Ranma ½ Divine Blood

ringlhach · Mar 9, 2011

Must've. It's fixed now.

PCHeintz72 · Mar 10, 2011

Heh... glad to see this continued... I've been so busy of late and trying to finish up a couple projects I've really not had much time for more than smaller reading.

Went through all the posted stuff over the last week or so on the AA... Here are some notes:

episode 238306

How unscientific... but in character for Mao

The 'with' s/b 'without', as it was declared the lambda driver was inoperative.

episode 245076

To be honest... this went a bit smoother than I expected. Shows how much Ranma has grown though. I do question one item though, does he know of his mothers male form?

episode 245085

Hah...

episode 245088

I should note, human medical supplies are not likely to be too useful outside the bare basics. Even if all three races/sides have a network, that does not make them exactly compatible biologically.

episode 245103

That has to suck nearly as much as coming through toilets and occupied bathtubs.

Though this conversation was decently done. I liked the President as he was shown in Stargate, woefully underused though... Oh well.

Well... it had to be asked.

episode 245111

Heh... given we know they can teleport, even if only 100 ft or so, and given their various powers. I'm surprised Gates was able to capture any. Unless they were alone and already injured. Sucks to flee a war only to be captured by of all things unaligned terrorists.

Poor Souskae... there is also the matter of Ranma approving. Given the conversation with them before.

episode 245115

Actually, I'm surprised there was not audio/video on that room. I would have expected it. But it never came up in anime canon. So not like your fault.

episode 245133

Unless she switched languages... that is messed up.

Older or not... that had to be considered a insult to them.

Heh... Nerima residents are not what they used to be.

Glad she was not there to hear that.

Well... 3 out of 4 is not bad.

That was fast, but then, she is a Satome/Saotome.

Hmmm... generally speaking, charges like that rarely work in fights... I keep thinking of Tenchi Universe fight with Kagato and his initial yell and charge... stopped dead.

Heh... good ending to the episode.

episode 245139

I'm afraid I had to look that one up...

I have to wonder how he knew it was her.

Sniggers... Posiden is such a pervert... And of course considering what was done to Ranma... a rapist as well.

Centauri?

'larger and' missing word(s)? perhaps 'larger than normal sized body and'

episode 245145

I assume the explosion at end of prior episode was Souskae blowing up the bad guy.

Even for him... that was dumb... but I can see him stating that.

'he' 'herself', gender confusion.

'of kid,' missing word, and kid likely should be kids.

This is confusing? Why would he question her on that?

Skipping ahead for a moment... this seems out of line with the latest episode with her showing up anyway.

episode 245175

I'm afraid I did not really get this part...

Ouch... I would have liked a similar scene with the Gods and knowing their numbers... all we've had is references and comparative numbers.

I would imagine, the humans should be off the list as well.

I'm surprised she is leaving her forces more scattered than I would have thought. But then... few places would be nice enough to house 170,000+ demons.

episode 245182

'need me' s/b 'need of me'

Believe the 'you' s/b 'he', unless he meant Ranma, in which case it should be 'you truly had tried to kill him' instead.

This is another inconsistency... In a later episode, Yomiko asked on the name Ranma chose for his body, and Ranma told her about the person... so Ranma changed that decision and came up with the name anyway.

This makes me more surprised Amalagam managed to capture at least 4 of them. Again, unless they were alone and already injured.

And she knows that how?

episode 245187

In fairness... not like he could have known what was going to occur or what was planned.

'a no' s/b 'another'

episode 245193

'these' s/b 'those'

episode 245209

That sounds like a interesting story.

Hmmm... if Akane's was to match the others, then 'than feather' s/b 'than a feather'

episode 245216

She is catholic? In any case, I would remove the 'book', or if that is supposed to be there, i think the sentance incomplete.

'they' s/b 'they're'

episode 245222

Grey?

Heh... good show.

I thought she would have had it by now, considering she had hired Satomi originally for just that purpose.

That whole funeral scene I thought very nicely done. It unifies them against the common usurpers in Heaven and Hell... and in more than one sense, common blood is shared hardship... very nice.

This two... this whole episode was about not only a ending, but two different beginnings.

episode 245228

Bwahahaha...

I like the backhanded insult.

episode 245251

Continuity issue. Something seems wrong with that statement. When Ranma was hired by Nabiki... it was stated she was pregnant with her first born, and had 7 months left... Ranma had just moved in. But just before the funeral, it was noted Nabiki was showing, and had 3 months left... so roughly 4-5 months passed, unless this is her 2nd child... but were that the case, she could not be 6 months along.

That is going to suck.

episode 245255

Sniggers... that is likely to do little to someone like Mara.

Heh...

At least they do not need to worry on the Ultimate force malfunctioning and breaking them up.

episode 245265

Based on comments form demons, and vague numbers from the gods, at least 270,000+.

Another nicely done scene

I should note, while we readers know what Yggrasil is, the bulk of the people at that meeting do not.

Keep up the good work... look forward to more.

Thrythlind · Mar 10, 2011

Indeed

Yeah, thanks. I tend to use AA as a proofreading pool...think this is one I may have missed in going to ff.net.[/quote]

To be honest... this went a bit smoother than I expected. Shows how much Ranma has grown though. I do question one item though, does he know of his mothers male form?[/quote] The girls have been told but not shown. And he hasn't even been told.

Yeah, but it works in a "desperate for anything resembling medicine" sort of way

There is a difference between the Gods and Demons with well known names and those that spend their time punching a clock at some functionary duty. After all, they had teleport capable kids helping some teleport out of Nifelheim when they evacced.

I'm assuming Gates was smart (sadistic) enough to go after a refugee and ID some acting like civies.

I did fail on the straightjacket and gag though. kept it after someone pointed it out for plot necessity and the fact that it is still as believable as any other mistake regarding Gauron in canon or otherwise

I knew I had a letter transposition somewhere! Thanks...fingers must have been on the wrong keys when I got tired.

She's using her Torrent realm, if she slows down, all the destruction she carries with her stops and falls apart.

I got it backwards ;_;

Been introducing my father to B5....must fix thanks

Or the canon self-destruct

yeah, this is a moment of idiocy just for rule of funny

Running joke up until recently that Yomiko was having difficulty actually meeting Ranma...so had Ranma joking to comment on that.

true, suppose it could be a couple of days into the school week though. Not overly important.

Ghostly shenanigans

almost did, but they don't know as much and didn't want another repeat of the same thing

true, though depends on the humans

yeah thought about that, but figuring he/she didn't supply a name just said "there's this stuff here that happened that nobody's sure who did"

noting again that most of the powerful ones are essentially military/government trained

she doesn't....she just really hopes

Art I've seen of Bell has her hair color range from gray to brown depending on lighting...and I tend to go with grey because I think it's cool

Ranma told her that the best site would take around ten months to get put together right.

Thanks! I worked hard on that

Naiki is exaggerating to give her claim more authority...

I'm imagining the kitsune as either someone like Hyper-Police's Sakura or a relative there of

Thanks, hopefully will have time, but will have to slow down soon for commercial projects....

need to pay bills....

Thrythlind · Mar 10, 2011

The lunch bell rang and Naiki was up and going for the door before anybody else. She was around the next corner in a flash and then looked back down the hall to see the other students coming out of the door and no sign of Lusca.

Breathing a sigh of relief she leaned back against the wall and started to turn to walk a bit more calmly through the halls to avoid attracting attention.

And saw Lusca right there, staring up at her adoringly hands clasped together and sighing expressively.

"You're so graceful and aggressive!" she said in praise.

"How'd you get here so fast!?" Naiki said.

"Duh," Lusca said, bursting into smoke and reforming again. "Demon"

"Oh, right," Naiki said. "Mara hasn't taught me that yet."

"I could teach you," the smaller Demoness said enthusiastically.

"Uhhh," Naiki said looking around. "Suuuure. Can you show me again?"

"Sure," Lusca said, she burst into smoke again, teleporting all of three feet.

"How about going somewhere further," Naiki suggested.

"How much further?" the pettanko with the long braids asked. "I can't go too far with Nifelheim down."

"How about to that tree and back," the shark-toothed girl said, pointing out the window.

Lusca blinked and looked out the window and then shrugged.

"I think I can almost get there," she said. "That'll be really hard though, I'll have to concentrate on this. I mean, we're not supposed to make it obvious and everything, you know."

"All right," Naiki said from behind her as she stepped quietly back toward the stairwell. "I'm ready to watch."

"Here goes," Lusca declared closing her fists cutely and closing her eyes in concentration.

As soon as she burst into smoke, Naiki was careening down the stairwell. Ten seconds later, Lusca reappeared in the hallway.

"Ah ha!" she said. "I did....it?"

She looked around blinking for Naiki, putting a finger to her mouth in thought.

"Ohhhhh," she said. "A trick. I knew she was strong, but smart too?! Squueeeeee!"

A pair of boys paused and looked over to where the new student was practically hopping around in a circle and sighing as she looked into space.

"Did she just...squee?" the boy asked.

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

"Hey, Yonjuu," a boy said, approaching her. "Would you like me to show you around?"

He was a tall boy dressed in a baseball uniform and flashing a bright smiler. His eyes drifted toward her chest despite his efforts to remain cool.

"Uhhh, no," she said self consciously. "I can find my way around just fine."

"But, I can show you all the special parts," he said, leaning in close to her. "If you know what I mean."

"Uhh, not really," the girl said.

"Oh, I'm sure you..." he paused as he felt a chill work over his spine. "Is Satomi standing behind me?"

"He is," Deimosu said darkly. Twelve.

"Well, I need to be heading to lunch," the baseball player said nervously as he inched away.

"What was that all about?" Yonjuu asked.

"Uh, nothing," Deimosu said as they started walking through the halls toward the lunch room.

"Ah, Yonjuu Ni, how lovely you are this afternoon," a new boy said whom Deimosu recognized as Shirai Satoru. "Perhaps you'd be willing to do me the honor of escorting you to lunch as your official gentlemen."

"But you're my boyfriend," another girl protested about ten feet further down the hall and marching her way up to the scene.

Deimosu looked past Shirai toward the girl and then at Shirai who suddenly looked rather nervous.

Twelve.

And then he quietly sent a surge of electricity through Shirai's body, roughly the same as a tazer, nothing permanent. But it was enjoyable to watch the pervert twitch for what seemed to be no reason at all.

"Shirai-kun!" the boy's unfortunate girlfriend gasped as she came to his side.

"Wh...what was that?" Shirai wondered.

Deimosu and Yonjuu pushed on swiftly, Yonjuu now looking quite angry.

Ohh, I'll bet it's these things here! she said, grasping her breasts for a moment and setting them jiggling. They just want to get me alone and do terrible things to me. It's like that TV show said at the hotel, kids really are cruel to the unfortunate.

They don't actually think you're ugly, Deimosu said with a sigh.

So you're saying they don't want to do horrible things to me? the Ni asked.

Umm, no, that part is right, the martial artist noted.

So, what, Yonjuu asked. Kids do cruel things to the beautiful?

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

Kyoko sat in a wheelchair for the moment, her leg still needing to be immobilized for a while as it repaired itself. The other members of their group, however were gathered about the grass as usual. Only Mizuki and Naiki weren't there yet, which made sense given that both were in other classes and might still be getting their food.

"Look, I saw the video," Shinji said. "Naiki was fighting a giant calling himself Poseidon and you called her a demon. And then Sousuke comes back all bandaged up too and we've got all these weird people around. I mean, on the way over here, I passed a room with a fourteen year old girl named Amaterasu was talking to a boy who apparently comes from an old martial arts school or something."

"What's weird about that?" Kyoko asked. "We have a lot of old families in Tokyo."

"Yeah, don't make such a big deal about it," Kaname said, hiding her face.

"She was saying something about not remembering what she was doing during the Meiji restoration," Shinji protested.

"That is perfectly explainable," Sousuke noted. "After all, it has been made clear that she would not remember things that happened so far back."

"How could she," Kaname asked. "She wasn't even born yet."

"I thought this was Amaterasu we were..." Sousuke started to say.

"Who's a fourteen year old girl," Kaname noted. "Shinji just told us that."

"Right," Sousuke said.

"Come on, tell me," Shinji said. "Are these really the Gods and Demons come to Earth or something? They're aliens aren't they beamed down here from some ruined star ship."

"No...I'm from Earth," Eija said.

"Well, yeah, but you weren't one of them before," Shinji noted. "And now..."

"My grandmother is from Earth too," Eija noted. "They're all from Earth....ish."

"What she means is that they've just been in a remote part of Earth," Kaname noted.

Mizuki appeared from her own classroom and plopped down on the grass next to Kyoko. Almost immediately, as she used on hand to stuff food into her mouth, she took out a pen and started signing Kyoko's cast without asking or waiting for it to be offered.

"So," Mizuki said, the other kids around her. "What's going on?"

"They don't seem to want to say anything about the whole Gods thing," Shinji started to say.

"Pssh," Mizuki noted, waving her hand. "I don't care about that stuff. I'm wondering about something important."

"Wait, impending invasion isn't important?" Kaname asked.

"Ah ha!" Shinji said, pointing.

"Important!" Mizuki declared, putting a hand in Shinji's face and pointing toward Eija and Kaname, splitting her index finger and middle finger to do so. "You two...wait! Hey, Sousuke-kun, I think I saw a suspicious package by the wastebasket in the cafeteria."

"Really?" Sousuke said surprised and doubtful.

"Yeah," Mizuki said. "It kinda looked like a bento, but I mean it was brand new and right by the trashcan. Who buys a brand new bento and throws it away? And I was thinking about that stink bomb thing that went off right before the break and maybe it's another one of those things."

"And why are you telling Sousuke and not the school staff?" Kaname asked.

"Tssh," Nizuki said. "LAST time they blamed me for the stink bomb and I had to fill out a report and go to detention for a week! Let Sousuke deal with it."

"I am also responsible for garbage," Sousuke reminded them. "It would be best not to allow vandalism to occur under my watch."

"It might be best..." Eija noted.

It could actually be real, the Goddess noted to Kaname. It does sound strange.

"Yeah, I suppose it is," Kaname noted reluctantly.

"All right," Sousuke said. "I shall attend to this swiftly."

He stood up and started to walk away.

"So there's really a suspicious bento box at the wastebasket?" Kyoko asked.

"Oh yeah, just suddenly there," Mizuki said. "Anyway, now that it's just us girls."

"Wait, what?" Shinji asked.

"You two!" Mizuki declared pointing toward Eija and Satomi again with her two fingers before pointing at her eyes and back at them. "I've had my eyes on you."

"Umm, okay," Eija said.

"Sheesh, Mizuki, could you get anymore creepy?" Kaname asked. "What about us?"

"You two are doing the vulcan mind meld thing back and forth," she said, "staring at Sousuke's back and then going back to whatever."

"Oh, yeah," Kyoko said. "I noticed that."

"I'm not really sure what you could mean by that," Eija said, fluttering her eyes toward Kaname.

How could she possibly tell when we're talking?

I don't know? She's just freaky like that.

This was complete with a shrug.

"Look I'm not one of the..."

"So when are you two telling Sagara that you want to share?" Mizuki asked.

"Never mind," Shinji said, "I can listen to this."

Eija and Kaname stared out at Kyoko, Shinji and Mizuki with slack jaws and paling faces before turning toward each other.

"Quick, what do we say for denial?" Kaname asked.

"We just point ou...." Eija paused, and looked over toward their friends, who were staring with rapt attention. Kaname, I think that was out loud.

Oh crap! Kaname said. Uhhh....ridiculous right.

"We don't talk to each other's minds, that's ridiculous," Kaname said laughing. Oh God, I denied the wrong thing!

Don't panic! It's not over yet, there is still an ultimate Satomi secret technique for this, follow my lead, Eija said quickly, before turning to look to the side and pointing. "Oh, is that Deimosu and his underaged girlfriend over there?"

