Star of War A Ranma 1/2/Fist of the North Star crossover By Dragonlord. C&C welcome! e-mail: valheru_2002@yahoo.es or valheru@mixmail.com Disclaimer: all the characters are the propriety of their authors. Hokuto no Ken is propriety of Tetsuo Hara and Buronson. Ranma 1/2 is the one of Rumiko Takahashi. My sole purpose is to give some fun to people reading this. Please enjoy! Thanks to my pre-readers and specially to Vahn and Crimson ice! Big thanks also to Tannim, Tomas, NesTea and Zaxxon for posting my story. This story can be found at: Tannimīs page: http://Home.earthlink.net/~tannim Tomasīs page: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Quasar/6189 NesTeaīs page: http://ami.animenetwork.com/nestea Zaxxonīs page: http://zaxxon.freeshell.org/FanFic/Other/Fist_of_the_North_Star/ Chapter 4: The return ------------------------------------------------- As the darkness of the night was all peace, a dot of light started to shine in the breast of the darkness, silently increaing its power, its light. It continued growing, glowing softly at the biggining, as the warm of a star when the skies turn darker and we look up searching for those old, eternal friends. Then in a burst, the light raged as if fighting something. From white it turned red, then orange, violed, dark blue, black and white once again, a rainbow of colours fluctuating as if it was beating. In the core of the light that had appeared in the middle of a forest, a dark ghostlike figure could be seen shimering, slowly gaining reality with each passing moment. And with a last burst the figure crossed the light, which exploded shunning the darkness of the night. The figure was surrounded by a faint halo of colours as if it wasnīt yet of this world. Then, as the human figure was still dizzy, shaking his head to regain his focus, the light disappeared in soundless roar. The figure was send flying, expulsated as if rejected. He stumbled before rolling upon himself using the momentum of the expulsion. After a few seconds the figure was on his feet, Reality still fighting to assimilate the outsider who had some of the light arround his shimmering figure. As the fight, if it could be called so, was finishing, his figure blured for some moments more before him and his surroundings stood quiet, solid and part of that placeīs reality. The figure started to check himself, moving his limbs in what seemed a gracefull little jig but to any human that could be looking, this little dance had an air of menace, something that you canīt pinpoint with your mind, only with your instincts, your stomack clutching as ice curse trough your veins. The figure revealed his features. A young man, his handsome face, obscure still by the shadows of the night showed some surprise as he looked to his surroundings, darkness meaning nothing to his advanced senses. He looked to his clothing, intact from the passage between dimentions. As far as he could see/feel his body, mind and belongings were intact. What was disturbing him was the temperature. For the longest time he was used to high temperatures, warm even in the no loger existing seasons when supposely winter reigned. So now that chill, even if he was prepared to it, took him by surprise Now he was in the world of his birth, a world without any adverse climatology. Quite the opposite he thought as he saw the green, obviously rich forest where he was in. He could also feel the several souls that inhabited his own respond in the same way as him, a bittersweet joy at the memory of a world that was alike this one but was lost in the fire of nuclear holocaust. Never to be recoverd even with the slow advances made by both nature and mankind. "Enough of that. First things first: where I am and information." This said (to no one in particular) he checked once again his traveling backpack and started to walk northward. ------------------------------------------------- The young woman and her mother were runnig. Since she could understand the world she was living in, she knew that those who didnīt run fast ended death. Or worse. Her eyes, a deep kind of violet, were dry as she had since long lost the last of her tears or so she thought. Her hair, a long black mane with silvery streaks that gave her her name, was flowing; the speeds she was running making it appear as if alive. Her own mother was urging her to run faster even though she was herself almost exausted, ordering her daughter that if she started to falter and stay back she had to run without looking back. Selene, as it was the name of the young woman, knew that she hadnīt other alternative but to do as ordered. She loved her mother, but after her father sacrificated himself to give his family a slight chance to escape, to survive, she knew instinctively that she had to stay alive as long as possible. Not something that was possible for a young woman alone in a cruel world. Since her birth fear was a center point of her life, drinking it from the milk of her motherīs breast as to breath it as she was trying to sleep silently at night an eye always opened as if they had to escape a raid. Only a few moments in the seventeen years she had lived so far were free of the fear, of the terror. But the times she witnessed how the few friends she had were killed or taken to have a slaveīs life -a short one in the worst possible condition- had make her fear that she could be the next one, her and her little family, to grew tenfold. Each time they escaped a raiderīs party, the possibility of being the next taken or killed would make the fear grow. There were tales of places in the world were the fear was smaller, were some order was still maintained but they were far away. In fact for what her father had said they were going to one of those places where the little remainig of her family was: her uncle, his wife and their children. There were other tales and legends of people that was fighting the Nameless One and her armies, people who could fight with the man-beasts, the Razors and other creatures at the orders of the one who had the world in her hand. Swarming trough the land, those soulless killers had very specific missions. There were ones in search of slaves for tasks only knew to few. In the slave pens life was meaningless. A slave could easily end being the food of one of the un-human, a troop of berserker creatures that had forgotten what being human meant, themselves human once. Then there were the troops who searched for younger ones, girls and boys to use them in unamed experiments, stuff from the deepest pit of hell. There were also the ones in search of cattle, humans with enough physical "assets" to be taken as pleasure pets, their fate the worst. To them each minute is fear of a whim that could send them to a crueler fate, death being the most sough as it was a mercy, a deliverance. Selene and her parents had been traveling since two months carefully hidding and from what her father told her they were only a few days from one of those places of freedom were fear could be forgotten. They had been trying to dodge the patrols as they increased in their numbers as the little family approached their destination. She could almost allow herself to smile and hope a little as their journey touched to an end and as she saw her parents eyes to shine in the prospect to flee a life of fear and hopeless wandering. And so far they were lucky. They could so much taste freedom, what was almost an alien feeling in Selene. But then luck failed them as they crossed one patrol. A patrol with a follower. Her father had pushed her, his face pale, and started to run with her mother at his side, but the three of them knew it was a death run until they eneded too tired to do whatever against the patrol. The fear was making her sweat and what was worst, she could see her own fatherīs terror as his eyes grew wider. She could even feel his heart beating a maddened beat. That is until pain flashed his face as an arrow passed trough his right leg. He fell and Selene was projected forward, landing hard upon the grass, peling her kneesīs skin and as blood started to pur she could see how his father drew a katana, his only weapon, and looked at her own tear strained face. Then he turned to her mother who was kneeling, her arms hugging his shoulders as sobs cursed trough her body. Then he was once again on his feets one hand put upon the arrow and, with a dry sound, broke it. Then for the last time looked to his family. Before he started to run towards the approaching group of riders as he shouted to his wife to run with Selene. Selene just stood there, unmoving as mesmerized by the figure of her father. She had never saw him so sure of himself as he faced death. She had never felt so proud of him. She wanted to shout something, to tell him to run with them, that she didnīt want him to made that sacrifice, that she loved him. Then she could feel the arms of her mother taking her from behind. "Run Selene! Run!! Whatever happens stay running!" "But mom... dad is... dad is... we canīt leave him!" She shouted tears running from her eyes. She was slaped. Hard. "Enough! Just run! Whatever you heard or see run! Understand?" Her motherīs face was hard, commanding. "Yes." That said she started to run forgetting the pain form her knees. They remained running even when they heard the cries of pain coming from her father as he was slaughtered while trying, with a last stand, to protect them gaining some time for his family. Selene was running, insensibilized as fear griped her mind making her to fixate upon running. Almost as if it was coming from a distant place she could hear a hum, a sound in the air coming toward her and her mother. Suddenly she felt something warm upon her clothes and skin. Looking to her side could seen a weapon she had never seen before tore a whole in her motherīs back with one extreme while the other turning, using the first wound of the body of her mother as a fixing point, went stright to her motherīs chest making another hole in her motherīs body, this one upon her heart. Selene was once again bathed in blood, making her to loose any kind of grasp upon reality. Only the last order, to run, came across her maddened mind. She started to cry a hopeless shout as she run not even looking, not being able to look as she was trying to run free from the overhelming fear. Run. Run. Run. Run. And she ran. For what seemed an eternity to her senses she ran. That is until reality came to her as she collided with a stone wall. Momentary stunned she opened her eyes as trying to see where she was running. She looked up. A pair of deep blue eyes were examinating her attently. She tryed to back away from the man in front of her, hands clenshing the rocky ground, pain flaring but not noticed as the man smiled. In her hyperactive mind that smile seemed almost cruel, a joke for her suffering and loss; a smile promising more pain to come. Her fear, overhelming, stopped her movements as if she was a pray to that predator. She closed her eyes as tears came from her closed eyes and her body was shocking beyond her lost control. So she remained there, in the ground, pralized by feelings creeping during a whole lifetime, waiting for her death as her blood was turned into cold wather. Her mind was already running with images of possible things those killers would do to her so she stayed there, waiting for her painful end. It never came. Instead she felt two arms take her and bring her to her feet. Fear again flashed due to that alien contact. But no pain or death greeted her as her skin started to feel the comforting warmth of the two hands upon her arms. Afetr some momements of doubt she slowly opened her eyes. Those strange blue eyes were there looking at her with a thoughtfull expression. He released her, letting Selene back away a little. She stood there unmoving still as a deer caught by a hunter. The man in front of her extanded his arm slowly and swiftly, gently, almost delicately, rised her chin as if to look at her better. Then he spoke a smooth but deep voice that recomforted her only with its sound. It was kindfull and protective, bringing almost faded memeories of a time when her parents used to comfort her. "Why were you running like that? You could have hurt yourself, you know." Then he smiled. She almost returned that smile but then the sound of running feets and mindless shouts brought the knwoledge of her pursuivers and the fate she was about to have; the same as the one of her parents... If she was lucky. Fear once more claimed her and her weak knees almost made her to fall again to the ground, but the last order of her mother, to run, made her to try to bolt as far as she could as adrenaline ran again in her system. Maddness took her as her mind was flowded by the images of a thousand slaughters that she had been withness, at the sounds of pain coming from her father interwined with the ones of uncounted more. Of the images of her motherīs body: her chest carved in with that strange weapon. She started to shout. "They are following me! Razors! And a Follower! They they they they killed my parents! Quick! we had to run before... before..." She was hysteric once again as fear reached a new heigh and panic started to errode her remaining sanity. So she started to run, uncaring as to where as long as it was far away from where she was. Surprisingly a strong arm huged her from behind as two fingers touched her skin upon her neck with feather like presure. Suddenly calm washed her as she felt exausted as the adrenaline rush from the fear remited. She was slowly turned arround and the man put a conforting hand upon her right shoulder. Again his voice sounded and she felt almost mezmerized by it, almost commanding her to look at that face that she barely glimpsed before. "You relax. Iīll deal with it." His face was deadly serious now. Selene focused to where he was looking and blood drained form her face as she looked for the first time her poursuivers. Unconsiously she moved behind him as she looked with a numb mind the ones whom had butchered her parents; hate and rage quickly rising inside of her, yet still overhelmed with fear. Then his voice sounded once again. "Stay behind me. This will be quickly finished." Once again she did as he said the strange compulsion to do as he said returning with something else, almost a feeling of power in the air, power with some menace. She once looked to the destroyers of her family and noticed that only some of them were there. Six tall men, with identicall faces and muscled bodies far beyond anything human, and matching cruel expresion that shunned anything that was like human feeling were slowly approaching them. They had no distinctive feature (apart being ugly) but in their shaven heads some kind of tatoo representing some death animalīs skull along with a numeric code of two series of three numbers could be seen. All of them were armed with weapons going from swords to axes to arrows passing by iron knuckles and in some of them fresh blood could be seen. One of them pointed to the man and Selene. "Look what we have here. The little bitch had found a boyfriend. How funny." The other five razors snickered. One of them started to lick his bloodied blade, a cimtar. Selene was blushing as her eyes were almost glowing with hatred toward the killers of her family. "I know! We could cut his head of and give it to her while we bring her to the corrals. That if after we enjoy her a little!" one of the monster man shouted. He smirked as his comrades agreed. He started to approach the man who had remained silent since they arrived. Once at a convenient distance he risen his sword while his sniker grew wilder. "Do it quick," shouted one of the razors back to him. "You know the orders. We have to join the other in twelve hours. Thay had been rummors of rebell activity in the zone. I donīt want to loose the fun. Heh..." The cimtar holding razor turned back, gave a grin to his companions and aproached the still dark haired man. Still a few feets away and no reaction. His grin grew more. "Good. Stay quiet as the lamb you are." Then his weapon flashed aiming towards the manīs neck. Selene was petrified as she looked to the decending weapon. The scene was going slowly in her mind, as she was ready to suffer another loss. What happened at continuation picked everyone by surprise. The right hand of the man flashed and stopped the edge of the blade with two fingers, catching it. The razorīs face showed surprise and struggled to free his weapon from the manīs teo fingers grip but it was useless as his arms and weapon were lowered. Even with his genetically boosted strenght he was unable to move his sword to prevent the movement. "Who said that Iīm a lamb?" The razor looked form his weapon to the face of the man he tryed to cut in half and paled when he noticed two golden eyes boring him, freezing him to the bones. The last thing he heard was a wisper. "To you Iīm a wolf." The man moved his fingers upward with a strenght that broke the razorsīwrist like toothsticks and, as it was inches from his face it happened. The blade exploded in million of shards wich went flying toward the razorīs head. The last thing this one saw was the shards traspasing his eyeballs. Then even faster the man pounched with the same hand the face of the razor before he had time to scream from his broken wrist or