Complications By Kyokukou Disclaimer : I don't own the characters from Ranma 1/2 only the characters that I write myself . So please don't sue me ! But if you try to use my characters .....there will be ...unpleasant consequences if I find out . Do not repost or reprint this without my permission , however if you do ASK there is a good chance I will let you . " Propter mortem, sic transit gloria mundi…" “(Because of death, thus passes away the glory of the world…)” -Random Latin saying Chapter 18 Is one in the afternoon good for you? “ You’re gonna die if this fuck finds out you’re looking for him.” Punk number two snorted. As far as Punk number two thought, that was the truth. “ I’ve been told that by my boss too.” She nodded. “ So I’d be really glad if you don’t spread the word.” “ Shit!” Punk number one turned his head aside, spat harshly, and turned back to stare at her. “ You think we wanna be on the same side of Tokyo as this guy?!” A shining truth. “ The sick fuck kills people in ways that you don’t wanna imagine!” A rumor that they both took as based on truth, but exaggerated. She flicked her hair aside and popped her neck. The punks got the message that she took the warning seriously but wasn’t impressed. “ I don’t want to meet him. I just need to know the general area that he’s in. Where he might crash, where he eats, where he goes when he wants to find someone himself.” Both teens did the mental equivalent of leaning back, on the outside neither reacted. “ Your ass.” Punk number two shrugged. “ What I heard has him not even a dozen blocks from here, west.” The punk believed it, but she got the feeling that deep down he knew it to be only a rumor. “ Naw man, Ritsuko told me that he’s up where Tatashi kept his car.” This punk put total faith in whatever Ritsuko told him. “ Ritsuko is a crack whore. She probably told you that after one of her Johns mumbled about it when he was paying her.” “ No, she heard it from Tatashi himself, and she’s not a crack whore damnit!” “ Damn it, I’ll check both leads out.” She rolled her eyes and peeled out the yen she promised for the info. Even rumors were more reliable if you paid for them. Leaving the two to argue about the prostitute called Ritsuko she headed for the subway. Walking to both locations would have been easy, but then she might actually run into Paladin. Something that she was growing to fear the more she learned about the man. Even the hit man she had worked for as a negotiations aid a few times was afraid of Paladin. So she took the train back to the station closest to Blue Sky apartments. The place where her boss had rented a good sized place for her. For Tokyo a two bedroom apartment was more than she ever could have hoped for. The first room of the apartment her boss had claimed as his ‘office’. The understanding being that he could come and go freely, but he would respect her privacy in all other parts of the apartment, knocking before entering and such. She reveled in the feeling of locking her apartment door behind her. Her apartment, her own home. The feeling of having a haven, a place where food and shelter waited for her, just for her, was something that she never knew existed until it had all been taken from her. Then given back by someone who she had met practically by chance. If Nabiki hadn’t chosen her group to seek shelter with that night. She could still be one the streets. That stab wound could have gotten infected, she could be dead by now. “ But you’re not, so why dwell on it?” She told herself as she sat down at her boss’ desk to write her status report. When he first took her to the apartment she had asked him how it was already furnished, clothing even in her size. Ranma had only smiled and reminded her that he was a time traveler, although he tried not to abuse it except for: ‘ Good humor, visiting friends, the wellbeing of myself and others, and certain emergencies.’