Ranmazoku
Chapter 8 - The Demon Queen Of Furinkan
By PansutoTarou5925
DISCLAIMER - I do not own the rights to Slayers nor do I own the rights to Ranma �. Long live the rightful owners of these two fine anime. This work is non-commercial and is done only in imitation of Rumiko Takahashi and Hajime Kanzaka. Imitation is the sincerest flattery, no? US rights owned by Viz and Software Sculptors. If I mention the Senshi, Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi(Sp, anyone?) and.. and.. I dunno who has the US rights, but it's theirs not mine. (I'm drawing a blank)
Author's note - This story originated from an idea on Nighthawk's page and is some guy named NesTea's fault. If he's reading this, I'm curious to know what he thinks of all this. Questioning me would be like questioning Xellos if you ask when the next section comes out, because it's a secret.
ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events, characters and the like may not resemble canon. People who are rabid canon-thumpers beware! (and eat a Dragon Slave while you're at it)
PREVIOUSLY - Ranma discovers he's not Genma's son, that Xellos is his father, that he's not even human, studies black magic under Phibrizzo, yadda yadda yadda, gets in a fight with Ryouga and curses a decent sized crowd to act like Kuno. Then he corrupts Hotaru into becoming a mazoku and put a world of hurt on some poor Daimon and Eudial. Afterwards he spied on the Inners, took Nabiki, and got Kasumi angry! Then they went to the Slayers world and met Lina and Co under false identities. Read the previous chapters, really, I'm not good at rehashing stuff.
NOTE - [...] indicates telepathic communication between Ranma and Hotaru in the Astral plane.
We had made good time to the north after stealing another pair of horses. The north of this world is a beautiful place, cold, desolate, and forbidding. The granite peaks hold the dome of the sky above their frosty peaks as the pallid sun sets in the frosty north, its warmth fizzling in an arctic embrace. No wonder this is the land that heros dread, the hunting grounds of the Demon King of the North. Beyond it lay only the arctic sea, and the kingdom of Dynast. Sherra's home.
I wonder if Dynast knows what Sherra is doing. He's too rational and calculating to risk a war over my little ambition. On the other hand, Sherra is impetuous and might very well be planning to become one of the lords of the Mazoku herself. In which case she's being foolish. There's two positions available; why risk everything in killing me? Is it because of her old problems with Xellos? Some kind of revenge against my father?
I wonder how Nabiki is doing. I can't check in on her because of that damn Sherra. Of course, if she dies and I can't get to her, she's going to stay dead. I'd like to have some reinforcements.
Reinforcements...?
Reinforcements!
"Aha!" I said, thumping my fist into my hand. Hotaru was looking over at me, having already sensed my excitement. "I've got it. I know how to defeat Sherra - the Saotome Secret Technique strikes again!" I laughed, then realized something didn't sound right.
"You can't do a proper villainous cackle." Hotaru noted.
I nodded. "You're right, of course. Now, let me explain what I have in mind here. Nabiki is in the desert and awaiting death so I can turn her into my Priest, right?" Hotaru nodded, frowning a little at the thought of Nabiki. Well, perhaps a little rivalry will help sharpen those two. "Now, Sherra is looking for two mazoku. Two. Not three. Now, I feel fairly certain that you can distract her enough during the battle, since you'd have a clear field of fire. You drop the power of the Glaive on her head and let that keep her occupied for a bit, and I'll get Nabiki transformed. Then we'll gang up on Sherra. The three of us should be able to cut her down to size."
Hotaru patted her Glaive, smiling sweetly. "I think I can manage to worry her a bit." She got a far off look in her eyes that was replaced by a hard glint. "No, that won't be very hard for me at all."
"Let's go."
The Desert of Destruction was unbearably bright, even to the superhuman senses of the mazoku that normally could handle even the most disorienting and painful vistas without discomfort. The light didn't just play tricks on your mind, it actively deceived it. The perfect place for an ambush. "Nabiki!" I yelled, hoping my voice was carrying over the howling wind.
