Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ The Goddess Dilemma ❯ Five ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I am not in the habit of repeating myself. I make nothing, own nothing, see nothing, hear nothing. Leave my poor soul alone please.

 

Rant: New writing style: inserting bizarre comments for laugh factor. We'll see if it works or not. Sorry for the delay, life has gone to shit. Feh, that's what makes it life. Note the repairs to all chapters, as well as the only other Shadow Hearts: Covenant fic out there. Mine was posted first, wonder where the idea came from? Eh, FJL? Bah, on with the show!

 

The Goddess Dilemma, part five.

 

By: Jim Ohki

 

“ARGH!” screamed Akane from outside the house after she surfaced in the koi pond. The scream was continuous as she ran inside the house in search of her target, Ranma. However, she was unprepared to find him ignoring her in favor of solving the mystery of the cube.

 

Immediately after sending the wayward Tendo daughter out the back door into the pond, Ranma had turned around to hear the announcement from Urd. While he had heard her, his line of sight was on something else. Hanging from Karin's neck was a cross that looked like it might be the key to the lock on the cube.

 

Of course, his gaze was misunderstood since the cross, while on the outside of her shirt, was hanging between Karin's breasts. But before the explosion of the usual misunderstanding could happen, he spoke.

 

“May I see that?” Ranma asked, indicating the cross. Karin looked down and noticed for the first time that the cross wasn't tucked safely away inside her shirt. Looking back up, seeing Ranma indicate the lock on the cube, spurred her into removing it from her neck.

 

“Please be careful with it,” she said in a quiet tone, “Yuri gave me this cross, and it's all I have left of him.”

 

Nodding in understanding, Ranma held the cross with his index finger and thumb just under the cross tier. While doing that, he turned the cube so that the lock was facing upwards and gently inserted the key. It fit like a glove, and since it was not fully recessed, he was able to attempt to turn it. While trying going to the left had no result, going to the right returned dividends when the lock moved on it's own after a gentle nudge. Making sure not to drop the cube in surprise, he set it down on the floor and stepped back to see what would happen.

 

It's didn't take long, for once the lock stopped turning the sides opened and folded flat. Nobody present was prepared for when the cube finished opening, a door with no frame appeared in the middle of the living room. Once the shock of that wore off, they heard Karin mumble something about 'familiar' before she stepped up and opened it. Ranma, feeling a sense of dread and foreboding, immediately followed.

 

Nobody else had the chance to move after that, for once Ranma entered the door it slammed shut.

 

“Well,” said an amused Hild, “that was certainly interesting. Can`t wait to see what happens next. Tea anyone?”

 

“That's my line,” whined Kasumi, while she headed into the kitchen to get the tea service.

 

--(Beyond the door)--

 

“I knew it,” declared Karin to her only audience. Both she and Ranma took in the sights of this realm. It was most certainly bleak, with a near constant moaning noise coming from everywhere at once. There were three doors in this `foyer', each made of stone; one to the left, one straight ahead and the last one to the right. The floor tiles looked like gravestone markers, which unnerved Ranma.

 

“What is this place?” he wondered, while trying his best to learn how to fly. It was highly unnerving to be walking on the markers of long dead and forgotten people . . . or is that demons? The dialect used on the tombstones was unreadable to Ranma, a long dead language that would take years to translate.

 

“Yuri called this place the graveyard,” answered Karin, noticing that Ranma was extra fidgety in concern to the floor tiles. “How it can exist with him being dead is beyond anything I could think of.”

 

“Karin . . .” whispered a voice from everywhere and nowhere, followed by the sounds of the door straight ahead opening. Both looked up and saw the invitation to enter deeper into the realm. With sidelong glances at each other, both decided to proceed into the next area. This area was a bleak as the last, but only had two doors again made out of stone. Ranma was on full alert after entering this place, since he could now feel a presence. It didn't feel like an evil spirit or anything along those lines. Instead it was more of a sad soul, a warrior's spirit, wanting to get it's last regret out before moving through Valhalla to Einherjar.

