Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Umbra Aureola ❯ Chapter 02 - Archmage ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

CHAPTER II : THE ARCHMAGE


Ranma and Akane walked into the yard of the Tendo Dojo. For Ranma the passage from outside the grounds to inside was as if he had crossed through a curtain that separated two worlds. His senses were picking up strong vibes, vibes of a vague sort of evil. The aura inundated the area like a thick mist almost overwhelming in its power and presence.

For Ranma this was more than enough evidence that something was wrong. Wasting no time the pigtailed martial artist slipped into a battle ready stance as he took stock of his surroundings. His eyes scanned the area cautiously attempting to not only spot his foe, but to take note of every hole stick and rock that could be used for tactical advantage in the event of battle.

Ranma's eyes narrowed slightly when he saw a faint trail of blood making its way into the interior of the Tendo household. His mind carefully placed that information into the background, for now Ranma was more concerned about the fact that danger sense were screaming at him. Right now Ranma felt so edgy that combat seemed far more important than little things like blood, unless it happened to be the blood of his enemy.

Akane at every level lacked the depth and sophistication of Ranma's training. For her the warning sensor that went off was not due to some strange martial arts mystical sense. Instead Akane used the next best thing, Ranma. The sudden stiffness and the hard tenseness that the pigtailed martial artist held his muscles was all Akane needed. If Ranma felt at some animal level that something was wrong, then something without a doubt was.

As such Akane made her own evaluation though by far more separated from the urgent call of combat. She too saw the trail of blood that passed through the Tendo house. Her worry was something different though. A mind choking terror filled the girl and with great concern Akane cried out. "Kasumi!"

"Was that the girl that was cooking the meal?" The cloaked figure said lazily sitting upon the roof laughing slightly under his breath. His grin was playful, and not in a good way. "Because if it was, she was very, nice." He enunciated the last word rather unpleasantly. "If you know what I mean." This time he laughed a bit louder.

Ranma jumped in surprise as he turned to face the visage. Something bothered him greatly at the cloaked man's presence. It was that the pigtailed martial artist had felt nothing, nothing at all to give away the cloaked man's presence. Though the area was thick with dark ki like a swirly mass of smoke the man had no aura, not even the slightest flicker. The cloaked figure's control rivaled that of the Umisen-ken, though unlike that technique he was still visible to the eye. It was a disorienting knowing instinctively that the man before him was the source of the evil presence, but not being able to feel the same.

As if the evil presence wasn't enough of an indicator the figure's eyes held promises of dark deeds. Such a look was not unfamiliar to Ranma. Ryouga, Mousse and a dozen others had looked upon him with such eyes. No, it was the fact that at the same time these eyes seemed to be laughing that made his skin crawl. It was almost as if this man actually enjoyed inflicting pain on his enemy.

"You're the one that beat Cologne aren't ya" Ranma said at last facing the figure slightly uneasily. The man's aura made him nervous and focusing on something helped Ranma deal with that problem. As he spoke Ranma's eyes traced the blood upon the figure's cloak. Now that he thought about it Ranma remembered seeing the same in the Neko Haten. Did this mean his enemy was injured? If he was Ranma might be able to put that injury to his advantage.

The figure briefly narrowed its eyes, then it relaxed again quirking an eyebrow while continuing the insidious grin. "And if I am?"

"What did you do to Kasumi?" Akane demanded with a shaking voice. Every moment she spent here gave Akane an increasing sense of incredible wrongness. It was like a chill had crawled down her spine. Somehow Akane knew that the blood had something to do with this man. The figure's words only confirmed this fact. Had he, had he hurt her sister? Or, Akane shivered, perhaps something even worse? These thoughts clawed at her mind like icy ghosts reaching forward to rip out her very soul. Somehow the terror was too great even to summon her normal rage.

The figure seemed to smirk at those words. "Hmm, I wonder, a lone girl, a figure in a blood soaked cloak." He laughed darkly. "What do you think I did?" As he said the last power crackled in his left hand, sparks of black lightning coiled chaotically in his palm.