Almost instantly, Mizuki, Kyoko and Shinji looked toward where Deimosu was sitting with Yonjuu.

"She doesn't look underaged," Kyoko said.

And Eija grabbed Kaname before entering the Umesenken, guiding Kaname through the steps, and vanishing them both away.

The other turned back and saw no sign of the two girls.

"Awww, they ninja-ed us," Kyoko said.

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

Sousuke was walking through the hallways on the way to cafeteria at a fast clip, eager to reach the potential stink bomb (or just plain bomb) before it was either accidentally moved or set off. He was just reaching the door when a Demoness with her hair in eight, long dark braids pushed her way out looking frustrated before catching sight of him.

"Oh, hey! You're one of these new people," she said waving and stepping forward.

"I am," Sousuke said cautiously. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a potential..."

"Do you know where Naiki Satomi is?" she asked, ignoring his comment. "I was trying to show her something and she had to leave or something."

"One can usually find Naiki Satomi in close vicinity to things exploding," Sousuke said.

"I know!" the girl returned breathlessly, clapping her hands together. "So strong."

"Yes, well, failing that," the Mithril mercenary noted. "She usually lunches with my group so that she can put herself in Kyoko Tokiwa's pictures."

"Kyoko Tokiwa..." Lusca said. "Are they an item?"

"I believe they're both separate entities," Sousuke said, wondering at the strange question and trying to get around the little girl. "Now if you'll excuse me."

"Oh, of course," she said. "So I follow your trail back to your group then."

"That should work," Sousuke noted.

Lusca nodded and then sniffed at the air before heading down the hall the way Sousuke had come.

Which left Sousuke free to finally head into the cafeteria and start scanning about the room, looking for the suspicious bento.

"Hey! There it is, just like I heard," a voice declared. "A fresh new Magical Lyrical Nanoha Bento box big enough for two people!"

"Cool deal!" another voice said.

Sousuke geared in on the noise quickly and looked across to see two boys from the modeling club looking toward a wastebasket and then noticing him.

In a moment, both Sousuke and the two boys were charging for the trashcan to the amazement of the watching staff. Each of them were about to reach the item in question when a figure suddenly appeared in their way, bringing both up to a stop.

"Stop!" Kagurazaka-sensei said loudly. "Hold it right there. We're not going to have any of this fighting over lost items."

"It is not lost, Kagurazaka-sensei," one of the modeling club boys declared. "It's been thrown away, that makes it fair game by the rules."

"You can't be..." the teacher started to say. "This is another of that Hayashimizu's student council rulings, isn't it?"

"That it is," the modeling student declared.

"I'm afraid I have to protest," Sousuke said. "There is a possibility of someone having tampered with this container. It has been suggested that a similar container contained a mild chemical attack that was used to assault the school prior to the start of break."

"Uh huh," Kagurazaka-sensei said, eyes half-lidded. "Right, it's going to gas us."

"It is a possibilty," Sousuke said.

"I can't believe I'm asking this," the teacher noted. "But is there an insane ruling for when two people are claiming an item from the trashcan?"

"Yes," Sousuke said immediately. "The contested item must be placed as the prize in a competition of some sort."

"Ah ha!" the modeling club member said. "Then I challenge you, Sagara. To a game of Battletech!"

"I'm not trying to claim the bento box," Sousuke noted. "If you'll just let me examine it for signs of tampering..."

"No," Hayashimizu said, appearing out of the blue. "The challenge has been made and must be met."

Sousuke just knew this was going to get Kaname upset at him somehow, and probably draw Eija in as well.

"Yes, your excellency," he said, sighing.

The teacher sighed and put her hand to her forehead.

"Yeah, you take care of that," she said. "I'm going to put this into the teacher's office until then."

Sousuke flinched as the teacher picked up the item in question.

"You really think it's a gas bomb, don't you," the teacher said with a sigh. "I swear, if this releases something that eats the school's clothes again..."

And with that she walked off toward the teacher's office.

"You'd better find yourself some lancemates, Sagara!" the modeling club said. "No one has ever bested the Modeling club at battletech yet."

"Dude, we only play against each other," his friend said.

"Ssssh!"

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

"Yonjuu-chan!" a tall, punkish boy wearing his uniform half open said as he slouched toward her and leaned against the wall in her path with a cool smirk. "Hey, Satomi, you don't mind if I talk to the girl here do you?"

"I think you should be treating her with respect," Deimosu said stepping forward and leaning into his full six-foot height.

"Listen, Satomi," the shorter punk said. "I heard you're some sort of martial artist and stuff, but I learned to fight on the streets and I've been in hundreds of scraps, so just you go off and I'll see about showing your girl a thing or two about being a woman."

Twelve.

The thought was full of extreme vehemence.

"Uh, I think you should run right now," Yonjuu said, looking toward Deimosu.

"See, your girl knows what's what," the punk said.

"Actually, I'm talking to you," Yonjuu said.

"Don't worry baby, I can handle a little girly kung fu geek like him," the boy said.

***********

Issei blinked as something slammed into the wall behind him.

Turning around he saw one of the local punks shakily standing up and trying to clear his head.

"Dirty cheating bastard," he said. "I'll show him that that fancy martial arts stuff isn't worth crap."

"Excuse me?" Issei demanded angrily.

"Get out of my way you pansy freak, Inaba might think you're hot stuff, but I know better," the punk started to say as he tried to push through. "I gotta go talk to my boys."

And he put a hand on Issei's shoulder.

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

Kyoko lifted her camera up as she saw something click worthy, in this case a young man doing a flailing screaming dive into the school pool from the second window. Upon bringing the camera down, she saw Naiki standing there with a victory sign.

"Naiki," she said cheerfully. "Wow, glad you got here before lunch was over."

"Yeah, I had to pull some fancy moves to get here clear," Naiki said sitting down and pulling out the bread she'd gotten. "There's this..."

"So who's the new girl?" Mizuki asked.

"...new...student," Naiki finished slowly before turning toward her side and looking to see Lusca sitting there staring up at her again. "How...how did you?"

"This nice boy told me that you eat over here most of the time," Lusca said. "That was a very clever trick you pulled on me! I like you."

"Uhh, trick," Naiki said, eyes shifting in different directions. "What was that."

"Well, you know, how you asked me to see if I could show you how to teleport and I did this," the girl vanished.

"The hell was that?" Shinji demanded.

Naiki took off running.

"Sorry, Kyoko!" she called back.

"Wow, it runs in the family," Mizuki said.

Lusca reappeared.

"And when I got back you were...." she blinked and looked around. "She did it again! Squeeee! Now, where to look...oh, right I can just wait for class! So smart! So cute!"

She said this bouncing up and down with her braids bouncing with her, given that was about all she had that could bounce, and then Lusca turned toward Shinji, Kyoko and Mizuki.

"Which of you is Kyoko?" she asked.

"Oh, that would be me," the named girl said. "It's so good to see Naiki found someone attracted to her."

"You mean you're not?" Lusca asked.

"Can we go back to the vanishing in a puff of smoke thing?" Shinji asked.

"Well, she's a girl," Kyoko noted as if it were obvious.

"Aren't you worried about her running from you?" Mizuki asked.

"Oh no," Lusca said. "Geisthexe-san explained it all to me! Naiki wants someone that can match up to her in her prowess. It is all a test. And I shall pass that test!"

She giggled, then squeed again and skipped off toward the school.

"That was very mean of Geisthexe-san to do that to that poor girl," Mizuki said.

"Aww, I was hoping Naiki'd found a girlfriend," Kyoko said.

"Can someone explain the smoke and teleporting thing?" Shinji asked.

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

Naiki came to a stop outside the gym and ducked around a corner, trying to think of something to do before the next class.

Naiki! You're so worked up I can hear you through the blocks, what's going on? Tessa's voice demanded.

I've got a stalker! Naiki declared.

All right, Tessa noted seriously. Give me the information and I'll see what I can do.

She's about five foot three inches, with knee length hair in eight braids, Naiki referred.

Okay, Tessa said. And where have you seen her?

She's been sitting in the desk next to mine, Naiki said.

The Demoness could almost see and feel Tessa put down a pen.

What exactly is going on here? she asked.

She's singing at me and staring and being a creepy, Naiki said.

She isn't either a buff or busty blonde either, is she, Tessa asked.

No! She's a pettanko brunette! Naiki returned. Are you laughing Tessa?

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

"Okay," Kaname said with a sigh as she and Eija reappeared into visibility back in the classroom. That was a close one.

We'll have to be very careful from here on out, Eija said.

You don't think they've forgotten do you? Kaname asked.

Not really, Eija said. So we need to decide what to do.

By the way, Kaname said. Aren't those girls supposed to be here as your cousins?

Well, yes, Eija said. Why?

Because you called her Deimosu's underaged girlfriend, Kaname noted.

Oh. How wonderful.

The embarrassment was clearly noticeable in both her thoughts and face.

"Attention, all students," Hayashimizu's voice called out. "Will all please report to the auditorium after the lunch bell to witness a competition of glory, honor and spoils."

"The hell?" Kaname asked.

"Will Kaname Chidori, Eija Satomi and Shinji Kazama please report to the student council room?" the student president said a few seconds later.

"Sousuke," both girls said at once.

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

"I swear this school is crazy," Kagurazaka-sensei said, putting down the unclaimed bento with a firm hand as she came into the office.

Mara looked up from the notes she was taking on her break period.

"Now that Hayashimizu is shutting down classes for some sort of pretend battle," she said.

"What is that about?" Mara asked.

"Both Sagara and some other boy are trying to get this bento box and they're settling it with a battle of some sort of miniature game," Kagurazaka-sensei said. "And of course to put our foot down would 'interfere with the autonomy of the students.'"

She put her palm to her forehead and looked skyward as if for guidance.

"I swear," she muttered. "Keep an eye on the office please. We just got all the summer projects and papers in, don't want someone sneaking in and stealing something."

"Not a problem," Mara said. "I can handle that just fine."

Kagurazaka-sensei left still shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

Mara sniffed at the air momentarily and then sighed in a pleased manner.

"Ahhh, sulfur," she said. "Reminds me of home."

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

"Okay," the punk said to his assembled hoodlums. "Both Tsubaki and Satomi have to come by here on the way to the auditorium for whatever this thing is. And I'll bet Satomi is right around that new girl."

"Hey, if she's hanging around Satomi, maybe she's just as dangerous as his sister," someone suggested.

"Shut your trap," the leader said. "That was a fluke. None of these martial artist geeks know how to really fight worth a damn. Certainly no girl can."

"I was pissing blood after that!" someone protested.

The crowd of punks looked back at him.

"I got better," he said quietly.

"Doesn't Satomi have two sisters?" someone else asked.

There was a wash of quiet.

"Eija took off her sunglasses once and I made eye contact and I couldn't sleep for a week," he said.

"Really?" someone asked.

"She smiled and said 'hi'," he whispered. "It was creepy cute!"

"Why don't we just kidnap Kaname and challenge Sousuke?" someone asked. "He'd use guns and we'd die faster."

"Ooo!" the leader said. "Kidnapping is a good idea, let's kidnap someone for a hostage to get them to fight us."

"I thought we were ambushing them," someone noted.

"But who do we kidnap?" the leader wondered.

A cheerfully humming girl with long brown braids started to skip through the scene between the small horde of punks.

"Hey, flat-chest," the leader called out. "We're going to kidnap you to force Tsubaki and Satomi to fight us."

The girl paused and thought about it for a moment.

"Well, I don't think that works with my plan," she said. "But I'm willing to give it a try. If you think it will get Satomi here."

"Uhhh, okay," the punk leader said.

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

"How'd we get into this?" Kaname asked her apparent teammates.

"Apparently," Sousuke said. "Someone else wants to claim the bento in question and challenged me for it. President Hayashimizu insisted I take the challenge and when he asked if I had anyone to serve on my team..."

"Obviously it is just us," Kaname sighed.

"Well, we do need to practice if we're going to take on that Megumi girl," Eija noted.

"Oh yeah," Kaname agreed, narrowing her eyes.

I saw my mother talking to her and her brother and that other woman a couple of days ago, Eija told Kaname conspiratorially.

Oh yeah, she's got to go down if she's still sniffing around, Kaname said. So let's paste these geeks than move on to her then.

Right, Eija said clenching her fist and pumping it confidently.

"We're ready," Kaname said smiling and cracking her knuckles.

"They're doing the mind meld thing aren't they?" Shinji asked.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Sousuke noted idly, despite having felt the background static of feeling Kaname's end of the conversation.

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

"Damn it, Tessa, why can't you help me now in my hour of need," Naiki said.

She paced and considered her situation.

"There's no way I'm going to that thing in the auditorium, cause that girl is going to just be there waiting, I know it," she noted.

Stopping she nodded firmly.

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

"All right," she decided. "I'll go hang out in one of the empty classrooms. No way she'll find me there."

Deimosu and Yonjuu were stopped in the hall as a trio of punks came into their path.

"Hey, Satomi," the central punk said. "Our boss wants to let you know that we've got your girl kidnapped and we're going to be doing horrible things to her if you don't come and show up for a beating like you've never received in your life."

Deimosu looked over toward Yonjuu and arched an eyebrow.

Why are you looking at me? She blushed fiercely.

"Not this one, another one," the punk said.

"'Another one?'" Deimosu said confused.

Now, I know you don't have a girlfriend, so what is he talking about? Yonjuu said.

I have no idea, but better check it out, he said shrugging. "Okay whatever."

"Okay then, the ambush is two halls over now," he said.

"The ambush is..." Deimosu stared at the punks. "Really?"

"We had to relocate it to make it a hostage thing instead," he said. "Now I have to go contact Tsubaki."

"You go do that," Yonjuu said watching him go. Are we going to kill them?

Just rough them up a little, he returned with a shrug. Wait. What do you mean you know I don't have a girlfriend?

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

What the hell is this crap? Kaname declared as the referee put out another marker on her map to note that she'd discovered something. Look out, there's a firefly about to get sight on your Apollo. Turn one faces left and the ref should show it to you.

Oh, I know where he is then, Eija returned out loud she continued. "I'm really sorry I'm already down to one mech."

"Sousuke," Kaname said. "We've got a scout about to find something. I don't got sight on you to know if you can see."

"Are the girls taking this a little personally?" Shinji asked.

"Affirmative," he responded. "He just came into my sight, be aware, the enemy's fourth lance was sighted heading your way."

"Yeah," Shinji said. "There's an Daishi and two Madcats, they passed my position just last turn. I'm trying to get in behind them, but I all I can do is support."

"What do we have left?" Sousuke asked with eyes narrowed.

"I've got a Firefly and a damaged but operating Wolverine," Shinji said.

"One armed Timber Wolf," Kaname said. "Two Wasps."

"My Apollo," Eija said forlornly.

"And I have a Jackrabbit and a Timber Wolf," Sousuke said.

Mizuki wandered over casually.

"By the way, where's the bento?" she asked.

"I believe Kagurazaka-sensei took it to the teacher's office," Sousuke said.

"Wasn't there a weight limit for this match?" Kaname asked. "I've had exchanges with at least two other heavies. They swarmed Eija with mediums, and we've taken out four recon mechs between us."

"Yeah," Shinji said irritably. "And they're using Clan tech to our Inner Sphere."

"They're cheating...in a challenge?!" Eija asked in a shrill, highly offended voice. "Why hasn't the ref caught this?"

She moved over to look at the write up of the challenge.

"This has two different rules sets for team crafting on it," the martial artist said.

"What?" Kaname shrieked moving toward Eija's side. "Experience handicap?! What the hell?"

"Okay, now this is personal for me too," Shinji said.

"All right," Sousuke said. "I have a plan."

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

"All right, get in there," the punk told Lusca as he pushed her into an empty room and shut the door on her.

"How rude," Lusca said dusting her off. "This plan had better work, or he will be facing a...situation."