the shower of shards. The blow carved his head and the fist passed trough it. Eventually the speed and strength of the fist caused the body to fly, passing the remaining razors who stood there unmoving. The flying body ended splatching against a nearby stone wall. The entire scene had only taken a few seconds. The men looked were the body of their comrade had fallen and then turned towards the man, rage and hate clear in their faces. They looked at each other before nodding to themselves. "He must be one of those rebells!" "Thereīs a huge reward for them death or alive!" "Letīs do it!" Then as one they attacked. The fastest one, who stood unmoving when his comrades rushed toward the silent man drew an arrow and with a swift movement pointed and fired. The arrow went fast passing the first wave of razors towards the head of the man. Again his hand flashed and with a swifter movement of two fingers of his right hand stopped the arrow. Then with a simple flick of his wrist and in a movement almost too fast to see he sent it towards the archer razor. The last thing this one saw before the arrow embebed itself in his brain was the tip of it. He was dead before he touched to ground. Meanwhile the first two razors, still unsettled by the events, lifted their weapons; two double-edged battle-axes, and swinging them with all their strenght aimed to his shoulders. The dark haired stranger not even bothered moving. With a sick fasination Selene saw how the weapons stuck home. And exploded upon contac with his clothes. As she could see it they not even scratched them contrary to what did her saviour. In the same way someone would chase a couple of molesting flies he sweated them aside with his arms. The upper bodies of the two razors disappeared in an expectacular gory explosion, not even leaving their organs intact, as blood rain upon the grass at the sides of the stranger. Seing this, the two last razors stopped death on their tracks looking to the destroyed bodies of their comrades. They looked at each other and in a scream started to run away. The man stood, still silent and moved his head to his sides looking to his surroundings. Then seeing a huge boulder he went and griped it. Selene looked as the muscles of his arms started contracting slightly as if the boulder wasnīt so heavy. Then with sheer amazement she witnessed how he rised it with one hand and aimed to the retreating couple with his free arm and trew the boulder. The rock went flying in a stright line with the speed of an incoming train. At the sound of displaced air, they turned, surpise clear in their faces. Just before the boulder sweeping them as if vulgar pices of green, braking all their bones upon impact and smashing whatever could remain intact with the colision against the stone wall where the first body had landed, not five minutes ago. Selene stood there, silent. She looked to the remaing of the razors, not even a bloddy pulp in some of them and stared to the man who had killed tham all. She should be affraid, even terrified or repulsed by the ruthless way he dispached them. But yet she couldnīt see of any other way she would have been contented: they deserved the kind of death they had uterly. Even worst as their death had been quick, not like her parentsī or the countless innocents those six monsters had killed before. Even with the carnage and the coldness the man that had saved her showed killing them she couldnīt help but feel gratefull that someone avanged her family. The man turned toward her and gave Selene a youthfull grin. He approached the girl, passed her and took a backpak that she noticed for the first time. He swung it upon one shoulder and walked toward her. Then he extended his left hand not even blodied as if to shake hers. Timidly she put her slender hand in his and smiled a little bit. She noticed that his hand was warm and strong. "Thatīs better", he said in his wonderfull voice. "Now let introduce ourselves, fine?" She noded and presented herself. "That a very beautifull name, Selene. I like it!" She slightly blushed. "And yours?" She asked. "Iīm Ryuken," said the young man "but you can call me Ryu, or Ken if you like." She thought a moment before nodding. "Itīs a cool name." She complimented him. He noded. "Dosenīt it? Iīm rather fond of it, you know." She then stayed silent a moment as they passed the lifeless bodies of the Razors. Looking at them indiferently she decided to ask Ryuken. "Ryu?" "Yes?" "Can... can..." her voice grew tight. "Selene?" He said in a concerned voice. She stopped walking. "Can you help me with the bodies of my parents?" She not dared to look at him. Then she felt him hug her. And she started to cry, sobs making her body to sake, Ryuken still huging her silently leting her cry her loss as he did so long time ago. Then when he felt that she had stopped crying he separated himself from her, his arms still upon her shoulders kneeling before her, his now blue eyes gazing in the red-violet pool of her own eyes. "Of course Iīll help you." He stood up. "Now show me where they are." ------------------------------------------------- Selene waited as Ryuken tended the bodies of her parents. She sat some metters away, as Ryuken had said her to do, once he found and gathered the bodies of her parents. She had no wish to see them as they had been left by the razors and the follower so she let Ryuken do his work, trusting him. Now that her mind was quieter and her feelings of fear and desesparation had lessened she could allow herself to look to her saviour. He was clad in loose dark pants tied from his ankles to amost knee-level with matching dark slippers. He was clad in a sleevless red shirt upon wich was an equally sleevles tunic make of dark leather with silver casps at one side. His arms were bare with the exception of two fingerless gloves and some protection put in his forearms. His right one was warped in white cloth while his left one was in dark leather both of them almost until his elbows. None of his clothing could hide his muscles. It was almost as a second skin, showing his powerfully build body but without pretending to. Even so it was defined to a point that looked almost elegant not to bulk but still impresive. And if what she had seen him do while slaughtering those razors was a hint, then he was incredibly strong. She asked herself as she watched him making a hole in the ground with his bare hands showing no discomfort at all for toring the ground without any tool. She repassed his face in her mind. And had to comfess that he was very handsome with his short dark hair in short bangs while his tanned skin that his blue eyes to appear more intense as if it was possible. His eyes... She belived to see them turn golden while he comfronted the killers of her family. Why such an inhuman colour for those eyes? How could blue eyes turn gold for a moment to turn blue once again? Yet they didnīt turned totally blue as when light touched them some gold sparks would appear upon the blue sea that were his eyes. She hugged herself. So many things about this "Ryuken" were a mystery to her. She still doubted to trust him or at least a part of her thought so. Another part, not so rational, was whispering her that she was safer with this stranger than with any other being on this god forgotten world. She looked at him again making the final detaill of the resting place of her parents. One thing was sure: if he wanted he could have killed or raped her; he was strong enough to force himself on her as much would have done in those moralless times. But it didnīt seemed to be like him to do it as if he was too "good" to do something as denigrant to an innocent. So there he was making a grave for the parents of a girl that meant nothing to him, a girl that he could have left to her tragic end at the hands of those razors but decided to help her, to protect someone that was a perfect stranger to himself. It wasnīt logic. So even with all the pain and fear she had endured in her life Selene started to trust that strange man. She huged herself even more. Wanting or not, trusting or not, her life was his. She would die alone and without her parents she had no idea as how to find her remaining relatives. ------------------------------------------------- As soon as he found the first body, the one of Seleneīs mother, Ryuken was convinced to work alone as the body was totally ravaged. The body of her father was even worst as if a beast had devoured part of it. Evidently those six he killed werenīt the whole bounch of killers after Selene, not that it bothered him much. More scum to the trash, evidently. He quickly gathered both bodies and started their grave, a doing as old as time that he had himself done more times that he would have wanted in his past. He decided to use his own strenght to make the grave as a matter of respect. During the auto imposed task he had to work out what to do with Selene. He had to go to Nerima, if it still was there, and find his old "friends". He needed information to know what was going wrong in the world. Since arriving to his birth dimention he had found several bodies, people killed in the same way that were the girlīs parents. Strangely all the bodies he found were adults of advanced age. Selene was the only living human being he had found so far, but he doubted that she could help him. He sighed. Such things he could expect in his now homeworld, but not in his birth reality. Still if something _bad_ wasnīt happening he wouldnīt be here. Simply he didnīt expect something like what he was founding as he traveled in, what he supposed to be, the direction of Tokyo. Another problem was the lack of orientation, both of where and when he was now. The two passages between realities could have unexpected concecuences, the most direct ones concerning the passed time. For starters how many time had pass since the moment of his banishment to the time he appeared in Kenīs world? Were his basics five years the time that had passed since Ryouga and the other two fools had exiled him and the moment of his rebirth or was it only a number like any other? And about his return he had no imformation or experience about what he had done while tearing appart the walls between dimentions. All he did is more instinctive than anything else. So far to his knowledge nobody had tried to do what he did. He could have easily have finished lost in the limbo between worlds. He had to suppose that things were as they were meant to be so now he had to focus in the present. This return had is own share of concerning possibilities. He could have regressed in time but he had no way to find it. He had only the possibility to know it if he asked someone who knew him when he was Ranma Saotome but it possed also other problem, more disturnbing: what to do with his ancient family? With the ones that had banished him? Did he want to have revenge upon them? He didnīt know and that something that had been in his mind since before returning here. Mentaly he gave a harsh laugh. Knowing those idiots the very act to return and tell them some truths would be more than enough. Using the Musotensei to have some councill from his other souls was a lost of time. Eventually he could feel in some of his inocupants some of his dark feelings towards the people he knew as Ranma; others simply were neutral leting him handle the situation. His father and Toki were silent. As if this was another test, something that only him could judge. If comparing histories between himself and his father, both had a similar edge. Kenīs love, Yuria, was taken from him due to the maddness of the one he considered his best friend, Shin. Shin, one of the masters of the Nanto Sei, had carved the symbol of the Hokuto School in Kenīs chest as a symbol of his fatherīs failure in protecting the one he loved and left him to die. Kenshiro eventually returned and defeated Shin only to find that Yuria was dead or so he thought for a time. He, Ranma/Ryuken, had passed by a similar adventure but it had its differences, differences that in their own right changed the situation completly. Even if Ryuken had already passed by a mind change strong enought to obliterate any lesser men those matters of what he should or shouldnīt do were giving him some serious headaches. Yet a cold part of his mind told him that maybe all this doubts could be merly academic. If there had been an amound of time huge enough they all could be death and six feet underground, feeding worms. Yeah. Sure. As if life had been in any moment of his two existances so easy. With his luck he would surely find them still alive. This was a comfrontation that would happen sooner or latter. He sighed and finished his task. He gave a look to his work. Not as good as he would have wanted but it would suffice. Way better than leaving the butchered bodies as he found them. The grave was simple, being of earth and stones, a wooden cross marking the resting place of the couple. Ryuken bowed once and turned towards Selene who was sitting some metters away upon the green grass, hugging herself as if she was lost, her eyes unfocused. "You can pay your respects Selene." He said trying to sound as conforting as he could. Selene noded, stood up and went to her parentīs grave. Then she kneeeled and started a prier. Ryuken had sat at a largest distance to give the teenage girl, no the young woman he silently amended, the privacy he knew she would be needing, but eventually his preternatural vision could detect new tears running upon the girlīs cheaks. The pain would fade eventually leaving a scar in Seleneīs soul. He had seen enough of similar cases in his home reality, coupled with long conversations with Lynne a woman that had suffered the same fate as Selene with the difference that the older woman had seen all the slaughter, preventing her to speak until she found Ken. He shook his head. He tought as clenshing his fists. He should have made those bastard seen hell before killing them as the monsters they were, still he wished to have been there sooner. If so maybe Selene would still have a family. That only meant that he was in debt to the young woman. He sighed. What he needed. His own view of honour interfering. Well it was a responsability he had accepted freely. He was the only one he could blame, but looking to the young woman kneeling he felt that, somehow, things were as they should accepting that he owed her. After a few moments Selene finished with her prayings and walked towards Ryuken was sitting. She still looked "lost" and Ryuken could only see those eyes, tainted in red from the tears, as if accusing him, a part of his mind tell him. No, he corrected. He was himself accusing the fact that he had been late. Again he swore internly as a memory of some green eyes flashed in his mind. Selene could have been Rea as it had happened again. Again he was late. He looked at her again waiting her to speak. "Iīm alone." She stated as a matter of fact. Ryuken nodded. The young woman seemed unable to say some words. "Can... can... I go... with you?" She asked not dearing to look him into his eyes. Then she felt his hand again upon her shoulder, starteled as he hadnīt made a sound while moving. She looked up and saw him smiling. "Sure thing kiddo. Iīm always ready to have the company of cute girls." He said teasingly. Selene blushed and smiled. Internaly Ryuken smiled as he looked the crimson cheaks of Selene. "Now I need your help." He said more seriously but mirth still in his eyes. Selene nodded as to tell him to explain his problem. "I need to go to a ward in Tokyo but I get lost." "Youīre lost?" She said in disbelif. "Yup!" He ansewered smiling. She started at him for some moments, silent by the surprise. Then she started to laugh. "Hey! īS not so funny you know!" He said sounding indignated, but smiling wider. "But it is!" She protested and started to laugh again He stood there looking at the young woman at his side for a moment his smile growing to a chuckle. Then he started to laugh himself; both enjoying the moment as it was a very long time they had a reason to laugh. The moment lasted some minutes but eventually the laughter lessened. "Selene, do you know the way to Nerima?" She looked starteled for a moment and with a quick glance to he parentsī grave she ansewered. "We were going to Nerima ourselves. Itīs one of the few places were we could find refuge from the razors and others like those monsters. I have a little familly there..." She started to shake and close her eyes a the fear that had diminish since meeting Ryuken returned, alongside with sadness at the thought of how near her and her parents had been to achive it, to find a place without fear, with hope. Now her parents would never see it. A soft voice called her to reality. "Selene you know the way?" She looked up to Ryukenīs concerned face, starteled to be out of her inner thoughts but quickly nodded. He put once again his backpack upon one shoulder and took Seleneīs hand with his free one. "Lead the way." He told her. Once again Selene marveled to the warm senstion of his hand. Then giving a last glance to the grave started walking, less fear in her heart. ------------------------------------------------- The guards looked to the front, to the two figures that were coming towards the southern gate of the first defense of the Free City of Nerima. For