"And don't come back until you can cure my babies!!" Soun demanded angrily as he slammed the door shut on Genma. Genma left running, grumbling about ungrateful so-called friends, disrespectful women and most of all wretched sons.
Soun glanced about his empty home and tried to maintain his stoicism in the face of the current situation. Even Nabiki had wished to stay with her sisters as if she were afraid of what she could expect from her home.
Soun knew that his declaration to Genma was more or less a permanent exile. Dr. Tofu had explained that the change was permanent and that Nabiki was now permanently a member of another species, and that soon Akane and Kasumi would join her.
Soun hoped that once his other daughters woke up that they'd all come back home, where they belonged. If they didn't, he didn't know what he'd do.
Curse Genma and his stories about cursed springs. Curse Ranma for bringing this catastrophe about. And curse himself for inviting them.
Nabiki looked at her sister's sleeping faces and changing auras and clenched her fists together. Ranma would have to explain this, and then he would have to pay. That was the simple truth.
How much he paid would depend greatly on whether he had a good reason for turning her family's lives upside down. What Genma had told them had been next to useless, and perhaps completely inaccurate. Nabiki didn't think Ranma had explained much of what he was doing to his father.
The first priority was finding Ranma, and gleaning some answers from him whether he liked it or not. Unfortunately, Nabiki lacked the information she needed to make any sort of deduction like that. For all she knew, Ranma had packed up and vanished.
She sighed irritably and stroked her sisters' foreheads before turning to the television and flipping it on.
"You should go home and get some sleep," Dr. Tofu said. "You won't make things go any quicker by staying her."
"I suppose so," Nabiki said looking over to Dr. Tofu. "You already called the school to say I'd still be recovering today, right?"
"Yes," Dr. Tofu said. "You've been up all night. It's time to get some sleep."
"Are you certain that it isn't that I make you uncomfortable?" Nabiki asked bluntly.
"I'll admit it's strange," Tofu said. "But you're still Nabiki from all I can tell. I don't see why anyone should be more or less uncomfortable around you than they were before." Nabiki smirked proudly at that comment.
"You know the kicker in all this, Dr. Tofu?" Nabiki asked.
"What's that?" he asked her.
"Kasumi suspected something," Nabiki said. "So did Akane, but she always suspects something so that doesn't count. Still, Kasumi figured out something wasn't right, and was on the way to figuring out what before I had a clue. That's embarrassing. Spilling the rice indeed."
"Yeah," Dr. Tofu said, starting to get a little goofy as they started talking about Kasumi. "She's smart isn't she. I hope she isn't too traumatized by this."
"I think we'll all figure it out fine," Nabiki said. "But I'd say the Saotome agreement is out the window now."
"This just in," the television said. "A local student was orphaned yesterday when her parents were killed in vicious assault. The girl says a that a red-haired woman came in and killed her parents and kidnapped a friend of hers that was spending the night over."
"She would have gotten me too," Yuka's voice said dramatically. "But I got away..."
"Isn't that one of Akane's friends?" Dr. Tofu asked.
"Yuka," Nabiki said. "Yes, it is. And a red-haired...woman? Could Ranma have a partner?"
"Other news reports a fierce battle between unknown individuals in the same area," the reporter said after finishing with Yuka. "Perhaps these events are representative of some new criminal element, but whatever the case, we must, as citizens, take more care in the following days until the government can resolve the situation."
Nabiki looked between the television and Akane, unconcious on her bed, hesitantly. Finally she turned to Dr. Tofu.
"I'm going there," she said.
"Are you certain that's a good idea," Dr. Tofu asked. "You aren't the fighter that Akane is."
"I'll be okay," Nabiki said. "I just want to talk to Yuka and hear what she has to say. I'll almost certainly find some clue as to Ranma's location."
"Just be careful," Dr. Tofu said. "If Ranma isn't the only one involved, you don't know what to expect."
