Shizuka Nekonome was standing next to her giant chalkboard, smiling cheerfully as she usually did during her explanatory segments. She did, however, have a vein bulging on the side of her head, which seemed to underscore the unsubtle bitterness in her words.

"Today we're doing the monster encyclopedia segment as the intro, because I guess I get too much page time in-chapter! Isn't that funny?" the cat-woman asked, her bright smile straining weakly.

She pointed to a series of chalk drawings on the board behind her portraying a humanoid creature with long, taloned fingers and a whip-like tail that ended in a flower. It head bore a distended snout that boasted a large, opaque lens that was likely its eye as well as a great number of razor-sharp teeth.

"This is a hanabake, a plant-like magical beast," Shizuka explained as she settled down into her usual routine, "magical beasts are a sort of monster sub-class; they're creatures that have magical natures like true monsters, but are not sentient and haven't developed an intelligence to use their magic properties properly to take human form. We went over this in part when I described the difference between a giant spider and a spider monster. They are to monsters as mundane dogs and such animals are to humans: pets, dangers, and sometimes enslaved servants."

"The hanabake in particular is one of the several such beasts that, although rare in their natural habitat, were sought out by wandering alchemists and witches and transformed to suit their needs as attack animals. They make decent if short-lived soldiers if one is able to control them, and can be cheaply produced by any hag who knows what she's doing."

Shizuka moved to the next drawing, which was a simple sunflower underneath a sketch of a sun with a smiley face on it.

"After being planted, the hanabake grows its tail out of the earth, which then sprouts and opens up to be a sunflower. In this gestating form, it relies entirely on sunlight, water, and soil nutrients just like any other plant, although it requires a devastating amount of the latter in order to build its active, mature body. Planting fields of hanabake can deplete the local soil to the point of making it completely unusable without other magic processes to restore it, to say nothing of what the mature hanabake will do to the above-ground wildlife when they emerge. The sunflower also holds the hanabake's reproductive organs, and it will receive and give pollen like any other plant in order to fertilize itself. If the sunflower tail is cut off before the body reaches maturity, sometimes the main body will wake up and emerge, but more often the hanabake falls into an even deeper sleep as its body starts to shut down and is eventually consumed by bacteria and local insects digging into its crumbling skin."

Shizuka moved on to another picture of the hanabake emerging from the ground, claws raking the air wildly.

"The gestation period lasts about three weeks to a month depending on weather conditions, and like most plants, the quality of the end product depends on the quality of the care given to your garden of taloned horrors. Ultimately though, when the hanabake emerges, it comes with only one directive: kill and eat. In this state, the creature is an unrestrained carnivore, and spends every sunlight hour searching, killing, and eating. Besides fueling its overpowered metabolism, this is also the means by which wild hanabake spread seedlings; its ovaries are placed to deposit new seeds in its droppings, which the hanabake instinctively buries, usually along with the remains of its recent kill."

The next drawing had complex sketches of the hanabake's hand and head, along with a cut-section to display its guts.

"In combat the hanabake has a tough outer carapace, which can vary in strength from strong wood to that of steel, depending on the breed and quality of its tending. The claws contain many heavy metals leeched from the soil, and can easily rip through the natural armor of most other creatures. The hanabake is incapable of activity if it can't photosynthesize, though, making them totally useless at night and weak during cloudy days. Their main drawback, however, is in their senses."

Shizuka tapped the drawing of the hanabake's head. "See this fishbowl-looking visor thingy? Notice how little it has in common with most animals' eyes? The hanabake is nearly blind, has awful hearing, and its nervous system is the envy of worms and not much else. Although it can hunt for prey using a mildly complex system of carbon-sensing glands and centuries of built-up instinct, these aren't much use in determining the exact angle necessary for their claws to strike their target. It's vision is more useful in combat, being complex enough to detect nearby movement, but it's still not useful for detecting hazards or distinguishing shapes. As a result, against agile prey the hanabake can seem clumsy, and its reflexes are a joke. However, in absolute terms the beast is strong, fast, and fairly tough, so in numbers or in thick vegetation they're very dangerous."

Shizuka bowed, clasping her hands behind her back.

"Thank you for listening, and enjoy the rest of the chapter! And tell that lazy son of a bitch author that I hate him!"


Black Dragon Productions proudly presents
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Key: Writing/Emphasis, Sounds, 'Thoughts', 'Telapathic Speech/Inner Moka talking to Outer Moka', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore)

Big Human on Campus
Chapter 16
Witch Season

"Yeesh, do you guys always get rooms like this?" Ranma asked as she stepped into the hotel suite behind Richard.

The room was about as big as the Tendos' entire house, with a low table and cushions on one side and a western table with leather chairs on the other, each which its own television. There were also three separate bedrooms, which cut the chance that Jadeite would vaporize her in her sleep by at least half, so long as he didn't sober up first.

"Expense accounts are the best," the warlock said as he slipped a credit card receipt into a small booklet, "you didn't think the only perks of befriending the Headmaster was the ability to massacre our students with impunity, did you?"

"Actually, yeah. It didn't really occur to me that you'd need another reason," Ranma admitted, shifting the load on her shoulder slightly. She was hauling Jadeite over her shoulders in a fireman carry, as the dark general had long since lost his ability to walk on his own.

Unfortunately for her, it seemed that Jadeite was resistant enough to alcohol that he didn't actually lose consciousness; ever since she had started carrying him he had been mumbling half-coherent threats of revenge and promises not to endure this humiliation.

Ranma didn't know if he meant the humiliation of his plan to kill the Senshi unraveling, the humiliation of having his revenge plot undermined by Richard's sense of showmanship, or the humiliation of being carried through the city like a sack of garbage by a teenage girl, but she figured there was plenty for him to choose from when and if he recovered enough to use his dark magic again.

"I call first shower!" Richard said as he skipped toward the bathroom.

"Aw, c'mon! I've been a girl ever since the hospital fire!" Ranma complained, "the hospital fire that YOU started!"

"It wasn't the fire that changed you," Richard noted as he opened the bathroom door.

Then he hesitated. "Wait, can you change forms using fire? Have you ever tried? Maybe we could-"

"Hurry up and wash," Ranma grumbled, collapsing onto the large leather couch in the center of the room.

After a few seconds, the door opened slightly, and Richard's cowled head poked out. "No peeking, now."

"Drop dead," Ranma deadpanned, "well, dead-er."

Richard ducked back into the bathroom, and a moment later the sound of the shower turning on came from behind the door.

"So, what are we still doing here, anyway?" Ranma asked, yelling to be heard through the door and over the shower, "we're done with Jadeite's dumb grudge, right?"

"I thought we could go do more sightseeing in a nearby district," Richard yelled back through the door, "a little place called Nerima."

Ranma blinked as a cold shiver ran down her spine. "Wait, Nerima? Why Nerima? I thought I was free after this!"

The shower shut off with a squeak. "Well, I could tell you that this is all part of some mysterious plan by the Headmaster that will slowly reveal the factions arrayed to disrupt the balance between the human and monster civilizations and put a stop to their nefarious schemes..."

As Richard trailed off, the sound of a hairdryer started up. "... But I think we both know I just want to visit your hometown to murder your parents."

Ranma frowned. "Why?"

"Because I think it's funny." The hair dryer shut off.

"Well, make sure you start with my pop," Ranma said, shrugging.

"Not a daddy's girl, are you?" Richard mused as he stepped out of the bathroom.

Ranma wanted to be annoyed at the feminine reference, but she was more annoyed to see that Richard was fully clothed from head to toe as usual, with not so much as a damp spot on his robes or the exposed portion of his face.

"Did you just run the water and hairdryer without actually using it?" she demanded.

"I have sensitive skin!" Richard claimed, sounding affronted.

Crack! Ranma planted a foot into Richard's chest, and the warlock shuddered as his ribcage folded inward from the force.

"Your bones aren't so tough, either," Ranma quipped before she pulled her leg out, letting the undead magus fall backward onto the floor.

Ranma snorted before she stepped into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Richard slowly pushed himself into an upright sitting position, though he was rather surprised to find that his lower torso wouldn't budge and that he had to hold his body up with his hands.

"How did she make all the force go to my skeleton without pushing my body back?" he wondered aloud.

"Who knowsh," Jadeite slurred from where he was still laying in an immobile heap, "aren't you da physhicsh guy?"

"Technically, I'm more an anti-physics type," Richard admitted, "still, it makes me wonder if all his family would face eldritch annihilation with such spunk. Tomorrow should be fun!"

"Make sshure ta put da 'do not dishturb' shign when ya leave," Jadeite mumbled, "I wanna shob the resht of da trip away in peashe..."

"Can do!" Richard said brightly, flashing the other professor a thumbs-up. Unfortunately this left his position unbalanced on one side, and he promptly collapsed onto the floor again.

Keito yawned lightly as she pushed open the door to the grounds keeper's shack, feeling the damp, early morning air stick to her skin and wishing, not for the first time, that the Protection Committee's training trip had taken them somewhere more comfortable and civilized.

It may have surprised many people who knew her, but Keito rather LIKED human civilization, although she was ambivalent about humans themselves. The tensions between humans and monsters, and the resentment that monsters tended to feel toward the humans that populated most of the world, seemed perfectly petty when she weighed it against having modern plumbing and fresh coffee.

"It would also be nice if I didn't have to hunt for food," she said aloud as she walked past Mizore, who was panting as she picked splotches of sap off her clothes.

Tsukune, who was holding the broken halves of a hoe while using one of them to poke at a body lying on the ground, glanced toward her. "What did you say?"

"I was just thinking, it's rather annoying that I have to hunt for food in an area that's already been scoured by predatory plants," Keito complained, "if we can't bring meat along because we have no way to refrigerate it, couldn't we take a break to find a restaurant?" the spider woman asked.

Chopper, Kurumu, Kana, Moka, and Yukari all turned toward her, their expressions all holding various degrees of disbelief and annoyance.

The area around the shack looked like a war zone, with holes torn into the ground and bits of foliage spread far and wide in a herbivorous parody of a bloody massacre. Severed limbs and crushed heads littered the Protection Committee's feet, still wet with sap and even still twitching, in a few spots. Chopper still held one of the beasts in his hand, the floral creature hissing and clawing uselessly at his arms as his fingers slowly caved in its shell around its neck. Its tail whipped back and forth irritably, the sunflower on the end of it

After several seconds of bemused silence, Keito planted her hands on her hips. "What? It's just a thought! Not all of us can eat vegetables and grains, you know!"

"Keito, have you somehow been unaware that we've been been fighting these..." Tsukune trailed off and glanced toward Yukari.

"They're called hanabake," the young witch mumbled as she wiped dirt and slashed leaves off of one of her sharp-edged tarot cards.

"These hanabake for the last few hours?" Tsukune finished, glaring quite deliberately at the spider woman.

Keito shrugged. "Not entirely, but what was I supposed to do?" she asked, "my venom is hardly useful against plants, and they would cut my webbing with ease. So there was no reason to waste my time and effort."

Whumph! Chopper slammed the writhing hanabake into the ground, and then stamped on its head, making a dull cracking noise similar to the sound of a nut's shell being smashed.

"So you just slept through the entire fight," Tsukune said, not at all mollified by Keito's excuse.

"It wasn't my turn on watch, and I have to look after Tobaki and our prisoner," Keito insisted, "if you wanted my help, all you had to do was ask."

"Wait, so you knew about the hanabake?" Moka asked, "the rest of us only found out when Tsukune told us."

"We've been uprooting the leafy bastards all night, beatin' 'em into salad," Chopper said roughly, slamming a fist into the defeated hanabake below him.

Keito shrugged. "I overheard a few things last night when I encountered that magic cat. We spoke briefly before he departed this plane."

She frowned. "I mean, plain. As in, the terrain feature. As opposed to a plane, which is a distinct and separate reality from our own."

"Yeah, okay, I think we're all aware of the difference," Yukari said wearily, even though she was clearly the only other one who knew a thing about it.

"Great. Anyway, it warned me to keep Tobaki away from the witch if we were to face her," Keito said grimly, "apparently, the crone wants Tobaki dead as much as she does you, Captain, which was why she was targeted by the curse. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'd guess it's the demon thing. They're not very popular."

Tsukune considered it briefly before he nodded. "That's fine. I wasn't planning on having her fight anyway."

"She'd probably be really good at it, though," Yukari pointed out.

"Yeah, but then we'd have to watch," Kurumu said with a shudder. Having briefly been exposed to Tobaki's wrath, she felt nothing but pity for anyone who crossed the Committee's treasurer, even if they were an enemy. To have those vile, slimy tendrils flailing at you in anger was horrifying in ways that defied description.

