Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/614519.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/F, F/M
  Fandom:
      Ranma_1/2
  Relationship:
      Saotome_Ranma/Tendou_Nabiki
  Character:
      Saotome_Ranma, Tendou_Akane, Kunou_Kodachi, Tendou_Nabiki, Hibiki_Ryouga,
      Saotome_Nodoka
  Additional Tags:
      Supernatural_Elements, Alternate_Universe_-_Canon
  Series:
      Part 4 of Ranma,_the_Naïve_Succubus
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-12-29 Completed: 2014-04-13 Chapters: 16/16 Words: 45879
****** The Flower War ******
by Narsil
Summary
     Even as Ranma, Nabiki and their allies make progress on some of their
     problems, a new one comes out of the blue. The overly-competitive
     sister of their stalker at school, Kuno Kodachi, the Black Rose, has
     made Akane and "Ranko" her special concern.
Notes
     Besides the obvious play on Kodachi's self-assumed label, the story
     title comes from a ritualized but deadly serious form of battle
     practiced by the Aztec Alliance and some of its enemies.
***** Enter the Black Rose! *****
The red-haired succubus floated beside Akane as the youngest Tendo strode along
the sidewalk toward the dojo, Ranma smiling at the way her student was almost
skipping with the joy she was radiating. They’d had a couple days to make up
for Ryoga’s late-night visit (and for Ranma to mostly recover from the beating
she’d received, she thought, though a wonderful session with her lover had
maybe also helped — she was still working out just what her capabilities and
limitations were). So in spite of the long boring Monday evening Akane and
Ranma in human form spent sitting in mystic circles while Nabiki and Nodoka had
chanted in order to strengthen their protections against mystical assault,
followed by a long and equally boring Tuesday at school, the succubus was in
almost as good a mood as the human girl. The practice session at the park, the
nature spirit hiding behind trees, benches, and people while trying to ambush
Akane, had gone very well — Akane’s newly awakened sense (or perhaps a sense
she was newly aware of) was proving even more effective for tracking and
detection than sight. Like Ranma’s sight when a succubus, it was blocked by
anything alive but not by nonliving objects (like Akane’s clothes, and the
suddenly blushing succubus forced her eyes up to her companion’s face).
“Hey, Tomboy, ya did good,” the redhead said at last.
Akane glanced out of the corner of her eye toward the spot where she could
sense her sensei, face clouding up and joy tingeing with anger at the nickname
for a moment before she forced a grin. “Thanks — and I didn’t even have Nabiki
around to distract you,” she jibed back. “I’m a little surprised you did so
well, with how late you two stayed up last night.”
Ranma’s blush deepened, her hand rubbing the back of her neck under her loose
hair, happy that the other girl couldn’t see her. “Uh, yeah, sorry ‘bout that,
didn’t mean ta keep ya up,” she mumbled. “We think it might help me —” get over
that beatin’ I took. “Ah ...”
“Why didn’t we wait after school for Nabiki, anyway?” Akane asked after a
moment, when it became obvious her sensei (and friend?) wasn’t going to finish
the sentence.
“Nabiki had ... business ta take care of, and —” and I didn’t want ta be there
as a human, ‘cause it’d look like I’m the muscle fer her blackmail. And it’d be
even worse as a spirit, ‘cause theyreallyhate Nabs, and she’s miserable about
it.
Looking around for a distraction, the succubus puffed out a light sigh of
relief at the sight of three girls she thought she recognized from class in a
nearby vacant dirt lot carrying weird-shaped clubs and surrounding another
girl.  The stranger’s smoothly muscled body was enclosed in the faint image of
an unfamiliar school uniform and her hair was tied up in an oddly off-center
ponytail. “Akane, eyes right,” Ranma murmured.
As Akane turned to look, the three Furinkan girls charged toward the stranger,
shrieking their anger. Even as they ran forward, clubs upraised and thrown, the
stranger stepped back and raised a hand, and Ranma’s eyes widened as the entire
length of the ribbon she sent spinning toward her attackers glowed with ki. The
strength of the glow failed to match that of Kuno’s bokken or Ryoga’s bandanas,
but it strengthened the swirling fabric enough that airborne clubs were knocked
aside.  Tthe attackers screamed in pain as it slammed across them and knocked
them to the ground.
“If I may restate it ... !” the stranger shouted, her ribbon spinning around
her, “ ... perhaps this ... or this ... or this will be clearer!” With each
shout, the ribbon slashed out at her defeated attackers, smashing them
shrieking back into the dirt — until with a loud SNAP Ranma caught the ribbon
with one hand, flying backwards to pull its wielder stumbling forward. The girl
recovered and moved back, eyes widening as her weapon’s length pulled taut,
running suspended in the air from her hand to wrap around apparently empty
space.
“Don’t ya think that’s enough?” the now hovering invisible succubus asked. “I
mean, you’ve already won, right?”
“What kind of magic is this?” the stranger gasped, and the ribbon’s glow began
to fade as she lost her concentration in her shock.
Behind Ranma, Akane helped their schoolmates to their feet. Ranma ignored the
murmurs behind her as her future sister-in-law ushered the three girls back
away from the confrontation, focused on the stranger staring at the space
occupied by her ribbon-wrapped hand. ‘Ranko’ and ‘fight’ were the only words
she understood. Then the ki completely faded from the fabric, and it dropped
through her fist to the ground. “No magic,” Ranma replied with an invisible
shrug, “just Ranko, a local spirit that don’t much care fer people that keep up
the beatin’ after they’ve won.”
“Not even a spirit may interfere in the affairs of a Kuno!” the stranger
declaimed, and as she spoke she slipped a foot under the handle of one of her
attackers’ clubs. Kicking it up, she caught it and Ranma dropped straight down
to bury herself waist-deep in the bare earth as wood suddenly shining with ki
swept through the air where her shoulders had been a moment before.
Spinning to fly through the murky ground, looking up through the surface, the
succubus passed beneath the girl (resolutely ignoring the view it gave her
through see-through panties) to come up directly behind the stranger, clasped-
together hands catching a heel and spilling the girl forward as Ranma headed
skyward.
The girl reached forward as she fell, her dress flaring out around her as she
turned her stumble into a handspring. She spun around as she landed on her
feet, futilely searching for her invisible opponent. “I see I have some
preparations to make before we meet again,” she said. “Remember, I am Kuno
Kodachi, the Black Rose of St. Bacchus’s School for Girls!” And with that, she
bound to the top of the fence at the side of the empty lot and away across the
translucent roofs, wild laughter trailing behind.
From where she hovered scores of feet about the ground, Ranma watched Kodachi
dwindle into the distance. “Great, another Kuno, as crazy as Tatewaki,” she
muttered.
Turning and looking down, the redhead found Kodachi’s three attackers clustered
about her student, tears rolling down their cheeks, wailing, “Akane, please,
you have to help us!”
                                      /\
“So you were all ambushed? The entire rhythmic gymnastics martial arts team?”
Akane asked from where she sat on her bed.  Her eyes were locked on the bruises
and bandages on the faces of the three girls kneeling on the bedroom floor on
the other side of a tea tray set for four.
“Every one of us!” one of the girls agreed. “None of us will be able to compete
now, we’ll have to withdraw from the match!”
From where she was hovering above the bed beside her student Ranma had to
agree, the succubus’s eyes hard as she surveyed the multitude of cuts and what
must be bone-deep bruises she could see through the faint images of their
clothes, covering the girls’ bodies.
“Akane, you must take our place, no one else at Furinkan can possibly keep that
bitch from getting away with this!” another girl asserted, tears streaming down
her face.
Whoa, hold on a minute! Ranma glanced over at the youngest Tendo. As she’d
feared, the girl’s eyes had lit up at the request.
“Of course —” Akane started, before Ranma broke in.
“A’ course you’ll ask yer sensei about it first, right?”
Akane turned to look up at the spot where she sensed her teacher hovering, face
darkening with anger, only to break off to take a deep breath. After all, Ranma
was right — she had accepted him as her teacher, and she had to accept the
limitations that went with it. And they had a cover story to maintain. “So why
don’t you switch so I can ask him?” she ground out.
Ranma nodded in spite of the fact that only Akane could ‘see’ it, and glanced
down through the floor at the furo. The room on the floor below was empty. “No
problem.”
                                      /\
“From Ranko’s memories, ya want Akane ta take yer place at the next match,
right?” Ranma asked from where he now sat on the bed beside Akane, dressed in a
set of his preferred Chinese clothes that was kept in the room by the furo.
The girls nodded.
“So tell me just what this rhythmic gymnastics martial arts is all about.”
One long explanation later, Ranma had to admit that the basic concept wasn’t
all that bad. Sure, the ball and hoop were pretty silly, but the clubs and
ribbon were useful and the training and flexibility needed for the moves was
top-notch. “An’ when’s the match?”
“Uh ...” The girls exchanged nervous glances. “Next Tuesday.”
“Next Tuesday ... ya mean one week? You expect Akane ta learn a completely new
style in one week?”
Ranma opened his mouth to reject the request outright, but paused at the
pleading expressions on the faces of the three girls ... and his student.
“Bring over the equipment an’ some training manuals, an’ I’ll see what we can
do,” he finally agreed with a sigh. “If by next week I think Akane’s got a shot
at at least makin’ a decent showing, we’re in. But only if, an’ I wouldn’t
count on it.”
But his last sentence was drowned out by happy squeals from the team, and his
heart sank as the three girls jumped up to hug Akane, then rushed from the room
to fetch the requested equipment and manuals. This was not going to end well.
                                     /oOo\
Standing by the dojo wall, Ranma took a deep breath. Okay, let’s see if I’ve
figured this right. He took several steps to build some momentum, tucked to
roll — and the hoop in his hands caught on his heels, he landed flat on his
back, and the hoop snapped between his hands.
He stared for a moment at the broken rhythmic gymnastics martial art accessory,
then surged to his feet and hurled the hoop across the dojo. The hoop hit the
wall a few yards from Akane and broke in half, making her flinch. Ranma noticed
and took another deep breath and blew it out. “Okay, we’re gonna hafta think a’
somethin’ else, this isn’t working,” he said with forced calm.
“I could have told you that,” Akane said. “In fact, I did.” She motioned to the
stack of manuals on the floor by her feet. “What made you think you could learn
it from pictures and descriptions in manuals, anyway?”
“Seein’ Pop do it with scrolls he stole from places we stopped,” Ranma snarled,
then paused. “Ya know, I don’t think I’ve mentioned those ta anyone. I’ll hafta
get ‘em, get with Mom an’ Nabiki an’ see if we can figure out who they belong
to an’ give ‘em back.” He thought it over for a moment, then sighed and
continued reluctantly, “Anyway, Pop has ta struggle, but he can do it. I
figured the way I soak up techniques just by watchin’ people do ‘em, if Pop
could do it, it’d be easy for me ta figure it out from the photos in the
manual. Problem is, it isn’t workin’ — I need ta see the flow from beginning ta
end instead a’ just a few points.”
Akane resisted the urge to twit Ranma over his admitting that there was
something martial arts related that he couldn’t do, at least not effortlessly.
A side glance at the broken hoop and the way the ponytailed boy was beginning
to pace made resisting temptation easy. Instead, she frowned thoughtfully. “The
girls were too beat up to show you themselves, but what about video tapes?” she
asked. “I’ll bet they’ve taped a bunch of their matches. If they kept them,
that would let you see the moves from beginning to end — and not just in
practices, either.”
Ranma broke off his angry stumping to turn and stare at his student. “They do
that?”
“Yeah, haven’t you ever been in a competition before?”
Ranma shook his head. “Nope, Pop said we shouldn’t pick on civilians.”
“More likely he didn’t want to draw attention,” Akane said, smirking. “They
give out prizes, but you have to register.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Ranma agreed with a laugh. “The only thing that’d keep
Pop from goin’ fer easy money is gettin’ the cops on his trail.” Sobering, he
continued, “An’ yeah, videos’d be a big help. But that gets us ta the second
problem, I’m a guy.”
“I’ve noticed,” Nabiki said.
The two turned to find Nabiki standing in the dojo doorway, a dusty Ryoga
beside her carrying his umbrella and massive pack on his back. Instantly, they
tensed up, looking for an opportunity to strike. “Let her go, Ryoga,” Ranma
growled. “You’re fight’s —”
“Whoa, easy!” Nabiki shouted, stepping in front of Ryoga and spreading her arms
out. “I’m not a hostage, he isn’t here to fight! I ran into him on the way
home, and since he was heading here himself we came together.”
Slowly, Ranma and Akane relaxed, and Akane shivered with the clash of
conflicting emotions when she noticed the way her older sister seemed to ...
relax, soften ... as their tension eased and her eyes met her lover’s. On the
one hand, her sister was sharing a bed with a part-time sex demon! She knew it
wasn’t Ranma’s fault, it was her nature now (when he was a ‘she’, anyway), but
still ... On the other hand, Nabiki seemed a lot happier since before she’d
first met ‘Ranko’, not to mention was a lot easier to live with, her biting wit
easing off into a wry sense of humor, at least with her sisters — she was
becoming someone Akane actually liked, not just tolerated because they were
family. If only magic wasn’t part of the mix, the youngest Tendo thought with
another shiver.
“You’re a little late,” Ranma commented.
“Yeah, since your ... since Mother has to move my training to the evenings so
she can stay as long as she needs to at her business, after my meeting I
decided to take some time to see if Gosunkugi had emptied out his little hidey
hole yet, and make sure he hadn’t left any traps behind — he seemed to be just
the kind of vindictive asshole that would do that,” Nabiki said nonchalantly.
“Did he?” Akane asked, intrigued against her will.
“Yes, and yes. Good thing I checked, too, the idiot didn’t quite get the
circles right, and he wouldn’t have been the only one hit by the backlash. So I
shielded and triggered them so he’d be the only one hit,” Nabiki finished,
smirking. “Nobody important gets hurt, and he gets another lesson in how
incompetent he is.”
“Nabiki, he may be incompetent, but —” Akane started, only to break off when
she noticed Nabiki’s eyes slide toward Ryoga. Right, keep it inside the family.
“Anyway, what’s your problem with being male?” Nabiki hastily asked.
Akane and Ranma exchanged glances. “Well, on our way home ...” Ranma started.
A quick explanation later, and Nabiki was shaking her head. “Another Kuno, as
nuts as the first, that’s just ... wonderful,” she muttered, rubbing her
temples and thinking dark thoughts — she didn’t want to try to kill the girl
(or risk dying if it didn’t work), but maybe if she got a hold of some of her
hair ... “So what does that have to do with you being male?” she asked.
Ranma shrugged, and gestured toward the broken hoop. “First, I’m too big,” he
replied. “Second, guys aren’t build the same way girls are, we don’t walk the
same way, bend the same way — I’m not sure I could curl up tight enough for
some a’ these stunts even if I was small enough. That’s not a problem with
Akane yet, ‘cause we’ve been focusin’ on her speed and gettin’ her caught up on
the basics, but this goes way beyond just speed.”
“Got it, that makes sense,” Nabiki mused. “But as stubborn as you are I doubt
you’re ready to give up, any ideas?”
“Well, actually ...” a little shamefaced, Ranma reached up to scratch under his
ponytail. “I was thinkin’ a’ gettin’ some help from the Amazons. I figure they
have lots a’ experience trainin’ girls, an’ Shampoo was using a couple a’ clubs
when she fought Ryoga.”
“Not a bad idea,” his lover complimented, “how did you intend to pay them?”
“Pay?”
Nabiki rolled her eyes, chuckling. “Of course it didn’t occur to you, you’d do
it for free just to see if you’d learn something in the process. Don’t worry
about it, if need be I’ll pay for it — this is family, after all, and I have
quite a bit salted away. Actually, I’ll come with you. I wanted to visit the
Amazons, anyway. So does the Lost Boy, here,” she added, stepping to the side
out of Ryoga’s way.
Akane and Ranma focused on a suddenly blushing fanged boy, and Ranma grinned.
“Decided ta take ‘em up on their offer, did ya?”
“Yeah, I ... wait, you know about it?” Ryoga demanded, tensing up.
“Yeah, I followed ya after they beat ya down, heard the whole thing,” Ranma
tossed off, then glanced over at a Nabiki suddenly inching to the side, away
from the boy behind her.
“How dare you spy on me!” Ryoga erupted, charging forward.
“Whoa, easy!” Ranma shouted, throwing himself to one side as Akane dove away in
the opposite direction, rolling to her feet braced for action. Ranma
backpedalled as Ryoga followed up, thrusting repeatedly with his umbrella.
“Hold up, I just wanted ta make sure you were all right!” he insisted as he
dropped below another thrust and tried to kick the umbrella out of Ryoga’s hand
even as Akane slammed into the Lost Boy from the side. The larger boy managed
to hold onto his umbrella, but staggered to the side as Akane’s strike combined
with the weight of his backpack to pull him off-balance.
Nabiki took the opportunity to step between the combatants. “That’s enough!”
she shouted. Turning to Ryoga, she said, “Hibiki-san, if you’re going to make
things work with your wives, you have to stop attacking Ranma whenever he
pisses you off — something I’ll admit he seems to have a talent for,” she added
with a smirk over her shoulder at her lover.
“Yeah, right,” Ranma growled, glowering at Ryoga, and Nabiki sobered as a wave
of worried self-disgust from the ponytailed boy washed over her.
Ryoga glowered back, but reluctantly nodded. “Whatever,” he replied, then
paused. His eyes dropped, his cheeks again darkening red. “Uh, could you guys
take me to the park?”
Ranma held the glower for a moment, but finally sighed. “Sure,” he agreed.
“When did ya last eat?”
“Uhhh ... I don’t know,” Ryoga admitted, then winced as his stomach growled.
“Right, I’m sure Kasumi’ll be happy ta feed ya, nothin’ makes her happy like
someone enjoying her cooking. Just don’t try ta leave the kitchen till we come
for ya. Akane, ya want ta use the furo first? I’ll be goin’ in spirit form. I
can clean up after we get back, then we can do our homework while Mom whales
away on ... ah, trains Nabiki.”
“Actually, Mother called me to say we won’t be training tonight, something came
up,” Nabiki broke in to add, with a grimace of her own as she started toward
the dojo entrance. “She said we’ll have to make it up in the morning.”
                                      /\
A few minutes later, Nabiki looked around as she sensed her lover float into
their room through the floor, up from the furo below. She smiled as her eyes
roamed the length of the cute sex spirit on display. As she hoped, she felt her
lover’s mood lighten as the red-haired girl practically wriggled with pleasure
at the wave of lust and love Nabiki sent her. Nabiki spread her arms. “Get over
here,” she said in a husky voice. Ranma eagerly floated over into the hug, her
lips seeking her lover’s as she settled into Nabiki’s lap. After a long moment
of luxuriating in the soft feel of skin against skin, Nabiki broke the kiss and
sighed regretfully as Ranma’s head dropped to rest on her shoulder. “Too bad we
don’t have time for a quickie,” the middle Tendo murmured. “Besides, we don’t
want to disturb your mother.”
“Mom? She’s home? I thought ya said somethin’ came up,” Ranma murmured into the
hollow of Nabiki’s shoulder.
“It did. She’s going to be out late, so she said she’d be coming home early to
get in a nap, first. Oh, and she gotten everything turned in for changing your
family names today.”
“Oh.” Ranma fell silent for a long moment, then sighed. “We might want ta cut
back on the feeding, anyway ... Akane’s complaining about the noise.”
“Oh.” Nabiki felt her cheeks heating. Hastily changing the subject, she asked,
“Ranma, what was your problem with Ryoga, when I broke up the fight?”
“Caught that, did ya?” Ranma felt her lover’s nod press into her hair. “I
wasn’t mad at Ryoga, he was just bein’ stupid. I was mad at me.”
“You?”
“Yeah ... he caught me by surprise. After havin’ Pop jump me whenever I get
careless fer years, after gettin’ ta the point that he almost never catches me
off guard, and I’m surprised by a guy standin’ right in front of me that I’m
watchin’!” Nabiki felt the nature spirit’s arms tighten around her. “It’s this
stupid body, I’m gettin’ ta depend on its senses.”
“Hey, there’s nothing ‘stupid’ about that body! It’s too cute for words,”
Nabiki asserted. She thought back to the night before and the mix of pleasure
and love that had swept through her as her lover’s increasingly skilled fingers
had brought her to climax, and felt Ranma shiver as Nabiki’s lust-filled love
again washed through her. “And if you were normal, would you be able to feel
that?” Ranma shook her head even as she relaxed. “And if you were normal, the
first time we met would have been when your father brought you to the dojo.
That ... would not have gone well.” It was Nabiki’s turn to shiver, as she
thought of how her old bitter and sarcastic self would have reacted to being
told that one of the sisters would have to marry an ignorant, egotistical boy
whose only apparent redeeming feature was that he could beat people up — she’d
probably have dumped him on Akane, and wouldn’t that have worked out
wonderfully!
Ranma shivered again, and not pleasantly this time, at the feelings of guilt
and self-disgust her lover was suddenly radiating. “You’re right, I’m glad
things worked out like they did,” she hastily said. “I’ll just hafta remember
ta be extra careful when I go anywhere as a guy.”
Nabiki took a deep breath and shook off the might-have-beens. “Right, you’re
Saotome Ranma, you never lose. You’ll deal with it, right?”
“Right!”
And I’ll just have to put finding a way to enhance your senses while human at
the top of my list, along with breaking the curse on big sis and the doc,
finding a way to keep you from getting summoned whenever someone uses your name
in the circle, strengthening the wards on everyone even further, surviving
‘Mother’s’ evening training in kenjutsu, somehow getting everyone off my list
of victims without incurring a karmic debt to the imps I used to collect the
blackmail material, and figuring out what to do about a top-level demon trying
to recruit me.
For a moment Nabiki quailed under the weight of her accumulated tasks and
problems, only to yelp when Ranma reached right through her bra to tweak a
nipple. “None a’ that, not while I’m around!” the nature spirit insisted,
leaning back and grinning at the pageboy-haired girl.
Nabiki giggled. “Right, I have you on my side, how can I lose?”
“Damn straight!” Ranma agreed, floating up and away from her seat in her
lover’s lap to strike a noble, self-confident pose. The effect was more than a
little spoiled by the nature spirit’s tiny, cute, and especially naked
appearance, and Nabiki’s giggles turned into laughter even as she felt herself
heating up again.
A knock sounded on the doorframe of the open door, and the two looked over at
Akane, standing there smiling at the scene, what she could see and sense of it.
Nabiki returned the smile as she realized that this time there was nothing
mixed about the pleasure her younger sister was taking in their happiness. She
doubted Akane’s complete acceptance was permanent, but the girl was coming
around.
“I’m ready,” Akane said, shaking her head and giggling a little, herself.
“Let’s get Ryoga and get going, maybe we can be back in time for dinner. Unless
you two are too busy?”
Nope, we’re good!” Ranma said hastily.
Akane’s giggle turned into a laugh. “Gotcha!” she called back over her shoulder
as she turned to lead the way back to the stairs.
***** The Newest Amazon *****
Ku Lon finished of the last of her meager supper, and gazed down into her empty
bowl for a long moment before sighing and setting it to the side. It was a
perfectly useable bowl, its only fault that it had become an empty one too
quickly. The Amazons were on half-rations, and even then their supplies and the
yen to buy more would be gone all too quickly.
“Supplies are getting low.”
Ku Lon glanced up at the abrupt opening conversational gambit in the local
Japanese, and nodded to her life-long rival balancing on her Elder’s staff.
“True,” she agreed in the same language, motioning for Dao Paz to dismount and
join her.
As Dao Paz dropped off her staff and joined her, Ku Lon considered the odd
twists life could take. The two had been rivals for all their lives, and not
friendly ones — while neither would have dreamed of putting the tribe at risk,
likewise neither had hesitated to stick it to the other when the opportunity
arose. As a result, she had not been looking forward to spending long weeks in
her rival’s company, unable to put any real distance between them, and the
inevitable rancor to come.
The actual outcome had been very different — the way they’d been forced to
spend extended time in each other’s company had forced them to seek common
ground out of sheer self-defense, and they’d found it in their shared concern
for the future of the tribe. After centuries of bitter sparring it was probably
too late for them to become friends, but they weren’t precisely enemies
anymore, either.
Dao Paz waited for Ku Lon to continue, then chuckled when the silence
lengthened. “So, have you been considering ways to deal with that?” she asked.
“We cannot buy any more food, what money we have left will be needed to pay for
our trip home. And the hunting in this area isn’t exactly promising.”
Ku Lon sighed, turning look out across the late afternoon park. “I have been
seriously considering sending several of the warriors to the countryside —
surely the masses of people swarming this island like bees in a hive haven’t
hunted out all of the prey!”
“Hmm ... possible, that. Dangerous, though — in a land this crowded, any land
empty enough to have prey large enough to be worth hunting that far away from
here must be owned by someone. She is likely to object.”
“True,” Ku Lon again agreed with a shrug. “It would give our warriors an
opportunity to practice their stealth.” Holding up a hand to hold off her
rival’s rebuttal, she added, “But yes, the consequences of being caught, while
likely not as serious as poaching on Musk land, would be bad enough. Do you
have an alternative?”
“A partial one, at least,” Dao Paz admitted. “I was thinking — and Lo Shun
agrees — that since you no longer need our presence for judgment, and the
Husband Hunt that the warriors came along for is complete, we should return to
the village with all the warriors except for Xian Pu while you stay here with
her and Pa Fum to await the Wanderer’s decision. We can leave you the funds
that would pay for your own trip home, that would feed you for some time if you
are careful, and able to supplement it — that should be easier for three than
seventeen, and easier for three to make their way back without funds later. In
truth, I’m surprised even men have allowed a group of armed warriors even as
small as ours to camp on their lands as long as we have without saying
anything.”
She paused for a moment, then reluctantly continued, “Ku Lon, I agree with you
on the need to at least establish an outpost elsewhere, away from our village,
but was doubtful that this island was the place to do it. Since our arrival, I
have become even more so. How are we to live? There are no wide open areas
available for farming that someone isn’t already using, and you’ve already
noted the problems with hunting. Then, even if you can find a place for us
among these hordes of sheep, everything is simply so expensive! And even if you
do manage to find some way to earn the money we’d need to support a
sufficiently large outpost ... I know you were hoping for some alteration to
our ways, but here our traditions wouldn’t just be modified, they’d be plowed
under. No, my old enemy, we are going to have to think of something else.”
After a brief struggle with herself, Ku Lon nodded with a sigh — truth was
truth, after all, however little she liked it. “At the moment, I have to agree,
I see no path forward here, either. Still, with your suggestion I have more
time to perhaps have something come up to open up that path. Remember the story
Jason MacKenzie told us all those decades ago, about the horse learning to
sing? It did then, to the music of high explosives. Perhaps it will, now.”
Dao Paz, chuckled softly. “Perhaps, we shall see. And I will even do my best to
resist the temptation to undercut your position on the Council while you search
for that singing horse.”
“Oh, thank you! You are truly generous!” Ku Lon enthused.
Dao Paz’s chuckling turned into laughter soon joined by Ku Lon’s, only for the
amusement to cut off at the approach of one of the warriors on guard duty. The
young warrior stopped before the two elders and bowed in respect. “Honored
Elders, the Wanderer, the younger two Tendo sisters, and they tell me the sex
spirit wish admittance to the camp.”
Ku Lon nodded to the guard. “Of course, Lu Lu, inform Lo Shun, find the
Wanderer’s wives and ask them to join us here, then bring in the visitors.”
The warrior bowed again and left, and the two elders exchanged glances. “Well,
that was quick,” Dao Paz murmured. “Perhaps you will be returning with us,
after all.”
“We’ll see,” Ku Lon replied, as she caught sight of Xian Pu and Pa Fum
approaching. “But unlikely — of the four Wanderers to encounter the tribe after
the first, three accepted, after all. And the one that refused was already
married. But we will know soon enough.”
                                      /\
Akane, arms full with manuals, ribbons and clubs the Rhythmic Gymnastics team
had loaned them, glanced around curiously as she and Nabiki followed one of the
warrior women that had intercepted them when they’d approached the Amazon camp,
Ryoga behind them with his packpack and the sense of presence that was Ranma
floating along above and slightly to the side of the succubus’s fiancée. The
raven-haired Tendo had been appalled when she was told about the Kisses, though
more for the sake of the women forced to marry possible rapists than the men —
what man wouldn’t be happy to wed and bed one of the magnificent specimens of
womanhood she could see around her in the late afternoon sunlight? But for
women forced into the beds of strange men ... she shivered at the thought. Why
a society dedicated to female supremacy would come up with such repressive
rules completely escaped her.
Though it isn’t like they’re alone in that, is it? she thought, remembering the
pact her father had entered into with Ranma’s father. She knew her father loved
all his daughters, yet he had been perfectly willing to force one of them into
an arranged marriage with a ... okay, Ranma wasn’t a pervert, but his curse
forced him ... her ... to act like she was. Akane understood that it wasn’t the
same thing, but she still had trouble believing it. Only the night Ranma had
spent in her dreams showing her the vision the succubus had seen the night she
was introduced to the Voice made that possible at all, and Akane glanced at
Nabiki and shuddered as she thought of how things would have gone without the
cursed boy and Nabiki meeting first. She was the logical one of the sisters to
fulfill the pact, after all — and become the focus of the part-time succubus’s
needs. As much as she loved Nabiki, what her older sister was doing with her
fiancé simply wasn’t normal — for a human, at least.
