Ranma three and a half eyes
Chapter 3
 
by Brendan O’Donnell

     "You’re sure neither of them had that whatever it is?" Akane asked Ranma in an annoyed tone.
     "Uh-huh," Ranma responded without taking his eyes from the street ahead of him. *Well neither Kuno or Kodachi had any trace of the either signature, but that means that it could be anyone. Who?*
     "Any ideas who it might be then?" Akane asked in response.
     "None."
     "Want to get married?"
     "Yea... Hey, What?"
     "Just seeing how much attention you were paying." Akane said as she skipped ahead of him with a big grin. "And I wanted to see if you’d say you love me after that bit yesterday."
     Ranma turned bright red. "Wh-Who said anything about love. I mean where did you get the idea??"
     "Oh so you awoke that ancestral power of yours because you felt your honor required it?" Akane responded with a big grin.
     "Uh, well, yeah! I..."
     "No need to rush things, you kids have plenty of time to work out how you feel." Genma commented as he walked calmly past the pair.
     Ranma and Akane facefaulted.
     Genma looked back at them, scowled slightly and added, "I was in love with your mother for eighteen years before I got up the nerve to admit it to her." He shook his head and continued down the street. "Immortality changes your sense of time." Looking ahead he added quietly, "So does returned mortality."

     "Shampoo! Surely you’re ready to give up on that monster who fooled you with his illusion of quack quack quack!!"
     Shampoo put the glass in the Nekohanten sink and turned off the cold water. Ignoring the duck she walked into the front of the resteraunt where Cologne was siting smoking her pipe. "Great-Grandmother, Ranma’s mother just ask Shampoo train Akane."
     Cologne looked at her a moment. "You could benefit from the experience of training someone. Though you should consider carefully before aiding a rival for Ranma’s affections."
     *She didn’t call Ranma son-in-law, has she given up on bringing us together?* "Nodoka says she ask you and you say no, why you do that?" Shampoo added quietly.
     Cologne looked at her and sighed. "Caution Shampoo, caution. I will not give up on the hope of a son in law of Ranma’s potential, but I must understand the risks before I allow myself to become too involved. If his mother is right then his presence at the village could prove a grave danger. I must watch and learn."
     "Does Great Grandmother want Shampoo not teach not living girl?"
     Cologne glanced at Shampoo a moment, then shook her head. "I have no concerns about you teaching her, I’ll even help you plan your sessions. But only if it’s your decision. I will not advise you one way or the other."
     "Akane now not living girl supposed to protect Ranma. Shampoo help her."
     *And help me learn more about Ranma and Akane as they have become.* Cologne remembered the advice she had received through the conduit of the orb. *"Cologne, be careful not to let yourself get too close to the infant Sanjiyan, but monitor his development as closely as possible."* As always she contemplated the aid she had received, looking for traps, hidden agendas, and double-dealing. It was basically a habit since in all her infrequent dealings with Nephredana, she had always had the upper hand in the final analysis. *Demons are known for their cleverness and deviousness, but she is no match for Me.*

     Floating over a small table covered with Red lace was a globe of obsidian, about half a foot in diameter. A smooth, very feminine hand with long red nails caressed it a moment. "An unexpected twist in the game. I may snag Cologne a few decades sooner than I thought."

     "What did you find out?" Nabiki asked as she entered the house’s entryway.
     Ranma looked up at her as he removed his shoes. "Not much. Is mom here?"
     "She’s in the guest room." Nabiki replied with a frown. "Now what do you mean by..." She paused as Ranma moved past her and made a beeline for the stairs. She looked at Akane.
     "I guess he must want to ask her about that sight thing he figured out." Akane said half to herself. Looking at Nabiki she said in a more conversational tone, "The demon was summoned from the Kuno’s greenhouse, but we checked and they didn’t do it. At least not unless it was the principal, but he’s taking another vacation to Hawaii so it probably wasn’t." She sighed and looked down, her face a mixture of conflicting emotions. "Who did it Nabiki? I... I hear it every day, ‘prepare to die,’ but, it’s never seemed serious before."
     Nabiki looked at her little sister. "And Aunt Nodoka is worried that life may get strange around here." She shook her head. "Don’t worry Akane, when things start to get crazy the best thing to do is simply ignore everything you can’t control and concentrate on controlling what you can."