An inhuman figure crawled over a nearby dune. Red, cracked skin untouched by sweat, burned raw by sun and sand was covered by rags and bits of cloth, most of it having been ripped off by its owner in a futile attempt to get cooler. Her eyes were glazed by the heat and dehydration. "Ryouga... imagine meeting you here..." A sepulchral hiss escaped her; I realized it was a laugh, or an attempt at one.
"She's hallucinating." Hotaru said, poking her with the staff.
"'Kane?" Nabiki collapsed, tongue lolling out. "Please...."
"Damn...." I said, looking at her. "How long will she live?" I hoped soon; Sherra had to be on the way, if she was looking for us at all. "Well, she'll die in the crossfire, if nothing else."
Hotaru scanned the disorienting horizon, nodding again. "Of course. We're going to be dropping magic that could flatten cities out in this wasteland."
I crouched over Nabiki. "Hey, don't worry. You're going to die soon, and everything will be better then. Except for-"
"-SHERRA!" Hotaru yelled, and blasted her with a Silence Glaive suprise. Good reflexes on that girl, severed Sherra's arm. Of course, it regenerated, but hey...
I scooted over and grabbed the sword as the fight between Hotaru and Sherra intensified. She was being pretty arrogant, leaving the sword, but she probably thought she could kill Hotaru without it if I wasn't helping. Trouble was, she was right.
I took a look at the combat as I crawled back to Nabiki, still not using any magic and supressing my ki. I didn't want Sherra to get a whiff of my position. Once I was about ten feet from Nabiki I watched the fight. [Hotaru! Come around halfway towards me!] I said, tapping into our mental link. Hotaru didn't respond, but the next time she teleported she popped up where I wanted her to. [Stick and fight! When she readies a magical blast... jump now!]
The beam of energy, one of several Sherra had been carving up the sand dunes with, neatly bisected Nabiki's head. It wasn a stronger enemy - not my fault - I kept my end of our bargain. Hoping I wouldn't spend too long, I dove for her corpse.
"NABIKI!" I screamed, my voice whipping into the howling mass of shadow that was Nabiki's quickly fading mind. A few half-coherent tendrils of thought wandered up to me. "Good, you're not quite gone. Hang on." I hadn't ever done this, hadn't even read much about the process - all I knew was it was something as natural to a mazoku as breathing.
Even as Nabiki's mind got blacker, fading into death, I felt her firming back up again, a new power flooding into her. It was a power familiar to any mazoku.
Hate.
Fear.
Pain.
Rage.
"'The dark side of the Force they are!'" I grumbled, the line form the old movie coming back to me. "Thanks, but one old troll is enough." I took the dark power, the chaotic, angry thoughts, and started forming her into another wonderful mazoku.
I turned my attention to the fight as I finished up my part of transforming Nabiki. The former Ice Queen now had bolts of black and purple lightning racing across her body, wracking it in hideous convulsions. At this point, she'd finish her transformation on her own. Hoatru was taking a pounding now, as Sherra had finally started to use superior power to take the upper hand in their slugfest. Sherra was strong, stronger than either of us, even stronger than both of us - possibly even stronger than the three of us, whenever Nabiki joined - but merely being outgunned hadn't fazed me before.
I smiled. There's a lot one can do with skill. Especially if you happen to be me. I took a fraction of a second to analyze the fight.
Sherra was pumping out a tremendous amount of energy. If I thought I could draw her in a spiral I would, but Sherra's style didn't lend itself to that. She was soundly pounding Hotaru now, who had transformed out of that silly Amelia getup and into the "Dark Senshi" uniform she favored for a fight. Hotaru was leaking energy from at least a dozen cuts. Scratch the Hiryuu Shoten Ha, it would get her, too. I didn't have access to emoptions that wouldn't merely heal her if used in a ki blast, and she would see me coming with any direct physical attack, even with the heat rising off the sand and playing havoc with our vision.
The heat...