Nabiki glanced at her, and Akane blushed, fighting not to glance up and back at
the empty air where Ranma floated, as she remembered that both her sister and
Ranma would be sensing her sudden disgust. But her sister simply raised an
eyebrow and turned her attention back to the Amazons they were approaching. An
Akane eager for a distraction from the path her thoughts had taken hastily
followed suit.
The Nerimans’ guide led them up to the same three shrunken gnomes of ancient
women she had seen at the tail end of Ranma’s and Ryoga’s fight at the school,
sitting in a row with their staves lying on the grass beside them, with two
girls sitting slightly off to one side — the girl that had been injured when
she interrupted that fight, and the one that had examined her. They must be
Ryoga’s new wives, Akane thought, glancing at the Lost Boy out of the corner of
her eye as he came up beside her. From the way he was stealing glances at the
two girls and blushing, it was a safe guess.
“Please, sit,” one of the crones said, the one that had taken the lead at the
school. She waved at the grass in front of her. “Except for Ranma, of course,”
she added, looking at the empty air where Ranma’s presence hovered, “but I
suppose you can float on top of the grass.” Akane sat and laid down her armful
on the grass in front of her, Nabiki and Ryoga on each side of her, Ranma’s
presence settling down on the other side of her fiancée. The crone went on to
reintroduce herself and introduce her fellow crones and Ryoga’s new wives,
Nabiki reciprocating. (Am I hearing those right? Cologne, Lotion, Daipers,
Shampoo, Perfume? What kind of names are those?)
Introductions made, Ku Lon went on to offer them refreshments (which they
declined, with the excuse they’d just eaten), asked about things that had
struck her during her time in Japan (both currently and during an earlier
trip), made comparisons to her tribe in China, and more small talk until Akane
was about ready to burst with pent-up impatience — until she caught the elder’s
brief sly glance toward the two Amazon teenagers. Pa Fum was calm enough to do
Kasumi proud, eyes shyly downcast, but her companion was all but dancing where
she sat, apparently held in place only by Pa Fum’s hand resting on one
shoulder.
Finally, with a sly glance of her own at the twitchy teenager, Nabiki said,
“This is interesting, but perhaps we should move on to business? It is getting
a little late, and if we delay much longer Shampoo may explode.”
“Perhaps you are right, child,” Ku Lon blandly replied, “though my great-
granddaughter has need of practice in the patience befitting an elder.” Xian Pu
stiffened, eyes widening, and Ku Lon nodded to her. “Your patience so far has
been exemplary ... for one of your age and temperament. You will learn better
in time.”
“Yes, Honored Elder,” Xian Pu replied, an undeniable edge to her polite words.
A faint snort of amusement came from her co-wife beside her, and a chuckling Ku
Lon turned to Ryoga. “In truth, Wanderer, we did not expect a response this
quickly. But you have come to a decision?”
Ryoga nodded jerkily. “Y-Yes-s, Elder Cologne, I have. I a-accept,” he
stammered.
Ku Lon bowed to the now blushing boy where he sat and motioned toward the two
Amazonian teenagers. “Very well, son-in-law, you are very welcome to the tribe.
Please, take your place with your wives.”
Blushing furiously, Ryoga easily rose from his seat beside Akane, seemingly
unaffected by his massive backpack, and the two co-wives made room as he sat
stiffly between them.
As he settled, Ku Lon said, “While by our laws you are already married, we
could hold your own marriage ceremonies if you wish ... ?”
Ryoga shook his head, and Akane could almost see his mood darkening, a faint
greenish glow of ki that only top-ranked martial artists could see springing up
around him. (Admittedly, Akane thought to herself, that probably includes
everyone here except Nabiki and maybe ... Perfume, was it?) “No,” Ryoga managed
to get out, “it would be for my parents, and who knows where they are? Your
word’s good enough.”
“Very well,” Ku Lon acknowledged, as the older co-wife reached up to lay a
gentle hand on her husband’s shoulder, her face sympathetic. He twitched at the
contact, but took a deep breath and managed a weak smile in return, his sickly
green aura dimming slightly.
Ku Lon watched the exchange with a small smile, then turned to the Tendo
sisters and their succubus in-law, glancing at the pile of weapons and books in
front of Akane. “I am grateful that you brought us our Wanderer,” she said,
“but I doubt you thought all three of you were needed. Is there something we
can do for you in return?”
“Yes, there is,” Akane heard Ranma say from the other side of Nabiki, and the
succubus quickly explained about the upcoming competition and the need for
training.
Ku Lon listened, examined the clubs and ribbon, then picked up a manual. As she
looked through the pictures of the various techniques, Nabiki hesitantly said,
“Please don’t take offense, but we understand that training outsiders isn’t
something you would typically do. We can pay —”
But Ku Lon was shaking her head. “I am not offended, child. As you say we would
not ordinarily train those not members of the tribe, and right now the yen
would be welcome. But from what I can tell, none of this is close enough to
anything the Amazons practice — not even the clubs, they are much lighter than
what we typically use, as much for throwing as hand to hand. And these ribbons
here and the hoops in these pictures —”
“I can train her.” Everyone turned to stare at Ryoga. All trace of the earlier
greenish aura was gone, the teenager sitting straight. “My family style has a
strong weapons component. That’s why Ranma always won out in our competition
for the bread,” he added, glaring at the empty space where the nature spirit’s
voice had come from. “The principal wouldn’t let me carry my weapons while at
school — not even my bandanas.” Rising, he strode over to pick up one of the
ribbons from in front of Akane, then walked away from the gathering to a spot
behind and to the side of Akane, Nabiki and Ranma where all could see him. As
Akane turned around where she sat, he held the short stick the ribbon was
attached to against his chest, the ribbon itself stretched taut from the
stick’s tip to run between the middle fingers of an outthrust hand. He held the
pose for a long moment, until between one breath and the next he was abruptly
in motion, the ribbon spiraling outward, ki-drenched from stick to tip for all
but Nabiki to see.
“Whoa!” Akane breathed.
“Ya got that right!” came Ranma’s voice.
Nabiki simply nodded, wide-eyed.
Ryoga turned to look at Nabiki. “I believe you said something about a fee?” he
asked with a smirk.
***** Fighting in All Fairness *****
Akane sighed as she dropped the manuals, clubs and ribbons on the floor of the
dojo and turned to shuffle toward the door before forcing herself to stop — if
she left everything in a pile there, Ranma was going to beat her around the
head and shoulders the next time they sparred. Of course, with her training
with Ryoga that would be at least until after the match in a week, maybe by
then Ranma would have forgotten? And do you really want to count on that?
With another sigh, she turned back and bent over, aching muscles protesting as
she slowly sorted out the various weapons and neatly placed them along the wall
before picking up the books — Ryoga had pushed her really hard in their
impromptu training session. Not exactly how she had planned to spend the late
afternoon and early evening, but with only a week they had to get in all the
training she could. That didn’t change the fact that she still had homework,
though.
Shuffling back toward the house, she caught the scent of Kasumi’s cooking and
changed direction toward the kitchen entrance. Kasumi looked up from the stove
as she came through the door before turning her attention back to her cooking.
“Oh, Akane, you’re back. Are the others with you?”
“No, not yet,” Akane replied. “When we finished my training for the evening,
Ranma and Nabiki stayed behind to ...” To discuss how the Amazons could help
break the curse on you and Dr. Tofu. “ ... to discuss some magic stuff.” She
shrugged with forced nonchalance — as shocked as she’d been when she found out
that Dr. Tofu had been cursed, and furious that her saintly mother figure of an
older sister had been caught up in it, it was still magic, and it still made
her queasy just thinking about it. Besides, she wasn’t sure just how much
Kasumi knew. “Nothing to do with me, so I didn’t wait.”
Kasumi glanced up at her youngest sister at the hesitation in her reply, but
turned back to her cooking without commenting on it. “I see. In that case you
can join me for dinner after you clean up. I’ll but Nabiki’s and Ranma’s dinner
aside for them to reheat when they get home.”
“Father, Auntie Nodoka and Saotome-san are out?”
“Yes, Father had a Council meeting, and Auntie got up from her nap and left not
long after you three and Ryoga. She said not to wait up, she would be very
late. I believe Saotome-san left about the same time, I haven’t seen him
since,” Kasumi replied as she lifted a small pot off the stove’s burner. “Now
hurry up, before dinner gets cold.”
“Yes, Mother,” Akane said with a teasing grin as she turned for the door, and
Kasumi smiled happily.
                                     /oOo\
Ranma floated alongside Nabiki as the two made their way home from the Amazons’
camp through Nerima’s nighttime streets. It had been a productive meeting, at
least according to Nabiki — Ranma had been quickly lost in Ku Lon and Nabiki’s
freewheeling discussion about their respective methods of breaking curses and
how they could be integrated into a single ritual. It had apparently gone over
Xian Pu and Pa Fum’s heads as well, and the two girls had excused themselves to
‘get to know their husband better’, a comment that, along with the accompanying
emotions, had had Nabiki smirking and Ranma blushing even as she chuckled (not
giggled!) at Ryoga’s sudden panic.
“So I figured if ya give the people you’ve been blackmailin’ a chance ta help
find where the scrolls go that Pop stole an’ I can’t figure out from where,”
the succubus said, “any that actually find one can get off yer books without
that whatchacallit debt ta the imps kickin’ in.”
Nabiki nodded, turning her head to look at her lover (and taking the
opportunity to discreetly check that the imp shadowing them was too far back to
overhear their conversation). “Karmic debt, and that’s not a bad idea. Just be
careful that you don’t include anything possibly dangerous in what we pass on
to them for identification.”
“Right, ya got it,” Ranma agreed.
The two fell silent, simply enjoying each other’s presence — and each other’s
enjoyment of that presence — for several minutes before Nabiki sighed. “So,
just how well did Akane really do, tonight?” she asked.
Ranma hesitated. “She did ... she did good,” she replied. “She really put a lot
of effort inta it, worked hard.”
“But not good enough, is it?” Nabiki pressed, noting the succubus’s
uncertainty. “Not when the competition is in just one week.”
Ranma squirmed where she floated along, then slumped with a sigh, uncertainty
shifting to dejection. “Probably not,” she reluctantly agreed. “Like I said,
she’s really tryin’ hard, an’ Royga’s actually not too bad a sensei. If it was
a stand-up fight instead a’ this game Kodachi wouldn’t stand a chance — maybe
if Akane dropped school fer the week ...”
Her voice trailed off as Nabiki shook her head. “Not happening,” the middle
Tendo said, “even if she was willing, Kasumi would never allow it.”
“Yeah,” Ranma agreed unhappily. “An’ as much as you’re insistin’ I study, ya
girls probably aren’t wrong. It’s just ... I really hate ta lose. I wish there
was some way I could do the trainin’, an’ pass it on ta Akane.”
“So do I,” Nabiki agreed, then stiffened as a thought struck her, stumbling
when she missed a step.
Ranma caught her elbow, and found herself getting flung around as Nabiki
struggled for balance. By the time the pageboy-haired girl had managed that,
her balance was almost as threatened by her laughter at the way the chagrin her
fiancé was now radiating matched the look on her face. “Yeah, laugh it up,” the
redhead grumbled, “I’ll figure it out sooner or later. What happened, ya okay?”
“I’m fine, just had a thought,” Nabiki replied, then glanced around and lowered
her voice, just in case their shadow had sped up to close the distance when
they stepped out of sight. “But it would need Akane’s cooperation to work, and
since it involves magic —”
The two had passed through the front gates of the dojo, and Ranma glanced
through the translucent house — there was Kasumi, cleaning up in the family
room, Akane up in her bedroom, and — “Kodachi, she’s here!” Instantly, the
succubus’s wings flashed out from her back, and she vanished through the door
into the house.
Nabiki gaped in shock for a moment before Ranma’s words fully registered, then
she was charging for the door herself.
                                      /\
A few minutes earlier:
Akane was feeling much better when she walked into her bedroom, dressed in her
pajamas — nothing like one of Kasumi’s dinners and a long soak in the furo for
sore muscles afterward to brighten one’s outlook. Not even the homework waiting
for her in the bookbag by her bed could dampen her mood. The cool breeze from
the open window felt good on her furo-heated body, even through her nightwear.
Wait, I didn’t open the window —
The only warning she had was the creak of a loose floorboard behind her, but it
was enough. She dove forward as the sound of something smashing into the floor
resounded behind her, landed on her bed, and spun around as she rose to a
crouch to find the girl that ‘Ranko’ had briefly tangled with that afternoon
standing behind her bedroom door.  She was dressed in a purple leotard and sash
and wearing a jeweled amulet, the head of a sledgehammer embedded in the floor
in front of her.
“My floor! Do you know how much it’s going to cost to fix that?!” Akane
screamed at Kodachi.
The raven-haired girl tossed her off-center ponytail back over shoulder as she
shrugged dismissively. “Such sordid concerns are a matter for peasants such as
yourself, not a Kuno. Now, let us compete in all fairness!” Yanking the
sledgehammer up from the hole it had made, she charged forward and swung
sideways for Akane’s stomach.
Akane dove up over the swing, hands bracing on top of the gymnast’s head, and
flipped up and over her. She twisted as she flew to land by the door facing
into the room, even as her use of her opponent as a brace sent Kodachi
sprawling across the bed.
“You call ambushing your opponents ‘competing in all fairness’?” Akane
demanded.
“ ‘Ambush’, such a nasty way to put it,” Kodachi replied, rolling off the bed
and back to her feet, hefting the sledgehammer. “I simply believe in ‘fighting
in all fairness’ before the match.”
She lifted the sledgehammer above her head as she again charged forward.
Akane tilted to the side as she side kicked up, her foot slamming into the
gymnast’s wrists above Kodachi’s head and knocking the sledgehammer out of her
hands to sail back through the open window.
Kodachi stumbled at the abrupt shift in her center of balance and slammed into
the wall beside the door. Turning to face her opponent, she dropped, then
bounced off the wall again before tumbling to the side as Akane’s reverse
roundhouse kick clipped the top of her head.
Akane’s heel imbedded itself in the wall, and she hopped for balance as she
yanked her foot out of the new hole before turning to find Kodachi perched on
her bed. “Yeah, right, ‘all fairness’,” she mocked. “You’re as crazy as your
brother.”
Kodachi stiffened, fists clenching. “Do not ever compare me to that deluded
buffoon!” she snarled. She crouched, ready to leap at Akane, then paused to
reconsider as she observed the other girl’s defensive stance. “The rumors are
true, you are good, aren’t you?” she mused as she slipped her ribbon out of her
sash. “So, I will take my leave, until we meet again, Tendo Akane!
Ohohohohohohoho!”
The ribbon swirled out, and with it an explosion of rose petals filled the
room, obscuring Akane’s vision. “What?! Get back here!” she shouted as she
charged into the settling cloud of petals, then “umphed” as her legs caught on
her bed and she barely kept herself from splitting her chin open on the
windowsill. Pulling herself up, she looked out the window Kodachi had to have
jumped out of and down into the yard.
                                      /\
Kodachi laughed as she dove out the Tendo peasant’s window, spinning to get her
feet underneath her. (Laughed, not cackled. Cackling was a completely different
sound, a barbaric hacking of the lowborn — even if it served the same purpose
as her own refined, spine-tingling, knees-loosening laughter.) So her little
visit hadn’t gone as intended, it was but a minor setback. There would be many
opportunities to again seek out Akane over the next week, to once again prove
the superiority of the Kuno over the common herd. Nor would that lowborn
peasant find it so easy next time to hold Kodachi off from her rightful course!
Then the ground was rushing up to meet her, she braced herself for the impact —
and unseen hands grabbed her shoulders and yanked, she spun in the air, and all
the air left her lungs as she slammed back first onto the lawn.
Even with the grass to soften the blow her sight was spangled from her head’s
impact, and she fought to suck air back into her temporarily paralyzed chest.
Finally she managed to unlock her chest muscles and suck in the fragrant
nighttime air, just as she felt someone settle on top of her, straddling her
stomach — but there was no one there! Why wasn’t her talisman showing her
anything?! “Akane, you okay?” the same voice she had encountered earlier that
afternoon called up to the window she had just leaped out of.
“I’m fine, take out the garbage!” the Tendo commoner called down.
“You got it!” Ranko’s voice shouted back, and a still-woozy Kodachi began to
shake as she felt the apparently ample breasts of the spirit press against her
own, flesh against flesh right through her leotard even as Akane’s voice echoed
down to them again: “Hey, who’s going to clean up this mess?!” Unseen hair
brushed across Kodachi’s face, and Ranko’s voice murmured in her ear: “Listen
close, you’re gonna want ta get this right the first time. I’m gonna be
hauntin’ Akane every minute of every day before yer match, and if I see ya
anywhere close ta her before then you’ll hafta forfeit, ‘cause you’re gonna be
in the hospital.”
Then the pressure of the spirit’s flesh against her own vanished from on top of
her, hands pushed under her shoulders to pick her up, she was lifting up into
the air, over the dojo compound’s wall ... and just as suddenly she was in
freefall again, barely managing to curl into a roll, feeling the rough surface
of the road digging into her shoulders and back and scraping her knees. “An’
don’t come back!” Ranko called out from somewhere above her.
Kodachi staggered to her feet and looked around wildly, and of course saw
nothing beyond a normal nighttime Nerima street. Sucking in shuddering breath
after shuddering breath, she clenched her fists. “How ... how dare they t-t-
treat a Kuno in such a fashion,” she murmured, determinedly ignoring the tremor
in her voice. Still, perhaps it would be best to leave her opponent alone until
the competition just this once — a Kuno was supposed to be the ambusher, not
the victim, after all, and it appeared the Tendo’s spirit ally had the
advantage. She would simply have to redouble her training and consider what
kind of special tools to bring next Tuesday.
But first, I need to have a ... discussion ... with the tradesman that sold me
this amulet.
                                     /oOo\
“Here you go.” Nabiki handed her older sister her bag of rose petals, quickly
followed by a still fuming Akane (except when her eyes crossed the hole in the
wall she’d punched with her heel, when the anger coming off her in waves was
tinged with a large dollop of guilt — Kasumi had visibly flinched when she’d
seen it).
Kasumi smiled her thanks as she added them to her own bag. “Will you and Ranma
be eating now? she asked.
“Give us a few minutes and we’ll be down,” Nabiki replied. Kasumi nodded and
left to warm up the dinners.
Nabiki waited until she heard her sister’s steps on the stairs, then turned
back into the room to find Akane pulling text books from her school bag. “Hold
up, Akane, there’s something we need to talk about first,” Nabiki said. Then,
at Ranma’s questioning look from where the redhead was floating by the window,
she added, “The thought I had just before you saw Kodachi jumping out the
window.”
“Gotcha.” Ranma looked back out over the yard, and Nabiki assumed the street
beyond the compound wall, glanced around the room, ceiling and floor as well as
the walls, and shrugged before floating away from the window into the center of
the room. “Looks like that nutcase isn’t comin’ back, at least right now. I’ll
be goin’ ta school as Ranko, though, just ta be sure. Whatcha got?”
Nabiki’s eyebrows rose as she realized just what the determination Ranma had
been emoting, the equal of Akane’s fury, had been about. She glanced at her
sister and quickly decided that mentioning that Ranma had been standing guard
would not be a good idea. Instead, she sat down in the chair at Akane’s desk
and motioned for her sister to sit on the bed. Akane and Ranma really weren’t
going to like this, but perhaps they were angry enough to go along, anyway.
As soon as Nabiki was seated Ranma drifted over to settle in her lap, and her
arms automatically circled the redhead’s waist to gently hug her.
Akane plopped down on her bed and pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged. “Save
it for your room, you two,” she groused, rolling her eyes, “or better yet a
love hotel — the soundproofing is better.” But the emotion she was radiating
was resigned affection, and Nabiki smiled softly at her — a smile she’d never
show to anyone outside the family, and only recently to anyone inside it — as
she reflected that, in spite of the headaches all the fear and hatred at school
could give her, being an empath was a good thing. From the feel of Ranma’s
chuckle against her chest, she suspected her fiancé agreed with her.
Akane stuck out her tongue, Nabiki assumed at Ranma even if the youngest Tendo
couldn’t see her exactly, then asked, “All right, big sis, what do you want to
talk about? I really have to get to my school work, and so should Ranma after
he eats.”
Right, to business. Nabiki sighed and released Ranma to gently push the
succubus off her lap. “You’ll want to be able to see me for this,” she told
her. Ranma nodded and drifted to the other side of the room where she could see
both Akane and her fiancée.
Once Ranma was settled, Nabiki turned back to her sister. “Tell me, Akane, just
how badly do you want to beat the nutcase that just visited?” She smiled
mirthlessly as Akane’s good mood vanished in a wave of fury. “Don’t bother
answering, your emotions make that clear.  But there’s a problem — you aren’t
going to be able to learn enough in a week to pull it off.”
“What!” Akane shouted, and this time her anger wasn’t directed at their recent
visitor. She turned toward where she sensed Ranma floating. “But ... but what
about what you and Ryoga said tonight?!”
Ranma shifted uncomfortably. Reluctance clear in her tone, she said, “That was
mostly Ryoga, but he was right, ya did good tonight. Ya really threw yerself
into the training, ya listened, you’re catchin’ on good ... but not good enough
— not ta face Kodachi in only a week. Especially since it isn’t gonna be a
straight-up fight — if it was, you’d mop the floor with her. And d’ya really
think she isn’t gonna cheat during the match as much as she is before? Sure, if
I let ya compete you’ll put up a good fight, but you’ll still lose.”
“And that will just feed that arrogant bitch’s ego,” Nabiki added.
Akane froze, mouth already open for her shouted rebuttal, then closed her mouth
and shook her head. “So what do we do?” she asked, voice sullen. “We can’t just
forfeit, that’s just as bad.”
“We cheat,” Nabiki said firmly, “and we do it right — so that no one knows we
did it.” Cutting off the gathering protest from both the martial artists, she
quickly added, “If it makes the two of you uncomfortable, we can insist that
Akane’s name be left off of any awards and presentations. But this isn’t about
finding out who’s best, it’s about teaching that Kuno a lesson.”
The other two teenagers glanced toward each other, and finally nodded
reluctantly. “Yeah, that’d probably be best,” Ranma agreed. “So how do we do
it? Ya said earlier it was magic?”
“Yes, it is,” Nabiki agreed. “Remember how you said you wished there was some
way you could do the training and pass it on to Akane? There is ... maybe. I’ll
have to do some quick research and talk it over with Mother, but offhand I
can’t see why it shouldn’t work if Akane agrees to go along.”
Leaning forward in her seat, she continued, “When I was doing my self-training
in magic, I came across a ritual for making someone what the gaijin call a
spirit warrior or champion. The person at the center of the ritual is offering
to bind himself to a powerful spirit — the exact opposite of binding a
familiar. Just what that means will vary from spirit to spirit; some will
insist on codes of conduct, maybe give them missions, while others will give
their champions pretty much a free rein. I didn’t pay much attention to it at
the time, because it isn’t something our own spirits do much.” And I wasn’t
willing to give up that kind of control over me to anyone.
“But what’s important here is what the champions get out of it — they can
summon their chosen spirit, for a kind of possession. A possessed champion is
still in control, but he takes on some of the personality traits of his spirit,
and a measure of the spirit’s skills — the level of skill determined by the
skills of both the champion and the god, and the strength of the link.”
Glancing over at Ranma, Nabiki grinned. “Mind, as wonderful as I think you are,
you aren’t that powerful a spirit. I suspect that means you can help only one
person you’re linked to at a time, and when you do you’ll actually be pulled
into the body of whoever is calling on you. But you should be able to refuse
any summons if you choose ... and we might be able to break the connection
after the match.”
She turned her attention back to her sister to find the raven-haired girl now
had her knees pulled up against her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs,
her anger from before now mixed with uncertainty and fear. Her eyes were
shuttling back and forth between her sister and the to her apparently empty air
where Ranma was floating. “Ranma-sensei, do you really think I can’t learn
enough in time?” she asked.
Unseen by her student, Ranma rubbed the back of her neck under her free-
floating scarlet mane. “Well ... maybe ... probably. Nabs says she has ta
research it, so it’s not like we’re gonna do it right away. Nabs, how long will
ya take?”
It was Nabiki’s turn to shrug, hiding a wince at the spike of anguished
humiliation from her sister. “I’m not even sure it’ll be possible. My book has
the basic ritual with suggestions for how to fill in the blanks for various
spirits — Western ‘gods’, mostly — but Mother and I’ll need to see how you fit
in.”
“Okay, so why don’t I train with Akane while you an’ Mom do that, then when you
get it figured out we’ll see if Akane’s doin’ good enough ta go it alone,”
Ranma suggested. “But we’ll need ta have at least a few days before the
competition — that whole ‘men don’t move the same way as women’ thing, even if
we do end up shovin’ me inta Akane and she gets some a’ my skill, she’ll need a
few days ta adjust ta the difference.”
Nabiki nodded thoughtfully, glancing sideways at her sister. She didn’t know if
Ranma had stumbled into it or done it deliberately, but Akane had relaxed her
grip on her legs and the humiliation she’d been broadcasting had eased off at
the suggestion that even with the merger, winning would depend on her own
efforts. “That sounds reasonable,” Nabiki agreed. “Though it will mean pushing
back our first attempt to break the curse on Kasumi and Dr. Tofu another
weekend. That might not be a bad idea, anyway, it’ll give me and Mother more
time to talk things over with the Amazons. Akane?” When her younger sister
reluctantly nodded, she continued, “Now, Ranma, why don’t you head down to the
furo and meet me in the family room for dinner? I imagine Kasumi’s waiting for
us by now.”
Ranma glanced down at ... snd through ... the floor she could barely see and
nodded. “Yeah, she is, see ya there.” A moment later she was gone.
Nabiki rose to her feet and strode toward the door, only to pause for a long
moment before turning back and plopping down on the bed beside Akane and
pulling her into a brief hug. “You really surprised me tonight, little sis,
that took real courage. Kasumi’s going to be proud of you when she hears about
it.” With that, she rose and headed off to dinner, leaving her sister behind
her slack-jawed with shock.
***** The Night Shift *****
Xian Pu stared down at her husband. The muscular teenager was flat on his back,
a trickle of blood oozing from his nose.
Beside her, her co-wife sighed. “I think you got a little overeager,” Pa Fum
said, also looking down at the unconscious Ryoga. She glanced up at her Second
Wife, blushed, and quickly looked back down.
Xian Pu looked down at her generous bare breasts framed by her open blouse,
nipples crinkled tight with desire. Why was her First Wife embarrassed? There
was no nudity taboo between warriors at the village, and they often bathed
together after workouts so it wasn’t like Pa Fum hadn’t seen many a bare breast
before — even a certain amount of caressing when a couple got too eager
(usually just before the rest of the women in the tub would dunk the overly
amorous pair and insist they find a room out of sight if not out of hearing).
Xian Pu had actually shared a tub with Pa Fum a few times, and the apprentice
healer had never shown the least hint of embarrassment ... or desire, come to
think of it. So why now?
{You know that as Second Wife you’ll be expected to share my bed and ... and
see to my needs?}
Pa Fum’s words from the night after Xian Pu’s fight with Ryoga came to mind,
and a grin spread across Xian Pu’s face as she realized exactly ‘why now’ — her
co-wife was actually thinking about her as a bedmate, and not just for sharing
blankets like they had been doing since the night they’d agreed to share their
Husband. She opened her mouth to suggest that the two carry on without him,
only to pause as she remembered her great-grandmother’s advice the next
morning, on the need to nudge Pa Fum along, not push — how they needed a
strong, self-confident Pa Fum, a true First Wife, not a mouthpiece for whatever
Xian Pu thought. How above all else, Xian Pu could not dominate her co-wife, in
anything. No, she would just have to wait, even if the village Champion had
gone from being able to have any unattached boy and many of the warriors in
training she wanted (something she’d taken liberal advantage of) to famine,
first alone then surrounded by couples, with a bashful First Wife and a Husband
that couldn’t even look at her properly.
Xian Pu sighed and began doing up her blouse again. Like the stunt her great-
grandmother had pulled on her that afternoon, it was one more lesson in
patience that she clearly needed. {Perhaps,} she replied in their native tongue
— with their Husband unconscious, there was no point sticking to a Japanese
language that had to make her sound like an idiot. {But I just can’t believe
our Husband is so ... so damaged. What if he is never capable of giving us
children?}
{If time doesn’t cure him, we will think of something else. And this will give
us time to ... grow more accustomed to each other,} Pa Fum replied. To Xian
Pu’s surprise there was even a hint of firmness in the tone — though that might
be because her co-wife was thinking of their Husband as a patient? She had no
trouble being both firm and decisive where the wellbeing of her patients was
concerned. Not that that was necessarily a good thing here....
