Wild Eyes: Chapter 1
by Mark Doherty(mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au)

A Sazan(3x3) Eyes + Ranma 1/2 X-over/Fusion fic

Thanks go to Eimii, with whom I had a rather long e-mail conversation
about this, a couple of months ago.

Because I'm keeping my current writing project up my sleeve until all 3
parts have gone through pre-reading(just sent the 2nd chapter to the guys
a couple of days ago), it means that I haven't sent any stories to the
FFML for a while. I'll be back to Neko soon enough(only 15 more chapters
to go! Last time I take on a long term project like that...), but in the
meantime, here's something to allow me to keep a presence. This is a story
I started writing a long time ago. Long time. I left it on the backburner
for a while, but now seemed a good time to release the first chapter.

This story lodges itself sort of into the Fusion style, and for the first
chapter or so people will be on familiar ground. Won't stay that way, when
I get time to continue it.

Characters and background are the property of Rumiko Takahashi and Yuzo
Takada. I deserve to be thrown in the spring of drowned demon underling for
even thinking of using them. No disrespect is intended in their use.

C&Cs are always good.

My conventions explained:

- The suffix -chan is used to denote a character's cursed female form. No
  suffix indicates that the person isn't in their cursed form. Other curses
  are denoted by the name of whatever they are as a suffix.

- <> Denotes Chinese.

- [] Denotes thoughts.


"Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!
 Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!
 Come Helen, come give me my soul again.
 Here will I dwell, for heaven be in these lips,
 And all is dross that is not Helena."
                    - Faustus by Christopher Marlowe.

***************

Sunlight seared the skin of the young traveller as he hiked his way across
the rocky expanse of an ill-maintained mountain path. He wiped the sweat of
his brow as he idly shifted the weight of his pack. The young man carefully
walked along the narrow path, making sure he didn't pay undue attention to
the all too large fall that was only a few steps away.

The boy stopped walking as he heard a sound, a strange sound that definitely
did not seem to be a part of the normal background noise. The sound grew
closer, and the boy turned to face the path's edge, realising that it was
coming from that direction.

With a roaring cry, a big, impossibly big bird-like creature rushed up
before him, rising skywards with a spryness that belied its unbelievable
size.

Awe was painted upon the boy's face as he looked at the monstrous bird rush
up in front and then above him. Then the slipstream of the monster blew
against him in a wave of air that was powerful enough to make him stumble
back. He compensated by leaning forward, never taking his eyes off the
impossibly huge thing that was turning in the air above him.

His eyes widened as he saw the flying beast finish its turn, saw it start
to dive, dive right towards him. With a startled yell, he backed up, turning
to run.

His left foot skidded as he realised that he had moved too close to the
path's edge when he had compensated his footing. He felt a horrid sinking
feeling in his stomach as his foot skidded on the loose gravel, before it
slid off the path into unsupporting air. He tried desperately to balance
himself, to throw his body back, to stop himself from falling. It was then
that the monstrous bird swooped by him, never getting anywhere near enough
to the boy to attack.

Unfortunately, the trail of wind that followed the monster was another
story. It buffeted the off-balance boy, destroying an already precarious
equilibrium, and he couldn't stop himself pitching forward, pitching off
the cliff's side.

He was falling, falling to the valley floor beneath. He felt the briefest
flash of relief fly through his semi-terrified mind as he realised that he
was falling right towards a small spring, one of many that he saw below him
in his all-too-fast flight. Then, as the adrenaline surged through his
fear-clad mind, his brain and senses kicked into high gear, colours
sharpened, his ears picked up the whistling of the wind around him so much
easier, and he saw...

He saw the poles. Bamboo poles, that stuck out of the springs like gigantic,
desiccated, jagged reeds. Thoughts flish-flashed through him in the briefest
milliseconds he had left before impact. Thoughts of the poles...

Oh gods... those poles... they weren't nicely cropped and cultivated shoots,
they were, through the wonders of nature, through crackling cold nights,
through smooth bamboo sharpened through wind and rain and ice, perhaps even
through lax upkeep, since they appeared to be placed there by human hands,
the poles were crude but oh-so effective looking spears.

The bamboo spears were rushing towards him. No, he was rushing towards the
bamboo spears. Desperately, he tried to twist his body, reach out with his
arms to absorb the impact, anything, anything to stop the inevitable rush
towards an all too jagged death.

With a sound that was all the more horrifying for its quietness, the boy
landed squarely upon a bamboo shaft, its sharp top slicing into, THROUGH
him, skewering him with a blood-soaked finality.

