowned at him. He smirked. "Point to me."

    "Ass." With a point no less. Nabiki was not someone she wanted to be compared to at all.

    "You earned it." He turned and started walking down the street.

    The ground shook as a distant rumble rolled through the air. Turning around they both looked back towards the park from earlier as screams started from that direction. A pillar of smoke was rising in the distance.

    "What the hell?" Ryouga said.

    "Come on," she started running, flicking the shopping bag into her folded space pocket. It wouldn't do to lose her new acquisitions to whatever was going on. Smoke was never a good sign, especially in a city.

    Seeing that a crowd was coming her way she leaped up, bouncing over their heads to the street lamps above. She noticed Ryouga following her lead. Once above the crowds her pace quickened and she soon came into view of the park.

    The pillar of smoke was rising from a car along the sidewalk as a fire merrily burned in the engine compartment. Several more fires were burning around the park in bushes and even in what had previously been a fountain. The purples and pinks mixed into the flames were a good enough indicator of their magical nature without her having to feel them with her other senses. The ice cream truck was on its side with a hole torn in the engine and a pool of oil spreading around it.

    Bodies lay around the park, a dozen young couples and several boys a few years younger than her, with one older man crumpled over the park sign, the heavy metal display warped from the impact. He was dressed in a tracksuit and seemed to be stirring faintly. At the center of everything, dancing around the burning fountain was a young man in a similar tracksuit as the older one. Attacking him was, she assumed, the source of the disturbance.

    Tall, pink, vaguely feminine with bulky shoulders and a tail with glittering metallic scales. Its claws were over a foot long and easily carved through everything in its way. More than that, however, she could feel the ki in the area slowly drifting towards the creature. Plants, rocks, people in the park and she could even feel a small tug on her own ki. Less than even the silver brushes she used, but a danger to anyone untrained.

    Opening her sight to the mystical she was met with the twisted, writhing magic and ki of something that shouldn't be. An entity composed of a thousand sources of amalgamated ki squeezed into the shape of a demonic beast. It matched, as close as she could tell, the description of a youma.

    As she took a half second to analyze the situation the youma carved through an iron and wood bench with a single swipe catching the young man with a backhanded blow that threw him clear of the park and through the front window of a shoe store.

    "Ryouga, back me up," she shouted, sparing a moment to glance around for her friend. Blinking, she realized that he wasn't there. "Oh for the- Did he get lost! Now?!" she snarled. Of all the times to leave her high and dry. He was probably halfway to Timbuktu already.

    Disregarding that, she whipped out a prayer strip from her sleeve. The beast's head snapped in her direction the moment she called up even a sliver of power.

    "I KNOW YOUR MAGIC!" it screeched in a warbling feminine tone that twisted the air with strange mind-scratching tones. Brandishing its claws it leaped towards her. Not ready for it, she jumped off the lamp pole.

    Landing in a roll on the grass she sprang to her feet and promptly sidestepped the beast's first attack. It was fast, admittedly, but far slower than she was on the ground. She stepped under the strike and slapped the glowing tag on the left shoulder of the youma before leaping over the tail and dancing back from it as it scrambled to remove the prayer strip. With a thought and a whispered word she set it off.

    Silver light flared, outshining the sun for a brief flash before the strip detonated. Silver fire ripped apart its shoulder. The limb fell away, fading to dust that blew away before it hit the ground as a wave of ki was released to flow gently into the environment. A boy in the corner of the park stirred and rolled over, gasping for small breaths that slowly stabilized.

    With an inarticulate scream of rage the youma turned on her. Its voice grated at her ears and the unnatural tones of the voice sent a chill down her spine despite herself. She could see why these things were so infamous. An ordinary magic user that didn't have ki training would be laid out in only a few minutes, though the books had made mention of personal wards. Perhaps she could find some way to shut the drain down if-

    She ducked a wild swing and deflected the beast's arm up and over her head before kicking it with all her strength in the side of the knee. It crumpled with a pained cry and she followed it up with a kick to the chin sending it ass over tea kettle into a park bench with a snap-crack of its neck. It lay there for a moment before with a 'crick-snap' its neck straightened out and the knee popped back into place.

    "Oh great," she growled as it stumbled to its feet. To her glee it was at least favouring its formerly destroyed leg. How long that would last she had no idea, but she was going to need to finish this in a single blow. Multiple would draw things out as it regenerated.

    "I will skin you moon child," it hissed, miming slicing her apart with its remaining claw.

    She ignored it. The difficulty with killing it in one blow was how to deliver it. A moko takabisha would probably continue on and hit something valuable. Or someone lying and the ground and an ordinary person would never be able to survive a direct, or even a near strike. This wasn't the middle of the school field where no one cared, or the backyard of the Tendo's where the one paying would be her.

    The youma, annoyed at being ignored, lunged suddenly with its one claw. She slipped out of the way of the strikes, dancing between them before hopping the follow up with the tail and rolling under a backhand of the claw.