Time sped up for me again as I burst into a magically enhanced run. Sherra immediately spied me and kept one eye on me as I screamed in, rapidly pinwheeling towards the fight. At the last minute, I dove - not into Sherra, who was ready, but into Hotaru, pushing her out of the fight - and summoned a magical heat, powerful and more intense than a blast furnace, for a second. Cold might be needed in a Hiyruu Shoten Ha, but that was auras, not weather. The sudden burst of heat caught and lifted the spinning hot air, along with a lot of sand, and threw us into the ground.
Down below, Hotaru crashed into a dune and lay panting, using her healing abilities to recover her strength.
"Let's see how well you fight in the air, hothead." I yelled, my voice swept away by the wind. In reply, she popped a pair of wings free. I just smiled. A true master of midair combat didn't need wings to fight in the sky.
...especially not if he had magic.
With a shout I fired a powerful blast of magic, as fast and strong as I could make it, straight behind me, sending me rocketing towards Sherra at dizzying speed. "Shooting Star Kick!" I screamed, finally back in my element - a furious martial arts battle. Sherra, unprepared for my burst of speed, got smashed out of the whirlwind. Angling slightly to change my own exit vector, I grabbed onto her.
"Hentai!" she screamed. I instinctively let go, and she kneed me in the stomach. "Hehufff...." she said, as I grabbed her leg and used it to launch my own punch into her chest. I popped a set of nasty talons out of my fingertips and grinned savagely.
"KATCHUTENSHINAMAGURIKEN" I screamed hurriedly, not wanting to give her a chance to counterattack. Though it was awkward doing it one handed, I quickly turned her chest into shredded ruin of dark power. "That was for beating up Hotaru. This," I added, "is for kicking me." I grew a set of talons on my other hand and dug them in.
"AHHHH!!!" she screamed, then backhanded me with an intense pulse of power, incidentally ripping up her leg more as I was ripped off of her. I tucked, rolled, and landed relatively unharmed.
Sherra ignored me and concentrated on her injuries. "You little bastard, you're going to pay for this." she whispered. She lit up with her own battle aura and pulled out a knife. "Die, Ranma!"
I was distracted from the pleasant nostalgic feeling by a shout from Hotaru. "SILENCE GLAIVE.. SUPRISE!" A thunderous silence came into effect and blew away, as several acres of desert suddenly Ceased To Be. Sherra, however, was still standing, surrounded by black mist that must have been the part of her body that was blasted off. She looked like some character in a fantasy anime after a fireball.
"Yuk it up, kid." she growled, and teleported. This time, without the familiar advantage of midair, Sherra was proving that a few thousand years of trial and error in fights, not to mention a ton of power, easily made up for my martial arts training. She blocked most of my shots and ignored the rest; she didn't have convenient pressure points to press; she didn't tire, and in terms of sheer stamina she made Ryouga look like a ninety pound weakling. Plus, the close in fight we were doing wasn't really suited to help from Saturn; that Glaive was a little clumsy and her magical attacks weren't exactly picky about who they flattened.
All that was negated when a sudden weight threw us both to the ground and a sharp pointy blade was rammed through Sherra's chest and about two inches of mine. Sherra turned around and looked her assailant in the eye.
"Who the hell are you?" she growled, then punched her assailant off. It was Nabiki, but it was hard to tell that. Her skin had gone pale as fresh snow, and her hair was a truly disturbing orange. She also had picked up a few inches in height and a set of wicked hooked claws. 'Must be her mazoku form' I thought, grabbing the distracted Sherra before she got back to pounding me. I held her head tight in a headlock, and extended my power across the Astral plane, in a complex magical hold to prevent her from teleporting or changing shape. She stopped moving physically and lashed out on the Astral plane.
I screamed, my mind on fire, energy ripping away and streaming into the sky like so much steam. Sherra had stopped being stupid and fought me on her very best battleground. I felt my fingers slip loose, my power beginning to break up. There was no way I could hold off this assault myself.