"Would whoever that is be quiet," a girl's voice called out. "I'm trying to sleep in here."

"Squeeeee!"

Lusca jumped to the top of the teacher's desk and crouched over to look down at the floor where Naiki was staring wide-eyed at the wall from her lying down position.

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

Deimosu, Yonjuu and Issei stopped as they came to the same hall and looked at each other.

"Did you get challenged for this nonsense too?" Deimosu asked.

"Yes," Issei said. "This fool has already offended me once today and now I hear he has kidnapped your...." he looked over at Yonjuu. "Are you some sort of two timing pervert, Satomi?"

"He doesn't have a girlfriend," Yonjuu noted with a curiously happy tone.

I still want to know how you can tell that, Deimosu noted mentally. And why do you sound happy about it.

I'm not really sure, the Ni noted.

"So who have they kidnapped then?" Issei asked.

"I don't know," the blonde half-Greek said. "I figure save them first, identify them later."

"Sounds good," Issei said with a nod.

"I suppose I should watch since I'm supposed to be learning basic stuff first," Yonjuu said.

"This'll be about as basic as it gets," Deimosu said.

The three of them turned the corner to see a small army of punks.

"Ha! So you're not cowards then," the leader declared. "Well get ready for..."

He was interrupted as the body of the first struck punk flew past him and the next slammed straight into him.

"My kidney!"

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

"The hell?!" one of the modeling club members said. "I just lost my long-range support. When did they get to this side of the map? Where's scouting?"

"All the scouts are down!" another said. "None of us have any good eyes anymore. Just cover ground with your assaults as best you can."

"Nooo! My Daishi is down!" someone called out. "Some friggin 25 ton Jackrabbit just took out my head in one shot!"

"Missiles just fired from the hill top to the north!" another declared. "Damn it their incendiaries! Critical overheating on two of my mechs."

"How bad," the leader asked. "Three ammo explosions, lost a leg."

"What were you doing keeping ammo on your leg?" another demanded.

*********

Mara looked up at a hissing sound and turned to look back at the bento that the other teacher had brought in. She blinked for a couple seconds watching it.

"What the hell?" she asked.

And then it exploded outward in a wash of thick sulfurous smoke almost immediately followed by a downpour of water from the sprinklers all over everything in the room.

Frantically, Mara moved to turn off her computer as she shaped a shield out of the smoke around the one vulnerable machine. The water soaked everything else in the room, destroying pretty much every pile of papers, homework and the various other summer projects.

As soon as her computer was secured, she waved herself and coughed a little.

"Okay, that was a little thick to be a reminder of home," she noted hacking again. "How do I turn off the sprinklers."

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

"Why do you keep following me?" Naiki asked.

"Why?" Lusca asked. "Squeee. So strong. So smart. So kyuuute!"

"Okay, so granted I'm strong and smart and sexy," Naiki said.

"Cute, actually," the other Demoness said.

There was a muffled scream from outside the room and a thump into the wall that attracted their eyes for half a minute before they turned back to look at each other.

At which point a bright burst of lightning cascaded through the hall outside.

"Why not sexy?" Naiki asked.

"Cute is better," the other Demoness asserted.

"How do you know about me anyway?" Naiki said.

"Well, when they unsealed me," she said. "They told me someone had cast one of my spells recently to fight some sort of human Juggernaut or something."

"Uhhh, Tendrils of the Kraken?" Naiki asked.

"That's the one," she said happily. "I swear no one has cast it in forever. I was starting to feel unappreciated!"

"Did you say unsealed?" Naiki asked suddenly.

"Well, when you killed Poseidon," Lusca said, twirling one of her braids.

"Helped kill," Naiki corrected her.

"Pfft, everyone else was a land-locked nobody I hear," she said.

"Actually..."

Naiki, I swear, if you sick your unwanted lesbian crush on me, Tessa warned. I will be having words with your mother and teacher.

The green-haired Demoness sighed reluctantly.

"So Poseidon had sealed you," Naiki guessed.

"Yep! Back in the 80s! I wasn't even done growing up yet, the coward!" Lusca declared with more than a trace of anger. "And when he died they were able to unseal me! So here I am. Do you know what it's like to be sealed for that long when you don't have all your memories and power yet?"

"Uhh, no," Naiki said.

"Of course not!" Lusca noted. "Because you're too strong, smart and cute to be captured like that."

"Well, thank you for the compliment but if you could leave me alone?" Naiki asked.

"Oh, but you owe me a favor," Lusca reminded her. "A category 1 favor. So I'm going to admire you from close up."

"Is that your favor?" Naiki asked.

"Oh no!" the girl said. "If I use my favor then I don't have it. No no, I'm not calling in my favor."

"Well, since you have nothing to give me," the shark Demoness noted. "I think I'll..."

"But if I have to, I can ask for a favor," she said. "Like...singing I'm a little teapot to the school. Oooor, oooo! Take me for a helicopter ride..."

Naiki turned dreadfully pale. Especially at the word "helicopter".

"So either you spend your time following me around and gushing at me," the martial artist said. "Or I get some sort of humiliating demand?"

"Right!" Lusca said.

"Why don't you just use your favor to make me date you for real?" Naiki asked.

"Miss Geisthexe said your mother would hurt me if I did that," Lusca said.

"But blackmail is okay?" Naiki asked.

"I think so," Lusca said. "But I didn't ask."

"All right," Issei declared pushing open the door to the classroom and slipping in. "You're free to go ladi...wait, Satomi? They kidnapped you?"

"Naiki, what are you doing here?" Deimosu asked.

"Oh no," the little braided girl said. "That was me."

Deimosu and Issei exchanged looks and left the room wordlessly.

"What does that mean?!" Naiki demanded as she stood up walked out the door herself, only to find Issei and her brother already gone.

The sprinklers went off and the punks started to slowly wake up and notice Naiki standing in the middle of the.

"All right," the punk leader said weakly as he stood up. "No more Mr. Nice Guy. Satomi, I know you're there somewhere. Enough of this cheating crap. I'm going to take you down once and for all. You should have just let us in so you don't get hurt."

"Did someone just call me a cheater?" Naiki asked coldly.

Lusca watched from the doorway and stared forward rapt as Naiki tore through the punks after their highly inappropriate comment in regards to her honor in a competition.

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

"And the winner is Team Sagara!" Hiyashiizu declared. "Congratulations, you have successfully defended your right to the..."

And the sprinklers cascaded down on the entire auditorium, sparking sudden cries of "fire" and panicked students rushing out of the room for safer areas.

***********

"Dude, we have to give up on this," one of the punks said. "All you've managed to do was get us beat up twice."

"No, no," the leader declared. "We can do this, we can show those pansies what a real fighter is!"

Lusca walked out of the room and looked around for Naiki.

"So strong!" she sighed.

"Hey, you," the leader said. "Get back in that room!"

"But I already saw Satomi," she said.

"Then we can find something else for you to show us," the leader said with a leer as he and his fellows took in the lovely pettanko.

"Ohh, you're funny," Lusca said chuckling.

Another figure walked into the hallway and looked around hesitantly. Lusca looked over at her and blinked to recognize a fourteen year old Amaterasu. She started to move when she remembered that they were allied at the moment.

"Uhh, excuse me," the girl said. "I was looking for my classroom, I left...some...errr...hello."

"Oh look, it's new rich girl," one of the punks said. "Now we've got two girls to play with."

"Yeah," Lusca said. "Even if we weren't apparently on the same side right now. Amaterasu isn't old enough to have most of her power yet, so that's quite such a funny joke here."

"Well, we think it's funny," the punks said chuckling.

Lusca walked over toward Amaterasu and pulled the younger girl behind her.

"Last chance to back off," the girl said, dead seriously.

"Ehh?"

"Us, back off?" the leader said. "Have we shown any sign of that sort of thinking?"

"Oh well," she said. "I'll try not to seriously hurt you."

"You won't seriously hurt us?" a punk said doubtfully.

"Oh man, she's another martial artist," yet another punk noted.

"Oh, no," Lusca said. "I don't do much in the way of martial arts."

"Then how are you going to fight us?"

*******

Kagurazaka-sensei came out of the teacher's office coughing at the stench and blinked as saw a thug screaming down a hallway and then suddenly be pursued by what looked like a long tentacle and pulled back into the hallway he'd run out of, kicking and screaming.

She blinked again and rubbed at her eyes before proceeding to the Principal's office.

********

"Attention students, please vacate the school grounds," the Principal's voice declared. "Apparently someone detonated a hallucinogenic gas in the main building. In addition the sprinklers have apparently destroyed most, if not all of the summer projects. As such you will have another two weeks to complete those assignments."

"Yes!" Mizuki cheered. "It worked!"

Kaname, Eija, Sousuke, and Shinji stopped walking and turned to look at Mizuki. Kyoko, in her temporary wheel chair, and Naiki, who was pushing her, each did likewise. Deimosu and Yonjuu behind Mizuki stopped as well and stared at her as she danced around in celebration.

"Two more weeks to do summer projects and half a day off from school," Mizuki declared proudly.

"When...when did you plan this?" Kaname asked.

"I've been planning this for three months!" Mizuki declared proudly. "I'm not sure how some this stuff happened, but half day off! Woot!"

The people around her groaned in various ways.

"Mizuki," Kyoko said with a sigh.

"You were planning this before you ever got assigned the homework?!" Kaname shouted.

"Yeah," Mizuki said as if that was obvious.

"Why didn't you just do the homework?" Sousuke asked.

"I was busy putting the whole smoke bomb thing together!" Mizuki said.

********

"That's it, I'm through with being a punk!" several boys called out in one set of words or another. "I'm going to be a damn nerd for the rest of the year."

"But they're just wimps and hallucinations," the leader protested.

PCHeintz72 · Mar 11, 2011

Nevermind

Thrythlind · Mar 11, 2011

is that a good nevermind or a bad nevermind?

PCHeintz72 · Mar 11, 2011

Thrythlind said:

I was going to comment on one of your replies, but just after I made the post, I understood what you meant, so deleted it.

As for this newest episode... only one thing really went through my mind.

Bwahahaha...

Of course, the favor to be owed is not anything like was thought it could go like.

However, I should point out Mara had mentioned that the person had been sealed 'for so long nobody owed favors to them anymore. Considering how long demons live... I cannot picture the "80's" as was stated as being near long enough.

Thrythlind · Mar 11, 2011

PCHeintz72 said:

Thrythlind said:

I was going to comment on one of your replies, but just after I made the post, I understood what you meant, so deleted it.

As for this newest episode... only one thing really went through my mind.

Bwahahaha...

Of course, the favor to be owed is not anything like was thought it could go like.

However, I should point out Mara had mentioned that the person had been sealed 'for so long nobody owed favors to them anymore. Considering how long demons live... I cannot picture the "80's" as was stated as being near long enough.

nope....I envision is just not a very popular spell...most people not having Lusca's appreciation for all things tentacle

Thrythlind · Mar 11, 2011

I swear...sometimes I'm deeply tempted to go through this, change a lot of the names and some of the details and selling it as a group of novels....

granted, I'm already working on doing that to make it an RP campaign setting

Thrythlind · Mar 11, 2011

"That was fun," Shichimu said cheerfully coming out of the theater with the two mercenaries. "I had no idea that movies had sound like that."

It was a sight that was attracting some attention: a girl who looked about seventeen and Japanese walking down the street of a small European city while two men clearly not related to her and quite a bit older walked with her.

"I guess that means you'll be paying to see the movie more often now," McAllen said in a humorous aside before putting his eyes back on the street.

"Oh yes, I'll be paying to hear a movie a lot more often now," she said. "Well...if I get money."

"I don't think that'll be a problem for a bit," Kurz said.

"I did like the dragon better as green though," she said.

"It was dark blue," McAllen said.

"Yeah, but I changed it," she said.

"Hold it, you changed the color of what you were seeing," Kurz said.

"Uh huh," Shichimu said nodding. "I guess that's another part of what I do. It's why I keep forgetting I'm ugly, because I make myself look like an Ichi when I look in the mirror. Or draw a line on the ground so I know how to get back from somewhere."

"And if you walk away from where you drew the line, does it go away?" McAllen asked.

"Why would I let it do that?" she asked. "Then I'd get lost in the lab or when she sent me on missions with the others."

Kurz and McAllen exchanged a look.

"Her power is a customizable User Interface," McAllen asked.

"No, I just change what I'm looking at is all," she said. "I mean it's exactly the same as looking out things that aren't in front of me. Just have to be careful or you can get..."

"Hold up," Kurz said. "Duck aside here."

McAllen nodded and pulled the girl into the alley next to them, going on guard as Kurz moved against the edge of the wall and quietly pulled out a gunsight from his pocket and brought it up to his eye, making sure no one got a good look at him doing so.

"We've got company at the hotel," he said. "Judging by body language and the way the men are jumping, I'd say that's a Kodachi down there."

"The woman has some information, if we had stayed in the hotel we might have been caught by now," McAllen said. "Maybe she already has a psychic way of finding us like this girl's vision."

"Maybe," Kurz said. "But if she already had Shichimu's ability, I'm not sure she'd be here herself."

"Let's get out of here," McAllen said. "Let's head for the secondary."

"I could..." Shichimu started to say.

"No," McAllen said. "If she knows what you can do, she'd just sit herself somewhere she might think you'd look at and grabbed you when you looked."

He gestured for the girl to follow him and she did so as quietly as she could. Like many of the numbers, she had been on missions in the past even if she lacked training.

"It's too dark," she complained, pausing for a moment. "Fixed it."

Kurz stared at her and shook his head as he came up behind them, ready to go for his gun.

"I'd love to be able to adjust the gamma on real life," he said. "Still, tone that down, don't know how much she needs to get you."

"But, it's dark," Shichimu protested.

"Not that dark," Kurz assured her.

"Less talking," McAllen said.

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

The secondary site had a few lookout points associated with it. Things Kurz had reasoned would have a good line of site on the location and would give him something to go to put a watch on the site, a tool shop in a row of shops, and see if it was safe from a distance.

This was stuff Kurz himself had picked out from studying the maps and checking out surveillance pictures. It wasn't on any sort of file or anything. However, they were things that anybody with the same information and surveillance could reason out.

And there had been someone in one of his lookout points.

Grimacing, he looked down at the dead man and cleaned his knife. Someone was going to notice this position going dark. He left the building quietly and headed down the street in the opposite direction of McAllen and Shichimu for the moment.

It was fifteen minutes before he'd decided that he wasn't being followed and started to turn back for where he'd left them before moving on to check the secondary site.

Moving carefully and checking his corners, he still felt a little off. There was a feeling like he was missing something or had forgotten something and left him frowning.

He started running a scenario in his head, just how would he follow someone in this case. How far back would he walk and what paths would he take. Without looking down or saying it out loud, he started measuring his pace and thinking about Nimu's pace.

There was something that was pretty firm in his mind.

The sniper turned around a corner and put his back to the wall, drawing his knife and counting beats out before slashing his knife into the open space at the corner.

There was a thud and a gasp as the image of one Kodachi's bodies was just there with a knife through her chest. It wasn't as if it faded into view, it was more like he suddenly realized for the first time that she was there the entire time.

"Damn it," the body said as blood trickled out of her mouth. "I don't have too many with this power."

And then the form toppled to the ground and Kurz took off at a run before a call could be made zeroing in a collection of thugs to his position.

Or worse, a Kodachi with a more offensive power.

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

It was another thirty minutes before he arrived where McAllen and Shichimu were waiting for him.

"Mr. Weber," Shichimu said in relief as he came into the room. "I was getting worried."

"They were there?" McAllen said before noting the package Kurz was carrying.

"Yeah, all over the place," Kurz said. "Scratch one Kodachi, tried to do some sort of mental forgot she was there trick to make herself invisible."

"And you killed her how?" McAllen asked.

"I channeled Sagara and let paranoia guide me," he said, looking out the window of the small abandoned store front that McAllen had scouted when they first started the mission.