Although it was probably nothing compared to the sight of those tentacles writhing in lustful passion. Some days she really wondered how Ranma hadn't yet been reduced to a gibbering lunatic.

"Are we going to dig up the rest of the field?" Chopper asked, wiping off his legs.

Tsukune grimaced as he looked out at the sunflower patch. They had cleared a sizable portion of the plants from the field, but there were still thousands upon thousands to go. Luckily, relatively few of the sunflowers were actually disguised hanabake, but even if only one out of every fifty plants was a sleeping monster, there were probably still hundreds of monsters out there.

"Is there any way to eliminate these creatures more quickly? Without digging them up and destroying them one-by-one?" Tsukune asked the others, searching for any ideas.

As expected, Yukari was the first to offer a strategy. "I advise we rescue Gamaroshi and make HIM destroy them," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, "if you destroy a hanabake's flower tail, then it either wakes up or dies, since it can no longer passively absorb energy from the sun and needs to eat meat. Set fire to the field and they'll be destroyed if they emerge, and die off slowly if they don't."

"Huh. And to think I actually stopped him from lighting up the place when we came here," Tsukune grumbled. Not that he could have reasonably expected the flower field to be a hidden army.

"All right, here's what we're going to do," Tsukune said, beckoning for his subordinates to move closer, "we're going to meet with Oyakata, but we're NOT going to attack her. She might not know that we know all about her plans. So I'm going to offer to trade our prisoner, Ruby, for Kouma. Once we have him back we'll return here and then destroy the hanabake en masse."

Moka brightened. "Without the hanabake, the witches won't have the power to attack the city!"

"Right! We'll return afterward to get Tobaki's cure, and if the elder witch wants to have a showdown then, we'll oblige her. But I want the witches to have every opportunity to back down."

"I'll elect to stay with Tobaki again," Keito said, raising her hand.

"Thank you, Keito. It's really thoughtful of you to save me the trouble of deciding on a role to give you that's least likely to end with you killing and eating me," Tsukune said to the spider girl. His honesty just made it more annoying to her.

"Always a pleasure to be of service, my captain," Keito drawled sarcastically.

"Yukari, could you lead the way? Lady Oyakata tried to recruit you, so she'll probably hesitate to attack on sight if you face her first. Kurumu, Mizore, Chopper, all three of you can go get Ruby and keep a close guard on her until we hand her off, but make SURE she isn't harmed in any way."

"Yeah, yeah. Legs stay unbroken, just like we talked about," Chopper murmured unhappily as Mizore turned to go get their prisoner from the shed.

"Kana, that means you're in charge of guarding Tsukune," Kurumu warned, "don't hesitate to sonic that hag into the ground if she tries anything.

"Sure," the siren said calmly, running a hand through her hair.

"I'll be on guard too!" Moka said with a nod.

Kurumu was polite enough to start coughing into her fist to disguise her laugh. Chopper and Kana were not so tactful, and even Mizore snickered quietly before she stepped into the Committee's makeshift prison and quarantine zone.

'One day they're going to need me again,' grumbled Evil Moka telepathically, 'oh, how they'll beg, and beg, and I'll just laugh...'

"Right. Yes. Be careful, Moka," Kurumu said, her serious tone of voice completely ruined by amused grin on her face.

As Moka started to sulk, Tsukune placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, we're not looking for a fight. As long as this Oyakata lady has any sense at all, we'll get Kouma back without having to resort to violence."

"Did anybody else feel a chill?" Kana asked, rubbing her shoulders to warm them.

"It's not me," Mizore said as she led a nervous-looking Ruby from the grounds keeper's shed.

"Where are we going?" Ruby asked, "what are you going to do with me?"

"Hopefully, we'll be sending you back home," Tsukune said, earning a confused but hopeful expression from the teenage witch, "just follow closely. With luck, this will all be over without anyone getting hurt."

"With luck, this will all be over without anyone not getting hurt!" Richard said happily as he boarded the train headed for Nerima.

Ranma followed after the warlock, his hands in his pockets and a bored expression on his face.

A moment later the door slid shut, and the pair were on their way.

"I do hope your family puts up a fight as I unmake them. That whole affair with the Sailors was amusing enough, but far too brief," Richard confided as he scanned the train car. Although it wasn't crowded, all the seats were already taken.

"I don't think you'll have to worry. My old man is pretty lively," Ranma admitted, "anyway, while you're busy with that, I think I'll make a few visits. I kinda left Nerima in a hurry, and didn't get to say goodbye to everyone."

Richard scratched at his mask, giving Ranma an inquisitive look. "You're awfully... unconcerned about the fate of your parents. What, you don't think I'll go through with it?"

"I've literally mopped up your victims' remains before, Prof. I know better than that," Ranma scoffed, "normally I'd come along to make sure things stay under control, but like I said, I've got things to do when I'm in town. Pops will just have to take care of himself."

Richard didn't have a witty rebuttal to that (for once), so he turned back to the train's seats. Then he approached one of them, and leaned over slightly to speak directly to its occupant. "Pardon me, but may I take this seat? Senior citizen."

The current occupant, a skinny, wrinkled old man with a bush of gray hair sitting on his head in the shape of a bird's nest, glanced up at Richard as he clutched his cane. "My seat? I'm eighty-six! How old are you supposed to be?"

"Hard to say," Richard admitted, "they keep changing the calendars every time a civilization crumbles. Makes it hard to keep track of the millennia." Then his gaze narrowed. "But I'm pretty sure I'm senior-er than you."

"Excuse me, you can take my seat," said a teenage girl as she stood up.

"No. I want this one," Richard insisted, pointing to the elderly man, "I'm more comfortable when surrounded by the cloying stench of someone rapidly approaching death."

"I'm not giving you my seat!" the old man said angrily, tightening his grip on his cane.

"All right, fine. Let's be fair about this," the warlock said, making a fist with one hand and resting it in the palm of the other, "we'll play rock, paper, meteor swarm. Best out of three or last one left standing wins."

THWACK! The old man's cane smashed into the side of Richard's head before he knew what was happening, and the undead magus was sent flying through the length of the train car.

CLANG! Ranma winced as Richard careened into the wall at the end of the train car, leaving a considerable dent in the metal plating.

"That... was unexpected," Richard admitted, pulling his face out of the damaged steel, "does he do Tai Chi or something?"

"I'm in my fourth year of lessons. It's done wonders for my back," the elderly man mumbled as he settled back into his chair, "now settle down, punk! I'm trying to sleep!"

"I am confused and displeased," Richard said blandly as he stood back up.

"Get used to it. We're not even actually IN Nerima yet," Ranma said with a shrug, "it's a rough neighborhood."

"Are most of the residents monsters or humans?" Richard asked curiously, ignoring the presumed prohibition on speaking of such things in public.

"They're humans," Ranma said immediately, "obviously. I mean, I..."

He trailed off for a few seconds. "No, they're definitely human!" he concluded.

"You hesitated for a second there," Richard pointed out.

"Never mind. They're definitely human," Ranma grumbled, turning away and trying his best not to dwell further on the topic.

The Protection Committee walked in grim silence as they made a path through the sunflower fields, each member either preparing themselves for the encounter ahead or simply reflecting on the fact that they were literally marching over a sleeping army. Though the hanabake posed almost no threat when dealt with one at a time, the sheer numbers of the Earth-grown attack beasts suggested by the size of the sunflower patch left little doubt as to their chances if the army somehow awoke.

"There, it looks like the spot you described," Yukari pointed out suddenly.

The three trees were hard to see from the fields, as they were rather unobtrusive and scrawny. Which was precisely the point, Tsukune figured.

"The shadow cat really revealed our dwelling to you?" Ruby asked, looking only slightly dispirited about it. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. He was really angry about everything we've done to him. No doubt he'd go out of his way to make trouble for us."

"He did seem to be acting completely out of spite," Tsukune murmured, "something about sixty years of imprisonment?"

Ruby sighed and fell silent, not wishing to speak of the matter any further.

"Make sure to watch the ground," Kurumu said, holding onto one of Ruby's shoulders as she brought up the rear, "the crone uses vines to attack."

"I doubt she'd attack on sight, though," Tsukune reasoned, "not with Yukari and Ruby with us."

Yukari heard a cracking noise nearby, and stopped as she held up a hand. "Wait! Did you hear that?"

The others did indeed hear the sound, which sounded rather like several twigs snapping in uneven unison all around them.

"Do you think she'd attack WITHOUT actually sighting us?" Kana asked, slinking back toward Chopper, who made the sturdiest flesh shield.

"That would be really dangerous and indiscriminate, and..." Tsukune trailed off weakly, "totally in line with what she's done so far."

As if in a decisive confirmation of his comment, vines suddenly burst upward from the ground in a wide circle all around them, emerging so thickly that they created a wall of vegetation that crawled upward a good four or five meters before curving inward to cover the group like a dome that rapidly wove itself shut.

Within seconds, the party was completely covered in a huge net of foliage, the vines writhing like snakes as they curled together and intertwined to make the barrier thicker and tighter.


Shunk! After a few seconds a sword-length blade of ice stuck out of the net, and Mizore started sawing a long cut into the trap as Chopper held most of the mass of vines up, to keep the others from being caught in the wriggling tendrils.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," Tsukune admitted as he and Yukari stepped out, quickly followed by Moka and Kana, "she probably could have set up a much worse trap."

"These vine traps were set up in a few key spots in the knoll, to capture wandering humans doing construction surveys or exploring too close to our home," Ruby said bleakly as she led Kurumu lead her out of net, "we captured several in the days before you arrived."

"Well, at least they're non-lethal, right? So you were capturing the intruders alive," Tsukune pointed out.

Ruby said nothing, refusing to make eye contact with the boy as Mizore and Chopper broke free from the trap.

"Wait. Why were they captured alive? What happened to them then?" Kurumu asked.

Ruby's expression managed to become even more depressed. "We don't have much time. My lady will have felt the trap trigger, and will soon be here to check on it. I don't know how she'll react to me being captured."

"You're an important person to her, just like Kouma is important to us," Tsukune said firmly.

"Some of us," Kana corrected.

"Pretty much just Chopper and Tsukune," admitted Yukari.

"THANK YOU, girls," Tsukune snapped, silencing them with a glare, "like I was saying, we'll work this out. There's no reason for anyone else to get hurt, here."

"So says the human marching into the witch's den," croaked an irritated voice that echoed across the field. Instantly the members of the Protection Committee were on high alert, glancing around them nervously.

"Such gall, such arrogance to come to me, to attempt to invade my home! You sent your hound at me, and now he is mine. Did you think you would somehow fare better?"

Tsukune stepped forward, though he had no idea where the voice was actually coming from. "You're the elder witch Oyakata, right? I'm here to negotiate, not fight!" he shouted into the air, "you have our friend, and we have yours. When we're through here, I want both of us to leave with our friends unharmed!"

"Wretched human!" Oyakata's voice boomed, causing Kana and Moka to flinch, "you think to come dictate terms to ME? Just like the rest of your kind! You will pay for your arrogance! No punishment is too dire for daring to lay a hand on my dear Ruby!"

Tsukune could see that his friends were starting to get annoyed, and decided that he had to bring the conversation around before one of them took action themselves.

"Are you going to shout threats from out of sight, or are you actually going to come get her?" Tsukune asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You think to provoke ME?"

"I think you should come out where we can see you, for starters," Tsukune said blithely, "then I think you should agree to let Kouma free in exchange for us letting Ruby go free. That's it."

"You think I'd trust a human?" Oyakata's voice said incredulously.

"Well, I'm trusting a witch, despite you attacking us from the shadows all this time, so yeah, I think you can do that much to help this go smoothly."

Tsukune gestured to Ruby, who was still being flanked by Chopper, Kurumu and Mizore. "She's unharmed, as you could see for yourself if you'd actually come out here. If you can show me that Kouma is also safe, then I'll release her to you, and then you can release Kouma to us. That's it. No strings, no speeches, no violence. Isn't that fair?"

"Fair? You think it's fair for you to enter our land, destroying what you please?"

"I'm not going to have that argument with you," Tsukune said firmly, "at least, not today. I'm not here to convince you that I'm in the right, or that what you're doing here in the knoll is wrong. All I want is my friend back, and for that you can have yours. We can leave all the yelling and conflict and the cure to that curse you gave Tobaki for another day."

Tsukune was rather satisfied when he was answered by a long silence rather than another indignant shout, and he flashed Ruby an encouraging smile as the teenage witch glanced around nervously.

Then, a powerful gust of wind blew through the field, forcing the girls to all hold down their skirts by reflex as they were battered with dead leaves and crow feathers.