what they could see it was a young man in his mid twenties acompanied by an also young woman, her being in the late of her teenage years but her face covered with mud and grim hiding it. Only blue violet eyes were visible. Strange. Only huge groups had a chance to withstand an attack from the razors and other creatures of the New Order and even so they had great losses in human lives before the guards could go to help them once in view of the sentinels. Rare were the ones that could arrive to Nerima with all the razor patrol swarming in the nearer lands of the once capital city of Tokyo. The razor themselves despide their number they held refused to attack one of the last strongholds against the forces of the Nameless One. In fact the old city of Tokyo had passed from being concidered the capital of Japan to be thought as an extention of the ward of Nerima. This was partly due to the fact that the strongest forces that held in check the military power of the Dark Queen came from that ward. Nerima had been a center of training for the ones that came searching for protection wishing also to help in any way possible, usually becoming a soldier being trained as a martial artist or other depending in the abilities of the refugees. Any help was welcome. And it was also a center of gathering for some of the warriors who, across the globe, came there to increase the number of the people with enought strenght to oppose the regular troops coming from the depest regions of ex China and the new genetic creation of Nameless Oneīs sientists. Also the number of Joketzusoku and musk warriors fleeing towards Nerima like a homing point while coming from the zone of Quingai when the troubles started with the rise of power of the Queen helped to increase the already surprening martial power concentrated in the ward. Thus even if live was almost normal in the Free City of Nerima, martial arts were a center point in the live of every men, women and children who lived there all waiting for some moment to defend what they belived in, a former dream of the freedom of passed days. It was to bring freedom and hope to the world that pleaces like Nerima existed The guards stopped the pair as they were merging with a greater group. One of them, a Sargent and the one of highest ranking among the soldiers there guarding the gate, asked the man. "What are the matters that took you to came to the Free City of Nerima?" It was the standar question. The dark clad man looked at him and for a moment the guard saw... something that put him eadgy even in the relaxed stance the young man was. For a moment he stood there speachless, sweating as the gaze of the young man perced him. In a moment he knew that the man was dangerous, and knew to be affraid of him. Years of combats and training with the best told him the power fear had, how it could make you more powerfull. But this fear was something more deep, more overhelming. At that gaze (he even belived to see them shine golden for an instant if that was possible) what he had belived to be fear before was only some minor inconvenience. When looking to those eyes the blood in his veins had stopped as if turned into liquid ice. Even the light and warmth of the sun seemed to have disappeared when those blue eyes had turned golden. This was a fear that makes your knees weak and want to make you run as far as you can, your heart beating as if there was no tommorow becuase there isnīt one, your stomack in knots making you want to trow up at the same time as you want to stay running. It was something primal, something dark lurquink in the deepths of your soul, reaping your being with icy claws, something in your mind with you as soon as you learn what fear can be, an urge to drop and pry for salvation. The sargeant remained there unmoving, pale as his skin was covered with gospums. He remained there unmoving, unable to do anything as those icy golden eyes held his being. It seemed to him that the moment had lasted forever. But then the young man smiled him; his eyes blue again, relaxing the fear the guard was feeling almost immediatly, as if a bad dream had claimed him while awake. But its memeory was still there lurking as a predator ready to tear him appart as soon as it could. The voice of the young man as soft as his eyes had been hard claimed his attention. "I only came to take this girl to her family here. I found her hidden near the bodies of her parents. She told me that her uncle lived here and agreed to take her here. Once that done I will follow my way." The chief guard noded and knew that he was telling the truth, but not the entire truth. Trying to sound as convincing as possible he ansewered. "Good. We donīt want any kind of troubles while you are here." Even if he had menaged to sound commanding inside he was ready to wet his pants. The young man smiled again at the soldier, and the official was well aware that this stranger knew it was all a bluff to mot loose his face in front of his subordinates. Then he shouted to his men to let the couple pass. Ryuken bowed once and motioned Selene to go forward, both melting with the bigger group entering the Free City. As the chief guard was looking to the marching couple one of his men asked a question that was nagging all of them. "Boss, why did you let that smart ass punk pass?" The chief looked to the crowd where the man and the girl disappeared before looking at his followers. "Because thatīs death walking." ------------------------------------------------- Ryuken and Selene were walking between the crowd and both were surprised. Selene because she never dreamed of a place like former Tokyo. The sheer size of the buildings and the number of the people arround her made her to feel awkward and conscious of her state of dress. She didnīt allowed herself to bathe since the death of her parents and her meeting with Ryuken as her fear, even reduced by Ryukenīs presence, wouldnīt let her feel safe until they had reached Nerima. But now she was clearly disconforted by her own state and it started to itch all over, but not making her to stop to look at everything new arround her, things that she hadnīt belive to exist in her life of running. Ryuken by his part had almost forgotten the sheer size of Tokyo and realised that it would take some days to reach the old area of the original Nerima. When he first returned from China he/she was so angered by Genmaīs stupidity to pay attention of her surroundings but later air-trips thanks to Akaneīs mallet and his numerous trips in and out of the city for training allowed him to know better Tokyo. But it didnīt help in finding his way in a Tokyo (or is it Nerima?)that was so changed. Undoubtly he would find his way but it would take more time that what he had guessed before, and time was precious if he wanted to safe more lifes. But with only a gaze to the wonder filed eyes of Selene he knew that he could afford her to dream by the newness of Tokyo. Or this new called "Free City of Nerima" he added silently to himself. He let also his eyes to wander to the new constructions. Undoubtly there were new ones but new in the sense that they were recent, maybe ten years old. It is a good sign as it showed that the population of the city had grown in the past time and that the authorities were confident enough if they allowed people to live so near of the protective walls and gates that were the defenses of Tokyo. It was a good sign but there were details that were contradictory. The architecture of the buildings, of the houses and other details of this free city were as he rememebred them, as if time hadnīt passed and that was strange. It was strange and more than disturbing to Ryuken as it brought again the matter of how many time he had been between dimentions. How could things grow but not change? In his now homeworld as humans reconstructed their destroy civilization they couldnīt affort the price, in goods and means, to improve something as basic as architecture and house construction, reverting to simpler structures. But in this world, if Tokyo was a reference, were the ammound of "stuff" needed for construction of human habitats was so abundant there werenīt any advance. What had happened to make things like that? What prevented human to continue with matters as improvable as building? Were other areas of human knowledge as paralized as that one was? As he and Selene continued to walk towards the place Ryuken belived to be Nerima doubts keept creeping in his mind. Selene tugged his arm. He turned to look at her. He added as he noticed that the skies were now of that deep blue colour that annouced the coming of the night. He concentred in Selene. "Yes?" "Ryu, how are we going to find my uncle?" He looked to the concerned face of Selene. In the passing days he had started to grow fond of the young woman and was very gratefull of her presence. Even she had helped him to undestand a little more the new time he was in with its dangers and differences. After all they had talked the things she said were the only think that made him believe that his passage had brought him to the correct time, that is if he calculeted well enought some thirty years and little more since his banishment. If that was correct he should be able to find "them" quite easely. That is if he found his way to the dojo. "Well, I hope that my... acquaintances will be able to help us. If no then weīll have to look in the city archives. There must be some in this place. For now letīs find a place were we could rest and wash ourselves a little." She sighed in anticipation. "Oh yes!" Curiously they found a place faster than Ryu had belived possible. It seemed that the authorities had put some places of welcome for the refugiees coming to Nerima. It was brightly indicated and soon they had two rooms and a promised hot meal. ------------------------------------------------- Ryuken finished cleaning himself from his shower and quickly put his pants and slipers on. Fortunately the showers were deserted at that time of the day, that was quite early. Since his training in the temple he had learned to controle his internal clock and would choose instictively the hour of his awakening, wich he had fixated at sunrise. As he stayed in his room he looked at the mirror and more to his scarrs. He traced them slowly with a finger as he looked at his reflection. If someone had seen him in the showers a little time ago they would have surely asked him about them. Not that he feared those questions but it was an intimate matter to him, a sign of his change along with his blue-gold eyes. Hs swiftly approached the mirror and gazed into his own eyes, blue grey they were once upon a time. Now of the deepest blue that showed gold when light touched them, turning saphire with gold dancing on the surface. Gold. Cold, so cold golden eyes. The mark of a killer. The mark of a warrior. He sighed. He neared his bed were he had put on his clothes, washed by soome unknown service, without questions. That was something that amzaed him, another of those changes that disturbed him as they showed how things were alien to him right now, as if he belonged no more to that earth. He silently endosed his shirt and the black tunic, slowly closing the casps to his right side and looked back to the mirror. A warrior. The warrior. ------------------------------------------------- A clean and new clothed Selene found Ryuken in the dining room, in one corner aside form the other people in the room, famillies and wanderers gathered in Nerima. The merry sound of some children laughing with their parents, how some mothers would gather them in their loving arms whispering words of hope, made Selene to almost shake by her sadnessīs strenght. She still had to cope with her loss properly but she resisted doing so in front of people most lucky than her. She neared his place and sat in an oposite corner from him, silently putting her can of food and looking again to her saviour, wondering about him as her own feelings about her loss were put aside for the moment. She examinated Ryuken, or "Ryu" as she called him more often, being carefull to not show it, without much hope. There was somthing unnatural about how connected with his surroundings he was, even when he seemed to be out of it, like now. He was looking down, as if oblivious of the food or the others in the room, to the outside world, but she knew better. During those days with him as they neared Nerima he would do some things that would show almost inhuman qualities in his perception and in his physical habilities. Appart that when she talked to him he showed clearly a discomfort about talking about himself. Instead he would lisen for hours to what she would tell him, never interupting her unless she finished with a phrase or with a question. He would ansewer but always with few words. In short he was very silent kind of man. That was a pitty as his voice was soft, beautiful and it relaxed her so much, almost as if warped arropund her soul, smoothing it. He was not only silent but he carried also something with him, like a darkness that cloaked him, that protected him at the same time making him mysterious, the darkness hidding his secrets, his thoughts. She still ignored why he saved her and when she asked one afternoon as she relaxed her tired feet he only said that he made a promise long ago to someone making him to help anyone he would find in problems. As evidently he didnīt wanted to talk about him or his past she told him all she belived he wanted to know. Now she trusted him with her life, trust coming when she awaited it less. ------------------------------------------------- They were soon out, after eating their breakfast (that is Selene ate and Ryuken barely touched his food) and moving towards the place he belived to find his "old friends". Selene shuddered, uncomfortable. Each time he said that word with the tone he used it was almost as if he was... _mad_ at them for something. After looking to what he was able to do to those raiders, she pryed that his "acquaintances" hadnīt a grudge with him. For their sake that is. Itīs not that he had said anything about those people he belived would be able to help him track her remaining family but each time he wopud speak about them his voice would make drop his surrounding areaīs temperature. She knew that he was pondering about something in relation to that people and knew also that it wasnīt a one sided conversation with good alternatives. As the day progressed they covered more distance than what Ryuken would have guessed at first and the places he looked at were starting to be familiar but still a lifelong time ago making them looking as if the places looking as if twisted, reformed. But with a dominative feeling to them: more martial like. They were people going to their buisiness and women with their children arround them but he could see a larger number of fighters and martial arists by the way they moved and carried themselves. He himself had started to put and harsh leash to his own power making his protective aura, which was always with him, to disapear. He _had_ to mask his power levels and he couldnīt start guessing if the people arround him had any kind of way to mesure ki power. And he was a power-like sun, a natural reactor of raging power that could be felt if he wasnīt extremely carefull. Now as he neared what he belived to be the zone of the original Nerima he had to do it more than before. As they continued walking and the hours passed the number of fighters rise even more arround him. They stopped to eat in another of those prepared places to do so, this one a kind of self-service. Soon they were walking again and after some time they came across a sign post. He started to read aloud. "Nerima Ward." He looked to Selene. "The people I search are in this zone if Iīm not mistaken." Then he returned to read the post and his eyes grew wide as he looked at it again, still reading aloud. "Martial Arts Academy... College of Healing and Modern Medecine... Practice Fields... Urban Center... and there is no indication about how to reach them! This doesnīt mean crap." Internaly he was in turmoil. As he was to ask someone for directions he noticed that appart from him and Selene the street was empty. "Damn." "Something wrong?" He heard Selene ask him. He looked at his charge. "I donīt know." Then he made a gesture as to continue and Selene folloed him after looking once to the sign post. After some time more growing more restless and frustrated to not find any mark he could recognise he finally spoted a passing fellow, actaully a kind-looking aged man. He sighed in relief. "Good afternoon sir," he called. "Iīm searching for the Tendo dojo. Can you help me?" He finished once he saw the old man stopping as to lisen to him The older man looked at him as if he had grown a second head. "You donīt know the direction of the Tendo dojo?" He asked surprised. "No." The man still looked at him as if he was a tottal idiot, but Selene acted before he could ansewer. "We are not from here, we have arrived recently, sir." She smiled sightly. The man looked at her and then at Ryuken, before shaking his head. "The Tendo-Hibiki-Saotome dojo is going straight by this street. You canīt miss it if only by the number of chalengers." Ryuken rised an eyebrow. Aloud he saked. "Chalengers?" The old man nodded. "Thatīs