Shock travelled through his body in waves, pain and horrifying numbness
lapped through him simultaneously. He tried to scream, but he could not, for
his throat was full to the gagging with blood, and in a reflex act, he
choked before he vomited out an all too large amount of his precious life
liquid.

He looked down at the blood soaked bamboo pole he was impaled upon, impaled
like some insignificant insect in one of those butterfly displays. He could
feel the shock wage with the denial of the all too obvious. He was dead. He
just hadn't stopped moving yet.

"No." he burbled, spitting out blood between his already red, wet lips. "It
can't end this way..." he protested, as he felt chills rippling through him,
worse yet, after the chills he began to feel nothing. His feet and hands
were growing numb with fearful rapidity.

"No!" he spat, and then with incredible, awesome, nigh-unbelievable
determination, he summoned all his strength, all his considerable strength,
and he did the impossible.

He pulled his mangled body off the pole, using his rapidly failing arms to
vault himself onto the nearby ground. He landed with a flop, too weak now to
even scream from the new flash of pain. He grinned, despite what was
happening. At least he'd done this one last thing, one last spit in the eye
of the cruel Fates that had sent him on this fool's escapade.

He tried to raise his head, tried to look at the damage to his belly, tried
to at least see just how bad the wound was. If he was going to die, couldn't
he at least see how big a hole the damnable pole had made? But he couldn't
summon the strength to raise his head, if in fact it would have helped,
since his vision was starting to blur and fade.

He couldn't think straight, he didn't want to think straight, his mind was
awhirl as his senses shorted out, went crazy, and started to die out. His
eyelids fluttered as he felt a light vibration, and heard an unsteady
pattering sound that, thanks to his failing senses, sent what was left of
his stomach into a queasy state.

His wraith-cloaked mind rose from its stupor when he realised that
something, that someone was leaning over him. He tried to focus his blurred
gaze, but all he could see was the vaguest of colours, of red and white, and
the somehow-sense that whoever it was, it was female.

"Moth..." he burbled, finding it hard to force the words out throw the blood
that pooled in his throat. With a weak cough, he tried to focus, and he
tried to speak again. "M... mother?" It was not his most lucid moment.

He heard something babbling, but he couldn't make out what it was. He wished
it would stop though, he was tired and how could he sleep with that annoying
noise, so like a mosquito's incessant buzz?

There was more babbling, it seemed almost urgent, and he could see a red
blur through his fuzzy gaze. Something, someone grabbed him, shaking him,
and the noises started again, seemingly urgent.

A word formed out of the babble, like the female shaking him was saying it
over and over again. Ryouga. That word was important, wasn't it? It was so
hard to think... oh wait, wasn't that his name?

The person kept shaking him, kept babbling words that he couldn't make out.
Their words were harder and harder to hear. Were they moving away? But if
they were moving away, how could they still be shaking him? Perhaps they
were just whispering. Yes, that must be it.

Oh gods... couldn't she just leave him alone? Leave him to sleep? He so
wanted to rest. Just for a few minutes. Just a few more minutes.

He closed his eyes, his body finally giving up. A flash of bright white
light flooded him, and he felt a strange mix of joy and fear, just before
he descended into darkness.

***************

She screamed. Oh no... oh gods... this can't, it couldn't, it shouldn't, it
MUSTN'T BE!!!

"Oh, too bad." a nearby voice said in broken Japanese. "You fall in spring
where girl drown nearly three hundred year ago."

NO! It was all a dream, a vision, a hallucination, it wasn't true, it had
to be a lie! These things just didn't, couldn't happen!

"Now, whenever you hit with cold water, you turn into young girl." the voice
continued relentlessly.

Maybe she was going mad, all of a sudden it seemed preferable to the
alternative. Better to be mad in a sane world, then sane in a world as mad
as one that could allow... _this_.

There was the sound of fluttering nearby, and a slight thump as something
landed on the ground. The girl's eyes narrowed as she looked away from
herself so that she could focus her anger on the one she thought deserved
it.

"You!" she hissed through her teeth, clenching her fists until they were
whiter then her gi, as she looked over at a nearby huge, birdlike creature.
She started to stalk towards the monster, showing no fear whatsoever at the
beast. The monster, on the other hand, was obviously at least nervous of the
girl.

"You did this to me." the girl snarled as she flexed and unflexed her fists
over and over, taking deliberately slow steps towards the gigantic bird.
"You and your stupid 'Chinese Training Grounds' crap." The monster shuffled
back a bit, nervous at the look on the girl's face.

The Guide nervously backed away. He had seen similar sort of reactions
before, he knew not to stick around. When he was sure that the girl wasn't
looking at him, he scampered off.