Tsukune made sure to keep his eyes open despite the gust, and was rewarded with the sight of Oyakata fading into visibility from within a small cloud of dirt and plant debris that had been kicked up by the wind.

"You're a filthy, hateful animal, human, and ruthless as well. You know I can't forsake my protege so easily as you would throw away one of your pawns. The witches of the knoll protect their own," Oyakata said grimly as she approached Tsukune, her hand clutching a book at her hip.

"Sure. Now where's Kouma?" Tsukune asked, crossing his arms over his chest in annoyance.

The rest of the Committee went on edge at the sight of Oyakata, each of them ready to spring into combat at a moment's notice despite Tsukune's assurances. Ruby kept her head down, unwilling to meet her elder's eyes.

Oyakata ignored Tsukune's question, meeting Yukari's gaze. "Such a waste. So much potential. To think that you would side with humans against your own kin."

Yukari bristled and clutched Ruby's wand tighter against her chest, but said nothing.

"And you monsters are hardly any different," the crone said as she looked up at the girls and Chopper, "is it fear? Sorcery? Or are you all just so corrupt and brainwashed that you cannot-"

"KOUMA!" Tsukune snapped suddenly, interrupting her, "where is he?"

Oyakata gave him a heated glare, but reluctantly held up the book at her side. "Here. The hound resides within." The book was wrapped in leather straps, and seemed to tremble in the witch's hands.

"In the book? Are you serious?" Kurumu asked.

Oyakata wordlessly pulled one of the leather bindings loose.

"-HUNT DOWN YOUR ANCESTORS AND KILL THEM TOO! I CAN DO THAT, YOU KNOW! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR SICK, FILTHY KIN WILL BURN IN THE-"

Oyakata slipped the binding back into place, which caused the book to fall silent.

"Yeah, that's Kouma. And he sounds healthy as ever," Tsukune said with a satisfied nod, "very well. Then we're going to let Ruby go now, and immediately afterward you'll release Kouma from the book, agreed?"

"It is agreed, human," Oyakata spat, "free Ruby at once! And return her magic wand!"

Tsukune stepped aside and nodded to Yukari. Yukari gave Oyakata a skeptical glance, but held out Ruby's crescent-moon wand for her to take as the teenage witch nervously stepped away from Chopper, Mizore and Kurumu.

Ruby took her wand back gingerly, and though she felt a rush of power from having her magic item in her possession once again, she couldn't muster a shred of satisfaction, joy, or even relief in her expression as she stepped past Tsukune.

Ruby's head swam as she approached Oyakata, wondering what she was going to do when she returned home with the elder witch. The idea of unleashing the hanabake, as she and Oyakata originally intended, was all but unthinkable by now, but how could she make that appeal to Oyakata? Should she just pretend that nothing had happened, and continue to aid and abet the atrocities the witches intended against the humans in the city? She found herself rather frightened of the prospect of telling Oyakata that actually meeting and speaking with a human had changed her opinion, and that she no longer felt that all of humanity was her enemy. Would being taken back under Oyakata's wing restore her antipathy toward the human race, and doom her to another five years of pointless bitterness and loathing?

No answers were forthcoming as she stepped within arm's reach of Oyakata.

The elder witch finally broke her angry expression, her gaze softening as she placed a hand against Ruby's cheek.

"You're safe, Ruby. You're really safe now. I was terrified at what the humans might do to you while you were captured. Just the thought of those awful, treacherous beasts holding you was sheer torment. But you're safe now," the crone said gently.

Ruby lowered her eyes again, away from Oyakata's motherly gaze. Those same eyes had watched humans die for no sin greater than passing too close to the borders of the knoll, and had delighted in their suffering. Ruby's guilt weighed too heavily on her shoulders to enjoy the attention.

"So you're satisfied? Good," Tsukune said, "now let Kouma out of the book."

"Of course," Oyakata snarled, her face instantly shifting into a sneer as she grabbed the leather bindings around the book and ripped them off.

"Emerge, hound of the underworld! Your warden demands your presence!" the crone shouted, holding on to the tome with one hand as it burst open and started shaking in her grip. Flame promptly started spilling out of the pages, causing Ruby to flinch back from the wave of heat.

Tsukune shielded his eyes briefly against the bright flash of light, but once he saw the flames recede into the familiar form of the hellhound, his eyes widened.

Tsukune turned around immediately to address the Protection Committee. "This is a direct order! Nobody laugh!"

He gave his mandate just in time, evidently, as Kana and Kurumu promptly slapped their hands over their mouths, and Yukari pulled her hat down over her head to muffle the noise as her body shook hysterically. Chopper, Moka, and Mizore, having more serious dispositions in general, merely looked away and coughed to disguise the snickering that emerged due to the sight before them.

Tsukune took another moment to ensure that everyone was restraining themselves, and then turned back to Kouma, who sat on his haunches in front of the elder witch.

Around the hellhound's neck was a collar that seemed to be a cloth band that was itself wrapped in a vine. That in itself wasn't particularly funny, and Tsukune found it more worrying than amusing, considering Kouma's pride and aversion to being treated like a pet. The fact that the collar base was a bright neon pink was pretty amusing, as well as an awful choice of color for the accessory, but even that wasn't enough to immobilize most of his Committee with laughter.

No, Yukari was currently in danger of suffocating because Kouma was wearing a large asbestos recovery cone around his neck, as if he had just returned from a procedure with an exceptionally brave vet.

"First, I'm going to murder you," Kouma seethed, his ears flat against his head and his nose pointed down, "and then? After you're dead? I'm going to go to Hell, hunt you down, and murder you AGAIN!"

"He's been nothing but a joy to have around the house," Oyakata said blithely, stepping up next to the hellhound and running a hand down his furry back, "though the fire breath does make it hard for him to fetch the paper."

"All right, that's enough," Tsukune said somewhat nervously. He hadn't expected Oyakata to have taken the time to humiliate Kouma as well as capture him, and was a bit worried that his angriest subordinate might ruin the deal by turning on the crone immediately, "Kouma, come with us. You're free now."

"Aono... Grrrgh..." Kouma winced and groaned, though Tsukune had no idea why. He didn't move from the spot he had been summoned to, either.

"What's wrong, hound? Aren't you going to join your human master?" Oyakata said mockingly, still stroking Kouma's back.

"C-Can't... move..." Kouma growled, trying to glare at Oyakata but having his line of vision blocked by the cone collar.

"What?" Tsukune clenched his teeth and pointed at Oyakata. "What are you waiting for? We had a deal! Let him go!"

"Hmmm... No. I think not," Oyakata said, taking her hand off of the hellhound, "with Ruby safe, I see no reason to obey your orders."

As the Protection Committee swiftly shifted from grins to scowls, the elder witch laughed. "Stupid, STUPID human. I warned you that you would pay for your hubris, did I not?"

"My lady, no!" Ruby shouted, startling the older witch, "you promised!"

"No deal with a human is worth keeping!" Oyakata snapped, "these are the people who kidnapped you, no? Do you think I would just forgive them for that? NEVER!" Her angry expression slowly shifted into a grin. "Instead, I will use their own tools against them!"

The crone slapped Kouma in the flank, and the hellhound released a terrible growl as smoke started to rise from his collar.

"Tools? Kouma is our friend!" Tsukune shouted angrily, stepping forward despite being well within Kouma's fire-breathing range, "we treated Ruby with care and respect, and gave her back safely! And now you're going to force our friend to fight us? Is this the way witches operate? I thought you were supposed to be better than humans! Is this what you're made of?"

Tsukune's plea was answered with a single snort of contempt. "Bargains are made between equals. Vermin like you have no right to complain about-"

"SHUT UP!" Yukari screamed suddenly, startling both Tsukune and the other witches.

The pre-teen girl was on her feet again after having been driven to her knees with laughter, and was even now breathing hard from suppressing it. Her expression, however, had no mirth any more, and her knuckles turned white as she gripped her wand and pointed it angrily at Oyakata. "I'm sick of listening to this! You're a lunatic and a complete hypocrite!" Yukari screeched, causing her allies to take a step forward in surprise.

"I am no hypocrite!" Oyakata snapped, "the humans-"

"I SAID SHUT UP!" Yukari screamed again, causing even Kouma to wince against the noise, "this isn't about humans and witches anymore! You passed that threshold AGES ago!"

She took a deep breath, and then the young witch continued. "You are an OBJECTIVELY, INDEPENDENTLY, HORRIBLE PERSON! Nothing can excuse this behavior! It doesn't matter what the humans are plotting to do or what you're trying to accomplish! The ends can no longer justify the means! First assault, then curses, apparently some murder and maybe torture on the side, all for the sake of genocide, and now you've lied to us in order to indulge in slavery too? You don't even have the decency to completely dominate Kouma so that he isn't acutely aware the whole time he's fighting and killing his allies! What you're doing is completely, indisputably AWFUL, and I'm ashamed to even be the same species as you! You give all witches a bad name!"

Oyakata said nothing, looking irritated at Yukari's complaints. She did seem slightly rattled, however, when Ruby suddenly grabbed onto her shoulder and spoke.

"My lady, they're... they're right," Ruby said desperately, "we've gone too far this time! I want to avenge my parents, to protect our home, and save the land from exploitation, but... not like this!"

"What?" Oyakata looked totally stunned at Ruby's confession, "what are you saying, Ruby?"

"I spoke to Tsukune. I've spoken to others that live alongside him. But most of all, I've had my eyes opened to our own crimes and prejudice. I can't pretend that our actions are somehow justified to stop the humans any longer," Ruby admitted, looking downcast, "we can't murder so many people just to protect the knoll! We can't use Tsukune's friend as a weapon after we agreed to free him!"

"You... You would side with the humans? Against ME?" Oyakata asked breathlessly.

"I don't want to side with the humans! But I can't stand by and watch you do this, either! Please, let's stop this! We'll find some other way to save the knoll!" Ruby begged.

Tsukune was practically chewing his lip as Ruby finished, staring at Kouma.

Finally, Oyakata once again placed a hand on the hellhound's back. "Hound?"

"What?" Kouma grumbled, the slightest glimmer of cautious hope evident in his tone.

"Kill the intruders. All of them," the crone said simply, gesturing to the Protection Committee as Ruby gasped.

"Damn it!" Kouma cursed as he broke into a sprint, dashing straight toward Tsukune with his jaws angling to seize the helpless boy by the throat.

Perhaps it was due to the cone cutting down Kouma's peripheral vision, but he didn't see Chopper move until the troll smashed into his side, throwing Kouma's charge off course and stunning the hellhound as he was sent rolling into the dirt. Chopper's body started to swell as he stood in front of Tsukune, looking uncharacteristically grim as he transformed.

"My lady, no! We have to stop this!" Ruby begged, holding Oyakata's arm more tightly.

The elder witch flung her off, pushing Ruby off her feet and onto her rear. "You disappoint me, Ruby, to fall for the human's trickery so easily. When we are done here I will have to re-educate you in our cause," she said coldly, "for now, sit there and watch. I will show you what happens to those who trifle with witches!"


"No, no, NO!" Tsukune cursed as Kurumu pulled him back, away from where Kouma and Chopper were circling each other, "it wasn't supposed to happen like this! We need to disable Kouma, now!"

"On it," Kana said before taking a deep breath.

Tsukune wasn't exactly sure what she did after that; it looked like she was whistling, but no sound came out.

Whatever it was, though, it was effective. Kouma promptly whimpered and started shaking, his movements becoming clumsy and unsteady as he tried to stay out of arm's reach of Chopper.

"Gotcha now!" Chopper said as he tackled the hellhound, forcing Kouma to the ground.

"Interesting trick," Oyakata admitted as she held one hand out, palm flat, "can you do it with your throat cut?" She snapped her hand upward, a faint green mist following her fingers.

Thoom! Thoom! Kana's dog whistle mimicry broke as the Earth burst upward behind her, startling the siren and showering her with dirt. She was unable to get her breath back when she glanced behind her, seeing two hanabake shaking the dirt from their bodies as they raised their talons to eviscerate her.

Thwunk! Instead, a sword of ice pierced the back of one of the beasts, and Kana stared in terrified shock as several scythe-like talons of ice fell upon the other as Mizore pushed her first target down and sliced apart the head of the second.

"You can fly, right?" Mizore asked blandly as she braced her foot against the first hanabake's back, pulling her weaponized arm out of the wound, "you should probably start flying."

As the ground started to shake underneath them, Kana decided she liked that idea, and her wings burst out of her back as more of the taloned plant-beasts emerged.


Kouma's body, no longer stunned by the awful noise, fell immediately back to its present compulsion, and Kouma's fur began to warm dangerously as Chopper raised a fist above the hellhound's head.