 

The door on the left opened on it's own, and Karin began to get nervous. This was the second time she had entered that door, and she knew what lay beyond . . . a mirror realm, similar to a place visited by Yuri in his travels.

 

Following immediately behind her, while trying not to look down at the shapely posterior wiggling as she walked, Ranma felt that presence get much stronger. He came even with her after passing through the latest door and the two had a conversation without words. With a simple nod of the head, both headed through the mirror realm.

 

“Karin . . .” came the voice again, this time much stronger than before. She led the way, with Ranma following close behind, through what looked like an office to a room that was set up for a demonic summoning. Burning candles surrounded a pentagram on the floor, in front of a large mirror. Ranma took his eyes off the mirror for no more than two seconds when he heard Karin gasp. Snapping his head around to look at the mirror again, he saw what had made her gasp.

 

In the mirror was not their reflection. Standing before them was Yuri Hyuga.

 

--(Waking World)--

 

The sounds of a jackhammer reverberated throughout the neighborhood as Akane, in a fit of rage and impishness, decided to take it upon herself to remove the door from the middle of the living room. Nobody dared to stop her, as the last attempt resulted in a demolished wall. Not from a person flying through it, but from Akane losing control of the sixty pound hammer.

 

It danced on autopilot, since Akane had locked the trigger in the `on' position. Everybody had dove for cover as the contraption that imitated the Baksai Tenketsu waltzed through the couch, the table, Urd's foot, then came to a rest after the debris falling from the wall smacked the trigger.

 

Akane ignored Urd's blatant abuse of the American language (censored to keep the lower rating), picked up the hammer and started again. The cube and cross had blended in with the floor, creating an impenetrable shield in the process just in case some fool got the wrong idea to attempt removal with somebody inside.

 

And here we have The Fool, Akane Tendo! Oh look, so pissed off at the failure to beat the door out of her house, she's breaking out explosives.

 

“GODDAMNIT!” she swore, failing to notice the divine guests twinge at that particular expletive. The Demon Queen, however, was rolling around on the floor moaning in ecstasy since all of the negative emotions coming from one person acted like a hundred fold aphrodisiac.

 

Of course, Akane the Almighty Fucktard missed that too. Nabiki and Kasumi tried to at least move Hild into a bedroom for privacy reasons, and had found themselves being . . . being . . . found Hild's hands going into places they shouldn't have. Even if they were married, nobody had had the opportunity to discuss that type of contact. Not like either of the elder sisters Tendo would acknowledge that the contact felt good. But I digress, time to give Uber-Bitch more air time.

 

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” shouted Akane, trying to make use of what was left of the couch for shelter. The equivalent of a half-block of C4 detonated, blowing the walls off the lower floor and launching a few people out said missing walls.

 

“CRAZY BITCH!” screamed the natives, deciding that now would be a good time to retreat and regroup. The group from the past, minus a now unconscious Lucia, figured that now is a good time to do some exploring. Might as well see what has happened since their time passed.

 

Hild had her seventh orgasm, making what was left of the house shudder and creak in protest to the shear amount of abuse it had received in the last ten minutes.

 

“War counsel,” declared Nabiki, dragging the people from their time, the divine and the one unconscious paperweight into the remarkably untouched dojo. Yes, it's time to give some NORMAL PEOPLE (GASP!) air time.

 

Once everybody was situated, the glances began. Even though Nabiki had called a war counsel, she seemed to not have violent ideals.

 

“My kitchen . . .” moaned Kasumi, as she surveyed the damage from the safety of the dojo. A sense of dread, along with a chill, went up, down and sideways across the spinal columns of those present. They followed her gaze, taking note of the refrigerator laying upside-down in the koi pond. Oh look, there's a pot hanging from a tree.

 

DUN-DUN-DUN!

 

Silence reigned supreme for all of five seconds as the enormity of the destruction was digested by the minds of those looking at the spectacle that was created by the youngest Tendo sister.

