Chapter 9
On the Road to Change
The attack was actually one last attempt by the remnants of the Dark Empire. They neutralized the Senshi, but not one fully enraged Goddess. A couple of Urd bolts scattered the pathetic attack.
As he had come out of it, people started to pester him about what had happened.
Surprising them, he turned the tables on them when he asked what happened with all that damage in the area. The Senshi proudly told them what they did, but he could see Urd putting her face in her hands. He would find out later what really happened and did. They on the other hand didn't find out what happened to him. He told them it was private and they respected that. Although Sailor Mercury knew something was up when he gave her a searching look.
What he did give them was a direction he pointed. As they looked, they saw... well... a Goddess. She had a slim and graceful figure with a face of a cat and no one could mistake her for anyone else.
Bastet, Goddess of children, pregnant women and pleasure. She was the mother of all cats.
Before she vanished, she came over to Ranma and touched his forehead and whispered something to him that only he heard and then said aloud, "Go forth and embraccce your desssstiny."
What surprised them all was that he started changing. He clutched his head as things came rushing into his head. His muscles were getting more defined and his eyes became slitted. As he calmed down, he moved with grace and power. The biggest difference was the power was behind those smothering eyes. Much more than even after Saffron and fully contained, but was there waiting to be unleashed if necessary.
As people gaped, Urd vowed to find out what happened and how Ranma knew Bastet.
A month later
It was time he left the hospital. The doctors fully discharged him and thanked him for his help. His, Ryouga and Mousse's ability to see auras had helped them diagnosed diseases in many people.
Ranma was happy to leave into the world, but saddened to leave a place that was more like home to him than anywhere else. So much had happened to him that he hadn't had time to sort it out yet. There was a tearful farewell by the staff, especially Cream and Urd.
The feelings for Urd that he had before had intensified with his memories. She had extracted a promise from him to see her at the temple when he felt that he was ready. She knew full well that always keeps his promised.
He formally presented the cheque to the hospital. They both gasped when they saw it. When they told him that it was too much, he told them that it was the place where he made a new start and new friends.
They remembered his farewell in the children's ward.
Flashback
The children were sad to see him go and may tried to hold their tears back, but couldn't. He did tell them that he will comeback to visit and that he will have more stories to tell them. They immediately perked up, but were still sad.
The last person in the children's ward he saw was Sammi. The doctors weren't hopeful of her recovery. The doctor and nurse on duty stepped back when he came, knowing the special bond between them.
Ranma went up to her and saw her fear because she knew she was dying and she didn't want to. With his new abilities, he also recognized another form in her ki, Tsunami, from his trip into mastery. He looked into her aura and said, "Little one, I have one last present for you."
With that, he placed both hand over the back of her and started pumping his life force into the area in high volume. He learned this from some of the scrolls in the library. The refined method was to feel the person's life force and try to mimic it. From there to pump the ki into the injury for it to close up. If it was a disease then an influx of a lot of power so that the body natural healing would overcome it. It was as dangerous for the recipient as for the wielder as both could die from using too much ki.
In his trip into mastery, he had been reliving all of his lives. One of his lives included the relations with the Jurai. He realized as he remembered the attack during the transfer by Kagato was that he used a deadly attack. By any other name it was death energy or just anti-ki, energy that cancels out any type of energy that is produced by living things, especially Jurai energy. Ranma understood that ki can do little about the anti-ki energy, but what if... you can PUSH it out of her body with more ki than it could handle. This would save her. All he had to do was flood her body to the brink and force it out.
Everyone could see that Sammi seemed to glow brighter and brighter until they could see a dark the splotch on her chest that seemed to radiate tentacles. As more energy was pumped in, the splotch started to move and being pushed as the two energies battled for supremacy. He found that despite his knowledge, his magic, his power; it wouldn't be enough. He was just short of the amount he needed as he kept on pumping and the chi kept on fighting him. The splotch tried to grow more quickly, but the only direction it could go was up and away from Sammi. He could see it try to move away, but he kept on directing it to it. Ranma knew that he had to keep going and suddenly, Ryouga was there, with Mousse and Ka Heem and the other nurses and even Ryo who jumped on his head lent her power. They were lending their ki to his to save Sammi.