"I know how to handle myself with a school girl," Nabiki said dryly.
"Unnnn," Ranma groaned as he came awake. Almost instantly he felt the bounds that were holding him secure. "What the..."
"Our guest is awake," a old voice spoke.
"Wha..." Ranma's eyes cracked open and he saw himself in a small, poorly lit room. A chill ran through him. "Oh kami, it's over..."
"Yes, it is over for stupid fox," another voice said.
Ranma glanced around toward the voice and recognized the purple haired girl from that village. She looked pleased to see Ranma, though not really in a good way.
"All right!" Ranma said, smiling. "Still in business."
"Stupid fox," Shampoo snapped angrily, flicking her nose in her air and leaning back with a yawn.
"Hey, where's the other guy?" Ranma asked.
"Mousse is currently sleeping," Cologne said, hopping into the light. "Since your...visit both my great-granddaughter and he have been spending much more time awake at night."
"Ah," Ranma said embarrassed. He almost moved to scratch his head, but remembered he was tied up. He sighed. "I'm sorry about that."
"Sorry!!" Shampoo shouted in Chinese. She stood up and purposefully strode across the room to get in Ranma's face. "I am exiled, I am NO LONGER Amazon. You are dead as soon as you answer one question."
"What question?" Ranma asked, looking nervous.
"Why did a stupid Japanese fox have to come and ruin my life!!!" Shampoo demanded.
Ranma swallowed nervously, remembering just what Shampoo was now. It wasn't so bad now as it had been before. For one thing, Ranma felt something of a connection with Shampoo. A responsibility that molified the fear of her c..c..c...feline nature. For another, Shampoo was human at the moment.
"You got drafted," Ranma said simply in her native language. Shampoo flinched and stepped away from the fox to sit back down in a pout.
"The hannya?" Cologne asked. Ranma looked at her confused. "Do you not even know what it is that you fight, child?"
"Oh, what are they then, elder?" Ranma asked, respectful and sarcastic all at once.
"The hannya, child, is a snake demon that makes a deal with a human in exchange for a physical body to effect the mortal realm with," Cologne said exasperated.
"Elder," Ranma said. "They ain't nothing connected with animals of any kind. If you got close enough to see the demon, then SHE," Ranma nodded toward Shampoo, "was close enough ta see 'em for the outsiders they are."
"Shampoo," Cologne turned toward her granddaughter.
"I don't argue with my great-grandmother," Shampoo said crossing her arms.
"They are hannya, however," Cologne said. "I have seen one before, many years ago in my youth."
"As good a name as any I guess, I'll still call 'em voidlings myself," Ranma said. A sudden thought came to him. "Sayuri...they didn't get her did they?"
"The girl you were with?" Cologne asked.
"That weakling is in the next room," Shampoo said dismissively. She was leaning back in her chair against the wall with her eyes closed.
"Some weakling," Ranma returned. "Most of the people round here woulda turned tail and run away screamin', but she helped me."
"And why didn't you 'draft' her?" Cologne asked. "If she is so strong."
"Strength of soul don't make strength of body," Ranma said firmly. "I don't want to kill nobody. Now I'd like proof that she's still around and not carrying about some voidling."
"That is a reasonable request," Cologne said. "Shampoo, please bring the girl in here."
Shampoo leaned forward, the front two legs of her chair slapping loudly against the floor as she turned a put upon look toward Ranma. She stood up and tossed her hair back striding arrogantly out of the room.
Cologne noted the amount that Ranma relaxed as Shampoo left the room.
"Does something about Shampoo make you nervous, fox?" Cologne asked.
"Ever here of the Neko-ken elder?" Ranma asked.
"You can sense what she is then?" Cologne asked. "Or did you determine it."
"I just saw what she'd be before I gave her my gift," Ranma said. "I didn't decide it."
"That was quite a 'gift,' child," Cologne said. "Incidentally, are you a boy or a girl?"
