[AMG/Ranma][XOver] Instruments of Change, Part Five
Mike Koos
experiences flooding through her mind.
It had been a whirlwind experience, to be sure. After meeting
Ranmira and her three unusual sisters, she'd had a chance meeting
with Peorth, a Goddess and her stand-in mother. Skuld had determined
that Akane genetically exhibited the potential to become a Goddess,
after which Skuld and Ranmira had escorted her to the heavens for an
evaluation as well as an inevitable meeting with Kami-sama.
Kami-sama had the results of her initial evaluations before
Akane had left the Evaluation Center to arrive at His office. There
was an attached note mentioning the unusually high levels of raw power
Akane unexpectedly possessed, though no mention was to be made of that
to her for the time being.
She recalled the meeting... He had declared that Akane was now a
Goddess-in-training - third class, first category, limited - and
would serve the next phase of her evaluation and training as a
Yggdrasil system debugger, apprenticed to Skuld.
Akane had idly wondered for a second why she couldn't be
apprenticed to Ranmira, at which point Kami-sama had smiled and
pointed out that Ranmira was unable to take on an apprentice while
fulfilling Saotome Nodoka's wish.
The rest of the meeting had come and gone without incident. It
wasn't until the two Goddesses were well on their way to their next
stop with their charge that Akane realized she could not remember
exactly what Kami-sama looked like. She remarked as much.
"There's a reason for that," Skuld vaguely waved the thought
away. "It primarily has to do with the fact that you aren't a
'complete' Goddess yet."
Akane blinked. "Speaking of that... um, would Kami-sama look
down on me because I'm not exactly a Goddess by proper birth?" She
hesitated, too wired to concern herself with any of the scenery they
passed. "...Well, you know what I mean..."
"No... Akane, you have nothing to worry about," Skuld offered
her a smile, hoping to draw Akane away from the subject and keep her
spirits up.
An Aa! Megamisama / Ranma 1/2 Crossover
Instruments of Change
Part Five
written by Mike Koos
------------------------
A minute passed before Akane spoke again. "Ano..."
"Yes, Akane-chan?"
"...Kami-sama said I'm going to be a... E... yu..."
"A Yggdrasil system debugger," corrected Ranmira.
Akane nodded. "Yeah. What's that?" As far as she could tell,
a 'system debugger' had something to do with computers, and Nabiki
was better informed in that field than she.
It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea what Goddesses
did on a daily basis.
"Yggdrasil is the computer which insures that everything,
everywhere in the world, runs the way it's supposed to be," Skuld
explained. "Of course, there's a *lot* more to Yggdrasil than that,
but you only need to concern yourself with that basic purpose for
now."
"This... Yggdrasil... deals with all that?" Akane's eyes
widened. "It must be enormous!"
"It is," Ranmira confirmed. Akane looked to her to explain
further, but the Goddess wouldn't elaborate.
By this time, they were passing back through the open doors of
the Evaluation Center. "Now, every so often things go wrong.
Inexplicable events take place. That is due to the effect of bugs in
the system, and as debuggers, it's our job to track the bugs down and
get rid of them so that Yggdrasil runs the way it should."
Akane suppressed a slight shudder. "You mean *actual* bugs that
crawl around and get into everything?"
"Essentially, yes."
<What am I getting myself into?> Akane wondered.
The Goddesses brought her into a small office - the Evaluation
Center was filled with offices that all looked the same, Akane sourly
noted - where she was instructed to lie on a padded examination table
and close her eyes.
Akane did as she was asked.
A warm, welcoming sensation flooded into her from somewhere
close to her head, and spread to each part of her body. She became
aware of three points tingling more than the rest of her body...
forehead, cheeks... hey, weren't those the places where the Goddesses
had the markings on their faces?
Then it was over, and the sense of warmth left her.
"Akane-chan, you can open your eyes," she heard Skuld say.
Ranmira helped her off the examination table. "How do you
feel?" the red-haired Goddess asked.
