Ryouga Hibiki was lost. No surprise there, but many would be surprised to know that Ryouga actually knew he was lost. Usually, Ryouga got lost because: (a) he never truly paid attention to his surroundings, always dwelling on the past, never the future; (b) subconsciously, he always felt as if he knew better then everyone else; (c) that he trusted his instincts over common sense and reality; and (d) his understanding of nature and people was skewed, because of lack on interaction with his peers and elders, social feedback, and isolation.
Two months, or was it three months, or was it six weeks ago, Ryouga was not sure. Not only did he get lost easily, but also his sense of time was as bad as his sense of direction. Either way, in the recent past, Akane had broken up with Ranma, leaving her free and clear to pursue the relationship he always wanted to have with her.
Unable to corrupt the Angel Akane, the womanizing Ranma had quickly moved on to the Ice Queen, of all girls. It was at that point, he realized that his friend's womanizing ways was not the result of Ranma's honorless behavior, but had to be something of a disease or conditioning that that old fool of a panda must have done to him. After all, only someone sick or desperate would try to take on the Ice Queen of Furinkan Koukou, and Ranma was not desperate.
Although, given how much and how often, Nodoka went on about Ranma's manliness, maybe, Ranma was desperate.
Either way, the end result was that Ryouga was exposed to Akane Unplugged for an entire month or year... and that had forced him to re-evaluate many of his previous thinking of said girl.
He realized that his friend brought out the best and worst in those around him, without even realizing it. The Akane without a Ranma in her life was not the angel she was with him. Instead of her anger directed solely at Ranma, where it belonged, he, himself, became its victim. Gone was the sad, crying, innocent schoolgirl, who was being victimized by the womanizing Ranma, in her place, a virtual female Kuno stood. How such a transformation occurred so quickly, without anyone noticing but himself, he did not know.
He had tried the foods, drinks, and even Akane's bedroom for signs of the conversion, but nothing Amazonian, Kuno-esque, or Happosai-esque could be found.
Failing to find anything physical, he thought maybe it was simply that time of the month, after all, Akane was a woman, and woman got those quote that time of the month unquote, once in a while. Sure seemed as if that time of the month was all month for Akane, but that just made her a greater woman.
Whatever the case, things were far from ideal, only got worse, when Ranma and Nabiki upped and disappeared without any notice. So he thought if he could find them, and more importantly, brought them back for Akane's sake, things might return to normal. After all, while he had a bad directional curse, he always seemed to stumble upon Ranma on quite regular bases. That he was away from his beloved Akane and her tantrums never entered his mind.
But of course, it was never that easy.
He did come across several interesting techniques that he could not wait to use against Ranma and defeat him, so Akane would love him. Which just made it all the more important to find Ranma...
"Where are you, you coward?!?!" Ryouga screamed out his frustration.
"Whom are you calling a coward, Ryouga-baby?" a cold feminine inquired of him.
Turning around, he came face-to-face with Nabiki Tendo, the Ice Queen of Furinkan Koukou, with her business-face on. Never a good sign, and he had worked so hard for that pocket money to buy something for Akane.
His mother did teach him to be polite to girls, even girls like Nabiki Tendo, how someone like her could be related to his angel, he could not figure out. "Hello, Nabiki-san," he replied evenly.
He got very nervous as Nabiki just stared at him, just like that chef did when she was talking about all those pork-dishes she had in mind, as she felt up his curse-form. He really needed to know how she kept finding him like she did, and why his curse seemed to go into overdrive when she was around.
Nabiki whistled, and exclaimed, "Damn... And here I thought Ranma-dono was cursed up the wazoo. Ryouga-baby, you out did him by miles."
Whatever he thought she would say, that was not it.
"Most of Ranma-dono's curses were the result of his being a practicer of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryuu, Genma's son, or such," Nabiki continued. "But you... I can only see five or so curses that are inherited on you, all the rest... aimed directly at you, Ryouga-baby. You must have pissed off a number of mikos, kamis, and the like."
Ryouga blinked. Very slowly something registered in his brain, he asked, "You can see curses?"
Smirking a bit, Nabiki seemly nodded her head.
Ryouga swallowed, and hoped, "Uh hmmm.... If you can see the curses..."
"Can I remove them, you wish to know," Nabiki finished for him with a smirk. "Why, yes, I can.... for a price."
"Anything," Ryouga answered quickly. He ignored the smirk on Nabiki's face, as well as the fact that it was getting bigger.
"Anything?" Nabiki echoed with a larger smirk on her face, "that covers a lot of ground."
"Please, please, please," Ryouga begged. He got down on his knees and tried to use a begging puppy-dog look.