His lieutenant had also thought to leave a bit of care package in place, just in case.

McAllen moved up next to Kurz and whispered, glancing back toward the girl.

"I don't like this," he said. "First we get those traitorous creeps on the SRT and then this freak is in on both our official exit plans?"

"Yeah, looking like a big time mole all right," Kurz agreed. "Do you have any contacts in this area, sir?"

"Not as such," he said. "And I'll bet she has the cops on us in a little bit. And she'll sick the cops on us next."

He thought carefully a moment and then nodded.

"Okay, we're leaving the city," he said, turning toward the Ni so the girl could hear.

"Isn't that what we were trying to do?" she asked.

"No, we were trying to get a particular meeting," Kurz said. "Now we're just leaving."

"I saw a car down the street we can use," McAllen noted. "Don't forget to grab gear from the cache."

"Don't worry about me forgetting something like that," Kurz said.

They were out into the streets then quietly, breaking into the little European box car and piling into it and heading out down the streets in their little car, Shichimu in the back seat and trying to keep down as they moved along through the streets.

They were stopped at a traffic light when Kurz noticed a handful of familiar mercenaries and they turned to notice him.

"Go, go!" he shouted as the mercenaries started drawing pistols and rushing forward at the little car as it sped off.

"Great, now they're going to have a description of the car," he said.

"It's a piece of sh....junk," he glanced back toward Shichimu, "European car and there's a dozen like it just in view. Just go! Ummm...sir."

"Wouldn't she usually send some of my sisters for this?" Shichimu asked.

"Maybe if we hadn't freed most of them in the area just recently," McAllen said. "And I'm getting the feeling she's not trusting missions to just anybody anymore."

They got out of the view of the mercenaries and merged into traffic heading onto one of the major through fares out of the city heading further north, towards West Germany and other places.

***********

Things seemed to be calming down again when they were getting close to the outside of the city and a shrill cacophony of sounds made itself apparent to them.

"What the hell is that?" McAllen wondered.

The unmistakable sound of screeching tires followed by a crash and the distant sign of an explosion down the road brought them to a brief stop as Kurz stepped out of the cat briefly and rose his scope to his eyes.

Down below them at the head of the road, people seemed to be going ahead and screaming their heads off as they tried to run away from...something. They didn't seem to be heading in any one direction, just running randomly terrified, viciously attacking anything that got in their way.

He scanned back and watched as a handful of people watching in their cars or along the street were suddenly gripped with what looked like a severe amount of pain before they too were engaging in the fearful activity.

In the midst of the chaos was an organized group of people in black tactical gear moving up the road and watching the people as they grew fearful and moved about tearing things apart in the urge to be away. At the center was one of the Kodachi Kuno bodies, walking very slowly and clearly concentrating from car to car.

"Ah hell," Kurz said. "We've got to get out of here now."

McAllen stepped back and looked down the road, not seeing the detail that Kurz was but recognizing a plan to flush out something that was hiding.

"Everybody!" the lieutenant shouted at the top of his lungs to the people near enough to hear. "Get out of here."

Kurz meanwhile reached into the car and pulled out a rifle, nothing more than an old hunting rifle, but it was all he really needed at the moment. He attached the scope and sighted down toward the woman in the street so casually spreading the fear that was tearing people apart down there.

A shot rang out and the woman fell as the people still in control of themselves around Kurz and McAllen called out in shock and scattered away from him.

The riots were still going on, but at least without her, there was a chance that they'd calm down naturally.

"Go!" McAllen said. "After that we're definitely going to have cops on us."

"Yeah, not much choice on the matter thought," Kurz said as he slung his rifle back over his shoulder, detaching and pocketing the scope in the same motion.

He took Shichimu's hand and they darted aside from the road in between some of the buildings that were there. McAllen came up behind them, holding his pistol and looking for any sort of trouble.

"Careful, that was too blatant to be anything but something to flush us out," McAllen said.

"Yeah," Kurz said. "I know."

They came to the edge of the town then, hills and forests not a hundred feet out, and stopped as Kurz pulled his scope out again and scanned the area.

"Damn it," he said. "They have a position on the hill to the left, how many minions does this bi...woman have anyway?"

"She has a lot," Shichimu asserted quietly.

The sound of gunfire behind them several blocks away attracted their attention.

"And sounds like she's still got her men pushing for her," McAllen noted.

"Is she doing all this just to get me?" Shichimu said. "Why? I can't do anything really powerful."

McAllen snorted.

"Trust me on this one when we say that the last thing we want her to be able to do is look anywhere in the world she wants," Kurz said.

"Let's get up this street," McAllen said, pointing to the side towards a steep rising street at the top of which a bunch of barrels sat outside a warehouse. "Then we'll have the other side of this hill and be sliding down the back end of it."

"And, what's that going to do?" Kurz asked.

"Working for this organization and you've never read the Hobbit?" McAllen asked.

"What are you talking about?" Kurz asked before glancing up the hill. "Are you crazy? I might be able to pull that off, but there's no way you..."

"I'll find my own way out," McAllen promised him. "That's the way you're going and that's an order."

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

A shot rang out and one of Kodachi's minions collapsed to the ground as the others took cover.

"There they are," one of them shouted. "We'll get them now. Head up there, we've got them covered on both sides from this point."

One of the mercs nodded with a smirk as he chambered his gun and started darting up the small hill toward the warehouse at the top.

Almost immediately, he ducked aside as a rolling barrel came down the hill at him followed by another and another.

"Keep going," his commander said, pushing forward and dodging aside another barrel as it rolled down the hill down toward the river below. "They're pressing from the other side too."

A dozen mercenaries pushed their way up the front slope toward the warehouse on the edge of town, and they had radio reports from a number of other units heading up as well. All of them were dodging barrels as they went along.

***********

One of the barrels struck the base of a tree and cracked open letting Kurz kick himself free of the item and pull out, standing in a very disoriented dizzy fashion before he tracked in on Shichimu's voice nearby and broke her free of the barrel she was in.

"That was scary," she said, trying to hold her feet and clutching Kurz as she did so. "Wh...where is Mr McAllen?"

Kurz frowned as he led her into the trees then and looked back up the hill.

"Remember he said he'd find his own way out?" Kurz noted darkly.

"He's going to die, isn't he?" Shichimu said quietly.

"Nah, he'll get out," Kurz said without much conviction.

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

McAllen looked around from behind his cover towards the various men that had converged on his position and grimaced. There weren't any good gaps in the net for him to slip through.

"You've caused something of a mess," a woman's voice said from outside.

He glanced up and saw Kodachi walking toward him casually.

"Why don't you come out here and we'll talk things over," the woman said in an incredibly soothing tone of voice.

It sounded like a good id...

He shook his head immediately and cleared his mind as well as he could. It was evilly clear just what this body's ability was. Just thank goodness the woman, if she could really be called that, hadn't learned how to share powers yet.

Hopefully they didn't know that was possible.

"I think you may not have heard me," Kodachi said. "We want the three of you to come out and...talk things over. I'm sure after a brief conversation, we'll be able to come to an understanding."

The soothing sound of the woman's voice slipped insidiously through his ears and he found himself struggling to avoid standing up out into the clear.

"Now, now," she repeated, each word pushing him up to action until he was standing straight with a number of guns pointed his way and staring across at one Kodachi Kuno's bodies. "That's better, now go ahead and come closer while we wait for the other two of you to see reason."

"I'm not coming over there, bitch," McAllen said tightly.

"Oh, yes, yes you are," the Kodachi noted. "OhhHOHOHOHOHOO! Yes you are. And do put down that gun, I've lost enough bodies already this action I think."

Even the shrill laugh was appealing somehow and against his will, McAllen felt his legs dragging across the scene as the pistol in one hand clattered uselessly to the ground. He reached up toward his chest into his jacket, as if to draw another gun, but the bluff was taken for what it was by the woman.

Slowly, eventually, he found himself standing tall over the woman that was forcing him to act so and looking down at the blonde roots of her hair.

"Oh crap," McAllen said as he realized the importance of that.

"Yes," the woman holding one Kodachi's bodies noted. "Now where are the other two..."

His hand came out of his jacket and several small metal objects clattered off of his fingers to the ground.

"What are tho..." Kodachi paused and took a heavy breath. "Oh bother."

The grenades under McAllen's jacket exploded outward ripping the stolen body to pieces along with a fair number of her mercenaries.

Kurz and Shichimu were well gone from the area before any of Legion could pick up the trail again.

Thrythlind · Mar 11, 2011

"No, you're kidding," Mao said, snickering.

"I'm really not," Ranma said. "His name was Pantyhose Tarou."

"Pantyhose?" Mao said laughing out loudly in a way that was very far from ladylike.

It brought a number of stares from across the lobby of the Kabuki theater they were just leaving.

"Who names a kid Pantyhose?" she wondered.

"Freak perverts who steal underwear," the man beside her said.

"And that was his big goal in life," Melissa said, slightly tipsy. "He wanted to change his name?"

"He also wanted to rule the world," Ranma said, smirking, "but first he wanted to change his name, yeah."

"That's some freaky childhood there," Mao said with a chuckle as she leaned against Ranma to steady herself. "You know, you'd think being immortal would make one's alcohol tolerance higher."

"Judging by the number of myths that have Gods or Demons drunk, poisoned or ill?" Ranma asked snickering. "I don't imagine it's a common trait to be immune to poison."

"I don't want to be immune," Mao said quickly with spritely twinkle. "That wouldn't be any fun. I just want to be able to go longer before it shows."

"You drank about three times the alcohol I did and I'm not much better off," the martial artist noted. "I'm just better at hiding it."

"Lightweight," Mao teased playfully. "You, 'Mr. Kurosawa', are a lightweight. You shouldn't be affected by a mere...what was it, liter of saki? Or was it two?"

Ranma was about to answer when something clattered to the ground ahead of him and he turned to look and saw a familiar figure leaning on the wall next to her. At her feet was an oblong object wrapped in cloth and her purse.

"Excuse me," the woman said, tightly, clutching her hand tightly. "You reminded me of someone."

She started to lean over to pick up her things and winced visibly at the simplest effort to start to lean forward.

"Here, let me get that for you," Melissa said, moving forward to carefully lean down and collect the items to hand to the woman.

It took a grunt of effort and working around the walking cast, but she still managed it quicker and easier than it took for the woman to simply bend part way over.

"Maybe you should sit down," Mao offered carefully. "You don't look like you're in the best shape."

"I shall be fine," the woman said tightly. "Thanks for your help, I imagine it was difficult for you in your state of inebriation."

Mao glanced back toward Ranma, who was oddly silent, and then back toward the woman.

"Excuse me?" she demanded angrily. "What the hell is that for gratitude?"

"I imagine she's not thinking clearly," Ranma said, coming up to Mao's side. "Who did you think I reminded you of?"

"My son," the woman said. "He...died, yes....several years ago, quite heroically, but one always hopes that they'll return someday."

"One of my children ran off on his own for a couple of months recently," Ranma said. "I know exactly what you mean."

"Is there something going on here?" Mao asked.

Ranma looked over toward her and nodded slightly.

"You really should sit down," Ranma said. "You look like you're in pain."

"Of course, I'm in pain," she said proudly, straightening herself. "It's the fourth day, so it is getting very bad. Tomorrow I'll probably not be able to walk far at all. And by the end of the next day, I'll be hallucinating. Then it will start to get better, and just about the time it's almost gone on the sixth day, it starts coming back."

"Good Lord," Mao said. "Lady, have you been to a doctor for that?"

"Yes, of course I've been to a doctor," she said. "They say they can't find anything. Something about spontaneous flare ups of the cells. They think I'm making it happen to myself, like some belief thing."

It was also clear that the pain had already started to work its way into her head since she was spontaneously telling them this information, but she kept lucid enough to at least keep on track with the situation.

"Six days of pain and six days of recovery?" Ranma asked.

"Yes, six then six," she said, leaning against the wall. "The six when I can't think straight for more than ten minutes, or the six where I can think clearly and the pain is leaving, but I know it's coming."

She shook her head then and looked around suddenly confused.

"Excuse me," she said. "I've let myself wander again...this isn't house. Just let me into this building and I'll call my husband to pick me up."

Ranma glanced over at Mao and gave her a gesture to indicate for her to wait as he helped Nodoka into the theater.

"So kind, if my son were alive, I'd hope he was as manly and thoughtful as you," she said.

"Though I assume you'd accept him regardless of what he was like when came back," Ranma said. "That is what mothers do after all, take in their children."

There was a furtive look across the woman's face as Ranma helped her sit down.

"Of course," she said in a calculated tone. "Of course I would accept him regardless."

She emphasized the "him" very strongly and glanced around carefully.

Ranma walked over to talk to some of the theater staff to help her. He walked back toward Mao and watched as an involuntary spasm worked its way over her body with a wince.

"She was lying about her son being dead," Mao noted quietly as they walked away.

"I definitely know that," Ranma said, holding Mao steady so as to counter both the injured leg and the alcohol.

They walked a few more yards down the street before he continued.

"That was my mother," he explained.

Mao's head snapped up and she looked back toward the theater and up toward Ranma.

"Thank God," she said with a sigh.

"What?" Ranma asked, surprised. "Relieved I was born a guy for sure?"

"Nah," Mao said, waving her hand dismissively. "I was worried I was falling for an old traditionalist. Instead I find I'm with a fellow black sheep. Now...all you have to do is talk about how you ran out on an arranged marriage like I did, and we've got it made."

"Well, two actually," Ranma said, recognizing Mao's tipsy attempt to get his mind off the encounter.

"Oh! That's just great," Melissa roared. "Kurosawa..." and she slowed down to remind herself to use the right name "...you are officially in my good graces."

Thrythlind · Mar 11, 2011

Nimu felt herself free of gravity's hold for approximately a full second before she slammed back down to the mat below her, eyes wide in surprise.

"We are in a basic spar," Shampoo said sharply in clear disapproval. "Using basic skills. Moving things with your mind is not a basic skill!"

The Chinese woman circled around her fallen student prodding her side with a toe.

"You strike, you evade," she said. "This is basic. When you stop to do fancy things with your mind, you are distracted and open. Something that creates an opening is not an advantage."

"I just got to where I can use this without worrying about getting called to my twisted freak of a mother and disappearing," she noted. "And you want me not to use it. What about if I have comrades watching my back."

Shampoo looked up and across the room to where Yaku Go was playing on her hologram computer and then down at Nimu.

"You wish to protect your sisters?" she asked.

"Of course," Nimu said, coming to a seated position. "Can't I do that best if I use all of my powers."

"You want to build a house without foundations?" the Amazon asked. "Wait, of course you do, you are a Kuno, what else would you do?"

"I am not taking that woman's name," Nimu said standing up. "And when I see her I'm going to..."

She reached out and telekinetically pulled one of the axes off the wall to send toward Shampoo.

The Amazon looked almost bored as she caught it and twisted it around to slash just in front of Nimu's face and across the training hall into one of the weapon's dummies that showed signs of hacking all ready.

Nimu's bangs drifted down to the floor.

"Kodachi is a pathetic fighter," Shampoo said. "But you are worse than I remember her. And you take too long and too much effort to move anything significant. Ranma did not learn any special chi techniques before she mastered the basics. Nor did I."

"You do something more than just fighting?" Nimu asked curiously.

Shampoo held out her arms to either side and let both her eyebrows rise up, her palms held loosely out invitingly.

"Attack," she noted.

Nimu hesitated and Shampoo simply stared at her expectantly.

Gritting her teeth in determination, Nimu stepped forward as quickly as she knew how, and found herself pushed up and over Shampoo on the edge of a great ball of energy that seemed to appear around the woman.

"Continue," Shampoo said, without looking at Nimu.

With a war cry, Nimu came in only to have Shampoo sidestep away and with something that looked like barely a wave of the hand, pushed the girl away into a hurtling projectile across the room toward's Ranma's collection of sharp weaponry.