"Uh... fine, I think." Akane concentrated on her face, brought
a finger up to see if she could feel the markings which were likely
now affixed there... nothing. "Is there a mirror here I can use?"
Skuld gestured to the changing room in the rear of the office,
where a full-length mirror was mounted on a side wall.
There. In the mirror, she was able to see her new 'look' for
herself. Three distinct triangular markings of an amethyst color,
resembling Urd's, except hers were larger and slightly rounded.
Akane breathed a sigh of relief. She had been afraid that
whatever markings they assigned her would resemble Peorth's. The
last thing she felt she needed was to be marked forever as Peorth's
daughter.
She could barely feel the presence of the marks. They
definitely weren't like makeup, which she had been quite aware of on
the few occasions she had worn even the smallest amount of makeup.
Well, if she was going to train to become a Goddess, would it hurt to
look the part?
"Those are your links to Yggdrasil," Skuld informed her.
"Through those, you can communicate with Yggdrasil--"
"...And Yggdrasil can keep an eye on me," finished Akane.
Someone had to, right?
"Yes." Skuld nodded to her sister, who glanced about the room
as though searching for something. Ranmira spotted a small box atop
the solitary desk in the office and made a grab for it. "Ah!"
She handed the small velvet box to Skuld, who opened it, gently
drawing a pair of ornate yet simple golden earrings from within.
"These are your limiters, Akane. They're called limiters because
they keep the amount of your power you can use at any one time at a
low level. Whatever you do, don't take them off." Akane's limiters,
in fact, had been specially designed for her... to limit her power
usage to one-fourth of its maximum potential.
Akane studied her earrings in the mirror while she let Skuld
clip them to her ears. Two gold clips, joined by a fine gold chain
that descended into an enigmatic sapphire sphere. No studs - which
was for the better since she had yet to have her ears pierced.
Someday, perhaps.
"What do you think?"
She examined her profile. "I like it," Akane couldn't help but
giggle. She'd already decided to like Skuld; who else could act like
a one-hundred-percent serious scientific genius one moment and a
young child the next? Ranmira and Belldandy felt like sisters to
her. Then there was Urd, whom she didn't know well enough to judge.
Though for some reason Urd *did* remind her of Nabiki...
"Oh, I almost forgot." Ranmira left the room. A minute later,
she returned with a hammer that resembled the hammers she and Skuld
had displayed for Akane's benefit earlier, except this hammer was
sky-blue. "This is your new debugging hammer."
The Goddess-in-training felt the weight of her hammer in her
hands, a definite step up from her faithful wooden mallet. She
practiced storing and retrieving the hammer to make sure she could
summon it as easily as her mallet. Skuld, meanwhile, was mentioning
exactly *why* she kept her hammer strapped to her back rather than
stored off somewhere in dimensional space, but Akane wasn't paying
close attention.
When had she first called for her mallet? Akane couldn't recall
the exact time. After her... *mother's* passing, she had become
angry enough at a classmate making fun of her for having no mother
that she'd summoned the mallet without realizing she'd done so.
Fortunately, she stopped the swing inches from hitting the bully.
After a while Akane came to accept this new 'ability,' even though
her family was at a loss as for an explanation *why* she could pull a
mallet out of thin air.
Until now.
Hammer held firmly in hand, she decided it was time to revisit
an issue they had briefly discussed earlier. "So what do these bugs
look like?" Better to be prepared, and safe than sorry, she'd always
said...
In response, she heard Ranmira turn a few words in a language
she couldn't understand into quiet, rhythmic verse. Something in
Akane's thoughts told her Ranmira was casting a minor spell... though
she wasn't sure *how* she knew that. Was Yggdrasil somehow silently
supplementing what she knew?
An image shimmered into existence before her at chest level: the
three-dimensional, life-sized image of a bug, floating in the air
between them.
