[Ranma/SM][FanFic] Destiny's Child, Chapter 05
Fire
The characters contained within this story are owned by Takahashi
Rumiko or Takeuchi Naoko. No infringement of copyright is intended.
This work to be distributed for free, unchanged, crediting the current
author.
This is a crossover between Ranma 1/2 and Sailor Moon. To make the two
stories fit together the way I wanted, I needed to shuffle the dates at
which a few things occur within the main timeline of Sailor Moon. I bow
my head in shame: please forgive. We also have guest appearances by
Slayers and 3x3 Eyes.
Die hard fans of Ranma may also notice a very subtle change to it's
story timeline...
This story is dedicated to the letters I and M and the number 24.96.
Visit my website at
dzil...@ozemail.com.au
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dzillman/fire
_________________
/ \
| Destiny's Child |
\_________________/
What has gone before:
While on a training trip with his father, Ranma fell into the spring of
the drowned young girl. Unfortunately, his curse can only be changed
back with _very_ hot water, which means he spends most of the time in
his cursed form. Not only that, but since the spring was drowned young
girl, he turns into a 12 year old girl who never ages.
It is now the mid 1600s, and Ranma must deal with the fact that Akane -
his wife of the last 50 years - has died of old age, and he still looks
like an 18 year old. After returning to Jusenkyo to find that the
Nyanniichuan had dried up, he lived with the Amazons for several
decades. However, all good things come to an end, and rather than see
another generation of his friends grow old and die, Ranma has left the
village.
-------------------------------
Welcome To The Big, Wide, World
-------------------------------
As the small girl struggled up the mountain side, Tendo Ranma pondered
her future. All she owned, she carried on her back. True, she carried a
weight heavier than any twelve year old should possibly be able to
lift, but it was all her worldly belongings. A century of muscle
strengthening and Ki focusing allowed her to move a fairly weighty
quantity of possessions.
As she walk through the lush forest, Ranma catalogued what she had. A
change of clothes, and some cold weather gear. Some knives and a pot
for camping. A week of rice and dried meat. A small book filled with
meticulous summaries of magic and herbalism. The book of Amazon law. A
sealed, waterproof case holding three pictures of Akane. And slightly
over a hundred kilos of gold and jewels.
Travelling light was no reason to travel poor.
Ranma spent almost two years in the vast forests of China. She wandered
most days, idly trekking first north, then heading east, having decided
to find the ocean. By the time she reached the northern reaches of the
Pacific Ocean, Ranma was firmly convinced that the life of isolation
and meditation was definitely the wrong way to find a cure.
Ranma admitted that he had never been the brightest student around.
While he could learn most things fairly well, unless it was fighting,
he had few new ideas. At least after two years of trying, no-one could
say that he had not tried being a wandering hermit or scholar. Best to
leave no stone unturned. There would be a cure to this curse, it was
only a matter of finding it.
Heading south along the coast of China, Ranma tried the studious life
in the cities. While there, she would sometimes convert some of her
wealth into investments. Living off the income of a small trading
company made life easy, and let her hire the scholars or mages she
sought.
This passed another six years, washed away in the sea of time. People's
faces changed, cities changed, but only three things stayed the same:
big business, big taxes, and little Ranma.
Eight years from her home wasted, and nothing to show for it. In all
her time, no new ideas had occurred, no mystics with an infallible
cure, no new hope. All that had happened was that a few careless
investments had bloomed, and she had accidentally doubled her money. As
if that mattered.
Leaving his investments in the care of managers, Ranma again hit the
road. He had considered going to Japan, land of his birth, but that
felt too much like defeat. To return now, uncured, would be to
acknowledge his failure. He would be no better that a wandering Ronin,
drifting and worthless, eternally cursed and worthless. He would not,
could not, return now. Not until the day he could face his deceased
wife with pride, and say that for all eternity he was the man he could
not be for her in life.
Southwest it was. To India, a land of mystics and meditative wise men.
It was an older, wiser and much humbler Tendo Ranma which walked north
over a century later. The Indian mystics were vast libraries of
spiritual knowledge, and he had learnt all that was available. Ranma's
already potent battle aura had soared to level levels, and then shrunk
again as she learned to control her aura and hide it from view.
When Ranma walked north, strength buoyed by Ki, she radiated no more
aura than any normal person. Unless she was truly aroused, Ranma could
shield her spiritual strength from even the most observant.