"It just keeps getting worse and worse with you, 'Pop'." the girl hissed
as she approached the monster. "'Oh, just an old training ground.' you say.
'Great place to train.' you said. 'What could go wrong?' you asked."

The girl finally reached the large bird-like creature. She looked up into
its vaguely humanlike face, before she pointed at herself. "Well, THIS is
what could go wrong! You STUPID old bastard, I'm a GIRL thanks to you!
I was willing to give up practically anything for the Art. My friends, a
real life, maybe even a small bit of my honour, but NOT THIS!"

The monster had the grace to look embarrassed. It tried to say something,
but all that came out was a squawking cry, it didn't have the right vocal
chords for human speech.

"Look at me. LOOK AT ME!" the girl growled, visibly trembling. Her face was
almost as red as her flame-coloured hair. "Look at what you've made me into.
Who's gonna believe that I'm a guy, that _I'm_ Ranma Saotome when I look like
this!? Damn you Pop, my life is over and it's all YOUR FAULT!"

With a strangled cry, the girl flung her right fist forward. The monster
hoped back on its one massive leg, before it spread its wings and launched
itself into the air to avoid the girl's further attacks.

"Get back here!" Ranma-chan raged as she stared into the sky.

The monster gave an ear-shattering cry in reply, as it flew up the side of
one of the surrounding cliffs. The girl shaded her eyes with her left hand
as she looked to the sky, keeping her gaze on the flying beast. She followed
it as it banked, showing surprising manoeuvrability for its size. She kept
the monster in her sights as it shot past the cliff it had flown up. The
girl kept track of it for another moment, before she caught a flash of
colour out of the corner of her eyes.

She turned back to the cliff in time to see someone tumble off a mountain
path that couldn't be seen properly from her vantage point. Her eyes widened
as she saw the person, a young man, crash into one of the bamboo poles that
dotted the springs of this valley.

Ranma-chan stood there in shock, her face slightly green, as she stared at
the gruesome sight of the impaled boy. Her eyes widened and her mouth gaped
wide when she saw that the person was still alive, was in fact still strong
enough to pull himself off the pole he had been impaled on. As the boy
used his dwindling strength to push off the pole, Ranma-chan shook herself
out of her state, and she ran over to the collapsed man.

"Oh hell." she whispered as she skidded to a halt next to the wounded boy.
The man had landed on his back, and Ranma-chan could see all the gory detail
of his wound. The all-too large hole in his stomach, the fabric of his shirt
forced into the wound, the blood collecting both on the man's chest, and
pooling from underneath... he had to be dead.

The man gurgled as he tried to raise his head, his eyes focussed and
unfocussed as he tried to look down at his torso.

She couldn't believe it, the man was still alive. He should have died almost
instantly, with a wound like that. His will to live must be enormous, either
that or he was too stubborn to die. Or too stupid.

"Moth..." the man said deliriously, exhaling a fine mist of blood as he
spoke. He coughed out some of the excess blood, before he spoke again.
"M... mother?"

The girl quickly looked around, hoping that someone else would be nearby,
someone who could help the boy. Seeing no-one but her transformed father,
her face hardened as she shrugged her gi top off, ignoring her new body
attributes as she knelt down and used the top to staunch the sizeable
wound. It was a futile gesture, she knew it, there was no way that someone
could last long with a wound like that, no matter what drove them.

She looked at his face while she applied pressure to his wound. That voice,
those features, they seemed so familiar. She frantically tried her best to
staunch the wound with her now red gi-top as she searched her memory.

"Ryouga?" she breathed as she stopped putting pressure on the wound. The man
gurgled slightly, apparently he was beyond speech now. Perhaps he was
answering her, perhaps he wasn't.

Ranma-chan grabbed Ryouga by the front of his shirt, lifting him up
slightly. "Ryouga!?" she asked again, as she shook the boy slightly, hoping
to get some response out of him, knowing in her heart that the treatment
couldn't make things worse.

"Ryouga... aw dammit, Ryouga why? What the hell were you doing over here?"
Ranma-chan asked as she shook the boy again. "Come on Ryouga, don't do this.
Ya can't just die like this! Ryouga? Ryouga?!"

"Don't you go dying on me like this Ryouga!" Ranma-chan snarled. No
response. After a few moments of hesitation, she lowered him back to the
ground.

She looked down at the blood on her hands. They were shaking, she noted in
a detached sort of curiosity. But what was so surprising about that? Her
life was crashing down around her, first she'd had her gender torn, melted
from her, replaced with... with...

