Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Chained World: The Fall of the House of Kuno ❯ The Immovable Object ( Chapter 15 )

This was originally published by me under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi.

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”And warriors such as you — chains cannot hold them, mind and personality alterations soon fail, outright mental control is temporary at best when it works at all.”

— Ku Lon to Ranma, “A New Future — Things Change”

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Ranma strode down the hall, still naked as the day she was born, eyes fixed on the large guard walking in front of her, the guard she'd intimidated following behind her. She ignored the whistles of appreciation, twice over looks of admiration, and lewd comments from the men (and some of the women) the trio passed, outward expression unchanged from the cold mask she wore — but inside, her delight grew as she watched the guard in front of her grow more tense with every whistle and comment, sweat stains on his shirt appearing and growing. The guards, at least, knew who — and what — she was. Oh, they knew....

Finally, in an amused, condescending tone she mock-whispered, “You can relax, I'm not going to lose it and blow this place apart.”

The guard in front relaxed even as a blush ran from his hairline down the back of his neck under his collar, and the expression on the face of the latest man to lewdly comment on the luck of whoever bought her went from a leer to curiosity.

Then, the three turned into a corridor with a single door at the end. The lead guard took off his badge and ran it through a scanner to the side, punched a code into a keypad, and leaned forward to allow a scanner to run across his eyes, then stepped back. A few seconds later, the door slowly opened, the lead guard motioned Ranma through and she looked around at the room she found herself in.

The room was large, round, and well lit. In the middle was a stone slab, polished to the point that one could barely tell that it was black, surrounded by circles of sigils and writing in an alphabet Ranma had never seen before. At equal distances around the outermost circle were three men and a woman in their own circles, dressed in robes and wearing veils. Spaced at even intervals around the wall were another twenty or so individuals of both sexes.

Behind her, a female voice said, “Ranko.” Turning, she found that the door she'd come through had vanished, and several more of the robed, faceless people stood against the wall behind her. One of them had stepped forward with a large goblet, decorated with engraved sigils, in her hands. She offered the goblet to Ranma. “Drink this, then lie down on the slab,” the woman instructed. Ranma took the cup, drank the contents down in quick gulps, handed it back, then turned and strode to the slab and lay down.

For a few minutes, nothing happened. Then, the room suddenly seemed to shrink, then expand, shrink again, growing hazy even as her view of the ceiling was obscured by indistinct people-shaped forms. Ranma gasped in surprise at the feel of hands running along her body, over her breasts, tweaking her nipples, up between her legs, slipping inside her. Slow minutes passed in waves of pleasure at the continuing stimulation and the sound of rising chants as her view of the room went dark, and she sank into a dreamless sleep.

 

Ranma found himself floating in a void, naked but his normal male self. Looking around, it seemed as if he could see forever, off into infinity, and infinity was filled with stars of varying sizes from pinpricks to large balls of light, all of them connected by a lattice of flowing streams of light. It's beautiful — like a three-dimensional spider web in the morning dew, he thought in stunned amazement. But what is it? Where am I?

Then the void seem to reverberate with the sound of a massive impact behind him, and Ranma found himself turning in place as the need to see what was happening filled the pigtailed boy. Behind him, Ranma found a stone wall, like the walls of some of the ancient monasteries he and his father had visited during their travels, extending up, down, to both sides into infinity.

The wall seemed to shiver as another crashing impact reverberated through the void even as it seemed to bounce around inside his head, cracks radiating out in all directions from a central point, and somehow Ranma knew he didn't want whatever was on the other side of the wall to get through. But how ... ? Ranma glared at the wall, determination to somehow keep it whole filling him, and his eyes widened as in response the cracks shrank, vanishing from the ends inward.

What ... how ... he thought in amazement, then stiffened in sudden realization, willing himself to turn to again look at the shining lattice. The Adjustment, this must be it! The ... the web, it must be my mind! And the wall ... He again turned to face the wall. “It must be my mind's defense against intrusion, and whoever's trying to get through ...