Definitely not the creepy-crawly insect or cybernetic computer
bug she had half-expected to see. No, the bug inspired thoughts of
cockroaches breeding with cute, fluffy bunny rabbits. Almost cute -
if you could get past the thoughts about their possible descent.
This was what she was expected to use her debugging hammer for?
She reached out to 'touch' the projection. "That's what they
look like?" Akane paused. "It looks so real... not like a hologram,
but real."
"Yeah." Skuld snorted. "She can make it move and sound like a
real bug, too. You don't want to know how many times she got me with
that when we were children."
Akane glanced peripherally at Ranmira in time to see the Goddess
stifling a giggle.
An idea took shape in Skuld's mind. "Wait a second... oneesama,
do you think we could use your little projection to test Akane's use
of her hammer?"
Ranmira put a finger to her mouth in thought - and much to
Akane's surprise, the bug mirrored Ranmira's actions. "I... uh,
suppose we could. I haven't really used such a complex projection in
years..."
"It should do," her sister assured her. "At least until I can
get together some kind of virtual-reality projector or whatever to
help people train."
"Like the last one?" suggested Ranmira, her eyebrows raised.
"Akane blinked. "The last one?"
Skuld urgently shushed her sister. "Ah... eh-heh... nothing!
Ranmira was thinking of something else, weren't you, oneesama?"
"Er... yes."
No one spoke for a moment. "But why do I need to train? I've
been using a mallet - I mean, hammer - for years," inquired Akane.
"For one thing, this isn't the same hammer, Akane. Your new
hammer is smaller, thinner and weighs less than the one you've been
using... but it's also augmented with magic to affect more of an
impact.
Akane knew she would learn soon enough why that 'extra impact'
was needed. "Really?" Her face brightened. She drew out her hammer
and studied it closely, thoughts of using it against her rivals
briefly crossing her mind.
The raven-haired Goddess of the Future gave her a look of
suspicion. "Which means that you had better stop thinking about
using it on anyone else."
"How... how did you know?" Akane was stunned. Were her
thoughts being monitored, passed through Yggdrasil?
"I recognized the look on your face," Skuld shrugged. Why, she
herself had wanted to use her hammer on Keiichi more than once after
the first time they'd met... so who was *she* to tell Akane not to
use her hammer on anyone else? She mentally smirked.
Akane blushed. "Oh."
"Akane-chan, I know the temptation to use your hammer on
occasion to solve agreements is difficult to resist, but you are a
Goddess candidate now." There was no indication of a dual intent in
Ranmira's words. "It's not something you should be doing... and I'm
not saying this because you have a tendency to mallet Ranma quite a
bit."
"B-but he usually deserved it! You were there those times - you
know how he thinks!"
"Did he *really* deserve it?
In that instant, hearing those words, Akane understood she was
on the losing end of the argument. "I don't really know."
"You should give him a chance to tell you his side of the story
before you decide his punishment."
She often didn't, at that. Simply pounding on Ranma and walking
away without bothering to listen to him had become all too easy.
<Well, you're supposed to be training to become a Goddess now,> her
mental voice reminded her. <No more of that.>
Akane's shoulders slumped in a gesture of defeat. "I'll never
pass any of these tests."
Skuld flashed her an ear-to-ear grin. "Are you kidding? You'll
probably fit in just fine around here! Now, c'mon! I know just the
place where we can 'train!'"
"Huh? Hey, ah - wait!" Akane was left to wonder what Skuld had
meant by her words as the Goddess dragged her out of the office by
her wrists, Ranmira trailing behind.
** ** **
"WHAT!?"
Trust Kunou Tatewaki never to react calmly or rationally to
anything, Nabiki smirked.
Nabiki had long ago made an effort to learn how to be a fair
judge of character. Urd, Belldandy and Skuld were difficult at best
to read, and she hadn't yet tried to come to a conclusion about
Keiichi; but Kunou-chan was an open book with forty-two point text.