Xian Pu grinned at a sudden thought. {It looks to be a clear night tonight, why
don’t we get our blankets and bed down right here? Maybe it’ll help Husband
grow more accustomed to us if he wakes up with a Wife on each arm.}
Pa Fum was blushing again, bright enough to be visible in the fading light, but
she nodded her agreement. {We’ll need a few more blankets, but it’s a good
idea. Let’s do it.}
                                     /oOo\
Still hidden behind by the Umisenken, Genma looked up at the apartment building
his wife had just entered. While his cloaking technique hid him from sight and
ki-sense (though as Ranma had reminded him a few nights ago, not from all
senses), unlike his sometime-succubus ‘daughter’ it didn’t allow him to pass
through walls. Or doors, such as the one that had automatically locked before
he had a chance to get through it behind his ex-wife. Okay, you can do this, he
thought. You were able to sort out No-chan’s — Tatsuno-san’s ki-signature on
the train while you were riding on the top, and there are a fewer people here.
There were more walls, though, and he’d tracked her on the crowded train by
picking up her signature as she exited the car....
Shaking off his doubts, the sometime-panda circled the building, checking out
the first floor apartments with lights on in the early evening dusk ...
nothing. He leaped up a level, then across the tiny balconies each apartment on
the upper levels had. Still nothing — at least, no Nodoka. There were people
home, and for long minutes he stared through a glass door at one young woman on
her hands and knees, squealing in time to her swinging bare breasts and the wet
slap of flesh on flesh as a sweat-coated man hammered into her from the rear.
Finally, Genma forced himself to turn away and move on. At least Iammoving on,
he thought, forcing down a slight spurt of concerned shame. I amnotlike the
Master — it isn’t like I was looking through their door just to watch them,
andhewould have been through the glass and all over her, everything else
forgotten. The balding martial artist ignored the passing thought that it had
been awhile since his last woman — since before leaving for China — and if it
was a bad idea to try to pick up a one night stand at a bar in Nerima or use
some of his earnings to find a prostitute, he could always watch. No one would
even know he was there....
Half an hour later, on the third level, he found her (delayed a few minutes by
another couple, teenagers that time). Gazing through the glass door leading
from the apartment balcony into a bedroom, Genma frowned at the colored powders
his former wife and a robed Shinto priest were laying out in a half-circle of
lines and symbols he didn’t recognize against a wall. What was No — Tatsuno-san
up to?
                                      /\
Nodoka stood and stretched. The summoning circle was finished — or in this
case, the summoning half-circle. Normally, she wouldn’t have dreamed of using
such a set-up — a wall’s significance as a boundary closed the connection, but
would allow anything summoned able to pass through material objects or strong
enough to make its own hole to use that wall for an escape route — but this
time their target was probably a departed spirit, and with a truly holy priest
assisting her it should be safe enough. “That should do it. Kannushi-san,
thanks again for allowing me this opportunity before cleansing the echo.”
The Shinto priest also stood, bowing slightly to Nodoka. “It is my honor to
help a Scout of your quality in her investigation, especially when it involves
an apparent murder. And since the Sasakis don’t know what is involved in an
exorcism, I’ll be able to pass off what little of the summoning circle we might
miss cleaning up as part of the cleansing ritual when they return from their
night at a love hotel. They’ll never know you were here again.”
Nodoka nodded agreement (forcing down an instinctive protest — it had only been
a few years, she wasn’t that good), but grimaced. She really hated sneaking
around behind that sweet newlywed couple’s backs, especially when it involved
their home. If only her contacts inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Police
Department had been able to shed some light on the apparently murdered young
woman she had seen, but they’d come up empty, not a hint in their records that
anything had ever happened in the apartment....
She shook off her regrets. Solving a murder took precedence over a little
invasion of privacy, especially when she was accompanied by someone — a priest,
no less — that did have permission to be there. Picking up her scabbarded
katana from where it leaned against the bed they’d leaned up against the wall
to make room, she slipped it through her sash, then loosened the blade for a
quick-draw. She didn’t expect trouble, but she hadn’t lasted even the few years
she had by depending on that particular expectation. And if the spirit did turn
out to be both hostile and powerful, the long hours she had spent enchanting
her blade would go a long way to changing its mind. She’d learned that lesson
when the Scout that trained her had been eviscerated before her eyes by a
departed spirit he summoned that turned out to be a revenant. If she had been
actually participating in the ritual instead of observing far enough back that
she barely had time to draw her blade, she would have been next. “Let’s get
started.”
The priest nodded and stepped to his place. “I have to say that I’ve never
heard of anyone using an echo in a ritual as one would a photograph or
drawing,” he said.
“I can’t entirely take the credit,” Nodoka replied as she found her own place,
then spread her hands. “I have a new apprentice that was self-taught for a
number of years before she found me. While a certain amount of retraining has
been necessary, she’s also had some questions and innovations that I’d never
considered. It has had me rethinking much of our traditional ways.”
She watched the echo of the young woman sitting with her baby girl until the
woman’s head snapped back as if shot, took a deep breath and started chanting
as her tension grew (in Japanese, though she was considering learning the
Esperanto her apprentice used for the more uncertain rituals — not that it
would have been usable with another participant that didn’t know the language).
The priest joined in precisely on cue, and the two slowly lifted their arms,
the chant growing louder even as the echo cycled several times through their
crescendo until just as the echo’s head snapped back yet again they snapped
their hands in front of their chest in loud claps as Nodoka shouted, “Come!”
The echo silently vanished, to be replaced by the translucent image of the same
young woman, standing where the echo had been. The spirit’s head whipped around
wildly as she took in her surroundings. “What ... ! ? Where ... ! ?” she
stuttered out.
Nodoka sighed, both relief and regret. The spirit was just a spirit, so she and
the priest were safe enough, but the woman that had made the echo really was
dead — Nodoka had never heard of an echo of anyone that wasn’t dead, but one of
the things she had remembered in her Nabiki-inspired reassessment was that not
all the events echoes reenacted involved death. One echo she knew of was a
castle haunted by a pair of little girls playing together, and they had died
centuries earlier in a plague; they were actually quite the tourist attraction,
the castle drawing visitors from all over the world hoping for a glimpse of the
laughing pair. She’d been hoping... We really need to learn more about just how
echoes are created.
Shaking off her momentary introspection, Nodoka bowed low to the confused
spirit. “Please forgive us for disturbing your rest, but we have questions that
need answering involving your death.”
“My ... oh.” The spirit looked around again, more calmly this time, and seemed
to shrink in on herself. “This was my bedroom. But it looks so different now,
how long has it been since my murder?”
Nodoka winced, another hope dashed — it actually had been a murder. It hadn’t
seemed likely to be anything else, from what the echo had been acting out, but
appearances could be deceiving. Not this time, apparently.
“That is one of the things we need to determine,” the priest replied. “We have
been unable to determine even who you are or when you lived here.”
The spirit seemed to shrink even more, her eyes falling. “My name is Mori
Noriko and I lived here from 1994 to 1996.” Her voice falling to almost a
whisper, she added, “You don’t know anything about little Kaede either, do
you?”
“Your baby?” Noriko jerked a nod, and the priest sighed. “No, Mori-san, we
don’t.”
“Finding out what happened to your daughter is one of the things I need to do,”
Nodoka added. When Noriko looked up, she continued, “I am Tatsuno Nodoka.
Please, anything you can tell us about what happened will help.”
“O-Okay,” Noriko said, “but Kaede is my son, not my daughter. It started
shortly after I moved to Tokyo. I met Saitou-san in a bar my office’s
secretarial pool used. He was a little old for my tastes, but he was handsome,
dashing, educated, we were drinking — we ended up spending the night at a love
hotel. The next morning he was as kind and attentive as he’d been the night
before, and when he asked if he could see me again I was happy to say yes.
“The next few months were magical — intimate restaurant conversations, walks in
parks, the cherry blossom festival.... I knew that it wouldn’t last, that he
was married, but I didn’t care — I was enjoying living every woman’s romantic
dreams too much to worry about the future.”
She paused to wipe at spectral tears, then took a deep breath and continued,
her eyes falling. “I first started sensing that something was wrong when I
became pregnant. He actually figured it out before I did, and when it was
confirmed he practically begged me to have the baby, offered to adopt the
child, or to pay for its upkeep if I chose to keep it myself. I wasn’t sure,
but he was so ... so understanding about everything, so happy....
“Things started getting weird when he simply assumed the baby was a boy. He
never even asked about determining the sex, and when I suggested that I wanted
to wait, for it to be a surprise he just shrugged. After that I realized that
he’d never actually told me how he earned his living, and from the occasional
slip I suspected that he had plans for our baby. I started to get worried. I
was glad when Kaede decided to come while Saitou-san was out of town, on a
business trip he said.
“I was back home in the apartment he’d found for me — closer to his home, he
said — when he next visited. I’d decided to pretend that Kaede was a girl
instead of a boy, it wasn’t like Saitou-san was going to change any diapers,
but as soon as he walked through the door he pulled out a gun and ... and ...”
She broke off and dropped to her knees within the half-circle, arms wrapped
around herself.
“I’m sorry,” Nodoka said softly after a long moment, politely averting her eyes
from the translucent young woman and wishing now that she’d brought her son
along as she’d considered — Ranma, at least, might have been able to touch ...
comfort ... the grieving spirit. “I swear, I will do everything in my power to
find your son. But I need to know more. What did Saitou-san look like? What was
his full name? At what times was he able to visit you? Were there any odd days
in particular he would show up, or couldn’t? What were his favorite foods?
Anything you can tell me.”
After a few minutes Noriko slowly stood up again, wiping at her face. “Well,
his hair was dark brown and beginning to gray, he had a scar ...”
                                      /\
Still wrapped in the Umisenken’s protective cloak, Genma silently stepped away
from the glass door, then easily leapt across the slight gap between the
apartment’s balcony and the one next door over before dropping to the street
three floors down, so caught up in what he’d seen and heard that he didn’t even
think to consider seeing if either couple were still going at it. It looked
like Nodoka’s interrogation was going to take awhile, and he needed to think.
Nodoka was not the romantic, naïve (and possibly oversexed) girl he had left
behind when he had taken Ranma off on the training journey, he had realized
that the moment he first saw her toned body and air of confidence in the Tendo
family room. But this ... not only was his ex-wife dealing with forces he’d
never imagined before his son’s curse, but with murder and kidnapping.
And where did a balding martial artist of great skill but limited utility fit
into that?
***** Opening Investigations *****
Nabiki tried not to groan as she dragged herself through the Furinkan High
gates. She had thought that with her new sensei in the mystic arts taking the
previous afternoon off from her training, that meant actually skipping a day.
Silly her — Mother Nodoka’s early morning wakeup call for a make-up session of
exercises and kenjutsu training had been an unpleasant surprise, and the
workout had lasted long enough that Ranma hadn’t had time for a proper massage
before they’d needed to get ready for school while thoroughly killing her
appetite (though Kasumi had packed her an extra-large bento). The only reason
she was awake at all was the she was practically sloshing with coffee but that
wasn’t going to last the morning, much less the full school day, and the couple
of thermoses full of the same she had with her would only help a little.
And when she got home that afternoon she had another training session with her
own personal Torquemada to look forward to. Yay her. And here I thought
training in the mystic arts meantbooklearning, I really need to find out more
about just what a Scout does....
Floating between Nabiki and Akane, her nature spirit fiancé was almost
chortling, amusement coming off her in waves even as her eyes continually swept
around in a constant search for the crazy Kuno that had attacked Akane the
previous evening.
“You’re not exactly being sympathetic,” Nabiki growled. “I thought fiancés were
supposed to support each other!”
Now Ranma was chortling, the ungrateful little wretch! Along with Nabiki’s
equally wretched little sister. Voice strained by the effort to keep it level,
the flame-haired succubus replied, “It’s somethin’ all martial artists hafta go
through sometimes. You’ll be better for it.” As the giggling Akane nodded her
agreement, Ranma continued, “When me an’ Akane get home from trainin’ with
Ryoga, I’ll give ya another massage an’ we can soak in the furo before bedtime.
Besides, ya got the school day ta try an’ come up with somethin’ ta distract
Mom, make the trainin’ less hard.” At Nabiki’s unconvinced scowl, the succubus
added, “Hey, it worked sometimes with Pop — though that was usually giving him
a chance ta stuff his face. I don’t think that’ll work with Mom.”
“No, from her figure I’d say food is not an overwhelming temptation for her,”
Nabiki replied. On the other hand, shehasbeen impressed with some of my
speculations. Nabiki’s mind flashed back to the idea she’d presented to Ranma
and Akane the previous evening. Maybe if she sketched out some Circles from
what she could remember about sealing a Champion to a god, tried to modify them
for nature spirits, showed them to her sensei when Mother Nodoka got home from
work? It was something she needed to do anyway and they had a serious time
constraint, no reason not to kill two birds with one stone....
                                      /\
Hours later, as she paused from scribbling down more notes around yet another
intricately sketched out Circle to gulp down some lukewarm coffee (she’d stared
down the one teacher to object to her in-class extracurricular activities),
Nabiki reflected that it was a good thing for once that Ranma wasn’t sharing
her classes — after the example she was setting, all moral authority she had in
their ongoing struggle over paying attention in school would have collapsed.
And the usual atmosphere of angry, resentful fear and hatred she’d been living
in at school since her empathic abilities had manifested had been transmuted
into bemused curiosity — she didn’t even have a headache.
                                     /oOo\
Inspector Yosida Kenji smiled as he watched the waitress escort Nodoka to his
lunchtime table. She was handsome in her business attire, her natural beauty
actually toned down a little, and he thanked whomever or whatever had blessed
him with the luck to be the investigator to first interview her about her
husband’s whereabouts and activities years before. He hadn’t learned anything
useful at the time, but it meant that when a half-trained Scout who’d found
herself suddenly on her own after she lost her sensei to a ritual gone wrong
had needed a police contact, his name had been the one to come to mind. Over
the years since then they’d worked together on a few cases, some hers, some
his. He wondered which it would be this time.
He rose to bow politely when she arrived, Nodoka sat down and laid a folder on
the table to the side, then ordered her usual Pocari Sweat (she’d told him once
that she’d acquired a taste for the sports drink when she’d taken up kenjutsu),
and they made small talk as they waited for their meals. He was happy to hear
that her son had turned out nothing like his father, and had accepted his
mother into his life like they’d never been apart even to the point that she’d
moved in with his fiancée’s family. Kenji remembered the first time he and
Nodoka had shared a bed, the night after her divorce was finalized — and how
afterward he had held her sweat-slick, naked body as she had sobbed out her
grief. As he listened now to the wondering joy in her voice as she spoke of
getting to know the magnificent, honorable young man her son had become and his
extremely clever fiancée, he found it impossible to keep a smile off his face.
But then their meals arrived, and he sighed — fun time was over, for now. As
soon as they’d separated their chopsticks and the waitress had left, he quietly
asked, “So, yours or mine?”
Nodoka frowned thoughtfully. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It’s that echo I
told you about earlier, when I asked if you had records of anything happening
in that apartment. I’ve learned more.” She told of the encounter she’d had with
the summoned spirit, and Kenji nodded.
“Sounds straightforward enough, if bizarre — a murder and kidnapping. So why do
you think it might be one of yours?”
“I’m not sure,” Nodoka mused. “Partly, it’s Noriko, I think she may have been
an Awakened that didn’t know she was an Awakened — some have suggested that
Awakened are more likely to produce echoes than Sleepers. That would give her
some ... senses, feelings, that she wouldn’t have an explanation for and
wouldn’t know to trust. I think that was why she sensed something wrong about
her lover but didn’t act on it. Beyond that, I made her a promise.”
Kenji nodded again. “I understand. After sixteen years it’s a very cold case,
one that’s not even official, but I’ll see what I can find. The file has the
details?”
“Of course, everything Noriko could tell me about herself and her lover.”
Nodoka put down her chopsticks long enough to hand the folder she’d brought
across the table. “So, were you able to get an extended lunch break?”
“Yes, I was.” He grinned. “Do you want to finish lunch?”
“Now that you mention it ... no.”
                                      /\
Kenji closed the door to their usual room at their usual love hotel and turned,
expecting his auburn-haired companion’s usual grimace accompanied by her usual
biting comment about the much too overdone décor. Instead, he found himself
knocked back against the wall when Nodoka slammed into him. His eyes widened as
her mouth pressed against his hard enough to bruise, one hand tugging his shirt
free of his trousers while the other scrabbled open button after button along
its front. In moments his shirt was open and she was pushing it back off his
shoulders. She pulled him away from the wall and slid the shirt down his arms
to fall to the floor before reaching for his belt buckle.
“Whoa, easy!” he exclaimed, pushing her hands away, and almost choked when she
actually growled. “No-chan, if you keep this up I’ll be the only one naked, and
that’s just not fair!”
She stared at him for a moment, then laughed, and he relaxed slightly as her
hands fumbled at her own buttons. Whatever had his ... not submissive, but
gentle occasional bedmate so worked up, she was still able to see reason. His
own hands grabbed his belt buckle, and in minutes he was standing naked by the
bed, his cock already hard as he watched Nodoka’s already soaked panties leave
a damp trail down the inside of her legs as she slid them down and off and
kicked them to the side to join the rest of their clothes scattered on the
floor.
Nodoka straightened and he felt his breath catch, again thanking his luck as
his hungry eyes roamed over large breasts with only a slight sag (for their
size) and rosy areola already crinkled tight, sleekly muscled abdomen, and
paused at her shaven, wet-shiny shaven mound and nether lips. Then she was
striding toward him and he looked up just as she laid a hand flat against his
chest and pushed. He stumbled back a couple steps, fell backward when the back
of his legs hit the edge of the bed, and she pounced, landing straddled over
him on all fours. She stared down at his stunned expression for a moment before
giggling and rising up to crouch over his groin. Her hand grabbed his cock,
slid its head between her dripping folds, and she dropped, slamming his cock
into her cleft as deep as it could reach.
Even as he groaned at the sudden tight, wet heat gripping his cock, his partner
stiffened and began to gasp and shake with what Kenji was shocked to realize
was her first orgasm. He stared at her for a long moment, then reached for her
hips only to pause when she shifted, lifting her knees to place her feet flat
on the bed, leaned forward to brace herself with her hands on his stomach, and
began to bounce on his now rock-hard rod, accompanied by a steady stream of
“Fuck, yes! Fuck, yes! Fuck, yes!”
He grinned, excited by Nodoka’s enthusiasm, and reached around and between her
arms to grab onto her swaying breasts. He was rewarded when she paused for a
second, sucking in a breath at the sensation of his hands gripping her soft
flesh. Then she resumed bouncing with even more energy than before.
Too much energy, Kenji dimly realized, as he felt his own need to release
growing. He let go of her breasts to grab her hips, tried to slow her down,
failed, and shouted as he thrust his hips up to bury his cock deep before
exploding into the depths of her cleft. She continued bouncing as spurt after
spurt filled her and his seed oozed out around the fleshy ‘blade’ impaling her.
Finally, when he began to soften she slowed to a stop and lay down atop him,
her face resting against his shoulder, her gasping breath hot on his skin.
His arms rose to circle her back. “Sorry I couldn’t hold back until you came,”
he murmured.
“ ‘Until I came’ again, I think you mean,” she replied, the feel of her breath
stuttering when she giggled. “We have time for you to make it up to me.”
His soft laugh joined hers. “I suppose we do at that, that was quick,” he
agreed. “What brought that on? You aren’t normally so ... needy.”
“ ‘Needy’ is a good word for it.” She rolled off of him and reached for the
tissues on the bedside table to wipe her cleft clean. “What I didn’t mention at
lunch is that my son and his fiancée are sharing a bedroom, just a few rooms
away from me, and the soundproofing isn’t what it could be. It has been ...
frustrating.”
“Oooh, a fly in the ointment of your perfect happiness,” he teased. “I’m
touched that you held off until we could meet, I’d have thought that you’d
select another ride from your stable.”
Nodoka stilled, then sat up and stared down on him. “There are no other ‘rides’
in my stable, Kenji, only you alone,” she said softly, then giggled when he
stiffened in sudden panic. “Relax, I’m not trying to entrap you,” she assured
him. “It’s just that anyone else I’d consider knows me either through business
or the kenjutsu tournament circuit. Both worlds are very traditional, and
personal reputation matters. You are the only one that knows me as an abandoned
ex-wife and Scout that I want to share my bed.”
“Ah.” Kenji relaxed (and berated himself for his reaction — yes, he’d never
wanted more from Nodoka than what they had, but women were often funny that way
and he had a very low opinion of men that didn’t care). “So, why don’t we see
about relieving your ‘frustration’ some more? It should make you easier to live
with.”
Nodoka froze, eyes going wide, then blushed furiously. “Yes I suppose it might
at that,” she replied, then before he could ask what that was all about she lay
down beside him and kissed him on the mouth as furiously as her blush before
trailing kisses down along his neck and chest on the way to his groin. As his
stiffening cock slipped past her lips into her hot mouth to be stroked by her
tongue, all thoughts of her odd reaction to his little jest fled. Damn, but it
was good to be alive!
***** Preparations *****
Kodachi snarled as she stalked into the small, dimly lit curio shop.  The shop
was empty of customers, but crowded with everything else — shelves full of
books, knickknacks, weapons, silverware, jewelry, dishware.  The first time the
younger Kuno sibling had entered she had felt distinctly uneasy at the way the
sheer crush made it impossible to practice her Art at need, without the room
for so much as a flip, much less her ribbon.  This time, she was too angry to
worry about how just entering the shop made her vulnerable.  She had been
fuming since she had gotten up that morning, building to this moment as the day
at school had dragged by.
“Back already?”
The voice of the shop’s proprietor came from the back, and a moment later a
small, wiry, ancient man stepped around a stack of hats.  He bowed deeply then
straightened, rubbing the top of his bare head as if slicking back nonexistent
hair.  “What rare item are you seeking today?”
“You greedy, thieving peasant, how dare you cheat me!” Kodachi shouted,
throwing the jeweled amulet she had worn the previous evening at him.  “The
amulet you sold me was useless, leaving me helpless against that wanton trollop
of a spirit that guards the fool who dares face me!”
The shopkeeper snatched the amulet out of the air.  “Wait, you mean you faced a
true spirit?” he demanded, paling.
“But of course, is that not what I apprised you of when I came seeking a means
of detecting her?  Thanks to your chicanery those lowborn boors were able to
barbarously manhandle me — a Kuno!”
“Oh my, there has been a misunderstanding,” the shopkeeper murmured.  “When you
said that you were haunted by a spirit, I believed that you were plagued by the
schoolgirl foolishness I sometimes see of fearing spirits behind every tree and
under every bush.  This amulet is intended to calm their fears by showing their
imaginings for what they are, it won’t do for your problem at all!”
Turning, he disappeared into the confusion of shelves and stacks toward the
back of the shop.  Kodachi hurried to catch up, and found him placing the
amulet she had thrown at him into the opened glass case behind the counter from
which he had removed it the previous day.  “What you need is this one,” he
said, reaching for a choker that Kodachi had somehow missed on her earlier
visit — a black stone that seemed to glow with its own light, centered on a
silver band with patterns inlaid in red enamel.  He closed the case and turned
to lay the choker on a swath of black velvet on the counter.  “With this you
will be able to see all things supernatural that is hidden from sight.”
Kodachi stared at the choker, entranced by its simple beauty.  “Yes, this will
do marvelously as a replacement for my previous purchase,” she murmured, her
anger washed away by her admiration, and reached for the choker only to pause
as the shopkeeper covered it with his own hand.  She looked up to find him
shaking his head.
“This piece is much rarer than what I sold you earlier,” he said, ignoring the
fury again twisting her features.  “I will discount what you paid for the piece
you returned, but even then....”  He turned over the price tag.
Kodachi’s eyes bulged.  Even if she cut back the lifestyle she was entitled to,
lived as one of the common herd, it would take months for her to save enough to
pay for it — and by then, the competition would long over.  I should have
realized, she thought even as her eyes drifted back to the gleaming black of
the choker’s centerpiece.  Of course, it would be odd indeed if the price for
such a creation did not match its beauty.  She forced herself to look away, and
was glancing furtively about the shop in an attempt to determine the best route
for a grab-and-run, when the sound of the shopkeeper clearing his throat drew
her attention.
“While as a Kuno you normally should have no difficulty purchasing even an item
such as this, I can understand how you might be somewhat short of funds at the
moment,” he said, “so I will offer you a deal.  I’ll loan this to you for one
week for what you paid for the other amulet.  Then you may purchase it later
for the full price.”
Kodachi drew herself to her full height, looking haughtily down at the
shopkeeper.  “Normally it is beneath the dignity of a Kuno to bargain, but you
are right that my need is great.  Very well, I accept your offer.”
The shopkeeper bowed as deeply as when she’d first entered, and minutes later
Kodachi was out of the store.  She felt herself relax as she once again had
room to maneuver and glanced around, then froze — across the street a pair of
tiny naked people with bumblebee wings was playing a game of tag among the
branches of a tree.  The choker even worked audibly, she could faintly hear
their high-pitched laughter as the female caught the male by a heel and yanked
him down toward her.  The two settled on a broad branch, and — Kodachi
hurriedly looked away from the proof that the creatures were like humans in
more than just appearance, blushing even as laughter bubbled up from inside
her.  It really worked!  To give her such an artifact for the price of a
bauble, what a fool!  She spun in place, whirling her ribbon around her, then
in a shower of rose petals sprang for the roof of the shop and bound across the
rooftops for home, her mocking laughter trailing behind her.
                                      /\
The shopkeeper listened to the sound of his customer’s laughter fading into the
distance, rubbed his hand across his bald head, and chuckled.  Then he closed
his eyes, took a deep breath, and as he blew it out his shape stretched and
shifted, morphing until the tall, fiery-haired, tattooed demoness Calise stood
in his place.  “Gotcha!” she murmured.  With that choker, Kodachi would never
return to the store — and she would owe Calise.  It wasn’t as good as a
contract for her soul, but those were always iffy when it came to the insane —
Asgard usually contested them, and won the challenges often enough that Hild’s
people preferred to avoid the possibility.  And after the day’s delay and her
humiliation the previous night, she was going to be very angry when she finally
caught up with Ranma again.
“Did all go as you had hoped, My Lady?”
She turned to find the shopkeeper that Kodachi thought she had been dealing
with stepping out of the backroom.  “Yes, Katsu-san, it did, thank you.  I
consider your debt to be paid,” she said graciously.  She made her farewells
and left the shopkeeper bowing deeply behind her as she followed Kodachi out
into the street.  It had been a very good day.  True, she had just put a potent
artifact back in circulation, but it was in the hands of a lunatic who had zero
chance of using it to its full potential — and with the tracker on it, once
Kodachi failed to return it as promised Calise could reacquire it whenever she
chose.  And it was of human manufacture, not demonic, so she didn’t need to
worry about Nabiki noticing any demonic ‘taint’ and suspecting that Mara was
maneuvering to up the pressure on her.  And since Mara doesn’t know a thing
about it, if Nabiki asks she can truthfully say that she doesn’t know a thing
about it.  I wonder if I should suggest that she keep an eye on Nabiki
tomorrow?  That lunatic doesn’t have the patience to put off a second attempt,
and it should be quite a show — just the thing to help Mara get a good laugh. 
She’s been a bit stressed, lately.  After a moment’s consideration, the
demoness reluctantly rejected the thought — Mara would need more plausible
deniability than that would give.  But Calise could make sure the imps spying
on Nabiki and Ranma recorded the show, and give Mara a personal viewing after
it was all over.  It might not have as much punch —
A faint, high-pitched squeal of pleasure interrupted her thought, and she
scowled at the tiny pair of sprites copulating on the tree branch across the
street.  She considered herself a free-living, free-loving modern girl, but
those flighty sprites had absolutely no shame!  Though of course, there were
very few people that could actually see or hear them, so she supposed it didn’t
matter that much where they took their fun.  How did that description of
bungee-jumping go, all the thrill of suicide with none of the commitment? 
Oooh, she was going to have to remember that variation for her next night on
the town, it looked like fun.
                                     /oOo\
From her seat at her bedroom desk, Nabiki glanced up from her textbook at the
sound of someone knocking on her doorframe.  She blinked tired eyes to take in
the figure in the doorway (the short nap she’d grabbed on getting home while
Ranma and Akane did their homework didn’t seem to have helped much), then
straightened at the sight of her mother-in-law in all but name.  No, my sensei
at the moment, she thought, trying not to groan as she took in the worn keikogi
and hakama that Nodoka wore for her — and now Nabiki’s — training in kenjutsu. 
“That time already?” she asked, glancing toward the clock and frowning at the
early hour, then back at her sensei.  There was something different about
her...
“No, I know I’m a little early,” Nodoka replied, “but I thought that if we took
care of the training early, you could spend a little more time soaking in the
furo before Ranma gives you your massage.”
Okay, let’s shortstop that.  “Actually, Mother — Sensei — I have something to
show you.”  Nabiki closed her textbook and shoved it aside, then turned for her
schoolbag (wincing as the shift pulled still-sore muscles).  She pulled out the
sheets of paper with the various Circle diagrams she had spent her school day
working on.  “I didn’t mention it this morning because between practice and
getting ready for the day we didn’t have time to really discuss it, but Ranma,
Akane and I had an interesting afternoon yesterday....”
                                      /\
“So what do you think?” Nabiki asked from where she sat on her bed, as Nodoka
sat at her desk, closely examining each preliminary Circle diagram before
turning over the sheet for the next.  Please please pleasepleaselet her think
this is more important than training!