. Apparently Ranma had spent three days furnishing the apartment and setting up his office there. The three days were two before and the same day she became his ‘vassal’. Where he got the money from was still a mystery to her. His office consisted only of a large trunk, a shelf of miscellaneous supplies and a small desk. She took a pen and some paper and set to work. -Boss So far I have five leads on where Paladin might be. As for his sister, I have nothing to report. One lead, the most common rumor is that he’s taken up residence in the sewers. So much for common knowledge. Still, so many informed people buy it that I can’t discount it offhand. The second says that he is hanging out with the local Yakuza boss. The third says that he’s roaming the local alleys terrorizing the homeless there. The forth has him in the same area, but housed in the former home of a biker and street racer gang. I think you’d want me to check with you before checking out any of the leads personally. So, I’ll be simply continuing a low profile search for him and his sister until I hear from you or come home tonight. I got homework to do. -Tansaki L. She liked signing the same way he did. She liked the way Ranma did most things anyway. So far her life looked to be on the up and up. As she locked the door on her way out she could not help but smile. * * * “ Yes I knew you were a time traveler, but I thought that being in two places at once would blow up the universe or something.” “ Naaa, besides I wasn’t in two places at once.” Ranma said as he gawked at the extraordinary sights of the magefair. “ I was with you then I went on ahead and found out that there was a current magefair in California, figured out the nearest Tree there and how long it would take us to walk from it, came back to the Tree nearest Nerima so I would be back before I left so I would have enough time to get back to ask you if you wanted to change. Simple as that.” “ That was supposed to be simple?” Otama asked rhetorically. “ Anyway, doesn’t that take a lot of time by your own viewpoint?” “ I’m patient.” Ranma shrugged. As they walked side by side through the crowd of sorcerers, wizards, conjurers, and all walks of magic practitioners some of the booths called to them. Others for some reason shut up the instant the keeper saw Ranma. “ How do they keep something this big a secret?” Ranma asked as they entered the line for an enchanter’s exhibition. “ I mean, we’re near a major highway and almost to the beach, and the sun’s still up.” Otama almost laughed. “ Silly, with all the illusionists here do you think that they couldn’t have set up enough beforehand to keep this whole thing whisper quiet from the outside and essentially invisible to satellites and such things. They had months to prepare after all.” “ Oh.” Ranma looked at the ground sheepishly. “ It’s alright.” She found herself patting him on the arm playfully. Ranma’s arm stiffened under her hand an instant before a shout came up from someone exiting the exhibition tent. “ KODACHI!” The man shouted, his finger shaking as it pointed at Ranma’s back. “ It’s the Living Kodachi!” The man staggered back, legs infirm with terror. “ How the hell?” Ranma mumbled. “ In this era…” Slowly, so as not to alarm, Ranma turned to face the man. “ N-no. NO! NOOO!” The man gibbered as he backed into a tent post and froze. “ I’m not the damn Kodachi, look at my eyes moron!” Ranma shouted. Slowly the man calmed, his heaving gasps subsiding to fevered panting as he squinted and stared at Ranma’s face. Everyone about had either ignored the whole scene or watched in with wary interest. “ The Kodachi died of old age almost seven hundred years ago.” Ranma said to the man.“ No he didn’t.” The man shook his head, his eyes still transfixed on Ranma’s face. “ I heard it from the old keeper himself, from the Dragon Tesshentsu himself!” “ So what happened to the Living Kodachi then?” Ranma asked. “ He came to this time!”“ Then that would go far to explain why people like you keep mistaking me for that guy.” Ranma looked like someone who had received the final piece of a long unsolved puzzle. “ Thanks for the information.” Then he turned away. “ Are you his descendant then?” The man asked. “ You, who have an aura just like his.” “ Now how would you know what a mythical figure’s pattern of life looked like?” Ranma asked in return, keeping his eyes on the front of the line. “ I assense auras just as well as any other mage of my school, and I saw the Kodachi at the battle of Kanagawa’s wave! I watched him for nearly an hour! I watched how he fought how he-“ “ Now why would you do go to the trouble of that?” Ranma interrupted. “ Mere curiosity?” “ Heritage.” The man answered. Ranma turned to face him slowly, something about the air of the moment sent cold chills up Otama’s spine. “ Please explain, are you one of his descendants then?” Ranma asked in a very different voice, softer and smoother. “ I asked you that question already. But, to answer; I am the descendant of the general he killed in that battle.” The man stated proudly. “ Which one?” Ranma asked. “ There were three generals killed that battle. Toranaga, Omi, and Yabu. Which are you descended from?” “ So you really are the Living Kodachi, aren’t you?” The man took a step back, but seemed unafraid this time. “ What happened to those famous eyes of yours? Why aren’t your eyes the polished mirrors of blades anymore? Don’t you remember me from that battle, I was the one who escaped you!” “ My eyes are mine because I’m not the Living Kodachi. If you are hunting him then hunt him, and leave me in peace.” It looked to her that the man wanted to say more, but suddenly doubted his conclusions and walked away warily. Otama turned to Ranma and laid one hand on his arm. “ Are you alright?” She heard herself ask. “ You hunted demons before your accident, right?” Ranma asked, still in that soft and smooth voice. “ Yes. That’s why I had my accident, and ended up in Akane’s body.” “ Though it meant leaving many that I loved, I came back to this era to avoid thousands of people like that. People who make a scene at the very mention of the name Living Kodachi. It seems that there isn’t a time that I can have those who I love, and that I can love them in peace.” Ranma gently placed a hand over her own. “ Come, we’re next in line.” * * * Leonorah examined the outside of the more likely hiding place of the man called Paladin. It looked like a automotive garage taken over by a gang to her. Except that the gang was gone. Most of their stuff was out in the alleyway, dumped there, even the expensive equipment. “ So I had to do some housecleaning before I moved in.” Someone said from behind her. If it had been physically possible to jump out of her skin she would have. “ I-I’m looking for Tatashi.” She stammered the lie as she turned to face the teen that had snuck up behind her. “ He’s gone. One of the former tenants. Why do you want to see him?” The teen was dressed in bluejeans so faded that they were almost white, and a light grey sweat shirt style jacket with the hood drawn up. From the setting sun behind him all she could see of his face was a vague shape. But she knew who she was talking to, and that she better lie well and fast if she was going to live through the next five minutes. “ Well-you see-he wants me to-well…” She was going to die. “ What?” The teen asked. “ Take nude pictures of you? Screw you himself? Do both and post it on the internet? What?” She looked down at his shoes and worked with the will of the frantically desperate on blushing with shame. “ I’ll take that as all of the above.” The teen she guessed to be Paladin snorted in amusement. “ How much he paying you?” She took a number from memory when she knew a girl who had done that sort of thing to feed herself. “ Seven thousand yen each time.” She tried to hang her head lower. “ I need the money.” “ You look like it.” Paladin snorted in amusement. As a precaution she left the necklace at the apartment every time she went information hunting. “ So only seven thousand so he can fuck you an show his buddies?” Paladin continued. Not a hella lot for you, but pretty cheap for some ganger who has to save to trick his car out. What makes you so special that he’d wait a little longer to buy a NOS tank or blacklight or whatever, just so he could bang your bare bones?” She shrank back as he reached out for her face. Paladin only laughed. “ Hold still,” He ordered. “ I might be a potential customer or employer if you’re cooperative.” Remembering how the girl she had known handled such situations she stiffened and stood straight, raising her chin slightly and looking away. Paladin’s hand gently took her chin in his palm, long fingers tracing her features through thin grey suede gloves. “ I like the hair and eyes, but you could use more meat on your face. A little too starved, you need to work more often.” Paladin commented gently, as if a teacher offering constructive criticism. She felt his hand slowly slide down to cup her throat, his fingers only a tenseation away from choking her. Instead his thumb ran up and down the side of her neck. “ Much better, smooth, and toned without being bare skin stretched over muscle and sinew.” She screamed mentally as she expected his hand to roam farther down onto her chest. Instead she felt it slide onto her arm. “ Ah, all muscle. But not enough of it. Not enough of anything really.” Paladin sighed, as if in disappointment. From her arm his and sipped onto her side, his fingers feeling the spaces between her jutting ribs. Only his thumb grazed her breast