    The only claw.

    She backflipped over the burning fountain to gain some distance. The purple flames had died just a little. Had this youma created them? It hadn't shown any fire abilities so far. She pushed that aside for a second. It hadn't regrown the arm. More importantly, it hadn't shown any regeneration in that limb at all. The neck was working fine and the leg was getting better by the second, but the left arm was gone completely.

    Ranma frowned and circled the purple fire, keeping it between her and the youma. It was possible it could jump through, but it seemed just as wary as she was. Was there another somewhere nearby, or something else? Again she pushed the questions aside.

    She could brute force it. Slam it with too much ki to swallow and blow it apart like Cologne had mentioned, but that risked the people around, or required her to fire a shot into the sky. Tokyo's skies were hardly wall to wall planes, but she would rather not be responsible for shooting down a commercial airliner by accident. Less probable things had happened in Nerima after all. Which left finesse.

    The arm hadn't regrown, and the section that had been detached had promptly disintegrated into its component energies. That implied that a youma was kept together only by whatever passed for its controlling mind, which matched what little she had to work with. Was it the head that was important, or some alien section of the body?

    Two prayer strips were drawn from her sleeves and the beast snarled as the kanji lit up.

    "Not the best time to experiment, but when is it ever?" she mused. It would hardly be the first time she went in with half a clue and a prayer, though that was perhaps a touch more literal at the moment than usual.

    Abandoning her position she reversed her direction and charged around the blazing fountain towards the beast. It lunged as she came around and she jumped, her feet finding new footing on its arm to the shock of the youma. She slapped a prayer strip on its arm and a second one on it forehead as she leaped clear over it.

    A horrified shriek rent the air as the beast pawed at its own face. Then twin flickers of silver light outshone the sun for the second time that day. A headless, armless body fell to its knees already flaking into dust and ki. Around the park unconscious victims stirred weakly. Boys and girls groaned and rolled over, their breaths shallow, but alive nonetheless.

    Ranma walked over to the spot where the beast disappeared. A lot of the ki was flowing back to the victims, but some was settling into the grass and soil. She ran a hand through the green leaves. At a guess the entire park would experience something of a surge in plantlife throughout the spring.

    "UNCLE!" She looked up from her examination of the ki to the older man in the tracksuit. The younger man who had been thrown across the street was gently lowering him to the ground beside the sign. The old man wasn't looking too good.

    She ran over, ignoring the groaning victims. If they had enough ki to complain they'd be fine. Probably.

    "What's wrong?" she asked, sinking to her knees beside the old man. The young man, though if she was being honest he was definitely older than her, was feeling for a pulse.

    "Thank god, he has a pulse," he said looking up at her.

    She checked his wrist. The older man did have a pulse, but it was weak… and probably caused by the low ki levels she could sense. "His ki is nearly gone," she said bluntly, getting a sharp glance from the young man.

    "You know ki?" he asked.

    She gave him a look then glanced to the spot where the youma had died, then back again. He went pink. "Yes, I'm a martial artist," she said sarcastically, "Now move over." She pulled open the older man's jacket and ripped open the shirt beneath without waiting.

    "Hey-" She shot him a look that silenced him instantly.

    The older man was definitely a martial artist, though not on her level. Or at least, not anymore. She could sense that he once held a lot more power than he did at that moment. There was a technique she'd read about, from a book she'd borrowed from Tofu before he'd disappeared to who knew where. She never had gotten the chance to give it back, but the technique was for a situation like this. Admittedly the example had been overstress from excessive workouts, but it was a similarly low-ki state. If nothing else, it probably couldn't hurt.

    Finding the correct places to place her fingers, she started a gentle flow of ki into his body. Even with the battle, though it was hardly the toughest fight she'd ever had, she had plenty to give him. It was just a case of being gentle so as to not do more damage than she could fix. She kept up the slow flow for just over a minute before the old man began to stir.

    "Keep him steady," she said to the wide-eyed young man. He had probably never seen anything like this before, most people hadn't. He nodded and moved to hold his uncle's shoulders. Another minute and she removed her hands with a sigh. A moment later his eyes flickered open slowly.

    "UNCLE!" She rolled her eyes as the young man pulled the still weak older man into a bone crushing hug.

    "Easy Shoto, easy," the man groaned and his nephew released him with a sheepish look.

    "Sorry Uncle," he said, "the girl here saved you. Some ki technique." The man's eyes turned to her tiredly before widening a touch.

    "Ah, the young Saotome," he said tiredly, "Rather fortunate that you were here."

    "You recognize me," she snorted. At this point she was hardly surprised when a random person knew her.

    "I live here," he replied with a very weak chuckle that turned into a cough. His panicked nephew leaned down worriedly.

    "Take it easy," she said, "You nearly died from lack of ki." The old man sighed and leaned back against the concrete .

    "I can tell," he said with a grimace as he felt his chest, "I recognize the sensation. You did a fair job with the transfer, but you have no training in that technique, do you?"