"DIE!" The scream was Nabiki's, the sword was Sherra's, and with Sherra so concentrating on destroying me in the Astral, Nabiki nearly chopped her material form in two. Sherra screamed and fell to the ground, most of the left side of her body bursting into eldritch flames. A small lizard touched by them grew three feet and was suddenly covered in drying blood. Nabiki stood triumphantly with her sword on her shoulder. I don't think she realized her gloating pose had been stolen from Kuno.
Hotaru walked over and kicked Sherra, who we happily stomped for awhile. She wouldn't be any threat to her.
"I've fulfilled my promise to you, Nabiki. You're immortal. You've got power beyond your wildest dreams." I said.
Nabiki twitched. She still hadn't gotten the hang of changing her appearance, and her hair was a bit off. "Yes, and I report to you." she said flatly.
"Yes, and I report to no one. I don't like being oppressed by others, and I'm not about to start causing trouble for my own followers. Now," I said, waving my finger " you can do pretty much anything you want to. Terrorize the local Yakuza, corrupt politicians with the promise of magical power, etcetera, etcetera. All I want is that you also keep me informed of what's going on in the big wide world and sometimes do a few, small errands for me."
"Like saving your butt from that demon woman?" she remarked snidely.
I brushed that off. "That's a one-time thing. I don't expect you to become a front line fighter. Though you could easily beat up on the merely human martial artists now. Oh, and we'll need you to come with us on our nightly tours of Juuban. Need to keep the Senshi guessing." I sat down and rested my head on my fist, thinking. "Now, what I'd like you to do now is go back and get Gos. Have him keep an eye on your sister and her friends, amke sure they don't get themselves hurt. You go over to Juuban once you figure out how to perfect changing form and fill in for us "Dark Senshi" until we return."
"You want me to go around beating up some sentai team in short skirts?" she asked, suprised.
I slashed my hand to indicate no. "I want you to destroy those Daimon things and drain their power." Every one she got would increase my power even more. That was the benefit of having subservient mazoku under you. It's a kind of multilevel marketing of evil. "Oh, and beat up the loser in the cape with the roses. He reminds me too much of Kuno."
"Can I find out their secret identities and sell them to the highest bidder?" she asked, smiling.
"Go for it." Nabiki got up and stood still, with a look of intense concentration. Nothing happened. "What are you doing?"
"How do I go home?" she asked. I sighed. A portal of energy opened and showed the inside of Kasumi's room. Hotaru was smirking off to the side.
"It's really easy once you know how." she said condescendingly. Nabiki fumed for a second, then carefully schooled her features and walked through.
"You do realize you've gotten on her bad side, don't you?" I said, trying to keep a grin off my face. Hotaru nodded happily.
"So why are you letting her go wander off by herself? It isn't like she's the most loyal person on Earth." Hotaru said. It's true. Loyalty is as much a part of Hotaru's being as that Glaive, and furthermore, I had saved her from being used as a magical attack dog - feared, powerful, never trusted fully - by the Senshi. Nabiki was an accomplished backstabber and certainly owed me no debt of comparable gratitude.
I sat on a rock, taking in the scenery. After beating Sherra senseless, and after sending Nabiki home, we no longer needed to hide from magical eyes. So we teleported right to the mountains where my prize was waiting. It was a view normal humans don't often see. The mountains, after all, are the home turf of more mazoku than you can imagine. Fortunately, none of them seemed to be willing to tangle with a Metallium. "The answer to that is pretty simple." I said, having finished looking at the mountains. "I want her to get a taste of power. Once someone like that gets a little taste of power, they can't possibly go without tasting it again. It's like a drug; they need a bigger taste every time."
"So you want Nabiki to go kill a few Daimons and yank the Senshi's chains... to just get her addicted to power?" Hotaru said incredulously. "I don't think you needed to go to all that trouble, Ranma. Personally, I'd have simply picked some other person."
"She's a backstabber, liar, shameless hustler, and experienced spy. She doesn't need power for what I'm using her for, and I didn't give it to her. She's much less powerful than you." I smirked. "If it weren't for that sword Sherra donated, I don't think I'd even send her against the Senshi." I got up. "Come on. It's getting late, and that place I'm looking for is near here."