"Would you stop blathering on and get to the fight?" Ranma said annoyed and completely missing the insinuation. Ranma's eyes narrowed slightly. Something was... off.

Something flashed through the figures eyes. Annoyance perhaps? As quickly as it came it vanished and with a crawling grin the figure laughed, "Oh, and what makes you think you are worth fighting?"

Ranma flashed with rage. It was the complete contempt that the cloaked figure managed to squeeze out that got to him. That was it Ranma wasn't going to waste anymore time evaluating the situation. Right now that idiot was going to get what was coming to him.

Growling angrily Ranma threw himself at the figure leaping forward with all his power. Flying free of the ground the pigtailed martial artist traveled in a flat arch toward the figure at a speed a bullet might envy. Just before hitting his target Ranma shot out a foot straight into the gloating man's face. At least Ranma would have, but before the blow could land the man vanished leaving nothing between Ranma and the roof but air. Stunned Ranma stumbled after landing. Recovering his senses Ranma quickly regained his balance.

"Oh my, what anger you have." The man said mockingly. Ranma whirled around facing the source of the voice. For the first time Ranma became aware of exactly how much he depended upon sensing auras in battle. The slow down of having to reacquire his target made Ranma feel vulnerable. For most this slight delay would be considered minor, or even unnoticeable. Ranma though that half a second or even a tenth of a second was a terribly long time in battle. This time though Ranma didn't suffer the problem to its maximum effect. Instead the man's own words gave away his position allowing Ranma to easily spot him where he sat grinning like mad on the edge of the wall that surrounded the Tendo House and Dojo.

Ranma looked at the dark figure cautiously, his anger forcefully depressed by combat instincts gained during the soul of ice training. "How did he get over there?" Ranma thought pondering his opponent's movement, he had seen nothing to indicate movement. One moment the man was there, the next he was gone. If the man had moved his speed was unbelievable. That thought frightened Ranma to the core, though the pig tailed martial artist would never admit it. Even dismissing that Ranma was still left with a feeling that his enemy was playing with him.

"Heh, lets see you do that again." Ranma said before dashing forward and making a second attack. This time he was looking for his enemy's movement instead of actually planning a hit.

Again the man vanished. Like before Ranma caught sight of nothing. There was no indication, nothing whatsoever as to how his enemy had moved. Laughter echoed behind Ranma, coming again from the roof of the Tendo household.

"That was pathetic." The man said watching Ranma's sputtering anger and confusion with amusement. "Well, it was fun and all but let's end this game." Grinning evilly he stood, moving slightly away from the edge as he did so, finally adopting a battle stance.

Regaining his calm Ranma fell back into a defensive position. If Ranma couldn't figure out his opponent's secret from making an attack, then perhaps it would be revealed when Ranma was being attacked instead of the other way around. If nothing more it would at least allow Ranma to judge his enemy's speed.

"Too late," laughed the man's voice behind him.

Ranma twisted in shock. He made the half rotation just in time to see the staff engulfed in crackling ki energy careen into him. It smashed into his body with the force of a freight train, instantly imparting enormous speed and momentum. Caught by the awesome forces Ranma was hurled into the ground like a human comet. Shaken Ranma met the ground head the impact leaving a crater in the earth as dirt was compacted from the power with which the pigtailed martial artist hit. Still twitching with life Ranma was awake enough to hear his opponent's mocking laugh before the the cloaked shape vanished as swiftly as before.

Akane hustled over to the slumped and dazed Ranma. Crouching next to Ranma she rubbed tears out of her red puffy eyes "Are you okay?" Akane barely made out her worry for Kasumi making it difficult to speak.

Ranma rolled off his head into a sitting position cocking his head left and then right. "I'm fine." Then rubbing his head Ranma asked, "So what you crying about anyway? You didn't think that I was hurt that bad did you?"

"Idiot." Akane said sniffing. "Didn't you hear what he said about Kasumi?"