     "Hi mom!" Ranma said as he entered the guestroom. His mother looked up from where she sat, pausing to put down her calligraphy brush.
      "Hello Ranma. I just finished this charm for our first lesson. So tell me about what happened. If there’s something to be learned from that you should study it while the experience is fresh in your mind."
     "Ok. Well, we followed Dad’s witch compass and it led right to the Kuno estate."
     "Oh my, the two..."
     "Lunatics? Well, Kuno attacked me when we found the pentacle where the demon was summoned from; he thought ‘The Sorcerer Saotome’ did it and couldn’t understand the word no. I knocked him out, then I took a look at the pentacle with this." He raised his right hand motioning as though to tap on his forehead with two fingers.
     "What did you see?"
     "A big confused mess. But I started comparing the mess to that bit of blood on the end of that compass of Dad’s, and I saw it was the same as a part of the jumble in the pentacle."
     "That would have been the demon’s aura. The aura of the caster’s would have been there as well, though you probably would have missed it since it’s very hard to spot, unless you really understand what your looking for."
     "Um, I looked at Kuno and didn’t see any of that demon aura thing. And not on Kodachi when I got her to quiet down and let me look." He shuddered.
     Nodoka glanced at him for a moment. "We will go someplace quiet for our first lesson in magic, however there is a fast lesson you can begin learning now." She took out her katana and held it out in her hands before her. "Ranma, I want you to look at the blade. Dispel all thought of what you expect to see, just relax and focus on nothing."
     Ranma blinked. "Um..."
     "Don’t argue, don’t think, just do what I’m asking you. Relax your perceptions and remember how it felt when you opened your third eye. Don’t open it, just remember the feeling."
     The two sat motionless.
     The clock advanced five minutes.
     Neither mother nor son moved.
     Three more minutes passed, then Ranma started. "Hey!"
     "What did you see?"
     "Well I thought there was another jumble of stuff but then it wasn’t there. Thing is I felt a little like when I’m looking with all three eyes for a second there."
     "Good. Look at it with all three eyes then."
     Ranma opened his third eye and looked at his mother’s sword, the one he had so long feared at the blade that would destroy his life and his family. The strands of power were tightly woven through and around it, and indeed flowed between it and his mother.
     "The same as what you saw that second, right?"
     Ranma looked into his mother’s face. She was right.
     "You aren’t nearly as strong without your third eye, but you still have the capacity to wield magics. Perception is the simplest of them."

     The phone rang.
     Picking up the phone Kasumi addressed the receiver, "Moshi-Moshi?" "Yes I’ll tell her." She hung up then raised her head to call out, "Mrs. Saotome!"

Nodoka appeared at the top of the stairs and called down, "What is it, Kasumi?"
      "Shampoo’s calling for you!"
      "Ah!" Nodoka commented as she quickly descended the stairs and took the handset from Kasumi.
     "Shampoo, ... Ah good, thank you. ... Yes I’ll talk to her and you two can train in the Dojo for now. ... No, I have to try training Ranma and it would be best to start somewhere away from everyone. ... Yes, I don’t think Ranma would enjoy watching either. ... I’ll explain everything to Akane, don’t worry. ... Goodbye." Nodoka hung up the phone.