Fwoof! A small burst of flame briefly encompassed Kouma's form, scorching Chopper and causing the troll to flinch for a critical moment. Kouma promptly squirmed free of his grip, smashing his hind legs into the wrestler's tusked face for good measure.

"Ah, ah, ah!" Oyakata chided as she continued making a series of hand gestures, awakening more and more of the hanabake, "bad dog! Keep the fire restricted to aimed projectiles!"

With another sweep of her hand, vines started sprouting beneath Chopper's feet, wriggling free of the loose dirt as more and more hanabake clawed their way free of the sunflower field.

"Die! Die! All you will die!" Oyakata shouted as Kouma bit at Chopper's arm, his saliva searing the troll's flesh and preventing its regeneration, "first you, then the city! Every last human will be snuffed out!"

A bell rang lightly as Ranma stepped through the front door of the restaurant, alerting the proprietor that she had a customer.

"Be with you in just a second, hon," Ukyou said, not turning toward the door as she mixed a vat of batter behind the counter, "just sit wherever you like."

"Okay, thanks," Ranma said casually, taking his usual spot at the front bar, right in front of the grill, "so, how's business, Ucchan?"

Ukyou froze, her back still facing the door.

Then she whirled around, her hand blurring through the air.

Clap! Ranma slapped his hands together in front of his face, barely stopping the razor-edged aluminum spatula before it split his nose.

"It's nice to see you, too," Ranma deadpanned.

"You jackass! Where the hell have you been?" Ukyou screamed, her hands balled up into fists as her face turned red from an odd mix of fury, embarrassment, and a perhaps a bit of joy, "I haven't seen you in months! And then you just stroll right back into my restaurant like nothing happened?"

"Well, how would you like me to stroll in here?" Ranma quipped sarcastically, "I can do casual, whipped dog, burglar-style-"

Ranma had to tilt his head to the side to avoid another spatula. "Would you quit that? I'm here now, aren't I?"

"Where did you go?" Ukyou groused as she slammed her hands down onto the counter, glaring at the pigtailed boy, "why didn't you say anything to me? I'm your fiancee, damn it!"

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry," Ranma said wearily, twirling the first spatula around in his fingers as his gaze tried to avoid Ukyou's, "it was a schedule thing. I literally had to ship out right after I found out about this school I got into. Didn't Mom say anything?"

"She said you had gone to some school, but she wouldn't tell us anything about it! And you left without a word!" Ukyou complained.

"Yeah, like I said, I'm sorry about that. Couldn't be helped. But I got some time back, so I thought I should stop in and let you know what was going on," the pigtailed boy said, getting aggravated.

Ukyou looked uncertain at first, but as usual she calmed down fairly quickly. "So, a new high school, huh? Where is it?" the chef asked as she started scraping the surface of her grill.

"Another dimension," Ranma said casually, tossing the spatula into the tin where they were stored when not being thrown at people or used for cooking.

"Seriously?"

"That's what they told me," Ranma said with a shrug, "it's hidden away enough that Ryoga hasn't stumbled in there yet, so it makes sense."

"Hidden Chinese fortress, secret island nation, ancient mountain civilization full of bird-people," Ukyou mumbled to herself briefly before sighing, "yeah, okay. I guess I don't really have much grounds to call bull on a school in the Twilight Zone." Then she pursed her lips, "so... do they accept transfers?"

"Ukyou..." Ranma began, sounding uncertain.

"What? Can't I want to go to school with my fiancee?" Ukyou asked defensively, "it's like you've suddenly fallen off the face of the... Right, right. Other dimension, fine. But if I can go with you-"

"Ucchan, there's really no easy way to ask this, so I'll come right out and say it," Ranma said, lacing his fingers together as he stared into her eyes, "are you a monster?"

Ukyou didn't respond right away, staring expressionlessly at Ranma's utterly serious, slightly worried expression.

Then her hand went for the tin holding her spare spatulas. Luckily, Ranma was faster, and picked it up before gingerly putting it back down out of the brunette's immediate reach.

"Am I a MONSTER? What kind of question is that?" Ukyou shouted.

"I'm just making sure, all right? I didn't think you were!" Ranma replied, throwing up his arms, "I figured you were the least likely to be an orc or something so I came to you first! It's a fair question!"

"How is that a fair question?" Ukyou demanded, her face reddening again, "what makes you think I might be a monster?"

"Nothing! Never mind!" Ranma said, crossing his arms over his chest, "let's talk about something else."

Ukyou fumed, but said nothing as she and her fiance stared at each other for several silent, uncomfortable seconds.

"So," Ranma said, trying to sound upbeat, "do you think Tsubasa or Konatsu might be monsters?"

"Get out of my restaurant!"

Ding dong!

Kasumi glanced toward the front door as the doorbell rang, and put down the pot she was washing before she dried her hands.

Walking briskly to the front door, she stopped briefly to straighten her apron before opening it.

"Hello, sir. Can I help you?" she asked the curiously pale, cowled man in black robes standing in front of the Tendo household.

"Perhaps. Does a Saotome Genma live at this residence?" Richard asked, his hands clasped behind his back, "I hear he is also known by the moniker 'idiot panda'."

"Yes, he does," Kasumi answered with a smile, "will this be a visit to finalize an engagement agreement, revenge, or are you investigating some sort of criminal activity?"

"Other," Richard said cryptically, "but if I had to choose one, I'd say it definitely involves criminal activity."

"All right then, sir. You can find him inside the dojo at the moment," Kasumi said, stepping aside, "just turn right after you reach the dining room, and it's right there in the yard."

"My thanks, young lady," Richard said politely as he moved past her, his eyes flaring a brilliant white while sparks crackled from his fingertips.


Richard found the dojo easily enough, and his smoldering hands left streaks of black on the door as he opened it, stepping within the confines of the Tendo dojo.

The lone occupant of the room perked up at his presence, its fuzzy ears twitching slightly while its large black nose snorted at the scent of sulfur.

Richard stared at the panda bear lying in the middle of the dojo, noting the sign around its neck claiming that it was "just a cute little panda".

"Yeah, no," the warlock said as he pointed at the black-and-white beast, "what else ya got?"

Green flames that seemed to howl with the screams of tortured men bloomed around Richard's fingers, and the panda's eyes widened in horror as streams of pulsing lighting lashed out at it in a whip of emerald destruction.

ZOT! Ghzzzzack! Great streaks of ash spread across the dojo floor as the hefty beast disintegrated, its body rapidly burning down to scorched bones and smoldering fur.

Within seconds, Richard was staring at a charred bear skeleton, smoke rising from his hands.

"Huh. Weird," Richard mumbled, "that was Saotome's dad, right? I would've thought he'd put up a better fight than that."

Shthunk! A curved blade suddenly pierced the warlock's chest from behind, and he blinked in surprise as a pair of furry, clawed paws seized his head from both sides a moment later.

Crack! Even Richard winced as his neck was snapped like a bread stick, and his body wobbled briefly before it slumped onto the dojo floor.

It was a bit awkward with his head at a ninety-nine degree angle from its normal position, but since he wasn't facing the floor Richard could see that there was a panda bear standing over him. Not that he was an expert on such things, but at a glance Richard considered that this panda actually looked rather different from the one he had just attacked.

"Wait. Did you... Did you actually just use a live panda as a sacrificial decoy? As in a real endangered species?" Richard asked.

"What of it?" Genma asked via sign as his beady eyes stared down at the warlock. He flipped the sign around. "There have been a lot of attempts on my life recently, so I stay prepared."

"I'm just surprised, and honestly a bit impressed," Richard admitted, "I didn't expect such strategic cowardice from a member of Ranma's family."

Genma held up two signs, one in each hand. "Feh! I've forgotten more about cowardice than that boy will ever know!" Then he raised the other one slightly higher. "By the way, who are you and why can you still talk with your neck like that?"

"We haven't done introductions yet, have we?" Richard said still lying on the floor with his head twisted at a grotesque angle, "hello, I'm Richard. I'm a professor at your son's school. I'm here to have a talk with his parents on how your survival may be negatively impacting his performance in class and how I, as a concerned educator, may help rectify that."

Richard's body suddenly shifted despite his broken neck, and Genma flinched as the warlock's hands pointed backwards toward him, their digits blazing green.

Crack! Crack! His hesitation didn't last long, however, as he had the advantageous position and Richard was already within striking range. Genma's powerful ursine claws smashed into the warlock's arms, breaking more bones and causing the limbs to fall limp, unable to aim at their target.

"You're making this way harder than it needs to be," Richard grumbled as his spell fizzled. Genma then pulled the naginata from Richard's back, the blade dripping necrotic ooze, "okay, look, let's start over, shall we? I forgot to roll my perception check before your surprise round, so-"

Richard was cut off as Genma picked up his body and then stuffed it into a sack, tying it off before hoisting it over his shoulder.

"I think it's only fair to warn you, I will be taking this encounter into account when filling out the 'commentary' section on your son's report card," Richard said, his voice somewhat muffled by the sack, "I don't even think you're listening to me," he complained as Genma hauled him out of the dojo and into the yard.

Kasumi glanced up from the sink as she heard a cracking noise from the dojo.

"Oh, it looks like our guest found him," she said to herself drying her hands on a towel before stepping out of the kitchen into the living room.

She was reasonably surprised to see Ranma there, and extremely surprised to see him rooting through the drawers of a cabinet that held many of Soun's family items, including the family resister, seal, several photo albums, and his daughters' birth certificates. Many of these items were now piled on the floor next to Ranma as the pigtailed boy flipped through a photo album full of the Tendo sisters' baby pictures.

Ranma noticed her entry immediately, and glanced over his shoulder at her. "Hey Kasumi. You're looking well. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Kasumi answered by reflex, clasping her hands together, "er... Ranma? What are you doing back? I didn't know you were coming."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I suddenly got the opportunity, and dark wizards apparently don't carry cell phones," Ranma admitted as he reached the end of the album and closed it, "I wanted to drop by and say hello, since I know I left all of a sudden without telling anyone but Mom."

"Are you enjoying your new school?" Kasumi asked innocently, though her eyes kept glancing at all of the things that Ranma was looking through.

"It took some getting used to, but yeah, it's all right," Ranma said as he unrolled the scroll containing the family register, scanning the paper for any suspicious names, "how have things been here?"

"Well, it's been a little boring, I suppose. It's rather quiet without you around, and Akane seems..." Kasumi trailed off before she said "bitter" or "morose". "Well, she hasn't been as lively as she usually is."

"Is she here? I should say hi while I'm stopping in," Ranma said as he finished with the register, rolling it up again.

"Well, she and Nabiki are eating out for lunch, but they should be back before long," Kasumi hesitated before her curiosity finally pushed her to ask the obvious question, "Ranma, why are you looking through our family records?"

"I'm just making sure everything checks out," Ranma said with a self-assured nod as he started putting the books and albums back in the cabinet, "nothing like pictures of strange pets, ritual sacrifices, an egg mound, stuff like that. I also wanted to make sure you, Akane, and Nabiki really are related."

"Oh. Uh..." Kasumi didn't really know what to say to that. Her first line of reasoning was to ask why Ranma might think to find such strange things in the family's pictures, but decided that she probably didn't want or need to know. "Did you think my sisters weren't related to me?"

"It crossed my mind sometimes; you all ARE pretty different," Ranma shrugged as he put the last file away and closed the cabinet, "but everything looks legit, so there's nothing to worry about."

Before Kasumi could spend much more time being confused at Ranma's actions, a sign zipped through the air from the direction of the yard, smashing into the pigtailed boy's head and bowling him over.

"Ow! What was that for?" Ranma shouted as he stood up and whirled around.

Genma stood at the edge of the porch, glaring at Ranma as he hefted a sack over his shoulder. "Boy! Where have you been? How dare you abandon your fiancee like that!" he said via sign.

"Oh, give it a rest," Ranma scoffed, "I had to go to this school since I was booted out of Furinkan, okay? It's not like I wanted to leave Nerima!" Honestly he was completely ambivalent about it, but Genma didn't need to know that.

"No excuses!" Genma proclaimed on another sign before flipping it over, "it's time I had a long talk with you about fulfilling your responsibilities like a man!"

With that, Genma dumped an armful of signs out onto the floor before raising another one into the air. "I have to go take out this trash now, so you just read those while I'm gone."

"Sure, Pop. Whatever you say," Ranma said blandly, rolling his eyes as the cursed panda walked out into the yard.


"I wonder what happened to that man from earlier? He was here to talk to Uncle Saotome," Kasumi said with concern.

"Looks to me like he bit off more than he could chew," Ranma said with a shrug, "I told him Pops was no pushover."

Before either of them could dwell on that, they heard the front door open and a familiar voice call out.