A third impact resounded, but this time it sounded weak, distant, and though the wall shivered no cracks formed. For a moment, exultation filled the martial artist as he realized that he could hold forever, that whoever was on the other side of the wall was powerless to break through. And what then? he asked himself. This is the Adjustment ... if they can't set it up, if they fail, they won't offer you for sale, the deal's off, and everything falls back on the Tendos.

Ranma's shoulders slumped, and he chuckled wryly. Just how many times do I hafta make the same decision? But then, I already made it, in Kuno's office, the rest is just follow-through. So, how do I let whoever that is in?

He tried relaxing, to slip into an unresisting meditative trance, and the fourth impact was again at full strength, cracks again spreading out from a central point, then farther at the fifth impact, the sixth, the seventh. But the eighth impact came, and though the wall shook the cracks no longer grew. Nor did they grow at the ninth, and Ranma found a growing desperation shaking his meditative calm. No! Whoever it is hasto get through, he has to! But the tenth impact came and there was no change — it was as if his mind had hit a limit beyond which it could not let go, and Ranma's calm shattered in desperation. Akane ... Kasumi, Nabiki ... he thought, and memories rose: Akane holding her as she drifted off to sleep in her former fiancée's bed on perhaps their last night together (just sleep, unfortunately — she hadn't been able to get images of Kuno out of her mind, and Akane had never really swung that way anyway), waking up to find a bleary-eyed Akane still holding her, not having slept all night, the two talking the morning away and then rocking the larger girl in her lap as Akane cried herself to sleep, tucking her into bed and taking a last, soft kiss as Kasumi knocked on the door to announce that the guards sent to collect her had arrived; a final embrace from a sobbing Kasumi, Nabiki doing her best to keep her threadbare “Ice Queen” act in place, her parents stiff-faced and formal, her father giving her a warrior's arm clasp in farewell even as tears rolled down her mother's cheeks....

As the memories rolled over him, Ranma felt something deep inside, seemingly at his very core, finally relax, and the next impact came like a thunderclap. The wall shook, then seemed to explode toward him. In the center of the massive hole left, Ranma found himself staring at another naked man, somewhat older than the teenage boy, classically handsome with cobalt-blue hair, floating in the empty, lightless void revealed on the other side of the wall. Even as the stranger gasped as he stared in shock at the pigtailed boy, everything faded out and the world went black.

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A shaking, sweat-soaked Noguchi Susumu staggered into his office and collapsed into the chair at his desk. Egami looked up from where he sat reading a tablet and glanced at the clock in the wall. “It's been over two hours,” he commented nonchalantly as Susumu opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out a bottle of expensive, and strong, Irish whiskey and several glasses with shaking hands, and filled one glass almost to the brim. Egami shook his head when Susumu raised the second glass questioningly, and Susumu emptied the glass he'd poured in several large gulps.

Putting down the empty glass, Susumu turned to face the Emperor's Hand. “Believe me, Egami-sama, I know very well how many hours it's been,” he replied. “That was the hardest Adjustment I've ever performed, and I pray to all the kami that it always will be!”

“But it was successful?” Egami asked, then frowned when Susumu nodded. “I must admit I'm surprised,” he said thoughtfully. “I didn't expect you to be able to break the will of a mind that strong.”

“Don't be,” Susumu replied with a wry chuckle. “The only reason I was able to accomplish anything was because he — she — chose to let me in. But Egami-sama, there are ... problems.”

Egami's eyebrows rose and he straightened in his seat, his apparent nondescriptness vanishing as Susumu found himself resisting an urge to shrink back in his chair, away from the Hand's laser-like focus. “Report,” Egami said simply, and Susumu nodded jerkily.

“First, you were right — Ranko has a plan to get around the Adjustment. Do you have anything in her file about the Neko-ken?”

Egami nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, we do, and I have to admit we'd never considered how something like that would affect Adjustment. Would it work?”