Even as the mantra repeated itself in her mind, Nabiki frowned.  What was it
that was so different about her sensei?  She didn’t look any different — the
auburn-haired woman was the same poised, collected woman she always was even in
her worn workout clothes.  Okay, if she doesn’t look different, then she
mustfeeldifferent.  Nabiki closed her eyes as Nodoka shuffled through her small
stack of diagrams, focused on what she was sensing from the older woman,
analyzing the mix of emotions she was picking up as she tried to remember what
she’d felt that morning during their workout.  There didn’t seem to be anything
added, maybe something missing?  But what?
“These aren’t bad for a first draft, but —”
Nabiki’s eye flew open.  “You got laid!”
“ ... what?”
“I’m sorry!” Nabiki exclaimed, waving her hands in a ward-off gesture as her
cheeks burned fiery red.  “It’s just there was something different about you
and I couldn’t figure out what it was but something was missing and it was what
I’ve picked up constantly from boys at school and ... and ... shutting up now,”
she finished in a barely audible voice, shoulders hunched.  When her sensei got
her into the dojo, she was going to get such a beating....
Nodoka sighed and lay down the last Circle diagram she had been examining, then
turned to face her daughter-in-law.  “Do you think Ranma noticed?” she asked,
her own cheeks tinged pink.
Nabiki frowned thoughtfully as she straightened.  Ranma and Akane had been long
gone before his mother got home, so she wasn’t asking about her ... her relaxed
state, so ...
“Ranma sensed it, she wouldn’t have been able to help it,” Nabiki said slowly,
then shrugged.  “But whether she understood what she was sensing ... probably
not.  It’s not like you were attracted to her, after all, just ...”  Her voice
trailed off, and Nodoka finished the sentence.
“Just needy.”
“Well ... yes,” Nabiki agreed.  “And since she’ll have been picking up the same
‘need’ from just about every teenage boy she’s been around, I doubt she’s
figured out what it is, yet, or why you might have it when other adults don’t,
so much.”
“It hasn’t been easy, being just a few rooms down the hall from you two, with
the walls as thin as they are,” Nodoka grumbled.  “I’ll just have to see if I
can ... ‘get laid’, as you so eloquently put it, more regularly.”
Nabiki blushed again.  That made the second person they were sharing a floor
with to have issues with her and Ranma’s evening fun, and she had no doubt she
and Ranma had been just as hard on Kasumi — her older sister simply wasn’t the
type to complain.  “We’ll try to be less noisy, and less ... here,” she
promised.  There was always that mini-grove in the corner of the park, and it
wasn’t like anyone ... hardly anyone ... could actually see Ranma in spirit
form.  And with the succubus’s ability to reach through clothes Nabiki didn’t
need to be naked, though with how sweaty and wet she got.... I’m going to have
to do my own laundry, it’s not fair handingthatoff to Kasumi.
She waved at the small stack of papers.  “You were saying?” she asked.
Nodoka hastily turned back to the desk, and Nabiki suppressed a grin at the
sheer relief she was picking up from her sensei at the change of subject. 
“These aren’t bad for a first draft,” Nodoka repeated, “but there are a few
problems.  The bonding itself isn’t an issue, not if Akane and Ranma are truly
willing, but the more powerful kami are actually able to be in more than one
place at a time and to shift themselves between places, so a link is sufficient
— they can simply split their attention when they feel the call and answer the
summons themselves.  Ranma can’t do that, so you probably need to incorporate
some sort of summoning element into this. I’ll need to read what your books
have to say about this bonding ritual, of course....”
                                     /oOo\
Late that night, two tiny heads peaked up over the windowsill of Nabiki’s open
window, one blonde and one brunette, looking down at her blanket-covered
sleeping body directly below them.  She was alone in the bed and Ranma wasn’t
in her succubus form practicing katas in the yard, so ...
“I wonder what dream they’re sharing tonight?” Cherry Blossom whispered to the
brown-haired sprite hovering beside her.
Peach Fuzz shrugged.  “Not sex, whatever it is, not with what Ranma said about
that and Nabiki’s dreamscape,” she murmured back.  “Hopefully, it’ll keep them
occupied, come on.”
The two sprites drifted along the windowsill to the edge of the window, up
along the edge of the window to the top, then inside and up to the ceiling as
far from the sleeping girl below them as they could manage.  They grabbed onto
the ceiling and froze for a moment when Nabiki shifted in her sleep, muttered
something and rolled over.  They held their breath until the girl’s own
breathing again evened out, slowly resumed moving along the ceiling until they
were hovering directly above her desk, then just as slowly sank until they
landed crouching on the desktop, and waited.
Minute after minute passed by without a hint that they had disturbed Nabiki’s
sleep, and they finally straightened.  “Where is it?” Peach Fuzz whispered.
“I think we’re standing on it.”
“Oh.”
The two sprites began to glow, slowly brightening to a dim glow that revealed
the sheet of paper they had landed on, covered with multiple circles of letters
and symbols surrounded by scribbled notes.  They knelt to closely examine the
circles, and Cherry Blossom murmured, “This is it, all right, and it looks like
Sweet Grass was right.  Peach Fuzz, do you really want to do this?  As long as
she’s likely to live —”
Peach Fuzz nodded.  “Yes, I’m sure.  True, she’s way too serious, but she’s
human — they’re all too serious.  Even Ranma hasn’t learned to lighten up,
yet.  And she’s good people, I’ll be all right.”
“Okay, as long as you’re sure.  Let’s go.”
Their bodies’ glow faded away, and the two sprites slowly drifted up toward the
ceiling to reverse their journey back towards the window.
***** Round Two! *****
Ranma chuckled as she floated along beside the younger Tendo sisters.  In spite
of the long night she had spent in her student’s room on guard from a possible
attack, and her self-assumed need to constantly scan their surroundings for the
same, she was feeling rather cheerful.  Partly that was because she was
actually doing something besides floating around on guard duty, even if only
going to school, and partly because of her memories of the ... entertainment
... Nabiki had put on that morning while training with Nodoka.  She glanced
over at her limping fiancée and considered commenting on her morning
performance — especially the unorthodox twist that she’d used to try to avoid
one low strike that was responsible now for her uneven walk — but rapidly
discarded the thought.  He and Nabiki were still getting to know the fine
points about each other, but Ranma had already learned the hard way that Nabiki
was not amused by loss of dignity ... when she was the butt of the joke, at
least.  Of course, her own empathic sense meant she was perfectly aware of her
fiancé’s amusement, but they were also learning to ignore some of each other’s
emotional states if the other didn’t comment on them.  Besides, I got more
important things ta talk ta her about, the succubus thought, sobering.
Sensing the change of mood, Nabiki glanced over at the succubus before looking
around and frowning — her lover’s emotional shift didn’t feel urgent, so she
wasn’t worried about another attack ... at least not immediately ... but she
couldn’t see anything to account for the shift, either.  “Ranma, what is it?”
she quietly asked as she shifted the strap of the bag holding Ranma’s clothes
higher up on her shoulder.
Akane glanced toward where she could sense her sensei (and current bodyguard,
not that she’d been informed of that) floating beside her even as Ranma
replied, “Not sure.  Ya had a couple visitors last night.”
“Visitors?”  Nabiki’s frown deepened.
“Yeah, Cherry Blossom an’ another sprite, one I don’t know.  There was a wall
between me an’ them —” From where she’d spent the night floating just under
Akane’s ceiling, but Ranma figured saying so would be a bad idea.  “— so they
must not a’ known I could see ‘em when they came through the window.”
“Cherry Blossom?” Nabiki asked incredulously.  “Why would she be visiting in
the middle of the night?”
Ranma shrugged.  “Dunno,” she replied.  “They snuck over ta yer desk for a few
minutes, then left.”
Now Nabiki’s frown was confused as she tried to remember what had been on her
desk when she’d packed for school.  “Did they move anything?”
Ranma shook her head.  “Naw, just lit up so they could see what they were
doin’.”
“But that makes no sense!” Nabiki protested.  “The only thing on my desk were
the diagrams for the linking ceremony for you and Akane that your ... that
Sensei and I worked on yesterday.”  She blushed as she remembered all the
errors Nodoka had found with the circles she’d come up with, however much her
sensei had been impressed by the concept, and hastily continued, “Sprites don’t
do ceremonies, all their magic is inherent, like yours!  And can sprites even
read?”
Ranma shrugged again even as she scanned the roofs of the houses along their
side of the block for a certain Kuno nutcase hiding out of sight of anyone but
her.  The conversation made it easier for her to ignore the for-all-practical-
purposes naked people, mostly women, inside the homes.  Though she was becoming
inured to the sight of naked flesh again, especially when said body was far
enough away that she couldn’t pick up emotions.  “I dunno if they can read,”
she said, “but whatever they were lookin’ for, they found it.  They stopped
huntin’ and left too fast for anything else.”
Then the three turned the corner and the wall around the school grounds came
into view, and Ranma grinned.  “I wonder if Kuno’s worked up the nerve ta
challenge us again,” she commented.  “He sure feels like he wants ta.”
Nabiki’s sigh was covered by her little sister’s growl.  She laid a warning
hand on Akane’s arm to calm her.  “Ranko, he wants to challenge Ranma, not
you,” she said, slightly louder than usual.  “I know you share memories, but
don’t get them mixed up.”
Ranma stopped searching for Kodachi to look over at Nabiki in confusion. 
Nabiki surreptitiously glanced around at the other students headed for
Furinkan’s main gates, some of them possibly within earshot, and the succubus
blushed at the resigned amusement coming from her fiancée as she looked around
and remembered their cover story.  “Yeah, right, challenge Ranma,” she
muttered.
“How long do you think it will be until I’m ready to challenge him?” Akane
quietly asked.  Actually, she’d been quiet ever since the evening Kodachi had
attacked her.  Grimly determined to win, afraid she’d fail, very nervous about
the upcoming ceremony they’d need to perform linking her to Ranma if she
couldn’t learn rhythmic gymnastics martial arts fast enough, resigned about her
chances of managing that ... no, Akane was not a happy girl.  Nabiki was mildly
surprised that her younger sister wasn’t taking her fears and frustrations out
on everyone around her, maybe her little sister was actually growing up a
little.  Maybe we’re allgrowing up a little, she thought, In more ways than
one.  She glanced toward her lover with a fond, only slightly lascivious smile.
Sensing her fiancée’s attention — and the direction her thoughts were taking,
or at least her emotions, Ranma grinned at her.  “Ya sure you’re not the
succubus?” she murmured, before sobering and turning to an eye-rolling Akane
rapidly growing irritated.  “I dunno, Akane,” she hurriedly continued as the
three passed through the gates onto the school grounds.  “The trainin’ ya been
doin’ with Ryoga is good fer speed an’ dodgin’ an’ that’ll help, but most’a
it’s useless outside a’ the ring.  Once we get past the competition —”
“Oh ho ho ho ho!”
Ranma’s head snapped around at the spine-twisting laughter (not that she had a
spine to twist at the moment).  She’d been watching!  And with the way she
could barely see nonliving material Kodachi couldn’t hide behind —
Kodachi dropped down from the tree branch she’d been crouched on — the leaf-
shrouded branch, that had shielded her from Ranma’s Sight — to land crouched
yards from the three girls.  She was clad in the same style purple leotard and
sash she’d worn two nights before, though the jewel she’d worn before had been
replaced by a silver choker with a black jewel that, to Nabiki’s and Ranma’s
eyes, shone with magic.  As she straightened her gaze was fixed on the girl
that would face her in the ring in less than a week, and both Ranma and Akane
could see both the ribbon she’d whipped out to spin around her and the slim
club in her other hand were shining with imbued life-energy.
“Careful,” Ranma murmured, “she can’t match ya hand-ta-hand so give me a moment
ta get around ta her side.  Then close as quick as ya can, but don’t get cocky
even if she isn’t carryin’ a sledgehammer.  Nabiki, get outta the way ‘fore she
decides ta make ya a target.”
“You got it, stud, be careful,” Nabiki acknowledged, radiating worry.
A tense Akane jerked a nod.  “Didn’t you learn anything the first time you
ambushed me?” she asked their attacker as Nabiki backed away toward the
school’s main doors and Ranma flew a half-circle around toward Kodachi’s side.
“I suppose a peasant such as yourself must be as stupid as you are churlish,”
the off-side pony-tailed girl replied haughtily, her undulating ribbon shifting
from circling around her to spiraling out between the two girls.  “I told you
before, only the hoi polloi ‘ambush’ others.  I simply compete before the
assigned date of our meeting.”
“Yeah, right,” Akane snorted.  Okay, Nabiki’s out of the way.  She shifted her
attention over toward her sensei as she continued, “I think you’re just afraid
that someone will show you up for the poser you are in front of an audience.” 
She ignored her opponent’s sputtered response as she watched the floating
something she’d learned to identify as her sensei out of the corner of her
eye.  The patch reached a point directly to the side of the insane Kuno girl
and rotated until it was stretched out horizontally, vaguely shaped like a
Superman pose.  Show time!
Ranma sighed as she saw her student tense up — Akane was telegraphing her
attacks again!  She’d stopped doing that when sparring with either of her
current sensei, finally, but apparently when the fight was for real she
reverted to old habits.  We’ll have to work on that, the nude redhead thought
even as she started her own charge forward — and the plan abruptly fell apart.
Even as Akane began her own charge Kodachi spun to the side, and Ranma suddenly
found the Kuno’s ribbon whipping toward her.  She fought to ‘roll’ out of the
way to get outside of the spiral, but failed to get beyond the edge of the
spinning vortex before it reached her.  In the blink of an eye, she found her
arms pinned to her sides and her legs locked together as the ki-infused ribbon
wrapped around her from her head to her feet, even her eyes and mouth covered. 
Damn it, this’s thesecondtime I’ve been surprised ‘cause I thought someone
couldn’t see me when they could!  What’swrongwith me?
Ranma struggled for a moment as the ribbon tightened like a living thing — some
kind of ki-effect, like Ryoga’s hardened, sharp bandana boomerangs? — but
abandoned the effort immediately.  Her succubus form just wasn’t strong
enough!  And with her frustrating inability to push herself past fixed limits,
it never would be.
But there were different kinds of ‘strength’ and she rocketed skyward.  Kodachi
yelped when Ranma hit the end of the ribbon like an Atlantic blue marlin
dancing on the end of a line, the impact yanking the gymnast’s arm straight up
and almost dislocating her shoulder.  But the Kodachi managed to keep her grip
on the ribbon’s handle, and her eyes widened in shock when she found herself
yanked off the ground instead — just in time to be knocked spinning up when
Akane’s fist slammed into her midsection.
If Kodachi hadn’t already been off the ground and in motion, the blow would
probably have sent her to the hospital with internal injuries.  As it was, even
as she curled around the blow she was being pulled skyward, and managed to kick
off against Akane’s chest and used the momentum to angle her upward flight,
catching a large branch with her ribbon and spinning around it several times as
she fought to maintain her concentration, and so keeping her ki shining through
the ribbon and Ranma trapped in its embrace.
She almost managed it, but the shining ki flickered for a moment, and Ranma
instantly renewed her struggle to break out.  She manage to free one hand and
shake the ribbon away from her face before the ki-glow renewed itself and again
locked her tight.  She looked down just in time to see Akane spring up toward
their enemy, only to meet Kodachi’s club coming down, smashing right between
her eyes.  Her unconscious student flopped bonelessly back to the ground.
“Akane!” Nabiki shouted, voice harsh with panic.  She couldn’t use the killing
curse, she couldn’t!  She didn’t know how badly her sister had been hurt, and
while the magic jewel at Kodachi’s throat obviously allowed her to see the
succubus, ki-charged weapons couldn’t actually kill Ranma — just hurt her,
maybe even discorporate her for awhile.  Besides, if Kodachi’s will proved too
strong and the curse reflected back at Nabiki, the result would be very
unpleasant, perhaps fatal.
But if shedoesreally hurt Ranma or Akane, I’m getting some of her hair and
taking the time to do the curse right, full ceremony, Nabiki thought, snarling
as her eyes scanned the lawn around her.  She cursed the efficiency of the
groundskeepers, not a stone to be seen.  Yanking open her school bag, she
pulled out one of her textbooks and ran forward toward the gymnast now sitting
with her legs wrapped around the branch and her club tucked under one thigh as
she reeled in the ribbon hand over hand along with her still-struggling prey.
Kodachi glanced down at the shouting older girl just in time for the thrown
school book to smack into her forehead, snapping her head back and almost
knocking her off her perch.  “Wait your turn, peasant, I’ll deal with you as
soon as I’ve shown this guttersnipe — woah!”
Now able to see, Ranma had taken advantage of Kodachi’s distraction and now the
still-bound succubus slammed into her midriff.  Even as tiny as the nature
spirit was and as short as the flight had been, she managed to knock Kodachi
off her perch.  But the gymnast simply whipped around the branch and back up to
her seat, catching her falling club in the process and ignoring the scrapes
behind her knee as she took the ribbon with her.
Ranma found herself with almost no free ribbon at all, practically bound to the
branch.  She struggled again to free herself, as uselessly as before, and
growled, “If ya touch Nabs, I will hunt ya down and hurt you!”
“I would be more concerned about your own well-deserved punishment,” Kodachi
purred, even as her club batted aside another thrown book.  Ranma winced at her
vicious smile, the outward sign of the sheer malevolent anger she was
radiating.  The gymnast pressed a stud in her club’s handle, and spikes sprang
out to circle around its end.  “Manhandle me, throw me out into the street like
discarded garbage, will you?”
Ranma glared defiantly at Kodachi as the gymnast lifted the now-spiked club. 
The succubus braced herself to ignore the coming pain.  Remember, Nabs said
you’re a human-shaped bundle a’ energy, not real, an’ there’s no way she can
beat on ya with those spikes without damaging the ribbon — The succubus’s train
of thought was cut off when she was abruptly yanked toward the ground, along
with the branch she was bound to, and her suddenly flailing enemy.  She heard
the air gush from Kodachi’s lungs as the other girl slammed onto the lawn, felt
the ki suffusing her bindings flicker, and then abruptly fade.  She was free!
As the now harmless ribbon fell through her to the grass Ranma rocketed up,
fists clenched.  “All right!  My turn now, ya —”  She froze, hovering in mid-
air, eyes wide at the sight of Kuno Tatewaki standing between her and Kodachi,
glaring at his sister as he shook dirt from his bokken.  Almost of their own
volition, Ranma’s eyes dropped to find a trench in the grass, slicing through
the ribbon that had bound her.  She looked up at the tree.  Sure enough, the
stump of the branch she had been bound to showed a clean cut, not a break.  I
... Kuno ... he ... why ...  Catching movement out of the corner of her eye,
she glanced down to find Nabiki kneeling by her unconscious sister.  Akane! 
She shook herself free of her shock and realized that the kendoist was
speaking.
“ ... not permit you to pursue this dishonorable quest against the fair Akane
and the unfortunate spirit maiden,” Tatewaki said, sternly frowning at his
younger sister.  “Surely the way that the villainous miscreant Saotome has
bound them to his whims through foul sorcery is misfortune enough!  If face
them you must, it shall be according to the traditions of the noble sport that
you sully by your behavior.”
“As if you know anything of the proper pursuit of victory,” Kodachi replied
haughtily.  “But I fear that you have ruined my sport this morning, so I shall
take my leave.  Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho!”  She spun in place, a wide swirl of rose
petals whipped out around her, and Ranma watched as she leaped up out of the
cloud, landed on a wide branch of the tree, sprang over the school wall, and in
a couple of bounds was across the street and gone across the rooftops.
                                     /oOo\
Nabiki turned back the blanket and top sheet, and Ranma floated over the bed to
gently lower down a furiously blushing Akane.  (She’d been fighting the urge to
squirm at the sensation of Ranma’s bare breasts pressed against her skin right
through her school uniform, the entire time the succubus had flown her first to
Dr. Tofu’s clinic then home.)
“Now remember, the doc said plenty of rest for the rest of the day,” Nabiki
reminded her sister as she tucked her blankets around her.  “Your training with
ki may mean he doesn’t need to send you to the hospital for a more thorough
examination or keep you for observation, but that was still quite a hit you
took — and if you aren’t recovered enough to go to school tomorrow, Kuno will
be here knocking down the door to make sure you’re all right!  It was all I
could do to talk him out of personally summoning an ambulance, and the only way
I was able to convince him not to accompany us to the clinic was by saying that
you’d be insulted by the suggestion that you couldn’t look out for yourself. 
And he looked doubtful, at that.”
Ranma snorted.  “Maybe that’s ‘cause I was pickin’ her up at the time,” she
said.  “Get yer rest, Akane, I’ll let Ryoga know that ya won’t be there
tonight.  An’ once Kasumi gets home from shoppin’ I’m sure she’ll be up with
somethin’.”
“That sounds great, thank you,” Akane murmured, closing her eyes.
Little sis is being way too calm about this. For a moment, Nabiki considered
mentioning that she had hinted that a date with Akane might be forthcoming if
the upperclassman backed off — a perhaps ill-conceived but desperate measure to
deal with a very insistent would-be suitor, but Nabiki had been both stunned by
the help he’d provided and worried about her sister and so perhaps not thinking
clearly.  Besides, it wasn’t like she would be the one going out with the
pompous (but apparently useful upon occasion) fool.  But she quickly squashed
the idea — that would certainly get a rise out of her sister, but chasing her
middle sister around the house screaming at the top of her lungs wouldn’t do
Akane’s concussion any good at all.  Tomorrow.  Or maybe the next day. 
Actually, after the competition would be good, don’t want to distract little
sis.  Yeah, right, likethat’sall you’re concerned about.  Still, there was no
need to be afraid, she’d have Ranma to protect her from her enraged sister,
after all.  Right?  Yeah, right, Ranma’s going to be cheering her on, and
Mother Nodoka’ll probably treat it as training in evasion and escape — from the
job title, I’ll bet a Scout gets a lot of use out of that particular skill set.
On that cheery thought, Nabiki stepped over to the window to close the
curtains, then motioned Ranma to follow her toward the door (not that the
succubus needed to use it, or could hardly see it, for that matter).  She’d
just turned off the light and was about to close the door, when Akane spoke up.
“Nabiki, is that bonding ritual you were talking about ready?”
Nabiki paused, looking at her sister lying in her bed, arm over her eyes.  “I
think so, yes. Mother Nodoka provisionally signed off on it last night.”
“What’s my part?”
“Well ...” Nabiki shrugged.  “You and Ranma basically sit — or float — in
separate circles and listen while Mother Nodoka and I spend about an hour
chanting.”
Akane sat up in her bed and said, “Good, we’re doing it tonight.”
Nabiki stared at her sister for a long moment.  In truth, she’d half expected
Akane to back out at the last moment, considering how nervous magic still made
her.  “Are you sure?” she finally asked.
“Oh, hell, yes!  Whatever it takes, that bitch is going down!”
Okay, that’s more like the Akane I know.  She glanced over at Ranma, still
floating in the hall, and grimaced when the redheaded gamin spirit shrugged and
nodded.  “All right, I’ll give Mother Nodoka a call and let her know we’ve
moved up the date.  Now lie back down and get some rest.”
Akane nodded, winced, and lay back down, and Nabiki gently closed the door. 
Turning to Ranma, she whispered, “You’ll keep an eye on her?”
“Yeah, on the roof right outside her window,” her lover whispered back.  “No
way that nutcase is catchin’ me by surprise again.”
“Good, I’ll leave a note for Kasumi before I leave.”  She reached up and
pressed a finger across the succubus’s lips to stop her instant protest.  “I
have to do some shopping of my own for some special foci for tonight’s
ceremony, and the Amazons need to be told we won’t be there this afternoon.”
“Nabiki, it’s not safe ...” Ranma paused at a sudden thought, then grinned. 
“Why don’t ya see if any a’ the elders wanna go shoppin’ with ya?  I’ll bet
they’d like ta see what we got here, magic-wise.  An’ there’s no way Kodachi
could take one those tough old biddies.”
“Now, that is an excellent thought, I’ll do that,” Nabiki agreed, grinning
back.  “Just don’t ever let any of them hear you call them that, or you may
learn just how good they really are.”  She pulled Ranma toward her for a long
kiss, then pushed her away.  “Now get on guard, I have to hurry if I’m going to
have time to get everything.”
“Uh ... right.”
Nabiki watched as the redhead now sporting a goofy grin floated through the
ceiling to take up her guard position, then sighed and hurried to their room
for the debit card for her special bank account, her cell phone, and a pen and
pad of paper.  It was going to be a long tiring day and an unfortunately early
night.  Again, dammit.  “Maybe Ranma’s nature really is contagious,” she
muttered as she dumped her school bag out on her bed and grabbed her pad of
paper.
***** Welcome to Our World *****
In the room that had been Genma and Ranma’s guest bedroom and was now Nodoka’s
permanent home, Nabiki was very happy that she’d thought to wear a sweatband.
This wasn’t the first ritual she’d performed that was over an hour long. It
wasn’t the first ritual with another person chanting along with her. It wasn’t
the first ritual she’d performed practically the same day she’d researched and
drawn it up. It wasthe first time for all three, and by now she was almost
trembling with the effort to keep her arms positioned just so where she stood
inside her own circle (gratefully, trembling only for minutes, not the full
hour), her voice going hoarse from keeping it pitched to match Nodoka’s, the
sweatband about her head damp from the stress of remembering the full ceremony
she’d hastily memorized while smoothly segueing through each step. Her
concentration wasn’t helped by the waves of boredom/fear/boredom radiating from
where raven-haired girl and fiery-haired succubus stood/floated in their own
circles.
But now she and her sensei were finally reaching the end, the two voices merged
for the final ringing phrases, they straightened and clapped their hands
together to join two destinies, froze in place … and waited. And waited.
Nothing.
As Akane sagged in relief, Ranma commented, “Ya know, I expected that ta be
more spectacular.”
Nabiki sighed. “That’s because it didn’t work,” she said. “Nodoka-sensei, what
did I do wrong?”
“Nothing, you were perfect,” Nodoka replied. “In fact, you were too perfect.
Magic will accept a little slippage if intent is strong, dear, and if you don’t
learn to relax and pace yourself the really long rituals will be beyond your
reach.”
Nabiki shuddered — the ritual they’d just performed had been quite long enough
for her, the thought of even longer ones wasn’t a pleasant one.
Akane asked, “So can we get out of the circles?”
“Yeah, sure,” Nabiki replied with a nod, barely noticing the edge in her
sister’s voice as she focused on their failure. She did notice when Akane all
but stomped over to drop onto the bed — Akane was an interesting mix of relief
and frustration, she apparently couldn’t decide whether to be upset or pleased
at the turn of events. Shrugging at Ranma’s questioning look, Nabiki asked, “So
what did we miss?”
“You mean what did I miss, and if I knew I wouldn’t have missed it,” Nodoka
replied, a sharp edge to her voice matching her frustration. She paused to
fight for her usual iron control, then sighed. “My apologies, I should not be
snapping at my student when the fault lies with the sensei. I will review the
ritual, but cannot promise that I will be able to determine my error in time
for the match. You should come up with an alternative plan. Unless perhaps the
Amazon elders could help us?”
Nabiki instantly shook her head, then paused as she considered her knee-jerk
reaction, and her shopping expedition that afternoon with Ku Lon and Dao Paz.
The two elders had been curious, often dismissive, occasionally impressed, but
always alert to everything around them — especially in the backroom where the
magic shop Nabiki frequented kept the real goods. And the questions they’d
asked… Finally, she slowly said, “Nooo, I don’t think that would be a good
idea. I like them, but I don’t trust them ... not with this. They have their
own agenda beyond collecting Ryoga, and I don’t know what it is. Until I do, I
don’t want them near any ritual this ... intrusive.”
Nodoka considered her student’s words, then nodded. “You have had more exposure
to them, in this you would know best,” she agreed. “So what do you do now?”
“Now, now, now, no need to panic, Cherry Blossom is here with the solutions to
your problems! Well, the solution to this problem, anyway.”
Nabiki whipped around at the sound of the sprite’s voice, to find Cherry
Blossom and Peach Fuzz sitting on the windowsill, bouncing their heels on the
wall and grinning, bubbling with delight at everyone’s shock at their presence.
Well, Nabiki and Akane’s shock, anyway. Ranma was alert but had clearly known
they were there, and Nodoka was simply amused.
“We need to work on your situational awareness, student,” the older woman said
mock-sternly, then glanced thoughtfully at Akane. “You could probably use the
practice, as well.” Putting aside her amusement, she turned back to bow to
their uninvited guests. “Welcome. Please don’t take offense, but may I ask how
you know just what our problem is?”
Nabiki glanced sharply at her sensei. Nodoka was ... not nervous, certainly not
concerned, but she was definitely respectful. Turning her attention back to the
two tiny nature spirits, the high school girl considered them just as closely —
they were just sprites! Only for Nodoka to feel the way she does, either they
aren’t what they appear or there is nothing ‘just’ about sprites. She giggled
slightly as she thought how, for someone that had prided herself in always
being in control, she was spending a lot of time recently floundering in a sea
of unknowns and maybes.
At the sound of her amusement, Peach Fuzz grinned at her, then flew up from the
window sill to circle the middle Tendo’s head before settling on her shoulder.
“The Ice Queen is developing a sense of humor, wonderful! That will make things
much easier,” the tiny brunette enthused before leaning over to peck her cheek.