"Kasumi, we're back!" called out Akane as she and Nabiki entered, taking off their shoes.

Ranma quickly ran through his options as far as a greeting was concerned; he had tried a casual approach with Ukyou, since they were good friends, and even with her it had fallen flat. Akane was far more temperamental than Ukyou, and he couldn't even hope to get away with an overly-friendly approach, even if she was in a good mood.

"Kasumi, I have some leftovers for..." Akane trailed off as she entered the living room, seeing Kasumi standing next to Ranma. Nabiki entered after her, quirking an eyebrow as noticed that the Tendos' youngest long-term house guest was back.

"Akane! Hi! I missed you!" Ranma said awkwardly, forcing a smile as he spread his arms wide. "Hug?"

WHAM! Nodoka fell to one side as the house shook, its long-abused foundation resisting this newest strain somewhat poorly.

She sat up again immediately, frowning at the sudden disturbance. It was almost certainly Akane, as she still had her little outbursts regularly, but the shock wave didn't feel right for Happousai, who was usually the victim of her wrath (or rightful judgment, depending on who you asked). The old lecher had very little mass, and tended to burst through the wall without disturbing the rest of the house too much. This newest vibration was definitely much heavier, but still seemed familiar.

Standing up and moving to the window, her eyes lit up as she saw her son lying in a pile of shattered drywall and splintered wood. "Ranma! You're back! What a pleasant surprise!"

She could hear Akane shouting something below about Ranma's disappearance, but disregarded it; the girl had been slightly subdued ever since Ranma had left, so it was only natural she'd be a tad emotionally confused at his sudden and unexpected arrival.

Ranma picked himself up out of the debris, shaking the dust out of his hair as he did so. It had been a long time since he had been put through a wall, but he felt no fondness or nostalgia from the sensation.

"Hey Mom, I'll be up in a minute," Ranma said as he brushed off his pants.

"Are you even listening to me? What do you have to say for yourself?" Akane demanded, her cheeks red with fury, "leaving without telling anyone and then just strolling in unannounced! What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I left in a hurry without telling anyone and since I happened to be in the neighborhood, that I should explain that," Ranma said irritably, "so do you wanna listen, or are you satisfied with just decking me on sight?'

Akane bristled at the reproach in Ranma's voice. "Whatever! It's not like I care where you go to school! It's actually been pretty peaceful without having you around all the time!"

A vein pulsed on Ranma's forehead. "Well, it sounds like you've got all the important details, so I guess we're done here," he snapped, "I'll be on break when winter rolls around, so I can stop by then, though I can't imagine why I'd bother."

Akane and Nabiki seemed slightly surprised at the bitter rebuttal, though neither of them said anything as Ranma vaulted up to the second-story window.

"Well, if you decide you are coming back, let me know over the phone!" Kasumi called, "that way I'll know how many to shop for!"

"Ever the diplomat, aren't you, sis?" Nabiki asked, sarcasm thick on her tongue.

"Well, it's just hard to plan a menu on a budget otherwise," Kasumi fretted, afraid that her request had been seen as rude.

"I wasn't talking to you," Nabiki deadpanned, glancing at a surprised Akane.

"My son! It's so good to see you again!" Nodoka said as Ranma dropped into the room, embracing the pigtailed boy happily.

"You're the first person to actually say that," Ranma grunted as he hugged her back, "I know it was rude to leave for school without telling everyone, but they don't have to attack me for it."

"Oh, don't mind the poor girl," Nodoka said with a smile on her face, "I'm sure she's very frustrated, not having had your companionship for so long."

"As far as I can tell, my companionship has never made her less frustrated," Ranma said, dropping to the floor cross-legged.

Nodoka frowned as she saw Ranma brooding. "Son, is something the matter? How is your new school treating you?"

"It's treating me pretty well, actually," Ranma said as his mother sat down in front of him, "it's just... I've learned some things since I've gone there that have..."

He trailed off as he considered his words carefully, growing anxious. "Well, I really didn't want to have to ask this question, Mom. Honestly, I think it's pretty stupid, but I have to make sure."

As Nodoka raised an eyebrow, Ranma took a deep breath. "I'm human, right? You and Pop are both humans, putting aside his panda curse, so I am too. Right?"

Nodoka looked stunned by the question. "Ranma... why would you ask that?" she asked.

"It's just, Youkai Academy is literally a YOUKAI Academy," Ranma said nervously, "the entire student body is composed of monsters that take human form, except me and this other guy. So... I guess it's just made me a little confused about... stuff."

Nodoka pursed her lips as Ranma finished speaking, and then took a firm hold of Ranma's shoulders.

"I'll be honest, my son. I never thought we'd have to have this conversation," Nodoka admitted cautiously as Ranma's eyes widened, "I know that you'd been exposed to the supernatural in the past, but I didn't think you'd be in a position to deal with them as peers. I would have told you more if I'd known about what kind of place Youkai Academy was."

'No. No way. This is NOT happening,' Ranma thought, his body practically paralyzed as Nodoka took a deep breath and continued.

"Ranma, I know that you're probably confused, being exposed to monsters disguised as humans and mingling with them. I was too at first, when I found out about it, and I too was confused about my... relationship with non-human races."

'Please, no. Don't do this to me, God,' Ranma thought, 'don't you dare let her tell me that I've lived my entire life as the wrong damn SPECIES.'

"Ranma," Nodoka said firmly, gripping the boy's shoulders as she stared into his eyes, "no matter what anyone says or what kind of expectations society presents to you, I want you to know that there's nothing wrong with love between a human and a non-human!"

Ranma's fearful, expectant expression promptly shattered. "Say what?"

"Just because you're human doesn't mean that you absolutely have to date another human," Nodoka insisted, "I know that it may seem strange, developing feelings for a creature hiding its true form behind a shell of illusions, and in some cases it's wise to show some discrimination, but if your heart develops feelings for a monster, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that."

'Thank you, God,' Ranma thought hesitantly, 'actually, wait, let's not thank you too quickly. This might still be pretty awful.'

"Thanks Mom, but why exactly do you know about this sort of thing?" Ranma asked. "I thought it was supposed to be a big secret."

"Oh, please," Nodoka scoffed, "the youkai have never been as stealthy and mysterious as they like to think they are. Though it surprises me that they have a whole high school devoted to them now. Back in my day they sent monsters that wanted to integrate to human high schools, and the monster either did its best or was picked off by the local devil hunters in short order."

She sighed. "I still remember when I saw a satyr for the first time. Damos was so handsome, yet so timid, and whenever we would kiss he would-"

"WOAH, okay, great, you can stop talking about that now," Ranma said quickly, not wanting to hear about his mother's past romances, "you dated other species? Seriously?"

"Of course! Most of them insisted on keeping their human form all the time, so it wasn't that different from dating another human, although there are certainly some very interesting things you can try depending on the species. Don't be afraid to experiment!"

As Ranma stared slack-jawed at his mother, she frowned. "But as I said, there are some sorts that you should always be wary of, regardless of how pretty they are in human form. Greenskins are just terrible people, and find it impossible to commit, for an example. Also, going out with a vampire is always a bad idea, no matter how romantic it seems in the novels."

"Ugh, tell me about," Ranma said, releasing his shock as he found a topic he had some experience in, "this guy I know is crushing on one. She treats him like a lunch tray. One day, I swear, those bite wounds are going to get infected."

"Yes, well, you should look out for him then, the nosferatu are always doing strange, awful things with their mates, turning them into thralls and awful creatures. When they're not just exsanguinating them entirely," Nodoka shook her head gently, and then smiled again, "but enough about that. I'm glad we had this little talk."

"I'm... uh..." Ranma seemed at a loss for words as his mother stood up, "well, it could've been worse."

"Are you going to stay for dinner?"

Ranma shook his head as he hopped to his feet. "Nah. I wanna know if the old freak is some sorta gremlin, so I'd better start looking for him."

"I hope not," Nodoka said with a grimace, "I'd hate to think what sort of rituals he would be using all those panties for."

"Right... See you later, Mom."

Whoom! Chopper's fists descended like hammers, forcing Kouma to dart to the side lest he be crushed by the troll's mighty blows. Hanabake beasts that were anywhere nearby were staggered by the shock wave, and one such beast that tripped too close to the massive wrestler found itself seized by the head and flung as a makeshift projectile.

Kouma jumped over the thrown monster, letting it crash into a few more behind him. The hellhound crept warily just outside of Chopper's lunging range, waiting for the opportune time to attack.

"Ya know, I've always wanted ta fight you," Chopper said as he scratched at a set of cauterized bite marks on his arm that were not healing as usual, "not like this, maybe, but a real match."

"I'm a fire-breather," Kouma snapped as sparks started leaking from his jaws, "do you think you could win?"

Chopper snorted. "If I only fight people I can easily beat, I'll never get stronger!"

With that, Chopper grabbed a nearby log that was laying on the ground and flung it at the hellhound, charging in recklessly behind it.

Kouma reacted as defensively as his command collar would allow, ducking under the log and then jumping away as Chopper's fists flailed at him. One of the blows clipped him in the side, but surprisingly it barely hurt as Kouma landed easily from his evasion and gained some more distance.

"Going a bit easy on me, aren't you?" Kouma mused, his jaws flaring before he blasted a small fire bolt at the troll.

Chopper side-stepped the projectile and grabbed another hanabake that was scratching at his shins though it was hardly accomplishing anything besides ruining his pants. "I gotta. Captain says it 'aint right to go all-out on people who didn't decide to fight me. Wouldn't want you to lose one of those nice, sharp fangs for the crone's sake, yeah?"

Kouma blinked, honestly surprised by the sentiment, although a burning sensation at his throat soon compelled him to attack once more, the rapidly spreading phantom pains protesting at the lull in battle.

"Besides, you seem to be holdin' back yerself. You've barely scorched me so far!" Chopper taunted, charging forward.

Kurumu grunted as her claws entered the back of another hanabake, and then she drew them out in a wide arc that slashed two others that had been charging at her. One went down with a gurgling screech, the other merely shaken by its wound, but before the survivor could recover to any extent a razor-edged card lodged in its head, bowling it over and taking it out of the fight.

"Tsukune, I think we need a plan, here!" Kurumu warned as three more hanabake started to break free of the dirt to replace the three just dispatched. Her breathing was hard and sweat stuck her shirt to her torso, but she kept her breath steady and her wings folded so as not to waste extra energy on drag; one of the small combat tips that Ranma had given her during their infrequent chats. It had surprised her that he could so easily think of combat lessons for someone he had only ever fought once (and very briefly at that) with a significantly different anatomy and weapon focus, but no aspect of melee fighting seemed to escape the Committee's vice-captain.

Recalling another of his suggestions, she snapped her wings open and leapt, using them to vault herself forward into a mighty pounce toward one of the emerging hanabake rather than actually taking flight.

Thwunk! Her scalpel-sharp nails stabbed easily into the surprised floral beast as the rest of its body cushioned her descent, smashing it back into the hole of loose dirt as it yelped. Pulling her hands free, she opened up the hanabake next to it while it was still disoriented from being pelted by bits of dirt. The one on the other side had time to move, but it made a poor decision and tried to dart behind the succubus to attack. A wing smacked it in the face as Kurumu turned, disorienting it for a critical moment before pointed nails stabbed into its back and pushed it back the ground where it had spawned.

Sap dripped down Kurumu's nails as the plant-beast quivered, but she paid neither the dying flora nor her quickly deteriorating manicure another thought as a half-dozen more hanabake struggled to the surface.

"Shoot! What can we do?" Tsukune groused, hearing Kurumu's plea but seeing no obvious answers to their current difficulties. Between Mizore, Kurumu, and Yukari the hanabake were being contained with surprising ease and efficiency, but Tsukune could see that their numbers were growing too quickly for that to last so long as Chopper was busy fighting and Kouma was under Oyakata's control. He had thought that if he could get to Kana he could get her to stun Kouma again with whatever she had done before, but evidently the siren had been severely spooked by the hanabake's attack; she had retreated to a tall tree and was cowering there, holding her wings close and covering her ears to keep out the sounds of combat as well as Tsukune's requests for help.

Moka was with him, as usual, though she kept quiet. She could think of an easy way out of this situation, or at the very least a way to tilt it much further in their favor, but she hesitated to bring it up, even at a time like this.

'So, you just let me know when everyone's ready for me to come out and save them all,' the voice in Moka's rosario said casually, as if it was settling down for a nap, 'it'll be nice to be out again. I just wish Ranma were here so that I could show him up, too.'

Tsukune grimaced, turning away from the willow tree where Kana was hiding. "Yukari! We need to free Kouma! Is there anything you can tell me about that collar?"