"Both," Ranma said. "But that's just me, Elder, Shampoo ain't going to have to worry about that. Mostly I'm a guy right now though."
"Ranma," Sayuri said as she was brought into the room. "You're alive..."
"Yep," Ranma said. "Sorry about all this, Sayuri."
"What's going on?" she demanded. "Who are these people, and what happened to Yuka?"
"You really want to know?" Ranma asked. Cologne spoke something in Chinese that received a pouty huff from Shampoo before the exiled Amazon left the room again.
"One of my best friend's tried to...do something to me last night," Sayuri said. "Another of my friends and her sisters are in comas in the hospital," Cologne's eyebrow arched. "I think you owe everyone some answers."
"Okay," Ranma said, pausing a moment for Shampoo to arrive with a bleary looking Mousse. "Yuka ain't Yuka no more, she got possessed yesterday. She got tricked inta offering herself up in return for some favor from the demon in her."
"What possible reason could Yuka have to sell her soul," Sayuri asked timidly, uncertain how to handle that.
"You," Ranma said.
"What?" Sayuri shreiked.
"Yuka traded her soul in return for the chance to get into the sack with you an' Akane," Ranma said simply. Shampoo snickered from where she was imitating sleep.
"Girl is too weak like a man," she said in Chinese. "Can't love like a real woman." Sayuri didn't understand it but caught the gist and flashed angrily red.
Cologne sighed and pushed Shampoo's chair legs and inch forward, dropping the former Amazon in a tangle of chair and flesh.
"What did Grandmother do that for?" Shampoo demanded.
"I would remind Shampoo about her mother's 'friend' before she makes any further comments like that," Cologne said quietly to the girl.
Shampoo virtually hissed in response but did not dispute her Grandmother, though anybody else would have been hurt. She grumbled as she sat back on her chair, keeping better awareness of her balance this time.
"I am not a lesbian," Sayuri insisted angrily. Shampoo rolled her eyes and shrugged.
"And what do these demons have to do with ruining our lives?" Mousse demanded in fluent Japanese for the benefit of the schoolgirl. Ranma flinched but growled back after a moment.
"And what right do you have to kill someone over a bunch of food that can be replaced?" Ranma demanded. "Or because you got such fragile egos that ya gotta kill everyone that's better n' you?"
"Is Amazon LAW!" Shampoo shouted in Japanese. "Is sacred!"
"Is STUPID!!!" Ranma shot back.
"What did you do to them, Ranma?" Sayuri asked suspiciously.
"Yes, child," Cologne asked. "Explain just what happened during the two days my granddaughter and Mousse were lying unconscious in the healer's hut."
"Unconscious for..." Sayuri's eyes widened.
"Err...same thing I did ta the Tendo sisters," Ranma said remorsefully.
"As in all of them?" Sayuri gasped. She stood up and rushed across the room to slap Ranma. The fox's head turned and then settled back, accepting the slap. "How could you do that to them? Especially Kasumi. How could you hurt her!" Sayuri demanded noticing Ranma wince with each question.
"I got a dirty job," Ranma said quietly. "An I ain't got much time ta do it in, or much idea of how to do it."
"That's no..." Sayuri started.
"'Sides," Ranma said. "It was either I make 'em like me...or they take 'em. I know there were after Akane, an' I'm certain they'd like ta add the other two to the mix also. Either that or kill 'em. Which do you think is better?"
Sayuri glared at Ranma and clenched her fists before walking to sit down next to the former Amazons where Mousse stood watching them.
"What is job, Fox," Shampoo asked.
"Our job...c...c..." Ranma took a breath. "Shampoo. Our job."
"Shampoo not want job," the cat said, pouting and crossing her arms.
"Yeah, well, there's a reason that twelve people like us are needed ta end this war," Ranma said. "Anybody can fight it...but hengeyokai, twelve hengeyokai, are needed ta end it for our good. An they need twelve of them to end it the other way."