Only to stop dead inches away from the steel weapons and then thump to the ground.

Yaku looked up from her computer game and stared blinking before laughing out loud.

"Cool! Can you do it again?" she asked.

"I don't think it will prove necessary again," Shampoo noted.

"You're telekinetic!" Nimu accused standing up and walking into Shampoo's face.

"Of course not, you idiot!" the Amazon returned. "I am a chi master. Raw chi can imitate much, such as by latching a rope of chi around a stubborn pupil to stop her cold at a certain distance, but it is not telekinesis."

"Why aren't you teaching me how to do that?" Nimu asked.

Shampoo sighed and looked over toward Yaku.

"I was given the impression she was intelligent," the Amazon noted.

"Big Big sister is smart," Yaku said. "She can drive a car."

"Yes, I see," Shampoo commented, taking note of the equations running across the hologram Yaku's computer was using as a screen.

Turning back toward Nimu she crossed her arms.

"You must first strike and evade naturally," Shampoo said. "To be able to place thought and act all at once. Make a decision and let the body carry it out, not micromanage every muscle for every strike. Your eyes see, your body reacts. Instantly."

"Like a reflex?" Nimu asked.

Shampoo pinched the bridge of her nose and then whacked Nimu on the head.

"Reflex?!" she snapped. "You cannot control reflex. If you train a strike into a reflex, then you will strike an ally whenever the reflex is triggered by one. No, nor reflex. Not instinct."

She took a breath and thought for a moment.

"Nature," she said finally. "You get up in the morning in the same way everyday correct? You realize its morning and you wake up and get to your feet."

"This is true," Nimu said. "But I fail to see..."

"You can choose not to get up," Shampoo said. "You can choose to get up differently, but still you get up almost the same instant you think about doing so. This is what you want, a movement so familiar that it takes no effort to guide. When you can do this, you can plan and think in battle without leaving openings. And then we will teach you to fight with your mind."

Thrythlind · Mar 12, 2011

Yaku stepped away from watching Nimu getting repetitively whacked on the head by the Chinese woman and walked back to the table to set her Athenian computer down and start typing away as she sat down.

Her feet kicked in and out underneath her as she ran scenarios and possibilities on her computer and her mind while humming along. They'd said that Nimu was her legal guardian, despite having once tried to kidnap her, because Deimosu wasn't old enough.

And that didn't make sense because Deimosu was older than Nimu by at least a year or two.

Somebody had assured her that Nimu looked like she was old enough to be a guardian though.

In the meantime, she was working on the whole mini-game thing for making sure nobody else had access that they didn't want people to have.

About three Starcraft massacres ago, Yaku was in the middle of a fourth and wondering what some of the words she was seeing meant, Sarah had come in talking about how other people had handled the same problem.

"So, it's like loan sharks or grant approval," Deimosu's mother had told her and Sarah at that meeting.

"Lone sharks?" Yaku had asked. "You mean like Big Brother's sister, Naiki?"

"Uhh, no," the woman had said.

"Why'd they do things that way?" Sarah had asked.

The answer for that had come from the pretty girl with the lavender hair.

"Demons have traditionally used black magic as a way of forcing aid and trapping people they consider enemies or criminals," she'd said. "The entire system is a weapon that they can choose to use at anytime against someone who tapped into it."

"And the people getting hurt in the crossfire when their targets used those spells, collateral damage," Ranma noted. "The Gods probably wanted originally to hype the whole worship thing and check to see what someone wanted before they let them use the spell."

Yaku watched the adult and teenagers talk and typed through to connect to the internet, since they were on Earth at the moment, and look for terms like "credit card", "lone shark" and "grant approval".

And, wow, financial math was interesting.

But she'd already digressed from there to other things.

"Personally, I don't like magic," Ranma said. "It feels like slipping into the back of someone's head and rooting around their mind for something you want. It's just...just...ewww..."

"You sound funny," Yaku said laughing. "You're too old to say 'eww'."

She pointed at her computer screen.

"Did you know English letters could all be turned into numbers?" she asked. "They call it numerology."

Tessa, Sarah and Ranma exchanged a look and tried to repress a smile with varying degrees of success or failure.

And then she'd been asked to leave the room briefly before coming back in. That usually meant they were talking about her, but it didn't sound like anybody was mad this time, so she hadn't been worried.

Anyway, she was busy winning a Starcraft match and puzzling out strange words.

"Big Big Sister," she called out toward the training area.

"We are busy right now, child," Shampoo said.

"What do these words mean?" she asked. "I keep seeing them when I play this game."

The front door started to open.

"I don't know if it was a bad day," Yonjuu was saying. "Deimosu would think 'twelve' alot and then beat people up. And that one girl made people hallucinate or something."

"I had a great day!" Sanya said loudly. "Everyone was so impressed with my great feats of skill and intelligence. OhhhHOHOHOHO!"

"I'll just leave her here before I strangle her," Skuld said.

"Can you read these words?" Nimu asked, panting...and getting knocked to the floor for the distraction.

"Pay attention to..."

"'Benefit, you fucking swarming bitch slut. I'm going to rape your eyes and stuff them up your...'"

Yaku stopped as she looked around to see several people standing around her computer and looking at the screen with extremely scary faces.

"Umm, is something wrong?" Yaku asked.

"Give me that," Skuld said angrily as she sat down and snatched Yaku's computer.

"Can you believe how damn cheap this 'Benefit' is?" a random gamer asked. "I swear she's using some sort of hack or..."

"ChibiHammer just logged into the server, dude," his friend said.

"In the middle of a game?" the first noted. "See, told you Benefit was hacking. Chibi never shows up in the middle of a game for no reason."

A flashing message popped up on the game screen.

"It'll take me ten seconds to check the logs and see who was cussing out the eight year old girl, better be gone by then."

And then it started counting down.

"Dude, disconnect, disconnect!" his friend said while in a hurry to shut down his own laptop completely and physically remove the wireless card from its external slot while gesturing at his friend's tower.

"What is she talking about eight year old, there's no way that was an eight year old," the first gamer said. "And what can she do, fry my mother board through the internet?"

At which point the countdown hit zero and the unfortunate kid watched a process list surge up into huge numbers as overheating warnings struggled through the huge use schedule to fill up on his screen, though the smoke from his machine was the first actual sign he had of what was going on.

And then several bursts of light flared out from the tower and faded away into a thick smoke that hovered in the air above.

"Yes, yes she can fry your mother board through the internet," his friend said.

"I'm only three," Yaku told Skuld as she watched the Goddess type out the message.

"All right," Skuld said firmly. "That should handle that for now."

"You gave them a warning," Shampoo said. "Followed by?"

"Forcing their computers to overwork into a swift burnout," Skuld noted. "And they might not have realized Yaku was a kid, so gave them a headstart. Anybody who knows me should have known better than to stay online."

"Is that a spell?" Naiki asked. "I thought that the Gods' magic was screwed up too."

"Spell nothing," Skuld said. "I'm a damn genius! I could probably outvirus most of Nifelheim!"

"Really?" Naiki asked.

"No...no, not really," Skuld said reluctantly. "But I can definitely outvirus a stupid gamer with a tweaked out tower and two year-old security protocols."

"Can I go back to playing now?" Yaku asked.

Thrythlind · Mar 12, 2011

"Well," General Hammond asked. "How did we miss this, people?"

"Carter?" Jack said, gesturing to the Major.

"Well, sir," Carter said. "We think it's because there are no set physical links connecting Earth and either Asgard or Nifelheim. The residents simply travel themselves or craft a temporary gate. It would explain how those worlds were able to shut off all travel from the outside. Our explorations have been mostly through to places with a permanent link, most of which we've managed to reroute here."

"We do think we know how those links got there now," Daniel said.

"And how is that?" Hammond asked.

"The Gods and Demons seem to have a usual method of dealing with some enemies," Teal'c explained. "I believe O'Neil stated it best."

"Their SOP is the Sealed Evil in a Can, general," O'Neil said. "Someone comes across something they can't quite kill or aren't allowed to kill...so they put it in a box and hide the box."

"You're basically saying that a lot of the hidden places are forgotten prison colonies," Hammond said.

"That would account for most of them," Carter said. "Especially the small ones, but not all. However, when you start to include the human spellcasters that may have been using the same seal arts to make little private hide-aways for themselves..."

"Or not so little in the case of Atlantis," O'Neil said.

"There is another potential side to this," Teal'c said. "These individuals bare some apparent relationship to the Enki and the Yaron. The Demoness mentioned calling themselves Keepers, which is the meaning of Enki and there was some mention of 'singers' which relates to the meaning the Yaron."

"But neither of those species is anything remotely close to human in either appearance or thought," Hammond said.

"Or humility," Daniel added. "Well makes sense. Asgard and Nifelheim are lifeboats and you generally don't have just one lifeboat."

"So the freaks we all know and hate are the ones that went out and haven't completely found their way back yet and got cut off from everyone else," O'Neil said. "And these are the ones that stayed close to home and kept up with the new fads."

"Yeah, that's one way to put it," Carter said struggling not to correct the oversimplification. "The main problem on our end is what they said about weakening seals."

"How so?" Hammond asked.

"If the seals are derivations of the technique used to create Asgard and Nifelheim, like I think," Carter said. "And we've been dealing with the seals that were created by small time 'wizards' making interdimensional laboratories or which were opened up by the deaths of Gods and Demons over a long period of truce...."

"And now we have a full out war," Hammond said looking toward the world map on the world. "Our cosmology is about get a lot more complex."

"There's also the fact that Psyche is who we've used to collect the physical links all this time, while we focused on dealing with off-world stuff," Carter said. "And now they're prepping full blown for invasion by Asgard and Nifelheim rebels."

"And what are we looking at for danger level?" Hammond asked.

"Belldandy, the Goddess representative, mentioned category 1 Demons and Gods," he said. "People with the power necessary to personally prevent a global catastrophe or cause one. The current fear is that the Demon rebels will grant that level of power to their troops. While the Gods on the other hand..."

"Have a large number of vehicles that might as well do the same thing," Teal'c said. "It is hoped that either Mithril or the Gods will be able to supply enough power to counter those situations when the time comes."

"Any recommendations on how we can help with the situation?" Hammond asked.

"Well, with the Demons and Gods deciding to go public," Daniel said. "The other hidden places will come up eventually. We might be able to offer evacuation and staging areas."

"There wasn't much to do about this, General," O'Neil said. "At least from our end. It was all going on in Asgard and Whifflebat's backyards and they were looking the wrong way."

"And we're looking out in their abandoned summer homes and prison cells," Hammond said. "This would just about be the perfect time for something to try to come in at us from one of the deep worlds."

He shook his head and leaned back.

"So are we revealing the extensive explorations we've done?" Teal'c asked.

"For now, no," Hammond said. "We're going to wait for Mithril to do some in house cleaning first."

Thrythlind · Mar 12, 2011

There was a slowly setting sun ahead on the horizon, the red light streaking down and mixing with oranges and violets to touch the top of a tree-crowned hill that once upon a time had a police car hurtling down it at breakneck speed in an attempt to catch a pair of teenagers riding double on a bike.

Unbidden a similar image of riding double entered two minds, neither really sure who had initiated it, though the logical guess would have put it on the girl that had been riding double on the bike at the time.

Kaname flushed a bit and pushed the image away as Eija momentarily leaned into the sketchpad in front of her a little more than she had been.

"Is there something wrong?" Sousuke asked nervously as he felt the rise in tension around him.

Eija was sitting immediately beside him with her sketchpad, staring across the path toward a large mirror she'd borrowed from her home's training area and set down to give her an easy view of how the three of them were sitting.

Kaname was immediately behind, sitting on the bench that Eija was currently leaning against. Sousuke's back was leaning against her knees as she leaned down to cut at his hair in small snips and bits.

"Is something wrong?" Kaname asked with a laugh. "I take the two of you to get a haircut and you both just about freak out."

"Yes, well, it was uncomfortably familiar," Eija said quietly. "There is a reason I keep my hair long."

"Affirmative for myself as well," Sousuke noted as he held stock still and let Kaname cut his hair.

It was somewhat odd that letting her do this was both easier and more difficult than it was to let the man from the fashion shop. Where Kaname was holding his head and pushing it around was a lot rougher than the other man had started with, but the rising fear that the scissors might suddenly be turned on him was completely absent.

There was another sort of fear entirely at the moment. At least it felt like fear.

He couldn't really describe it any better. It was an anxiety and fear that something might...not?...happen.

Whether Eija's arm brushing against his side as she sketched away, or the way Kaname firmly held him in place as she snipped at his hair with care that was clearly exaggerated by concern.

Or Eija glancing up at him rather than looking toward the mirror and glancing away from him quickly with a flush to her face.

Or when Kaname gave him some teasing, unfathomable comment relating to the world of Japan and speaking in a tone of voice that was calm despite the fact he could tell from her heart beat she wasn't.

Or the furtive unreadable messages between the two girls that seemed to be half complete thoughts that filtered on the edge of his new Ainur awareness.

Each brief conflict sent a wave of tension through him that he could feel echoed in either girl. And he wasn't sure what the source of the tension was save that it was disappointed by the continued nothing.

And there was a vague part of him that hoped something would happen but afraid that it would hurt one or both girls.

"Yeah, I probably should have thought about doing anything that involved putting sharp objects near either of you," Kaname said in a cheerful manner that was a clear apology.

"It's all right," Eija said aloud.

"You know...I'm...almost done here..." Kaname hesitated briefly. "If you sit around in front of Sousuke, I can probably lean over and do your hair, Eija."

Wha...what are you up to? Eija asked.

All three teens blushed at the suggestion.

"Wo...would that be okay," Eija asked, looking up toward Sousuke and Kaname.

"If it would make things easier..." Sousuke said in a slow, careful voice. "And it wouldn't upset your sketch...."

"No..." Eija said. "I haven't started to draw us yet."

"Okay..." Kaname said breathlessly and trying to calm down herself. "Go ahead and...uh, move to his la...to sitting in front of him then."

Hesitantly, shuffling about, Eija did move to stand up briefly and reposition herself in front of Sousuke, with one leg stretched out beside her and the other bent, knee up on her other side. Almost perfectly holding her inside.

Her faced flushed more brightly red than ever and she forcibly concentrated on keeping her hand still as she started to go back to drawing.

"Hey...uh, Sousuke," Kaname said. "Go ahead and start undoing Eija's braid...please it'll go...faster that way."

The Whispered girl took a deep breath herself and brought the hand with the scissors up to wipe at her forehead even she glanced around to see if anybody was watching their mildly scandalous activity.

"Is that all right, Satomi?" he asked. "Satomi?"

"Eija?" Kaname asked.

Please don't tell me I broke you.

....I'm....fine....

Slowly she nodded and started moving again.

Very carefully reaching forward to take Eija's hair, Sousuke pushed his hand unintentionally into the small of her back through the fabric of her uniform. It was a firm touch, tender in the manner of a suddenly realized contact.

In the same moment, Kaname laid her hands on Sousuke's shoulders and leaned forward to blow the loose hairs off the back of his neck. The breath became something more subtle and susurrous, lacking the force needed for the intention, but carrying something more intimate.

It was like a sparkle of electricity came to life between all three points of contact; physical, mental and emotional; and through all three teens, kept cycling through the infinity between moments. No words even between the thoughts of the girls and just a stuttering of breaths and shuddering of hands.

Then that moment was gone, and they started moving again, but the electrifying feeling remained cascading through them, even jumping across the short distances between and arching, re-arching and forming a growing network of interlinked tingles on their skin.

Kaname had the most handle on what that feeling implied, having already admitted to herself and Eija some of that, but even she had only the most vague concept of what sort of depths they were surging into. Her mind kept wandering towards some of the sexual imagery she'd seen occasionally over her teen years.