it boy. There is a lot of hot headed youngs that wish to show their strenght with the hope of being able to skip the soldierīs training. Eventually if they are good enough their cases are studied. But not a lot of them can do anything. The people of that dojo are the most powerfull fighters in the world." Ryukenīs face grew pensative before bowing them man and then starting to walk in the indicated direction with Selene at his toes. She glanced to his face looking at him and could fel that he wasnīt very happy. Whoever could be those people it was clear that he wasnīt very into playing. "Ryu?" "Umm?" "Those peole you are going to see..." He stopped and looked at her. "Please donīt do nothing excessive." "Excesive?" "Promise me that you are not going to harm them more than necesary." He looked at her questionningly, as if her words were very important. She could feel her cheeks turning crimson. Then he asked her very slowly as if marking his words. "Why is it so important to you?" She looked down. "Because I know that you could do them nasty things if you want to..." She looked up; her feelings clear in her eyes facing his deep blue eyes and that eery golden glimmer they had. He remainded there looking at her as if memeorizing her features. Selene knew that she was flushing furiously but she felt that this was very important. Then he sighed. And it was as if relief washed her. "Very well if itīs so important to you. But there is some matters I have to settle down and I may be forced to do "nasty things"... yet I should thank you." Selene looked surprised. "Uh? Why?" He looked at her with a neutral expresion on his face. "Because if I promise you I will have a reason to not do... something excessive." He paused "Hereīs the deal: I will not do anything permanent to them, but I need to show them somethings that are going to hurt them maybe. It all depends on them actually. It is a good enough deal to you?" She lookd again to the ground as if considering it but after some momemnts nodded Ryuken smiled, a smile that had nothing of comforting before gesturing to the direction that they were going to "Letīs go." ------------------------------------------------- As the old man had said the Tendo dojo, as well as the house build by Shun, was swarmed by any possible kind of fighter making a large crowd that for some moments prevented Ryuken and Selene to enter. What the man hadnīt said and wich took Ryuken tottally by surprise was the size of the dojo. Gone was the dojo he knew from his first live. Instead there was what seemed like a twenty times bigger one. But that mattered little to Ryuken, and he that was still Ranma Saotome almost released a tear for a place that was dear to his heart but was no more. Gone was the place he passed learning, fighting and living for the art, for that way to perfection that while being Ranma Saotome had meant so much to him, becoming more than a way to life but a way to die and survive. Without the hours passed in that dojo he wouldnīt have survived in that raid that cost him the lifes of Rea and Yado. Yes he was good before coming to Nerima, to the Tendo Dojo but that place with his polished wood floor, with that smel of dry wood and that simplicity were a symbol to him of what was the Art, or at least apart of it. So now he felt a little lost, nothing like what he had passed by in his homeworld, but the feeling was there, the one that told him that part of his life had been closed. Looking at the enormous dojo he was at loss about what to do so he put himself along with Selene between the numerous people waiting to enter to the dojo, both chalenger as well as spectators. He started to look to the new dojo as the human masses started to enter the place. This new dojo was some twenty times bigger than the one he knew so well. The walls as it was closed in three of the four of them had several windows separated from each other by some three foot. All of them at head level allowing some spectators to look inside comfortably. As he followed the steady rhythm of the crowd that slowly but surely was entering the dojo he looked towards the house that had been his home for some months, the first place that had been a home to him, to Ranma Saotome. The house that had been Kasumiīs "realm" had also changed in an alien way that Ryukenīs mind had problems to asimilate. The house where Ryuken stayed almost a year while he was Ranma stayed the same but several anextions had been build and as far as he could see all of those new parts were as huge as the original house, maybe a little smaller than the old one. Selene was simply awed by the size of the place and lookd to every new detaill with a candor that made her appear younger and more innocent. Still looking to the house Ryuken wasnīt liking the possibilities his mind was bringing him. The ampliation of the dojo, its name as well as the anexions to the original house always brought him to the same point... Pause. <_Only_ play with them. I promised after all.> A wicked thought crossed his mind. As he and Selene approached the entrance he could see some kind of post at its entrance. As he neared it he could see a silently standing young woman and a bald man asking questions to some of the people entering the training space. As he neared the questioning couple he started to examine the old man asking and the young woman at his side. He shruged the entire matter as only some people were stopped so he continued passing and entered the dojo. A few mooments after he and Selene were looking for a place to sit and finally found some near one of the corner oposed to the entrance when Ryukenīs senses flared. A presence behind him. But as the beingīs aura not even emited any hint of hostility he dismised it and returned to his, for once, mundane problem. A womanīs voice sounded. "If you are here to be tested you have to wait in the east corner of the dojo." Both he and Selene turned to look into a girl in her early twenties with long black hair and deep green eyes. The same girl that was at the questioning post. Ryuken looked at her and his eyes narrowed. Even standing there in a lavander gi that clung to her athletic body like a second skin (showing her well doned fisical atributes) a dark sport bra preventing the gi to reveal anything (and failing miserably) he knew that he would have problems with that stunning girl. As if conforming his suspicions at her hips were a pair os steel bomboris. He knew well those weapons and knew the damage they could deliver in the hands of someone thatknows how to use them and he had no doubts that she knew how. There were other details that screamed at him to be wary as her stance, loosened was 100% Anything Goes or by the steel maces; a chinese amazon weapon. There was somthing that screamed at him to be carefull and it above anything else the face of the woman. With only slight changes as the colour of the hair and of the eyes she was a reminder of Shampoo. He decided to play doumb. "Excuse me?" He said trying to sound as meek as possible. She gestured with her head. "You are a warrior that come to be tested, right? Then you have to go to the east corner." She pointed to the correct corner. He quickly ansewerd. "Not really. My little sister and me have come to see your dojo. She is passionate in martial arts and asked me to bring her here." Coral looked to the young man and knew that he was lying. At soon as she saw him standing with the entering warriors to the dojo she could tell that he was good with that powefully build body being only a hint. And even if it wasnīt ther case her great-great-grandmother had tutored her enought to see the signs that delated a warrior with a glance. And the signscoming from that man were screaming. Also she wasnīt the daughter of the best fighters the amazons had since Cologneīs time (nearly three hundred years ago) for nothing. She looked him from head to toe, barely stopping in looking to his prefectly defined body. It didnīt helped that he was devillishly handsome. She licked her dry lips. She decided to play his game, she had other ways to make him face her. "Well then you have to go to the south wall. There is where the people witnessing the sparring sessions are." The man bowed "Thank you. Come Selene." The young girl followed him after looking to Coral once, her eyes betraying some jealousy at the amazonīs body. Coral looked to the departing duo and decided to join her cousins in the training in the dojo but before she had to talk with someone. ------------------------------------------------- Ryuken and Selene were sitting against the wall among a huge crowd of spectators composed almost in its tottality by young men, young women and a lot of children that were staring to the numerous groups of training fighers in the dojo. Ryuken himself was a little surprised to see the sheer number of martial arts practitioned in the huge room. From aikido, to capoeira passing by kempo, karate, judo, kendo, ninjitsu, tae-kwon-do. And a large number of others. Almost all the fighting arts of the world were represented between the four corners of the room. But above any other styles he was surprised to see a huge group being taught Amazon wu shu, Hidden Weapons, Okonomiyaki free style battle with Giant Spatula (combined with a good number of other weapons) and the two branches of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu. Also caugh his eyes the slightly smaller crowd of people glowing with the bright lights that marked Ki manipulation. As he focused more in that group he prevented himself of using the Suieishin. Even if that ki manipulation was something to be proud of, it was down right inferior to his own knowledge of ki and manipulation of lifeīs energy field. Also was the fact that since he "learned" the Musotensei, Raohīs knowledge of schools and tecniques outside of the teachings of the Hokuto Shin Ken was his. Looking to the display of energy used in this dojo and compared to his present knowledge he could see that what those "novices" were doing were almost harmless. To him that is. He looked at the group a little more time as he comfirmed what he suspected. Those uses of ki were to boost the physical capabilities and little more. Some techniques and possibly ki-blasts were all they could do if he guessed well their power levels. He then looked to the groups practicing the styles proper of amazons and the Saotomes and Tendos not looking to the techniques he knew way better than them but more to the ones teaching them; searching for anyone as the girl he met at the entrance of the area. The group teching the Okonomiyaki battle style held his gaze as his eyes stopped in a girl with chestnut hair that showed an uncanny likeness with Ukyou. Yet her face was more delicate, more femenine without that mannish air that Ukyou developed while trying to hide her gender. All of this gave her a stunning beauty and the way she moved enhanced that natural elegance she seemed to have. One thing bothered him though, even if her style was Ukyouīs there was a more deadly aspect in her manipulation of the giant spatula, she using more the sharp edge as she practiced her kata to her students, a kata designed to kill and main. Also he quickly found some movement proper of femeale ninjas, the kunoichis, that was as part of her style as Ukyouīs unorthodox school. This was a little mystery as he ignored tottally from whom could those moves come from. Finally, as he suspected, there were other moves that he knew very well integrated in the way she moved: Musabetsu Kakuto and Amazon wu-shu. The amazon group had some older women trainning a group of younger ones, mostly females. They appeared to be of chinese complexion but Ryuken could recognise some japanese traits in their facial structure. But as they were clearly amazons he had to guess that they were of a generation following Shampoo & Mousseīs, this could be more acurate if that girl he met before was really their daughter. He turned to the group training in Hidden Weapons and looked at them carefully. There was somone to examine. One member who stood among the others by the ability and quickness in making appear the different kind of weapons he could summon. What really called his attention was that he was younger than the others, some fifteen years old more or less. His hair, of a deep black but with some violet highlights, was short only passing his neck and his eyes of an emerald green reminded him of a cat. Looking at the young manīs movements more attentively he could see some cat-like agility. He thought not even concerned by the cat-thought/word, his own fear of cats erradicated long ago. His gaze wandered once more, this time stopping to look to the group dediacted in learning the complexities of the mid air combat of the Saotome branch of the Anything Goes school, and failling miserably. Once he checked if someone more was similar looking to his old "friends" and finding none he started to look at the children: that was something different that made him feel warm inside. That was something to be glad for, the untainted innocence those children had while trying to learn in a sloppy way katas but with a passion... As his attention was focused in those children his senses flared and without thinking, without even looking, in an act as natural for him as to breath stopped a dagger inches from his face without looking to anything that wasnīt the practicing children. Then following the automatic reaction send the dagger back. All in a couple of seconds. Was a bored thought, only reaction to the "attack". ------------------------------------------------- Coral was walking quickly towards the place her great-great-grandmother was giving her classes. She had to hurry as if she was late to help Ranko with their clases she would be, again, amonested by her mother or/and one of her uncles and aunts. Yet she was sure that when Cologne learned that there was a possible good material for a warrior she would accept to cover her in front of her parents and family. Ranko wasnīt any probem as she, along with her other cousins shared the same need to skip classes to enjoy some quality time. Even if she and her cousins had a bigger potential than their parents at their age as Cologne more than once told them, they werenīt as crazed as them about the martial arts. Well in the eyes of others it could be but inside of their family they werenīt. With the exception of Ranko that put that passion for martial arts to extremes with the Neko-Ken training but that was because she was the best. The best after her parents and some of her aunts/uncles of course. But even so Ranko knew how to have fun, something that sometimes disturbed her mother, Nodoka, that insited her to be more lady-like. Genma by the other side would smile at her daughterīs antics a reminding, as he said himself, of the almost legendary Ranma Saotome, misteriously disappeared long ago, years before any of their births. Now as she was nearing the park where Cologne gave her clases (strangely she never did it at the Academy), she had to find a way to prevent Ranko to find that boy before her. Last time she put her "claws" in that cute recrue before she could do her move. Well this time she would have the hunk! Already she could hear the youthfull voice of her great-great-grandmother. She stopped to see her. Cologne had since a long time choose to train only the youngest of the trainees of the Academy, boys and girls of a young age (7-10 years old) before she did it with the most advanced clases, the people that she personaly belived to have the potential to be in the elite guards. So there she was, her young looking ancestor, among children. It still irked her, and the other as well, when looking to Cologneīs young body. Her long dark blue hair, her deep green eyes, the lithe body almost the one of a dancer but with more strenght and power than any she knew... All of that made her the most beautiful girl she knew of. All of her aunts and her mothers were beautifull but the passion Cologne displayed in every little thing since becoming young again enhanced that beauty, as if a flame burned inside of her. That always had been a contradiction with the images of extremly aged body she and her cousins were shown in old photos by aunt Kasumi when telling them stories of the old "Nerima Wrecking Crew", or the way thir parents called her; the old ghoul "nickname" her parents and family used with the exmatriarch. She stopped to see the class. ------------------------------------------------- "Cologne-sensei?" asked a little girl with short blond hair. "Yes, Chiriko?" Cologne asked back, a smile in her lips. She loved to teach those children... their exuberance and will to learn as if it was a game always helped her to go on even after three hundred years and more of struggle in the mortal plane. She had since long wished for the final release but since the starting of the war against the Queen she had a new purpose. One that needed the strenght that only youth could give her. It had been a difficult decision, but a logical one. Using the waters of Jusenkyo to achieve it was a direct transgretion of one of the most sacred oaths she had sworn years ago but necesity ordered it. Obtaining the water after the downfall of what was the Musk Dynasty had been difficult but allowed her to do a good number of