"And how many of you are there," Cologne asked.
"Includin' us," Ranma asked. "Six so far, an' I'm the only that knows how ta make more, an' I don't know how ta teach it yet. I don't know if I WANT ta teach it period." Cologne watched him intently.
"You truly don't like this situation," Cologne said. "Do you fox?"
"Why would I?" Ranma asked. Cologne considered that a moment. "Shampoo, Mousse, Let's discuss this in the other room, we'll leave the Japanese to stew in their own affairs for now."
"Why you not let Shampoo stay in one place?" Shampoo whined as she stood up and walked out the door.
"Fox demon, we shall settle this soon," Mousse said angrily. Cologne hopped along behind them on her staff.
Sayuri sat in her seat with her eyes jammed closed, sobbing quietly. Ranma watched her and the former Amazons leaving, taking each sign of how he had affected there life as a stab in the heart.
Ranma took a deep breath. The ropes tying him were designed to still hold if he changed size. He could break them, but that would alert his captors. Still he had another way out. They thought they were dealing with a straight hengeyokai, not a master shapeshifter.
He shifted into a snake and slid out of his bounds. Then shifted back into human form. He was still in a lot of pain, but apparently the old woman had healed a little. Otherwise he'd still be in bad shape, increased healing or no. As it was, another day of rest and he'd be good as new.
"Hey, um Sayuri," Ranma said quietly from right behind her. Sayuri blinked and stared at Ranma for a moment before opening her mouth.
Before she could scream Ranma, in a fit of panic bent leaned forward and silenced her with a kiss. Sayuri's eyes bugged out wide as his lips but hers and she started to wonder just how Ranma changed people. As Ranma broke off the kiss, she stared at him in blind terror.
"Shhh, ya gotta warn Dr. Tofu and the Tendos, an' see if you can find out how ta get these demons outta somebody, k?"
Sayuri nodded slowly, wondering if Ranma was about to do to her what he'd done to everybody else.
"K," Ranma said. "I gotta get outta here. I ain't runnin' but they gotta calm down an' see what's fixing a bit before they can work with me. The Tendos too."
Sayuri nodded again.
"This is a war," Ranma said. "An your as much a part of it as I am. Everybody in the world is. Yer smart, yer brave, you can help us out here, got it?"
Sayuri nodded again still nervous about what was going to happen.
"Is somethin' wrong with you?" Ranma asked nervously.
"Am I going to be like them now?" Sayuri asked nervously, waiting to collapse into a shaking unconsciousness. Ranma winced.
"I can't do that to you," Ranma said. "It'd kill you. Besides, you can still do stuff they an' I can't." Sayuri breathed a sigh of relief and looked somewhat confused for a moment before her hand drifted up to her lips.
"Then that..." Sayuri started to speak.
"Ummm, sorry about that," Ranma said. "I panicked, an' I been doin' a bit of kissing recently." He looked to the room's door and then the small window. "I better get going."
Then Sayuri watched as Ranma jumped toward the window, shifting into a slightly larger fox than the one she had seen before, and work his way out the opening.
After Ranma was gone the shock wore down and all the conflicting emotions she had felt throughout the talk were released in one, loud scream.
Outside, Ranma smirked as the three Chinese fighters burst into the room to see what was happening. In the second it took them to realize that Ranma had escaped, the fox was stepping into the room where he felt his new sword's aura and grabbing it.
He felt their auras coming up toward him to check on the weapon, but by the time they reached the room, he was gone. The fox had become human just long enough to grab the sword, and then the sword transformed with him as he went out the window to join a flock of pigeons.
Nabiki approached Yuka's house carefully, and noted all the police in the area. She suspected, actually, that they would have moved her away from the scene of the attack by now.
As she came closer to the house she began to feel distinctly ill at ease. Her spine felt chilled, and if she had been in one of her other forms she was certain all her fur would be standing on end.