 

“Ho boy,” spoke Xian Pu, reminding a few people that she WAS there. “This no good. Kitchen Destroyer destroy whole house. She out of control.”

 

“Really? What was your first clue?” chimed in Ukyo.

 

The floodgates are open, let the bedlam commence!

 

The war counsel broke down into two groups of arguments. In one corner, there was the elder sisters, Ukyo and Xian. In-between bickering amongst themselves, they would bat around ideas on how to curtail the untamed beast known as Akane. In another corner on the other end of the dojo was the divine, the demon (who was positively glowing and had been teleported out of the house), and the still out of sorts Lucia. They were having a tough time coming up with ideas since Hild was for Akane to keep going.

 

All commotion stopped when there was another explosion, followed by swearing, and a cry of “MY HOUSE!”

 

--(Graveyard, Mirror Castle)--

 

“Karin, we were never met to be,” said Yuri, in a flippant Ranma tone. “You knew how I felt about you . . . about Alice . . . and in the end, there was no gain.”

 

Ranma was getting irritated with the fuckstick in the mirror. He now had a rough idea of what others thought of him after watching somebody else talk like that. All he could hear in there was `me, me, me, me, me'. But since this was not of his doing, Ranma decided to stay quiet for now.

 

“Yuri,” sadly asked Karin, “Did your mother ever show you this picture?”

 

Both Yuri and Ranma looked at it, read the back, looked at it again, looked at Karin, and suffered mental shutdowns due to overload.

 

“But . . . but . . . you . . .” stumbled Ranma, pointing from Karin to Yuri and back.

 

“H-h-h-ow?!” stuttered Yuri, for once at a loss of infuriating things to say.

 

“I don't know, but time is short,” answered Karin. For some odd reason the whole place would shake and rumble from time to time. “Yuri, tell us what we need to know.”

 

It was then that the mirror cracked . . .

 

--(Waking World)--

 

“SUCCESS!” cheered Akane as the door was chipped. Of course, it had taken a seven pound block of dynamite to do it, but it was progress. Not noticing that Soun had appeared at random to check in on his daughters and son-in-law, she began setting up a small nuclear device to finish the job.

 

Of course, since this is Akane Tendo, miss `I-can't-fark-anything-up-even-without-practice', the results of the device wouldn't be known for about . . . ten minutes.

 

Just before detonation, the door spilled it's contents out in the form of Karin and Ranma. It then faded out of existence, taking the bomb with it. When it did detonate, it did so in subspace.

 

At just the right frequency to destroy one half of a certain scientist's lab . . .

 

Back to the present, the Goddesses that were now `attached' to the mortal plane for some time decided to lend a hand in fixing the house. More to the point, it was Belldandy since she was more in tune with nature and the Wa of any structure.

 

Of course, Kasumi and her one surviving frying pan had a thing or twenty to say to Akane for such reckless behavior. Nobody wanted to intervene on that since Kasumi would turn the pan on them.

 

“You're rubbing off on her,” stated Nabiki to Ranma, as he watched with total fascination. This Kasumi he could really learn to like. Not the anger that seemed to have surfaced, but the way she moved screamed natural talent in the Art. Begin the mental list in Ranma's mind: one.

 

“Ranma,” said a timid Karin, catching everybody's attention. This woman was too proud to be THAT timid. “Show them.”

 

“Show us what?” questioned Urd, not liking were this was going. Ranma had yet to fully digest the wish into himself yet, which meant that any more `upgrades' could do significant harm to the young man.

 

Ranma struck his `traditional pose for fighting'(®©!), calling upon something deep within. Even the group from the past, that had just walked in the door, froze in shock. After a light show that blinded even the divine for two seconds stood what could only be described as one of the fallen.

 

Seraphim.

 

More precisely, Dark Seraphim.

 

Ranma's features had stayed mostly the same. The only things that changed was his height, nails and hair style. Now towering over everybody at seven foot one, he stood there with his arms crossed daring somebody, anybody to attack. His hair stood on it's own, not unlike an inverted paint brush but more like a spiked do. The ends of his fingers and toes, more precisely the nails, turned into jet black claws. The add-on for this look would be the wings.