As the battle was being lost, Ranma bent over and muttered for only Sammi to hear, "Please Sammi, you must help also. You must live." Sammi opened her eyes at that point and just nodded as she felt the others help also. Ranma would never tell, but he could swear that he felt, not only Sammi, but another as well. They were linked and he felt their determination and they both pushed together. The nurses, Mousse, Ryouga, Dr. Tofu and then Ka Heem fell to the side as they could give no more. Now only both Ranma and Sammi were left and both started to glow brightly and after an infinite amount of time, the splotch on her chest broke the surface of her skin and it fell from her chest. With contact with the air, it started to disintegrate as the air with too little chi to sustain it until it was no more.
Ryouga and Mousse were in awe. The amount of ki used was more than they thought anyone could have. It more than dwarfed the powers of Kirin, Herb and Saffron combined.
Everyone was turned to Sammi. "Was it enough? Or was it too much of a shock to her system?" they all wondered. Ranma still had his hands on Sammi's back an he started to stir. Moments after, to everyone's delight, Sammi stirred and then struggled to move. Ryo was ecstatic as she jumped from his head to hers. Sammi was doing so much better. A second later after the cheers, she fell down and everyone held their breath until she got up and gave Ranma a huge glomp, knocking him over onto his back.
Silence.
At first a chuckle then Ryouga started laughing and then Mousse then the laughter started and flowed through the room. Ranma, who was in shock, could see that Sammi was better, but with his enhanced senses could also see that another being who was doing better as well. The doctor immediately hustled Sammi out of the room and to the examination table to run some tests. Ryo ran after them.
It was later found that the wasting disease was gone, but they were taking no chances and put her in observation. This was the first time the disease had been defeated. This had to be written up and then reality came and they thought no one will believe them. Most of the world didn't know that this kind of powerful chi exists.
End of Flashback
The very day after he left the hospital
Both Mr. Kuonji and Ukyou were completely surprised when their lawyers told them that the contract by one Ranma was complete. It stunned both of them when they found out that Ranma himself had just walked into their lawyer's office and delivered it. He had been completely polite and professional when he met their lawyers and Ukyou's fiancee, Hakura. The lawyers gave the confirmation that the full payment of the one hundred million yen (about 10 million US dollars). Ranma gave them a curt nod and told them that all the terms of the contract was now fulfilled and wanted a receiipt.
His last words were, "Our business is finally finished for good."
Later, despite the attempts to keep it quiet, they did find out through other channels that Ranma's dishonour wasn't actually his. His was the one who had his honour trampled upon.
They would find out that money was one thing. The prestige and honour that Ranma had generated would have outstripped anything they could have imagined.
Both Shampoo and Ukyou had forgotten the one rule with Ranma.
Never say impossible when taking about him.
Later
He was looking forward to the future.
The tests for university were written and he had pulled his grades up just enough to get squeak into get a letter of invitation to the University of Tokyo. He also applied to many Universities around the world. He wanted to get away from Nerima. Surprisingly, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, Hamburg, Paris, British Columbia and Toronto were ones who responded to him.
From the hospital, Ranma said his final farewell as he walked toward the Tendo Dojo.
As he walked to Nerima, he found that it hadn't changed much in the last few months.
Splash!
"Never fails, eh?" Ranma thought with long suffering sigh.
He understood that they might get splashed some more before they make it to the dojo, so he didn't use his hot water yet. He also wasn't so uncomfortable with his female form. He was still a guy, but he was used to it and couldn't be bothered about it since he would get splashed several times a day.
He all kept on getting splashed when changed into his uncursed form. He gave up trying to change before he got to the Tendo dojo after the third splash.
Looking round in Nerima, it looked smaller, dirtier and, well ... ordinary.
