A Line is Drawn in the Dojo

  "I knew I shouldn't have gone out by myself," Ryoga said,
chastising himself for the umpteenth time.
  It should have been a simple matter to travel to town and go to
the store to buy a gift for Akari, but, as usual, Ryoga got lost.
More than ever Ryoga hated getting lost, especially the fact that
the time he spent lost was time without Akari. Still, this had to be
done, otherwise Akari wouldn't have been surprised with the gift.
  He had no idea what possessed him to get the gift; it was as if
someone in the back of the Eternally Lost Boy's head told him it was
necessary. That must have been yesterday, Ryoga decided.
  Hiking in a familiar-looking urban community, a small, wrapped box
in hand, Ryoga trudged on, hoping that the Fates would put him back
on the right path.
  Then again, the Fates usually put Ryoga in the right place at the
right time, and that usually wasn't where he intended to go.
  "I shouldn't have gone without you, Akari," he whispered.

  "So, Nabiki, you've found a job?" Soun said.
  Gathered in the Tendo living room were Soun and his three
daughters, sitting around the table as if they were sharing a meal,
which they were not, as breakfast was finished for quite some time.
Nodoka and Genma went out to the market together, while Ranma was
left alone in bed, leaving all four Tendo family members alone in the
house for the first time in a long time.
  Nabiki nodded in confirmation. "It's down at the new Casino King.
I get to handle money."
  "'Casino King?'" piped Akane. "Isn't that the Gambling King's
place?"
  The middle Tendo sister replied, "It sure is."
  "He was such an interesting fellow," commented Kasumi.
  Akane eyed Kasumi suspiciously. Why in the world was she behaving
in such a manner toward a man who tried to take away the Tendo
dojo?
  Under normal circumstances, the idea of Nabiki getting a job
would have been ludicrous. But, since her failure to pass the
infamous college entrance exams, she has had a better glimpse at
what kind of future she would have if she didn't get a job. Kasumi
filled the role of a housekeeper, and Akane had the dojo, but Nabiki
had nothing but herself to rely on.
  And her only friend was money. It came to no surprise that Nabiki
would choose a job that handled money, if indirectly.
  "I'm starting out today," continued Nabiki. She pointed an
accusing finger at Soun. "And don't you think about stopping-by at
the casino, okay? You have no idea how embarrassing that would be."
  "Nabiki, that wasn't very nice," Kasumi pointed out.
  "That's okay, I understand," Soun assured his daughters, nodding.
"I suppose there's some worlds in which your father cannot tread."
  Nabiki shot a glance over at the clock. "Well, looks like I
should be going. I don't want to be late for my first day, you
know."
  Kasumi nodded. "Speaking of which, I'd better get down to church.
The priest wants to have a word with me."
  "Just remember to get back in time before tonight's concert,"
reminded the younger sister, stepping out the door.
  Soun turned to Akane. "Well, Akane, it looks like just you and
me."
  Akane shook her head. "Not quite, Dad; Ranma's still here," the
youngest of the sisters pointed out.
  The sound of thumping against the hardwood floor above the living
room resonated throughout the house.
  "Well, sounds like he won't be here for long," Nabiki corrected
Akane dryly.