Ranma tilted his head to one side trying to remember. He didn't remember the guy saying anything about Kasumi, but then again Ranma had hit his head kind of hard so the last minute was sort of fuzzy. "What about her?"

"He said he had hurt her." Akane said crying.

Ranma scratched his head, trying to remember what exactly the guy had said. For the life of him though Ranma just couldn't remember the guy mentioning Kasumi though. Then as if struck by an epiphany Ranma struck his open hand with the hammer of his fist. "I'm pretty sure Kasumi is okay."

"But- but, the blood, and what he said... you, you don't know that." Akane barely made out.

Ranma smirked looking slightly past Akane. "Hey, Kasumi are you alright?"

Akane whirled around spotting her sister who had just walked onto the grounds. Throwing herself at Kasumi, Akane pulled her eldest sister in a hard hug. "Kasumi!" Akane cried happy her eyes still stained with tears.

Kasumi dropped her bags at the force of the embrace. "Oh my! Did something happen?"

"Where were you Kasumi?" Akane asked, obviously grateful that her sister was fine.

"A kindly young man offered some money to buy dinner. So I was out shopping." Kasumi answered simply.

Neither paid Kasumi any heed. Akane was too busy crying tears of happiness that the worst hadn't come to pass. Ranma free of that fear instead concentrated on the mystery that was bugging him. How did that man get behind him? And what exactly was that guy?


******************


"How dare you put Kasumi in danger!" Soun yelled his voice overpowering all other attempts at conversation. To further express his emotions Soun allowed his power to swell into a gigantic demon head that loomed over the pigtailed martial artist like an ax over the head of a criminal.

"She wasn't even there!" Ranma shot back defensively. Ranma hunched back defensively from the terrible presence of Soun's demon head. It looked quite like cowering to any normal person, but Ranma most certainly never cowered, especially not from someone as harmless as Soun.

"Oh my! Who would have thought such a dangerous man was on the prowl." Kasumi said as her father finally settled back down into a relatively normal emotional state. To herself she wondered if the kind man got away safely.

"Kasumi, don't die!" Soun wailed into the lap of his eldest daughter. With a slight smile Kasumi patted him on the head softly whispering softly as though to calm a baby even as she continued to listen to the rest of the story.

Ranma and Akane, well mostly Ranma, were trying to tell the story of what happened earlier that day to their parents over dinner. Trying of course, being the key word. Such events had of course immediately included everyone else in the Tendo Household. Luckily, in this case, it was only the Tendo household. Even as it was Ranma had been fighting against numerous interruption every time he tried to speak. Then with all the misunderstandings he was forced to explain somethings as many as four or even more times just to get what actually happened across. As it was Ranma wasn't really sure that the multiple explanations had actually worked.

"So he beat the old ghoul, huh," Nabiki said. "Interesting." One could almost see the second sister pondering how this information could be used for money or amusement. Preferably both of course, but either would be satisfactory.

"Anyway, after that I fought him," Ranma said.

"And he beat you," Akane said having recovered from the ordeal in the few hours that had passed.

"Hey! I put up a pretty good fight!" Ranma said indignantly.

"Yeah, you didn't even hit him, and he took you out in one blow." Akane shot back landing a devastating blow directly on Ranma's pride.

"Hey, I was just getting started!"

"Why were you twitching on the bottom of a crater then?"

"What would a uncute tomboy like you know?"

"Wham!", came the distinctive sound of Akane's fist sending Ranma's head through the floor.

"What did you do that for?" Ranma said as he sat upright again unfazed by the attack. Luckily for Ranma Akane's anger doesn't strike twice, at least on such short notice. As such he wasn't rewarded with another lump on his head for his, as usual, terrible diplomatic efforts.

"Ranma, beaten so easily you must be getting lax in your training!" Genma yelled out. Moving Genma attempted to solve this problem in the usual manner. That is, by immediately attacking his son.

"Hey old man! That has nothing to do with it!" Ranma responded flipping a glass of cold water into his father's face thereby dissolving any further argument. As an afterthought Ranma gave his father two quick lumps on the head.