In his mind, it took on a more perfect quality which was now shattered. Not unlike his naivity to his life. He knew he had to confront his former life before he could move on.
When he were almost there, he went into the back of his pack and dug out a thermos. He had several spares. He was still a water magnet, but it seems it was less in the hospital. He had come prepared.
As he was coming to the dojo, he was surprised when it was Genma and Mr. Tendo who was there. It was a school day and Kasumi was out shoppping. They stared at each other for a while, but it felt weird. The words, "the schools must be joined" didn't come out of their lips for the first time he can remember being at the dojo. Genma seemed more somber, while Mr. Tendo seemed at peace.
What he was really staring at were his eyes that were slitted like a cat. It tickled their memories, but they couldn't remember why they were actually terrified of them.
"Hello Ranma." said Genma, "It has been a while." The change in Genma was profound. He wasn't the pig headed father, but a person to be respected when he showed Ranma the techniques. Genma explained that he had a call from Kuno and knew that Ranma did know of his history. That had been five days before Ranma's release. The time had given Genma to remember his friend Renjiro Tanaka. It had also given him time to really talk with his old friend. It took them all that time to get to a solution to resolve their problem.
Their problem was honour. It wasn't until Ranma came to the dojo to confront his past, that they thought that something could be salvaged. The Tendo name was stained beyond belief. Destroying someone's reputation, truly finding out that their so called honour was a sham and finally the maiming of Ranma was all that Soun could take. It was then he took down the Dojo sign and told Ranma to come back later that night.
He also found that Kuno and his father confronted Kodatchi. It was a nasty argument, but in the end to save the Kuno name, Kodatchi will have Kuno Industries in Japan, but Kuno and his father would move out of the country and control Kuno Industries outside of Japan. Kodatchi will be able to keep her name, but neither her or any of her children will have the Kuno name after her. After that, Principal Kuno and Kuno formally acknowledge that they have no sister/daughter. Both Kunos had finally realized that Kodatchi that they had known had died long ago when Mrs. Kuno died.
The final part was that Mrs. Kuno's room was finally opened and searched the secret rooms. In it they found Renjiro and will have a grand burial in the Tanaka plot. Mrs. Kuno will remain buried in the Kuno plot, away from her brother. It seemed a fitting end for them to be apart in death when she ruined his life to get together when he was alive.
Ranma came alone and on time to the dojo.
It was before dinner and Mr. and Mrs. Satome was there as well.
"What are you doing here, ronin." said Mrs. Satome, not designing to even look at him.
"Baka..." Akane started saying before being cut off by his slitted eyes. She felt suddenly nervous, but when that happened she usually turned it to anger.
Soun said, "I invited him here because it has come to my attention that there are many things that will be discussed this night." in his voice was the man they remembered before their mother died, a sensei, master of himself.
As Mrs. Satome was about to leave, Ranma took out the Satome Honour Sword and handed it to Genma who took the sword and swiftly placed it on his wife's neck, close enough to draw blood. The sword was a curious colour of off grey.
This surprised her, Genma was a weak coward and never used any weapons. Yet the proficiency that he handled the blade had startled her. The cold ice in his eyes made her see the man he was all those years ago when Renjiro was alive and it filled her with dread. She slowly dropped to her knees and Genma removed the sword.
The others girls were in shock, but were more so whey they saw Ranma's eyes. Somewhere in their minds, something screamed at them to remember.
"I think we will listen to what will be said." said Genma.
It was at that cue that Soun looked at his daughters. He studied them, one at a time. They felt his eyes on them and for the first time, he didn't look away, meeting their gaze with one of steel. One was of disappointment and the other one was of disgust.
The first one that he looked at was that of Nabiki. "At first, I had thought that it would have been you who would be the one who most disappointed me, but I was wrong. You were the only one who truly tried to change some of the things that happened to Ranma. The one that, despite being the "Ice Queen", was the voice of reason, but in many others, you were worse than the others...