  Ranma had barely made it out the front door before Akane called
for his attention.
  "Ranma!" Akane shouted, rushing to the front door, "where are you
going?!"
  Her husband turned around and shrugged. "I've got the urge to go
see Ukyo right now. We'll talk later."
  Before Ranma could make his break, Akane rushed to his side. "Why?"
she asked. "You just got out of bed!"
  Ranma turned to face Akane seriously. "Akane, you shouldn't have
to know what's eating at me right now. It's between me and Ukyo."
  "I'm your wife!" protested Akane. "What is it that you can tell
Ukyo and not me?"
  Holding his hands up defensively, the young Saotome stepped back
several careful steps. "Hey, take it easy!" replied Ranma hastily.
"It's nothing like you're thinking!"
  "Oh, and what am I thinking?!" Akane demanded, shaking her fists
in the air angrily. "You don't think I'm going to pound you into the
ground, are you?"
  "Well... no," lied Ranma, visibly sweating. Had he any real
sense, the conversation would have ended there, but Ranma couldn't
resist adding, "Still, it's not like I'm playing around with other
girls...."
  "RANMA!" his wife screamed, feeding Ranma a knuckle sandwich
backed by terrible, jealous force before he could finish his sentence.
  Ranma's back scraped against the ground, kicking up dust into the
air. He sat up, rubbing his sore cheeks.
  "One of these days," he told himself, "I'm going to have to learn
to keep my mouth shut."
  Had Seiryu's reassuring voice been there, she might have said,
"You're starting to listen," Ranma thought.
  "I see that the more things change, the more they stay the same,"
someone's voice echoed throughout the Tendo yard.
  Ranma and Akane's eyes met those of the speaker: Mousse. Standing
atop the gate, arms folded, glasses resting on his head, the
Chinese acrobat seemed to stare down at Ranma, although his eyes
were closed. Only the rustling of the wind made the couple certain
that they were not looking at a still-life portrait.
  "What do you want?!" cried Ranma, leaping to his feet.
  "It may come to your pleasure that the old one has decided to
return home," Mousse called back. "Within a week the Nekohatten will
close down for good, and I yearn to return home."
  "So, what?" replied Ranma. "I'm willing to bet you didn't come
all this way to say 'good-bye.'"
  Mousse's lips twisted into a malicious smile. "Shampoo's heart may
no longer be yours, but that is not why I am here."
  "Then, why are you here?" asked Akane.
  "All that is left is revenge!" the acrobat declared, leaping from
his position on the gate and into the air, sailing over Ranma in the
sky.
  Ranma threw himself away from the first chained spear, allowing
the thrown weapon to bury itself into the ground. Rolling swiftly,
he continued to leave a trail of spears behind him, escaping Mousse's
initial attack completely.
  The Chinese acrobat landed in the midst of the chained spears,
throwing away the ends of the chains that were up his sleeves,
unconcerned.
  "You know," huffed the young Saotome, "I swear, if I had a yen for
each time you've attacked me...."
  "Shut up!" Mousse shot back, reaching his hands back into his
large sleeves. Grabbing what he was searching for, the Chinese
acrobat produced Mei-ling's gifts-- the razor gloves.
  Ranma stepped back involuntarily. "Yow," he whistled, "never seen
anything like THAT before!"
  Akane stepped back as well. "They look... beautiful!" she
exclaimed.
  Mousse smiled. "These are the weapons forged by Chinese hands,
tempered by the ancient sorceries of Taoism!" he proclaimed. Lifting
the right glove, he said, "The Sleeping Dragon!" And, raising the
left, proclaimed, "The Phoenix Fledgling! Right and left alike,
Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong served their master well. Now, as I am
the master, they will aid me in this final battle, Ranma Saotome!"
  Quickly, Mousse slipped-on the gloves, allowing the sunlight to
reflect off each razor 'finger.'
  Ranma shrugged. "I was wondering when you'd join the bandwagon."
  The Chinese acrobat snarled angrily. "You won't be laughing when
I'm through with you!"
  Throwing his arms forward toward Ranma, Mousse's claws fired-off
from the gloves, heavy chains trailing behind.
  Ranma ducked, allowing the chained projectiles to collide with the
wall behind him.
  Getting up, he taunted, "Was THAT the best you could do?!"
  Unexpectedly, the chains tugged backward against the claws that
were buried in the walls. Ripping cracks into the wall, Mousse
retracted the weapons, pulling away a huge chunk of wall with them.
  The wall fragment ended its path where Ranma stood, allowing the
claws to return to the Chinese acrobat's position.
  "EVERYTHING can be used as a weapon!" declared Mousse, returning
Ranma's taunt.
  Ranma threw the wall fragment away from himself, then jumped back
to his feet, facing Mousse. "I really don't get why you guys keep
attacking me all the time!"
  Mousse snorted. "It was a wise man who advised never to leave
loose ends untied," he paraphrased. "I bring no shame by returning
home without defeating you, but it is my pride I fight for!"
  "Mousse, wait!" two voices shouted in unison.
  Ranma, Akane, and Mousse turned to face the new arrivals, standing
atop the wall, holding their polearms steady. Ling-ling and Lung-lung,
the twin warriors, labored for breath, struggling to keep their
balance in their awkward position.
  "What are you two doing here?!" demanded Mousse.
  "Here... to... help!" answered Ling-ling, taking breaths between
each word.
  "Fight... with... you!" Lung-lung added.
  Akane shook her head disappointingly. "Ranma, how in the world did
you get into this much trouble?" The Chinese twins were a force to
be reckoned with, but their fighting style left much to be desired.
However, with Mousse on their side, backed by a 'magic' weapon, the
odds were being stacked against Ranma, if he wasn't careful.
  "I want to do this myself!" protested Mousse, making his way to
the wall, waving a razor 'finger' in the air.
  "Out of the way, Poet!" someone shouted from the other side of
the wall.
  The voice boomed loud enough to catch the Chinese twins off-guard,
and, in their jump of surprise, they fell forward, into the Tendo
property lot, and toward an equally-surprised Mousse.
  The gates burst open, each door slamming against the wall, the
hinges protesting loudly. Pantyhose Taro stood where the double doors
once stood, his arms forward, having just forced open the gate.
Behind him, stood Kodachi and Tatewaki Kuno, to the left and right
respectively.
  Ranma wiped his hand down his face in disgust. "Here comes the
Goon Squad."
  "I'd be more serious if I were you, Femme-boy!" snarled Taro.
  Kodachi stepped to Taro's side. "Was it not a wonderful gift you
had bestowed upon me, Ranma?" she purred slyly, with a hint of
malice in her voice. "To think, that Death was one to be feared by