Her link with Eija was almost completely flooded with raw feeling now, not much in the way of words or even images, getting through. And the exact thing seemed to be flowing between her and Sousuke then,

No, scratch the seem. It was...there was a definite matching of...something there between her and the soldier boy.

"Per...perhaps there is something I could do?" Eija suggested. "I feel very...passive..."

"You're sketching us aren't you?" Kaname asked with a flush, wondering just how she and Sousuke were going to show up in that picture, especially as distracted as Eija happened to be.

"Chidori is correct...Satomi," Sousuke said quietly. "You are doing...something."

He shifted slightly trying...not to get comfortable, he actually felt very comfortable. So comfortable that it was scary just how comfortable it could be. And that paradox ran through his mind, wondering just how comfort could be scary.

It slowly began to creep up on him, as Kaname leaned forward to start to work on Eija's and her hair touched lightly to his shoulders and over his cheeks.

This comfort...was near perfect.

There was something even beyond this that he had only a vague sense of. And there was something that was almost a different expression of this state that his body seemed eager for, but which he himself was only vaguely aware of as he pulled his hands out of Kaname's way and circled around Eija's waist protectively.

As Kaname started to carefully snip at Eija's hair, the Goddess knew that Kaname's lips were close to Sousuke's and equally aware of Sousuke's presence at her back and around her belly. It was like a fire reflected.

She could feel Kaname's passions burning and it stoked her own heat, which in turn pushed Kaname's higher. And that heat was equally felt rising in Sousuke. There weren't words, but she knew Kaname could feel the rising tension in their shared...love just as well. And it was clear that, even without a telepathic link, Sousuke could feel the same thing and was growing ever more anxious himself.

"Have you..." Kaname started to say before stopping herself.

"Yes?" both Eija and Sousuke said in gasps almost like the release of pressure from a burdened steam valve.

"Uh...Sousuke, do you..." Kaname hesitated again.

There was no way to be subtle about this, he just wouldn't get it. Both of them, to some degree, had only a vague notion of relationships and the like.

"Do you think about getting married?"

Sousuke held his breath and Eija felt his hands flutter around her and starting shiver again.

"Maybe..." Kaname continued in a soft whisper.

"I...have not..." Sousuke said with a slight twinge of realized sadness. "But...I would....have a difficult choice."

Sousuke's mouth worked into a tight, anxious frown as he tried to work out the problem.

"What if...you didn't," Eija asked, taking action.

She had to take some initiative herself. Her Searching had told her that. Too often she just let herself go with the flow. And she wasn't going to do that with Kaname and Sousuke, be a lingering passenger weighing them down.

The Goddess had to be an equal partner with them. Equal in everything.

"What if you didn't have to choose?" the pale girl asked. "What if...there were a...matched set."

She put her pen down, the picture was pretty much done and she was terrified that she'd mess it up with the way her emotions currently ran.

"If...no one were hurt..." he said quietly.

"What if the only way someone gets hurt..." Eija said just below him, leaning back and looking up into his eyes.

"...is if any of us are..." Kaname continued.

"...are apart." Sousuke finished. He'd meant it as a question...but it didn't feel or sound like one.

There was a unisoned heavy release of breath between the three, as if suddenly a great burden had been released and Sousuke suddenly had a feeling that something had happened, and it was good, but he still wasn't entirely sure what it was. He just hoped he could protect this.

Eija closed her eyes and let herself lean all the way back as all tension faded and she could suddenly relax, while still feeling as if her heart was traveling a sprint, being held quietly in both Sousuke's and Kaname's arms. Something she'd only ever let her mother do before.

Kaname kissed the side of Sousuke's head and quietly went back to finishing styling and cutting Eija's hair. There was an incredible giddiness to her, as intense as Eija was suddenly relaxed. And she couldn't stop herself from chatting, either verbally or telepathically as they continued sitting there until after the sun set and they'd have to go their different ways until the sun came back up and until they were living...

...somewhere together.

blackkyuubi · Mar 12, 2011

Dawwwwwwwww :wub:

Thrythlind · Mar 12, 2011

that's probably one of my more sensual scenes ever

Thrythlind · Mar 12, 2011

"Well, if this were a normal day off on leave situation for me," Mao said, turning around at the top of the stairs to look down toward Ranma. "This would normally be where I invite you in for the night. But, I really don't think that between the cane, the sling, the alcohol and the fact you've spent seventeen years...in the wrong country for this sort of thing...that we'd get anything but disappointment out of that."

"Why would the cane be involved?" Ranma asked.

She leaned forward with a smile.

"Wouldn't you like to find out," she asked "But, I know you're not a first date sort of person."

Ranma nodded with a slight smile and moved up by her, making sure she didn't spill herself down the stairs and end up with another couple of weeks of medical leave or worse.

"Let's be careful," he said. "Or the world's second Ainur will die falling down a flight of stairs drunk. Not the best of legends."

"I'm sure it would be an epic fall," Mao laughed.

They got to the door and Mao opened it as Ranma watched for signs of anybody watching them. It didn't matter that she was well capable of taking care of herself.

So was he.

Mao turned about in the hallway and leaned against the wall, not in a pained or overly drunk manner, but just in the manner of someone who wants to leave but lacks the use of one arm to do it the way they wanted.

He'd noticed that Mao liked to lean numerous times.

"If I tread too close to some subjects," she said with less of her normal trace of irreverence. "Made light of things...you'd say something right?"

"Mao, the guy is supposed to be the one walking on egg shells," he said.

"I'll take that as a 'I had a good date' and go to bed I think," Mao said recovering herself.

"Rest that leg," Ranma reminded her playfully.

"Pfft," Mao returned, rolling her eyes. "Don't lecture the drill sergeant."

Ranma, once again female, walked into her office not long after the setting of the sun and found Yomiko looking through a number of different reports and sorting them out.

"Well?" she asked, taking off her gloves but leaving her jacket on.

"We had an incident at Jindai," Yomiko said. "But reports from Geisthexe and Intelligence say the primary cause was a normal, unconnected human who happens to be a friend of your kids'."

"Is this a lunatic sort of oddball incident?" Ranma asked.

"Yes, actually," the Paper Master said. "Something about extra time to do summer homework."

"Inaba," Ranma noted with a sigh. "Anything else?"

"You have a visitor in the office," Yomiko noted, nodding that way.

Ranma looked into the next room and saw a grim Korean woman sitting there with a handful of dossiers. Ranma glanced up and noticed that her forehead was clear.

"Got it," Ranma said, nodding and walking in. "Who'd you be?"

"Given you're the reason why I'm no longer wearing quite the disguise," the woman said. "I'd think you'd know."

"It really does stand out to anybody that can see auras," Ranma said. "Or has the scent capacity of a Demon..."

She waved her hand to indicate further on and sat down at her desk.

"As I said," the woman noted. "You're reason I dropped the suit. How sober are you right now?"

"I wouldn't be in the office if I was that drunk," Ranma said. "You have a problem with it?"

"Not at all," the woman said in a tone that left that statement in doubt. "You applied for the leave time and got it, though I note most people request leave in slots longer than one day and do something more than go drinking. Though, given I was watching the school it makes it hard to say for sure what was going on with you."

"What do you need?" Ranma asked. "If you're what I think you are, you don't report to me."

"I'm not interested in my reports to you going through normal channels, Director," the woman said. "I trust my superior, but it is clear we have a highly placed mole."

"How do you know it's not me?" Ranma asked.

"Because you let your daughter on to the DaDanaan when Gauron's plan was underway," the woman said. "Shall we get to business or offer proof for how we have reasons to pretend to trust each other."

"Fine, get to it," Ranma said.

"You've got Matsumoto running security detail on Jindai," the woman said. "And given him some Psyche freelancers I noticed. However, we have some issues."

"Related to Inaba's most recent cluster-fuck?" the red-head asked. "The details of which I have yet to here?"

"That was secondary to what I'm bringing up," the Korean woman said harshly. "The Imperial Family sent Amaterasu in with body guards."

Ranma groaned and put a hand to her face.

"How much damage?" she asked.

"Hard to tell for sure," Wraith noted. "However, in addition, Matsumoto's people let her wander into a group of thugs. Fortunately there was an older Immortal on hand."

She handed over a pair of photos and Ranma took them, her eyes widening suddenly before narrowing, almost squinting at the picture and turning it in various directions as if trying to find which way was up.

"Yomiko," the redhead called. "Did Geisthexe leave a report about a new add to the VIP list?"

"Yes, it's on your desk," Yomiko called out.

"Fortunately the school is convinced that some sort of hallucinogen was used," Wraith said dryly. "Physical injuries were minimal. No one is likely to report it. One other thing, I am going to recommend taking Sagara off guard duty."

"Don't do that," Ranma said in a sing song tone.

Wraith grimaced and passed over a print out from a digital camera.

"You have to admit that he's gotten far to close to be an effective bodyguard," Wraith said.

Ranma picked up the picture and shook his head with a twitching smirk.

"So am I," Ranma said. "With regards to Eija."

"You are not assigned to their guard detail," Wraith noted. "He is."

"I'm considering him the boyfriend rather than the guard at this point," Ranma admitted, turning the photo toward Wraith. "Think you can get me this in higher quality?"

Wraith grimaced.

"Look," Ranma said. "Recommend he be taken off, but be left stationed here, with them...call it training with me. I know what having a reason to fight can do to motivate someone."

"We'll see," Wraith noted.

Thrythlind · Mar 13, 2011

It was always a problem doing chores of any kind for Hel. Half her body was withered into just about nothing. She couldn't carry much very far because she need to use her good hand to manipulate her crutch.

But she could set herself on a chair and scrub dishes one by one.

There really wasn't much else to do at the moment.

She'd had her first day of school in Japan and surprised the teachers with how well she could speak Japanese despite being ostensibly American. Which was hardly impressive to Hel given she was a Demon and spoke any language that a Demon anywhere had learned.

Natsume was getting her prosthetic reattached after it had been repaired or replaced, Hel wasn't sure which and didn't particularly care.

"You sure you don't need help there?" Akane Saotome asked her, wandering into the kitchen and turning away from her phone.

"I can do this," Hel insisted, again feeling that twinge of guilt at the statement. "Aren't you some sort of military officer? Shouldn't you be marching into the forest to fight monsters like Beowulf into Grendel's den?"

"That was Grendel's mother," Akane reminded her. "Aren't you Norse?"

The girl winced and momentarily focused on the warm water wrapping about her good hand.

"Grendel's mother was still in Grendel's lair," she protested.

"I guess so," Akane said, turning back to her call. "Yes, dear, I'm off duty right now, watching Hel-chan for Natsume, she had an appointment that started during school. Mmhmm."

She walked to the fridge and opened it up.

"Are the kids having fun in Tokyo?" she asked. "You're heading back to Okinawa tomorrow right?"

Hel went back to washing dishes as Akane continued her call.

The soap in the water clung tighter to her, getting thicker as the human woman in the room with her continued to talk with her husband and then her kids.

The woman had been dead once before, though only briefly. That was something easily visible to Hel's eyes and she briefly wondered what Akane had seen on the other side.

Hel reached into the stack of dishes to grab another to bring over and put where she could scrub at it. Her hand touched something sticky and her lip curled in disgust as she looked over to see what it was.

And found her hand covered in blood pushing it's way up her arm toward her shoulder.

She cried out in shock and pulled back, tipping over her stool and toppling down toward the ground trying to get away from the creeping feeling of fresh warm blood slipping up her skin and drying or rotting.

Akane caught her before she could actually hit and held her firmly.

"Hel! Calm down! What's wrong?" Akane called out.

She shook her hand vigorously, not seeming to hear Akane until the human woman grabbed her hand and held it still and suddenly the blood wasn't there.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down.

"What the hell is..."

And then the plates above them exploded outward in a brief rain of ceramic shrapnel as Akane covered Hel.

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

Natsume came into her house and found Hel sitting in a tightly upright stance on the couch next to Akane.

"You are all right?" Natsume asked quickly moving around in front of the girl and keeping a stern face as she looked Hel over.

"She's okay physically," Akane said. "But she's not telling me anything, so up to you."

"What do you mean?" Natsume asked cautiously.

"I've seen one or two hauntings before, Natsume," she said. "Has this been going on since..."

"It's your sister," Hel said. "I can't see her. She only comes sideways."

"I assumed she would settle down after the funeral," Natsume said quietly. "Go on."

"You think Kurumi is haunting you?" Akane asked.

"Didn't she hate Demons?" Hel asked. "I heard her arguing with you."

"No, this isn't about you," Natsume said. "I'm the one who failed."

Akane looked back and forth between the two.

The looks in their faces were...focused, even locked. And a lot more tired than she had first thought.

The naval officer snapped Hel up from the couch.

"Put me down!" Hel shouted. "I can walk for myself!"

"Akane what is the matter with you?" Natsume demanded, reaching forward to take Hel from her.

"No, no," Akane said, dodging past her and heading for the door. "You think this is Kurumi? She didn't have a cruel bone in her body!"

"Who else could it be?" Natsume demanded angrily. "The battlefield was not two hundred feet away from here!"

Akane continued pushing around Natsume to head for the door.

"Natsume stop and think for a moment," Akane said swiftly. "I'm heading for the temple. If Kurumi's anywhere, it's there! And you'd know that if something wasn't poisoning your ear."

"What are you talking about?" the adoptive Tendo snapped following Akane.

"Who else died in that fight?" Akane snapped.

Natsume stopped cold and blinked, glancing around the house with a sudden realization.

And the door slammed shut in front of them, locking.

"I should have left when the plates exploded," Akane said quietly.

Thrythlind · Mar 13, 2011

Kurz was on the branch of a tree thick with leaves near the top of one of the hills in the region and staring out across the visible miles of trees and hills. Scanning from one direction to another, he didn't see much in the way of activity.

There were some hunters about three kilometers away, doing more drinking than hunting from what Kurz could see through the scope.

"Could also be bandits," he noted to himself, bringing down his scope.

The long thin wisp of smoke they were letting twist into the sky said that was unlikely unless they were also idiots. Then again, banditry didn't require a high degree of intelligence.

There was no sign yet of any sort of directed pursuit coming there way. Not that he necessarily would see it.

He dropped down from the tree and pocketed his scope before turning toward Shichimu.

"We'll head that way once night falls again," he said, pointing vaguely east and south.

"What's that way?" she asked.

"Turkey," Kurz said. "I've got some friends and personal contacts out there that'll be able to help us."

And it required going through some of the more unsettled parts of Europe rather than taking the more obvious routes west to France or north to West Germany. There were bandits and the highly territorial roving patrols of soldiers who'd likely see a clairvoyant as a rather large prize themselves.

However, none of these people were actively looking for them. And it wasn't like he hadn't brought a civie through regions like this before.

"Want to play 'I spy'?" the girl asked.

"I somehow don't think that would be fair," Kurz noted, wondering how he'd be expected to spy something that she self-hallucinated. "But how about twenty questions instead?"

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

"So why are you still here?" Deimosu asked Skuld as he worked through a simple routine with Yonjuu and Nimu.

"My sister just got married," the Goddess said in the process of her tinkering. "And they're being really....umm....really..."

She flushed brightly somewhere between anger and embarrassment.

"Are you planning to stay here all night?" Naiki asked.

"Kei...my brother-in-law's sister is letting me stay over for a while," she explained.

"And why aren't you there instead of playing keep away with Yaku's computer?" Deimosu asked.

Yaku was standing at Skuld's side staring at her computer plaintively and glancing back toward the various Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

"I'm fixing it," Skuld corrected. "It's gotten a bit loose and and dirty and everything. You'd almost think it hasn't been maintained for a couple of thousand years."

"It hasn't been," Yonjuu noted.

"Eh?" Skuld asked. "Where'd you get it?"

"In the Labyrinth," Yaku said. "Somebody named Daedulus owned it."

Skuld froze and her hands started to shake such that she very carefully pulled them away from the computer and stared at in a very clear expression of awe.