things that needed to be done. And it was so funny to tease Shampoo and the others! "Cologne-sensei!" Shouted a slightly offended Chiriko and Cologne noticed that she had been "out" for a moment. Cologne smiled to the little girl, one of her most promising student. Chiriko, now sure to have the attention of her sensei asked a thing that was nagging at her child-like conception of the world. "What do you need to be a good fighter?" "Try to be a litle more specific, dear." All turned as they heard the voice, everyone with the exception of Cologne that had felt the presence of Nodoka before she talked. The amazon greeted the Saotome matriarch with a warm smile. Time seemed to have spared Nodoka that had still the same dark red colour of hair untouched and her skin was still fair. Her blue eyes still were clear, sharp and so alive. The children rushed towards the elegant woman standing there with her traditional kimono and started to hug her. In the community of what was the original Nerima Nodoka was one of ther most loved by the children and one of the most admired by the other mothers, that looked at her as a figure of strenght. "Please children let Nodoka-san to come and sit" said Cologne gesturing to one of the chairs put in the park where she gave her clases. "Iīm sure that Nodoka would like to sit." Nodoka smiled to her friend. "With pleasure Cologne. Iīm not as young as I used to be." She sat at the same time that the youngsters did. Nodoka then turned towards Chiriko "You asked what was that made people to be good fighter, dear?" Chiriko nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! I mean is it strenght like Ryouga-sama? Or is it speed like Akane-sama? Is it something physical?" Nodoka looked towards Cologne "Well? What can you ansewer to your student?" Cologne looked pensative for a moment. "You asked for strenght or speed, Chiriko, but being strong or fast doesnīt mean that you are a good fighter. To me what really says if you are a fighter or not is the fighting spirit." "Fighting spirit?" some of the younger children asked. "Yes. The need to win, the will to never be beaten or to be the best, to never surrender. When your spirit burns making you to go beyond your limits then you can start to considere yourself a fighter." Then as if remembering something that was special to her she started speaking as if to herself. "I once knew a fighter like no other. A fighter whose spirit burned like the very sun. He never accepted defeat and always found a way to win at the end. If he was here..." She sighed. Then she looked again to her young students and smiled. "Thatīs what I think. The spirit is everything Chiriko. If your spirit is strong then you will be strong and fast." Chiriko and other students nodded. Nodoka was looking to Cologne. She knew who the amazon was refering to and it wasnīt a very happy matter within their family. Not for the first time she cursed the moment she allowed Genma to took Ranma away, preventing her to even know him, ten years of hopes and fears reduced to nothingness. She was about to ask Cologne why she rememebered her son, now a figure of legend, when she glimpsed a figure that she knew as well as her own daughter. "Coral-chan! What are you doing here? I do belive that you have clases to give with Ranko!" Coogne looked towards her great-great-granddaughter. Nodoka was right: Coral should be ready to her clases. Coral neared the two older women, bowed to Nodoka and faced her great-great-grandmother. "I need you to check something with me at the dojo, great-great-grandmother." She bowed as if to make a point towards the respect she had towards cologne. This one frowned slightly. She knew Coral like the back of her hand, having taken a great deal of time shaping her in the being, in the warrior she was now and if her suspitions were correct a boy was the true reason for that interuption of her own clases. That and the match (aka friendly rivality) she had with Ranko in seing how many boys they could make fall for them. She sighed to herself. How well, Coral had the right to be young and in "love" if she wanted it so much. It didnīt help that she had a soft spot for all the children of Shampoo and the others. Nodoka of course knew this and was with a smile in her lips that she saw the two young amazons "walk" towards the dojo with a speed not so normal, just after agreeing to continue Cologneīs class. This wasnīt the first time it happened, thought Nodoka. And as Cologne she knew what was behind Coralīs petition to Cologne. The young amazon needed someone to cover her in front of her parents and Cologne was the one the adults would take more seriously if she said that Coral had a valid reason to go after that boy. She knew that well because that was a trick that Coral picked from Rankoīs book, after looking how the youngest Saotome used her mother (that is herself) to do what she had just done with Cologne. Ranko was the most wild and free of the bunch, that coupled with quick wits made her the natural leader of the group, something that made the delight of Genma and, of course, herself With a happy sigh she turned her attention towards her friendīs class. She giggled. ------------------------------------------------- From the control room, where the two amazons could look to the classes in the transformed Tendo dojo, Cologne looked in the monitors to the people gathered there searching for the man Coral seemed interested in. "Where is he child?" She said to the young girl that was by her side knowing well that the therm "child" always upseted the younger ones of her family. As it upseted her to be called "Grandma". Coral seemed to be searching for him. "Wait a moment... Wait a moment... There he is! With the young woman. Do you see him? Dark hair with black tunnic and red shirt?" She said while pointing to one of the screens as she used the computer to zoom the place where he was sitting. Cologne looked again and found the young man at least. He was looking to the place where the classes of Sakura were being done so his face was canceled to the not so looking elder. Then he turned his head as if bored. Cologne had a good look to his face and nearly had a heart attack. She looked again, not trusting her eyes even if with the youth that Jusenkyo gave her they were working better than ever. She looked at him more closely. Despide the fact that he was still young but older and his hair was cut short the face was the one of Ranma. A face she could never forget. She started to walk backwards still looking to a man that should not, could not be a few meters away. "It canīt be..." She started to say, this time aloud, before she was shaken by the younger womanīs hand. "Great-great-grandmother what is it? Do tou know him? Who is he?" She turned to see the face of her ancestor and nearly thought that she wasnīt looking well enough. Coral stared to that young face and had for the first time a good look to the shocked face of Cologne and, if she had learnt something since her birth it was that nothing surprised Cologne. Never had she seen the now more seemingly eternal amazon displaying such raw emotions. She was also surprised to see a tear run the face of the matriarch as a smile appeared in her face. Then the young looking Cologne started to laugh with her rich voice as she hugged herself while crying, making Coral even more confused. She was ready to call to Ono when Cologne hugged her and started to dance a jig taking her youngest descendant with her. After some moment, as if she finaly regained some control over her emotions, she looked to Coral that was looking at her bewildered. The once elder looking matriarch realeased Shampooīs daughter (Coral was still spinning) and looked again to the monitors. Cologne glanced back to the man she belived to be Ranma. His face was turned against her once again. She started examiating his clothes. They seemed concord with what Ranma would like but without being able to look to his face again she couldnīt be sure. Softly she muttered. "Damn." The joy she had felt while looking to Ranmaīs face was now gone as her brain was working faster than it had lately, looking at the possibilities that now were open if that man was who she belived he was. Still if she was right she was in problems, more importantly her family was in problems. She couldnīt start to guess what could happen if this man was Ranma or his son (it was a possibility) between him and the others, the ones that now she cared about. She muttered again against her own sightless. She should have expected this to happen! She trusted the history of her tribe too much and forgot Ranmaīs inhuman will. Trust him for making the impossible very possible, as she now had the _possible_ proof. As things were she needed to move fast. And she needed a plan fast too. In a moment she took her decision. "Coral you stay here!" She barked the young woman with a voice that was unrelenting. Coral knew well her great-great-grandmother and that tone promised lots of pain if she didnīt obeyed. "You stay here! No matter what you see by the video control you stay here! Even if Ryouga appears and tell you that you can go you stay here and silent! No one must know of this boy!" "But they will ask me!" "That doesnīt matter. If someone asks, tell him to go and see me. I will be in the dojo." "The dojo? But..." "I have to check something that shouldnīt be possible. You stay out of it!" This said she exited the Control Room and quickly ran towards the dojo while thinking about an impossible. In the bright side (if there was any) Cologne was sure that no one would recognise him. That was in her favour: even if Ranma was nearly a legend, no one in the dojo can recognise him, not even the members of her family there. In her mind only one person could recognise him given time: Nabiki. But fortunatelly right now she was checking her net of spies at the Academy. Back in the Control Room, Coral was still standing there, unsure of what to do. "How well..." She sat in one of the comfortable control chair and changed the view of the monitors to allow her to see everything in the dojo. "Better sit and enjoy the show" ------------------------------------------------- Cologne soon was in the dojo; just in the opposite side where "Ranma" was. The guards knew her well and knew even better than to cross her. So she stood there waiting for the right moment to act and after some moments, once no one was between her and the young man, she decided to put her plan at works. She made a dagger appear with the Hidden Weapons and trew it towards his face with a speed born of a using the Amaguriken for more than two centuries, carefully hidding her presence. The dagger flew quickly towards the man. Cologne looked to the trajectory and the flying silvery line that was the dagger. Her eyes started to widden when she realised that the man/"Ranma" wasnīt even aware of the flying menace coming to him. Then two fingers stopped the dagger. Cologneīs mouth hung open as she not even saw the hand rise. What was more disturbing was that the man was still looking to the children without even bothering to acknowledge the treath. Then in a single movement the dagger went flying back towards her with a speed as great as her own. She not even sensed a ki build up! That was his natural speed! She dodged the dagger that released a shower of sparks when entering in contact with the stone wall, in the exact spot where she was before. She jumped toward the man faster than she had moved ever before, crossing hundreds of metters faster than the eye can see, using one of the newest revisions of the amaguriken, alowing her body to jump past sonic speeds reaching the man in mere seconds. This time the man reacted. He shoved the young woman that was resting her head upon his shoulder away and a couple of women out of harmīs way and jumped above her. And still Cologne couldnīt feel any ki build up! She landed in the wall and used it to jump toward "Ranma" who had landed a few metters from her own point of impact. He also jumped and they crossed in midair then used both their bodies to jump higher than before and used the roof as a splint board, crossing once again, thousands of blows flashing, displaced air cutting the ground. As the first clash was heard the activities in the dojo stopped at unison, and all turned to look at a pair of blurs clashing in mid air faster than the eye could see, the nearest people making room for the two fighters. Cologne landed slightly vented. The Amaguriken revision allowed anyone to fight with inhuman speed; a fenomenal advantage but it was very draining in therms of energy and more tiring to the body in the long run. With her ki control she could forget those limitations and with her younger body her stamina was even greater than before. With Ryouga and any other she could spar or fight for hours without tyring. But "Ranma" had ansewerd her and rise the notch from the level she had put the fight. She had been very pressed in the first clashes thus needing to augment the cantity of ki used. Ranma, if this was Ranma, was in front of her, his arms by his side with a slightly bored expresion on his face. As she wanted before she could see his face and by the second was surer that this was Ranma but he had changed so much that he could easily pass for a stranger. Apart form finishing with his growing and the way he had his hair, way shorter than before and without the pig-tail that was his trademark, is tanned face was harder, colder and his eyes held little warmth, only him being even more handsome than before (the promise he had when younger made true). It helped to contrast the cold expresion in his face but he was so handsome that he seemed even inhuman in a strange kind of way. Now Cologne knew that without a hint from his part no one would recognise him for who he was. Nabiki if she had more imformation and maybe Nodoka as being his mother... but would that be enough? She had her own doubts, more after clashing with him. Gone was the Anythig Goes he learnt after his training trip and his staying in Nerima, the way to fight she was so familiar with her that she had tryed to make the others in her family and outside of it to learn. Instead now he was like... she couldnīt recognise his way to fight; it was something tottally alien to her and that wasnīt possible: she knew and mastered almost all the styles she had found. But there was more to the way he had fought with her, something so disturbing that it was almost frightening. All the martial arts were based in the use of ki, the release of the bodyīs power in the moment of fighting, of hiting. The build-up one had before moving that enhanced the body, mind and soul. To reach one ki and master it was at the core of any martial practice but in the few moments of their fight there was no build up by his part! No Ki used and to move like that ki was needed! There was no way he could be so naturally gifted than to be able to match her while burning ki like a nuclear reactor produce heat! And he was as fresh as before fighting. That could only mean one thing. He was holding back. A _lot_. His voice sounded. "I donīt want to fight you." She looked at him a doubious expresion on her face, more troubled because that was Ranmaīs voice, but richer, fully developed past puberty, the voice of a man. "You canīt match me, girl. Go play." And he turned her! All those knowing who was fighting, steped back when they saw a blue-green battle aura form arround her body. An angry Cologne wasnīt something pretty to see. Now she remembered him for the jackass he was, able to make angry anyone within two minute speaking. Yet she controled her anger. She was too old to fall due to some lack of control upon her anger. Akane had still that problem (sometimes) but the Tendo girl was still young by anyone standar and more to her own. Still there was something that called her attention. If her memory was right he had previously seen her with her younger form, when using the Namban mirror but now "Ranma" seemed to not recognise her. Strange. Still she had still to show him that she wasnīt to take lightly. She cooled down her anger and shut down the power fueling her battle aura. Instead of lashing like a tsunami of fists she laped with a ki-powered kick, passed him and fliping in mid-air landed a few metters away from him. Ryuken was looking to that young girl in front of him. Why would she want to fight him? After all he was there looking to the kidsītraining when this chick had attacked him. He couldnīdo much about it but now was showing one of the trowback of being a Hokuto Shin Ken master of his magnitude. Almost al his attacks, even the more contained fist strike were smiply too powerfull. With only reasing his true aura he could desintegrate anyone standing near him and now he couldnīt use a tusbo combination because that would call unwanted attention upon him. He needed secrecy damn it! "Well boy," he heard her say "you seem to be more bark than bite!" There was somthing in this girl that was familiar, but he coudnīt place it... something nagging in his older memeories He had to make her give up before someone started to ask question that he didnīt wanted asked. He would need to be very carefull. "I try to save your life, girl, but is this what you want..." He shifted his stance and something in Cologne