 

Black wings with talons in the joints that allowed the wings to fold in half, with a shorter set coming out of his tailbone area.

 

“What is thy bidding, my master?” cowed the divine present.

 

Insert face vault. Especially since Urd being Urd spoke into a metal trash can, creating a Darth Urd voice.

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Ukyo, not phased in the least by the imposing figure towering over everybody. At least until she took in the last detail. One that was easily missed since there was a crowd blocking a good view of Ranma . . . and his current form's desire to have no clothing on.

 

“PERVERT!”

 

“Good, I wanted to test this attack out,” spoke Ranma, motioning for Akane to lead the way outside and for anybody who wished to watch to stay the HELL away.

 

Akane launched into her predictable attack pattern, which was creating sonic booms. Ranma dodged, weaved, smacked her face with a wing, then took to the skies with a simple declaration.

 

“For the Child . . .”

 

“SEEK SHELTER!” roared Peorth, as she and her fellow divine set up the strongest shield they could. Even Hild assisted with the shield, awed at the shear amount of power that was now emanating from Ranma. The rest of the women present simply looked up from behind the barrier, and watched as the wings that had formed a cocoon opened and Ranma crossed his arms in an X fashion.

 

Akane shit herself immediately. She was held in place by some magical force, and could feel the pain coming. Her head was free to move, and she knew when to expect the attack as Ranma opened his arms wide, fists closed. Twin energy charges appeared, one on each fist. He then fired them in her direction, igniting the power build up from below.

 

KKKRRROOOOOOMMM!!!

 

And there is one thirty hit attack, with a few surprises installed for extra goodliness. Surprise one: Soun, being himself, had stepped in front of Akane to block the attack. Two: it didn't matter, since this attack was inclusive of all enemies. Three: while it didn't knock either of them out, it did leave an abnormality in the form of a continuing combo. Meaning that the flying chair, courtesy of Nabiki, just added on to the damage already assessed by Ranma/Seraphim.

 

After watching Soun and Akane fall on top of each other, Ranma landed and reverted back to his normal look. Complete with clothes, much to the disappointment of several of the on-lookers.

 

“WHAT A RUSH!” he exclaimed, drawing more than one surprised glance in his direction. Seeing the glances, he elaborated. “The Saotome school is aerial based. Now that I have the knowledge on how to do it, I can fly!”

 

“Great, another ego boost,” quipped Nabiki with a smile. Nods all around to that statement left an incredulous Ranma slack-jawed.

 

“C'mon,” he nearly pleaded, “I'm not that bad, am I?”

 

THUD!

 

“BELL!” shouted the Goddesses, Demon, elder Tendo sisters, and Ranma. Noting that it looked like she was asleep, they moved her inside to a newly repaired couch.

 

“Not bad,” said Kasumi, noting the positions of everything. “Although now I'm gonna have to relearn where everything is. The couch is two inches away from it's old location!”

 

THUD! Yep, face vault.

 

“Anyway,” said Cassandra, “It's getting late. After all that excitement, we still have no idea on sleeping arrangements.”

 

Insert blinking owlishly for five seconds.

 

“Grab a seat,” ordered Nabiki of those present that would be staying. Meaning everybody other than Nodoka and a still out of it Soun and Akane. She noticed that a large portion of the female populace, including herself, waited for Ranma to pick a spot, which had his back against the front of the couch, then they crowded around him. Bell was shifted into a sleeping while sitting position, making room for Urd on her left and Peorth on her right. Hild adopted the top of the couch back, laying across it in a way that her feet were behind Urd. Kasumi and Nabiki flanked Ranma, the former on his left and the latter on his right. To Kasumi's left sat Xian, while Ukyo sat to the right of Nabiki.

 

Confused? I know I am, and I have a LONG way to go . . .