Music filled the air around her and a golden light came down from the heavens above to lance upon the computer.

At least that was what Skuld saw.

Naiki arched an eyebrow and walked over to poke the engineer.

"I think you broke her, kid," Naiki said.

"Eeeee!" Skuld shrieked finally. "I have Weyland's hammer and a papyrus inscribed by Imohotep, if some jerk hasn't stolen it. I even have a bit of Einstein's hair!"

"Ewwww," Yaku and Naiki said in unison.

"Can I have it?" Skuld asked hopefully.

Yaku grabbed the computer and hugged it to her.

"Mine," she said.

"I can give you a better one," Skuld offered quickly.

"Mine," the girl said.

"But...Daedulus," she said despairingly.

The door to the warehouse opened letting Eija and Kaname come in with Sousuke.

"Sorry I'm out so late," Eija said. "We...uh..."

"We lost track of time," Kaname said.

"That must have been an interesting haircut," Deimosu noted suspiciously as Yaku hid behind him with her computer and stuck her tongue out at Skuld.

"At least let me finish fixing it," Skuld pleaded.

"I'm surprised you got Eija to get one, usually she has some sort of sacrificial victim flashback when she gets in the chair and the scissors come out," Naiki noted.

"Ahh, yes, uh..." Eija said nervously, setting aside the mirror she had borrowed for her sketching.

"There was some...difficulty," Sousuke noted. "Kaname performed the haircut."

"Oh, that explains the gothy Hime-cut," Naiki said.

"The what?" Eija asked. Kaname!

Oh God! I didn't realize, I'm sorry it didn't even...

"You're carrying around a giant mirror and you didn't notice?" Deimosu asked.

Eija handed her sketchbook over to Sousuke and turned to look more carefully into the mirror she'd just set down and saw that, yes, she had a Hime-cut and...

"Ahhh," she protested loudly.

"I'm sorry," Kaname said outloud. "I'm really sorry." Really, I didn't mean to....

"I...like it..." Eija said as if it was the most horrid realization ever. "I'm a goth! I really am a goth."

"Sorry," Kaname said.

"What is a goth?" Sousuke asked.

"Goth's are poseurs that dye their hair black and whine and complain about having normal lives," Eija said. "And draw a lot of death and doom stuff, or write bad poetry."

Sousuke, was flipping through Eija's sketchbook. Martial arts kata sketches. Pictures of her brother, sister and mother. Landscape, landscape. His face. Kitten ("don't show Mom"). Kaname's face. Sketch of a runic circle with notes on proper place ment of circles. Fancy rose. Him and Kaname, Kaname looking frustrated and pinching bridge of her nose with hearts fluttering around it. More landscapes. Landscape with tactical assessment. Swords, daggers, staves. More of him and Kaname.

And tonight's sketch.

Which showed her in the process of getting a Hime-cut while sketching.

"I'm not sure any of that applies to you," Sousuke noted. "You're not a fake, you don't dye your hair. You rarely whine and your sketchbook has nothing to do with death and doom."

"Yeah," Kaname said. "You're about the opposite of goth...personality wise."

Personality wise?

Well, you're the real thing so you're what the goths TRY to look like and well...

Eija took a deep breath and sighed, getting a hold of herself.

"I apologize for the outburst," she said. "At least Okaasan was not here to see that."

"Actually...."

Everyone looked to see Ranma leaning in the doorframe with a smile.

Kaname and Eija both flushed brightly in embarrassment.

"Heh," Naiki said. "At least I'm not the one embarrassing myself this time."

Ranma straightened and walked into the room.

"Well, it's getting late," she said. "Time for visitors and stalkers to get off to where-ever it is they sleep at night."

"Wait, stalkers..." Naiki asked turning nervous.

"But I want to watch her sleep," Lusca called out, sticking her head out from behind some of the debris that had been piled into the shrinking unused portion of the warehouse.

"How did she get there without me knowing it?" Yonjuu asked, looking over toward the girl. "How did your mother know she was there?"

"How long has she been there?" Naiki asked.

Char Aznable · Mar 14, 2011

So she's a perky goth?

EDIT: I claim this page in the name of Neo Zeon!

Thrythlind · Mar 14, 2011

Char Aznable said:

she's unwillingly goth

^_^

Thrythlind · Mar 14, 2011

"Okay," Akane said, setting Hel down and looking at the door. "Let's see if we can get out of here."

"There should be a way out through the dojo," Natsume said, trying to clear her head of what she was now recognizing as something subtly influencing her.

However, it did seem odd that Akane would mention trying to get out of the house. Wasn't like either of them had an issue with making their own exits. Perhaps she wanted to keep the building intact for after it was exorcised.

"It's...not Kurumi?" Hel asked confused.

"No," Natsume said, holding her. "It's Hecate."

Almost immediately, letters and words started appearing scratched into the walls around them. It was threats in ancient Greek mostly, which only Hel could read, but Akane recognized a handful of circles shaping up on either side.

Natsume did as well and left the entryway ahead of Akane. The naval officer held in front of her sister and the Demoness, raising a simple battle aura as the air between the two filled with power and scorched either side of the wall.

"Is that all?" Natsume asked after a couple of seconds.

"I don't think that's the end of it," Akane said before turning back toward Hel. "You said you could see her?"

"Sometimes, when she lets me," Hel said.

"Is there anything you can do?" Akane asked

"She is a child," Natsume protested.

Hel did not dispute the assertion, which told Natsume how scared she was.

"Let's head to the dojo and see if she's locked that up yet," Akane said.

Natsume nodded before taking up the little Demon in her arms and leading them to the back of the building. Akane looked over Natsume and Hel again, this time paying attention to their auras. Both auras looked as tired as they did physically.

She'd experienced a few hauntings, been dead once for something like a minute, but she was hardly an expert on ghosts. Though it was clear that they used the power of people and things to accomplish their tasks, having almost none of their own to use.

The paper doors ahead of them slammed shut and Akane moved around Natsume to try them and found them holding fast. Nor did it seem like they'd be as easily broken as normal. They held fine when she shook it a little and then thumped it.

I won't be letting them escape, an angry but controlled voice said from behind Hel.

The girl spun around and catch a fleeting sight of Hecate's bloody, mutilated form before it faded away.

Natsume turned to look herself when the girl shrieked, but of course could see nothing.

"Okay," Akane said, spinning her finger around and looking toward Natsume. "I guess this is a strong ghost."

Natsume frowned at the little gesture and suddenly realized why Akane wasn't destroying pieces of the structure just yet.

Respect for a sibling's property, or even her own, usually went right out the window when Akane thought there was some sort of danger in the area.

Natsume couldn't blame her, she was the same way.

"I'll check the windows," the older martial artist said, setting Hel down next to Akane.

The Demoness grabbed onto her side and didn't let go. Partially because she'd dropped her crutch, but obviously afraid as well.

"I've got it," Akane said.

The woman left from the paper doors across the center living area toward some of the windows, only to find them equally resilient. The glass refusing to shatter. Crossing to the other side of the room came with the same result as more threats were scratched into the walls around them and they were being progressively sealed off from leaving the room.

Hel was actively clutching at Natsume now as she watched the various words and symbols appearing around them, trapping them further inside.

Impris...

Wait a minute.

She was only twelve in this incarnation and only really had a bit of control over her Realm yet, not enough to really imprison a ghost, but she was still Hel.

The world's most perfect warden.

Or at least she would be.

Concentrating herself, she put her power to work, hiding a flaw in Hecate's design from the creator as she made stand out glaringly to anybody else.

"Are you almost done, Akane?" Natsume asked, somewhat worried by the sudden way that Hel had seemed to calm down.

"I think so," Akane said, backing toward the center of the room with her sister and Hel. "The thing is busy..."

The two martial artists stared about at the aura of stolen energies in the room and quietly shook their heads as they considered the, for them, glaringly obvious lack of attention in a particular direction.

Then again, Natsume noted, it was the ghost of someone that had looked down on humans.

"Sorry about the house," Akane noted as she entered a yamasenken stance.

"Stand between us, Hel," Natsume said, calling her own chi in.

It is a waste of...

And both martial artists unleashed at once, straight upwards, vacuum blades and raw chi erupting upward through the roof and blowing a wide hole in the house over the room, through which Natsume, picking up Hel, and then Akane leaped as easily as walking across the street.

And, as they were leaving, Hel reached out again with her own Realm.

She couldn't form a prison herself, but she could correct a flaw in one. And ghosts didn't need physical barriers to be trapped.

Akane landed lightly on the ground beside Natsume and glanced back at the house as loud sounds of crashing and banging flailed about inside the building behind them.

"Spent all that effort on the doors and walls and windows..." Akane said, tsking.

"She's going to destroy the family shrine," Natsume said angrily, starting to head back in.

"Don't open the door!" Hel shouted. "I...closed it behind us."

"Really," Natsume said, looking toward her. "That was a good job."

"I am Demoness of Prisons," she said proudly.

"And how long will it last?" Akane asked.

"Until she runs out of the power she drew from us," Hel said weakly. "And it falls apart."

The three looked toward the loud cacophony of destruction with a new eye.

"Let's get to that shrine," Akane suggested.

Thrythlind · Mar 14, 2011

"Well," Urd asked.

"The spirit was gone before I arrived at the nearest crossroads with Eija and met the human death seers there," Persephone said. "She's fled into the spirit world somewhere."

"Damn," Urd said. "Why can't she just go on to her next life like a good dead person."

The elder Norn paused as she noticed the tension.

"I apologize," she said quietly.

"I understand," Persephone said.

"Shouldn't that Hel girl have known how to deal with...ghosts?" Skuld asked nervously. "Doesn't Nifelheim teach its death seers?"

"They don't have all that many," Persephone noted. "Or those with the healing touch. Balor killed most of them for their essences. Hel is one of the strongest left."

"What?" Skuld asked.

"Its how he enchanted his eye," Urd explained. "Stealing the lives and essences of hundreds of Demons with powers over life or death. That's why they use mostly medical technology rather than healing spells."

"Thank whatever powers there are that Hild at least crippled that weapon," Persephone said with a sigh. "I knew there had to be a reason your father spent time with your mother. As it stands, Eija and I are planning to make the occasional trip there to tutor her. Eija was trained by humans, who deal more often with the newly dead than we do, and I was trained by my husband, so she'll get some good instruction."

"Where is your husband?" Urd asked, though the question was not answered.

Giggling in the back of the Temple carried forward to where Skuld and Urd sat with Persephone who went about serving out the breakfast for the day as Urd and Skuld glanced back toward what was now Belldandy and Keiichi's room before looking toward each other.

"This is your fault you know," Skuld said harshly.

"You say that like you expect me to be upset," Urd said with a smirk.

"How can you not be?" Skuld asked. "They're, they're...how could that be good."

There was a playful shriek from the back of the temple's living area followed again by giggling from the two newlyweds.

"Trust me it is," the elder sister said wisely.

"Depends on who it is with," Persephone noted dryly.

"You can't possibly make me think that...that...that would ever be good," Skuld protested, a teenaged blush working over her face.

"I think I can do that in one word," Urd noted.

"Oh really?" Skuld said. "I'd bet you that you're wrong."

"I'm willing to take that bet," Urd said.

"Fine, no alcohol for...a month then!" Skuld declared.

"And if I'm right?" her sister asked.

"I'd back out now if I were you," Persephone noted, though neither were sure who the elder Goddess was talking to.

"If you're right," Skuld said. "I'll dye my hair bubblegum pink for...a year!"

"All right," Urd said leaning on her hand and speaking in sultry tones. "Last chance."

"Ha!" Skuld snapped, standing up. "Good luck getting me to back down now. Say your word."

"Sentaro."

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

Sanya, her class and the teacher looked as Skuld came into the room.

"Miss Wodensdottir," the teacher said walking over. "I enjoy Rosario as much as anybody, but perhaps now is not the time to cosplay."

"I lost a bet," Skuld said mournfully.

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

"...and then she shouted 'Not fair' and disappeared into the bathroom to 'get ready for work'," Urd told Chihiro with a smirk.

"Little Skuld has a boyfriend?" the human woman said. "Who knew? Other than you that is."

"A lot of people," Urd said. "Though I do wonder why she already had pink hair dye."

"Couldn't she just magic her hair a different color?" Megumi asked. "Being a Goddess and all?"

Urd snorted.

"Not likely, even if Asgard was up and running she'd be more likely to turn her vision pink first," Urd said.

"Her vision? What?" Megumi said.

"Oh well," Urd said. "It's probably ammo for her..."

There was a knock on the door of the office and Chihiro walked to door to open it up to find Otaki there with a package in his hands.

"There's a delivery for Urd here," he said, sounding confused.

"For Urd?" Chihiro repeated. "What the heck would it be sent here for?"

"I don't know, it was by special delivery service though," he noted.

"It could be from Psyche," Urd said, walking over. "Though why they wouldn't just call me."

She took the package and frowned as she started to open it up.

The resulting rainbow explosion splattered all over Urd, Chihiro, Otaki, the office and Megumi as well.

"You were just saying something about her using pink dye for ammo?" Chihiro asked.

"Can you keep us out of the sisterly squabbles?" Megumi pleaded.

"Oh, she is getting...oh that girl," Urd fumed.

"Sorry we're late," Keiichi's voice called out from further in Whirlwind's production floor. "We were...uhh....what?"

He pointed around to the various brilliantly colored people in the room.

"You were otherwise occupied, yes," Chihiro said, tapping her fingers. "I've got to go change now. Coming with me Megumi?"

"Oh dear," Belldandy said. "Didn't Skuld remember what the plan for the day was?"

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

"The most extreme measure you can take," Kali commented. "Cut the contact before its complete and then wipe it."

"Total formatting basically, and if it's already a complete circuit?" Tessa asked.

"It'll just reconnect while the..." the Goddess of Destruction was saying.

Her intercom buzzed and Tessa nodded apologetically toward the Goddess and answered the call.

"Yes?" she asked.

Outside, the receptionist looked down through the group of civilians that had been brought to the base with a bit of caution.

"The engineering team you were looking for is here," she said.

"All right," Tessa's voice came over the intercom. "Let them in as soon as I'm finished with Kali."

"Yes, Ma'am," the receptionist said. "She'll see you momentarily."

"You know," Chihiro said. "Right now, I'm sitting in the office of a leader of a secret mercenary organization waiting for a sixteen year old sub-captain to finish a meeting with a Hindu Death Goddess. I'm...I have no idea where because I came through a TV and haven't yet been allowed outside. My best employee's girlfriend and her sisters are Norse Goddesses. And we're about to discuss going full scale weapons...I repeat weapons...production and ironing out of flaws on what was just a idle whim of a project because Earth is going to be invaded by bad guys. And before I forget, previously mentioned girlfriend Goddess is vouching for me to try to become functionally immortal..."

"And our hair is five different colors," Megumi noted.

"That's comparatively normal," the older woman noted.

Kali walked out of the room looking dignified until she saw Urd and then burst out laughing as she walked out.

"Skuld...." Urd grumbled angrily.

"Can we try to stay focused please?" Keiichi asked hopefully.

**********

Naiiki looked over toward Lusca nervously. The other Demoness was staring at her still pretty much non-stop, though after that first day, she hadn't done anything too creepy.

Well, there was still the constant staring and dreamy smile, but other than that there wasn't much.

"I saw wonderful movie last night, Naiki," she said suddenly.

"Okay," Naiki said. "That's nice."

"Want to know what it was about?" the little Kraken asked.

"Are you going to tell me anyone?" Naiki asked.

"Mmm. Hmm!" Lusca said with a sigh.

"Then no," Naiki said.

Lusca laughed at that, well giggled really.

"Oh, so witty!" she said. "Well, it was the tragic story of a new life created through a miracle of technology and set to destruction after being so clearly taken away from what must have been very saddened parents."

"Yeah, that doesn't sound like my sort of them," Naiki said. "I like action not dramas."