Even as he returned to the conversation Ranma skillfully swatted a pair of Panda wielded chopsticks away from his food. Genma apparently had true to the name of his art adapted to the evolving situation after a not unexpectedly quick recovery. That this method of training could and probably would result in more food for Genma without a doubt factored into the decision to move this battle into a new path. Ranma though was so well trained that he not only parried quite subconsciously, but countered attacked at the same time.

"Well that is the story." Ranma said declaring the end of the set of events. Freed of such intellectual pursuits Ranma turned his attention back to the pressing matter of devouring his food.

"That is all? You got beaten and he left?" Nabiki asked looking quite uninterested. Given that this was Nabiki, Ranma wasn't about to take that at face value.

"Have you met this young man before?" Kasumi asked politely. If there was anyone in that could read Nabiki it was Kasumi. Knowing this it wasn't difficult to conclude that the question might have been for the second daughter's benefit. Then again while Kasumi was quite easy to read, her motives were, if anything, more unfathomable than Nabiki's face. That is to say, if she had any real reason for asking the question it was beyond the grasp of the mortal mind.

The question though was still a rather good one. Ranma had without a doubt a very colorful past and a not to be underestimated collection of enemies. Considering that the person might possibly be someone he once knew Ranma paused to think carefully before giving an answer. "Not a clue. Never met him before in my life."

"Perhaps I can solve this mystery." A old voice broke in causing the Tendo group to turn to turn toward the new arrival.

The Panda who had the clearest veiw responded before the voice could even be heard. Without thought the Panda held up a sign that read. "Look a 3000 year old Chinese Ghoul."

Taking an instant to read the sign Ranma turned to look at Cologne. Not for the first time the old ghoul had managed to make it completely unannounced into the Tendo household. Not that this surprised Ranma, he had once seen the ghoul pop up out of the Tendo bath only moments before he stepped in. An altogether disturbing experience. The mere thought of being in the same bath as that shriveled mummy sent shivers down the pigtailed martial artist's spine.

While Ranma was caught in his reverie that encompassed old ghouls, baths and nakedness the Panda Ranma called father decided to capitalize on Ranma's distracted attention. Moving with a swiftness that belied his huge bulk the Panda showed that his pupil still had much to learn by rapidly devouring his son's food.

Cologne gave the Panda a quick thrash on the head with her ever present stick. "Who are you calling a 3000 year old Chinese Ghoul?"

"So do you know the young man?" The Elder Daughter asked cheerfully. She wasn't in the least disturbed by the outbreak of violence, nor the unexpected and unexplained arrival of the old amazon warrior.

"Yes, I know him quite well." said Cologne settling in at the table and taking the cup of tea Kasumi offered. "His name is Anito, we first met five years ago..."


********FLASH BACK*********


A skinny young man walked into the Amazon Village wearing a pure white tunic and a pair of black pants. In his left hand he carried a long, straight wooden stick that served as an aid on the long trek through the wilderness. All in all had a build quite similar to that of Hikaru, minus the dark bags under the eyes. Needless to say, Anito was if anything an unimpressive sight. The fact that he had the wear and tear of a man that had just trekked through the wilderness for many, many miles did little to improve the amazons' estimation of him.

"Excuse me is this Joketsukozu?" The Skinny Man asked of the withered old Matriarch that was looking him over. The warriors had, understandably, refused to give the pathetic man an answer. However, his constant demands to see the elder had been considered, if only because they had been told a few days ago to be on the look out for a foreign man.

Cologne looked him over clearly unimpressed. "So you are the mage the council sent?"

"Arch-mage actually, though I suppose it doesn't matter. I would like to say I am more impressive than I look. Unfortunately it isn't quite true." Anito said with a laugh.

Cologne eyed him doubtfully, but could detect no untruth's in his words. She held out a small pearl like object in her hand. "Could you tell me what this is then?"

Anito leaned over and peered at it for a moment. "Ah, yes the pearl of madness. A rare relic dated back around 2000 years. It was developed as a weapon of assassination. By placing it in a cup of water the pearl will dissolve into the solution whereupon the poison can be ingested with minimal chance of detection. Its use leads to inevitable madness."