told her that she had made a mistake, and a bad one. And looking to Ranmaīs eyes she was surprised to see them changing from the blue she remembered to a gold that was inhuman and it was worst as she saw the change slowly. She paled. "Ranma" as the only word coming from her dry mouth, barely a whisper, unheard to any. But she clenshed her fist and ansewered with a security that she wasnīt really feeling right now. "Iīll see you on your knees... male!" She said it even if she had almost said Ranma. She launched herslef link an arrow, part of the ground exoploding by the impulse as she met Ranma, still without using mid air combat. Her fist was blocked, a small boom heard as it impacted with his forearm. She noticed that his eyes gleamed and knew that he not even feeled the blow. Then he was there sending a roundhouse kick. She was ready to block it, channeling ki to her own muscles to increase her won strenght, sure to be able to block the blow. After all she was able to block Ryougaīs easily and the martial artist was the stronger physically of any she knew. So she was ill prepared when the strenght of the blow nearly broke her arm and send her towards the nearest wall. She almost passed out by the pain and strenght behind his kick and was barely conscious that she would impact with the wall soon. But she was once again surprised to ser Ranma from the corner of her eyes, blur and appear behind her, catch her good arm and spin her sending the amazon warrior towards another direction. About that time Cologne was prepeared enought to land better upon one arm, use it as a laverage and spin to end landing on her feet, panting, in a defensive stance. She looked at Ranma that was standing there, unmoving as if made of ice, yet with some emotion in those golden eyes of him. She was ready to charge once again even with the feeling that she wouldnīt do it better than before when something seemed to attract his atention. It was enought change in his facial expression to make her look to her own surroundings. At first she couldnīt see anything but a point near the center of the dojo started to shimmer, expanding in few seconds. Her danger sense flared. Then hell broke loose. ------------------------------------------------- Ryuken was starting to loose his pacience. He was sure that the girl knew that she was outclassed but still she returned for more. He was more than tempted to press some of her tsubos and "lock" her body until she regained good sense. The Shin Tanchu would do nicely but before he could be near enough to touch those vital points something screamed to his senses. He expanded his awarness and soon could feel the changes in reality, a signal that was screaming to him that a "rift" was beign formed. In few moments the anormality was visible in the normal spectrum and was enough of a lightshow to call the attention before focused in his fight with that girl toward it. Ryuken started to examinate the rift. Soon he could see differences. Soon the light exploded blinding those too near of it, being more fortunate than the ones able to see the things transported. Ryuken unbothered by the light display swore under his breath. He had the feeling that this werenīt people coming to see the training or to ask for autographs... His face hardened when he could have a good look to the monsters in front of him. The first one was red skinned with strange looking tatoos representing a flame spreading from his chest towards his extremely muscled arms, the dark flammes colling upon them until they reached the palm of its read hands. The second was all in blue with tattoos similar to the ones of the red skinned monster but representing bolts of electricity in the same fashion than in its comrade. The last one was dark green, almost black in colour with white tattoos spiralling from his chest to the tottality of its body. The three figures were almost four metters high, giving them the sense of huge towers of pure muscle, their humanoid bodies to only thing remembering something human. It was worst to Ryuken as his senses started to pick evil in huge waves coming from them. No definitively not human but there was somthing that was telling him that they were at he same time. Unfortunately they reacted before he could with a speed that wasnīt human. A look crossed the three towering figures and in a nod charged towards the nearest group of humans. Too bad it was the group of children that he was looking at before, now frozen by their own fear. More tragic was than before he could do anything someone interfered. Three martial artist attacked the creatures in hopes to save the children. The first one attacked the green skined and launched a barrage of ki powered punches and kicks all hiting vital points. Normaly a human being should have been extremely hurt or his body crippled for life. A normal human being. But what he was trying to stop wasnīt human and showed it in the following second. Without looking and not even fazed by the blows he garbed the martial artist by his head and tosed him in the air. Its tatoos turned brighter and gave the feeling to be alive, moving like serpents. A wave of wind sliced the man in four. His two comrades werenīt so lucky. The one that tryed to stop the red skinned ended burning as he was taken similary by the monster he was facing, his head taken in a huge fist that burst into flames. He started screaming and the flames slowly eat him alive as he struggled. By his part the third one was send flying when a electric charged fist hit him, his nerves and brain fried before turning to a crisp by the raging electricity. The three monsters continued walking not even looking to the bodies of the men that had tryed to stop them. Their orders were clear: kill the major number of people in the urban center of Nerima and to do that they needed to exit the dojo. If some one was stupid enought o try to stop them he/she was to be terminated and that inclueded any human obstacle they came across as the children in front of them, meaningless to those creations. So when a lone man stood in front of them they payed no hide to him. ------------------------------------------------- Kaori was seeing red but her main concern was the children that the monster were going to butcher if they stayed in their path. She saw with sickening fascination as how three men tryed to stop the colored monsters. People she knew very well. They were friends of her and of the family. She had grown up with them. She saw them grew to be powerful martial artist, people you can count in. People that had saved her life more than once. And she saw then die like if they life were meant nothing to those beasts. Anger almost made her jump towards them in order to kill them, the familiar warmness she asociated with her ki spreading upon her body as she concentrated. She clenshed more firmly her battle spatula. With a glance she could see her cousins Sakura and Jem doing the same with their own powers and weapons. A glance and the same message could be read in their eyes. She nodded and prepared to jump. A finger pressing a shiatsu point that locked the muscles of her body stopped her. She looked towards her grandma as she and her cousins called Cologne. "Why?! Release me!! Let me kill those monsters!" She shouted outraged. "Enough girl! You would be killed right now if you charged them in a blind rage." Her voice was cold and Kaori relaxed. Cologne was right. The anger she had felt looking to her murdered friends wasnīt fitting of a warrior. The same reflexion could be seen in the eyes of her two cousins. "Anyway itīs already taken care." She pointed to the man she had seen Cologne spar with before. She examinated him. Apart from being handsome she didnīt see nothing so special at first sight. Then she started to check him more deeply. There was something there. It was true that he had faced Cologner and finished unharmed but surely her grandma was holding back. Only Ryouga, Mousse, Akane, Shampoo and her own mother could say that same. "Itīs only a boy, Grandma!" Shouted Sakura with her desdain for boy clear in her face. "Hush girl! Look and you may learn something." Cologne voice was strangelly wistfull. Kaori looked from the young man to Cologne. There was a glint in her eyes, that if she didnīt knew Cologne so well she wouldnīt have belived... Who was that man? She looked back to the quatuor. The red monster was the first to arrive were the man was standing. Only a few meters more and the children would be crushed. The red skined monster saw the man and prepared a fire punch, his dark tattoos turning bright white as power was channeled into them, his body blasting in a raging flame. The man stood there unmoving. The fire-punch easilly eated the mark but instead of making the man to brust in flames and to be send flying he remained there standing, unmoving, oblivious of the flames that were starting to spread upon his body. Thew flame monster was baddly surprised to see the man still there standing, alive. The strenght of the blow with the heat of the flammes should have killen him at once! That was its first surprise. What followed after surpised it even more. Pain started to come from its hand as a breaking noise could be clearly heard in the dojo as the bones of the fire fist shatered. The red skinned monster retired its hand, holding it as it started howling in pain. The man for his part seemed to not even be feeling the heat and his clothes seemed to be intact. Then he started to extend his right leg forth and back, then with a kiai kicked the monster in its stomack. The creatureīs eyes almost went out of ther sockets and itīs mouth opened silently, the pain from his hand forgotten. Next he was air born, racing towards one of the outer walls as if it was a fire comet. It crashed there, now part of the stone mwall, motionles as the flames flickered out. Then its stomack started to expand impossibly, muscles streching beyond any natural limit. In few seconds it exploded in a cloud of fire, blood and entrails tainiting the wall in burning red. Those near enought to see the explosion quickly bent to emplty their stomacks. Cologneīs pale face turned even whiter. She couldnīt start to think the kind of strenght necesary to move such mass with one kick to a place so far. Then that internal explosion, as if a bomb was activated in the red monster body. It could be a side effect of the strenght of the blow but she doubted it. She looked to Ranma again. Kaori and her cousins stood there, their mouths opened. Kaori looked back to them noticing the matching expresions, then turned her brown gaze towards the man that was standing there, his golden eyes glowing cold. Who was that man? What was he? Her question matching Coogneīs. She soon was looking back towards the fight, unsure of what to expect. The blue skined monster roared in fury and charged the man who had killed its red comrade, lightning flashing upon his blue skin. Its body moving with a speed that shouldnīt be possible for something so big, it was surprised to be able to pick the strange man facing them witouth effort, with one enormous hand. It continued its mad dash until they reached one of the stone walls. Then they crashed, the monster expecting the man to be crushed, to shout in pain by the impact but there was none of it. He then start to channell several hundred thousands of volts, enought to turn anything into a crysp, like it did before with the puny insect that had crossed its path. Needles to say he was surprised to lisen to the relaxed voice of the man he was trying to turn into burned meat. "You monsters are really stupid." It heard the man say "You have seen me burning and be harmeless and here you come with your stupid attacks. Umph." The blue mutant put his other hand upon the manīs body and forced its system to put the maximum electricity in its foeīs body. But as the seconds passed the man not even seemed fazed by it. "You sure are stupid." The man paused. "And you are dead." He sentencied. The blue mutant was both surprised by what it heard and by the fact that this man was far from being a burned carcass, roasting between its hands. It was channeling into that body enought electricity to light up a small city! Its surprise exploded to new heights as pain flared in his face disrupting his concentration. With a movement that was inhumanly swift, the man kicked its face hard with enought force to send the monster spinings, its hands releasing the dark-clad man in a reflex. Then he was there, body to body, faster than what was possible as the mondsterīs body was still spinning, a black blur in motion unleashing hundreds of fists, turning the blue hard muscles into a pulp, a last bolt to its face send the monster flying, crashing on the other side of the dojo and beyond. It didnīt get up. Silence was master between the walls of the dojo. All of this made the last mostaer to pause. The dark green skinned one wasnīt as impulsive as its comrades. After looking to those displays it knew that then man in front of itself was dangerous but he was still confident about its victory. The man took a stance and motioned it to attack. "Come. We donīt have all day!" The monster decided to attack from the distance, remembering how destructive was that man in short-distance combat. He gathered its energies, the air in the room twisting as if alive and send a blast of comprimed air with enought power to turn steel into rumble. The wooden ground was torn apart as the blast was going straight to the young man who stood there almost as if bored. People were shouting him to doge but for all he did he seemed to have turned deaf. Then the wind attack impacted engulfing the man. He disappeared within the raging winds as soon as the blast reached him and the area surrounding him blow up, the shochwave so strong that it knocked out some of the nearest people in the huge room. But the remaining could see how the attack was still raging as if a tornado had been unleashed inside of a room with no air curents whatsoever. The green skined monster, the only one able to see things in the eye of the blast started to smile as, for a moment, the attack seemed to work. The black leather tunic was shreded to ribbons while the red shirt he wore under was also destroyed. As his clothes were torn apart, cuts started to appear in his chest, sheding blood. The green giantīs smile started to grew at the sight of the blood but its joy was short lived as it noticed that his attack acomplished little more than making its enemy bare-chested. The windblast dured a couple of minutes more until the green monster stopped it. It knew that even if it seemed impossible the man was still in one piece, unharmed by the windblast while he should have been cut in countless bloodied pieces of meat. Gasps of surprise started to sound as the watchers could see that the mysterious man was almost unharmed even if some blood was bleeding form countless little cuts. Some started to whisper about the possibility that this man wasnīt human. A thought that was almsot shared by Kaori. Her surprise was also shared by her two cousins but when she looked to Cologne, to one of the most comfident person she knew of, what she belived to be pale before was now livid. She started to have some suspicions. Cologne seemed to be too concerned by that man as if... as if she knew him. That could explain some things but it opened a lot of unansewered questions. Cologne wasnīt looking at the manīs miraculous survival of the windblast but more to a set of scars visible between the rags of his clothes; seven wounds in the young manīs chest. She followed Cologneīs view and also noticed the existance of those marks. Seven rounded scars that seemed to be showing something that she couldnīt fathom. One thing was sure the wounds should have hurt as hell when he recived them. Her thougths were interupted by a roar coming from the green skined mutant as it started to run towards the young man who stood there as impassible as when the first attack impacted in his body. Clearly the fact that the man had survived the slicing winds had upset it to the point of doing an impulsive charge. With his two arms extended. It gathered slicing winds arround them, turning them effectively in a lethal set of drilling devices, aimed to the chest of his adversary. But this one knew what the monster pretended with that mindeless rush and anticipated it. He rushed and before the running monster could execute its attack, the manīs arms were bluring. First he entered the space between the two spinning arms and, rising his own, closed his hands upon the elbows, presing the winds, disrupting them. Soon his hands were firmly griping the monsterīs arms and he started to counter the green mutantīs strenght, making it to come nearer to the ground. His heels marked the ground and the monster was shocked to feel his impulse stopped death on its tracks, comfusion in its human face, more acute as it felt how it was brought nearer the ground. He used all the strenght he could to move his body or his arms while trying to counter the dark haired manīs power but it was as if its strenght was crushed. But that was only the beggining of his painfull problems. Under the equally shocked gaze of the remaining people in the dojo the young man kicked the monster mid direction, bending it to his level and unknown