Stopping through China on the way to her next destination, Ranma
disposed of more of her accumulated gold. Living frugally for so long
had dampened her lust for material wealth, even though it had been
small to start with. Since the trading companies she had invested with
earlier still existed, she turned their control, and most of her assets
over to a group of investors. They would hold her money in perpetual
trust and investment until she or her descendants chose to withdraw it.
Properly prepared for the aesthetic life she expected, Ranma headed
north to Tibet.
For many years she moved from place to place. A decade here, or a few
months there, she sought a cure, and learned all that was available on
spiritualism and Martial Arts. Then she found the Tewon Monastery.
It was situated at the top of the sharp spire, in the middle of a set
of inhospitable, rocky mountains. The first question Ranma had asked
when she found out it's existence was 'why there', the answer was
simple: no-one would visit there unless they were very serious. Monks
hate tourists.
The second question which occurred was 'what could they possibly eat
there'. Ranma wondered this as she ascended the mountain side. The
spire was a difficult climb, even for someone as experienced as her.
The rock was almost vertical in most places, and the rough edges were
as sharp as glass, ready to cut the hands and feet of the unwary.
Carrying a pack and walking staff only made things harder.
Eventually Ranma made it to the top and looked around. The top of the
spire was almost a perfect circle, and would have been about three
hundred meters across. It was not the fact that people lived here which
shocked her the most. It was not even the large and ornate stone
temples - they may have been carved from the spire before it was
levelled.
The most impressive aspect of the entire monastery was the symbolic
entryway. The entry was comprised of three massive wooden poles, two
vertically, and one horizontally at the top. Each pole must have been
over half a meter thick, and five meters long, and must have weighted
over a ton. There could never have been trees like that up here, and
even though she had walked here, Ranma had not seen any suitably sized
trees for three days walk. How could the possibly have moved them here?
Recovering from her awe, Ranma looked for signs of life, and eventually
found a meditating Monk sitting directly below the entry. When she
approached, the Monk looked up and offered her a seat on the ground.
When Ranma was seated, she bowed and spoke. "Wise One, I have come
seeking knowledge and a cure for my curse. May I have you assistance?"
The elderly Monk nodded his head. "Yes, young one. Any who are willing
may learn all we can teach. I will begin your first lesson when you get
me a bucket of water from the well."
Ranma looked around, then did a quick search of the village. Returning,
she sat in front of the Monk. "Wise One, where is the well so that I
might get you the water?"
"Down that hill, and two kilometres east."
"WHAT? How am I supposed to get a bucket of water up this forsaken
mountain?"
The Monk smiled and looked her squarely in the eye. "That is your first
lesson. All will be explained when you bring the water."
It took her two months just to complete that first task. Every time she
ascended the mountain, the old Monk was sitting there. After a while,
she wondered what he ate and drank. That was lesson five.
Over time Ranma learned much. If the Indians had taught her the depth
of spirituality, then what the Tibetans taught her was nothing short of
magic.
The Monks taught her to see the world as it really was, and to see her
curse as a blessing, and not something to be countered. As the decades
rolled by, Ranma learned the ancient and hidden secrets, known only to
those who dedicated their lives to the pursuit of such things. Lesson
twelve revealed the meaning of human existence in the greater scheme of
things... a lot of the strange events in her life made sense after
having that explained.
Much time had passed when Ranma felt a presence moving up the side of
the mountain. Sitting in the entry way, she rested her Tibetan staff
next to her. Ranma waited for the weary seeker of wisdom to approach
her, time was something she had ample of. Despite her apparent age, she
could hear the respect in the seeker's voice as he asked. "Wise One, I
come to the monastery seeking knowledge and understanding. Is there
someone here who can teach me?"
The Ranma nodded her head. "Yes, young one. Any who are willing may
learn all we can teach. I will begin your first lesson when you get me
a bucket of water from the well."
The seeker looked around, then did a quick search of the village.
Returning, he sat in front of Ranma. "Wise One, where is the well so
that I might get you the water?"
It was when those words were spoken that Ranma came to a revelation.
She had failed. She had given in. She had spent decades in this useless
place, no closer to a cure than before she arrived. Truly she had
gained much knowledge, but she had forsaken who she was. No longer was
she the man that Akane had married all those long years ago. Now she
was a stranger. A stranger who had relinquished all pretences at
searching for a cure.