     "Akane."
     Akane looked up from where she was lying on her bed. "Auntie Saotome?"
     Nodoka entered the room, closing the door behind her. Walking to Akane’s desk she turned the chair to face the bed and sat. "Akane we need to talk." She sighed. "You know how much everything’s changed. My son, you, and that’s just a small beginning." She looked down at her hands. "Chaos is the source of all that is, but especially of magic. Before yesterday Ranma was a natural... focus of magical force, but that was all. He simply acted as a concentration of magic." Raising her head, Nodoka looked at Akane. "You remember what it was like here after Ranma arrived?"
     "Well, it wasn’t Ranma’s fault, I mean Nerima has always been a bit wilder than the rest of Tokyo. And Ranma," Akane paused a moment. "Well maybe things got a little crazier than before, but there were plenty of things that didn’t involve Ranma."
     "Though he was always part of them," Nodoka commented.
     "Kind of."
     "Akane, it’s not a question of fault or purpose. Ranma simply by virtue of being who he is drew in chaos, intensifying it in the area. It’s a completely natural phenomenon. But things changed yesterday." Nodoka looked Akane in the eye. "Ranma isn’t a passive focus anymore, he’s a fully active spellcaster." Nodoka raised her right hand in a palm up weighing gesture. "Among human spellcasters chaos effects are usually a lessor concern; the beginners don’t have the magic force to draw very much and by the time they do gain the power, they’ve learned the control and precision to reduce the side effects of their magic." She raised her left hand in a balancing gesture. "But Ranma isn’t human. He has enough power to do things off the top of his head that human spellcasters couldn’t even conceive of without week long rituals and the highest levels of skill. Unfortunately this means that until Ranma learns a great deal more he will be the center of a ‘swirl’ of more magical energy than you have ever experienced in your life. What’s coming will make last year’s events seem like a spring shower compared to a typhoon.
     "I talked to Shampoo this morning about her giving you some advanced training."
     Akane sat up and looked at Mrs. Saotome. "I’m a pretty good martial artist!"
     Nodoka sighed. "I’m not saying you’re not. But the fact is that you’re not the same person you were two days ago, and unless you become accustomed to that, you are going to die when Ranma dies through your lack of preparation."
     Akane blinked. *Ranma die... not a threat, not an exageration, literal and real.*
     "Please Akane, It would mean so much to me."
     Looking down Akane responded, "Ok, I’ll try letting her teach me a little, but she better not try anything with Ranma!"
     "Don’t worry. Ranma and I will be going out of town for a few days so I can drill what I can on magic into his skull."
     "With that baka you’ll need to pound it in." Akane muttered.
     Nodoka looked at her, then grinned. "Well, I have been planing the lessons to model after Martial Arts. That should speed up his learning rate."

     Nodoka sighed as she watched her son avoid three paper darts. His opponent, a student of Martial arts origami narrowed his eyes and folded a paper crane, which he threw at Ranma. Ranma easily sidestepped the projectile, then ducked just as it circled around his back. *It’s already started,* she thought to herself.
     Ranma’s opponent grinned at the small slash he had made in Ranma’s sleeve, then flew backward from Ranma’s kick.
     *According to Genma and the Tendos, Ranma’s been challenged by dozens of practitioners of obscure martial arts.*
     Ranma’s opponent pulled out a large sheet of paper and with a blur of hands folded it into a katana. With a yell he charged Ranma, slashing at him with his new weapon.
     *And of course Ranma will now draw these small annoyances more frequently, as well as drawing the serious problems. Like this person who claims Ranma spilled water on a great masterpiece of his.*
     Ranma dodged a several lightning fast slashes with the paper sword. Then he suddenly grabbed his opponents wrist and punched him. Nodoka saw his fist blurring somewhat at the end of the strike and realized he was using the speed training he had received from Shampoo’s great grandmother. His opponent collapsed onto the ground unconscious.
     "This sort of thing happens often, does it son?" Nodoka asked.
     "Kinda, though I usually get a little more warning."