“Make what easier?”Akane demanded from where she sat.
From the window sill where she still sat, Cherry Blossom replied, “Why, getting
you and that cutie hooked up!” She flew up to circle Akane, and the girl
started back from what must have looked to her like a tiny, humanoid
featureless blob.
Nabiki could feel her sister’s nervousness rapidly turning into anger, and
hastily asked, “So just what were we doing wrong?”
Cherry Blossom abandoned Akane to fly over and hover in front of Nabiki. “Why,
you weren’t doing anything wrong,” she said. “Your idea was brilliant! So was
Nodoka’s refinement of your idea, the two of you make a fine team.” She leaned
forward where she hovered to tap Nabiki’s nose. She whispered, “And believe me,
I’ve seen a lot of Initiates at work.”
Nabiki’s crossed eyes tried to widen. She asked, “Cherry Blossom, how old are
you?”
“Ah, ah, ah ...” The blonde sprite shook a finger at the teenager. “Nabiki, you
know better than that! Never ask a woman her age — especially when you are
wondering how old she is.”
“Now, C.B., be nice,” Peach Fuzz said sternly from her perch on Nabiki’s
shoulder, “you did lead her into that, after all.” Her bumblebee wings carried
her out into the middle of the room, where she could be seen by all the bigger
people as Cherry Blossom returned to the window sill. “Like Cherry Blossom
said, your ritual was perfect. But you forgot to take an important factor into
account — the Voice.”
“The Voice?” Nabiki asked. She glanced at her sensei, and Nodoka motioned for
her to continue. “But why would that make a difference? It doesn’t interfere
with the familiar bond, after all. Can Initiates with familiar-bonded nature
spirits even sense the Voice?”
“Yes, they can, if they know about it,” Peach Fuzz replied, voice going grim.
“And when they do know about it and use nature spirit familiars for info-diving
in the Voice, they lose a lot of familiars. The Voice is dangerous. That’s one
of the reasons you won’t find much about the Voice in your records — we don’t
talk about the Voice except with Initiates we know we can trust, and they don’t
pass along what they learn. We wouldn’t be talking about it with you —well,
except for Nodoka, she already knows — if it wasn’t for Ranma, so please don’t
spread this around.”
She circled the room, glaring at the three teenagers in turn as they hastily
nodded, then in an eye-blink she was reverted to the usual sprite-perkiness,
making Nabiki go cross-eyed again as she hovered in front of her and tapped her
nose. “Now you have all the answers, let’s make putting them together a lesson
for the student,” she intoned, before spinning around Nabiki’s head and flying
over to the window, giggling all the while.
Nabiki stared as Peach Fuzz settled down to sit cross-legged next to Cherry
Blossom, wondering for a moment which was the act — the mock-lightheartedness,
or the mock-seriousness — before setting the question aside for later as she
closed her eyes and considered what the sprite had said. Let’s see, the Voice
doesn’t stop Initiates from forcing nature spirits into familiar bonds, so it
can’t be that we’re essentially imposing the bond on Ranma and Akane. And it
certainly doesn’t stop the powerful nature spirits the Initiates of the West
call gods from bonding with their chosen champions, so it can’t be the level of
intelligence or power of the nature spirit. The only real difference here is
that Sensei and I are acting as conduits —
Nabiki’s eyes popped open. “It’s because Sensei and I aren’t the ones forming
the bond, isn’t it?” she demanded. “One or both of us needs to be linked to the
Voice to set up the bond.”
Cherry Blossom clapped. “Very good!” she enthused. “Nodoka must be delighted to
have such a bright student!”
“No,” Nabiki said flatly.
The two sprites exchanged puzzled glances. Peach Fuzz asked, “ ‘No’, what? No,
Nodoka isn’t delighted, or no, you aren’t bright?”
“The nature spirit I’d need to take as a familiar would have to be sapient,
wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” Cherry Blossom agreed, “nonsapient nature spirits don’t have the same
kind of link to the Voice.”
“That’s what I thought.” Nabiki crossed her arms and glared at the two
visitors. “Even if Sensei and I could cast a strong enough ritual to overcome
its resistance , I am not hunting down and capturing some random nature spirit
and forcing it to become my familiar, just so Akane can win a stupid
competition.”
Everyone ignored Akane’s shouted “Hey!” as they watched the two sprites
exchange glances. Cherry Blossom shrugged, and Peach Fuzz flew up to hover
again in front of Nabiki. She asked, “And what if you had a volunteer?”
“Yeah, right!” Nabiki scoffed. “And why would someone want to enslave himself
—” She broke off as she remembered the aftermath of Gosunkugi’s successful
summoning of Ranma, and how she’d talked to Peach Fuzz as they’d watched Ranma
amidst a cloud of sprites in the air above the koi pond, dancing to a rhythm
Nabiki couldn’t hear. And she remembered what the sprite had told her. She
asked, “The familiar bond cuts both ways, doesn’t it? Just like the master can
sense her familiar’s emotions, use its senses, the familiar can do the same
with the master. Right?”
“Yup!”
“Peach Fuzz,” Nabiki said softly, “We won’t be able to break the familiar bond
later. Do you really want to know what it’s like to be in love that much? So
much that you’re willing to enslave yourself for the rest of my life? Do you
really trust me that much?”
“Yes, it is that important to me, and yes, I trust you that much.” The sprite
slowly circled Nabiki. “Your aura has cleared up remarkably since you met
Ranma,” she said, then grinned, and flashed across the room to settle on top of
Ranma’s fiery mane. “Besides, you have Ranma here to keep you in line! If you
get too harsh I’ll just tell this little hottie, and she’ll guilt you until you
apologize. Besides, I’m too small for you.” She stood and struck a pose that
had Nabiki and Nodoka blushing, and waited until their laughter died away. “So
let’s do it,” she said, voice abruptly switching back to deadly serious.
                                     /oOo\
It wasn’t that simple, of course. Since Gosunkugi’s summoning Nabiki had had a
few nightmares of Ranma being forced into exactly the situation that Peach Fuzz
wanted to embrace, and had no desire to put herself in the place of Ranma’s
faceless dream-master. (Even in her nightmares, Nabiki just wasn’t able to
consider the sallow-skinned scrawny kid a serious threat.) In the end, it had
taken Ranma, also sensing Peach Fuzz’s growing desperation, siding with the
sprite to change Nabiki’s mind. And of course that meant that instead of being
done for the evening, Nabiki found herself with two more rituals to perform.
The first ritual, to bind Peach Fuzz to her, turned out to be one of the
easiest that Nabiki had ever cast. True, it was moderately complex. Also true,
Nabiki had reluctantly decided months before that the effort needed to acquire
and bind a worthwhile non-abyssal familiar was simply beyond her current
resources and so she hadn’t so much as glanced at the ritual since (even then
she was wary of the ulterior motives of the minor demons that obviously wanted
to be bound). But none of that mattered when the supposed ‘victim’ was not only
not effectively resisting — as in the case of nonsapient animals and nature
spirits — but eagerly abetting her own enslavement. The ritual was over almost
as soon as she finished the last chanted phrase to initiate the laughable
‘contest of wills’.
But the last ritual more than made up the difference.
                                     /oOo\
By now Nabiki’s clothes were actually plastered to her body and her sweatband
was saturated — sweat was beginning to ooze out and trickle down her forehead
into her eyes — she was well past trembling and it was taking everything she
had not to shake. Her voice was hoarse and the rhythm of her chant — this time
in Esperanto for the extra oomph — was just a bit off. With the tiny fraction
of her mind not dedicated to making the ritual work (and holding off her
sister’s growing fear battering at her control) she was wishing fervently that
her sensei was a part of the circle. Unfortunately, since Nodoka didn’t have
even an indirect link to the Voice all her inclusion would have done was ruin
any chance of success, so this time Nabiki was on her own while her sensei
observed from the sideline. And while the ritual was almost complete she was
also almost finished herself, fighting to keep her knees locked.
Then it was all she could do to reduce a jerk to a twitch and ruin everything
herself, as a soft voice sounded in her head: “Idiot. I know you bonded me to
you so you could have the link to the Voice you needed to make this work, but a
familiarisfar more useful than just that. You need my strength to get through
this, so use it.”
Right, the link with a familiar cut both ways, and if she had either the energy
or the concentration to spare she would have been kicking herself for not
thinking more about what having a sapient familiar meant. But she’d had never
seriously considered having a sapient familiar....
Nabiki didn’t dare try to relax enough to mind-speak — wasn’t even sure how,
exactly — but she and her fiancé (or rather her fiancée, for this at least) had
taken to communicating with each other with little emotion bursts when the
situation was obvious. Now with what little attention she could spare she sent
the new familiar sitting on her shoulder a sense of questioning ... of
‘really?’ (Fortunately, ‘emotion messaging’ needed very little ‘bandwidth’.)
With a mental sigh, Peach Fuzz sent, “Yes, I’m serious.” A moment later, Nabiki
felt her fatigue easing as energy was actually pushed into her — a surprising
amount, considering how tiny a creature a sprite was. Peach Fuzz thought, “What
do you know, it worked.”
With Peach Fuzz’s gift filling her, Nabiki’s tremors eased off, her voice
strengthened, and she unlocked her knees and straightened up for the last few
minutes of the ritual. She practically shouted out the final sealing phrases,
and froze in place with hands clapped in front of her and held her breath,
waiting.
                                      /\
Akane had been prepared for the second hair-over-an-hour ritual to be as mind-
numbingly boring as the first. It was the same ritual, after all — right? And
she couldn’t even bring a book into her personal circle to keep herself
occupied, something about ‘the focus needed for reading interferes with the
flow of power’. As if the way her mind had wandered the first time wouldn’t do
the same thing.
But it hadn’t worked out that way. Certainly, outwardly everything was the
same. But from the beginning she had felt a building pressure on her soul as if
some presence was worming its way into her mind, changing her perceptions and
twisting her thoughts. Her sister’s chanting had taken on an otherworldly
quality, the scent of the candles seemed to lift her off her feet to leave her
helpless before any errant breeze, and the room had wavered and gone hazy as if
she was floating deep in murky water.
This was everything wrong with magic, the unreality it made of the world, and
by now it was taking everything she had not to run screaming from the room. Her
clipped-short fingernails were digging into her palms, and she was only dimly
aware of the blood dripping off her chin from where she’d bitten into her lip.
Then Nabiki’s voice rose to almost a shout, her open hands clapped together,
and in the ringing silence the world seemed to snap into focus — and Akane
cried out, reeling as something stabbed deep into her mind. She clutched at her
head as she dropped to her knees, and the world went dark.
                                      /\
As the world swam back into focus, Akane found herself lying on the floor with
her head in Nodoka’s lap, looking up at the older woman’s worried face. Kasumi
was crouched beside her holding her hand, Nabiki kneeling on the other side
with the cute red-haired nature spirit form of her fiancé floating beside her,
both girls as worried as their mother/de facto mother-in-law.
Akane smiled weakly up at her oldest sister. “So who’s watching the fathers
now?” she whispered. Not waiting for an answer, she levered herself up with a
groan. “I’m all right,” she said, again in a whisper. Grimacing, she forced her
voice to strengthen. “What happened?”
“You fought the bond and it backlashed on you,” the perky voice of Nabiki’s new
familiar announced. “You’ll be fine, but I bet that hurt.”
Akane growled as her gaze shifted to Nabiki’s shoulder and the tiny brunette
sitting there. “I was not—” Her voice chopped off as she realized just what she
was seeing — a very tiny, very cute, very naked earth-haired winged woman. A
woman she had never seen before, just heard her voice coming from a tiny
sometimes-humanoid-shaped sense of shape buzzing about the room. And then Akane
realized what she had seen just seconds earlier, and her gaze flashed back to
Ranma — a completely visible very female Ranma. “Ranma, I can see you!” she
gasped out, then clutched at her head and mewed as another spike of pain seemed
to slam through her head.
“Easy, Akane,” Nodoka soothed, easing her back down to lie flat on the floor.
“The backlash seems to have exacerbated your concussion from this morning. If I
was your mother I would say that there would be no school tomorrow.” She
glanced over at Kasumi, getting her instant agreement before continuing, “If
you stay in bed until I get home from work, we can see if the bond took — not
before then! Understood?”
Akane found herself grinning through her pounding headache and fighting an urge
to laugh — what that would do to her head was terrifying to consider, but
Nodoka had shifted her attention to Nabiki and Ranma. Her expression must have
been formidable because the pair was veryeager to agree.
Then Kasumi was dabbing disinfectant on her lip before Ranma again scooped her
up from the floor and carried her to her bedroom (the feel of the nature
spirit’s bare breasts was as embarrassing as it had been the first time, even
with her headache). Kasumi tucked her into bed and gently kissed her on the
forehead as she’d used to just after their mother’s death before turning out
the lights and closing the door.
Akane waited as she listened to the retreating footsteps, then quietly slipped
out of bed. Making her way over to the window, she looked down at the night-
shaded lawn with its koi pond and bordering flowers and felt tears trickling
down her cheeks that had nothing to do with the pain pounding in her head. The
night was alive with tiny glowing naked winged people, dancing about each other
in the air and drifting from flower to flower like so many giant humanoid bees.
Making her way back to bed, Akane smiled as she drifted off to sleep. Even if
the bond hadn’t taken, Nabiki would be able to perform the ritual tomorrow
without a problem, because there was nothing to be afraid of anymore — she
could see, her world was once again her sisters’ world.
***** Not-So-Alone Time *****
Nabiki sighed as she leaned back against her and Ranma’s Lunch Tree. She was
feeling as naked as her lover in succubus-mode, without Ranma at the school in
either form. But Akane was stuck at home in bed and Ranma had insisted on
staying home as well to continue his (or rather, her, in this case) guard duty,
so Nabiki had eaten lunch alone for the first time since the Saotomes’ arrival
at the dojo. And without Ranma at her back — or at least within easy calling
distance — Nabiki found her old paranoia returning.
Come on, girl, buck up, she thought to herself as she finished off the last of
the as usual magnificent bento Kasumi had prepared. You took care of yourself
before Ranma arrived, you can do it now. Not that she wanted to go back to
being what she had been — in retrospect she could understand why nobody had
much liked that lonely, bitter, paranoid girl, she didn’t much like her,
either. But just because she wasn’t that girl now didn’t mean she’d turned into
a damsel in distress out of a bodice-ripping romance! And with Nodoka for a
sensei, she never would be.
Still, having the tree at her back was allowing her to really relax for the
first time since she’d left home — alone.
Hey, at least I have school to pique my interest ... sometimes, at least. I
wonder how Ranma’s doing? After guard duty all night the night before, all
night last night, and now all day today, Ranma must be bored out of her skull,
even if she doesn’t exactly have one. I wonder how she’s doing? At least she
has Peach Fuzz to keep her company — Peach Fuzz! Idiot!
Straightening and closing her eyes, Nabiki mentally reached out for the bond
with her new sprite familiar, and lurched back, knocking the back of her head
on the tree trunk as her senses exploded with fresh sensation: sight through a
curtain of red hair of twisting, turning, spinning concrete and glass buildings
flashing by; cool wind washing over her naked body, hair blowing and wings
shaking and bouncing against her back; a continuous shriek of “Wheeeee!!!”
resounding in her ears; gleeful excitement flooding through her.
Nabiki was only unable to maintain the link for a few seconds before sensory
overload and vertigo slammed her back into her own body and her eyes flew open
to the sight of the familiar — and steady — high school lawn, even if the view
was spangled with fireworks from her head’s collision with the tree. She leaned
back against the trunk again, drawing a shaky breath.
A hesitant thought whispered in her mind, Peach Fuzz: “Nabiki?”
“What wasthat?” Nabiki thought back, rubbing the back of her head.
“Ranma was giving me a ride, Peach Fuzz responded. Cherry Blossom was right,
she can reallymove! What a rush!”
Nabiki frowned. “I thought Ranma was watching Akane.”
“We are,” Peach Fuzz thought. “Ranma needed a break, so we’re making a short
dive into the Voice. Only a shallow one,” she hastily added at Nabiki’s instant
concern, “it’s practically Here and Now. Ranma’s safe enough, I’m with her so
she won’t get swept away.”
“But what about Akane?”
Nabiki again closed her eyes and cautiously reopened herself to the sprite’s
senses, and felt Peach Fuzz shrug. The world was steady, Peach Fuzz between the
red-furred wings sprouting from Ranma’s shoulder blades, one hand on each wing
to keep herself in place. “I have some other sprites watching Akane. I know we
usually have the attention span of hummingbirds, but Ranma and I’ll only be
away a few minutes. What’s up?”
“I was just checking to see how you all were doing. I’m glad to see you’re
keeping yourselves entertained.”
“Better than Akane,” Peach Fuzz thought with a giggle. “It’s only lunchtime and
she’s all read out. It’s all Kasumi can do to keep her in bed — if it wasn’t
for Nodoka saying she’d only check the bond if Akane stayed in bed, Kasumi
wouldn’t have a chance.”
Nabiki chuckled, “Yeah, Akane’s always been the more physical sister, she must
be in the outermost ring of Hell.”
“No, she isn’t — not even close.”
Peach Fuzz’s response was leached of all humor, and Nabiki instantly sobered.
Apparently, there were some things sprites didn’t joke about, even as flighty
as they were. “Well, sorry to interrupt your fun, I’ll let you get back to it.
I’ll see you both in a few hours.”
“No big, we should be getting back to Akane anyway, before her watchers get
entranced by a particularly vibrant flower — Kasumi isgoodwhen it comes to
flowers. See you in a few hours.”
Nabiki let the link fade back to the normal barely-there presence in the back
of her mind that she was going to have to get used to. She was smiling gently
when she opened her eyes to find a student standing a few yards away, an odd
look on his face. Nakadan Morimasa, an upperclassman and one of the ‘clients’
making monthly payments to her special bank account. She had been so caught up
in her link with her familiar that she hadn’t even noticed his empathic
presence when he’d approached. I’m going to have to watch that — no total
immersion in Peach Fuzz’s senses unless I’m in private or have Ranma watching
out for me. She already knew Peach Fuzz could communicate with her mind-to-mind
without her needing to close her eyes.
Cocking an eyebrow as she sampled his shocked confusion, she asked, “Yes?”
“Uh ...” Morimasa shook himself out of whatever thought was distracting him.
“That email you sent out looking for help locating where some scrolls belonged?
I might have one for you.”
For a moment Nabiki had no idea what he was talking about, until she remembered
the previous afternoon after school and before Nodoka had gotten home from her
business. She and Ranma had followed up on his suggestion, scanning in pieces
of some of the scrolls Genma had stolen that Ranma had examined and insisted
were harmless without some knowledge of ki, so she could email them to her list
of ‘clients’ and ask for help finding their rightful owners. “Really.” Nabiki’s
other eyebrow rose to join the first. “That was fast,” she mused, “I only sent
out the first email yesterday.”
Morimasa shrugged, and handed her a print-out of one of the pictures she’d
included in her email, along another print-out of a photo of a small temple
with an address jotted down beneath it. “You got lucky, I have an uncle living
in Chiba Prefecture and my family was visiting a few years ago when this one
was stolen from a Buddhist temple there.”
Nabiki frowned, examining the picture of the scroll. Much of the meaning was
obscure, thanks to unfamiliar terminology, but she didn’t see anything
particularly Buddhist, or any mention of Chiba Prefecture. She asked, “How do
you know the scroll has anything to do with this temple? Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure,” he replied. “The description of the stolen scroll’s contents was
fairly detailed, and I paid attention — I was surprised that a Buddhist temple
would have a scroll of esoteric martial arts techniques and the offered reward
was substantial, at least to me at the time.”
“All right, send me an email with everything you can remember, and I’ll look
into it and let you know how it pans out,” Nabiki instructed. “But it’ll be at
least until after the martial arts gymnastics competition on Tuesday, things
are a little busy for my family right now.”
“And I’m just supposed to take your word on it?” Morimasa demanded, suspicion
as plain on his face as in his emotional state.
Nabiki grinned mirthlessly at him. “Like you have a choice? But hey, if I cheat
you, you won’t be any worse off than you are now.  So do you want to take a
chance I’m being straight with you or not?”
“Yeah, I’ll send you your details,” Morimasa snarled, before turning to walk
away. For a few seconds there, when he’d seen her smiling, he’d actually
thought the rumors might be true and the Ice Queen might be human!
Nabiki watched him stalk away, fighting the temptation to rub at her temples.
For a moment he had actually felt ... accepting? friendly? ... nonhostile,
anyway, but he sure hadn’t felt that way when he left. Well, we’ll see if he
still feels the same way if this pans out and he doesn’t have to make payments
anymore.
Not that that might not cause its own problems down the road, if word spread.
And it would, if not as rapidly as most rumors — blackmail victims weren’t
likely to talk about it too much, but that wasn’t the same as not at all. In
fact, just from what her empathic sense was picking up at school she suspected
that it had already started since she’d let Aiko off the hook, after her sister
had given Nabiki what she’d needed to find Gosunkugi’s little lair. Having the
oppressive miasma of fear and hatred that hovered around her fellow students in
her presence continue to ease off into something more neutral was certainly
welcome — not getting one splitting headache after another would be nice — but
what did she do when one of her ‘clients’ decided she had gone soft and stopped
making payments? She couldn’t let him ... or her ... get away with it, her
karmic debt to whichever imp had collected the information in the first place
would come due and other ‘clients’ would be encouraged to follow suit. But ever
since Ranma had come into her life the thought of releasing the information as
she’d threatened had grown more and more intolerable, and she was worried over
how her fiancé would react if she did follow through.
One problem at a time, Nabiki thought with a sigh as she rose to her feet. In a
few hours we’ll know if we have an answer for this mess with the martial arts
gymnastics competition ... and then there’s the curse on Kasumi and Doc Tofu
that we put off trying to break ... and it would be nice to know what Mara
meant about Gosunkugi’s father being a threat to Ranma out ofpatriotism... and
what I do about a major demon’s personal interest in me ... and how Ranma’s
going to deal with being a succubus when the mating urge hits....
Now Nabiki did give in to the temptation to rub at her temples, and this time
her building headache had nothing to do with what her schoolmates thought of
her.
***** The grass isn't always greener ... *****
From her position floating over the roof above Akane’s bedroom, Ranma sighed
with relief as she watched through the roof, and the walls and floor beneath
it, as her mother stepped into the house through the front door and began to
switch her shoes for house slippers. Possibly the most boring day of her life
was over! Or the boring part, at least.
Of course, Ranma wasn’t the only one that had spent the long hours hopelessly
bored, and the redhead’s sigh morphed into giggles as the faint echo of
Nodoka’s shout letting everyone know she was home sounded through Akane’s
window, and the youngest Tendo threw off the blanket that Ranma could only see
a hint of and practically levitated out of bed. But to the currently-a-
succubus’s surprise, she didn’t strip off her might-as-well-not-be-there
pajamas and put on her might-as-well-not-be-there after-school clothes.
Instead, she stepped over to the window and called out, “Ranma, get down here!”
Ranma froze, panic flashing through her — She knows! For a moment she
considered just quietly sneaking away.
“I’m waiting!”
Ranma gave up any thought of running away — they’d be training together, after
all, no way to avoid her. Sighing resignedly, she dropped through the ceiling
into Akane’s room and winced at the blast of relieved irritation that hit her —
Akane’s enforced inactivity had not put her in a good mood. Ranma asked, “How’d
ya know?” Then giggled at the way Akane had spun around, then turned beet red
at the sight of the naked redhead and promptly spun around to face the window
again, embarrassment replacing irritation. The succubus added, “You’ll get used
to it, I did, kinda.”
“Get used to what?” Akane asked, staring at the property wall, then suddenly
froze before whirling around to face Ranma again. This time, her reddening face
wasn’t from embarrassment, and Ranma found herself instinctively floating
backward, away from the sudden blast of anger.
Oh, crap.
Stalking forward, Akane growled, “You haven’t been peeking on the girls’
showers at school, or me and Kasumi in the furo, have you?”
“I didn’t mean to!” Ranma protested, then froze. Oh, crap!
“Didn’t meanto? How do you not mean to use your invisibility to peep on naked
girls!?” Akane demanded, voice rising. If she wasn’t rapidly approaching full
panic mode, Ranma would have been impressed that Akane wasn’t shouting yet —
her student really was getting at least some self-control.
“I’m not even in the room, I can’t help it, I can’t hardly see dead things!”
Ranma blurted out, waving her hands around in shooing off gestures.
“You what?” Akane paused in her steady stalk, frowning.  “What does that mean?”
“I have trouble seein’ anything that’s not alive — walls, cars, furniture,
anything I can go through, it’s hardly there. The denser it is the easier I can
see something, but even solid steel’s see-through!”
Akane stiffened, remembering the feel of bare skin against her own as the
succubus Ranma carried her to her bed. That meant — “So you’ve been looking at
us right through our clothes this whole time and nobody knew!?”
Ranma started backing up again. Akane’s hands had covered her breasts and
crotch, but they’d clenched into fists as she resumed stalking toward the
succubus. Ranma hastily said, “Nabs knows, Mom knows, Kasumi ...” She
frantically tried to remember if they’d ever actually said anything to the
oldest sister.
“Yes? And Kasumi?”
“I dunno, I can’t remember! Wouldn’t matter, though, not ta Kasumi.”
Akane paused for a moment, considering feeling insulted for her sister, then
shrugged it off. Ranma was right, after all — if Kasumi found herself needing
to host a nudist party, she’d strip down with a cheerful smile and a faint
blush and carry on. “And why didn’t you tell me!?”
“Uh ... ‘cause I thought you’d try ta kill me? Ya got the temper for it.” Akane
froze, anger suddenly mixed with shame, and Ranma said, “I can’t help it, it
doesn’t turn off — ya think I like seein’ Mom an’ Pop naked all the time? Would
you like ta see yer pop naked whenever ya see him right through the wall?”
Akane turned greenish at the thought, the last of her anger washed away by
disgust. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before muttering something
about lions. Opening her eyes again, she giggled at the sight of Ranma halfway
buried in her bedroom door. She stepped back as Ranma sighed in relief at her
student’s lightening mood. “Relax, Ranma, you get to live to see the sun set,”
she said with a teasing smile. “Now could you leave while I change ... oh.
Right, no point, not like you haven’t seen everything already, over and over.”
She blushed again, but just turned away toward her wardrobe and began stripping
off her pajamas.
“Right, sorry ‘bout that,” Ranma mutter, rubbing her neck behind her loose hair
drifting in the air as she eased her way back into the room.
Akane sighed. “Not your fault,” she said as she tossed her pajamas on her bed
and pulled underwear and her gi out of the wardrobe. “I just wish you’d told me
earlier.”
“Yeah, right, not after what ya called me when ya found out we were lying about
Ranko.”
Ranma’s muttered response was just a hair too loud, and Akane froze as shame
flashed through her. After a moment she finished tying the fastenings on her gi
and turned to face a suddenly blushing Ranma, ignoring her own red cheeks (and
suppressing her automatic instinct to cover breasts and crotch). Quietly, she
said, “I guess not. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I called you ... sorry I
said that. And I really really mean it, this time. Friends?”
Ranma stared at her for a long moment, ‘tasting’ Akane’s mix of shame, regret
and hope, then smiled. “Sure, friends. But don’t think that means I won’t kick
yer ass when we’re trainin’.”
“Oh, of course not,” Akane replied, rolling her eyes and smiling back as relief
flooded through her.
The two simply stood/floated smiling at each other for a long moment, until
Ranma asked, “So, how did ya know I was on the roof?”
Akane shrugged. “I was lying in bed, mind drifting as I was dying of boredom,
and I suddenly realized that I could sense you up there.”
“You could? Cool! I guess we don’t hafta ask Mom or Nabs if the bond took.”
“I guess not.” Akane strode past Ranma and opened the bedroom door. Forcing
herself to turn back around to face the succubus (though her hands twitched),
she said, “Come on, let’s find them so they can tell us how it works.”
“Right.” Ranma floated through the wall to join Akane in the hall.
As they walked/floated toward the stairs, Akane added, “And tonight after
practice, you and ‘Nabs’ are telling me everything there is to know about
succubae.”
“Uhhh ... maybe Nabs can do it.”
“Coward.”
“Hey, I’m not afraid a’ nothin’!”
Akane was still laughing when they reach the foot of the stairs.
                                     /oOo\
“So, nothing like a prayer?” Akane asked, the sighed with relief when Nabiki
and Nodoka — the former in T-shirt and tight shorts and the latter in the
keikogi and hakama she wore for workouts — shook their heads.
“I don’t think so,” Nabiki replied, Nodoka having already indicated that her
student would be taking the lead. “True, the Western Initiates that came up
with this use prayers, but they don’t have to vocalize them — just thinking
them is enough. I think the prayer is just a tool for focusing on the link, and
since they generally link to various kami they worship — or used to — a prayer
makes sense. You might need to come up with a mantra of some sort, but let’s
find out first if you can call Ranma by just concentrating.”
Akane nodded and dropped to sit crosslegged on the wood floor of the dojo, then
closed her eyes to better focus on the link she could sense between her and her
sometimes-sensei. Oddly enough, that sense only went one way. Some quick
experimentation had shown that Ranma could sense her when the redhead
concentrated, but didn’t have Akane’s direction sense or constant sense of
Ranma when she wasn’t focused on something else. And of course when Ranma was
in guy form neither could sense anything at all. (Nabiki had been especially
relieved that the bond was still there when Ranma switched back to succubus,
she’d commented that having to recast it just before the competition would have
been no fun at all.)