once. “ Worst than I thought.” He muttered. “ You’re dying, only a few months from losing mobility.” The hand slid down her side to her hip, feeling the bone plainly jutting there as her ribs did. It lingered there only a moment before Paladin stepped back and slid his hand into a pocket. “ Let me see your teeth.” He said. This was not like anything that her friend had gone through. Leonorah was torn between protesting and obeying as if it were normal. Instead she ran the middle ground. “ That’s and odd request.” She said. “ Nobody cared about my teeth before.” “ I’m not nobody, I’m me. Open up and let me see your teeth.” There was no edge or harshness to the statement, but she knew who she was talking to. She opened her mouth and drew her lips back as well as she could. Wondering why the hell he wanted to see her teeth and why she couldn’t get a good idea of what he was feeling. “ At least you still have them all.” Paladin commented. “ Alright, close up. I saw what I needed to.” “ And that was?” She asked. “ That you’re not a faker.” Paladin moved his head to one side until a pop came from his neck. “ My sister’s sent more than one person to track me down. Usually they’re women, I guess she’s hoping I’d not suspect them or something stupid like that. Sis just doesn’t understand my lack of chivalry.” “ Why would your sister be looking for you?” She asked, gotta play dumb. “ She wants to kill me.” Paladin shrugged. “ WHAT?” Hopefully the surprise looked genuine enough. “ Shit, doesn’t bother me. We’ve all got problems.” Paladin shrugged. “ Anyway, so you’re really a underage whore, not a spy so I won’t kill you.” “ Kill me! Why?” It took no acting skill to get ready to break and run. “ Don’t listen well do ya?” Paladin laughed. “ I’ll sum it up for you. I’ve kicked out the guys that used to live here. I suspected you might be someone my sister sent. But you’re not so the worst I’ll do to you is not give a fuck enough to bother to tell you where your customer might be. Before you ask, no, I’m not interested. I like my girls a healthy weight, and my own age. In that order. Now you have one minute to get two blocks from here before I do something terrible.” “ Terrible?” “ As in one of those fates worse than death things.” Paladin chuckled like a young teen remembering a good joke. “ Now run as fast as those starved legs can carry you and go find your John.” She turned and ran, desperately hoping that this was not one of those cruel jokes where he would kill her the moment she crossed the two block line. Over her panting breaths she heard footsteps behind her. Not gaining, not losing, only maintaining a few strides behind her. Fearful of falling, she forced herself not to look back, just to concentrate on running. And hope. * * * “ So what does this lady do again?” Ranma asked. “ She’s a soulseer.” Otama began. “ A person who is naturally gifted with the capacity to learn how to see through all the muck of the body and aura, right to the very soul.” “ And we want her to do that for us, why?” “ Because they usually have a lot to tell, most of it really useful. At least to practitioners of magic.” Ranma shuffled nervously. “ I’m still not sold on this.” “ Too late, we’re next. Come on.” She led the way into the tent after paying the fee for the both of them. Inside, a woman sat on the other side of a table. Though she was old enough for her hair to be shot through with gray the soulseer otherwise appeared to be a young and vibrant woman. With a comforting smile she gestured for them to sit in the provided chairs. “ I’ll stand, thank you.” Ranma declined after Otama sat. “ Don’t be rude.” She chided him. “ It’s quite alright.” The soulseer said. “ Quite common actually. Who wishes to go first?” “ I’ll go.” She volunteered. “ What do I have to do?” The seer smiled. “ Nothing but sit there. You can even talk, just please don’t move too much.” The older woman closed her eyes and began muttering some mantra. Ranma stiffened and took a step back. Otama gave him a look and returned her attention to the seer as the woman entered a trance. After a long moment the seer opened unfocused eyes. “ Why are you holding this young woman’s body? I feel that it is not a forced inhabitation, but I still must ask why.” She swallowed hard before answering. “ I was in an accident while escaping some demons. I was dying and this girl tried to help me. It was sort of reflex, I wasn’t thinking clearly.” “ Soul transference is far too complicated to be done out of something