True, a person like Kunou wasn't *always* easy to accurately
second-guess, though he was predictable enough for her to manipulate
whenever the need arose. Marller - a demon! - had proven that point
earlier in the day.
Once Belldandy's spell had erased whatever damage had been
inflicted on him as a result of Marller's plan, Kunou had situated
himself at the family room table, demanding an explanation... after
mistaking Urd for Marller and nearly attacking her with his wooden
sword, recalling fragments of the hold Marller's sword attempted to
take of his mind...
...and since he only had a vague recollection of the face of the
woman who had given him the sword, thanks in no small part to
Marller's illusions, he naturally assumed Urd was the same person.
Urd wasn't sure how her sisters would have reacted under the
same circumstances, but had it not been for Belldandy levitating him
two feet from the ground - leaving him powerless except for that
wooden sword of his - while Nabiki and Mr. Saotome tried to convince
him that Urd was not the 'villianous scoundrel' who had manipulated
him into exposing someone he loved to such great evil...
"Do you mean to tell me that I accepted a dangerous weapon from
a *demon*? Oh, will the shame never cease?"
The one named 'Urd' was giving him the same kind of bemused look
he had come to barely tolerate from Nabiki. Whether or not she was a
Goddess was debatable; there were only two individuals in the world
he ranked with the Goddesses... "Yeah, and you nearly lost your soul
to them, too. Not to mention Akane's."
Nabiki's eyebrows raised at the thought. Was this something
else about the Dalanis Sword which Belldandy and her sisters had
neglected to mention?
Not that there hadn't been plenty of revelations this evening,
already. Her father had fainted after learning that a Goddess known
as Peorth had taken his wife's place for a time, and now his youngest
daughter Akane was a potential Goddess as a result.
After they had brought Soun back to full consciousness, he had
decided that maybe it would be for the best if he avoided any further
revelations for the rest of the night and left to lie down in his
room, with Kasumi tending to him as she normally did whenever her
father's emotions got the better of him.
Kasumi. Kasumi was the only one of the three Tendo daughters to
have been able to know their original mother, thought Nabiki. But
that wasn't entirely true, was it? Akane was just as much Peorth's
daughter now as she was Tendo Hiroko's.
As a Goddess, Akane would be able to seek out at least one -
maybe both! - of her mothers and talk to them. Being only one year
older than Akane... and *Mortal*, at that, Nabiki had never been able
to get to know her true mother. She would never have that chance,
either.
<Geez, Akane always gets all the breaks.>
No - it wouldn't be right to be jealous of Akane. That wouldn't
help matters at all.
And what of Ranma? Having spent so much time on the road, had
he ever known his mother? What had happened to Mrs. Saotome, for
that matter? Maybe Ranmira would know, though from experience Nabiki
assumed the Goddesses would not be so quick to tell her anything.
She would just have to search for the relevant information on her
own as always. Her contacts needed the workout.
"The dreadful horror of it all! To think that I, Kunou
Tatewaki, age seventeen, the 'Blue Thunder' and ever-rising star of
Fuurinkan High, could place the lives of my dear Tendo Akane and the
pig-tailed goddess at risk!"
Now, on to the matter of one ever-annoying eloquent Kendo
swordsman.
"Speaking of that, Kunou-chan," Nabiki fixed him with the best
solemn stare she could put together on such short notice, "there is
another reason these Goddesses are here."
"What would that be, mercenary?"
Nabiki's expression darkened at the mention of the title. "I
thought you might like to know that both Akane and your pig-tailed
goddess have gone to the heavens."
Kunou paled. "You are lying, Tendo Nabiki. I caused them no
harm."
She shook her head in a negative. "I am not lying," she said,
earnestly.
"It is a trick!" Kunou shot to his feet and raced toward the
front gate. "Tendo Akane and the pig-tailed goddess are out there,
somewhere! I shall find them!"
"Nabiki-san, you shouldn't have done that."
Nabiki shrugged in response to Belldandy's stern tone. "All I
did was tell him the truth. He usually ignores that, anyway."