It was like she had felt from Kuno the day Ranma had kissed her, only she felt it a thousand times greater. When Kuno had surprised her before the chill had come and gone without her really paying attention to it. Now...
Nabiki froze as she turned a corner to see Yuka speaking to the police with a tear streaked face. Standing amongst the human auras was that girl, radiating...emptiness.
"Voidling," Nabiki whispered, backing away before the girl could notice her. That was what he meant, from outside...he meant outside our world...shit!!!
She turned away from the house and towards the other side of the street. She started to conceal herself in another person's yard but found herself unable to enter the building.
If I were smaller, Nabiki thought to herself. Then she sighed, realizing she could be smaller, and smell things much keener as well. And maybe I can smell out Ranma.
It took a moment for Nabiki to find a safe place and work out the changing instinct, and then she was skirting around the area, seeking Ranma's trail. Hopefully she'd find it and begone before the voidling saw her and her aura.
It took less time than she thought to find a scent that was like Ranma but female and Sayuri. That she followed to another scene of police officers. There were much fewer officers on this scene, however, and no chalk outlines around the dumpster. Instead there were blood stains here and there.
Nabiki followed the blood, the female Ranma's blood, idly wondering if Ranma's "partner" was actually a sister.
She lost the scent at the botanical gardens, but the blood was easy to follow by this point. She followed it as far as she could, taking human form to avoid any animal control that might happen by, until it just stopped.
That was as far as the middle Tendo was willing to go. She thought that the female Ranma must have gotten away, but even if she had she was incredibly hurt. If it weren't for the scent of violets everywhere she thought she could have maid out more information.
"I'll have to settle for this," she thought and turned around to leave the scene. "And there is still your brother to worry about missy." She poked a finger at the blood.
She didn't know whether the Saotome could be considered an enemy, but she was quite certain that he was for the moment less than a friend. Ranma had a lot to make amends for in her book.
"Looks like a war in three directions then," Nabiki grumbled as she headed home. "I should start training again."
Ranma sat in the park, finding a small secluded place that was hard to see, easy to defend, and offered plenty of escape routes for someone like him. In front of him was his new sword, stabbed into the ground.
He KNEW there were many things he could do with the weapon. He just couldn't remember how, or many of what. It was apparently one of the pieces of information his saviour had considered extra.
Things like, just what the enemy had to do to win, why there had to be twelve hengeyokai, how they were supposed to end this thing permanently. You know, extra niceties like that.
He took a deep breath and watched the setting sun.
"Akane and Kasumi will be awake soon if not already," Ranma said softly, cringing.
"Oh my," Kasumi said with a soft chirp as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her hand, wing, trembled as she reached out to touch the glass. She had brown, grey and black feathers scattered about with a hint of white towards her chest and abdomen. Her feet were bird-like talons and she spoke through a pointed beak. She walked around lightly, twisting her head like a curious sparrow.
Next to her, Akane was pacing about, wringing her hands and snapping and growling.
"I'll kill the bastard!" Akane snapped. "He attacks us, turns us into these freaks and plays with our heads! I'll kill him!"
The youngest Tendo looked similar to Nabiki, though she was bigger, and seemed a great deal more compact besides. Her lengthened face was more square than pointed and her sharp teeth and jaws seemed that much more dangerous. Her fur was a speckled brown, and she had a long slim tail that was holding angrily still. She quite obviously packed tremendously more power per pound than Nabiki while at the same time being larger.
"Quit being such a bitch, Akane," Nabiki said. Akane stopped pacing and turned to glare at her sister. Kasumi blinked and turned to her as well.
"That is NOT funny, Nabiki," Akane said.
"No, it wasn't," Kasumi added.
"We're going to have to live with this," Nabiki said. "Might as well get used to it. An Ranma's future reckoning to the Tendo clan aside, we have bigger problems. Sit down Akane, I have more bad news for you. This is about Yuka and Sayuri."
"What about them?" Akane asked nervously.