the living?! Ha-hah! Oh-hohohoho!"
  Kuno shook his head. "If only Death were truly the end," he
muttered under his breath.
  "The end of existence, the end of our being, the fate in which
all life is made equal!" continued Kodachi, circling Taro playfully.
"Oh, Ranma, what a gift it was you had bestowed upon me! The gift
of eternal sleep, the gift that gives the true meaning of life! To
welcome Death, instead of fearing it! Ah-hah, to think, that I once
cowered in the face of Death!"
  Both Ranma and Akane stepped back.
  "She's flipped," Akane noted.
  "More so than usual," added Ranma.
  The Kuno girl ceased her prancing, then glowered at Ranma, her
tone of voice suddenly becoming serious. "It is this gift I wish to
share with you, Ranma Saotome!" she cried, causing chill to run up
her brother's spine.
  "'Death, be not proud,'" Kuno told himself, raising his bokken.
"Truly, if death were the end of our being, then I would have no
regrets this day, yet, if death is truly not the end...."
  "Shut up!" Taro snarled at him. "If the death of flesh is not
enough, then it will be the death of his being!" Turning back to
Ranma, he cried, "It is long passed the time I remedied my past
humiliation at your hand!"
  "No, wait!" protested Mousse, dragging himself from under the
prone bodies of Ling-ling and Lung-lung. "He's mine!"
  "He's MINE, Ducky!" Taro shot back.
  "You and what army?!" the Chinese acrobat replied.
  "Silence!" demanded Kodachi.
  The bickering between Mousse and Taro ceased at the chilling,
commanding tone borne from the Kuno's voice.
  "It matters not WHO kills Ranma, but that he dies is what matters!"
reasoned Kodachi. "We will fight together, or not at all!"
  Both Ling-ling and Lung-lung got up to their feet, and took
positions to either of Mousse's sides.
  "She speak wisdom," noted Lung-lung.
  "One man alone surely cannot defeat the six of us," added Kuno.
"All our skill combined is more than a match for such evilness as
Ranma Saotome!"
  "What's the matter with all of you?!" Akane cried.
  All heads turned to Ranma's wife.
  "I thought you've all settled your differences a long time ago!"
she continued. "There's no longer a reason why you all need to deal
with Ranma anymore! Everything is over... OVER!"
  To Kodachi, Akane said, "You've lost in your race to win Ranma
to your side; why do you continue to pester us?!"
  Kodachi feigned a look of innocence. "Oh, me?! I simply wish to
share with him the gift of eternal sleep!"
  "You've never loved Death!" Akane pointed out. "Why now?!"
  "She speaks the truth, Sister!" insisted Kuno, reaching for her
right arm. "In times before you never walked the path of death, but
it was I who did! It was you who turned me from such a destructive
path, Kocchi!"
  "Fool," Kodachi replied. "I simply said such to dissuade you from
something I perceived to be an object to be feared! Oh, to meet
Death face-to-face is to change one's outlook on life! It is the
sweetness Death caresses one with that I wish to share!"
  "I don't care," Taro said. "Whatever end it takes to have your
hand, I will follow!"
  "Blind love doth cloud your judgement!" Kuno replied. "Why do you
not listen to your cousin and understand the truth?"
  Taro planted a foot in Kuno's face. "I've heard enough from you,
Poet!"
  Mousse stepped closer to Taro. "Ever since I tasted the blood of
my first kill, at the age of five, I feared not death, but welcomed
it with open arms!" Turning to Ranma and Akane, he added, "The way
of the warrior is to accept death as a part of life. Surely, you,
Ranma, fear the final sleep!"
  Kuno nodded in agreement. "A samurai fears not death."
  Ranma's wife flared in anger. "Whose side are you on?!" she cried
at Kuno.
  I don't want to die, Ranma admitted to himself. And this is
certainly NOT the way I want to die.
  "You not ready to die?" asked Ling-ling and Lung-lung in unison,
guessing Ranma's thoughts.
  Akane stepped forward defiantly. "That's enough!" she cried. "If
anyone is going to kill my husband, he'll have to come through me
first!"
  "You would dare to accept the gift in your husband's stead?!"
Kodachi cried mockingly. "You aren't worthy of such an honor! Death
is too easy a fate for you!"
  "Stand out of the way, Akane," warned Taro. "I don't want to hurt
you, but I will if you force me!"
  "Taro," Akane replied, "you just can't do that!"
  "And why not?!" demanded Taro. "I've done it before, and I'll do
it again! Nothing stands in the way of my goals, and that is to make
my beloved happy!"
  "But when will you satisfy her lust for death?" Akane asked
honestly. "Would killing Ranma really satisfy her thirst to kill?"
  The Chinese martial artist passed his look back to Kodachi, staring
at her eyes. In the deep soul within, Taro could find only one thing,
a look, though something he had never seen himself, was all-too
familiar to him.
  Bloodlust.
  It was the same lust for killing that Taro felt when capturing
livestock in the country, or stalking and hunting wild animals in
China. It was the feeling that told him to kill or be killed, and
Taro preferred to kill.
  It was a look that was never present in the eyes of the woman
he loved. The innocence, the joy of life that so contrasted his
own lifestyle seemed to have disappeared.
  "But," Taro said finally, "I know who did this to her!"
  "Way to go, Akane!" Ranma said, throwing up his arms in total
frustration. "He STILL thinks it's my fault, whatever it is he's
mad about!"
  "Ranma!" Akane yelled, turning to face her husband, back toward
the six opponents. "I'm TRYING to help you!"
  "Some help you've been!" her husband replied, snorting.
  Anger burned within Akane's being. "Fine! Then maybe I SHOULD
let them have you!"
  Mousse looked at Lung-lung in confusion. "How did we get to this
point?"
  The Chinese girl merely shrugged.
  Suddenly, the air above was pierced by the high speed path of a
single, large projectile. Kicking up dirt about, the object landed
between Ranma and Akane and the other six in the Tendo yard. The
object turned out to be a giant spatula.
  Ranma turned to where the projectile originated, on the Tendo
roof. "Ukyo!" he exclaimed with joy.
  Smashing Ranma over the head with the giant spatula, Akane shouted,
"THERE is your beloved Ukyo, Ranma!"
  "Hey, that's not fair!" protested Ranma.
  Ukyo Kuonji leaped from the roof and landed by Ranma and Akane.
She accepted the spatula from Akane's hands, then turned to help
her get Ranma back to his feet.
  "Well, Ranchan, looks like you're in a pot of hot water," the
okonomiyaki chef noted dryly, watching Konatsu make his leap from
the roof.
  "I hope Ranma-sama would recover," the kunoichi said encouragingly.
  Getting back to his feet, Ranma rubbed his sore head. "I'm trying
to think of the number of times things like this happened to me in
the past two years...."
  "It's only going to get worse," Ukyo added.
  "Swell," replied her friend.