Yukari loosed another trio of cards, focusing her mind through her wand to manipulate their paths through the air. Each one sunk deep into the leg carapace of a freshly emergent hanabake, crippling them instantly before sending them staggering to the ground.

"Not much! I mean, it's obviously a control device, but a compulsion type, not a full mind control thing! If he was being fully dominated he wouldn't even be able to talk back!"

"But how can we remove it?" Tsukune asked, stepping back as Mizore dashed by him to fight another group of floral soldiers.

"Well, it's not indestructible!" Yukari said as she cut down a hanabake making a charge on her. With a wave of her wand, several cards that had already been thrown suddenly took to the air as if swept up in a gust of wind, collecting around her and settling in an upraised palm. "I mean, I doubt that recovery cone is JUST to humiliate him. Without it he might instinctively start gnawing at the collar and damage it before his magical programming forces him to stop."

Tsukune chewed his lip briefly. "I don't suppose you could cut it off with a card?"

"The collar or his esophagus? I don't think my control is fine enough to manage one without the other," the young witch said uncertainly.

"Then maybe Chopper could just tear it off?" Tsukune thought aloud.

"Oh, by all means, go ahead and try," Oyakata said, startling them as she approached from behind a pair of hanabake clawing their way free of the dirt, "I would enjoy seeing if the Dominion Band's curse could slay a troll."

The elder witch was surrounded by lashing, thorn-covered vines, the tendrils curling and whipping about her like the tentacles of some frenetic octopus. In her hands she clutched the Book of Fur and Talon tightly to her chest as she grinned.

"To touch the collar recklessly is a death sentence, human. But by all means, try it out for yourself! Or you could try to destroy this book," Oyakata said, tapping the tome in her hand.

At Tsukune's suspicious look, the crone chuckled bitterly. "Of course, that would unleash the curse upon the hound himself. What to do, what to do..."

"Like we can trust her!" Yukari snapped, summoning more cards to her hand, "let's go for it, Tsukune!"

She flung a few cards at Oyakata, but the elder witch blew them away with a mild gust of wind, making a gesture that could only be considered dismissive.

The hanabake started bearing down on Tsukune and Moka, but Mizore leapt on one of them, cutting it down instantly before carving into the next. It didn't seem like she would get any free shots at Oyakata, however, as the crone started to back away again to allow more of her plant soldiers forward.

"Fight until you're exhausted, surrender, or kill your friend in your hopeless struggle. It's all the same to me," Oyakata said with a shrug as leaves and feathers began to swirl around her in a cyclone, "you will suffer, in body and mind, for corrupting my precious Ruby! You will DIE for intruding upon our lands! Human, monster, not even other witches will be spared if they would stand with you wretched barbarians!"

Oyakata seemed to fade away behind the obscuring debris, and Tsukune rubbed his forehead in frustration. "There has to be something we can do! Chopper can't last much longer against..."

He trailed off. Chopper was actually doing fairly well, now that he thought about. Why was that?

At a glance, Kouma seemed to be holding back substantially. He had chalked that up to Kouma resisting Oyakata's mind control as best he could, but now that he considered it, Oyakata herself had verbally warned him against using his flames haphazardly.

As Tsukune stood silent, Moka bit her lip. 'All right, we have no choice. Let's get Tsukune to undo the seal.' Her thoughts were regretful, and somewhat bitter about the possibility. She had, after all, lectured her inner self about how they didn't need her and how unwelcome her malevolent attitude was, and asking for help now was sure to prompt a great deal of smug taunting in her head for a long time afterward.

'About time you saw reason,' Evil Moka said, 'although it looks to me like Tsukune's already seen it.'

To Moka's surprise, Tsukune suddenly clapped his hands on her shoulders. "Moka! I have an idea!"

"Right," she said, nodding nervously, "we can't waste any more time."

"Exactly! So stay here and try to coax Kana out of the tree, okay?" the human boy asked, "I need to speak to Yukari right away, and it would help my plan if Kana was up and flying."

Moka was fairly stunned as he suddenly bolted away from her, not having so much as brushed the Rosario.

'Okay, you know what? I admit it: I may have gone overboard with walloping the pigtailed dolt. But do you morons have to be SO determined to keep me locked up that you'll risk certain death rather than letting me out when Ranma isn't even around?' Moka complained bitterly.

'It does seem like the situation is a little desperate to completely ignore you,' Moka said tepidly. Although she wanted to put her faith in Tsukune's strategies, what could he do with their two strongest fighters out of action and their third strongest turned against them?

'When we die, make sure your last words are "I told you so!"'

'But I didn't tell them anything!'

'I hate our life.'

Kouma darted past massive, flailing fists as Chopper charged at him again, his own substantial body moving with surprising agility as the hellhound searched for a good spot on the troll's back to strike.

In an instant, he found one, jumping at Chopper's arm before sinking his teeth deep into the wrestler's shoulder.

"GYAH! Dammit, that burns!" Chopper complained as he dropped to the ground, striking that shoulder into the ground to try and pin Kouma.

It didn't quite work, although the hellhound's jaws were jarred loose, forcing Kouma to back away again lest the larger monster grab him.

Chopper quickly stood up again, grimacing as he felt a persistent pain in his shoulder that would severely restrict his grappling.

Not that he had been doing very well before. In his hellhound form, Kouma was extremely agile, and in this particular fight he was being so cautious that it proved nearly impossible to do more than defend himself.

'First Saotome and now Gamaroshi... I need more practice to catch these chumps,' the troll groused.

Seeing a nearby hanabake start to dig its way out of the ground, Chopper almost casually plucked the confused beast's head from the dirt, and then he grasped the creature at both ends.

CRACK! The hanabake made a wooden cracking sound, not unlike the sound of a nut being broken open, as Chopper twisted it in half.

"How long we gotta play this game?" Chopper asked as sap oozed over his hands, and then he threw the remains of the plant beast aside like a discarded wrapper.

"Until you guys get serious and take me or the crone out!" Kouma growled, slowly circling his opponent, "Aono can't half-ass this fight! And believe me when I say that I'd rather die to have the hag stopped than survive to see her plan succeed!"

Chopper slathered his wounded shoulder in the cool, sticky sap from the hanabake, instantly feeling some of the pain lessen as Kouma's saliva was cooled and neutralized by the vegetable goop. "Aw, c'mon, we 'aint gonna kill ya. The Captain will think of somethin'."

"And what has the human done so far to earn your confidence?" Oyakata demanded as a wind blew past Kouma, battering his flank with dry leaves and feathers. In moments the elder witch was behind her captured servant, scowling at Chopper, "even now, he hides behind you while you struggle and bleed uselessly! Why would you obey such a coward?"

"YOU'RE THE ONE MAKING US STRUGGLE AND BLEED!" snarled Kouma, his dagger-like teeth clenched tight.

Chopper shrugged. "Eh, I don't really mind. The little guy has some cool ideas."

"Pitiful," Oyakata said simply, pointing at the troll, "hound, no more playing. Seize the creature by the throat and tear it out, so that you may move on to the rest of these fools."

Kouma's body bolted forward despite his mental protests, and he leapt straight for Chopper's face with his fangs bared.

Which was very nearly the worst move he could have made, not that he had any choice.

Knowing exactly where his opponent would strike for, Chopper struck the hellhound out of the air with a perfectly-timed backhand, eliciting a pained yelp from Kouma as the hellbeast hit the ground hard as a result. In the next moment Chopper was on top of him, holding the hellhound down by his neck and back.

"I don't know any holds for dogs, but I'm sure I can work something out," said the wrestler, his tusks shifting as he grinned.

Oyakata snorted, being treated to the sight of the troll's massive, unprotected back. "If you want a job done right..." she mumbled, pointing to Chopper as many of the vines around her stiffened and straightened into barbed spears.

"Hey, old hag! Why don't pick on someone your own size?" yelled an unfamiliar, cocksure voice from behind the struggle.

Kouma and Chopper both froze, startled by the voice. Oyakata glanced over at the source, scowling.

She was very displeased to see yet another stranger stalking forward through the bits of torn sunflower and chunks of hanabake. He appeared to be another human boy, though Oyakata supposed that didn't mean much when it came to her current foes.

"Ranma! You're back!" Tsukune shouted, looking breathless as he ran up behind the taller boy, "listen, that witch is trying-"

"No time!" Ranma declared, glaring at the elder witch, "whatever your problem is, I'm going... to..."

The pigtailed boy trailed off, and Oyakata quirked an eyebrow as the newcomer's gaze locked onto Kouma.

"Yes? You're going to what?" Oyakata asked blandly.

Ranma didn't seem to be listening, however, as his eyes were bugging out while staring at Kouma.

"You... What... Collar..." he tried to stifle an onset of giggles at the sight of the hellhound's recovery cone, but it was clearly a losing battle. Before the dam burst, and Ranma literally collapsed onto his knees as he howled with laughter.

"Wa ha ha ha ha! What the hell happened to you, man? Did Tsukune take you to the Hellvet?" he asked, clenching his teeth to reduce his laughter to mere giggles.

Tsukune winced. "Wait, Ranma, it's not his fault. The witch did that to him after he was captured!"

Chopper couldn't help but notice that Kouma had completely stopped struggling. Despite this, the canine's body hadn't relaxed at all, and the troll felt a definite sense of foreboding overshadowing his gleeful battle-lust. "Um, guys?"

Ranma wasn't paying attention, however, as he lapsed into another laughing fit. "Are you SERIOUS? He lost to that old lady?" The pigtailed boy was gasping now as his body shook with mirth. "And the collar! Oh God! The pink is just too perfect!"

"Yow!" Chopper let go of Kouma in a hurry as he felt the hellhound's body temperature rise dramatically.

Oyakata also noticed, and she looked alarmed as the air around and above Kouma started to shimmer and distort, like hot air rising from a stove. "No! Stop that! Heel!"

"Ha ha HAH! She told him to heel!" Ranma shouted, rolling onto his back and kicking his feet. "It's too much! Make it stop!"

Chopper was now actively running away from Kouma, and Oyakata was starting to back away as well as she realized her commands had no effect. "I said heel! Bad dog! Are you listening to me?"

Tsukune gulped as he started backing away from Ranma. "Uh, okay, Ranma, I think he's had enough." The pigtailed boy seemed not to hear him in his fit of hysteria, although Tsukune was sure he was perfectly aware that something bad was happening. Tsukune could feel the air warming rapidly despite being farther away from Kouma, and the ground felt like it was trembling slightly. "Really, you can stop now."

"No! Wait!" Ranma cried, managing to push himself up onto his hands and knees, "someone get me a camera! I have to have a picture of this! It's too good!"

Oyakata continued shouting demands, but Kouma didn't hear them; to him her voice was a distant foghorn straining to be heard in a storm. He had suffered greatly in the past several hours, and all of that pent-up fury seemed to be rushing to the fore at once as magical compulsion and emotional gratification suddenly found a single, perfect outlet, reinforcing each other rather than struggling against each other. Everything else was forgotten as his red eyes stared at the pigtailed boy rolling atop the broken bodies of hanabake and chunks of upturned dirt, and he felt as if the sun itself was burning in his chest as he saw the pleasure and joy his humiliation had brought.

"Or maybe, like, get me a pencil and paper, and I can just DRAW it," Ranma said as he finally found the strength to sit up, wiping the tears from his eyes, "I'll make it an art piece and everything! Think I'll call it 'Neutered'."

Kouma did not speak words or think words in reply, because there were no words. Even the most vile phrases of the fell denizens of the underworld seemed completely inadequate. Only action, the tearing of flesh, the cracking of bone, and the incineration of life could possibly express the current depths of his hatred.

And in that instant, Kouma's fury exploded.

Ryoga turned his head away as a sudden flare of light in the distance nearly blinded him, as if the sun itself had appeared over the buildings of Nerima.

Confused and disoriented, he squinted as he turned back toward the direction that the light had come from, somewhere to the south, but saw nothing but the empty streets of Nerima, exactly as they had been before.

"Geez, what was that?" asked Ranma, glancing behind him as the light vanished. He had been facing Ryoga at the time while squatting atop a chain-link fence, but had seen his own shadow suddenly stretch out before him when Ryoga flinched.

"I think it was an explosion... but I don't see any smoke or a dust cloud," Ryoga murmured, staring at his best guess as to the origin of the flare. Then he remembered what Ranma had just asked him and immediately forgot about the mysterious disturbance. "Wait, forget that! What did you mean, asking if I'm a monster?"

"Look, it's a fair question," Ranma said, shrugging, "if anyone around here is secretly some kind of demon, it's gotta be you. The fangs, the inhuman endurance, and there's no way someone with human smarts could get so lost in a two story house that they've lived in off and on for a year."