Belldandy opened her mouth to respond, but was cut short by the
loud squeal of a pig close to her feet. She glanced downward at the
same time as Nabiki to find P-chan looking up at them in bewilderment.
"Oh, hello, P-chan," Nabiki dryly greeted him. "Glad to see you
could find your way back."
She knew who P-chan truthfully was, of course. While Nabiki
wasn't thrilled with the thought of Ryouga potentially taking
advantage of her little sister, the truth was that Akane did need
people to be close to her and protect her. That the arrangement gave
her something she could use to individually manipulate *both* Ryouga
and Ranma was an added benefit.
On second thought, she figured it would be for the best to
remove Ranma from the list of people she could directly manipulate,
now that she knew a Goddess would be watching her through Ranma's
eyes.
Belldandy scooped P-chan into her arms and brought the startled
pig up to her eyes. "What a cute little pig. Is he your pet?" she
asked Nabiki, who shook her head.
"I guess you could say he's Akane's pet."
A snort came from the table. "She keeps a pig as a pet?"
P-chan threw a glare in Keiichi's direction as if to say, "What
of it?" - which silenced him. Nervously Keiichi opted to shrug
instead of saying anything.
<Wait a minute!> Nabiki studied Belldandy's reaction to the
animal she held. Could the Goddess recognize that the pig was
actually a human being cursed to wear that form whenever he got wet?
Or, even if they couldn't detect that simply on sight alone - maybe
they needed some special power or something - surely Belldandy
recognized the presence of whatever magic or power was contained in
Ryouga's body to comprise the curse.
Up until Ranma's arrival on their doorstep after returning from
China, Nabiki had never placed much stock in magic. She'd seen some
things that were routinely considered impossible in her view of the
world, but aside from that Nabiki had led a normal life - which, now
that she thought about it, was rather boring compared to the life she
led now. There was certainly no lack of anything unusual to happen...
Another issue, meanwhile, nagged at her thoughts. Ryouga often
announced his appearances by directing all of his fury at Ranma.
Nabiki figured she had a good idea of most of the reasons fueling
Ryouga's anger - the curse, frustration over being lost far too
often... and, naturally, Akane. Sure, Ryouga wasn't around as much
as he would have preferred, though why hadn't Akane noticed Ryouga's
feelings toward her?
If Ryouga followed his usual pattern of attack first and then
think later, how would he react when Ranmira returned, assuming it
would be her and not Ranma? On one hand, Ranmira wasn't a fighter in
the same sense of the word as Ranma - but if Ryouga attacked her, he
would be facing Ranmira's powers as a Goddess, and possibly those of
her three sisters as well. Maybe even Akane, at that.
Genma probably deserved a little divine retribution for
everything he'd done over the years. Ryouga did not.
She sighed; the question, "What could possibly go wrong?" was
practically a sign of impending doom, these days...
** ** **
"Are you ready, Akane-chan?"
Akane considered her answer to that question. Skuld and Ranmira
had taken her to what appeared to be an arena, or perhaps a
coliseum... the carved stone structure reminded Akane of pictures
she had seen in her history books. Was this reminiscent of ancient
Roman or Grecian architecture? Or both? She couldn't remember, nor
did she want to waste time trying to consult Yggdrasil for the answer.
From the damage she could see in the polished arena walls, a few
dedicated fights had taken place here. But who would be fighting
here, in the heavens? Akane was grateful that there were no people
seated in the arena seats above them to watch her practice.
She drew her hammer, holding it - and herself - at the ready.
"Ready!" she announced.
Akane could see Ranmira begin to cast her spell from where she
stood. Time to concentrate. She'd allowed herself time to adjust to
the feel of her new debugging hammer. Skuld had been right; this
hammer was weighted differently than her own, not to mention having a
smaller head and long, thin handle. She couldn't simply swing it
into targets without much thought as she could her mallet. No, Akane
knew, she would have to aim her swings with better precision.