Anito paused looking a bit longer. "This one has been modified however, the inner ki flows were changed eliminating it's original purpose. Instead this particular pearl unleashes a deafening wave when broken rendering those that hear it temporarily incapable of coherent thought. Quite an interesting twist on the original model if I do say so myself."

Cologne looked quite impressed. "You are correct. I must admit you put more detail in it than I thought." Actually, she was more than impressed. Correctly evaluating that the pearl was a pearl of madness was one thing, but to discover the true nature of this particular pearl was mind boggling. Much less to do so merely by looking at it for a few minutes.

Anito smiled, "Well I possess are rare gift known as perfect aura sight. I guess that you have heard of it."

Cologne's eyes widened in surprise. "Perfect aura sight." She said thoughtfully. "I can see why you are an Arch-mage even at such a young age."

"Well the title is more honorary than real. Unfortunately, I lack the power to emphasize the talents truly becoming of one with my title. Sadly, my expertise is forcefully limited to that of high ki manipulation theory and the study of artifacts."

Cologne looked closely at the man's aura and noticed that his words were indeed true.


*******END FLASH BACK******


"Hey wait, I know the guy I was fighting had a really strong aura!" Ranma said angrily. He most definitely wasn't about to let someone imply that he had lost to a wimp.

"Whap!" The sound of an Amazon Elder's staff hitting the head of a foolish young man echoed throughout the room. "I was getting to that." Cologne said rather annoyed at the rude interruption.

"He indeed has a strong aura now, but then it was different. Anito had barely enough strength to light a candle with his magic." Cologne paused sliding back into her story as Kasumi refilled her cup of tea.

"He however, offered a great service to the tribe by cataloging the nature of our rather large collection of magical artifacts. His detailed input helped erase the loss of knowledge the inevitably accumulated throughout the years and let the tribe safely use magic tools we dared not touch for centuries because we did not know how they worked. Seeing that he had little power with which to work his art I took it upon myself to teach him martial arts. The art as you know is one way in which one can grow their own internal ki, making it stronger and more powerful. I had hoped that his ki was merely stunted, or perhaps even bound by jealous adversaries."

Cologne sipped some tea and then continued. "I tried everything in order to bring out his latent ki. I started with Basic Kata. Normal martial arts however, are simply not enough to grow the kind of ki he would need. Thus instead I turned to some other more advanced techniques. The chestnut fist was proved far beyond his mastery. The Bakusai Tenketsu met with only marginal success, and far too much time was spent recovering. The Hiryu Shoten Ha didn't do any better. Even the Neko-ken turned out as a failure when in a fit of desperation I tried even that, turns out he was far too old training." Cologne sighed.

The eyes of the rest of the Tendo Household bugged out. The exception being Kasumi who had simply raised her hand to her mouth and whispered. "Oh my."

"I'm surprised he is still alive!" Ranma said in shock.

"Well for his low ki levels he is surprisingly resilient. Though I suppose having access to 3000 year old amazon medical techniques probably helped. In any case it proved to be quite useless. Anito had only moderate martial arts talent even though his ki manipulation talent is almost miraculous. Further, his ki failed to improve sufficiently and what did improve was mostly dedicated to preserving his life."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "I can't imagine why."

"You were seeing if he was worth enlisting into the tribe weren't you?" Akane asked suspicious of Cologne's motives to teach Anito the art.

"Would an old woman like me do something like that?" Cologne replied innocently.

"Yes!" Ranma yelled back.

Akane asked the obvious question. "Then how did he get his powerful ki then?"

"Don't know." Cologne said sipping some tea.

"What!" Ranma yelled standing up at the table looking down at the withered old ghoul. "Why are you here then?"

"Oh, I thought I would just tell you who he was. That is what you were asking, wasn't it?" Cologne said causing Ranma to fall flat on his face.

Nabiki while fiddling idly with a pair of chopsticks decided to poke out some more information. "Surely you have an inkling of what allowed him to gain such power."