Before any of them could respond, he continued, "As of now, the profits made on Ranma, whether in your trading ventures, they are stopped, now and what remains are his." This surprised Nabiki to fumble for her phone, but stopped as he said, "Don't try. It's the law, Ranma is now 18 and is entitled to it."
"Entitled!" yelled an outraged Mrs. Satome.
"Shut up!" yelled Genma, with that he glowed. His eyes told her that if she passed the line she will be HURT. Mrs. Satome backed down more stunned than intimidated.
"But it is you Akane and especially you Kasumi that truly disappointed me. Akane with your temper, you never did grow up. YOU AREN'T THE BEST! Pride and temper are your worst enemies. In this I truly hope that you will do better with Honda than you did with Ranma." a shocked look on Akane's face. Secrets were being opened and the air was thick with it, "Kasumi, out of all of the others, you are the one I least expected to do...THIS."
He looked again out to the three as he saw the retort in their eyes, "I know that I wasn't the best of a father after your mother's death, but when I did recover..." the others looked skeptical, "...but you locked me out of your lives and made it so that I couldn't do anything.
"The few students that endured my pain I had wouldn't have left, if not for Akane for beating them up thinking they were perverts to Nabiki extorting yen from them. The worst was my last student. You, Kasumi, gave him Akane's cooking. He almost died. I had to mortgage the dojo to help him in his recovery, to cover legal expenses and compensate his family. He has now permanent kidney and liver damage." The shocked expressions told him the truth. As they never even tried to find out what happened to the person. They thought he mortgaged the dojo for some crackpot schemes of his.
"The damage was even more severe than that. The dojo was considered... unsuitable for anyone else. No one else wanted to be taught because of the fear for their lives."
As he took a deep breath, he continued, "Under all of your arrogance, you are as GOOD as you THOUGHT Ranma was, but yet you NEVER had his HONOUR." The stressed words were having an affect.
As this sunk in, he reached under the table and he took out the dojo sign and the Tendo Honour Sword. The girls were puzzled by this.
They were enlightened as he said, "Look at this, it represents honour. Determination, dedication, patience and being accountable for all things in the dojo. Never take anything for granted was what founded this school of ANYTHING GOES. In your acts of dishonour to Ranma, you have dishonoured yourselves, the school and more importantly the Tendo name. You have been living with him, sleeping in the same house as him and going to the same school with him for almost two years. In all that time, he has never done anything to dishonour anyone. He actually kept everyone's honour intact. He was the most honourable person anyone could meet."
Mr. Tendo stopped as he glared at his daughters and then continued, "Yet, you still listened to HER. Yes, she was his mother and head of the Satome Clan, but right from the start she dishonoured her own son who she saw for the first time in TEN YEARS, on the first day. For this, it is up to me to remedy it." as he started to glow green and in one swift move with the sword, sliced the sign into bits. It looked like he never moved, but the bits of wood told a different story.
This shocked everyone. For the girls, it was the crushing of honour. For the Genma, it was destruction of a dream. For Ranma, it was the loss of a sensei, but the return of the man who founded the dojo.
"Without honour, it was just a useless piece of wood." he continued as he looked at their shocked expressions, "From now on, I consider my daughters dead when they nearly killed Ranma." As he stood up, he said, "The dojo and the house are yours. It was once a place of great honour, but now a place tainted with great shame. Do as you will with it. As I know you will sell it."
It was only after that tirade that he went upstairs to gather his things along with the Tendo Honour Sword.
It was then that Ranma remembered a movie that he saw all those years ago in America. Someone translated it for him, but never understood how it could happen, until now. The movie was with Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia. It was about a alcoholic who was out of the family for years until she sobered up then she found that there was no place for her and the others resisted to change. This was almost the same.
Soun was emotionally broken and taken years to recover, but what happened was that his esteem in the Art was compromised when his daughters took charge of his life. When he did recover, he found that his daughters had no use for him and his couldn't handle his independence from them.