Nabiki was disgusted with Ryouga and his lack of dignity. Of course, she was also upset that he had used his curse-form to cause problems for her Master. Which was nothing compared to her self-loath for not figuring it out for herself, nor understanding all the clues that her Master had dropped. As her Master's slave, she was bound by His Word as well, so she could not reveal his Jusenkyou curse either, and was duty-bound to repair her Master's mistake, although, which mistake, getting Ryouga cursed at Jusenkyou or allowing Ryouga to live, she was not sure which she should fix first. The latter would fix the former as well, plus, it was inevitable, even if it too a century or so. Unlike ki, mana, hence magic, did dissipate on its own over time. Even in places lacking in Life, like a desert, there is life and the possibility of return of Life, but in magical dead-zones, there is no magic there, and any non-sealed magic is sucked away. So if a spell is not renewed, it faded away over time. Many spells, though, are self-renewing, almost by their design-nature/intent.
Still none of that shown on her face, only the smirk from the thoughts of the many humiliating and embarrassing for Ryouga things she would put him through.
"Curse-breaking takes time, energy... and ritual magic," Nabiki said off-hand. "Donno..."
"I'll do anything, Nabiki-san," Ryouga began.
"Mistress!" Nabiki barked at him. "You will only address me as 'Mistress', boy."
Nodding his head so much, that Nabiki thought it might fall off, he replied, "Yes, Mistress."
Her smirk was threatening to become permanent on her face. She pulled out a magic book out of her storage subspace pocket, set it levitating before her to the amazement of Ryouga, and flipped through the pages pretending to look for something. The magic book was bespelled so only she and her Master could read it. She stopped on a random page, and pretended to read it. She made nodding motions as if she was confirm what she read, all the while observing Ryouga and categorizing the curses that he had been inflicted with. Jusenkyou curse and the Hibiki Family Curses, plural, stood out the most. The non-inherited curses ranged from when he was six years old to just the past week.
In truth, she did not even need any ritual magic to break all the curses on Ryouga, just a half an hour of unweaving the curses and purification. But where would be the fun in that? Besides, even after she removed them, it was more then likely that he would just continue has he has been and just get cursed all over again.
Thinking up very embarrassing and humiliating items that she might need for Ryouga to get for his cure, she conjured up a piece of Hogwarts school parchment and a Hogwarts ink quill, out of habit, and bespell the quill to write down what items she was thinking of.
Ryouga seeing the casual magic that Nabiki was doing, filled his with hope and happiness, he began to do his "not going to be a pig no more" dance.
Seeing that dance and wishing to stop it before she threw up, Nabiki commented, "Of course, we'll need to wait for the Full Moon... in three weeks or so."
Ryouga stopped his silly dance and asked in a bit of impatience, "Why?"
Nabiki gave him a spiel about how her magic was tied to the Moon and the Stars, which was not actually true, citing werewolves, as evidence and examples.
Ryouga accepted it all, with just a nod every so often and a glazed look on his face.
When she got to the parts about having him naked for the ritual and tied down, Ryouga did not seem to acknowledge it any differently then the rest, although, he did blush a bit.
After a bit, Nabiki went back to thinking of ways to humiliate Ryouga more as well as how she could actually go about curing him, since that was what Ranma would wish for her to do.
Of course, Ryouga did not know when to keep his big mouth shut, he stated to talk about what he would do after he was cured, blaming Ranma for his problems.
"What was that, boy?" Nabiki snapped at him, looking up briefly.
Ryouga blinked, he did not like how Nabiki was addressing him, but she could cure him. He muttered, "It's all Ranma's fault! If only the honorless, coward had faced me like a man...."
His screaming stopped his rant because of the pain he was experiencing. His testicles were being squeezed and pulled up with a great strength, yet, he could not see or feel anything actually doing it, no ki or physical presence. He was actually several centimeters off the ground, being held up by his testicles, which then pulled upwards and dragged before a pissed off Nabiki, with fire, literally, in her eyes.
"Boy," Nabiki growled at the fool. "You will not speak of Ranma-dono like that. You will only refer to Ranma-dono as Master. Do you understand, little boy?"
The pain was too much for him to respond, it got worse as his testicles lifted up another centimeter.
Nabiki repeated herself, "Do you understand, little boy?"
Ryouga passed out from the pain.
Nabiki sighed in annoyance and she casted the spell Ennervate, to awaken Ryouga from his unconscious state.
Ryouga awoke to a great pain in his testicles and whimpered.
"Do you want my help in curing all those curses, boy?" Nabiki growled.
Ryouga nodded, felt a tug on his testicles, and said, "Yes, Mistress."
"Then these," Nabiki growled, using the Force to pull a bit more on his testicles for emphasis, "are mine. You will do what I say, when I say, and how I say it, boy."