to all locking its body for a few seconds, more than he needed to finish his move. Faster than imagined he was making a two point pression upon the muscled arms of the mutant. This one tryed to move but now it was its body that was unefective, unmoving. Whith frozen fear greapinig its stomack it realised that it was at the mercy of the man in front of him. Pain errupted and shouts covered the whole of the room as the monsterīs forearms were torn from their elbows in a sickening sound as its green skin was reapead and muscled were shown to everyone. The young man then kicked the now armless monster and used it as a jumping board, ending a few metters from it. And with another sickening sound he crushed both lifeless arms that for a moment send some sparks of electricity flying. None had seen any muscular strain that could hint to some effort to the young man and Cologne realised that as when she clashed with him, his "natural" strenght was way suprior to any she knew. As she looked at her surrounding, feeling her own knees weak by the brutallity displayed by who she belived to be Ranma, she noticed that several people had fainted. Not that she hadnīt considered the oblivious option. By her part Kaori wished to havenīt eat her motherīs okonomiyaki that morning. Lisening a not too familiar soud she turned to see Sakura trow up, strangely Jem was looking to the young "man" with a strange look, his green eyes gleaming but his face pale, covered with perspiration. The monster shouted in pain as the burning sensation flared from the rest of its arms to the rest of the body, like nothing before. Not even the experiments that came to its genesis were as this wave that treatened to overhelm its hardened nerves. In what was almost a refelx it jumped away and decided to play its last card. The missionīs objectives were already canceled but it would ensure the triumph of the plan and that was by eliminating that unknown threat. In a cold way, it started to examine its options. The attack from before had been pointless. It had allowed its frustration and fear to control him and this was the result. Time for its strongest attack, an attack were its life was at stake. If what they had told it was true nothing mortal could survive it. It would be definitive. Yet a cold and distant part of its mind whispered the posibility that this fow _wasnīt_ mortal. Kaori was fascinated as she saw the green mutant start to glow bright, a white aura forming as wind was drawn towards it once more but this time clarely stronger than before. She could feel it move, twist in unatural flows as it garthered arround the body of the monster. The winds started to spin arround it as the body too began to spin, giving more speed to the winds, making it efectively a living tornado. "Whatīs happening here?" said a gentle but worried voice behind her. She turned to see her auntie, Nodoka coming near her and Cologne. Nodokaīs face was shocked at the sights of the destruction in the dojo, of the few dead bodies scaterred in the ground being lifted by the ravaging winds. Her dark auburn hair, that was always so styled and that Kaori had always envidied being tosed by the rage of the air element. She looked at Kaoriīs eyes showing all the shock of finding the dojo violated in that way. "Whatīs happening here Kaori-chan? Cologne san?" She repeated now looking to the amazon. But Cologne attention was tottally focused on the last moment of that brutal fight, paying no heed to her fellow matriarch. Nodoka started to look also to the last raging moments of the clash and for a moment, when her gaze roamed upon the lone figure of the man that stopped the attack, Kaori could see how they slightly widdened. Nodoka then locked her gaze with hers, a ton of silent question once again demanding ansewer. "..." She wasnīt able to ansewer the one she considered almsot like a second mother (and more) but as Cologne was, she was also trying to focus her attention in the soon to be ended fight as the monster turned tornado started to move slowly towards its enemy: the seven scars marked man. The dark haired man stood there not even shifting into a recognisable stance. He looked at the column of winds, their presure once again cuting him but he paid no heed to the cuts as if they were nothing. His golden eyes seemed to examine the ground as if searching for something. Sudenly he kicked a rock that had been detached from the ground in the fight sending it towards the tornado. The rock was stopped by the air currents and then sliced to be soon turned to dust. Suddenly as if the stone had been a detonant, the column of slicing winds rushed towards its objectif. The man not even moved when the winds were upon him. "RYUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Shouted a youngīs woman voice. Almost everybody stopped and looked to the girl, even for some brief moments. Kaori noted that the tornato also stopped for an instant before moving toward the place the young girl was standing. The manīs eyes seemed to turn into gold stars as he also realised what was the monster pretending. "DONīT YOU DARE TOUCH HER!!" Then faster than the eye could see, so fast that he seemed to vanish from reality to reappear only a second after, he was in front of the tornado, protecting that girl. Kaori decided that she would never have him looking at her with that face; with those inhuman gold eyes. By only glancing to those cold ambar eyes, all life was drained from her and she could feel as if deathīs cold fingers had brushed her. Definitively being in his bad side was a very awful thing. ------------------------------------------------- Selene saw with increasing distaste how Ryuken had to fight that young woman that moved like one of those creatures her mother told her once, a tiger. A tiger stalking the one that had saved and brought her to Nerima. She knew that Ryuken was strong but what she saw as he faught with the woman made her feel that there was more to his fightling skils than what she had seen previously. Then when those three coloured monsters appeared from nowhere, killing those brave enought to face them, and see Ryuken take them head on she could only pray for his safety. Something that seemed alsmost ridiculous now that she had seen him kill two of them. But this third one was different maybe because it recognised a threat in Ryuken. She saw how Ryuken was attacked with those windblasts and her blood turned cold when she saw him disappear in that whirlwind of powered winds. But there he was and the brutal way he had to deal with the arms of that monster didnīt bothered her. She trusted him and she knew that he was giving them their own medecine as she remembered those three men only a little more older than her, killed so ruthlessly. Or when it was evident that the children in their way were going to be killed in a way so mercyless as those three fighters. No, all of this didnīt bother her, but when she saw how the last of the monster gathered his remaining energies and Ryuken remained unmoving even after what happened to that sizable rock, something broke inside of her and, unable to restrain herself, she called to him. But then the monster knew that she had a link with its adversary and tryed to use her to gain advantage upon Ryu. But then he also realised it. She could feel her cheaks turn crimson. The pure rage that his voice distiled made a part of her to realised that he _cared_ for her. Then in a speed that seemed almost god-like he appeared in front of her, between herself and the advancing cyclone. But that doesnīt mattered. Ryuken cared for her and as long as he would be there, Selene knew that she was safe. ------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile to confronting forces were about to clash. Ryuken had moved and put himself between the tornado and Selene. He would be damned to the lowest pit of hell if he allowed anything to harm the young woman! The monster had forfeit any posibility of a quick dead once it threatened Selene. The coloumn of winds; the green skined monster was already at a distance that showed the strenght of its attack. Any lesser being would have been reduced to molecular level, but Ryuken was way beyond human levels. His hands pentrated the winds feeling as it tryed to slice his skin, muscles and bones but he was tougher than that. He needed to only disrupt the power used to gather the winds and the monster was for a very bad surprise. He drew a wand backwards and using the Nanto knowledge inherited by the Musotensei sliced the very winds with the void wave of the Nanto Koshu Ken. This stopped the whirlwind leaving the monster stuned as its momemtum was broken and, what was more important, vulnerable. But this was only the first step towards its destruction. As soon as the movement was stopped, the vacuum the monster was using to protect itself from the raging power of the winds imploded, stunning it even more and making everyone in the area to be trown towards the walls, hard. Except Ryuken that stood there unfazed. He punched. "ATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA!!!!!" Hundered of blows landed in the green skined monsterīs body turning steel-hard muscles into jelly and bones into powder, the strenght behind them lifting the mutantīs enormous body from the ground and, with the last one, send it flying. Ryuken not even used the power of the Hokuto. It wasnīt even neceasry as the monster was already dead by massive internal damage. The shock from the moment the vacuum was turned inwards had smashed any internal organ and what the explotion sparred, Ryukenīs fists didnīt. It was dead before landing ten meters from where it was previously. Ryuken turned towards Selene who stood there stunned and when near enough huged her softly as if to comfort her telling her that all was safe. He was about to release her and go to feach some clothes when someone shouted. "LOOK OUT!!!" From behind, with a surprising speed for something so heavy and with so many wounds, came running the blue skinned monster that everybody thought dead. It roared as he trew both his fists back into an all out blow with its last strenghts. A stinging pain in its skull as well as in several parts of the body that it hadnīt felt previously stopped it. And the pain grew more powerfull until it griped its head in pain and droped into its knees. The last thing it could heard and understand appart its own shouts of pain was a cold voice. "You are already dead." The pain exploded. And with it its head and body. ------------------------------------------------- Kaori still under the shock of the aftermath was in a true chaos of questions and unansewered questions. In short, wondering was going on. Then someone shouted and instinctively went into a defensive stance as she saw a blur move towards the man that was hugging the girl that had shouted his name (?). Quickly as it prepared a last and desesperate attack she recognised the blue skined monster. She was sure that the mysterious man was going to be caught by surprise when she noticed that the monster had stopped, dropped to its knees and was starting to clunsh at its head while shouting in pain. Her gaze moved towards the man that had simply released the girl from his hug and gone to a corner of the dojo where a backpack was droped not even loking back or seeming surprised by the reappearance of the mutant. What surprised her the most, as those that could her his deadly cold voice, was his message not bothering to look behind him to the shouting monster. "You are already dead." He stated simply, coldly, clinically. What she saw after that was sure to be the stuff of her nightmares now on. She looked back to the kneeling figure of the lightning mutant and soon regreted doing so. The head and body of the monster started to, in the only words she could think to describe it, expend grotesquelly, twisting until it exploded violently, organs, bones, skin... all of the body turned into a blody pulp, a mass of gore where nothing could be recognised. Her mind in a detached and seemingly cruel way of torturing its owner repased the scene one time more but so slowly that it was sickening. She saw how the ribs of the monster exploded outwards and its spine was expulsated while the brain imploded in a blood grey blob along with the blood that even seemed to be exploding cell by cell... She had enough. She bent and trew up. ------------------------------------------------- He slowly advanced towards where his backpack was lying on the ground. He knew that the blue skinned monster was dead as the sound of exploding bodies was more than familar to him, having used that part of the Hokuto power more times than he cared of. Truth to be told he expected the monster to be dead but still his instincts were so much integrated in his way to live that he usually "commanded" anybody he killed to distroy itself at least two times more. It was a failsafe that only a first death could prevent. Those monsters were like none he had encountered before and were more tenacious than a normal human being could be. Still it mattered little to him. He was a bringer of death and no man, monster or demon could excape that fate once they crossed fists. He sighed. Kenshiro was right. The mantle of Hokuto Shin Ken master was a burden, yet it was the destiny he had chosen freely. His discomfort was not coming by the fact that he had killed in cold blood those three mutants but due to the looks people were giving him, in the way they make place to stay as far away from him as possible. All he could see from the corner of his eyes, once again blue, or from his senses that were picking the animadversion of the room against him, fear being the most powerfull emotion in the room as all the eyes in it were fixated upon him and his movements. He opened his pack and after a while found a dark blue shirt. He closed his bag and as he was about to put it on a soft hand touched one of his arms. He turned slightly surprised to not having been able to sense the presense as it neared him but he had found early that Selene wasnīt as normal as she appeared at first. She was there, looking shyly to him as her soft and warmth hand was still upon his arm, the silvery locks in her raven hair seemed to be alife reflecting the roomīs light while making them to appear as if liquid silver. He looked at her questioningly but sor some timeless moments she stood there silent. He let her as he concentred upon the cuts he recived during the fight that were already closing, his naturaly enhanced healing factor closing them swiftly. Then she spoke. "You are lonely..." "Uhu?" He ansewerd, not understanding her. She gestured the room, to the people already moving as the surprise of the fight finally ended, but their unsure gazes still roaming upon him from time to time. "You are lonely. All those people... You saved their lifes but they only give you fear as a reward, frightened that you could turn against them, frightened of what you could be." He looked at her, at those deep violet pools that seeemed to change colour as the light touched them. Softly he asked. "And you?" Slowly she put her free hand upon one of his cheaks. "I know you. You protected me when you could have let me die. Yet you care for me and helped me to go on. I donīt fear you, even with your terrible power." "Why?" Silently she withdrawed her hands and with a finger she repassed the seven scars in his chest, stroking them with feather-like touch. "Because of those, because of your emotions, because of the blood you spill for us, to save us. And because it pains you to see fear in the eyes of people that should be gratefull to you." She then smiled and for maybe the first time Ryuken noticed how beautifull she looked as the light of the sun touched her, making her as to be surrounded by a soft aura. "Thank you." Was all he could say. Selene let him some space to put his shirt on and for himself as he passed his fingers upon his hair. He was about to take his backpack when a lady in a violet kimono approached them. She stood there bowed once and with a smile that enhanced her regal features spoke. ------------------------------------------------- "Have you lost your mind, Grandma?!" Shouted an outraged Sakura. Cologne winced, but not by the tone of the voice of Akaneīs daughter but more by the enormous task she had before her. How could she make them understand that if there was someone safe from Ranma it was his mother? Things had gone down hill since Sakura had regained some control of herself. When Cologne had also recovered from the impression of the battle between Ranma and those new creations of the Queenīs cientists she quickly deduced that Nodoka was the right choice to approach the new Ranma from the little group they were right now. She would have done it herself if only she hadnīt attacked him at first. Also was the fact that if Ranma recognised her it would be her being the old crone that trained him and not in this youthfull body. Nodoka was the right one to contact him, before any news about the attack in the dojo reached the Academy; it would be disaster if Akane or any of the old Nerima Wrecking Crew appeared now. Even the presense of Ranko or Coral or any of the sons and daughters of the old group could be a problem as Sakura was right now. When she asked Nodoka if she could go and give