Ranmira waved her hands in front of her like a puppeteer.
Casting a hasty look around her, Akane could see why. There the bug
was, bouncing about at her feet, beside her - coincidentally
mirroring the movements Ranmira made with her hands.
Uttering a battle cry, Akane swung the hammer about... a wide
swing that allowed the bug to be far away from the landing site when
the hammer came in contact with the ground. Oops... She glanced
momentarily at Skuld, but the Goddess said nothing, and merely
watched.
In truth, Skuld was reminded of her own attempts to learn the
proper way to use her hammer. She hadn't quite gotten the hang of it
herself, especially since real bugs weren't the easiest things in the
Universe to catch. Urd liked to make fun of Skuld and Ranmira's
efforts in debugging - since Ranmira was a little less successful
with her hammer against the bugs than Skuld - though Urd wasn't that
much more successful than any of her sisters when it came to
debugging.
Akane was showing the potential to become a good debugger.
A familiar grunt indicated that Akane's hammer had found its
mark. Actually, the head of her hammer had passed through the bug...
an unusual sight, Skuld had to admit. Ranmira dispelled the
projection and created a new one.
This time, the projection was more agile and deliberately harder
to catch.
"On to Level Two, I guess," muttered Akane.
Skuld watched with interest as the second bug darted through and
around Akane's ankles. A grin brightened her face as she recognized
that her sister was deliberately teasing the Goddess candidate.
She'd never really had the opportunity to see someone fighting bugs
without having to worry that the bugs' presence would cause something
to go wrong somewhere. Akane was reminding Skuld of herself... even
when Ranmira had the bug leap for Akane's head after a failed strike.
Akane yelped in surprise, leaping backward several feet.
"Wh-what did you do that for?"
Skuld made a pathetic attempt to hide her amusement over the
incident from Akane. "That's the way the bugs behave. You expect
them to stand still and let us get them?"
"......No. Of course not." As an afterthought, Akane brought
the head of her hammer down upon the non-moving bug next to her.
The projected bug vanished. "No fair!" Ranmira blurted. "I
wasn't ready!" When she noticed Akane's laughter, she smiled. "Oh,
okay. If that is how you want to train..."
Without prompting from Skuld, *two* of Ranmira's projections
appeared beside Akane.
She heard Skuld's startled gasp. Was something wrong?
Skuld was watching her sister with concern. <What...?> Aside
from a hint of strain in the way Ranmira was carrying herself, Akane
couldn't discern anything out of the ordinary with Ranmira. However,
if Ranmira was straining, it would be a good idea to get this
training session over with, and soon. She turned her attention back
to the bugs...
Which didn't move. After a handful of seconds Ranmira fainted,
falling over - the bugs fading along with her.
"Ranmira-san!"
"Oneesama!" Skuld dived to catch Ranmira, while Akane ran to
rejoin them. "What's wrong? Is she..."
"Shh." The raven-haired Goddess cast a quick spell to bring her
sister back to consciousness.
Ranmira groaned. ".........I... guess I didn't regain as much
strength after that fight as I thought I did..."
The concern in Skuld's voice was unmistakable. "You knew you
needed to rest. Why did you agree to do this, oneesama? And if you
were tired, why create two bugs and then attempt to control them?
Surely it can't be easy!"
"Yes... it isn't. Akane? Can I... ask a favor of you?"
Akane dropped to her knees and moved closer. "...Sure."
Pause. "In my pocket. I still have two of the chocolate bars
Urd bought for me... after the fight. Could you help me open them,
please?"
She reached a cautious hand into the pocket she assumed Ranmira
had been indicating with her eyes, half-expecting the pocket to be
extradimensionally large or something along those lines. It wasn't,
at least not as far as she could tell; then again, Ranmira's pockets
were probably similar to the place where Akane stored her mallet or
hammer - only the person who used that 'storage space' could reach
into it. In no time at all Akane had found the candy bars and was
unwrapping them.