  This place certainly DOES look familiar, noted Ryoga.
  Ah, yes, there was the park with the nice fountain in the middle
of it. And there's the street vendors, as usual. There's the
children, playing with a ball, rolling around in the grass. And
there was Shampoo, riding her bicycle....
  "Shampoo!" shouted the Eternally Lost Boy, picking up the pace
to catch the bicycle that was traveling away from him. "Wait up!"
  Apparently, Shampoo had heard Ryoga's shouts, as she pulled to a
complete stop at the mention of her voice. She looked behind herself,
noticing the one who always got lost rushing toward her.
  "Shampoo very busy now," the Chinese Amazon said flatly.
  "Yeah, I know!" Ryoga said, coming to a stop from his mad dash at
Shampoo's side. "I need your help to get to the Tendo household!"
  "You very lucky," Shampoo replied, "because that where Shampoo go."
  Carefully, Ryoga studied Shampoo's bicycle curiously. Pointing to
the empty back where delivery boxes would have been, he asked, "Then,
do you suppose I can have a ride?"

                          *  *  *  *  *

  It gets worse. Stay tuned.


----------------------------------------------------------
This has been yet another exercise in interpretation.
"Decepticons FOREVER!!" --Ravage, former Decepticon
"If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die." --Kosh, Babylon 5

"[Y]ou're lamer than your signature and screen name indicate."--Chris Davies
"The FFML exists to judge the writing, not the writers."--Richard Lawson
"There was a recent case where a fanfic author put together his work with 
only another fanfic serving as his primary resource.  *I* started writing 
fanfiction that way, and consequently I never grew attached to this whole 
idea of remaining true to the original.  I call it "correction."--Reverend 
Prez

--Razorclaw X
Author: "Wheel of Fire", "The World's Worst Ranma Fanfic!", "The Geometry of 
Shattered Souls", "The Balance of Power".
"I sold my soul to buy a copy of the dubbed 'Ukyo Can Cook'"
"Pathetic authors beg for flames. Wait, that's me."


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