    "Nope," she admitted. It wasn't like there were many times when she could have practiced it.

    He snorted. "Let me amend that. Very well for a first timer. Tofu would be proud, but I can feel my chest aching from more than the bruised ribs. You weren't quite gentle enough. A bit less and you could have burst my heart." She winced at the look the young man gave her.

    "Sorry."

    "Don't apologize for saving my life," he said, swatting at his nephew, "And you, she succeeded in the only treatment that would have worked. Without Tofu around there would have been no chance for me to live at all." He groaned, "Damned love drunk fool had to run off. Ah well. Thank you again, Ranma Saotome." A weak hand fished into a pocket and pulled out a business card. "Once I finish recovering, if you need anything just call."

    Ranma blinked as she accepted the card. 'Junpei Amano, Doctor of Pediatrics at Nakano Children's Hospital' it said. "You don't see too many doctors trained in martial arts," she said.

    He chuckled then coughed. "Ha, aaaah, no you don't," he agreed, "I learned in order to explore less contemporary options for treating my patients. Tofu was quite the help, but I barely managed to scratch the surface. I started far too late you see." She nodded. After a certain age it became an almost impossible chore to increase your ki, at least if you hadn't already been doing so for years already. She was over the threshold so she wouldn't have that problem.

    "My nephew has had quite a bit more success than myself, but we're trained to help people, not fight demons," he said.

    "Not enough success," his nephew said, hanging his head, "I had no idea what to do." His uncle patted him on the arm.

    "Your ki is far more than even my hayday, Shoto," he said, "It is merely a matter of knowledge. We can fix that."

    Ranma glanced around the scattered bodies. "I'll give you a call if I need something, maybe you can show me a thing or two," she said. He nodded.

    "I would be happy to do so," he said before coughing into his palm.

    She stood up as she pocketed the card. "I'm going to take a look at the rest of the people here. Make sure no one's as bad off as you were. Take it easy, alright?" she grinned when he nodded, and then hurried off to check on the rest of the park. She could already hear the sirens getting closer.

    By luck of good timing on her part no one else was as badly drained as Doctor Amano. They were certainly exhausted, but no one seemed ready to kick the bucket and keel over dead. The police arrived at the same time as the first ambulance, a pair of police cars rolling up onto the grass as the ambulance pulled up at the street.

    Several hours later, after explaining, with the help of Doctor Amano and his nephew Shoto, what had happened several times, including to one Inspector who she was sure had only recently transferred to Nerima. Certainly he seemed to have issues grasping the idea of a youma, or even just magic in general. It took turning back into a guy and then into a girl again for him to understand it. At least, she thought he understood it.

    Personally, she really didn't think that passing out was going to look all that good on his record. It was just a small curse.

    But once everything was explained, the good Doctor loaded into an ambulance, and the second Inspector was satisfied, she headed for home feeling somewhat less happy than she had earlier. This was what she had been warned about and it matched the book as well. She had some thinking to do and quite possibly a Mau to talk to.

    -0-0-0-0-0-​

    A/N: Ello everyone~ Today we've got a wonderful chapter for you~ Well, I assume you've read it by now, so it's more like we had a wonderful chapter for you. I hope you enjoyed it~


    Gekkou here!~ I got them to finally post something for the morning people in Europe.

    Grounders10: You say that like I don't post for them on occasion!

    Gekkou: Best you usually manage is 2am, that dun count.

    Grounders10: Early morning is still morning. Night shift workers are people too!

    Gekkou: That is their bedtime! Not morning!

    Grounders10: Then it's something to read before bed. I'm sure I don't throw too many people's sleep schedules off… right?

    Gekkou: I can think of nine people whom cha do that too most of the time cha post. Three related to me, six being friends in Europe.

    Grounders10: … Whoops? *sheepish kitsune*

    Anyway~ Thanks again to my Patrons~

    *Grabs her S.O's hand to hold in public*

    Grounders10: *blushing noises*

    As I was saying, I've got a discord server if anyone wants to come join us, we're friendly, I swear. And anyone who wants to give money on a less permanent basis, I've added a Ko-fi link in my signature. I hope you've all enjoyed this chapter and have a great day~
     
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    • I am already feeling some delicious 'What Do You Want?' vibes going on with the Ryouga thing.

    Heh. Wonder if he is the Mamoru of this story... that'd be adorable.

    God. Talk about chaos.

    Still, this is just after Ryuogonzawa(sp?), so not sure how strong Ranma is in this timeline compared to post 'Kicking Phoenix Prince Ass' and post wedding... so should be damn interesting.

    Still, when Ranma actually transforms? Shit is going to hit the fan. Like Beautiful Destroyer Sailor Moon levels of asskicking.

    Looking forward to seeing Beryl and the rest too.
     
    Well if he can deal with basic youma without transforming when he finally does its going to be insane. Luna must be so happy the prince/princess is so skilled
     
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