Skuld pulled Ranmira to a short block of polished marble and
lifted the other Goddess onto it, bracing Ranmira when she made an
effort to sit up.
"If you need to rest," said Akane, placing one of the unwrapped
bars in Ranmira's hands, "why stop to eat chocolate?"
"Akane, always remember that all Goddesses - even candidates
such as yourself - have a finite amount of power. If we try to use
too much power at once, we become exhausted and need to rest to
recover our strength. However, there are... occasionally, things
which can give us a boost in power without having to rest. Ranmira's
favorite just happens to be chocolate. She's addicted to it," Skuld
grinned.
<Does Ranma like chocolate? I wonder...> "So what's yours?"
Skuld's grin lost its strength. "Oh, uh... ah..."
"Ice cream," Ranmira commented, taking a smaller bite from her
chocolate than Akane had come to expect from Ranma. "She's addicted
to it."
As Skuld blushed in slight embarrassment, Akane laughed.
"...Anyway, we should probably end this practice session. We
need to start on the next part of Akane's training. Oneesama, are
you sure you'll be all right?"
"Yes." Ranmira composed herself.
"Shouldn't we be going back to my house, though? I do have
school tomorrow and..." Privately, Akane wouldn't have minded missing
school for a few days - although she doubted anyone, deity or Mortal,
would appreciate her doing so. Even worse... what if she would have
to 'transfer' from Fuurinkan High to a school *here*, if that was how
it worked? Maybe Kami-sama wouldn't look down on her because of her
'improper birth,' but she had no guarantee any other Goddesses or
Gods would react the same.
Well, no matter what they threw at her, she was just going to
have to weather it and show them just what kind of Goddess she could
become.
Skuld absently nodded. "That's where we're going. Just
remember, you're now 'on call.' And... because I'm going to have to
remain close to you while you're training, Akane-chan, they've asked
me to enroll in your classes at Fuurinkan High."
"I thought you wanted to take a couple of classes at Nekomi,
first," quipped Ranmira, smiling. Skuld threw her a curious look.
The idea sounded strange to Akane. Skuld, attend her classes at
Fuurinkan High? Sure, the Goddess was probably more than eligible to
take the classes, but wouldn't the faculty have something to say
about a girl who looked to be four or five years younger than expected
signing up?
That wasn't the real reason Akane was concerned, however. "Um,
really? I don't know... it can get pretty weird in our part of the
world. And I'm not just talking about all the fights."
"We're used to seeing weird things, believe me. You don't have
to worry about us."
"I guess... I just don't want you to get hurt in all the
nonsense that goes on there."
"I'm sure we'll be able to handle it. After all, my sister's a
martial artist, now!" joked Skuld.
Ranmira inhaled. "Ranma's the martial artist, not me."
"Fine. Then let *him* handle all the problems." The Goddess of
the Future sighed. "Okay, let's get going. I don't want to be late
for my first day of school." It went without saying that she didn't
want to have to endure high school, given that she felt she was
better-suited to a university-level curriculum, yet she did have a
responsibility to her new apprentice. Fortunately, neither Akane nor
Ranmira seemed to have noticed her discomfort. She shrugged. <Akane
should be more worried about the weirdness she's going to see from
now on.>
** ** **
At the Tendo the home, the phone rang.
Nabiki checked the clock in the family room. "One-seventeen in
the morning," she grumbled, getting to her feet to answer the phone.
"Who the heck calls at one-seventeen in the morning?"
That it was late was not surprising to Nabiki - but why was she
staying up to wait for Akane when she had been given no indication
her younger sister would return anytime soon? She had school in the
morning. Most people had already departed for home and bed. Mr.
Saotome was likely curled up in his bedroll as a panda by now.
Keiichi, Belldandy and Urd had left; she didn't know or care where
Kunou was at the moment, and Ryouga had disappeared as well. Not
that it mattered much to her at this time of night.