 

Karin elected to remain standing, but she chose to do so behind the couch directly behind Ranma's location. Lucia groaned at the bizarreness of these people and walked outside to chat up Nodoka . . . and probably protect the entry way from Soun and Akane.

 

The Soul Calibur team sat across from Ranma and his flankers, but the women took the front row. Not in close enough proximity to have legs get tangled, but the quarter moon formation did flow around Ranma. Once everybody was situated, meaning Ranma was in the middle of a sea of women, the glances started. Most were in his direction, like he would have any say in the matter.

 

Times change, and Ranma is about to get a one-oh-one course in changes.

 

“What?” he asked of the crowd, noting that the few other men present couldn't decide if they should just bounce out of the house or not.

 

“Ranma,” answered Nabiki, “This house is pretty much yours. Yeah, my father's name is still on it, but it's only a matter of time since he had already declared the schools joined.”

 

“Okay . . .” drawled out the pig-tailed young man. One random thought about water drifted across his mind but was squashed for the current predicament. “Who all is staying here anyway?”

 

Ooh, bad idea. In the sense of Ranma's back-up, in the form of the few remaining testosterone plants, got up and walked out the back door. He sweated at their response, noting that the number of people present still outnumbered the room count in the house. Even with quadruple bunking, it was going to be tight. And, in his mind anyway, he still had to have a room . . . unless they didn't mind sharing with a short, well-endowed redhead.

 

“Well, with this,” stated Kasumi as she broke out the holy parchment known to Ranma as the CERTIFICATE, “We are going to have to renovate the house anyway. There is just no possible way to get eight people into ONE of the bedrooms.”

 

“KASUMI!” shouted Ranma in surprise, “You're going to go along with -” the rest was cut off by a dozen female hands, not wanting a repeat of the last time somebody questioned Kami-sama.

 

“She does have a point,” said Urd, “we females do need our space. Even if it's only to be temporary, this house is just too small.”

 

“And our magic reserves are just too low,” added Peorth, noting that a few of the people present had that look in their eyes.

 

Cue the insane laugh!

 

“Kodachi?!” shouted the NWC, searching for the insane gymnast. The rest of the females present, including a now wide awake and alert Belldandy, looked all a round the room to find the source of that laugh. To the Goddesses and Demon, a shared thought went through their minds: `That sound's familiar.'

 

They didn't have to wait long for the source of the laugh to make a grand entrance. Poppers, confetti, actual fireworks went off in the background as the populace took in the sight of the apparent ten year old girl cackling madly.

 

“I have found you at last, my new guinea pig!” exclaimed the girl, while attempting to dive into the sea of women to get at the target. Attempted, as in was thwarted by said sea standing up from their spots on the floor creating a humanoid barrier.

 

“WASHU!” came a male voice from outside, making the girl pause in her attempts to get at Ranma. This of course bought time for everybody to turn their heads in the direction of the front door. There stood a young man, about the same age as Ranma, wearing blue jeans with a polo shirt. Over the shirt was a coat with the Masaki family emblem on the left breast.

 

“TENCHI!” roared Ranma, barreling out of the prison of female bodies. None too politely to boot, either. In his haste to get to his cousin, his hands had more than once found . . . certain aspects of the female anatomy to touch, squeeze and push.

 

Instant blushing sea of women! Especially considering that all eyes had been on Ranma when he began his escape to freedom. At least that is what he looked at it as. Suddenly having choices scared Ranma, not that he would admit it. This distraction would be a nice change of pace while he thought.

 

The cousins met, and immediately took it outside.

 

Sweat-drops for all, not understanding what it was with Ranma and family members getting together just to beat the shit out of each other. Just image what a family reunion would be like! But still, not wanting to miss out on this little get-together everybody calmly filed out the front door into the yard.

 

“GOOD!” roared Ranma as he swatted Tenchi's bokken away for the fifth time. Everybody, from both sides, stood to watch the `sparring' match with jaws on the ground. A large chunk of the reason was that Tenchi, who had kept tabs of his cousin's skill level over the years, was already in the Juraian Battle Armor. Ranma, for a new twist, had his own bokken out and was matching the Juraian Swordplay presented by his cousin.