"Oh it was an action movie," Lusca said.

"About a tragically stolen child?" the Demoness of Torrent asked in disbelief. "What was the title?"

"Sharktopus!" the pettanko said brightly, her braids almost quivering with excitement and glee.

Naiki dropped her head to her desk and groaned.

Lusca smiled at the funny behavior and thought back to her conversion with Naiki's mother a couple of days before.

*********

"Why are you following around my daughter?" Naiki's mother had asked her seriously after the other visitors had left for the night.

"Because...because she's perfect!" Lusca said.

"Okay, something a mother would like hearing about her girl," Ranma said. "But what makes you think that?"

"Because she's the first person to cast one of my spells since...since before the guy in Jerusalem!" Lusca called out. "I mean, I was stuck in that tiny seal since the 80s! And she let me out."

"So, you've been stuck for twenty years?" Ranma said. "I guess that would leave you a little loopy..."

"Not the 1980s!" Lusca noted with a laugh. "That would be silly."

Ranma hesitated a moment and thought carefully about that statement and just as carefully set the thought aside for a moment.

"Okay," she said. "Anyway, I know Mara talked to you, what did she say?"

"No touching," Lusca said, ticking off a finger. "No mind control. No potions. No hostages...oh! I'm sorry, I let some thugs kidnap me so she'd rescue me...so I broke that one."

"That's not what Mara meant by hostages," Ranma noted with a sigh.

"Ehh, what else could she mean?" Lusca asked.

"Nevermind," the redhead said.

"Anyway, I'll endeavor not to be taken hostage anymore!" Lusca said.

"That's always a good thing," Ranma noted. "And don't show up here unannounced anymore. I like to know what guests I'm responsible for. And don't press too hard, you'll just annoy her."

"But how will I pass the tests that way?" Lusca wondered.

"Say what now?" Ranma asked as the girl started to open her mouth. "Nevermind, I probably don't want to hear that. Anyway, watch yourself and I won't have to hurt you."

"Mara said you'd hurt me," Lusca said. "That's funny."

Ranma looked down at the girl and arched an eyebrow.

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

"By the way, Naiki," Lusca said. "Your mother is scary."

"Did you try to call her bluff on something?" Naiki asked.

"Oh don't worry," Kyoko said. "It looks great on you."

"Yeah," Kaname said. "Don't let anybody else get you down. It could be a lot worse."

And have I mentioned that I apologize for doing it without realizing it?

Yes, Kaname. I'm fine.

"Kaname is definitely right," Kyoko said nodding.

Eija blinked and pointed at the students that bent away from their path as they walked through the hall.

"There can be worse than that?" Eija asked.

"Sousuke, I heard there was some sort of security issue Hayashimizu was asking you to deal with," Kyoko asked.

"Yes, he wants me to interview students and see if anyone may have leaked information of our playbook to another school," he said.

A number of doors closed eliciting a roll of the eyes from Kaname.

"Oh yeah," Kaname said. "I'm supposed to help with that too. Make sure you do everything correctly."

And that came with the sound of running feet and more slamming doors.

Kyoko nodded and continued pushing her wheelchair through the suddenly empty hallway.

Shinji stared in near shock at the sheer emptiness of the hallway around them.

"Is something wrong?" Sousuke asked, looking toward Shinji.

"Wait a minute!" Kaname said. "Why'd most of them run when I said something?"

I don't know whether to feel relieved or insulted, Eija noted.

Thrythlind · Mar 15, 2011

Kurz and Shichimu looked as if they'd spent the last week or more in the wilderness, mostly because they had. Dodging bandits and the military patrols of isolationist tin-pot Eastern European nations in the shadow of the Soviet Union hadn't been easy, but at least they hadn't had any sign that Kodachi or her group had figured out which way they had gone.

Now Kurz and Shichimu were in a small alcove between two buildings and ducked out of sight with a stolen cell phone with Kurz hoping that certain people hadn't had cause to drop their cell phones yet.

"Do you think I'll be able to hear a movie when we get whereever you're taking me" Shichimu asked.

"Oh don't worry," Kurz said. "I'll make sure you hear them all."

Meanwhile he was waiting for an answer.

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

Shampoo paused as she heard the ringing sound of a cell phone from the kitchen.

"It is my understanding that Ranma does not allow cell phones to her children," Shampoo noted. "Due to how they can be traced. I believe she only keeps one for herself for her public business."

Nimu, arm locked against her back, was able to speak far less casually.

"Mithril, burner phone," she said.

"Ahhh," the Amazon noted, letting Nimu go such that the young woman spun out in a tumble. "You had better answer then."

Burner phones were not unheard of to the Amazon, some of the younger villagers made use of them in keeping an eye on the Chinese soldiers that wandered near the valley.

Nimu stood up, staring across at Shampoo cautiously as she moved to the kitchen and snapped up her cell phone.

"Ichi," she said, answering the phone. "Sergeant Weber, how do you have this phone's number? I only received it after we ar...I'll pass the word on right now."

Nimu hung up and then, as she had been instructed to do before, snapped the cell phone in half before removing the card and destroying that as well.

"I'm assuming something is wrong," Shampoo noted.

"He was using an unsecure phone," Nimu said as she moved toward the land line for the warehouse and dialing up a number.

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

Shichimu blinked and laughed in a bit of quiet delight as she watched a butterfly flutter into the little alcove holding her and Kurz hidden from the goings on in the surrounding city.

"And that's going to be our message," Kurz said as the butterfly flittered over to him and settled down into his hand.

"A message?" Shichimu asked, blinking and then the butterfly started to unfold into a small piece of paper.

"Okay," Kurz said. "They want us to find a mirror, black cloth or a...television?"

"And what do we do then?" Shichimu asked.

"I guess we wait," he said in answer.

They slipped out into the street, Kurz leading as he looked about and tried to avoid attracting too much attention from people that would see them as more than a little out of the ordinary. He spotted a small hotel for business travelers and with little difficulty they slipped into one of the empty rooms past an ancient lock.

The room had a TV stand, though the TV itself was broken. However, the black cloth of the curtains and the mirror in the bathroom were still present.

"What are we wai..." Shichimu started to ask quietly.

Which was when a darkskinned Hindu woman with blue facial marks stepped out of the curtains which rustled briefly. Shichimu stepped back away from the woman, who seemed terrifying to her for some reason. And then another woman appeared in the door of the bathroom, though this one was much more pleasant and appealing.

Kurz started to raise his gun until he noted the blue marks on their faces.

"Goddesses?" he asked.

"Yes," Kali said. "Belldandy, can you take the girl. Think she's feeling my presence."

"Of course," Belldandy said. "Right this way, we'll take you somewhere safe."

"What about..." Shichimu pointed toward Kurz.

"You'll see him on the other side," Kali said cryptically with a smile.

"Uhh..." the girl said hesitantly.

"Don't fear," Belldandy said softly. "Kali is fond of a particular sort of humor."

The Norn gave Kali a reproachful look and stepped into the bathroom with Shichimu and into the mirror.

"Captain Testarossa implied there was another of you?" Kali said after Belldandy left.

"He didn't make it this far," Kurz said. "So, I'm going to be taken to the other side by the Hindu Goddess of Death?"

"Creative Destruction is my official domain," Kali said. "Let's go."

She offered her hand to him and reached into the black cloth.

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

Shichimu gasped in shock and surprise as they came out of the mirror into a wide exercise room, a tingle working over her body as they arrived.

A small group of people sat there, clearly waiting, including a girl that didn't look much older than Shichimu did, though she was a bit shorter and had a perfect slim figure with exotic lavender hair and green marks on her face. She stood with two older men who were clearly deferring to her presence.

A moment later, Kali and Kurz came out of a black cloth draped over a set of bars nearby.

"Welcome to Meridia," the teenager said with a smile. "You're safe here and in a little bit, you'll be safe..."

The words started to fade out as the gurgling sound of another started to filter in over all the sound around her.

Eventually, child, you are going to be somewhere you feel is safe and will take you forever from my reach and then you will look back to me. And you will know, you belong to me.

Shichimu felt a sudden pressure in the back of her mind and reached up to clutch her head and double over with a gasp.

...you will look back to me.

She vaguely felt the people coming around her as the remembered words pushed harder through her mind.

...look back to me.

Sight started fade out and she closed her eyes to concentrate on it as a vague sense of being carried came to her and the sound of space being cleared around as equipment was thrown left and right.

...look back...

She shook her head as that feeling started to vanish.

...look...

And then there was the silent image of her mother sitting patiently in the cabin of a private jet and waiting.

Ahh, there you are. I've been waiting...

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

The first thing any of her daughters picked up from her when she started to absorb them was a survival instinct that started something of a struggle. It made little sense to Kodachi since the fight was both futile and pointless. After all, they were insured everlasting survival once they were fully a part of her.

This connection started no differently.

In brief moment, every one of Kodachi's bodies across the globe found their field of vision going completely dark.

Onlookers in France were shocked as a woman failed to stop as the crosswalk was opened to autmobiles. She simply walked forward several paces, stopping in concern and annoyance before being slammed into by a delivery truck.

Kodachi grimaced as she tried to filter through all the sounds and sensations coming in until her vision returned and all the while keeping her mental hold on the girl that had thought to escape.

As vision came back to her, she focused one of her brains on the task of bringing the new girl into her as another sat on hand, waiting to focus her telepathic might through the girl into attacking these fools that would stand in her way.

They were fools indeed if they thought she was limited to using just one body's powers at a time.

Shichimu screamed out as the thick, chittering insanity of her mother started to worm its way into the edges of her mind and soul.

A jagged set of images came of the life and end of one of her sisters. Mind dying in screaming fear and insanity to be sucked within the monster and soul left chained to this life until her body was destroyed.

Just a source of power for their mother.

More such scenes flooded into her, mostly her sisters but more recently others that had come upon Kodachi.

Dozens of trapped, lost souls screaming out for release and urging Shichimu to do something.

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

"Hold her down!" Kali shouted as she, Urd and Belldandy were swiftly drawing out a several concentric circles joined by collections of triangles. "Don't let her disturb anything or this won't work!"

Shichimu screamed out as if something were stabbing a white hot poker into her palm and pushing it up her arm inch by creeping and burning inch.

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

Vision came back and one of Kodachi's bodies, paused in the act of getting ready to dive into a pool for a swim, smirked and stepped forward to return to her dive.

The employees around her stared in shock as their mistress stopped feeding the violent sharks she was so fond of and did a perfect swan dive into the middle of the feeding frenzy.

Pain distant and confused snapped through a segment of Kodachi's mind and she stood up to head for the hallway and to see just what was happening at the swimming pool.

The door opened with a huge rush of air.

"Someone turn down the fan, now!" she ordered as she walked out into the hallway feeling rather oddly unbalanced.

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

Kodachi stared out herself in the mirror, blinking and looking about to see if she could figure out the source of the pain she had just felt when she'd gone to apply the make up to this body's inappropriately shaded neck.

Finding no blood, she reasoned that she was simply picking up an echo from another body and pulled the makeup pad back up to her neck to smear the coloring across her skin.

The patrons at a restaurant had no explanation for why she took a steak knife cut her own throat from ear to ear, while twisting the knife in uneven directions.

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

Kodachi felt herself choking on the flavorless wine she had just drank, and tried to stand up and choke out the fluid and clear her lungs, screaming out to the other restaurant patrons to help her. But no sound came out and it felt as if only more water flowed into her with each furious shout.

And then Kodachi was floating face down in the swimming pool.

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

Kodachi pulled at the uncomfortable sensation around her mouth and reached out to turn on a light.

Her fellow researchers watched in horror as the nerve gas they were experimenting with flooded the chamber.

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

Kodachi picked up a piece of candy and stuffed it into her mouth, trying to chew and force it down her throat, wondering why it was giving her so much trouble even as it irritably started choking at her.

Confused, Kodachi had no idea what was happening as she choked on the thick make-up application pad she'd just mistaken for a cake.

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

"Mistress what are you doing?!" someone shouted, and didn't come from the right direction somehow. When she first turned to look, no one was where she first thought the sound had come from.

"I'm feeding the sharks, what does it look..." she paused in confusion at the line of sharp pains and sudden constricting sensations around her arm.

"You just grabbed a handful of the snakes!" the same assistant shouted, though his mouth wasn't moving.

Pain and heart palpitations followed.

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

"Oh, clever girl," Kodachi said. "Clever, clever girl. But I'm on to you now."

She pushed into her daughter's mind more forcefully, setting aside the sudden shriek that came with it as inevitable.

"If I simply don't move, you can't..." Kodachi paused. "Will someone turn off that fan!"

And then the New York subway roared through the track and tore her to pieces.

Another Kodachi frowned as she saw the subway train barreling down on her with a smirk.

"I think I've already been hit by this one," she said. "You're going to have to choose another illu..."

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

"Oh, right," Kodachi noted. "Japan's subway. So, some of these images aren't shifted then."

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the sound of what was going on around.

Leave me alone!

Why should I ever do that, Kodachi wondered idly. And do not make such a fuss, all this so called pain is imagined, nothing is wrong with you.

She said so in a conversational tone as a facet of her mind pushed deeper in and found the memory of the first and only movie that Shichimu had actually ever heard.

"Go out to hear a movie," Kodachi said taking a few steps forward. "How absolutely rid..."

And she heard and felt the crashing of glass as she walked through a plate glass window as shards tore into her all over her body, though she could see neither the glass nor the cuts.

"Bother..." she muttered before falling forward and that body died.

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

You are going to make it difficult to keep your body unharmed once this finishes, Kodachi said as if correcting an erring child. Every time you kill one of my bodies, you reduce the abilities I can use through you when the time comes.

I don...don,...don't want you to have my body! Shichimu shrieked as she writhed in her mind with each new contact her biological mother slipped out.

We don't want to be you, several fragments of Kodachi's mind spoke out, causing her to frown in confusion.

Echoes, remains. Undigested waste.

Irritating, she noted. You will not...

And then something slammed down, slicing through her mind and soul and cutting her off from Shichimu entirely.

What!? Who dares this?!

She could still feel echoes of her fragmented self crawling through Shichimu's mind. This had been tried before, with one of those new psychics. As soon as the parts of her already inside finished pulling the girl's mind into the whole, the wall would crack and Kodachi could start punishing those with the temerity to stand in front of her.

And then there was nothing from that fragment of herself.

It was just...gone.

**********

Kurz looked down at Shichimu as her struggles ceased and the formerly flailing hand remained still a few seconds before falling to the ground. The girl stared upward blankly her eyes blinking only occasionally.

"What happened? Is it over?" Kurz asked as he held the girl. "Shichimu, are you okay."

Kali stood up, taking her hand away from the girl's forehead and exchanged sad glances with both Tessa and the other Goddesses.

The girl lay there breathing and simply staring and blinking, head turning about as if taking everything around her in for the first time.

"What's wrong with her," Kurz asked.

"To keep her separate and independent," Kali said. "We had to cut off her from contact and erase every trace of the viral mind."

"Yeah," Kurz said. "So what does that mean?"

"It means they had to wipe her mind, Sergeant Weber," Tessa said. "She'll have to start from new now."

"What?" he asked, holding the girl. "What do you mean. Hey, Shichimu, you wanted to hear a movie, remember?"

"From now on," Tessa said looking toward Kali. "Any operation against Kodachi needs to include a God, Demon or Ainur able to look for suggestions or mental tampering. Is that doable."

"It will be if it isn't," Belldandy said quietly, kneeling down beside Kurz and the girl to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder.

*********

Kodachi glared as she waited in the hallway and started walking again, still feeling unbalanced, wobbly and as if a lot of air was being pushed into her.

"Will someone please turn off that..." Kodachi started to shout as the world around her shifted its view and she found herself in open air.

Glancing up she could just barely see her private plane in the distance.

"Oh...of course," she said in an annoyed tone as the ground came up to meet her. "Really, just one physical power, that is all I would..."

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