     Akane stood in the Dojo contemplating the five cinderblocks before her. She adjusted her gi. Stepping up to the stack she paused, then added four more to the group. Preparing herself mentally she centered her breathing, and with practiced skill smashed her fist into the stack. All nine blocks shattered from the force of her blow.
     "Shampoo see Airen safe if attacked by slow moving brick."
     Akane pivoted to the doorway where Shampoo was now standing. "Shampoo. I was just doing a little training while you were on your way."
     "Is Akane ready to start?"
      "Yeah, just..."
     Shampoo crossed the space between her and Akane with one bound. Akane raised her hands and fell back into a defensive stance, but Shampoo simply used one fast kick, which went through Akane’s defenses throwing her into the wall. "Akane be ready all time! Not know when attack come!"
     Akane pulled herself to her feet and with a fierce scowl she shifted into a fighting stance. Then with a cry she jumped foreword, lashing out with a punch, which Shampoo leaned away from, then spinning into a kick, which Shampoo jumped over. She launched another punch; this one Shampoo caught with her left hand. Then before Akane could react she lashed out with a simultaneous elbow and knee strike to the trapped right arm.
     "GRRH!" Akane screamed from the pain of her broken arm.
     Shampoo released the limb, which dangled in response. She then struck at Akane with a punch she barely blocked. Her next punch hit Akane in the side sending her crashing into the Dojo wall.
     Akane shook her head to clear it. Looking at Shampoo, she kept her eyes on her as she pushed herself to her feet with her left arm. Seeing Shampoo drop into an aggressive stance, she raised her left arm, shifting her legs into a defensive cat stance. Then she felt the pain in her right arm suddenly surge like the moment it had been broken, she felt it move involuntarily, then she felt the pain fading. She raised her right arm and looked at it, realizing that it had just healed. Her self-contemplation was interrupted by a kick to the sides, cracking three of her ribs and knocking her across the Dojo again.
     "Not Living Girl pay attention!" Shampoo yelled. *Her arm fixed itself! She healed from that demons wound in less than an hour, but I wasn’t expecting her arm to heal so fast!* Shampoo thought to herself, keeping all the fear she felt welling inside her from reaching her face. " Akane heal fast now, but still clumsy girl who never had to train hard enough."
     Akane half snarled as she assumed a defensive stance, fists clenched.
     Shampoo smiled and walked toward her. "We fix that, start now."

     Kasumi opened the door with a smile as always. "Hello Ukyo, it’s good to see you."
     "Is Mrs. Saotome in?" Ukyo responded, as she entered the house and removed her shoes.
     "I’m afraid she and Ranma left on a training mission."
     "Do you know where they went? I was hoping to talk to her about something we discussed last night."
     A fierce battle cry echoed from the Dojo. Kasumi turned her head to look and half whispered, "Oh dear."
     Ukyo blinked and looked at Kasumi. "I thought you said Ranma was gone?"
     "Oh yes, Ranma and Aunt Nodoka left a few hours ago. That’s Akane and Shampoo." Kasumi looked at the Dojo with a worried expression.
     Ukyo looked at Kasumi, then looked toward the Dojo. "Sounds rough. Maybe I should..."
     "No, Aunt Nodoka asked Shampoo to help." Akane screamed again, this time there was a distinct gurgle to the sound, as though made from a throat filled by some liquid. Kasumi turned away, vigerously wiping her hands on her apron with while stating, "Akane can’t be killed, she can heal any sort of injury, no matter how bloody, messy, painful," Her apron ripped down the middle. She blinked and looked at the remains of the garment. "Oh my, I have to get my spare apron."
     "I have to go, thanks for your time!" Ukyo commented as she turned and walked out of the Tendo House. *I’m not running away, Akane’s invulnerable so it doesn’t matter how much Shampoo hurts her. It doesn’t bother me, not one bit, not one tiny bit! I’m only leaving because Ranma and his mother aren’t here.*

     Ranma stood in a defensive cat stance, looking ahead with all three eyes. In the clearing before him stood five round posts driven into the ground, four surrounding one in a four foot square. A paper charm was sticking to each of the posts, the outer 4 charms with small bells attached to them.
     "Take your time, son." Nodoka said from behind him. "Precision and control is one of the most important aspects of magic."
     The center post quivered, then began to rise out of the ground. The bells on two of the wards suddenly began ringing.
      "That’s OK, I’ve got a lot more things to show you, we’ll get back to this later."
      "NO! This time it’ll work!"
      "Ranma!" Nodoka responded with a voice of iron. Ranma looked at his mother. "We’ll come back to this."
      "Yes mom."