Focus, girl. Letting the distractions drift away, Akane focused on the sense of
Ranma that seemed to shine at her core. Reaching out to it, she somehow
‘pulled’. Come!
For a long moment nothing happened, and she was just opening her eyes to report
a failure when suddenly that piece of ‘Ranma’ seemed to explode, flashing
through her, stiffening every muscle as her breath gusted out in shock. She was
vaguely surprised that her hair wasn’t radiating out in a static afro POOF. She
slumped, gasping.
“Wow, was that weird!”
Akane froze at the voice that she wasn’t hearing, at least not with her ears.
“Ranma?”
“Uh, yeah, who else?” The voice in her head certainly ‘sounded’ like succubus-
Ranma, but ...
“But Nabiki didn’t say anything about you talking in my head, just that I’d get
some of your skill!”
“Actually, little sis, in a way I did, we just didn’t think it through. I said
that when the bond was active Ranma would probably be pulled into you.”
“You did?” Akane opened her eyes, and promptly lost track of Nabiki’s response
as she saw her sister — her smooth, shapely, sexy sister, with bare legs
smoothly toned by the minimal exercise program she’d had before and now getting
harder from the tougher regimen under her new sensei. Akane’s eyes seemed to
have a life of their own as they travelled up her sister’s body — the fork in
her legs covered by shorts tight enough to outline her mound, a hint of nipples
under the thin shirt hugging firm breasts unencumbered by a bra and begging to
be caressed —
Akane clapped her hands over her eyes, shouting “Out! Out! Out!” as she tried
to push against Ranma’s presence inside her. A moment later the presence was
gone. Carefully peeking between her fingers, she sighed in relief to find her
sister was back to her pretty but non-attractive (if currently confused) self.
The naked succubus floating next to her looking equally confused was as cute as
ever, but also not attractive. And Nodoka was as beautiful as ever — and also
obviously confused.
Akane jerked to her feet, shouting, “Why didn’t you warn me!?”
The other three exchanged glances. Nodoka asked, “Warn you of what, dear?”
“That when I looked at people, they’d be ... be ...” Akane choked, cheeks
turning red.
The confusion on Nabiki’s face cleared as she fought and failed to restrain
herself, and she bent over clutching her sides as she howled with laughter. She
finally fought herself under control when Akane’s hand’s curled into fists. She
straightened, wiping at her eyes. “Oh, wow, that’s what that flash of lust was
about. Were you perving on me, little sister?”
Akane growled as her blush turned fiery, and Nabiki held up her hands. “Easy,
girl, I did warn you. When I first told you about this I said that the
champions would pick up some of the attitudes of the kami they bonded to, when
they summoned their aspect. Just what kind of attitudes did you expect a
succubus to have?”
“You did?” Akane asked in a small voice, her hands unclenching.
“Yes, I did, you just forgot about it. So did everyone else, actually, or just
not think it through. We weren’t playing a prank on you, really.”
“Oh.” Though I might have deserved it, after what I called Ranma. Akane looked
over at the succubus. “And you’re like that all the time, for everyone?”
Ranma rubbed at the back of her head. “Well, whenever I’m like this, yeah.”
“Even guys?”
“Yeah, even guys,” the succubus admitted, cheeks tinted pink.
Akane asked, “When you turn back into a guy, how do you bear it?”
Ranma shrugged. “I try not ta think about it. Helps that when I’m a guy I’m not
attracted ta anybody.”
“Oh.” Akane filed that little fact away for later, there were more important
things to think about right now. “I guess we could practice while merged alone
—”
All three of the others were shaking their heads. Nodoka said, “At the
competition you’re going to have an audience.”
“Right,” Ranma agreed. “If ya aren’t used ta it by then, at least a bit, you’re
gonna be so distracted Kodachi’ll hand you yer head.”
“Oh.” I seem to be saying that a lot.
The more the youngest Tendo learned about what being a succubus was actually
like, the more sympathy she felt for the poor boy — though Ranma seemed to be
adjusting to his ... her ... new nature well enough. “A lion is a lion,” she
murmured. But I don’t want to be a lion. She said more loudly, “I have to think
about this,” and strode past the other three and out of the dojo.
                                     /oOo\
Dressed again in her pajamas, Akane stood at the window of her lightless
bedroom and stared blindly out at the late night. Or was it early morning?
She’d tried to sleep, but sleep had been impossible after spending most of the
day in bed and the entire evening wrestling with the decision she had to make.
She didn’t want to be like Ranma, she didn’t— her stomach churned whenever she
thought about it. But she didn’t want to hand Kodachi the victory, either, and
she couldn’t have one without the other, and so her mind had spent hours
circling around the same two contradictory points.
Then a hint of movement caught her eye, and she focused on the house across the
street, along the peak of the roof — another hint of movement, a shape....
“Ranma, across the street,” she called up softly to the succubus she could
sense again hovering above the roof over her bedroom.
“Yeah, it’s Kodachi, she’s been there awhile,” Ranma replied. “But she can see
me somehow, she knows I’m here. She’s an ambusher, so she’s keepin’ her
distance.”
Somehow, knowing the other girl was out there, haunting her, crystallized
Akane’s thoughts. “Ranma, when we go train with the Amazons tomorrow we’ll need
to remember to let them know about her, make sure she can’t see us when we ...
merge.”
“So we’re still on?”
“Yes, we’re still on. Good night.”
“ ‘Night, Akane, see ya in the mornin’.”
Akane turned from the window and climbed back into bed, asleep almost as soon
as her head hit the pillow.
***** Acclimatizing is not fun. *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Still dressed in her pajamas, a bleary Akane stumbled into the family room,
rubbing at her eyes — in spite of her enforced bedrest the previous day, the
late (or rather early) hours the night that followed hadn’t been close to
enough.
“Whoa, watch it!” The succubus floating next to Akane caught her arm. “If ya
want ta eat, don’t kick yer breakfast across the room.”
Akane dropped her hands and looked down to find she’d almost walked into the
low table in the center of the room, already laden with one of Kasumi’s divine
breakfasts and Nabiki wearing her workout clothes and her father with the
inevitable newspaper seated there. “Oops, sorry,” she muttered, dropping down
next to Nabiki and picking up her chopsticks while Ranma floated off to one
side.
Nabiki waited long enough for Akane to make a dent in her breakfast, then
finally asked, “Well, are we still on?”
Akane nodded with a sigh. “Yeah, we’re still on. But Ranma, the next time
someone asks me to fill in for them like this and it looks like I’m taking it
seriously, please kick me.”
Ranma chuckled (not giggled) from where she was floating by the door to the
yard, causing Soun to jerk slightly before determinedly focusing back on the
paper. “Ya got it!” she agreed with perhaps a touch too much enthusiasm (though
only a touch — Akane thought that it would have been impossible to have too
little enthusiasm).
Ranma continued, “But we’re gonna hafta wait till tomorrow ta get ya used ta
having me in you, I won’t be at the practice tonight. Nabiki, where’s Kodachi’s
school? I wanna check out how she’s doin’ with her own practice.”
Nabiki raised an eyebrow. “Using your succubus nature to spy in the
competition? How ... practical. But remember, she can see you somehow.”
Ranma shrugged, bouncing her bare breasts.  Akane hastily looked away from the
sight, blushing furiously as she remembered how she’d felt looking at her
sister the previous evening. It’s not fair! Am I going to be able to look
atanybodywithout thinking about ... that? She forced the worrying thought away,
focused again on the others.
“ ... don’t look up, I’ll just peek through the ceiling,” Ranma was saying.
Nabiki nodded thoughtfully. “That’s not a bad idea,” she mused, “but I don’t
like Akane missing out on getting acclimatized. Who knows how long she’ll
need?” She glanced at Akane out of the corner of her eye, and grinned slyly.
“So I have a marvelous idea.”
                                      /\
“How did Nabiki manage to talk us into this?” Akane grumbled to her ‘passenger’
as she stalked toward the front gates to Furinkan High, eyes fixed firmly ahead
and not on anyone that might be sharing the street with her. At least she and
Ranma had waited until they’d left home to merge, so she hadn’t seen her
sisters or Nodoka or especially her father ... after.
“ ‘Cause she’s right, this’s the best way ta get ya ... what was the word Nabs
used? ... acclimatized before ya hafta fight in front a’ all the spectators,”
Ranma replied. Not that Akane thought the succubus was all that happy about it,
either, from the tone of her ‘voice’. Ranma confirmed her host’s observation a
moment later by adding, “Still, even if it’s only a Saturday half-day, this’s
gonna be the longest day ever — boring as usual and I can’t even snooze through
it.”
Akane giggled. “I’ll tell Nabiki you said that, you know how she feels about
sleeping in class.”
Then she walked through the gates and missed Ranma’s panicky response as she
froze at the sight of all the students — all the healthy, vibrant, sexy,
desirable students, male and female — scattered around the yard in clumps,
waiting for school to start.
“Hey, Akane!”
She turned at the shout, and blushed furiously at the sight of her two best
friends hurrying toward her. As she fought to keep her eyes from wandering over
Sayuri and Yuka’s nubile bodies, and tried to ignore how soaked her panties
were getting, she decided that Ranma was both right and wrong — even with it
being a Saturday half-day at school, it was going to be a long day but anything
but boring.
                                     /oOo\
Akane shook her head, trying to keep the sweat out of her eyes, and stepped to
one side. Ignoring the long ribbon that spiraled through the space she had just
occupied, she hurled the club she’d held in one hand even as she tried to wrap
her own undulating ribbon around Ryoga’s feet. But Ryoga simply stepped on her
ribbon even as his own ribbon swept up to knock her club just far enough off
its trajectory that it spun past his ear, and his club smacked into her
forehead, rocking her head back. Before she had a chance to recover his ribbon
wrapped around her back foot, yanked, and her lungs emptied in one gust of
breath as she slammed down on her back.
As she fought to refill her lungs, Ryoga walked over and offered her a hand up.
“Not bad,” he said, “you’re beginning to think in combinations. But you got it
in the wrong order — it’s too easy to avoid the ribbon aimed at your feet
without a distraction.”
“Like a club to the head,” Akane said with a sigh.
“Like a club to the head,” Ryoga agreed, chuckling. His chuckles cut off
abruptly, though, and his head snapped away when Akane stretched.
Akane stared quizzically at the blush mounting the Lost Boy’s cheeks, then
glanced down at herself and stiffened. She was wearing the white leotard she’d
be competing in, and it was soaked with sweat, plastered against her body — and
almost translucent, the black fabric of her bra visible through the fabric.
In a strangled voice, Ryoga said, “Why don’t you take a break? You’ve been
working harder than usual, without Ranma here to split my attention.” Without
waiting for an answer, he scooped up the club he’d bounced off her forehead and
strode away toward where his other weapons were lying on the ground.
Wryly, Akane thought, Well, at leastoneboy isn’t a pervert. Though after the
day she’d just had, she’d acquired a reluctant sympathy for perverts — it had
been hard being constantly aroused by the bodies surrounding her everywhere she
looked. She’d finally gotten an extra-absorbent pad from the stock the school
nurse kept for the girls that failed to plan ahead and done her best not to
focus on anyone. She’d walked into a couple doors, but it had gotten her
through the school half-day. She didn’t know how Ranma did it.
“Fool Girl getting better.”
Akane winced at the nickname Ryoga’s wife had bestowed on her when she’d
learned that Akane had accepted a challenge for a fight in a style she didn’t
know at all. Of course, that was Ryoga’s second wife. Okay, maybe he’s just
alittlebit perverted, she thought. She turned just in time to see her sensei’s
first wife lightly rap Xian Pu on the head.
“Be polite,” Pa Fum lightly scolded, then turned to Akane and handed her a
canteen. “P-please forgive my rude co-wife,” she said, “she just doesn’t like
mispronouncing people’s names.”
“Already forgotten,” Akane said. Not that she believed it for a moment, but Pa
Fum was too nice to fight with. The youngest Tendo greedily sucked down half
the canteen’s water, then poured the rest over her head. She added, “Besides,
she didn’t call me anything I haven’t called myself a couple times a day since
I accepted the challenge — it really was a stupid thing to do. I don’t know
what I was thinking.” She dropped down to lie on the grass, and the two Amazons
sat down next to her.
“Fool —” whap “— Akane eager to prove strong, forget limits,” Xian Pu said.
“Good warrior never forget limits.”
“So how am I supposed to get better, then?”
“It not that warrior forget limits....” Xian Pu fell silent for a few moments,
then spoke rapid-fire Chinese to her co-wife.
Pa Fum translated, “Xian Pu says that it isn’t that a warrior shouldn’t push
her limits while training, that’s how she makes herself a great warrior. But in
battle a warrior that forgets her limits will soon be dead, perhaps some of her
shield sisters with her.”
Xian Pu nodded vigorously. “Akane train hard, is good, try what cannot do, is
good — when train. Try in contest, is ...” Another word in Chinese, and Pa Fum
finished, “... humiliating.”
Not just in a competition, Akane thought, blushing faintly as she remembered
her first match with Ranma and how badly outclassed she’d been. Still, that
match had given her a great deal of respect for her sensei’s skill in the Art —
which was probably the point, now that she thought about it.
Akane glanced up at the two Amazons, wondering why they’d fallen silent, to
find them staring off to the side. Curious, she sat up to see Ryoga a few dozen
yards away running through a kata she didn’t recognize, one full of short,
heavy blows. For a moment, her imagination served up an image of the boy with
his shirt off, all flowing grace and rippling muscles ... she quickly looked
back at the two girls, blushing furiously. The desire to jump anything with two
legs had left her when she’d separated from Ranma after the school day ended,
but the memory didn’t go away so easily. She wondered again just how Ranma
could deal with that need, day after day. But she wasn’t finding herself
attracted to girls all of a sudden, not now, so at least they were mostly safe
to look at.
Only something was bothering her, something about the two girls’ ...
expressions? Body language? Something was ringing alarm bells. While the two
girls weren’t angry with their husband, they weren’t happy with him, either.
She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. Perhaps something she’d picked up
from Ranma while they’d been merged? Worry about it later. For a long moment
Akane considered just ignoring it, it wasn’t like they were lifelong friends,
after all. But they’d been nice enough while she’d been training with the
Amazons, never laughing at her during the clumsy first evening. And besides,
she’d seen Xian Pu practice her own Art and was hoping to pick up a few
pointers later.
“Okay, what’s wrong with Ryoga?” she asked. “Anything I can help with? I
thought he’d accepted you as wives, he isn’t thinking of backing out, is he?”
She wasn’t really sure how she felt about that....
“Oh, no, he’s fine there,” Pa Fum quickly reassured her. “Most Wanderers are,
the promise of a family they can come home to but won’t have to worry about
when they aren’t there wins them over. No, he’s just ...”
“Husband too too bad at sex,” Xian Pu finished bluntly when her co-wife’s voice
trailed off.
“Now Xian Pu, be nice,” Pa Fum admonished, blushing furiously. “We don’t know
he’s bad at sex. Maybe if we could just keep him from fainting at the sight of
a bare breast he’d be a marvelous lover.”
Xian Pu gave Pa Fum a look and she seemed to shrink slightly. The younger
Amazon winced at the sight and reached over to pull her into a hug, softly
speaking in Chinese until she relaxed. Xian Pu tightened her embrace for a
moment and let go of Pa Fum, then glanced over at a blushing Akane, grinned
slyly and said, “No happen. Sex like Art, beginner too too bad — Xian Pu know,
both sides. But Husband learn, if stay awake.”
Okay, so maybe he’s not perverted at all, just the opposite, Akane thought
distractedly. As she desperately tried to come up with a change of subject that
wouldn’t involve learning more than she’d ever wanted to know about other
people’s sex lives, her mouth took on a life of its own and said, “Have you
asked Ranma for help?”
The Amazons stared at her, eyes widening. Pa Fum repeated, “Ask Ranma?”
Why did Isaythat? Akane wailed to herself. “Sure,” she babbled, “she’s a sex
demon I mean she’s a sex spirit I mean he turns into a sex nature spirit and
wouldn’t he I mean she be able to help or know what to do or —” She clapped her
hands over her mouth as her blush went from red to fiery. “Shutting up now,”
she mumbled through her fingers, looking down at the grass as the other two
girls started to laugh. She didn’t even know if Ranma could really help, they
hadn’t had the talk about succubae she’d threatened Ranma with yet.
Pa Fum embraced the blushing girl. “Actually, that’s a good idea,” she said,
fighting giggles. “I don’t know if Ranma will be able to do anything — or want
to — but it won’t hurt to ask, thank you.” She let go and sat back, then
glanced over at her husband, Akane’s eyes following her gaze to find her
temporary sensei walking towards them. “And it seems break time is over.”
Akane grabbed her ribbon’s handle and one of her clubs, thinking as she
scrambled to her feet that she’d never been happier to get back to training.
Chapter End Notes
     For the many people that don’t read my Chained World story, I know
     I'm still late. Partly that's because of my summer vacation, but also
     because I did something I almost never do — decide one of my subplots
     was getting off-track and throw out several days’ worth of writing
     and starting over. And while I’ve caught up on my daily wordage, I
     can now add writing more than I end up using in the chapter. Ah,
     well, that just means I’ll be updating faster next month. However,
     next month I'll probably be skipping First Chapters again (darn it!).
     I'll be helping a long-time friend and her family move from
     California to Wyoming, and it'll eat up most of a week. Again, we'll
     see.
***** A Lion Is a Lion *****
Ranma grinned as she spiraled down toward the large building directly below
her, St. Hebereke School for Girls, her wings spread wide — she was finally
away from school and an Akane that had grown increasingly tense and irritable
as the day had passed to the point that the emotional overload was getting
painful. And she had the perfect excuse for skipping the afternoon training
(and so not spend more time in the presence of a girl that couldn’t bear to
look at her at the moment), and best of all she could go flying! The more time
she spent in the air, the more she thought that that alone might make up for
all the downsides of being a succubus — the sheer freedom she felt swooping and
diving, even simply gliding, was like nothing else. Only getting lost in the
Voice matched it and that was something completely different, getting lost in
the song of life from the world all around her instead of luxuriating in the
feel of her own body, the play of muscles she didn’t really have, the caress of
air flowing over bare skin, the world spread out beneath her....
Still, as much as she would have liked to just blow off the afternoon, she
actually was on a mission. Ah, well, maybe I’ll just take the long way home.
She reached the roof of the building, unseen so far as she could tell. There
had been some girls practicing soccer on the adjacent field, but even if any of
them had the necessary Sight to see her none had looked up. Now to find her
target.
Hovering above the roof, she concentrated for the second needed to pull in her
red-furred wings, and the sprite that had been riding between them with her
tiny arms around Ranma’s neck let go and flew up to settle on her shoulder.
“Ya sure this is the right school?” Ranma asked Peach Fuzz. While the school
was as translucent as practically every other building she’d seen, it was also
a tall one and she was finding that multiple translucent floors or walls
quickly made anything beyond them go blurry — like gazing into deep, slightly
murky water.
“Yes, I am,” Peach Fuzz replied. “When she ambushed you at the school and we
realized she could see you — the you you, the succubus — Morning Dew followed
her around for awhile so we sprites would know what places to avoid. She’s
scary, there’s no knowing what she’d do to any sprites she might catch.”
Ranma winced at the implication that the human form wasn’t really her but put
it aside, she had more immediate concerns at the moment. “Where’s the gym?”
Peach Fuzz flew up from Ranma’s shoulder and tapped her on the nose, giggling
when Ranma went cross-eyed looking at the tiny nude brunette hovering in front
of her face. “I don’t know, so you just wait here while bond-sister Peach Fuzz
goes window peeping!” Before Ranma could object she flew away to vanish over
the edge of the roof and down. Bond-sister?
Long before the combination of her absence and her comment about the sprites’
concern about Kodachi had time to grow into a full-blown panic attack she was
back. “Found them, come on!” she shouted and was off again, leaving a relieved
but bemused succubus behind.
Ranma quickly caught up with her fiancée’s familiar hovering by a long but thin
horizontal window, designed for letting in plenty of natural light while
limiting chances for balls to fly through them. She hovered herself while
looking through the wall, and nodded at the sight of the raven-haired girl with
the off-center ponytail that she thought was wearing a leotard (if the leotard
hadn’t been midnight-black she wouldn’t have been able to see its faint hint at
all at that distance) and a choker around her neck that seemed to shine with
power. She was on a mat in the center of the room, surrounded by other girls.
“That’s her, all right,” she said, then looked up at the room directly above —
empty, perfect. She could stick her head through the floor/ceiling to watch
(and listen), while out of sight of anyone around that could see the
supernatural.
                                      /\
Ranma’s frown deepened the more she watched the practice below her. For
starters, Kodachi was the only one practicing — the other girls were either
helping Kodachi by throwing various clubs and balls at her or using hoops and
ribbons to try to trip her up, or standing around cheering her on. None of them
were on the other mats practicing their own routines. And there was something
about their attitude toward Kodachi that rankled — Ranma was accustomed to the
respect a student owed his sensei, but this was ... something else.
Ranma shook her head. Think about it later, you’re here ta see how good she is,
check out her moves. And Kodachi ... was not bad, not bad at all. However
privileged she considered herself to be, she had put in the effort and
discipline to know her stuff. But ... her movements were predictable, almost
stylized. A’ course they are, she’s been cheatin’ all along, ambushin’ the
other teams before the matches ever take place. She’s never
facedrealopposition, not in the ring. Though she hadn’t been all that bad when
they’d first met, when Ranma and Akane had rescued the Furinkan team.
“Very well, that is enough for today!” Kodachi announced imperiously as she
dropped a club. “Ochiyo, you will attend me in my shower,” She quickly gathered
up her ribbon and turned to stride off the mat toward a single door.
“Yes, Mistress!” A tiny blonde (dyed?) girl eagerly trotted after her. The
other girls were bunching up to walk toward some double doors, some of them
gathering up the various clubs, rings and balls, some of them watching Ochiyo
... enviously? Ranma wasn’t sure at that distance, the emotions were too
intermixed and tenuous.
Ranma frowned — that earlier sense that something was off was back. As the Kuno
lunatic strode through the door out of the gym below her, the succubus quickly
flew through the outside wall and dropped to Kodachi’s level so she could see
clearly what Kodachi was doing though a single wall. The Kuno was stripping out
of her not-there clothing as she stood in what had to be a teacher’s office
next to a private shower, Ochiyo beside her doing the same. And most
importantly, Kodachi had removed the choker!
Ignoring Peach Fuzz’s demand to know what was going on, Ranma continued to
watch through the wall as Ochiyo started the shower, tested the water’s
temperature, then grabbed the soap and stepped back to make room for Kodachi.
Kodachi stepped into the shower and turned in place, wetting herself all over,
then raised her arms as Ochiyo followed her in. As Ranma watched the blonde run
first the bar of soap and then her hands over Kodachi’s body from feet to neck,
working up a lather, her hands lingering at breasts and cleft, the succubus was
feeling more and more ... frustrated. The wall was cutting off their emotions!
Finally, she drifted up and through the wall into the shower, above the two
girls.
The succubus gasped in shock, shuddering as found herself under assault by
waves of emotions — gloating, predatory delight, lust, amusement, pleasure,
pleasure, pleasure, and threads of eager anticipation running through
everything. The red-haired spirit barely noticed that Kodachi was moaning as
she reeled from the overload.
Kodachi rinsed herself off, then spread her feet wide and braced herself
against the wall. “You know what to do, slave!” she demanded as her hands
cupped her water-beaded breasts, thumbs caressing lust-crinkled nipples.
“Yes, mistress,” Ochiyo replied, a burst of amusement washing over Ranma as the
girl dropped to her knees. Then she leaned forward, planting her mouth over
Kodachi’s cleft as her hands gripped her ‘mistress’s’ ass. Ranma shivered as
the level of pleasure washing over her exploded, luxuriating in the lust-filled
delight, the need the two girls were radiating. Ochiyo shifted slightly, slowly
easing a finger up into Kodachi’s sheath as her tongue played with the clit
peeking out from under its hood. Kodachi’s moaning strengthened, her head
tilted back, eyes clenched shut, and Ranma found herself reaching out as she
drank in the torrent of rising pleasure, eager to join the fun — drank in ...
Ranma jerked back from the girls below her, eyes wide. What am I doing!? she
thought even as she felt the wave of Kodachi’s orgasm wash through her. It felt
so good....
Nabiki! Her wings sprang out, and she flashed straight up through floor after
floor, through the roof, and twisted in the open air to fly for home at full
speed.
                                      /\
Nabiki was lounging on her bed, slowly reading through the book Nodoka had
handed her as she was leaving for school that morning, with many pauses to suss
out the meaning. The book was an ancient text on various spirits native to
Japan and their relationships with individuals, Initiates, and Sleepers in
general, and was written in kanbun. It was heavy going, but fascinating. With
the champion bond between Akane and Ranma in place Nabiki’s part in the current
drama seemed to be over, and she was she was very happy to be exploring the
more intellectual side of her apprenticeship under Nodoka.
Then she jerked as she felt her fiancé speed through her wards. Dropping the
book, she looked up just in time to see Ranma flash through the ceiling and
toward her, wings vanishing. “Nabiki, I’m sorry!” the nature spirit wailed as
she slammed into the middle Tendo, knocking the breath from her lungs as she
pushed her back into her bed. A stunned Nabiki desperately sucked in air as she
found herself embracing a clutching, crying, babbling succubus drowning in
terrified, despairing guilt. “Peach Fuzz, whathappened?” she demanded over the
familiar link.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Ranma’s here, and she’s a mess! What did she do?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t even know she’d left.” The sprite quickly filled in her
mistress on the scouting trip up to the point that Ranma disappeared through
the wall into St. Hebereke School. “What do you want me to do?”
Nabiki quickly ran through the available options. “Could you join Akane with
the Amazons and let me know when she’s ready to come home? I agree with Ranma
that she shouldn’t be walking around alone and I don’t know if Ranma will be
ready to escort her by then. We may need to hire some Amazons as temporary
bodyguards.”
“Sure thing, boss, I’m on it.”
That settled, Nabiki refocused on her armful, listening intently to the
practically stream-of-consciousness river of words. Finally deciding she had at
least some idea of what was wrong, she gently shook the succubus, then again,
hard, when it had no effect. “Ranma ... Ranma ... RANMA!”
Ranma finally broke off. “Y-y-yes?” she stammered fearfully.
Nabiki said, “I’m not surprised, I’m not upset, I don’t think you betrayed me,
and I’m not throwing you out. I love you. If you’d take a second to read me
you’d know that.”
Ranma stiffened for a moment in her arms, then went limp as relief swept
through her. “But why?” she asked in a small voice. “I betrayed ya —”
“No you didn’t,” Nabiki broke in to state firmly. “You’re a succubus, that’s
how you feed. Did you really think that I’d be the only person you ever fed off
of? I didn’t. As wonderful as it would be to have this relationship work by
purely human rules, that’s just not going to happen.”
“Oh. I seem ta keep doin’ this to ya, sorry.” Ranma fell silent for a few
minutes, then added, “I wish it did.”
Nabiki sighed. “Yeah, so do I sometimes, but I knew what I was in for when I
said I’d be your fiancée. And if I hadn’t gotten to know you as a succubus
first, I doubt we’d be lovers at all. I’ll take this over being just friends in
a heartbeat.” If we’d evenbefriends, she didn’t add.
“Yeah, me too.”
The two simply lay there for a time, drinking in the love each was radiating,
when Nabiki had a thought. Grinning, she ran a hand down Ranma’s back to grip
one ass cheek. “You know,” she whispered in Ranma’s ear, “Mother won’t be home
from work for awhile yet and Akane’s training. Do you want to get in some fun
time?” For just a moment she felt need sweep through her lover, before Ranma
pulled away, breaking the embrace to float up into the middle of the room as
Nabiki sat up on the bed.
“No,” Ranma said, shaking her head even as her hunger continued to wash over
Nabiki. “No, ya got yer studying an’ it’s been awhile since I’ve practiced our
own family style. I think I’m gonna head fer the furo, then train in the dojo
until it’s time fer Akane ta come home.”
Oops. Ranma flinched at Nabiki’s spike of regret, and her fiancée hastily said,
“I’m mad at myself, not you — I shouldn’t have offered, not after all that, not
yet. Go enjoy your training, you maniac.” Ranma grinned at her, relaxing again,
and started dropping through the floor only to pause when Nabiki added, “I love
you, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. I love ya, too.” Then the redhead was gone, and Nabiki fell back
on her bed, gusting out her breath. “Whoo!”
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah, Ranma’s settled down. I made a serious goof, but I think I fixed it.
She’ll head over to escort Akane home when little sis is ready.”
“Great! I’m almost there, I’ll let you know when it’s time.”
“Thanks.”
Nabiki picked up the book again but paused for a few minutes to review what she
remembered of Ranma’s babblings, especially about the emotions she’d picked up
in that shower. Nabiki grinned viciously. It sounded like Kodachi thought she
was the Empress of Earth and her so-called teammates were playing along for fun
and the sex — that stuck-up bitch was going to be in for a real shock when they
let her know what they really thought, and she just hoped she’d be there to see
it when it happened.