as simple as reflex. Don’t lie to me.” “ Hey, I don’t think that y-“ Ranma began. “ No,” Otama interrupted. “ it was a lie. I did do it on purpose.” “ Why? So you could be trapped in a young girl’s body. With your own decaying in the earth?” “ I didn’t want to die! Would you have just laid there and died if you knew a way to save yourself? Would you?” “ Yes I would have died. But I am a special case.” The older woman’s voice still retained that detached element. “ So you have lived in this girl you now love.” “ Wait-“ Otama stood. But the soulseer continued, her calm words somehow drowning out Otama’s shouted protests. “ That love has been the only thing sustaining you in her. Without, you would have let yourself dissolve into this other girl a long time ago. Do not feel such guilt. It eats at you, a little more each year. That guilt grows faster than the love you share for your sister of the soul. Know that one day you will hold her with hands of your own flesh.” Otama slumped back into the chair. “ When? How can you be so sure?” “ Why have you not quested before for a body for you to inhabit?” “ Even if I found one I’m still limited in Akane’s body. It lacks the training my real one had. I could permanently harm her mind if I made just one mistake.” “ Take heart, your time in her has been a training of a sort. It grows stronger in the Art the more you let yourself use it.” Before Otama could speak, the soulseer turned to face Ranma. The young man stared back with folded arms. “ I don’t think that I’ll make any sense to-“ Ranma stopped as a tear rolled down the seer’s cheek. The older woman took a deep breath as if to calm herself before speaking in low tones. “ I have seen souls shattered. I have seen the sanctity of a mind violated. I have seen minds molded to be statues of wondrous splendor. I have seen souls that hurt me with their purity.” The seer stopped for a moment, to lean back from Ranma. “ You, are something I have never dreamed of. The trinity that you are.” “ What ?” Otama looked from the seer to Ranma. She scrutinized his features, unnerved that Ranma did not seem to be surprised at the seer’s words. “ The Pure Kodachi was the first.” Ranma told the seer. “ Then my Lord made the True Kodachi from that. I, Ranma, only reemerged years later.” “ Is that what I am seeing?” The older woman muttered in a kind of awe. “ ‘The sleeping tsunami, the hidden maelstrom, and the meager beginning.’ That was what someone who knew them all called them.” “ You do know they are with you still?” “ Sleeping, but still there.” Ranma nodded. “ No, not sleeping at all.” She seer shook her head. “ That tsunami still waits and the maelstrom hides just behind your eyes.” “ So why do they let me exist? I’m what they came from. I am what was torn away to make room for them. The True could rip me from existence. Why hasn’t either of them done so?” The seer breathed deeply as she studied Ranma for a very long time before answering tentatively. “ Please correct me if I am mistaken, but your mind was destroyed years ago. Then your soul was molded and shaped to fuel and house the new mind constructed where the old had been. Then, only a year ago at the most…the old mind reshaped itself out of the new mind. An echo of the old, made from the new. Since then this third facet has grown, sharpened its distinctiveness from the other two facets. But what I believe you may not know is that the other two facets have also been refining themselves. As time passes you, Ranma, will become more as you would be had you not been torn away before. However, the other two facets also grow with time. “ I do not know what each can and cannot do. Or what they want to be so. All I can see is that they are awake, and so very majestic.” “ Majestic?” Ranma spat the word. “ Can’t you see the lives they have taken, that I have taken as well?” “ Just as your friend here must forgive herself and let go of her guilt. You must forgive them, and yourself for all the lives you have taken from others.” “ I don’t feel guilt for killing.” Ranma said in low tones. “ That is what haunts me. That I could kill a hundred people right now and not even react.” “ So that is what you must forgive yourself for. You were made what you are, and are what you have also made yourself. Accept what you cannot change. To do otherwise is a lifetime of undeserved torment.” “ How is it undeserved?” Ranma turned and started walking out of the tent. “ How could all those that I have killed ever forgive me?” * * * “ You know my regular fee. But that is only for regular clients, you know the types, businessmen, drug dealers, their suppliers, their middle men, cheating spouses and their lovers. Such like that.” “ I assume this is a prelude to asking for more money.” The woman snorted in disgust at him. He smiled. Of course she was disgusted at him. Most of his contractors were, but all that was just them projecting their own disgust at actually contracting him. Quite pitiful really. “ Yes it is. You see, your brother-“ “ Who said he was my brother?” The woman interrupted. “ Your brother is a very deadly man.” He finished before explaining. “ I know he is your brother because you are an albino as well. Ignoring the family resemblance of course.” He reached out and gently tapped the tip of one of her gloved fingers. “ You may have done a professional job dying your hair, and the facial makeup is flawless. I assure you that at first glace you do not look abnormally pale. However, your contacts are colored, your makeup missed a spot on your left earlobe, and the gloves indoors are just the finishing touch. On a woman who shows as little skin as possible it simply follows, given the context of the situation.” The woman only smiled, not the sort of reaction that he would have normally expected. “ I made a good choice in which assassin I went to.” She commented. “ Nice deductions. I am Paladin’s sister. Which is why I, more than anyone, want him dead. Forgetting digressions, what is your new price for my brother’s death?” “ You might want to sit down for this.” “ I’ll stand, thank you.” “ Sixty five million yen, half now, half after his death.” Paladin’s sister took a step back, but otherwise kept her composure. Very good. If she had not even flinched he would have been suspicious. If she had reacted much more severely he would have to send her business to a less expensive practitioner of profitable murder. “ Can you handle that?” He asked. “ I’m afraid I do not have a sliding scale, but I do have more…informal methods of financing such large sums. After all, this much more than my usual price. Simply because this client could quite conceivably get away or even kill me outright.” The woman took her time adjusting her gloves before she answered. “ I can handle half now. However, the other thirty two point five million will take some time to be paid in full. I can pay most of the second half, but not all just yet. What kind of financing did you have in mind? Me to sleep with you?” “ Oh ho, that is another matter entirely. Business and pleasure being two different things.” He made a show of looking her over critically. “ I’ve never had an albino before though. If you’re willing after all this is said and done I would be more than happy to make you scream in the best way possible.” “ What is this financing you mentioned then?” She asked as if he had never responded. Nice control of her temper, a good quality in a contractor. “ It’s more like indentured servitude. You funnel all forms of income to me, aside from the cost of living, until the rest is paid. Understand this, I do not offer this to just any contractor who is a little short. I’m offering you this because I want to take this job. Your brother has always intrigued me. I’ve never spoken to him before, but I met him once. If he were to be allowed to live for a few more years he could become a legend.” He turned away from the woman and stared off into the blank wall. “ Killing him will require much more than a simple sniper rifle or poison. Killing him may not even be possible for even me. Testing my skills, built over my entire career, against such a client will be the creation of my own legend. Or my death, leaving all for naught. Paladin, the man who laughs at a gun.” “ So, will you take the job?” “ Will you accept my humble financing plan if you cannot pay the second half in full?” “ I will.” “ Then I will have him dead by the end of the week. At the most. I assume you would not have thirty two and a half million on your person at the moment so I’ll take the first half of the payment tomorrow. Is one in the afternoon good for you? If not I can be here at lunch.” Note from Author: At the time of this writing (5/2/2002) the $ to ¥ is about 1$ to 129.8¥. So the mentioned figures would exchange as follows: 7,000 yen into about 54 dollars Remember she was supposed to live on that. 65,000,000 yen into about 500,770 dollars 32,500,000 yen into about 250,385 dollars Try coughing that up on short notice.