     "Your sure your alright, Akane?" Kasumi asked as she gingerly picked up Akane’s gi from the basket. The garment was deeply cut in a dozen places, and splattered with blood. Kasumi tried not to let herself deduce the path of the blades through her sister’s body from the cuts, however she knew that almost every wound would have killed a normal person in minutes if not seconds. Akane’s body had no scars, her movements showed no signs of pain or injuries. She looked tired, but as Kasumi compared her appearance to the aftermath of vigorous workouts in the past she realized that Akane was much less tired than she should have been.
     "I’m fine Kasumi." Akane responded, opening the door to the bath. Pausing she looked back at her older sister and added, "Thanks."

     "Do you know where Nerima is?" Ryouga Hibiki asked the woman standing at the side of the road.
     "EH?" she responded, as she pivoted to look at Ryouga. "Sorry I had something on my mind." She turned to look to the north. "If Nerima’s part of Tokyo it’s to the north. Where the storm is breaking. You’re going the wrong way."
     "Eh?"
     "North is that way." She commented, pointing the way. She lowered her hand, still looking to the horizon. Glancing at Ryouga she saw him start in another wrong direction. "Wait!" she called, walking over toward the wanderer.
     "Um, isn’t that the way to Tokyo?" Ryouga responded as he pointed down the road leading to Nagasaki.
     "No. Look, I’m heading that way myself, and I wouldn’t mind some company." She glanced toward Tokyo again, narrowing her eyes in consideration. For a moment they glowed.

     "That’s right, concentrate and don’t rush." Nodoka commented as she watched Ranma form a fourth small fireball and add it to the pattern he had circling a boulder.
     Ranma altered the pattern of the fireballs, they wobbled a moment, then entered the new path. Diverting a portion of his concentration Ranma formed fireball number five above his hand. Gesturing slightly he floated it foreword to enter the pattern, then two other fireballs collided and they and the other three vanished with a loud bang.
     "Damn!" Ranma proclaimed as he half-staggered back.
     Nodoka looked at her son, then glanced at the boulder. "This one you can try again."

     "Drink your tea, Great-Granddaughter." Cologne commented looking across the table at Shampoo. "And after you tell me about your first lesson, you can bathe as long as you want. I took the liberty of heating the water, anticipating you might have had a hard time with your new pupil."
     Shampoo held her right shoulder while rotating that arm. "Shampoo now believe Japan bath design best ever." She reached down to pick up the tea Cologne had poured for her. After sipping from the cup she added, "Shampoo not expect become teacher before return to village. Also never expect Akane become challenge."
     "She was better than you expected?"
     With a proud smirk Shampoo replied, "Shampoo expect Akane to be good as eight year old Shampoo, she actually good as nine year old Shampoo." Her smirk faded into a look of apprehension. "Shampoo not expect Akane heal like did. Shampoo broke arm, fix self very fast. When used sword, cut and stabbed a little before used fast kill strikes." She shuddered to herself. "However hurt, heal very short time."
     Cologne sighed and looked at Shampoo. "You don’t like doing this, do you?"
     Shampoo blinked. "Shampoo have not sure feelings teach obstacle..."
     "I mean you didn’t like striking the killing blows. Don’t lie to me Shampoo. I was the one who spanked you right before telling you mother she had a daughter." Cologne sighed and leaned back, closing her eyes. "I was about a year younger than you, and while on village business in a nearby province, bandits attacked me." She pulled a small clipboard and a pencil from her robes and started drawing something. "I was good enough with my staff to easily knock out most of them, however the leader was an expert swordsman. I had taken three wounds, two severe, before he presented me an opening, and I struck with all my strength and snapped his neck like a twig." She turned and held up the clipboard, showing the detailed sketch of a mans face. "I can still tell you every detail of every crime he committed, learning them was how I justified myself." She looked at Shampoo, who was regarding her intensely. "I expected to have to tell you that story much sooner. As the future leader of the Joketsuzok you will have to deal with that pain. I and every other elder wish it were otherwise."
     "Great... Great-Grandmother, how many peoples you kill?"
     Cologne looked at Shampoo, then looked away. With a sigh she replied, "I lost count. After ten, everything starts to blur."