"What are we looking for? You've never explained that to me." Hotaru asked as we continued or trip through the mountains. Navigating the rocky hillsides is far easier when you can fly. We lazily weaved through the mountains.
"We're looking for that." Cleverly carved into the side of a cliff - cleverly because it was made so as to be invisible from below - lay a small fortress. It was well worn and hunched on its hilltop as if it were deathly afraid of the mazoku who prowled the area. Not that it should have, for even I had only found it by following Hellmaster's specific written instructions.
We landed by the rusted, iron door and opened it. Nothing was moving, and rank, stale air flowed out. It probably hadn't moved since the War of the Monster's Fall, as the dragons reckoned it. We walked in - who needs lights when you can see in the dark - and down the main hall. "Turn left." I said, remembering Phibrizzo's description. He had never found the time to go up here, and had no use for the blade - but I did. It functioned as a black magic lens.
The kind of lens I'd need to drain Jusendo dry.
I came to the door I sought and tried to open it. No luck. Apparently, it had been locked, as if that were a problem. I smashed it with a punch, stepped over the debris and lit a torch. True, it was completely unnecessary, but it fit the mood. Inside there were scattered coins, a rusted set of armor with a skeleton inside, and lots of discarded weapons. There was even a statue of some old knight posing triumphantly with a sword. "Keep your eyes open. The sword we want should have a distinct reaction to mazoku." What the reaction was Phibrizzo wasn't clear on, but it was bound to be noticable. We stepped in the room and started picking up swords at random.
A loud buzzing filled the room, coming from nowhere in particular. "What the heck is that?" Hotaru asked, throwing a broadsword over her shoulder.
"Probably what we're looking for." I answered. I walked over to the skeleton and pulled out its sword. Nope, no luck. I moved again and the buzzing increased in strength. Hotaru and I both froze. We nervously looked around. Then Hotaru gasped.
"Ranma... look at the statue." The stone sword the statue was holding was buzzing.
That stone thing couldn't be what I was looking for, could it?
I stepped closer to it. An incredibly loud BRRAAAP sound came from the stone sword, which then cracked. It shattered at my next step, showing a mettalic glint through the shower of exploding stone. .
Someone had hidden it inside the statue. How novel.
"The legendary Bras Blade... mine at last." I said, and took another step. Now the sword was humming, and a fierce gale was blowing out from it now that it was uncovered. Coins and small trinkets rolled away from it, and my pigtail flapped wildly in the breeze. "Nothing but a little wind! Hah!"
At the next step the wind strengthened and it seemed as if the air grew thick with power. No, I realized, the air was always thick with power, little bits of the hate and fear that the mazoku love as well as other emotions. The sword was just increasing the power of the dark forces nearby. I leaned forward and started running to the statue.
The power emanating from the sword picked up fiercely. I dove and dug into the ground, having formed the talons I had ripped Sherra with earlier to keep a grip on the ground. The force from the sword was strong enough that it was beginning to destabilize me. My mouth lunged out for a second into a wolf's muzzle before I could get it under control.
I climbed up the statue, dimly aware of Hotaru thrown against the far wall, cracking it in the force of her impact. I began to lose cohesion, lose form, as I reached for the sword.
"RANMA! NO!" Hotaru screamed, overcoming the sound of sword and wind with her panic. "IT'LL KILL YOU! GET BACK!"
I ignored her, concentrated on the humming slim blade of death. The hilt had worn away the statue's hand with it's vibrations; it was almost in my grasp.
I reached out and touched it.
Hotaru screamed. He had been there, and now he wasn't. Ranma was gone. The sword was gone. What would she do now?
What could she do?
Well, that's a nice cliffhanger, no? From here on out we're going to see shifts from first to third person point of view from time to time, as the world is getting a bit to complex for just one viewpoint. Besides, Ranma has mysteriously disappeared. How do you do a first-person without the person?
You like? I'm still on a roll. I have tomorrow off from my writing duties, though. After all, I have the fourth to celebrate. I might write if I have the time, but probably not.