And then, before that had even begun to sink in, before she'd even recovered
from seeing her father turned into some sort of monster, she'd seen one of
the very few friends she had impaled on a bamboo pole that must have snapped
sometime in the past, giving it a sharpened point.

Ryouga's laboured breathing was almost impossible to detect now, he was
obviously not going to last for more than another minute or two. It just
wasn't fair, why did he have to be here? Why did he have to die? Why
couldn't there be a way to save him? There should be a way to save the
idiot, just so she could pound him for being here!

"Ryouga... I'm sorry, my friend."

Her face froze as, in the centre of her forehead, her flesh parted much
like eyelids to reveal a third eye. The eye glowed as it let out a beam of
light that bathed over the dying boy in front of her. As the monster bird
nervously backed away in the background, a glowing orb exited from Ryouga.
The orb travelled up the beam, entering the girl's eye as if it was some
sort of hungry maw.

She wavered for a few seconds, her three eyes wide, before she fainted. No,
wait, guys don't faint. She collapsed, then, falling unconscious so that she
lay over Ryouga's legs.

***************

Genma looked at his unconscious daughter, worry plastered over his face.
What had that third eye been? What had the springs done to his son, beyond
turning him into a girl?

He looked again. Wait, there were only two eyes again. This made no sense.

He looked down at himself. How could he help his son when he had no hands?
Perhaps the Guide could help him move Ranma, he remembered that the Chinese
man had retreated, probably to his cottage, after the boy... the girl had
started getting violent.

Genma hopped off, hoping he didn't look as ridiculous as he felt.

***************

[I must be dead. How else could I not feel hurt?] He kept his eyes closed,
savouring the darkness, trying his best to ignore the harsh heat of
sunlight, and a light weight on his legs. What did such discomforts matter
to one who was dead?

Wait a minute. Did death really feel like this? Ryouga patted his stomach,
hardly believing the evidence before him. His eyes shot open, and he pushed
himself up to look at his torso. Nothing, there was no wound. Would his eyes
lie? He was alive and whole, with only his tattered and bloody shirt as
proof that he had ever been wounded.

What had happened? He'd been dying, hadn't he? But that couldn't be, he was
alive and breathing, dead people didn't breathe, did they? But if he was
alive, why did he feel so uneasy? Why did that dream of death, or whatever
it was seem so real? He looked down at himself. If it was a dream, why was
his shirt tattered and soaked in blood? And why was there a girl draped over
his legs?

Ryouga flushed as his concerns over his miraculous recovery took a very
sudden backseat to the far more important fact that a young and very cute
red-headed girl was draped over him with a smile on her face. A very cute
girl who wasn't wearing a shirt or bra. The only thing that was saving the
boy from complete mind meltdown was that she was face down, her attributes
hidden by his own legs.

"Gah!" Ryouga choked, trying to shift his legs out from under the girl, his
nose starting to burn from the feeling of the girl's flesh pressed against
him.

The girl groaned, disturbed by his desperate movements. She raised her hand,
rubbing at her forehead, before she opened her two eyes.

"Ryouga?" Ranma-chan asked, blinking in surprise. She looked down at
Ryouga's stomach and just stared. After a few seconds, she hesitantly
reached out and touched him where there should have been a gaping wound.

"Wh... what are you doing?" Ryouga asked nervously as the strange girl
started feeling his stomach. His eyes were screwed shut so that the girl
wouldn't think him to be some sort of pervert.

"I don't believe it." Ranma-chan muttered to herself, either not hearing
Ryouga's question, or ignoring it. "There ain't even a scratch. It's just
not possible, I coulda almost stuck my hand through the hole that bamboo
made, but it's like nothing ever happened to you."

"Uh. Miss, I..." Ryouga said, his face starting to flame from the massive
blush he had developed from having a girl caressing his stomach.

Ranma-chan looked up, her eyes narrowing. She took her hand away from
Ryouga's stomach and used it to bap him over the head.

"Ow! What was that for?" Ryouga asked, as he rubbed his head, all trace of
a blush gone. He glared at her for a moment, before he realised that she
still hadn't covered up. He eeped, before he screwed his eyes shut again.

"For calling me Miss!" Ranma-chan growled. "And for sca... for making me
worry. What happened to you Ryouga? How... where'd you learn to heal a wound
like that? It's beyond anything I've heard of in any of the Arts and it's
definitely beyond what you knew last time I saw ya."

Ryouga stopped rubbing his head. "Last time? What are you talking about,
I've never seen you before."

Ranma-chan rolled her eyes. "Man, you're even dumber than I remember. It's
me, Ranma."