     "Well, your not doing too badly half-breed." Vishnaru commented to Ranma. "Espceially considering that you have so little background knowlege."
     "Mom mentioned that."
     "She doesn’t know about me though. You’re doing a decent job of holding back on what you’ve learned from me, but you’ll still need to be carefull not to show her too much ‘intuition’."
     "I know. At least those control and precision drills are new."
     "Well I can’t really show you the limits of your body in a dream, can I? I can however show you the nature of magic, and make sure you learn it properly. Now name the seven principals!"
     "Um, there’s synthonic and contagiousness..."
     "Sympathy! And contagion! Do you at least remember what they mean?"
     "Well, that when two things are part of each other they tend to stay linked even after you break them apart, and what you do to one can be made to mimic what the other does."
     "You defined them backward, but you seem to have a rough idea." She said with a sigh. "Ultimately understanding will be more useful than knowing the definitions. That doesn’t mean understaning the proper terminology is useless, though." She sighed and nodded to herself. "Ok, watch closely, this one you wouln’t be able to get the first time."
     "Let’s see about that." Ranma responded, focusing his attention on Vishnaru’s demonstrated technique.

     "Is this everything you’ve got?" Ukyo commented as she looked over the two leather bound tomes on the counter in front of her.
     Hikaru Gosenkugi nervously responded, "It’s not like I do very much with magic. I mean except for the occasional voodoo doll and that’s never really done anything."
     "Relax, it’s just that outside Colougne you’re the only source of magic information I know about. But are you sure that those pages in these two books are the only mention you’ve got about Sanjiyan Unkara?"
     "Well, their mentioned occasionally, it’s just these are the only books that actually say anything about them."
     Ukyo opened the first tome to where it was marked with a red ribbon. Skiming the pages she turned four pages to the second ribbon Looking at the second book, she opened it to the marked pages and counted them as well. "Five. So there’s nine pages altogether." Closing and stacking the volumes she smiled at Gosenkugi. "It’s not much but it’s more than I had. Thanks." *Hm, with Ranma training with his mom, maybe I can get Akane to go out with him, something romantic... No. Geting her away from Ranma means fixing this Sanjiyan-Wu thing. Break that link with her, hook it up to me, and Akane can marry Happosei for all I care.*

     {The powers of the Wu sound impressive indeed,} Nephredana’s voice said in Colougne’s mind, {But it is a shame the infant Sanjiyan has wandered off, so much can be learned from seeing the foundations of a Magic wielder’s training.}
     "I don’t know where Ranma and his mother are training, and if I leave the Nekohanten to search, I’m making it that much harder to keep a safe distance.
     {Of course, the foundation of successfull spying is to avoid being discovered.}
     "Yes... How likely is it that Ranma will learn something that will make it harder for me to observe him unseen?"
     {I have no way of knowing. There are always ways to extend the perceptions, and ways to hide. It may be that nothing Ranma learns will let him see past the skills you possess, or you may have to negotiate with me for the means to approach him through stealth.}
     Colougne frowned. Demon’s could offer incredible gifts of power, if one was willing to deal with them. And they tended to deal so fairly, so cheaply at first. Nephredana didn’t offer her powers often, but when she did, Colougne always pushed away the temptation of such potent capabilities. "I will keep your offer in mind." *If there’s absolutely no alternative,* she thought. In her head she already began prepairing for the possibility of negotiating with Nephredana for something more than information and advice. She had never heard of anyone who failed to eventually be destroyed by such dealing, but in the decades she had been in contact with Nephredana the demoness had never shown very much bargining ability.

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