"Yes, Mistress," Ryouga wisely stated.
Using the Force, Nabiki undressed Ryouga completely. Any attempt by Ryouga to cover himself, simply resulted in greater squeezing of his testicles. Nabiki did smirk at Ryouga's pink-hearted briefs, and frowned at how small Ryouga's manhood... rather boyhood was. Her pinky was larger, at least, Ryouga was a bit larger then Kuno was. And yes, it was just a bit, nor more then half a centimeter difference at most. Of course, not everyone could be the man her Master was.
"Do as I say," Nabiki stated, "and I will remove the curses from you, Ry-baby. And you might even enjoy it." Using the Force, since she really did not wish to 'touch' the baka, she caressed his testicles and made him cum from the pleasure almost immediately.
Ryouga passed out again, this time from a pleasure he never knew.
Nabiki sighed, that was too easy, hair-trigger that one. Oh well, she made up a bogus list of //ingredients// for his cure, and left. The //ingredients// were just to embarrass the baka and keep him out of her hair until the night of the full moon.
The young woman signed and cursed her Fate. She had joined Interpol, expecting the glamorous life of James Bond, or Jane Bond in her case. Instead, here she was, freezing her tail off in some god-forsaken place in the Russian Wilderness, following up on the serial-killer killer, just because she made fun of her boss, the old battle-axe of a dragon-lady. The Dragon-lady was just jealous of her good looks and the attention the male Agents gave her. Apparently, it was her fault that she spent three hours a day in the gym and that her parents passed on their good genes to her, whereas, Dragon-lady spent all her time behind a desk and her parents were fatsos.
This case was a bit different from what she and the other Agents were dealing with, although the modus operandi was the same, hence why she was there.
Before, it was just one person, a known serial killer that was killed. This time, it was a group of terrorists, who took a group of Chinese High School students hostage. Each of the terrorists were killed, their blood drained. There was another anomaly as well, which worried some of the Agents involved in the case, a teenage Chinese boy, who studied the martial arts, with a pigtail, was also killed. But, the Chinese boy was killed in some kind of sex-magic ritual.
The most puzzling part of the case, there was no witnesses. Yes, the hostages were present for the killings, but they did not recall anything, nor who the boy was.
The junkyard had been an eyesore in the neighborhood for so long that most just ignored it, as if it did not exist. Thus, it was several weeks for anyone to know notice a difference within the junkyard itself.
Once there was nothing but piles of junk, but under its new management and ownership, the junkyard had been organized and beautified. The piles were organized, sorted, and placed in visually appealing stacks.
Still, most in the neighborhood ignored it; after all, it was just a junkyard. No one but those within knew that it was in fact the most technological advanced place on the Planet. Only the Tendo-ke, thanks to the technologies that Ranma and Nabiki returned with would come match the technological knowledge and advance systems.
Within was some very advance systems: very highly technological, mobile command post; an almost finished mobile combat platform called a 'Megatank', whose firepower would only be matched by the Legendary Seventh Fleet, yet was only slightly larger then the average tank; two 'Mega-Zeroids' that controlled and operated the Megatank, both heavily armed and armored; twelve Construction Zeroids; and current four incomplete shells of Space-Marine Zeroids, who would be sent into orbit to monitor the planet from space; and mobile space command platform, for the Space-Marine Zeroids to operate from.
Getting the Space-Marine Zeroids into orbit was easy. All that was needed to launch them was a long barrel and they could reach orbit under their own propulsation system. Once in orbit, they would monitor all of Japan and the surrounding area for Commander Ranma and any signs of the Android Assassin.
In the meantime, the remaining lady Zeroids were scouting out the land and hacked into the Internet looking for unusual news broadcasts. Since this was not their world, everything, at first, was unusually, but they soon learned to filter out the common, every-day news articles. They made notes of the killings in Europe, Russia, and Northern Japan, especially, of those that the victims had striking similarities with Commander Ranma, regardless of age or gender.
When Ryouga came to, some time much later, he had a grin on his face and would be next to impossible for him to perform his trademark ki technique, Shish Houkoudan. The thoughts that Nabiki Tendo could get rid of his curse drown out everything else that happened. That had to suck up to the Ice Queen was annoying, but worth a cure to the biggest hurdle between himself and Akane. That he had to call Nabiki 'Mistress' was no problem, but calling Ranma 'Master,' that he was not sure he could do. But to be cured....
Ryouga scanned the list, and did not have a clue what anything on the list was. But they were written out phonetically with a few notations where he might get the item listed.
He set off to find all the ingredients; after all, he only had until the full moon. Then he would be cured.
Ryouga's laughter could be heard for miles around.
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