him a message, Sakura reacted protectively and even Kaori, ever self-controled Kaori, showed some reluctance. But still she wasnīt ready to hear that tone of voice, even if Sakura was known for her temper there were limits. "Watch what you say, girl!" This inmediatly stopped any argument Sakura could say. Cologneīs voice was so cold and harsh that it didnīt gave isues to object. "Belive me. Nodoka is the safest person right now. She had nothing to fear fom that man." "There is more than what you are teling us!" Both Cologne and Sakura turned as they heard Kaoriīs voice. The young woman was standing there, her fists clenshed, knuckles white. "Kaori..." Cologne paused a moment wondering what to say to the young girl. Kaori was as intuitive as her mother was and even Nabiki respected her intelect. She would know if she was lying but how could she told them the whole story, something that Ryouga and the otheres had hidden even from their own sons? "Why do you say that Kaori-chan?" Cologneīs eyes turned quickly towards the Saotome matriarch as did Sakura and Kaori. Jem was silently looking at them all with an usure gaze. Kaori turned to look to the one that was as a second mother for her and al her cousins, even to their mothers. "Cologne knows that man auntie!" She pointed an acusatoring finger towards Cologne that was standidng there silent. "Is that true Cologne?" Nodoka looked to her friend her blue eyes toughtfull. Cologne remaimed silent knowing very well that she couldnīt lie to Nodoka but the truth, if discovered right now, would change too many things. She needed time to prepare the people she cared to the possibles revelations. If only she could... But she couldnīt. Not now. And also was Ranma. If this was Ranma. She couldnīt be sure but something inside of her told her that he was him. "Nodoka san?" "Yes?" "For the sake of our friendship, donīt ask me an ansewer that I canīt give becasue its not mine to give." Nodoka remained silent while Sakura, Kaori and Jem looked to the two older women. Then Nodoka was smiling. "Youīre my friend Cologne. I will do as you asked me but I would have done it even if you had remained silent." "Auntie!" Both Sakura and Kaori gasped. Nodoka turned towards them, still smiling. "Itīs all right girls. I will be safe. I know it." Cologne rised an elbrow to that last statement. "But why?!" Shouted Sakura, deep indside affraid by what that boy could do to the older woman. He was dangerous why couldnīt she see it? Nodoka before ansewering to Akaneīs daughter turned her eyes towards to young man and the young woman. He was about to put on a blue sleeveless shirt as he talked to the young woman. She looked back to Cologne that now was standing with Sakura, Kaori and Jem. "When I saw him I... I donīt know... It was as if I could trust that stranger. As if I knew him a long time ago." She paused and gestured towards the pair "look at him with that young woman, the look in her eyes is one of trust. The eyes of the young one are the better to see the truth of a soul. Yes, I know we can trust that man." Cologne nodded. "A good apreciacion. Tell him to find me near the koi pond. Show him the way and take care of the young woman with him, please." "Auntie..." Called simultaneously Kaori, Jem and Sakura a habit picked from their own parents. Nodoka simply smiled them and bowed to Cologne before going towards the place where the young man and the girl were talking. Cologne looked to Kaori before shouting to the girl. "Kaori!" Kaori snaped as if struck by Cologneīs voice. "Get the place under control and put some order to the people in there. If your parents come from the Academy with questions about what had happened here, you stay silent!" Kaoriīs face showed comfusion but Sakura was the one that voiced Ukyouīs daughter doubts. "But dad will want to know!" Cologneīs glare almost made her to run. "There is more going on here than you can possibly imagine. Sooner or leater you all will know the truth but until then do as I say!" Then she was out. Both Kaori and Sakura looked at each other before sighning in frustration. Cologne had always a way to be obeied. It would be as the once elder woman wanted. But sooner than she could imagine both girls would have the ansewers they wanted. Jem only sighed looking to his two cousins. ------------------------------------------------- Her smile was upon a time beautifull he could have waged. No he amended that thought that smile was beautiful. Strangely he could feel warm as he looked to her advancing form as a soft feeling of happiness apeared in his heart. He could feel some kind of... bond with the elegantly clad lady but he wasnīt able to give it some meaning. All in all he could feel his muscles relaxing and open himself to those strange feelings. They remembered him of his bond with Kenshiro but it didnīt make sense. She bowed when she arrived near him and Selene. "Please accept my most sincere thanks for protecting our people. Have the certainity that you will always be the welcome to Nerima, young man." That starteled Ryuken as she was the first being to show no fear towards him, appart from Selene that is. That made his whole being to feel joy, something rare in him. She paused as she noticed that she didnīt know his name. Ryuken with inmediate insight of the reaon of her distress interfered. "My name is Ryuken," he bowed "and this is Selene". Selene bowed, a shy smile in her lips, as she was marveled by that kind looking lady. She was so elegant and that clothing that she wore was so right and she had a feeling of... goodness with her that made Selene to care for her almost inmediatly. Nodoka bowed to Selene and with a warm smile greeted her. "Such a beautifull name for a such beautifull young lady." Then looking at the both of them, she paused before asking something that she already suspected. If it was so then more reasons to trust that young man, that "Ryuken" Her mind even wandered trough idle thought as if he had some girlfriend and that Ranko was single. What he said cleaned her mind of ideas of that kind but somehow confirmed what she suspected. "I rescuded her from some tugs that had killed her family. She has some remaining family here in Nerima and I decided to bring her here as it was in my way, mylady. Can you help us to find her familiars?" Nodoka looked to the young girl understanding in her eyes. There was a lot of orphans gathered in Nerima, their parents butchered by parties of riders. That unfortunate child was one of them. The sadness in her eyes comunicated with the rest of her face as she saw the young woman start to shake almsot imperceptiblely as she forced herself not to cry. And Nodoka knew that it was in part due to Ryukenīs presence that she was forcing her self to look strong. In a slow motion she approached the young woman and, as surprise refflected in the younger womanīs face, gathered her between her arms, trying to give her all the feelings of love and friendship Selene could need. At first Selene tryed to fight the tears and the sadness that the memeory of her parents brought once again. But as she felt the arms and hands of the older woman hugging her she instinctively ansewered back and released her own pains, pains coming from unclosed wounds. Then hot, burninig tears came from her eyes, umbidden as she could feel the feelings of love and tenderness coming from the older woman. Nodoka embraced her tightly making smoothing noices as the sobs grew stronger and Seleneīs body started to shake. Ryuken loooking at the scene couldnīt help but feel gratefull to the older woman. He knew that Selene hadnīt finished the cycle of her pain and he had expected that final release, even provoqued it as being necesary. He had chosen that moment because sometimes only a woman can comfort other human beings. He also knew instinctively that this elegant woman could take care of Selene better than he could in those moments. After a while Nodoka stopped and taking a handkerchief she had with her, washed away the tears from the younger girlīs face. She smiled and as Selene ansewered her back with a small smile, almost ashamed for the emotional outbourst. Then the Saotome matriarch looked to Ryuken and remembered that she still hadnīt prersented herself. "My name is Nodoka. Cologne, amazon elder wishes to see you in private near the koi pond of the Tendo propriety. I am here to show you the way." Ryuken considered it for a moment and looking at Selene, still between Nodokaīs arms, her back turned toward him and come to a decision. He kneeled and without Seleneīs notice pressed teishin in the back of her head. Seleneīs eyes widened slightly. Then she felt limp as a doll with its strings cut only to be supported by Nodoka, which was looking between the now sleeping girl and the young warrior, a look of surprise in her face. Ryuken looked to the astonished matriarch as if reading her unspoken question. "She will sleep for some hours, please can you take care of her? She is very brave but she needs a break. She hadnīt have the oportunity to mourn the death of her parents properly and I think that what she needs is the presence of lady like you." He kneeled and brushed some bangs of black-silvery hair from her brow with a gentlenes in his movements as if affraid to break her. Nodoka could see the concern in his eyes and started to feel the depths of his concern for the woman in her arms. Then almost too fast to be seen he was walking towards the exit of the dojo. He looked behind to the older woman and the younger one. "I do hope to have finished with the elder before she awakes If not please take care of her." Then he resumed his walking as Nodoka came back from her surprise. "Wait! I have to show you the way!" She hadnīt speak so aloud but he turned and smirking he ansewered her. "I know the way." He exited the huge room under the gaze of the few remaining people. Nodoka still stared to the space where he was just a moment before strange feelings in her mind and soul. ------------------------------------------------- Cologne stood near the koi pond, her keen senses scanning the surrounding area. She was satisfied, as she found no one. Aparently Kaori and Sakura had done as she had said them to. She will have a lot of work when the time for truth came. She didnīt knew how the return of Ranma would change things in her adopted family. As time passed, way before his exile, she had found a growing love for all those youngsters that made her life so full of adventures and entertainement. Her time in Nerima while she intented to marry Shampoo to Ranma was one of the most fascinating she had in her three hundred years. They would all be surprised to know that under the facade of the arsh amazon elder, was hidden the concern and caring of an older woman for a group of youngsters that she had almost started to considere as familiy. But things changed afer Ranmaīs banishement. Those feelings only grew with time and meant a lot to her, making her to go on after she lost her homeland to the forces of the Nameless One. In only few months she had lost the lands where she grew up, where she loved, where she saw her own daughter, grand-daughter and great-granddaughter grew up, her heart proud as were her aging green eyes. In Nerima with Shampoo, Akane, Ukyou, Nodoka, Kasumi, Tofuu and others she had a family that grew with time as a new generation of fighters appeared. A new generation she formed. With time love for that crazy bunch warmed her old body and gave her more reasons to hold on life, to fight with the hopes of one day seeing a new generation that she would look as her own. That was why after returning from Juketsuzoku she didnīt punish Ryouga, Mousse and Kuno for the use of the Spheres of Infinity. Back then, when she returned to Nerima and learned the last news, she nearly killed Mousse and the other two. Not only had she failed to one of the most sacred tasks her family accepted within the chinese amazons when by her fault of prevision Mousse had the possibility to use the sphereīs power. With all the rights she should have killed those three. But too many people depended on her in those days even before the truth of Herbīs ascention to the Musk throne appeared and the gates of Hell were opened. But before that there was already too much pain in her life. Shampoo and the other girls were crushed by what those three fools had done and Ranmaīs mother almsot lost her mind when her husband, dejected, told her of the last strike of fate upon their son. The elder herself was crushed when she learnt of Ranmaīs end. She had come to love him like a son. Even with all his faults Ranma was someone that always could make the others feel special. Those time when magic and adventure were so common, when life was more full were part of the magic that was Ranma Saotome. A magic that ended with his banishement. And a banishement made by the use of the Spheres of Infinity had the same weight as a dead sentence. When she learned those news returning from the amazon coucil she was crushed as if a hundred boulders had been unlashed upon her. For the first time in a very long time every day of her extremely long life weighed upon her as an eternity. It was similar to the time when she learned of Shampooīs mother death in a Musk ambush. But she had to continue; to many people were at risk here. She also knew that Ranma would have wanted her to continue, to never loose faith and the will to go on , to win, to live with the same burning spirit that raged inside of him stronger than what she could have ever imagined. So she put what remained of the once proud people in Nerima and they started anew. Truly the only good that came from the rise of the Nameless Queen was that it gave a purpose to live, to fight for a freedom that was once a common right. But even in her wildest dreams she hadnīt expected Ranmaīs return. It was impossible, as the power of the sphereīs was wellknown to the amazons. But still a little part of her mind suspected that if someone had a chance to come back from infinity and beyond that was Ranma. But how much would that cost to her family. And what would Ranma do? She still remembered what the girls had told her about his last words, his promise to make them pay. And if there was somthing in Ranma appart from his skills and his fighting power it was that he always fulfiled his promises. And if the one he had seen fight was really him then he had enought power to do as he promised. And he hold back in that fight in the dojo, both against her and against those new monsters. She sighed. "You again girl?" She turned starteled. She hadnīt feelt him approach. Here eyes widdened as she looked at "Ranma". He was standing in front of her a few feets away his arms crossed upon his chest as his smirked. But his eyes... Things had changed was what Cologneīs instinct is telling her. Indeed. End of chapter four of Star of War. ------------------------------------------------- List of Ranma/Ryukenīs Hokuto and Nanto attacks. *Ten Ryuu Kokyuu Hou (Art of the Dragonīs Breath) A way to increase the body strenght, speeds and power. It ususally torn the uper clothes (shirts, jackets, etc) away with the increased size of the muscles and power. *Suieishin (Water Reflexion[Shadow] Spirit) After watching an opponent or an other martial arts practitioner use a special technique the Suiseishin allows the Hokuto master to duplicate it. *Nishi Shinkuu Ha (Two-Fingers Nil-Space Grasp) Allows to refflect arrows and other weapons back to the attackers *Shin Tanchu One of Tokiīs moves. A tsubo that locks all of the bodyīs muscles. The "victim" can only be released by a verbal order from the one that used it. *Nanto Koshu Ken (Nanto Lone Eagle Fist) Shinīs style, it concentrates on stabbing thrusts. The void wave produced by any Nanto strike can cut trought almost anything, stone, steel, etc... Nanto Koshu Ken can pass trough those same materials like if they were butter. *Teishin A tsubo that calms and puts to sleep. *Musotensei (Nil-thought reincarnation) The ultimate Hokuto Shin Ken attack is so difficult to learn that only three people had learnt it in the two thousand years of the Hokuto Shin Ken Schoolīs history. Its key its sadness, what is more, understanding of the sadness. Once this made, only raw emotional suffering would unlock the knowledge and power of the Musotensei. After that, making the void within, one can call or host the souls of other warriors allowing them to "live" within your soul, their memories being yours along with their feelings, techniques and power. Generaly that "unlocking" is made by the Musotensei itself. By the use of the Musotensei alone you can draw power from the Void and it having infinite power... well imagine the power boost. The use of it when you move allows you to desmaterializate and in that state anything entering in contact with you is desintegrated beyond atomic levels. Seen from the outside its visual efect is that your movement is separated in transparent "after images" that with its touch only is mortal. Only another user of the Musotensei can hope to survive a blast of that kind and even then you wouldnīt like to suffer the side effects of the clash of those opposed blasts. As a last note the surrouding zone is tottally destroyed. Eventually the Hokuto master can control the power used in those blasts. More to come!!