 

Meaning over by the van were two Juraian nobles with their eyes narrowed. This pure-bred of Earth should NOT know the techniques unique to the Royal House.

 

“C'mon Tenchi,” goaded Ranma, “Crank it up. I know you can do better than this!”

 

“All right,” responded the other young man, “But this is going to hurt you more than it will me.”

 

“HA! BRING IT!” yelled Ranma, ready for anything. He wasn't ready for Tenchi to jump away, store his bokken, and produce three wings of light in front of his person in the span of two seconds. Two of the three wings pulled back over his body, while the third transformed into a sword. Nothing like breaking out the Light Hawk Armor/Sword.

 

“PARTY TIME!” roared the Ranma fan club, earning surprised glances from across the yard. That was until they saw Ranma reach inside a subspace storage pocket at produce Excalibur. Then came the next shock as Ranma became Dark Seraphim, twirling the sword around to get a feel for the weight distribution in this form.

 

“What the hell . . .?!” demanded Tenchi, only to have a clawed hand swish by his head. Those watching could tell that that move was an attention grabber, not actually meant to connect. The combatants squared off, swords at the ready.

 

The tension in the air had became so thick it could be seen. Ranma and Tenchi eyeballed each other, not letting any of the distractions by either side give the other an opening for attack. Tenchi nearly shit himself when the seven plus foot tall demon across from him smirked and took flight.

 

“MOVE!” shouted both sides at Tenchi, but he was too riveted by what was happening to actually follow that command. Then the sword that was in the hands of Ranma appeared directly in front of his face, pointed straight down with the flat of the blade facing Tenchi. He finally sprung into action when the sword's eyes opened, with a look of mischief present.

 

Too late, for Ranma had found a surprise in the subspace pocket and the only way to test it out was to awaken the Judgment Ring.

 

What the Judgment Ring is, is just that. A ring, with hit and strike areas. The number of these areas depends on how many maximum hits a person can do. For example, in the game, Karin has a four-hit maximum ring while Yuri has a five-hit maximum ring. Some of the rings are spaced nice and even, insuring that the strike areas are selected. Some of the rings are down right disgusting, since the spacing is all wrong.

 

Now then, the only way to score a `Ring Perfect' is to hit the strike areas in the ring. There is a secondary level for that, called a `Ring No-Miss'. That means that the hit areas were selected, or that in trying for a Ring Perfect, the user got too happy and selected too soon. The hit areas are always first, before the strike areas.

 

What Ranma had found, that could only work on a Judgment Ring was a key. A key that could halt time and allow the Ring to continue around. Of course, the ring was already confused since Ranma's maximum hits could truthfully go into the thousands. So it settled on a ten-hit maximum, plus the key. Power over shear number.

 

A Seventh Key, allowing the ring to continue up to seven times around with hit/strike area successes. Of course, there was another key in that storage pocket, but Ranma had a feeling he'd better save it for something big. The Eternal Key was a one of a kind item, and it would be foolish to use that up on anything less that Saffron-level opponents.

 

Once Ranma had used the key, the only way out was to intentionally miss a hit/strike area. He was not known to throw fights, even sparring sessions, and he truthfully shoulda asked Karin about it before experimenting with something like the Ring or the Keys.

 

To everybody but Ranma, time stopped. Literally, since for the Ring to continue seven times it takes about thirty seconds. Then time resumed, and Ranma charged into Tenchi's space and delivered seventy hits at one-eighth of his normal power. That was still enough to lay his cousin out, and encourage his entourage to attack.

 

Bedlam has broken out in Nerima again . . .

 

TBC

 

DONE! I have caught sight of another SHC/Ranma fic . . . ~_~ YIKES! Is all I have to say about that. Anyway folks, part five is in the books. Part six, along with updates to the other two fics of mine out there will come when I get to it.

 

Ja Ne!