Kasumi's voice filtered to her from the kitchen. "I'll answer
the phone!"
Huh? Kasumi? When had she returned from taking care of their
father? <Sleep. I need sleep. Lots of it.>
Nabiki considered resting her head on her arms and falling
asleep at the table. So what if she overslept and missed part of her
classes in the morning? School had at once become far less of a
concern than it had been earlier in the day... Akane was going to be
a Goddess, someone in control of the world in which Nabiki and other
Mortals lived, if things worked out well. This was either the best
thing to happen to Akane in her life - or the most disatrous. No...
she reconsidered that thought. Better to have learned about Akane's
potential *now* and taken steps to keep her powers under control than
to allow her to discover her powers later in nonstandard ways, with
devastating results.
"I doubt you'd want to see your sister become a demon, right?"
Urd had asked her. She tried to imagine Akane becoming a demon, like
that Marller woman...
Marller, who was evil enough to inspire an adverse reaction in
Belldandy and her sisters at the mention of her name alone - and evil
enough to force Ranmira to reveal her presence. Nabiki was willing
to bet that Ranmira still wanted to zap Marller if the Goddess had
the chance.
She wasn't a Goddess herself, Nabiki knew, but what would *she*
do if she ever found herself face-to-face with Marller? After all,
Marller had put Akane, Kunou and who knew how many others in the area
at risk with that stupid sword of evil...
"Oh, Nabiki."
Nabiki forced her attention away from her musings to look,
awkwardly, at her elder sister. She hadn't heard Kasumi approach.
"Kasumi-oneechan... who was that on the phone?"
Kasumi seemed to be her normal cheerful self, which even at one
A.M. in the morning wasn't unusual. "That was Akane on the phone.
She wanted to let us know that she and the others will be returning
soon."
<So THAT'S why I've been staying up,> smirked Nabiki. "How
soon?"
A flash of golden light from the direction of the garden
attracted their attention. "Akane said, 'right away.'"
Nabiki pursed her lips. "Oh."
"Tadaima--!!" Akane and Skuld carried Ranmira into the house on
their shoulders.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Kasumi. "Are you all right, Ranmira-san?"
Akane raised her head, the overhead light playing off her new
limiters and spotlighting the triad of markings on her face for
Nabiki and Kasumi to see. "She'll be fine. She just needs to rest."
After Kasumi helped Skuld and Akane settle Ranmira into a chair
at the family-room table, Nabiki pulled her sister aside. "Heh. My
sister, the Goddess."
Akane smiled. "I'm only a Goddess-in-training, oneechan."
"So what happened to Peorth?"
Akane's expression abruptly turned dark. "I don't know, and I
don't care." With that, she walked back to Ranmira's side.
The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps from the hallway
broke the silence that followed.
"RANMA!" Hibiki Ryouga lunged toward a surprised Ranmira. "I'M
GOING TO *KILL* YOU!"
(...to be continued...)
------------
Oops. In the previous part, when I mentioned that this story takes
place before Volume 22, that was obviously only the Ranma half of the
equation. ^_^ In regard to A!MG, I assume this takes place sometime
after Volume 11 of the manga.
Credits:
Written by: Mike Koos
Prereaders: Richard Beaubien, Kevin D. Hammel, Jonathan Ng,
Shadowmane, Tom Williams, David Wills
Special Thanks: Artemis & Luna
With apologies to Takahashi Rumiko and Fujishima Kosuke...
All parts of this series are available at the RAAC archives at
ftp://ftp.cs.ubc.ca/pub/archive/anime-fan-works
or from my WWW pages at
http://www.anime.usacomputers.net/~makoto/index.htm
Comments and questions welcome.
*****************************
* Mike ('Kino Makoto') Koos * "I can do nothing to stop you.
*---------------------------* Your background music is too
* email: mak...@mother.com * strong for me."
***************************** - Whose Line is it Anyway?
www: http://www.anime.usacomputers.net/~makoto/index.htm