Ranma jumped away as Ryoga's fist ripped through the fence, tearing the steel links like so many strips of paper.

"Plus, you know how sometimes you tell me that you've seen Hell because of me? Is that because you have to go home and train after you lose?" Ranma asked as he balanced on a post box.

"It's an expression, you idiot! I'm no monster!" Ryoga shouted, a vein bulging on the side of his head.

Ranma frowned, staring down at Ryoga as the larger boy growled and shook his fist at his nemesis. "Okay, fine... But are you SURE? I just heard that it's not that rare for humans to hook up with monsters, so do you know for CERTAIN that both your folks..."

Ranma trailed off as Ryoga started to glow green, and promptly decided that he was now satisfied by Ryoga's answer. "All right, you seem pretty sure!" he said as he leapt up to the nearest rooftop, "catch ya later, Porky!"


Ranma had to dodge a ki bolt on his way down the street, but within seconds he was far beyond any hope of Ryoga might have had of tracking him down. Not that he was afraid of fighting Ryoga by any means, but he hadn't returned to Nerima just to settle back into the same old grudges he'd left behind.

Besides, Ranma knew that it was annoying being asked to confirm your own species. He just had to make sure.

"Lessee... I'd rather not tempt fate by asking the Kunos, so that just leaves the Amazons, and..." as he scanned the horizon, Ranma could make out a tiny speck bouncing from roof to roof in the distance.

"Gotcha!"


Happousai hummed pleasantly to himself as he leapt from roof to roof, his sack of liberated underthings bobbing behind his head.

It had been easy pickings as of late, to the point that he felt a lingering sense of dissatisfaction with his favorite "hobby". While the residents of Nerima had long known that there was a nigh-unstoppable underwear thief around, Happousai was, well, nigh-unstoppable. Hiding places were inevitably found, traps sprung with no effect, and angry mobs could only devote so much of their time to sprinting after someone who was able to leap entire houses at will. It had gotten so bad that many women apparently budgeted for lingerie shopping along with their groceries as a set of weekly expenses, and buying in bulk had likewise become very popular among Happousai's victims. Those that refused to back down in their gender's war against Happousai had apparently adopted a "scorched Earth" policy of wearing men's boxers and chest bindings rather than women's underwear, and Happousai honestly had to applaud their grit in going so far to deprive him. But there were always other victims, and never anyone who could stand up to him.

So why did he feel so... dissatisfied? Now that he had everything he wanted and no one dared or bothered to stand in his way, why did he feel such sense of loss?

"Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can hear something in the back of my mind," the old lecher said to himself as he alighted atop a church's steeple and stared out at the city skyline, "a voice speaking to me, like the comforting words of an old friend."

"Hey! Freak! Heads up!"

Happousai frowned. "Well, that's close I guess, but I was hoping they'd be more comforting than that."

Bwack! Before the ancient pervert could grasp what was going on, a swift kick in the side sent him flying in a practiced arc as his bag went tumbling out of his grasp.

CLONG! The church bell rang as Happousai smashed into it, and the tiny martial arts master bounced off and onto the floor of the church's bell tower floor, the ringing in his skull every bit equal to the ringing outside it.

Ranma took a moment to tear open the sack Happousai was carrying and pin it on the church steeple, allowing the contents to pile out in the wind in a fluttering torrent.

He gave a brief thought as to whether it might cause any problems for a load of stolen underthings to be scattered all over the front of a church.

"Nah, they'll be fine," the pigtailed man scoffed, wondering why the thought even occurred to him, "Tsukune must be rubbing off on me or something."

As Ranma approached Happousai, he was actually rather surprised (and a little weirded out) when the old lecher brightened at the sight of him rather than getting angry at the loss of the day's loot.

"Ranma, m'boy! You're back! You're really back!" Happousai cheered, throwing his stubby arms up into the air, "you disappeared so suddenly! We didn't know when you'd show again!"

"Yeah, uh... Sorry? I guess?" Ranma mumbled, scratching the back of his head. "Old school kicked me out, so I had to go to this new one."

"So you won't be staying?" Happousai asked, just the barest hint of disappointment tinging his voice.

"No, I'm just stopping by long enough to really regret it," Ranma said with a sigh, "so what's with you?"

"Oh, you know, the usual routine. Health is good, but the commutes are getting longer," Happousai explained, as if he were discussing his actual job, "I'm thinking I might have to start taking the train. But who wants to deal with the crowds, you know?"

"So... you aren't mad that I tossed your stolen goods?" Ranma asked, understandably perplexed.

"What, those things? Pah! I have so many nowadays that I don't even know where I'd store the new ones! Hell, I suppose I only bother stealing more out of habit! I'm almost glad you took those back!"

'I greet my fiancees to explain why I left and apologize, and they try to beat my skull in. I find Happousai, kick him into a wall of metal and liberate his stolen goods, and he's chatting to me like an old buddy from work,' Ranma thought miserably, 'humans or not, these people are all freaks.'

"So, how's your new school? Any cute girls?" Happousai asked with an excited leer.

"Yeah, sure. Quick question, freak: are you a monster?" Ranma asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Nope. Totally human," Happousai answered.

Ranma was silent for several seconds before he spoke again. "Nope? That's it? No angry rebuttal? No sarcasm? No suspicions? No questions as to why I asked?"

"Well, I get that question a lot," Happousai reasoned, blinking, "you're not even the first person to ask me that today. Well, really it's more like it was screamed at me than 'asked'. And it was more of an accusation than a question."

"Of course..." Ranma grumbled, slowly turning around. It was strange, but somehow the further along he went in confirming that he was right, the worse he felt, "well, I'll see you some other time."

"Wait! Don't go so soon! You just got here!" the elderly pervert cried, running up to him, "tell me all about your new coeds! I mean, school! Hey, did you see that huge flash of light from earlier?"

"Not now. I've gotta finish up here and then meet up with a bunch of my friends before they get killed by witches," Ranma explained as he leapt away from the bell tower.

Tsukune struggled to his feet, his eyes squeezed shut from the flare of light that had threatened to blind him. The air was much warmer now, almost suffocating in its intensity, and he could feel the ground underneath him tremble from energies he could barely comprehend.

This hadn't been part of the plan. Well, not exactly. Tsukune knew that Kouma was very powerful and very easy to agitate, but had completely underestimated both traits. Just what kind of damage was Kouma capable of when enraged?

Hesitantly, the young human slowly cracked his eyelids open to find out.

Witch's Knoll, already trampled and pockmarked with divots from the skirmish between the hanabake and Protection Committee, now had much of the surrounding field completely flattened from a shock wave of hot air. Smoke wreathed the formerly clear sky, dark but for the reflected lights from dancing flames and glowing red seams that were even now slowly creeping through the ground of the blast site.

"Okay, yeah, that's not good," Tsukune mumbled as he turned his attention toward Kouma and the figure that had provoked this devastation.

Yukari, still covered by her illusion spell to look like Ranma, had fallen down from the blast and was clearly just as disoriented as Tsukune was. She was also in far, far more danger than he was.

In the middle of the field, forming up the center of the the blast zone, the seams of lava had grown and spread, meeting each other in the shape of a glowing pentagram. Sparks of lightning the color of fresh blood lashed around the circumference as an enormous pyre grew higher and higher in the center of the unholy conflagration, and Tsukune could swear he heard a choir of distant voices chanting fake Latin in the background.

In the middle of the tower of flame was dark, four legged shape, its eyes glittering crimson.

"Kouma!" Tsukune shouted, starting to run toward him.

BWOOM! An explosion detonated in front of him, showering the surprised teenager with dirt as the ground seemed to vomit soil and flame.

"Sreeeee!" A hanabake tumbled to the ground, wailing, its scorched body trailing smoke as it died as quickly as it emerged.

"Wh-What? What was that?" Tsukune asked, stunned.

BWOOM! BWOOM! Two more explosions occurred nearby, followed by a trio of more distant ones behind the tower of flame. Each one spat a smoking hanabake corpse into the air as the tendrils of lava spread underground, seeping into the hanabake's subterranean pockets and igniting the bubbles of oxygen that had been created during their sleeping photosynthesis.

Within moments the tempo of explosions had increased, the surrounding field coming apart from below as the death screams of dozens of plant beasts filled the air and forced the scattered members of the Protection Committee to take cover.

"Kouma! Stop!" Tsukune shouted again, to no apparent effect.

Yukari unsteadily got to her feet among the detonations behind her, and she gulped as she stared into the glowing red eyes of the hound that stood at the epicenter of the chaos.

"Okay, now, hold on. I know it looks bad, but there's a reason for all of this, you know? The plan was-"

The black hound's maw yawned open, and Yukari's eyes bugged out as a series of flickering lights came from within that ragged shadow.

"Wait, wait, WAIT!"

The lights seemed to coalesce and then collapse within the hellhound's mouth, starting a catastrophic reaction unseen outside of the death throes of a star.

'At least I died doing what I loved,' Yukari thought sadly, the rattling detonations all around the field seeming to fade into the background as light flooded her field of vision, 'making fun of idiots. Goodbye, Moka. Farewell, Senpai.'

And then, suddenly, the young witch was airborne.


A shrieking howl blew Tsukune off his feet as a vast beam of pure white lanced out of Kouma's jaws, and he was forced again to avert and cover his eyes from the glare to avoid being completely blinded from the light.

The otherworldly shriek leveled off into low rumble that had Tsukune's teeth rattling in his jaws, and he felt a wave of thin, hot ash blow across his arms as he covered himself as best he could from the devastation. After a few seconds, once the flare of light that had been burned into his retinas had faded into darkness and the occasional explosion from a dying hanabake was the loudest noise pounding in his ears, he cracked his eyes open again.

A long trench of scorched Earth, wider than most roads, had been torn through the ground, and the surrounding soil had been dusted with the remains of the sunflowers and sunflower-disguised creatures that had been too close to the heat. Besides the new scar decorating the face of Witch's Knoll for almost a kilometer, the upturned grounds of the sunflower field were now pockmarked with scorched craters and small fires from the hanabake exploding from underground, and several of the bodies still burned as the lava seams that had triggered them cooled rapidly.

The pyre that had surrounded Kouma had now been replaced by smoke, though Tsukune could still make out the glittering red of the hound's eyes through the billowing darkness.

"That... That was close," Yukari squeaked as she clung to Kana's torso, her illusion of Ranma's body flickering away.

The siren flapped her wings hard to stay airborne, struggling with the added weight. Although Yukari was small, the young witch didn't weigh much more than Kana did herself, and the siren was ill-suited to bearing cargo.

"Why did you drop the illusion?" Kana complained with a pout, "I rather liked pretending I was rescuing Ranma."

"It's hard to concentrate on a spell when your life is flashing before your eyes!" Yukari countered.

"Don't think I'm done with you yet," rumbled a heavy, hateful voice that immediately caused both girls to flinch. Down on the ground, Kouma stepped out of the smoke column, black trails of toxic vapors wafting from his jaws as his eyes glowed a pure, brilliant crimson. "I'll roast your pet songbird along with you if I must, Saotome."

The hellhound glanced up, droplets of lava oozing out of the corner of his mouth like drool. "Sorry, I meant Sendo."

Kouma continued staring up at the two girls.

"Wait. I'm confused," the hellhound admitted, the glow in his eyes starting to dim.

"KOUMA!" Tsukune shouted yet again.

"WHAT?!" Kouma roared, turning to face the young human with his teeth bared. Despite the awesome power he had just released, his indignant rage was not yet spent, and he wasn't particular at this point about who suffered his fury.

Tsukune grimaced and pointed to his neck. "Your collar's gone. It burned up."

Kouma did not respond, though the red glow of his eyes went out.

For the most part, silence suddenly dominated the field, with the only exceptions being the crackling fires, the sound of a book's pages rustling as someone leafed through them desperately, and an elderly voice muttering "Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap..."

Tsukune coughed into his fist, and then adopted his best attempt at a stern expression. "Now, I know that you're likely very upset at what just happened, and you have every right to be. But rather than immediately attempting revenge, I'd like you to consider forgiveness and-"

"BURN THE WITCH!" Kouma snarled, whirling around as his eyes locked onto Oyakata.

"-and I guess that was a little too much to hope for," Tsukune sighed.

Fwoosh! In a burst of flame Kouma restored his human form, and then the hellhound bolted forward, fists ablaze.

"Not so fast!" Oyakata snarled, holding up the Book of Fur and Talon with its pages open toward the enraged canine, "don't take another step, hound, or you'll find yourself back in the tome!"

Kouma skidded to a stop, and the crone's cheek twitched toward a smile. "Did you think you would be safe by taking human form? The book knows your nature, dog, and it... will... what?"