"Ranma? I only knew one Ranma, a Ranma Saotome," Ryouga growled out the
name, "and he was a guy."

"And what am I?" Ranma-chan asked, her voice offering pain if he didn't
answer correctly.

Ryouga started to sweat. He wasn't equipped to handle these sorts of
conversations, not with a girl anyway. Especially not one that had been
fondling him just before.

"Er..." he tried suavely. "Um..." he continued intelligently. Seeing that
the girl wasn't too impressed, he tried the most witty repartee he knew.
"Ahh... that is..."

Ranma-chan gave a growl of frustration. "Whatever." she said, cutting off
Ryouga's stammering. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, she
realised that he was keeping his eyes closed for some reason. "Why are your
eyes closed?" she asked eventually, curious. Perhaps it had something to do
with whatever this incredible healing technique he'd picked up was.

"I... I just..." Ryouga turned red again, his blush back in force. "I'm just
giving you a chance to c... cover yourself."

Ranma-chan looked down at herself before she looked back at Ryouga, anger
flashing in her eyes. How _dare_ he rub salt into her wounds by pointing out
that she was a girl? As quickly as it had risen, the anger drained out of
her. No, it wasn't Ryouga she wanted to take her anger out on, it was her
father. [Gotta keep my priorities straight.] she thought. [Beat Pops up now,
worry about anyone else _later_.]

"You'll just have to put up with it for a couple of minutes." she growled
to the boy. "If you're so squeamish about looking, I'll go get my spare gi
out of my pack."

Ryouga nodded quickly. [Clothes would be good. Clothes would be good.] he
thought as he fought the urge to sneak a look.

Ranma-chan looked at the idiotic nodding for a moment before she rolled her
eyes. "I can't leave you here, you'll just get lost." She folded her arms
over her chest, shivering at the unfamiliar sensations of touching parts
that _shouldn't_ be there. "You can open your eyes, I've covered up. Let's
get out of here, huh?" she asked.

"Uh... okay." Ryouga said nervously as he slowly opened his eyes, wondering
why this girl was taking such an interest in him. She obviously knew Ranma,
even if her assertion that she was his old rival was ridiculous. Perhaps she
was his sister, and she was trying to defend him. Yes, that must be it.
Obviously she was made of finer stuff than her brother.

Ryouga licked his dry lips, realising that he hadn't drunk anything in a
day, since his canteen had run out. For that matter, he hadn't eaten in
three days either. The food couldn't be helped, but it looked like water was
an easily fixable concern around here.

"I'll just wash my shirt and fill my canteen first." Ryouga said, finally
managing to say something right as he turned to walk to the nearest spring.

"No!" Ranma-chan shouted, tackling Ryouga to the ground before he'd taken
more than a step towards the spring.

"What are you doing!?" Ryouga asked after he'd spat out a mouthful of dirt.
Then he realised that the cute, if annoying girl was currently lying against
him, hugging him in fact. She stared up at him with an annoyed expression,
as she rose from the tackle, giving him a rather revealing look at her
chest. His mind overloaded at the view, and he fainted as blood erupted from
his nose.

Ranma-chan looked at the unconscious Ryouga for a few seconds, before she
shook her head. "Same old Ryouga." she muttered, before she looked at his
stomach again.

"I just don't believe it." Ranma-chan said after staring for a while at
what should have been a gaping wound. "Must have just imagined him being
injured so bad. It must have been just a small wound, and he must be a quick
healer." She studiously avoided looking over at where she had dropped her
blood soaked gi.

"Yeah, that's it. Just the... the..." she looked at herself, and started
shaking from a combination of anger and despair, "...curse. Yeah. It did
_this_ to me, it must have made me see things as well."

Nodding to herself to show that she accepted her explanation, she bent down
and, with a slight grunt, picked up Ryouga and slung him over her shoulder.
She heaved herself to her feet, tottering only slightly from the combination
of Ryouga's weight and her still new centre-of-balance.

"C'mon Ryouga." she muttered as she strode off. "Let's go find my Pop." She
took a few more steps, before she added "So we can kill him for coming to
this damned place."

She staggered a bit further, before she said "You know, that bandanna really
looks stupid on you. Grey ain't your colour."

***********************************************************************
***********************************************************************

That's practically only a teaser, isn't it? Still, tell me what you
think.

Till next time.

************  
Mark Doherty  -  mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au
The Weekly FFML Synopses Lists are at:
http://www.uq.edu.au/~zzhdoher

My fanfics will be back on the web sooner or later.

"Kawaii must die."