Cologne eyed the middle sister back thoughtfully. "At first I figured that he had gone and sold his soul to a demon in order to gain his power. The fact he was after the book of darkness only seemed to confirm it."

"So he is a demon is he." Soun said, "Well it is a martial artist's duty to defeat demons."

"Rightly so old friend." Genma said having returned to his human form during Cologne's story.

Both then turned and stared at Ranma intently. Ranma backed away instinctively as the pair leaned closer to him saying nothing at all. "Hey, what are you looking at me for?"

"You will protect my daughters from this evil demon, right Ranma?" Soun asked.

"Boy it will be good for your training." Genma said backing up his old friend.

"Th-this ain't got nothing to do with me." Ranma said attempting to scrounge up some defiance, and failing.

"You aren't scared are you Ranma?" Akane said.

"I ain't scared of nothing." replied Ranma crossing his arms and attempting to look macho.

Ranma sought some sort of escape so he turned back to Cologne. "Hey you said at first right? So what do you think now?"

"I am not really sure. At first his dark ki seemed almost like that of a demon. Not even Happosai feels quite so evil. However, I then noticed that his dark ki was too pure."

"Pure?" Nabiki asked curiously.

"He felt pretty malicious to me." Ranma said.

"Yeah, he was down right mean. I wouldn't have thought twice if he claimed to be a demon." Akane added.

"Not that kind of pure!" Cologne said aggravated, "His dark aura was too dark. It was pure dark ki. Not even demons have perfectly pure dark ki, in fact nothing I have ever seen or encountered has such a pure ki. It was almost elemental in nature."

"Come to think of it." Ranma said thinking about Cologne's words. "His ki was really weird."

"My thoughts exactly. However, that is just the beginning. Lurking beneath the dark ki was something even more surprising. That is an equally pure light ki."

"Oh my." Kasumi said hitting the climatic moment perfectly.

"It is my guess that Anito attempted some sort of ritual that bound great amounts of dark and light ki to his soul. Thus he dramatically increased his ki power not merely to normal human levels, but several times beyond that. Even you son-in-law cannot match the level he is at now. However, by some means the dark ki took the fore and now is controlling him."

"So what does the book of darkness have to do with all this?" Akane asked trying to fill in the holes.

"The book of darkness is an ancient book detailing tribe secrets on summoning, controlling and banishing demons. I will say no more for its secrets are to stay within the tribe."

Nabiki raised an eyebrow. "Ooo, ancient amazon secrets on demon summoning, sounds interesting."

"So why would he want it anyway?" Ranma asked interested.

Cologne sighed. "There are many reasons he would want it. Anito is familiar with many Joketsukozu tomes from his stay in our village. Anito is without a doubt is aware of what is inside, though he was was forbidden from actually reading it. Normally, Anito would desire it simply for the purpose of knowing alone. His darker side however, may wish it to summon up demons. I suppose that in theory it could also be used to limit or place in greater control the darker ki as well. As it is demonic in its own way."

"Well then, now that that is out of the way it is time for me to be heading home." Cologne said, taking her leave of the Tendo Household.

"Well Ranma my boy, you'll take care of that arch-mage if he shows up again." Genma said, patting his son on the back.

"A most excellent idea, old friend." Soun concurred like clockwork.

"Hey why do I-" Ranma said, getting cut off before he could finish.

"Good luck, you'll need it." Nabiki said heading upstairs herself.

"Hey-" Ranma spoke again getting cut off.

"Try to keep the fight outside would you. It is so very expensive to repair the house." Kasumi said before wandering off to the kitchen.

"Well Ranma, it looks like you have been drafted to take care of this new mess." Akane said, the only person that had remained behind.

"Why do I always get left with these messes?" Ranma complained.

"What you don't want to fight him again?" Akane asked.

"Of course I do. I can't let someone beat me that easily!" Ranma said hotly.

"Then why are you complaining?"

Ranma thought about this for a long, long time, but never gave an answer.