They should have been happy that their father was back and would be able to provide for them again, but it didn't happen. Four years was too much time. They were too set in their ways and acted accordingly to what they perceived as a threat to their status. They eliminated it. His independence and placed him under their thumb for the next six years.
It was only now that they realized that they crushed him almost as thoroughly as when his great love, their mother, died.
Before anyone could do anything, Genma spoke in a very grave tone at Nodoka. "Today a great wrong will be righted. As Soun considers his daughters dead, so I consider you dead as well. You aren't the woman I married years ago. She died when she let the hate fill her." This was the Genma of years ago when he was with Renjiro. The real honourable man under all that excess and greed.
Ranma continued where Genma left off, "It was a time of long ago, the rain was fierce and in the mist a car hurtling over a curve struck a person... with a pigtail just before he was supposed to meet a woman he loved. He didn't die immediately and was taken to the best hospital where he died. The woman he loved searched high and low for him, but never found him, never knowing that his sister had already taken him away. Where the woman took the sister's word, who she knew hated her, that he left her and it poisoned whatever feeling she ever had for him."
Nodoka didn't seem to listen, but Ranma saw the small twitch and still continued.
"She let the woman take vengeance for her. On the son that she would bore and marry a man she didn't love, but for revenge. A friend of the pigtailed man and herself where after 19 years, came back and gave his fiancees and the fiancee's family the vengeance that the sister sought from the grave.
"That didn't happen. Only a lucky stroke made him live and the kindness of the hospital where the son of the pigtailed man died did his son emerge as a grown man... from there he had found the truth..." from his pocket, he produced a yellowed letter, "...a letter written by the pigtailed man before he died to the woman he loved and their unborn child before death and his sister had taken him. Only a failthful servant had taken the letter before his mistress could have destroyed it, which is now delivered to it's rightful place."
With that, he let the yellowed envelope fall with just a wisp in front of her. Nodoka's eyes widened as she recognized the unique brush strokes that made up her and Ranma's names and started to tremble with thought of the message it contained. The trembling stopped when the icy vengeance that had encased her fragile heart cracked. What really broke it was that the writing was written in blood. His blood.
It was then that she felt pain. No one had done anything, but there was pain nevertheless. As everyone turned to the crackling sound that emanated from the Satome Honour Sword with the same errie white glow around Nodoka as they could almost see wisps of white swirling around her.
Nabiki, Akane and especially Kasumi were still. For the first time, they could feel spirits in the room. Angry spirits. As aburptly as the spirits came, they left... except one. A great feeling of disappointment fell over them as the candles that were burning at their mother's shrine were suddenly blown out and the presence vanished.
The tension broke when Akane, true to blinded form, yelled, "Ranma no baka, I'll finish what I started!" and produced her war hammer. She tried to use the Umisenken, but was shocked when Ranma seemed to know where she was and dropped her flat on her back with a single punch. The hammer came down and shattered into a thousand pieces when he casually swiped it with his ki claws.
Soun had just come down and was in shock. After she tried three more tries to hit Ranma with three more of her mallets, Soun actually did an Anything Goes modified Demon Head Attack and for the first time it actually did damage. He had whipped his head forward and it shot out like a ki blast that hit Akane. This attack drove her into the wall and rendered her unconscious. Everybody was shocked. An actual ki attack by Mr. Tendo and it was on his own daughter... well former daughter.
Even though Nabiki knew that Akane did deserve that, she was still mad at her former father and Ranma for hurting her sister until she saw his biting gaze, knowing that she was responsible for that too. Kasumi had ran to and knelt by Akane ad found to her relief that she was alright.
"The money that I made for you, Nabiki, is mine. All those bank accounts." Ranma said, "I checked them myself."
At this, Nabiki ran upstairs and took her laptop looked into her accounts. They were all closed, except her earliest one. As she looked up, Ranma continued, "But I did leave you with enough money to keep the house and livelihood for a few years. Those blackmailing info is erased, even the one in your locker. Be lucky that I don't turn it over to the police. I did keep a copy of your files just in case you try some revenge. If you do try anything at all, it will be sent to the police and you know as well as I do what the 'good people' of Nerima will do to you."