"Wise One? Where is the well?"
"Where indeed? I shall show you the well. When you return, another will
continue your education. This is no longer my place."
Without a backwards glance, without a wave goodbye, Ranma lead the
seeker of knowledge to the edge of the cliff and looked at him. "You
may come with me, but I fear you will not like the path I travel. The
well is two kilometres east."
With that, she gripped her staff in one hand, stepped off the edge and
plummeted to the ground, hundreds of meters below. Moments before
becoming one with the rocky floor of the valley, Ranma called the words
'RAY WING!', and continued to walk, apparently ignoring both the fall
and the laws of physics. Perhaps not everything she had learned was
useless. Turning east she went home, to the year of 1939.
Reaching China, she discovered there was a war. From Ranma's
perspective, it was a civil war. When he was born, it was in Japan, and
there he had been raised. His wife, the woman he missed every day of
his life was there, her spirit a part of that proud nation. China was
the land which had become his home. China was the land of the
Joketsuzoku. It was the land of Deodorant, Liniment, Brush, Cologne and
many other Amazons. It was the land that had taken him in when the pain
of loss in Japan was too strong to live with.
Ranma turned east. There was no way he could fight in a war between
China and Japan. They were both his family, and he owed his loyalties
to them both. If he could not go home to find himself, to restore the
inner youth which he had sacrificed for wisdom, then he must again
travel.
The land was cold, and the languages strange when she again stopped
travelling. Ranma had found what he sought. His own cause, so close to
futility after three centuries of searching, was worn and decayed. When
he found the Polish partisans, when he saw the horrors of the German
invaders, and the equal horror of their Russian liberators, he found a
new cause.
Ranma the Rebel. It became a name to fear. Apparently a small girl,
this rebel leader had risen through the ranks of the Polish partisans,
fighting for the freedom of a country and a people she never knew. The
girl was a master of disguise and evasion; despite the best the
authorities could do, she could never be caught. Even after a traitor
identified the tavern in which she was staying one night, she managed
to slip out somehow, to all evidence having escaped with the men
released.
With the return to his first true love, fighting, Ranma again found his
inner child. He found the strength to move on, to fight again. To
continue the search, and to succeed where success was needed most.
All fights have winners and losers. As much as Ranma hated to admit it,
this was one fight which his side had lost. After three decades of
resistance, his compatriots were worn out, and no longer willing to
continue the fight. That was Ranma's cue to leave: when she was the
only person who called for action, who rallied for resistance, then the
fight was over. The same night she realised this, she said goodbye to
her few surviving friends, and vanished forever from that part of the
world.
Even as he walked back across Europe and China he thought on what he
had learned there. The Indian and Tibetan knowledge was grand, but it
was not who he was. War and guns were also not who he was. He was a
fighter and a teacher. He was a man who fought fairly and openly with
hands and feet, not hiding behind a barrel.
Ranma knew that he could have fought differently in Poland. With his
knowledge, he could even return to the Joketsuzoku and finally rid them
of the Musk - assuming they were still fighting. But that was not how
he wanted to be. After searching and excelling so long, he wanted to be
normal. He wanted normal problems, and normal answers. Even though he
had been raised in violent times, Poland had shown him the futility of
killing.
Fighting was fine, but to kill another human being... Nothing was
accomplished. Friends or family would take up the cause, and you would
be back where you started. However, the man you fight with today, may
become tomorrow's ally when differences are reconciled. It was time to
start again. Time to shed the years of his searching, and regain his
lost youth. From there, he would search anew, his quest until the end
of time.
The very minute that his foot touched Japanese soil - as soon as he
left the gang plank - Ranma wondered why he had ever left Japan. When
he walked away from the dock and into a park, he literally kneeled down
and kissed the ground of the land that he was born in. In the fight to
free himself from the curse, he had been knocked down, but he had stood
up again. He realised that there could be no defeat, only surrender.
Even as he stood in the park and rallied against the Kami, they showed
their opinion and sent rain. Changing to a girl, Ranma laughed and
danced in the light rain, revelling in the feelings of happiness. It
was good to be home. Home for the holiday, home to rest and think.
Somewhere to stay and regain her zest for life. Somewhere that she was
the local, a person who belonged.
It was also time to visit her wife.
---
End Of Chapter