Susumu shrugged. “I can't say for certain, but probably — not that it matters.” At Egami's questioning look, he continued, “That was the most slapdash, baling wire-and-bubblegum Adjustment I've ever performed. Even after Ranma stopped consciously resisting me, his subconscious fought me every step of the way. The drugs and the Circle helped, made it possible, but only just. The geas against attacking anyone except in defense of others, or the acknowledged legal master at all, is in place but likely to shatter at the first real test.

“As for the `wall' locking away Ranma's ... Ranko's disgust at the thought of sex with men, that will probably hold better than the other — Ranko's going to want it to hold and that'll help — but it usually fades over time, anyway, without the slave even noticing it's gone. Sometimes we have to reinforce or replace it if full use slaves get new masters with different sexual tastes. In Ranko's case, though, it'll probably fade even faster than usual and I wouldn't be surprised if she can sense it, feel it's there as well as know it, and so she's going to know when it's gone. I have no idea what impact that's going to have on her.”

Egami gazed at Susumu for a long moment after the other man finished speaking. “There's a lot of `probably's in your report, Noguchi-san,” he finally said, and Susumu shrugged again.

“I've never encountered anyone like Ranko before, sir, I don't really know what's going to happen. I've given you my best guesses, but that's what they are — guesses.”

“I can respect that, thank you for your honesty,” Egami said. “And your file says you're one of the best Adjusters in Edo, which means Japan, so I doubt anyone else is going to be able to give us a firmer opinion. So, just when is Ranko planning to strike?”

“That's up to Lord Kuno, sir — the two made a bargain that so long as Lord Kuno leaves Tendo Akane alone he will have a faithful slave. If he resumes harassing her, the deal is off. Ranko fully intends to keep it.

“And one last thing. Ranma saw me. I have no idea how, she doesn't have a hint of psi ability. Not only that, but I was unable to wipe the memory of the Adjustment process. I locked access to the memory away, and placed a secondary compulsion to not talk about it that'll kick in when the memory lock fails, but neither of them is going to last permanently — eventually, Ranko is going to remember exactly what happened. She may not understand it, but just her description of the mix of humiliation — attempted humiliation in her case, drugs, ritual, and my mental intrusion would be enough for someone who knows about the existence of both magic and psi powers to figure out how Adjustment works. In general, at least.”

“Interesting,” Egami said, eyebrows rising in surprise. “Very well, in your report to the slave auction master include everything you've told me about the strength of the Adjustment, but don't include anything about the Neko-ken or how Ranko intends to use it, or the failure to wipe her mind of the memory of the Adjustment process.”

The intense focus the Emperor's Hand that had pinned on Susumu vanished, and he once again became the “man who wasn't there.” Rising to his feet, he pulled on a lab coat and bowed to the Adjuster. “Thank you for your cooperation, Noguchi-san, you have been a great service,” he said softly, and started for the door.

Just as he reached it, Susumu screwed up his courage and asked the question that had been eating at him since the other man had first shown up unannounced in his office. “Egami-sama, sir, I know it isn't my place, but — what Lord Kuno is doing is distasteful, but legal, and the Hands' purpose is to search out illegal abuse by the nobility and Shogun. Why are the Emperor's watchdogs so interested in this case?”

Egami turned and looked back at the other man for a long moment, the eagle-eyed look back, saying nothing. Finally he shrugged. “Considering what you already know, I suppose there's no harm in telling you,” he said. “The nobility has always been competitive, with each other as much as with our enemies, and the Emperor doesn't have a problem with that — it keeps them sharp, strong, during this long peace we're in. But for some time now, much of the nobility has been getting more and more contemptuous of those under them.”

At Susumu's uncomprehending look, Egami chuckled. “No, we don't really expect this to remind them that bonds of honor are a two-way street, but we have a different lesson in mind. The Americans have a saying they repeat every chance they get — `people shouldn't be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of the people'. It's time our nobility were reminded that it applies to them, as well. If they are unwilling to respect the common people as people, at least they can respect them as a threat.”

And with that, the once again totally nondescript man walked out of Susumu's office.