Speechless, she when knew that she could never cover her tracks and if it was turned over to the police and the influential people would destroy her and her life. She thought of vengeance when she looked at Ranma and suddenly saw the intelligence in them and... a hungry look for vengeance that made her shiver. He had learned some very valuable lessons concerning her and she knew that she didn't want to know first hand what it was or how he improved upon them.
Besides, she now knew that Mrs. Satome had omitted very important information about Ranma to get them on her side. The dishonour that she said was his was really on her.
What surprised her was the look in his eye.
Flashback
They were just getting the scheme to get some more money when then next weird thing arrives when Ranma suddenly said, "Nabiki, when are you going to get out of the blackmailing busness?"
As she was about to say that it wasn't any of his business when she reconsidered it. She was thinking about it because she was going to go into university and didn't want the baggage, "One day. That's when we do not need the money."
Ranma had a thoughtful look on his face and nothing was said about his later on.
End of Flashback
She then opened the earliest account and found to her surprise that half the money from the other accounts were transferred to it. The other half was transferred to Soun's bank account that she was using for household expenses. She then closed her computer very slowly and looked down. She didn't want to show the others about the tremendous respect she had for him. Despite whatever they did to him, he was still cared enough for them to let them live their lives.
Genma said to Nodoka, "You are no longer a Satome, you have dishonoured the name FAR more than I could EVER have." He then turned to Ranma and continued, "I will reinstate you if you so want, but it is up to you. Your parents will surely know. The ninja that followed your orders and had given me the insane training schedule reports directly to the Emperor himself."
Before he left his shaken former mother, he said, "Do whatever you want with the letter. Cut it up, burn it, throw it away or even don't believe it if you read it. Know that you ONCE could had the love of your life and you turned your back on him... even in death." he then turned to the two Tendo sisters, "Without trust there is nothing for a foundation."
With that, he took out a bottle of 110 Shampoo and used his variation of the Xi Fa Xiang Gao technique on his former mother and the Tendos women. Cologne had given him the technique to finish this chapter in his life with the Amazons and the Tendos. He had improved upon the original and now even the counter to the technique original formula would do no good.
Akane yelled, "What did you do, you pervert?!"
He merely replied, "I took away the all the moves except the Tendo Style from your minds as they didn't belong to you, including muscle memory." He then looked at his former mother in a deathly quiet voice that she remembered Renjiro having only when he was really angry, "I also took all of Renjiro's moves from your mind as you didn't deserve to have that in his memory." His former mother seemed afronted at that.
"You had no right!" yelled Akane before anyone could react.
"I HAD EVERY RIGHT. It wasn't a Tendo or Satome Technique to begin with, but another's so you aren't entitled to it." Ranma countered and as mad as Akane was, she knew she couldn't do anything about it.
His former mother said nothing as she knew who originated the techniques. She was about to voice her displeasure when she remembered that Renjiro had said it was for his blood descendent, not his son as he knew of ways that could make his son a ronin at no fault of his own as it had happened many times in the past with his family. Renjiro made her and Genma swear on all their honour that only the his descendent will know it. Genma had broken his word, but when Copycat Ken said that he would not pass on the techniques, his honour was restored.
Both Nabiki and Kausmi said nothing, but Kasumi's eyes burned.
Ranma's eyes burned right back with an intensity that exceeded Kasumi's and said the most dreaded thing that all the Tendos have ever head, "I'm really glad that your mother isn't here to see what all of you have become." He took no satisfaction at the way Kasumi and Akane snapped up, but reamained defiant until they would fully realize later THEY were ones who wronged him.
Soun were just waiting for them outside as they walked out the door of the compound Ranma gave Soun a nod and disappeared, never to set foot in Neima again.
Author's note:
Some completions. Kinda cheezy.