Heart lighter, she opened the book and returned to her studies.
***** Busted! *****
Sitting on her couch, Calise wriggled her bare toes in the grassy sward that
covered her Niflheim apartment floor and giggled as she gazed at the video
playing on her tablet, just made available to the demonic public from the imps
assigned to shadow Akane and Ranma that day.
It hadn’t taken the imps long to realize just what the Saotomes — Tatsunos, now
that Nodoka had legally re-assumed her maiden name for herself and her son —
and the Tendos had done, and they had immediately closed the distance. It was
obvious that Akane was now Awakened and so seeing the true world she lived in,
the way her eyes followed the unusually large number of sprites all around her
even as she avoided looking at anyone else made that obvious. But she didn’t
have Ranma’s ability to see through nonliving matter — and so long as Ranma was
merged with her new Champion, she would be looking through Akane’s eyes and so
couldn’t see through nonliving matter, either. That had greatly enhanced the
imps’ ability to hide up close to the pair, and they had taken full advantage
of it in spite of the risk that Ranma might separate from her Champion at any
moment and catch them in the act — assuming that Ranma ended up next to Akane
and not back wherever she was when Akane had ‘called’ her, the imps hadn’t been
sure which would happen.
The results had been worth the risk for the entertainment value alone, and
Calise returned the recording to the point where Akane had walked through the
school gate, the demoness helplessly giggling at the close-up shot of the
girl’s stunned, disgusted, hungry expression when she’d seen all the students
through Ranma’s eyes. Yes, the results were well worth the risk.
Then the apartment doorbell chimed. Calise pouted as she paused the recording
and set the tablet aside on the couch before rising to answer the door — that
particular chime indicated her visitor was someone that she couldn’t ignore,
much as she might have liked to after the long, boring day she’d had at work.
She understood why field agents were occasionally assigned to Records,
experiencing the Hellish bureaucracy from the ‘other’ side was useful, but she
was going to be very happy when she finished her stint and got back into the
field.
She padded to the door as the chime sounded again and checked the viewer, and
her pout vanished into a broad smile as she opened the door to reveal a tanned,
blonde Mara dressed in a vest open to the waist with clearly nothing but skin
underneath it and an inch of skin showing between the bottom hem of a tight
miniskirt and thigh-high boots, all in red leather. “Girlfriend, looking good!’
she enthused. “You finished with Europe for the moment?” Mara had to have been
back for awhile, that wasn’t normal attire for hobnobbing with European Union
business elites — at least not while doing business, by now Mara was senior
enough to leave most seduction work to underlings.
“For the moment,” Mara replied as she stepped into the apartment. She sat down
on a padded stool on the small tiled section of floor around the door and
lifted a foot. “A little help?”
Calise laughed as she pulled off first one then the other of her friend’s
thigh-high boots. “You wore those on purpose!” she accused.
Mara smirked. “Well, maybe, though you’re welcome to join me in blowing off
some steam tonight.” She stood and stepped onto the thick soft grass and
wriggled her now-bare toes in the grass, sighing contentedly. “Your floor isn’t
exactly practical, but it’s certainly easy on the feet,” she enthused.
“ ‘Practical’ is for my servant to worry about, it’s the one that has to
maintain it,” Calise replied. “And Araj likes the feel as much as I do, it only
grumbles about the extra work enough to maintain its preferred image as a put-
upon work drudge.”
Mara laughed and ambled over to the couch. Picking up the tablet, she laughed
again when she saw the frozen image. She backed it up to the beginning, and
chortled as Akane again walked through the gates. “Oh, yes, that one’s a
classic,” she caroled, but then sobered, frowning as she saw the source code in
the corner. “But when did the Nerima operation become public entertainment?”
Calise shrugged as she joined her friend. “Someone in Records just found this
too good not to share. I suppose we could try and track it back to the leaker,
but I doubt we’d manage it. Unlike the temps like me, that Pit’s permanent
denizens are very good at manipulating the system — whoever dumped it into the
open databoards will have covered his, her or its tracks.”
Mara sighed but nodded, ignoring Calise’s putdown of her own capabilities — her
friend was better than most at navigating Nidhogg’s databanks, but compared to
the professionals permanently assigned to Records she was a rank amateur. So
was Mara. “True, but it’s unfortunate — it may attract the attention of some of
my rivals, and I could do without the unasked for interference.” She paused for
a moment, then sighed again and reached under a jacket flap barely covering an
otherwise bare breast to pull out a paper square and hand it to her friend.
“Speaking of unasked for interference,” she said, “would you care to explain
this?”
Calise glanced at the sheet and was hard-pressed not to flinch at the sight of
a photo of a black jewel set in a silver band with red-enameled traceries,
gracing a woman’s neck — the choker she had arranged for Kodachi to acquire. “A
pretty bauble,” she said, handing the picture back to Mara.
“Yes, Jenkin’s Amulet is pretty, but it’s far from a bauble,” Mara replied.
“Why did you arrange for Kodachi to have it?”
Calise’s mind raced as she tried to come up with a way to avoid the
responsibility, but when the silence had stretched too long she finally
shrugged. Please don’t let Mara read too much into this! “It’s safe enough with
Kodachi,” she replied, “the girl is a Sleeper so most of its powers are
unavailable to her — but it will let her see what would otherwise be invisible,
including Ranma. I thought that would add to the pressure on Ranma and Nabiki,
maybe push them closer to accepting your offer, and when Kodachi inevitably
fails to return it as promised we simply take it back and she’ll owe us. I
don’t know what use a debt owed by a nutcase like her will be, but who knows?”
“And if Nabiki traces it back to you? What then?” Mara demanded. “She’ll reject
the offer if she thinks I’m forcing it on her.”
“Not happening,” Calise asserted. “Kodachi was the one that sought out the shop
where she acquired it, and the shopkeeper whose form I wore is actually the
shop’s owner, and fully human. And since he watched the entire encounter
through a security camera, he’ll have no trouble pretending he was the one that
loaned it to her. And the choker is a human artifact, no demonic influence in
its creation. No, we’re covered.”
Mara frowned staring intently at her friend, while Calise did her best to
maintain her air of nonchalance. It was hard. It wasn’t precisely unheard of
for a demon at their level to give unasked for aid to another demon, but when
it happened the volunteer was usually angling for some sort of favor or
advantage — at least when the aid was as extensive as Calise’s had been. The
next logical question for Mara to ask was what was in it for her friend, and
Calise had no idea how she was going to respond.
But to her surprised relief, Mara only nodded and said, “Good enough, thank
you.”
When it became clear Mara wasn’t going to continue, Calise asked, “How did you
recognize it?”
“You were a little too eager to make your move,” Mara replied, grinning. “I
imagine you just researched its nature and capabilities. If you hadn’t been so
eager to play that you skipped studying its history, you would have found that
I was the one that originally handed it off to Stores a few centuries ago, at
the same time I handed its creator’s soul off to Assignments.”
Calise winced. “Careless, maybe I do belong in records.”
“No, you’re just little rusty and bored, nothing that won’t be cured as soon as
you get back in the field,” Mara disagreed. “No harm done, just don’t do this
again — I know you want to help, but they’ll have more than enough trouble
coming their way from the Gosunkugis, no need to push it. So why don’t you get
changed and join me for a rather different cure for boredom? After those long,
boring meetings pretending to be oh-so-sophisticated corporate raider, I need
to get laid.”
Calise grinned her assent and eagerly headed for her bedroom. As soon as the
door closed behind her she collapsed on her bed, shaking in sheer relief — it
looked like their friendship was going to survive her screw-up. After a few
minutes as the shaking eased she forced herself to sit up. Hurry up, girl,
Mara’s waiting. Now, what do I have in my closet that complements that outfit?
Something to show up Urd if we run into her — in style, anyway, impossible to
wear a party outfit that’s skimpier than Urd’s typical party wear without
having it masquerade as a swimsuit. Askimpyswimsuit. Not that the men would
mind if Calise did try to outdo that slut, she had no idea why the traitor had
broken Mara’s heart by choosing Asgard, or why they’d accepted her....
***** Opening Night! *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Ku Lon hummed contentedly to herself as she leaned over the large pot on the
stove in the Tendo kitchen, maintaining her balance on the high stool without
thinking as she scooped up a spoonful of the broth and gently blew on it, then
sipped. “Hmmm, I think a touch more spice,” she murmured, then glanced around
as her great-granddaughter came through the doorway behind her. “Aren’t you
supposed to be keeping an eye on the fathers?” she asked in Japanese.
Xian Pu shrugged. “Pa Fum watching,” she replied in the same language,
grimacing. “They not know we there, too too ... focused? ... focused on silly
game. And cheat all the time.”
Ku Lon chuckled. “Well, that is the nature of their style,” she said, “Anything
Goes. However useful that might be in a real fight, it is a good thing Ranma
hasn’t let that bleed over into other things.”
“Too too true!” Xian Pu agreed fervently, shuddering at the thought of what
Ranma could get up to in succubus form, if he had his father’s sense of ... or
more like lack of ... honor. “But fathers no leave, they smell ramen — noses
... twitch. Can Xian Pu help?”
Ku Lon considered the request. All Amazon elder had hobbies to hold their
interest in life as the decades rolled by, and she had been thoroughly enjoying
her first opportunity to practice hers since leaving the village. Still, Xian
Pu had been bored much of the time during the past week — her husband had had
to focus on training Ranma and Akane, and reviewing the Rhythmic Gymnastics
training manuals and training himself in the differences between what they
taught and his own family’s style when they were in school. True, Xian Pu had
watched, but that was as much an exercise in frustration as pleasure. (The
elder hid a smile as she thought of the progress ... or rather lack of the same
... in the ‘physical’ side newlyweds’ relationship — they were going to have to
do something about that, but for now it was helping keep the rest of the
Amazons entertained. And when the Wanderer returned, of course, as soon as the
training was over Ryoga had promptly gotten lost.) And none of the warriors
that had come along on the husband hunt were good enough give her a decent
challenge when sparring. And now they were using the excuse of cooking a
victory meal so they could housesit the fathers for Ranma and Akane. Yes, Xian
Pu must be very bored if she was actually expressing a new interest in her
great-grandmother’s hobby instead of just the results. Which meant that she
didn’t have much practice cooking.
For a moment Ku Lon allowed her hidden smile to slip free as she remembered how
torn Kasumi had been between supporting her sister at the competition or
staying and learning from Ku Lon — now there was a young woman with promise!
The elder suspected that she’d have no trouble getting permission to use the
kitchen again. Kasumi was likely to beg for lessons.
Shaking off the thoughts, she refocused on Xian Pu. True, she had neither
practice nor innate talent at her great-grandmother’s second Art. Still, there
was more than enough food, Ku Lon would be able to correct any mishaps....
“Of course, there’s vegetables in the bag beside the counter, they need to be
diced....”
                                     /oOo\
Akane strode through the locker room door into the gymnasium, grinning widely
as she rode a wave of pure confidence so intense she wasn’t even bothered by
being seen in public in a skin-tight leotard. She had trained hard over the
past week, Ranma had trained alongside her and as a part of her the past
several afternoons, and Kodachi had been so certain of failure that she had
tried to drug Akane by sending booby-trapped roses to the locker room. Akane
was ready!
She was so ready, in fact, that she wasn’t even disturbed by the now all-too-
familiar sexual attraction she felt for everyone she saw, thanks to the
succubus riding along inside her. Not by seeing her friends, not by seeing
Tatewaki, she wasn’t even shaken by her attraction to her sisters — Kasumi in
the front row sitting next to Nodoka; Nabiki with Peach Fuzz sitting on her
shoulder, standing inside the wire cage beside the square, rope- and post-
bordered ring where she would provide the props as Akane needed them and
regather those props when Akane threw them. I’m going to have to do something
nice for Kasumi, shereallywanted to stay and cook with Cologne but she’s here,
instead. And Nabiki, too, now that she thought about it — it had been her
sister and Ku Lon that had come up with a way to keep the fathers at home,
after all, and being sexually attracted to her father would be a bit much.
Then her gaze reached the top rows of the bleachers and her steps faltered.
There weren’t many students up that high, at least not on the St. Hebereke side
(Kodachi’s support from her school was surprisingly light, maybe her ‘winning’
personality had actually overcome their normal loyalty to their school?). But
above the students there were sprites everywhere — sprites on the bleachers
wherever breaks between the people below allowed the tiny beings to see,
sprites sitting in the windows, sprites flying around above the crowd and the
ring, even a few of the more daring sprites sitting on the heads of oblivious
students!
“Whoa!” Ranma whispered inside her mind. “Where’dthey all come from? I didn’t
know there’s that many sprites in all Nerima!
“I didn’t, either,” Akane replied. (The two had figured out the trick of not
bombarding the other with every stray thought that crossed their minds while
they were merged.) “We’ll have to ask Peach Fuzz when this is all over.”
“Yeah.” Then the attention of both girls (or girl and a half, sort of) were
drawn back to the ring as Kodachi, who had been approaching from the opposite
side, reached her own helpers and leaped up to spin through the air, flipping
over the ropes to land in her corner. Akane felt Ranma ‘grimace’. The succubus
added, “Time ta teach this show-off who therealboss is.”
Akane was just about to agree when Kodachi turned in place, her gaze sweeping
across the audience — and she stumbled, gyrating wildly with arms windmilling
to keep on her feet.
Ranma giggled. “She just saw the sprites.”
Akane caught sight of the choker that Nabiki had described around the gyrating
girl’s neck, and her eyes widened — since her awakening the night she bonded
with Ranma, she had caught a vague hint of what she’d been told were Nabiki’s
wards around their home, had caught the taste of power soaked into Nodoka’s
sword, and covering the members of her family like so many cloaks, but the dark
crystal seemed to literally glow with power. She thought, “Looks like big sis
was right.” (She had found that referring to her family as family helped reduce
the attraction ... slightly.)
“Yeah,” Ranma agreed. “You’ll hafta be careful, who knows what she can do with
it.”
“It doesn’t matter what she does, we can take her!” Akane retorted as she
strode through the doorway in the surrounding wire cage and approached the
ring, once again riding the wave of confidence now that the shock from the
multiple surprises was fading. Deciding she wasn’t going to be shown up by her
competitor’s entrance, as soon as she reached Nabiki she crouched and sprang
straight up, twisting and catching the top rope around the ring for a perfectly
vertical handstand with her back to the ring. She held it for a long moment,
bent her arms to lower her head to the rope, then thrust herself up, twisted
around, flipped one, twice, and crouched on both feet facing Kodachi across the
ring ... and swallowed a gasp, keeping a grimace off her face as pain spiked
through one foot and up her leg as she pushed herself upright. It was worth it
to see the anger sweeping across Kodachi’s face.
Kodachi strode across the ring, ignoring the referee standing in the middle and
droning on about the rules (basically no bare-handed blows, the contestants
judged by how well they performed their various attacks, the match ending when
one contestant was knocked completely down, any contestant knocked from the
ring would be declared the loser regardless of how well she’d performed during
the match, all simple enough in general).
As soon as she got close, Kodachi hissed, “You peasant! How dare you seek to
make your pitiful skills look superior to my own finely honed talent!”
“Hey, ya can’t go first an’ not expect yer opponents ta take advantage of it,”
Akane replied, smirking. “But then, you’ve never actually had a real match,
have ya? You’d rather ambush an’ beat ‘em up, first.”
Nabiki jumped up and grabbed the top rope to hold herself up as she stood on
the edge of the ring. Out of the corner of her eye, Akane caught sight of
Nabiki’s upraised eyebrow and her questioning glance before the apprentice
Initiate refocused her attention on Kodachi as the other ranted, “I will not be
upstaged by a crude nobody!”
Nabiki drawled, “Is that why you have that gaudy piece of glass around your
neck? Another way to cheat?”
“I have no need of false enhancements,” Kodachi replied airily. Oddly, the
accusation coming from Nabiki actually settled her down, returning her to her
usual smug arrogance. She waved toward the sprites covering the upper bleachers
and flying about. “I merely need the gift of sight so that your invisible
servants may not steal my victory. And where is that vulgar red-haired spirit?”
Nabiki’s face tightened. “They aren’t my servants,” she said. “They’re here to
support Akane, they like our big sister’s flowers. And Ranko’ll be around. Is
that ref ever going to stop bloviating?”
Now it was Kodachi’s turn to smirk. “She knows better than to rush one of my
stature, she will continue to ‘bloviate’, as you so crudely put it, until I
return to my corner.” Shifting her focus to Akane, she continued, “But there is
no point in drawing this out, prepare to receive the humiliation fit for one of
your station.” Not giving Akane a chance to reply, she turned on her heels and
stalked back toward her own corner.
“Yeah, right,” Akane snorted as the referee finally wound down her
introduction.
Nabiki gripped her arm and leaned over to whisper, “You be careful, you aren’t
yourself.” She dropped back down beside the collection of clubs, rings, balls
and ribbons.
Before Akane had a chance to react to her odd final statement, the referee
announced the beginning of the match and sprang back against the ropes. Akane
grinned viciously as Nabiki tossed up her ribbon. After all the pain and fear,
frustration, embarrassment and humiliation of the past week it was her turn!
Chapter End Notes
     I know, I know, for the size of the chapter I'm way late! I'd like to
     be able to blame business picking up at work, surprise family get-
     togethers, needing to refresh my memory of the story after being away
     from it for so long, or struggling to deal with the time change (I
     loathe Daylight Savings Time!). But while all of that is true,
     there's two main reasons for the delay.
     First, there's the match itself. As MigMig commented earlier, the
     match is actually secondary to all of the effects that it's caused,
     and as a result I focused on those while neglecting to choreograph
     the match itself. The result is that now that I've gotten to it I had
     no idea how to have it play out to its already-planned conclusion and
     have had to do some major thinking and reviewing of the relevant
     chapters of the manga (not that I'm going to include all that over-
     the-top slapstick). I finally decided to post the lead-up to the
     match separately instead of one large chapter covering the entire
     match.
     Second, maybe it's just the time change, maybe it's how long I've
     been writing without more than a few days' break now and then, but
     I've had to struggle to motivate myself to write. I've been wondering
     if maybe I've been burning out a little. No need to worry that I'll
     just abandon my writing, I fully intend to finish the stories I've
     started and have more I want to write, but I'm considering giving
     myself one day a week off of writing instead of the usual one day a
     month when I go to visit family. Maybe that'll give me enough of a
     recharge.
     One other thing, over at FFnet there have been a number of writers
     sending out alerts for a petition at the White House website, "Stop
     SOPA 2014." It's still around 29,000 votes short with a deadline of
     the 19th, so anyone that's been considering signing it should head
     over and do so, I have. However, while that legislation probably
     doesn't have much chance of becoming law, there's another threat of
     large companies trying to come to private, informal agreements that
     accomplish much the same thing as SOPA. There's another petition
     opposing those agreements, "Stop SOPA-like policies in the Trans-
     Pacific Partnership, Notice and Staydown efforts, and other policies"
     that could use our support.
***** Testing Her Mettle *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
As soon as the referee was out of the way, Akane charged forward. She ignored
the smirk on Kodachi’s face, simply springing up to spin over the other girl,
her ribbon spiraling down to tighten around her the same way Kodachi had
trapped Ranma during her ambush at Furinken, that Ryoga had taught them
afterwards — and almost lost the match right then as Kodachi casually used the
clubs in each hand to block the ribbon, then equally casually spun around to
sweep one of Akane legs out of alignment just as she was landing on the ropes
around the ring behind her. It was all Akane could do to fall forward into the
ring instead of backward out of it. She turned her fall into a roll across the
mat (instead of a graceless whump that the referee could have called as a fall)
and let momentum carry her back to her feet, just in time to dodge Kodachi’s
opening salvo.
It had taken all the self-control Ranma had not to ‘shout’ out advice — Akane
had insisted that this was her match, even if she was getting a boost in skill
from Ranma — and the succubus was getting worried. This’s weird, she thought,
‘frowning’ to herself. She ignored the spinning world as Akane twisted and
Kodachi’s hurled clubs spun past her to whang into the wire cage around the
ring. Akane’s was never this confident during trainin’, it’s more like ... Her
thoughts faltered as she abruptly made the connection with the attraction to
all and sundry that she was growing used to — and that Akane had hated so much
over the past few days, whenever the two had been merged together. ... like me.
“Akane, full defense, fall back now!”
Ranma had never barked orders at his student like that while in succubus-form,
and it had been a week since he had trained her at all, but Akane instinctively
responded to the tone of Ranma’s voice and fell back as far as the ring
allowed. “Ranma, ya said this ismyfight!” she ‘snarled’ as she used the
ribbon’s shaft to knock aside a thrown ball.
“It is, but we gotta problem,” Ranma responded. “That confidence you’re ridin’?
It’s not yers, it’s mine. You’re even talkin’ like me.”
Akane gasped in shock at her sensei’s statement and even hitched a step, then
hissed as pain shot through one foot, the same foot she hadn’t quite landed on
properly when she’d first leaped into the ring — the wildly over-the-top leap
into the ring, that had pushed the very edge of her Ranma-heightened acrobatic
skill, just like her opening attack, what had she been thinking? And even now,
with Ranma’s words still echoing in her mind and the pain throbbing through her
foot with every step, the ease with which Kodachi had batted aside her own
attacks, Akane knew she could beat her ... somehow. “Is this what it’s like for
ya ... for you whenever y-you fight?” she asked.
“Pretty much, whenever it’s a real fight an’ not just trainin’.” Ranma
‘shrugged’. “I’ve always been like this, IknowI can win, always, no matter who
I’m fightin’. Even when the masters Pop would look for kept provin’ me wrong.
But thanks ta those masters I learned ta be careful in spite a’ what I know,
you haven’t. So remember the plan, an’ don’t get fancy.”
“Right.” Akane stepped to the side to keep from being boxed into a corner of
the ring, fighting not to hiss again as pain once more lanced through her foot.
But she couldn’t keep the slightest limp out of her step.
Kodachi had noticed, of course. “Oh, did the peasant make a misstep? How sad.
It is not yet too late for you to forfeit if you wish to avoid the public
humiliation of facing me.”
“Yeah, right, not a chance,” Akane announced loudly enough for everyone to
hear. “I’m still better off than the girls ya-you ambushed and beat up so you
wouldn’t have to face them fairly. If you think you can beat me, then prove
it!”
Kodachi’s face darkened at the murmur that swept the St. Hebereke side of the
gymnasium — everyone knew about it, if course, but it just wasn’t talked about!
— and Akane spun around as the Kuno charged forward. “Nabiki, clubs!” she
shouted as she tossed her ribbon out of the ring.
Nabiki tossed up a pair of clubs and watched with worried eyes as Akane caught
them just in time to brace herself for Kodachi’s attack. The middle Tendo
hadn’t much liked the emotions she’d been picking up from her sister when the
match started, even though the series of emotions Akane had flashed through
before settling on a mixture of determination and confidence probably indicated
Ranma had intervened Still, the way Akane was limping just a bit —
Nabiki’s mouth dropped open in shock when Kodachi’s clubs sprouted spikes, just
as they had when she’d attacked them at Furinkan. She’d expected Kodachi to
cheat, but not that blatantly! Then she gasped in relief as Akane dropped into
a crouch, the spikes ruffling her hair as she swung up her own clubs to block.
Whirling, Nabiki shouted at the referee, “Those spikes are lethal!”
“I don’t see any spikes.”
Nabiki turned back around to find that Akane had rolled away to one side to
avoid Kodachi and was again rising to her feet, Kodachi was turning to face her
... and her clubs were again simply clubs, the spikes withdrawn. Nabiki glared
at the referee for a moment, a shot of vicious vindication rushing through her
as she noticed the sweat beginning to run down the young woman’s face —
apparently, she hadn’t expected Kodachi to be that blatant when she’d accepted
the bribe. Or been blackmailed, whichever. Not that it was going to do her any
good either way.
“I can get some of my friends to harass that pompous hypocrite and her paid
shill,” Nabiki’s sprite familiar suggested. Peach Fuzz was light enough that if
it wasn’t for her grip on her mistress’s hair and T-shirt for support, Nabiki
would hardly know she was there ... if not for the burning anger the tiny
winged girl was radiating, that is.
“No,” Nabiki replied as she crouched to pick up Akane’s discarded ribbon,
“Akane and Ranma wouldn’t thank us for interfering in the match itself, and I
have after the match already covered.”
She rose to her feet and stepped out of the way of one of Kodachi’s so-called
teammates. As the other girl hurried past on her way back to Kodachi’s corner
with the clubs Kodachi had thrown in her arms, Nabiki used the opportunity of
apparently making sure her counterpart didn’t try anything while close to her
to surreptitiously check the audience on her side, and ... yes, there were two
of her own blackmail victims with video cameras, filming the entire event just
as Nabiki had ‘requested’. They and the others on the other three sides would
have their blackmail canceled, and she would have all the footage she needed to
show one bought referee and a stuck-up prig why fucking with the Tendos was a
bad idea. Nabiki wouldn’t even make a complaint, she’d simply dump it onto the
internet, there was some websites dedicated to rhythmic gymnastics martial arts
and the regular posters there were touchy about people that made their Art look
bad. And there was no way the Furinkan rhythmic gymnastics martial arts team
wouldn’t find out about the video dump, and with them crowing about it the
whole school would know ... including those students Nabiki was blackmailing.
That would probably make them think twice about challenging her, or at least
hesitate long enough for her to find some way for them to pay off their debts
in a way that would satisfy her karmic debt. She loved it when she could kill
two birds with one stone....
That’s later, girl, focus on the match. Nabiki turned back to her merged sister
and lover in the ring.
Akane had rolled back to her feet and now was whirling her own clubs like
nunchucks to the amazement of the crowd as she dodged back away from Kodachi’s
furious assault. The Kuno didn’t have anything close to Akane’s endurance and
was already beginning to suck in air as she kept up thrusting with her clubs,
but it wasn’t hard to figure out why Kodachi was pushing so hard — the pain
spiking through Akane’s injured foot was growing with each step.
“Hey, Akane, our plan ta wear out Kodachi before makin’ our move? Forget it.”
“Yeah, I’d already figured that out, genius,” Akane retorted, “but she isn’t
giving me the chance!”
“Yeah.” Ranma was silent for a moment, then added, “Maybe she’ll run outa steam
before yer foot decides it’s done.”
“Thanks, that helps a lot!”
Even as she complained, Akane’s eyes were scanning, searching for the break she
needed, the hint of a slip on Kodachi’s part that she knew would give her the
victory. Distantly, she reflected that it was amazing that Ranma had lived long
enough to arrive at her home. Though she supposed that kind of confidence could
carry you through otherwise impossible situations — if you really were that
good. Eventually, she was going to be that good.
Then Kodachi broke off her attack and stepped back, chest heaving. Slowly she
backed up toward her corner.
Akane grinned as she did the same. That was the break we needed, we’ve got her
now! Turning toward her corner, Akane tossed her clubs out of the ring. “Ball
and ribbon, now!” she shouted. A wide-eyed Nabiki tossed the ribbon and ball up
to her, and she whirled to race toward her opponent, shaking out her ribbon as
she went and suffusing it with her ki. Wait for it, wait for it.... And Kodachi
sprang ... straight up. Oh, crap, she was supposed to jumpoverme! Kodachi
wasn’t going to be in the middle of the ring, with nothing to grab onto, but
maybe it would still work....
Akane leaped back, gasping from another spike of pain as her leg almost gave
out on landing, twisted to keep her balance and avoid spilling onto the mat and
losing the match ... her timing was all off, but maybe ... she whipped the
ribbon toward a Kodachi just coming down from her leap and used her ki
suffusing the ribbon to send it circling around one ankle and yanked.
Kodachi really was good at her chosen Art. Even with one leg pulled out from
underneath her she was going to stick her landing, her free foot was underneath
her, she leaned back for balance ... and Akane’s thrown ball smacked into her
forehead. That did it. Arms pinwheeling, her clubs flying away to bounce across
the mat, Kodachi slammed into the rings’ ropes, free foot slipping on the mat,
and felt herself tilting over, going out of the ring. She desperately closed
her free leg, if she could ... yes! As the back of her shoulders slammed into
the outside edge of the ring floor the top rope was caught behind her knee, her
lower legs were still inside the ring, she wasn’t out! Even as she felt the
ribbon around her ankle go slack, she grabbed the top rope and swung herself up
to drop back into the ring.
White-hot anger flashed through her at the sight of Akane hobbling toward her.
“Ribbon!” she shouted, reaching back behind her. Her helper jumped up to the
edge of the ring to slap the ribbon’s stick into her palm. Shaking out the
ribbon to send it undulating across the mat, she stalked forward. Unholy glee
and a burning need to punish the nonentity that was now backing up filled her,
narrowing her vision and closing her throat. She had never been so publicly
humiliated in her entire life! “You....” she ground out through clenched teeth
as she stalked toward her tormentor, pumping more and more ki into her ribbon
to the point she was going light-headed ... and something at her core snapped.
Seated in the bleachers, about midway up on the St. Hebereke side, Mara had
been growing more and more worried. Not about being noticed, of course — while
it had been obvious that they couldn’t use imps for surveillance during the
match, she and Calise were long accustomed to hiding their outward differences
from the mass herd of humanity they moved through and made use of, and
suppressing their ‘signature’ to an absolute minimum. So long as they didn’t
get too close to any of the Awakened in the crowd and avoided all the sprites
they’d be all right, and the few Awakened were on the Furinkan side while the
sprites were keeping above the top row or flying around above the ring.
No, Mara’s concern had everything to do with what was going on inside the ring,
her eyes fixed on the choker around Kodachi’s neck ... and the way the dark
light it radiated that almost none of the humans could see had begun to pulse
as Kodachi pulled herself back into the ring.
Calise had noticed the same thing, of course, and Mara could hear her murmuring
“not good, not good,” over and over. Mara couldn’t disagree. While she didn’t
know exactly what was going on, she had her suspicions.
And then in an instant things went from ‘not good’ to ‘disastrous’ as that dark
light flared, leaving everyone able to See blinking their vision clear.
Jenkin’s Amulet had linked to its new host.
Akane had thrown herself to the side as soon the black flash blinded her, and
even as she dropped she felt what she could only describe as cold fire sear
across one shoulder. In spite of the shock she managed to make sure to roll so
it wouldn’t count as a fall, hissing in pain as her shoulder contacted the mat.
She let her momentum carry her back to her feet, then fell against the ropes
when her leg gave way.
Holding herself up on the ropes, she blinked her eyes clear of the flash
afterimage and tears of pain, and her eyes widened at the sight of Kodachi
turning to face her ... and holding a ribbon that no longer glowed with ki.
Instead, what had been a ribbon looked like an undulating thin streak of black
so intense that all light was swallowed into it, a long, thin ribbon of pure
nothing. And the ropes on the side of the ring that had been behind her a few
seconds ago were hanging loose, sliced clean through.
Ranma was shouting something in her head but Akane was too busy thinking to pay
attention, scanning the ring as Kodachi stalked toward her, looking for
anything — yes! To the side, across the ring from the broken ropes, was one of
Kodachi’s discarded clubs. If only she could avoid whatever had replaced the
ribbon she could still win!
Suddenly the air was full of sprites. The tiny, naked, winged men and women
were whizzing around Kodachi, pulling her hair, bouncing off her arm, one girl
was even ... biting her hand? Ignore it, move, win!
As Kodachi shrieked in pure fury and waved her hands, trying to knock away the
tormentors that only a few of the spectators could see, Akane dove toward the
club, snatched it up as she rolled back to her feet. “Out of the way!” she
shouted as she ran toward Kodachi, praying that the sprites would pull back as
she forced her injured foot to work. She leaped, tucked the club between her
feet as she flipped, kicked, and the club held between her feet slammed into
Kodachi’s chest right between her breasts.
The landing ... Akane thought hazily, mind dim with pain. She managed to twist
so she hit the mat on her hands and uninjured foot. Forcing herself up to
balance on one leg, she hopped around, eyes tracking desperately for the other
girl ... and exulted at the sight of Kodachi lying unconscious on the floor
outside the ring, at the foot of one of the outside cage’s support poles, a
woman with a first aid kit dropping to her knees beside her. “I won!”
“Ya sure did, Tomboy, ya did good,” Ranma thought, ‘giggling’. “I’ll go tell
the fathers, be back as fast as I can.”
“Don’t call me Tomboy,” Akane responded automatically even as she felt Ranma’s
presence vanish and the rest of the world came rushing back in ... the judges
announcing her win barely audible over the roar of the crowd; the warm, wet
feel of blood trickling down her chin from where she’d bitten her lip; her
sisters hurrying toward her to catch her arms just as she started to collapse.
Kasumi and Nabiki each pulled an arm across their shoulders (Peach Fuzz flying
up from Nabiki’s shoulder, then settling back down on Akane’s arm), tucking
their free arms around her waist as they helped her hobble over to sit on the
edge of the side of the ring where Kodachi had somehow sliced through the
ropes, where Nodoka waited with a first aid kit. Akane bit back a shriek of
pain as Nodoka carefully manipulated her foot, but her future mother-in-law
sighed with relief and started wrapping it up with a rolled bandage.
“We’ll need to get it x-rayed, but I think something is broken,” Nodoka said as
she clipped down the end of the bandage. “But even if that isn’t the case,
you’re still going to be on crutches for at least a day, more likely two. Now
...” She rose to her feet and braced her fists on her hips, scowling down at
Akane. “When an ostensibly friendly match turns lethal, stop worrying about the
rules and end it! What were you thinking? Surely Ranma didn’t tell you to do
that!”
“Uh ... well ... no, he ... she? ... she didn’t,” Akane mumbled, eyes dropping.
“She was shouting something, but I was too busy moving to listen.”
“Well, that at least you did right.” Akane’s gaze jerked back up to Nodoka to
find a smile on her face. “In that kind of situation it is better to do almost
anything now than pause to determine the best possible action, and the last
thing you want is to get distracted. We’ll just have to better train your
instincts. Now come, your fans await.” She stepped back and waved for Kasumi
and Nabiki to help Akane rise.
Fans?
The applause had died down as Nodoka had been tending to her foot, but as Akane
stood up it erupted once more and the Furinkan rhythmic gymnastics martials
arts squad that had been hovering a few yards away charged forward to offer
their congratulations. Kasumi had to stop them from having their boyfriends
hoist Akane up onto their shoulders to carry her out of the gymnasium in an
impromptu victory parade, afraid they might aggravate her injury.
As Kasumi and Nabiki maneuvered her through the crowd, Akane considered her
condition: her lip ached, her shoulder ached, actually, every muscle in her
body ached, she was developing a headache from the pain radiating from her foot
and fighting not to whimper every time she was jostled and a new spike of pain
shot up her leg. And she felt great! “I think I won’t mind having my name on
the trophy, after all,” she murmured.
And then came the icing on the cake, a moment Akane would treasure for the rest
of her life. Kasumi’s hearing was sharper than she had expected. Her older
sister and mother figure leaned close and whispered, “You deserve it. I’m proud
of you, little sis.”
Akane felt as though her heart would burst from pure joy.
Chapter End Notes
     And that takes care of the finale. Nowhere near as extensive as my
     usual, I know, but this story has been a little more focused than my
     usual as well — not as many threads to weave back in. It took a
     little while for the random bits of imagery my mind was throwing out
     to coalesce into a whole, but I think I like what I came up with. Now
     I’m thinking one more chapter for an epilogue and this one will be
     put to bed, and then it’s on to a chapter each for other stories
     before focusing on finishing up another story. I’m leaning toward A
     New Future 03, but could go with Yrthbound. I’ll hold off on starting
     the next Ranma, the Naive Succubus story until after I’ve finished
     those two.
***** Celebrating the High *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Mara laid aside her personal tablet on the low table in the middle of Calise’s
study between the two demons’ luxuriously soft chairs, then leaned back and
wiggled her toes in the grass-covered floor with a happy sigh as the chair
began massaging her back. “Well, that’s a relief,” she said, eyes closed in
contented bliss. “We’re not really all that badly off and maybe even ahead.”
Calise finished reading the report from the imp that had snuck into the
sleeping Kodachi’s hospital room, her eyes wide. “How is this possible? If she
didn’t Awaken, how did she link with Jenkin’s — her ki.”
“Yes, her ki,” Mara agreed. “It must have had just enough of a similarity to
magic that the amulet was able to respond when she demanded more power. Who’da
thunk it? Still, since she isn’t Awakened, all she’ll be able to do with the
amulet is See the world as it is and power ki-like effects. And beyond the debt
she’ll owe us once she refuses to return the broach, she should be willing to
do the odd job for us if we let her keep it. It isn’t like it was doing
anything but collecting dust in Storage.”
“Keep it? That’s an incredibly powerful artifact.”
Mara shrugged. “So? It isn’t like anyone else will be able to use it so long as
she lives. We’ll just to have one of the human mages we have on retainer put
some glamours on it to prevent others from detecting how powerful it actually
is and to keep its influence from gradually Awakening her, that would be ...
bad.” She shuddered at the thought of all that power in the hands of someone
with Kodachi’s ... unique worldview. Demons enjoyed chaos, but not when they
were trying to deal with plans shattered beyond recognition like everyone else
instead of causing and directing it. “We were incredibly lucky at that, that
Kodachi didn’t Awaken at the same moment she linked to the amulet. She might
have blown up the gymnasium and everyone in it, and we’d be in a blood feud
with one scarily competent succubus. Ranma would never stop searching for those
responsible, and after our offer to her ... him? ... and Nabiki ... she’d know
where to start looking.”
Calise winced at the thought. Theoretically, Ranma would have had to leave them
alone thanks to Niflheim’s treaty with the sprites, and such other semi-kinda-
sorta-organized groups of nature spirits as existed — after all, it wasn’t like
Mara and Calise would have intended to attack Ranma and the sprites, it would
have been an unforeseeable accident. But Calise knew that Ranma wouldn’t have
let that stop him — or more likely her — and since she was half-human and her
mother, fiancée and some future in-laws would have been among the dead it could
be argued that the treaty didn’t apply. Maybe. It wasn’t really a situation
anyone had considered when the truce was set up.
Still, while they’d dodged a bullet and perhaps picked up a marginally useful
tool in Kodachi, that didn’t mean they were in the clear. “And do you think the
Daimakaicho will be as blasé about the whole mess we just dodged?”
Mara winced but rallied gamely. “We’re two of her best troubleshooters, she
won’t get too creative.”
“Except when the Norns are involved you mean,” Calise replied, then smirked
when Mara winced again. Sobering, she leaned back in her own chair and closed
her eyes with a sigh. “We can tell her that it was all my idea, and you didn’t
recognize Jenkin’s Amulet for what it was until its power flared.”
Mara stiffened at Calise’s words, eyes narrowing as she stared at the fiery-
haired demon for a long moment. “Noooo,” she finally said, “I don’t think so.
It’s a really bad idea to lie to Hild and I did agree to leave it with Kodachi
well before the match. Still, all’s well that ends well, maybe she’ll just
divide the punishment between the two of us instead of doubling up.” She tried
to keep a straight face but failed badly, joining Calise’s wry laughter.
Eventually the laughter died down and the two simply lay there for a time,
enjoying the chairs’ attentions, until Mara cracked open her eyelids to observe
her unofficial part-time partner. Yes, she should be relaxed enough. Wriggling
in the chair, ignoring the way Calise’s half-closed eyes flicked over to her,
she nonchalantly asked, “So how long have you been in love with me?”
Calise snapped erect in her chair, jaw dropping. “What!? How ... I ... you ...
what ... ?” stopping the babbling flow, she took a deep breath and asked, “What
makes you think I’m in love with you?”
“Oh, I don’t know, just everything you’ve done since Ranma blew our plans for
acquiring Nabiki out of the water?” Mara replied airily. “I might have blown
off your help researching Ranma’s background before I even asked, you were
assigned to Records, bored, and curious about the oddities. I could even accept
your coming along with me when I made my pitch to Ranma, curiosity again and it
wasn’t like you’d try to sabotage the meeting — too blatant. But pulling
Jenkin’s Amulet out of storage and passing it on to Kodachi? Using up a favor
to do it? Girl, I know we’re friends, but we’re demons! We’re supposed to
compete!” She grinned at Calise. “You’re blushing.”
Calise instinctively hid her red cheeks with her hands for a second, but forced
them to drop back down onto the armrests. She dropped back to snuggle into the
chair’s back, grinning knowingly back at her friend. “I suppose I might as well
admit it, I’m as besotted with you as you are with Urd.”
“What!? How ... I ... you ... what ... ?” It was Mara’s turn to babble, before
forcing herself back under control with a sigh as Calise started laughing. “I
suppose turnabout is fair play. Who else knows?”
Calise forced her laughter down to giggles through a wide grin. “Everybody
knows, you haven’t exactly been discreet,” she finally managed to say
breathlessly. “Well, except for Urd, she’s still oblivious. Of course, she
doesn’t watch you mope around every time you come back from one of your
encounters with the Norns.”
“What?” Mara frowned thoughtfully. “That can’t be right, I can think of half a
dozen times off the top of my head where people that don’t like me at all could
have taken advantage of it, and at least twice that many that do like me but
wouldn’t let that stop them.”
“True.” Calise’s grin seemed to have become a permanent feature. “You can thank
Hild for your immunity, at least to begin with. A few of us think she has a
soft spot in her heart for you and Urd, her being her daughter and all. But
most think that she would have to have a heart for it to be soft, and so it’s
more likely she just doesn’t want her entertainment spoiled. And by now Hild’s
order isn’t necessary — nobody else wants to spoil the entertainment, either.
Your encounters with the Norn have become legendary.” It was Mara’s turn for
her face to turn fiery, and Calise started laughing again.
Mara ruefully joined her laughter for a few minutes, before forcing herself
back under control. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do,” she finally
said, voice tight with the effort to hold back more laughter. “I’m going to let
Hild’s secretary know we’ll be reporting to the Daimakaicho first thing in the
morning — better to get that over with and take our licking — while you get
into your party clothes. Then we’ll drop by my place and I can get into my
party clothes. Then we’ll drop into Urd’s favorite bar. If she shows up you can
secretly pine after me while I not-so-secretly pine after her, and whether she
shows up or not we can find some young studs to help us forget our sorrows for
a night. Deal?”
Calise nodded, breathing a soft sigh of relief ... she hadn’t ruined their
relationship, Mara was going to try to keep things as they had been. “Deal!”
she replied, smiling happily.
                                     /oOo\
Ranma ghosted down out of the night sky toward the clump of trees in the middle
of a Neriman park (one well away from the Amazons), luxuriating in the feel of
skin through the T-shirt the fiancée she held in her arms was wearing, and
Nabiki’s arms around her neck.
Nabiki giggled a little as Ranma maneuvered through the branches and dropped
toward the lawn. “I think I’m riding a high,” she murmured, “that was great!”
“Yeah,” Ranma agreed, laying Nabiki down on the grass. “That was the best ramen
I’ve ever eaten in my entire life, the ol’ ghoul can really cook!”
“Idiot!” Nabiki said sternly, though to Ranma’s empathic sense her suppressed
laughter seemed to bubble out around her. She gently slapped the succubus on
the arm. “I meant the emotions at the dojo and you know it ... though I agree
that was really good ramen. I thought for a moment that Kasumi was going to
drop to her knees and worship when Cologne agreed to teach her — for a small
fee, of course.”
“Yeah, that was funny,” Ranma agreed. “I never saw someone get that excited
over food before. Well, excited fer Kasumi, anyway. Too bad the Amazons can’t
open a restaurant, I’d never eat out anywhere else.” She drifted down to join
Nabiki lying on the grass. It was a clear night, unusually warm for May (not
that Ranma really noticed, in her spirit form), and she stared up at the star-
spangled night sky through the branches as Nabiki’s giddy delight washed over
her.
Though not to Nabiki’s extent, thanks to the time during the meal he’d spent in
human form so he could eat, Ranma, too, was riding the high from the emotional
storm at the Tendo dojo after Akane’s triumphal return from the match. Not even
their side trip to the hospital where they’d found that Akane had indeed broken
her ankle, or her father’s crying jag when his ‘little girl’ had come home on
crutches with a brace on her leg had been enough to dim Akane’s joy, mixed in
with Nodoka and Kasumi’s quiet pride and Nabiki’s sheer relief. Yeah, Nabiki
was right — that emotional brew had been as potent as the awamori a master on
Okinawa had given Ranma, when training him in fighting while tipsy. It had been
a very good night.
Though in Nabiki’s case it wouldn’t have been relief she’d been picking up from
her lover, not right after Akane had ended the match. When Akane had bounced
around on one foot and Ranma had seen their opponent slumped unconscious on the
floor, the succubus had been hit by a wave of pure need. She’d had a perfectly
good reason for bailing on Akane as fast as she could (they’d learned that yes,
Ranma did bounce back to wherever she’d been summoned from when she and Akane
separated and she’d wanted to rejoin the others as quickly as possible to
resume bodyguard duties just in case, now that Akane had been injured), but the
succubus had also been worried that her own emotional state might bleed over to
Akane. While, unlike Ranma’s general nature, they didn’t think her emotional
state was passed on to Akane when they merged, that burst of lust had been
intense, like she’d never felt before. Even now, she could feel herself getting
hot just thinking about it. And from the hesitant desire she was picking up
from her lover, Nabiki was picking up on it as well. And suddenly, the way
Ranma had been angsting over the tiny bit of feeding she’d done from Kodashi
days earlier just seemed silly — Nabiki was right, succubae simply didn’t by
the same rules as humans and there was no avoiding it.
Lifting up from the grass, Ranma twisted around to hover above Nabiki as she
lowered her lips to her lover’s for a gentle kiss. A moment later she felt
Nabiki bury her hands in her hair as the kiss deepened, turned hungry. Ranma
practically wriggled as she was immersed by relief and lust washed by love.
Nabiki finally broke off the kiss, her smile visible in the glow Ranma could
see from all living things.
“So you’re over that little accidental feeding from Kodachi.” It was a
statement, not a question, but Ranma answered it anyway. “Yeah, I was being
stupid again —”
“You were not being stupid!” Nabiki said, suddenly projecting fierce
protectiveness. She reached up to pull the floating succubus down into a hug.
“You’re adjusting to being something that isn’t even human, it’s hard, and it
isn’t likely to get easier. Just don’t think you have to do it alone. Kasumi
cares about you, Akane’s actually your friend, and your mother loves you. And
I’m not letting you get away from me, no matter what!”
“Yeah, you’re right, thanks.” Ranma knew all that, of course, her empathic
sense made sure of that. But he was learning that hearing some things made them
seem more real.
But now that all the excitement was over and she was done being stupid, there
was another need rising through the faint hint of the music of the Voice in the
back of her mind.
Nabiki’s breath caught as Ranma’s hand ran along her side, and up to stroke her
breast through the fabric of her bra. Ranma smiled, knowing that even if Nabiki
couldn’t see it in the dark under the trees, she could feel it. “Ya know, we’re
all alone,” she whispered. “We don’t have to worry about thin walls, we can
just ... relax.”
Nabiki didn’t reply, she simply renewed the kiss, this time bypassing ‘gentle’
and going straight to ‘deep’. As their tongues dueled she slowly pushed herself
up to a sitting position, tilting her head up to her fiancé floating above her,
Ranma’s soft hands on her shoulders keeping them together. As soon as she was
vertical she grabbed the bottom of her shirt, pulling it up through Ranma and
over her head and tossed it to the side, then fumbled behind her for the clasp
to her bra.
                                      /\
Unnoticed by the pair below, Peach Fuzz silently landed on a broad branch above
them. Finally, the moment she had been waiting for ever since she’d allowed
herself to be bound to Nabiki had arrived. Not that she’d found the wait either
boring or unrewarding — the work-up to the competition had been interesting,
and the actual event had actually been too exciting. At that, she was lucky
that Akane had been too busy celebrating to complain about the sprites Peach
Fuzz had called in to help.
More than that, Peach Fuzz had been stunned at the sheer depths of Nabiki’s
feelings for her lover. It was beyond anything Peach Fuzz had imagined, though
it hadn’t taken her long to recognize the dark side to the love she had dreamed
about and was now experiencing vicariously — Nabiki’s desperate worry about the
competition and the almost overwhelming fear she’d felt as her sister and lover
combined had found themselves injured and facing blackfire, all flowing into
Peach Fuzz through the two-way link courtesy of her status as Nabiki’s familiar
— had disabused the sprite of the illusions she’d had about the lack of a
serious downside.
But what Peach Fuzz had been curious about more than anything was what it would
be like to make love instead of simply friendly sex, and from the sight below
her the time had come. She stared down at the pair for a moment, taking in the
red, orange and pink flashing through and intermingling in their auras, before
turning to sit leaning against the tree trunk, closing her eyes, though she
couldn’t close her ears to the moans and gasps beginning to rise up, and
throwing open the link between familiar and mistress as widely as she could
manage.
Instantly, she could feel the soft touch of phantom fingers playing with her
nipples and pushing apart her mistress’s legs to ease between her folds,
phantom lips on hers, burning a trail down jaw and neck, across her breasts, on
down until she bit her lip to keep from crying out at the touch of those lips
joining her own fingers to probe up into her dripping cleft.
And through it all, driving her own pleasure higher, was the intoxicating mix
of Nabiki’s own mounting pleasure and need together, all immersed in the all-
demanding, all-consuming fire that Peach Fuzz had realized was her mistress’s
love for her succubus fiancé.
When Nabiki’s release thundered through their link to explode through her and
Peach Fuzz’s high, piping shriek merged with her mistress’s cry, the Voice
rose, washing her away into the fathomless depths of all the love in the world.
“Peach Fuzz?”
She ignored the annoying call, turning and twisting in the warm, comforting,
caressing all-encompassing, pure music of Love.
“Peach Fuzz? Damn it, little bug, I know you can hear me. Peach Fuzz!”
Little bug? She felt an ember of anger come alight.  How dare she ... Nabiki?
... Nabiki call her that! She might be her mistress, and sprites might be egg-
layers, but Peach Fuzz was not a bug!
The Voice filling her world seemed to stutter at the sprite’s rising anger. It
turned discordant, shred, and faded away to its normal faint whisper, the
outside world rushing in to fill the vacuum it left behind. As she again became
aware of more than the Song of Life, she found herself lying on warm skin, in
the bowl of two cupped hands. She forced open her eyes to find herself looking
up at the worried faces of mistress and succubus staring down at her, auras
shot through with fluctuating streaks of muddy orange, worry from Nabiki coming
through their link. She murmured, “I am not a bug.”
The worrying transformed into relief, the pair smiling. “Well, I don’t know,”
Nabiki mused, “you certainly fly like one.”
Peach Fuzz sat up cross-legged, crossed her arms across her breasts, and glared
up at the pair as best she could. Of course the best she could manage was more
a pout than anything, too cute for words, making the pair giggle for a moment
before Nabiki sobered. She asked, “Peach Fuzz, what happened?”
Peach Fuzz stiffened as the memory of the emotional storm that smashed her
under rushed back, then flew up off Nabiki’s cupped hands to land on her
shoulder and wrap her arms as best she could. Burying her face in her
mistress’s shoulder-length hair, she demanded, “How can you stand it?”
“Stand what?” Nabiki asked, confused.
“To ... to need someone so much, to want to merge with them! I have friends I
would die for in a heartbeat, but I never imagined anything like that!”
“I see.” Nabiki reached up to cup a huge hand around her familiar in an attempt
at comfort. “Got your first real taste of love, did you? The poets describe it
as being two halves of a single whole for a reason, and from my vast experience
I’d say never more than when making love. A little too intense for you?”
“I ... I thought it would be like friendship, only more intense,” Peach Fuzz
mumbled into her hair, “but it isn’t the same at all.”
“I’ll have to leave that comparison to you,” Nabiki replied, “I’m afraid I
don’t know much about friendship. Was it worth sacrificing your freedom for?”
“I don’t know. I think so.” She shrugged. “Either way, it’s too late now.”
Perking up, she buzzed up from Nabiki’s shoulder to fly around the pair. “But I
interrupted your night out, I’m sorry! Let’s try that again, maybe I’ll make up
my mind.”
Nabiki shook her head as a blushing Ranma giggled. “Having my familiar fall on
my face at my peak kind of killed the mood, and we have school tomorrow,” she
said ruefully, “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for another day to play voyeur.
Let’s go home.”
“Awwww....” Peach Fuzz pouted, hiding her pleasure at the other two’s soft
laughter, then flew around behind Ranma to burrow under her loose-flowing red
hair and grab her neck as the succubus swept her fiancée up in her arms before
carefully flying through the trees into the open night and turning for home.
                                     /oOo\
Earlier that evening:
 Gosunkugi knelt on the floor of his new hideout, in a small, now-empty storage
room in the basement of Furinkan High School, his face almost pressed against
the concrete as he closely examined the lines of chalk on the outside edge of
the summoning circle he had spent hours laying down.
It had been too long since Ranma and Nabiki had had the sheer effrontery to
abuse him — a person of his lineage! The memory of the fear and pain he had
suffered at their hands haunted him, waking and sleeping, and he was determined
to have his revenge.
Unfortunately, until now he had been unable to assuage his righteous fury.
First, because he had needed to shift his personal casting space — after the
way Nabiki had booby-trapped the shed, he hadn’t dared use it. He hadn’t even
dared collect anything but his books, unwilling to risk using any of the chalk
and incense for fear of tampering or the incense burners or candlesticks and
holders for fear of subtle, malicious spells. Acquiring more ritual
paraphernalia had led to a further delay and emptied the bank account set up
for his allowance, and then there was the time needed to set up a new aversion
ritual to hide the room from the common herd that infested the school and empty
out the storeroom by himself....
But all of that paled before the second reason for the delay, the curse that
Nabiki had inflicted on him. Even without access to his previous hideout and so
unable to perform major rituals without his parents’ knowledge, it hadn’t taken
him long to realize which she had used — the Journeyman’s Curse, a curse that
gave its victim bad luck in his chosen trade, with the amount and level of the
bad luck slowly growing until the curse ended. Since his chosen ‘trade’ was his
future as an Initiate, that made casting rituals increasingly dangerous until
either the curse ran its course or he broke it — and his attempts to break it
had been dismal failures. He had been fortunate to cast the aversion ritual
early, before the curse grew too strong.
Still, it had been two weeks since Nabiki had cursed him, surely a curse that
had been performed without a prepared space, without symbolic enhancement,
without preparation and cast in seconds could not last so long. That jumped-up,
common-born slut simply could not be that powerful! And tonight Gosunkugi would
know when Ranma had taken on his succubus form, that brawler wouldn’t be able
to resist helping Akane during her match in the form that would be invisible to
almost everyone present. This was Gosunkugi’s only chance to summon Ranma
without depending on imps to tell him when Ranma was a succubus — and incurring
more karmic debt to the little demons in the process. And when he summoned the
succubus, this time he knew to impose his will rather to simply assume that the
summoning ritual would do it for him, he’d already included the additions to
the circle he’d outlined to make it possible. And once it was done ...
He paused for a moment, eyes glazing over as he remembered his earlier happy
daydreams, what uses he would make of his own personal succubus ... just before
Ranma had beaten him to a pulp, and Nabiki had followed up with her own abuse
and curse. He was sure he could still feel twinges from that night. Snarling,
he returned to his close scrutiny of the circle. Even if it hadn’t broken yet,
Nabiki’s curse wouldn’t be able to have its way if he made absolutely certain
that everything was perfect.
A long hour later, Gosunkugi finally sat up, carefully scooted back, and
creakily rose on knees aching from too-long contact with the concrete floor.
The summoning circle was done, and perfectly done. And ... glancing at the
clock, he nodded ... the competition would start in a bit over ten minutes. He
had chosen to keep the verbal part of the summoning short to minimize the
chance of mistakes, but even with that it was time. Carefully making his way
around the circle, he lit the incense in the four holders at each point and the
candles between them, stepped back and raised his arms, and started to chant.
Almost ten minutes later he was reaching the quick climax of the casting.
Normally he would have been luxuriating in the sensation of power permeating
the room, shaping itself to his bidding, but for the past several minutes he
had been fighting an growing itch in his nose. Already he had only barely
avoided voiding the summoning twice by fighting off sneezes, less than a minute
to go ... and he jackknifed with an explosive sneeze, stumbling forward to drop
to his hands and knees. A second sneeze followed, a third, he fought back a
fourth, lifted his head, and froze as he found himself staring at a pitch-black
cloven hoof inches away from his face. Slowly, his eyes track up the red-
furred, muscular goat leg to a penis that was clearly — and impressively —
human, on up where the red fur gave way to a bare, muscular, equally red-
skinned human torso, and up to finally reach a hairless, bull-horned head. That
bull-horned head was tilted to stare down at him with a cruel grin revealing
jagged teeth.
“So, Gosunkugi’s son,” a harsh voice rumbled. “How ... convenient.”
Gosunkugi scrambled backward out of the smeared lines of the summoning circle
he had been kneeling in until his back slammed against the wall, where he
huddled as he stared up at the thing he had just accidentally summoned,
whimpering as the thing stepped out of the now-useless circle and reached
toward him with a massive clawed hand.
Chapter End Notes
     And that’s a wrap! On to chapters for my other current stories, and
     then I’ll focus on finishing up Future Imperfect. When I start up the
     next story for this arc, it’ll be focusing on Ranma's continuing
     adjustment, Gosunkugi, Kuno Tatewaki, Ryoga and his wives ... and
     cats.
     For my thinking on what happened to Peach Fuzz, the fairly obvious
     long ago occurred to me that if what we share with other species is
     emotions, then we aren’t the only ones to fall in love — only
     zoologists call it pair bonding. Of course it comes with variations,
     short-term, long-term, lifetime, dynamic, etc., but it’s something
     that almost always involves childrearing and in this story sprites
     don’t rear their children any more than succubae do, both species of
     nature spirits lay their eggs or plant their seeds (so to speak) and
     move on. Which would mean that they would have no more understanding
     of what falling in love is like than someone blind from birth
     understands color. Mind, there are species out there that fall in
     love with an intensity that we would probably find as
     incomprehensible as Peach Fuzz found Ranma and Nabiki’s — humanity,
     after all, isn’t one of the species that is hardwired to mate for
     life. That has its evolutionary advantages, of course, but I wonder
     sometimes what it would be like to love as intensely as the species
     that are hardwired to mate for life.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!