The elder witch's words became confused as her spell book lifted from her hands, floating lazily through the air as its binding flapped like wings. So absurd was the sight that Oyakata didn't even think to try and stop it until it was too late, the tome pulling itself out of lunging range just as she jumped after it.

As the crone stared in disbelief, her book flapped its way over to one of the trees that flanked Oyakata's home, and into the hand of one of the girls that sat in the tree's branches.

Yukari twirled her wand with a flourish, and the Book of Fur and Talon shut itself before landing neatly in her hand, spine-first. Then she tucked it under her arm and silently stared down at the older witch with renewed interest in the current conflict.

Oyakata slowly turned to face Kouma once again, her expression curiously thoughtful as she scratched her chin.

"Upon reflection, perhaps murder IS somewhat harsh a retaliation for a mere... misunderstanding. Yes," she said with a slow nod, "I think I'll surrender now."

"Heh heh heh," Kouma chuckled darkly as he started shambling forward again, a discomfiting grin on his face, "surrender. Heh heh heh."

"Human!" Oyakata shouted as she started to back away, "are you going to let it end like this? Where are your so-called higher morals now?"

Tsukune frowned. "Kouma, I-"

"Shut up," the hellhound deadpanned as he kept stalking forward.

Tsukune shrugged helplessly as the elder witch quailed.

"Please stop!" Ruby, who had up until then watched the twisted combat from the sidelines, leapt in front of Kouma, spreading her arms out to either side, "I know what she's done is horrible, but my lady has-"

Kouma grabbed Ruby by the shoulder mid-sentence and flung her to the side like a piece of trash, not even breaking stride.

"You'll regret standing with the humans!" Oyakata cried as she broke into a full run away from the field, desperation and fear lending new strength to her old bones, "this will not end here!"

"I'm going to beat you. Then, I'm going to roast you. Low and slow. Just like a steak," Kouma said with an unnerving level of glee as he sped up to keep pace with the crone.


Within seconds, both Oyakata and Kouma were out of sight, having disappeared past the as yet unharmed edge of the sunflower field.

"Tsukune? Are you... okay with this?" Moka asked awkwardly as she approached him with Kurumu trailing behind her, "I mean, hunting down and killing Oyakata after she gave up?"

Tsukune stepped over to where Ruby was staggering to her feet, and offered his hand to help her up. "Am I okay with it? No, not really. Am I going to step in front of Kouma to try and stop him for Oyakata's sake? No. I'm not doing that," he glanced at the scorched furrow that had been blasted into the Earth.

Ruby gratefully accepted his hand and pulled herself up. "I know she deserves this, that she brought it on herself," she said sadly, "I can't even say that I don't deserve the same. But I still wish I could save her."

"Yeah, that's a real shame," Kurumu said flippantly as she cracked her neck. She had a few shallow wounds on her flank and wings and was sweating heavily as she staggered up to the Committee's captain, "anyway, can we finish up here? Kouma's blast sent Mizore into some sort of heat shock, Chopper's started eating the wounded hanabake, and my hair is a WRECK."

"Right, okay. Take Yukari and Moka and search the witch's home for that curse cure," Tsukune said, "I'll go check on Mizore."

"Got it!"

"Last stop," Ranma mumbled to himself as he jogged along the fence that ran adjacent to the canal.

In front of him stood the Cat Cafe, looking exactly as it had when Ranma had seen it last.

He was actually somewhat surprised that he hadn't run into Shampoo at random, since she had a talent for running him down when he was out and about. Then again, she didn't know he was back in town.

The way he figured it, the Amazons were probably the most likely candidates to be monsters besides Happousai; they were strange, curiously long-lived, had their own isolated village with a set of laws that involved way too much combat, and they shared a mountain range with a kingdom of misogynistic hybrid freaks and bird people.

To that end, he wasn't really sure he WANTED to question them on their species. What if they had some kind of rule concerning people who discovered their true form? Or what if they were a tribe of sex-starved demons or something? He'd had more than enough of those at school.

"Well, well, this is a surprise," croaked an elderly voice from below, causing the pigtailed boy to flinch, "hello, Son-in-law. I didn't expect to see you loitering outside my store. Have you come here to take out Shampoo or just eat lunch?"

Ranma glanced down at Cologne, who was balanced atop her staff on the sidewalk below him. "None of the above, really. Just wanted to stop by and let you know what happened to me."

"Ah, yes, you were taken to another school, weren't you?" Cologne mused as Ranma dropped down in front of her, "and such a mysterious school it was, that I've been unable to find a single trace of it outside that flier your mother keeps. Almost as if it were the cover for some sort of hastily constructed attempt to escape from Nerima without being pursued."

Ranma shrugged. "Or the school is a secret facility in another dimension run by a crazy wizard."

"That was my second guess," Cologne admitted, "anyone I know?"

"No clue. Don't know the loon's name, or if he even has one," Ranma said, rubbing the back of his head, "but anyway, I wanted to say hi and let you know that I'll be coming back in the winter, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't smash apart time and space to hunt me down in the meantime."

"Fine, go ahead and spoil my entire autumn holiday," Cologne said half-jokingly.

"Also, I know this might seem like a weird question, but are the Amazons monsters?" Ranma asked.

Evidently Cologne lacked a witty reply this time, as she just blinked owlishly at the pigtailed boy. "Pardon?"

"Are the Amazons humans?" Ranma asked, "or are you some kind of secret village of mutants or something?"

Cologne tilted her head slightly to one side, but appeared not to take offense at the question, at least. "We're... human, yes. Why would you ask this?"

"You, uh... You hesitated for a minute, there," Ranma pointed out.

"I'm simply wondering what sort of people you imagine us to be," Cologne said, bouncing around Ranma in a circle.

"Well, I don't know. That's why I'm asking," Ranma explained, "I mean, I won't hold it against you and Shampoo if you turn out to be were-beasts or something, but I'd like to know."

Cologne finished a circuit around Ranma, and stopped at the edge of the sidewalk as she stared at the pigtailed boy with a discerning eye. "Hmmm... Well, since you asked, I will say that the village has some bloodlines that are not... 'pure' human. We live in a region that boasts many strange and powerful tribes, after all, and our people value strength above species. There are even legends that suggest that all of the village may share ancestry with supernatural beings."

Cologne smirked as Ranma tensed. "But I can assure you, Shampoo and I are quite human. We have no alternative forms or strange biology."

"I think your 'biology' is plenty strange," Ranma quipped, idly glancing toward the street.

Cologne chuckled, although the sound was drowned out by the roar of a rapidly accelerating engine. "May I ask what prompted this question, Son-in-law? Unlike you to show an interest in our people."

Ranma plucked Cologne's staff off the ground, holding it, and her, above his head just as a speeding black SUV zoomed past with two wheels on the sidewalk, coming mere centimeters from brushing Ranma's chest.

SCREEEECH! Crunch!

Ranma clicked his tongue as he put Cologne's staff back onto the sidewalk. "You must be losing your touch, old ghoul. That car almost pasted you. Now the reason I-"

Clunk! Ranma was fairly stunned as Cologne actually fell over, failing to balance atop her staff and landing haphazardly on the edge of the sidewalk.

"Eh? Hey ghoul, you all right?" Ranma asked, quirking an eyebrow. The old Amazon wasn't unconscious or anything, but seemed completely stunned, and was even trembling slightly as her eyes bugged out.

Ranma glanced back at the vehicle that had almost hit her, and saw that it had impacted a utility pole, partially caving in the front of the hood. Deciding that Cologne just needed a moment to get over her brush with death (although Ranma couldn't fathom why she seemed paralyzed at the prospect), he started to approach the SUV to check if the driver needed help.

"Yo! Are you tryin' to kill someone?" he shouted, cupping a hand next to his mouth, "hello? You alive?"

Suddenly the driver's-side door burst open, and an unfamiliar foreign man wearing a flat cap emerged.

"As a matter of fact, I am! Slay the witch!" he shouted with a snarl, looking none the worse for wear despite his recent collision. Then he aimed a large crossbow in Ranma's direction and let loose a bolt.

Thwip! Ranma plucked the projectile out of the air, noting that the shot had gone wide.

"Hey, calm down. I'm no witch," he insisted.

"Yes, I know," George Byron said gruffly as he took more careful aim at the old woman balancing on a staff.

Thwip! Ranma again caught the crossbow bolt, despite the fact that this time he knew it wasn't aimed at him. He kept his gaze on the new arrival, though, and as such missed it when Cologne flinched back from the shot that never reached her.

"She isn't a witch either!" Ranma complained, starting to get a little annoyed.

"That she is, lad," George said, stopping to spit into the street next to him, "now back off so I can slay the wench!"

A vein popped up on Ranma's head. "No, she isn't!"

The foreigner rolled his eyes. "And you think yourself an authority on witches?"

"As a matter of fact, yeah! I do think I'd know a witch when I saw one!" the pigtailed boy snapped, jabbing a thumb to his chest, "besides, the old ghoul could wipe you out in a heartbeat, man. Cut your losses and call a tow truck or something."

George raised an eyebrow behind the sights of his crossbow. "For a creature of such power, she seems bloody quick to flee."

"You think a Chinese Amazon is afraid of some chubby weirdo from the States?" Ranma scoffed, glancing behind him.

He couldn't help but notice, as he did so, that there was a head of long gray hair whipping about in the distance, about five or six buildings away and moving fast to escape the confrontation in front of the Cat Cafe.

"It would seem the fell wench is indeed," George grumbled as he let his aim drop, "and by the by, I'm English, not American."

"What's the difference?" Ranma asked, honestly bewildered by Cologne's flight and wondering how he should react.

"Our honour, our artefacts, and our pyjamas," the witch hunter quipped, "can I get back to my job, now? I'd like to be rid of the foul creature before supper."

"No," Ranma started walking up to the armed man, "what'd she do to you, anyway?"

George sighed, irritated at the hold-up but not willing to try to fight the boy. Not yet, anyway. "I am a witch hunter, lad. And despite your protests, that wretched creature was undoubtedly a witch. I'm sure that she's been involved in all sorts of dreadful exploits, spreading misery wherever she goes!"

Ranma scoffed. "That not tr-wait, no, that is true," he corrected, looking slightly worried, "but even so, I'm not gonna let you kill her just 'cause you think she's a witch."

"Those who stand with the witches will die with the witches!" shouted another voice as a dark shape jumped out of the SUV and onto the pavement.

James the shadow cat glared at this latest obstacle standing between George and his prey. "What are you thinking, standing up for these degenerate... wow, he runs fast."

George frowned at the dust cloud that marked the rapidly departing teenager, unsure of what to make of him. Certainly there had been people who have attempted to defend the witches before, but such actions had always been attempted out of ignorance for what they were defending. Though the pigtailed boy claimed the crone wasn't a witch, he seemed to know about them and wasn't fazed.

"James, keep to the alleys and wait for my signal. He seemed startled by your appearance somehow, so be ready to ambush the fool on my signal."

"Aye-aye, boss!" the magic beast said, dashing for the space between buildings and leaving a trail of inky darkness behind him.

"The hunt begins anew..."

Cologne bounced along the rooftops, her eyes sweeping from side to side with uncommon desperation as she sought to put more distance between her and the foreign man that had just tried to run her over.

No, not just tried, she amended silently, almost succeeding.

It seemed she owed Ranma Saotome a personal debt now, since she was quite sure she would be dead if he hadn't casually intervened. More than once, in fact; those crossbow shots had been aimed perfectly, and it was only good fortune that she had someone around who was willing and able to stop them.

"Hey, ghoul! Wait up!" shouted said savior, landing on the roof next to her as the ancient Amazon paused in her flight.

Ranma was gasping for breath, planting his hands on his knees as he glared at Cologne. "What's the deal, ghoul? Why'd you bolt like that?"

"Well, I'm not sure if you noticed son-in-law, but there was an armed gentleman trying to kill me," Cologne drawled, "could you be a dear and drive him off? I need to find Shampoo."

"Nuh-uh! I'm not getting near that guy! He has a demon cat for a pet!" Ranma claimed, shuddering in terror, "it breathes darkness and speaks like a man! I'm not messing with that!"

Cologne sighed as she bounced away to the next roof. "Retreat it is, then."

"Wait! Hold on!" Ranma leapt after her, his breathing under control again, "why's that guy after you? He thinks you're a witch!"

"It's... complicated," Cologne said uneasily. "Strictly speaking, I AM a witch," the elder Amazon admitted.

Ranma almost tripped on a piece of tile, but caught himself before rounding on Cologne angrily. "Hey! You said you were a human!"

"Witches are human, son in law."

"That's not what my anti-devil hunter teacher said!"

Cologne sweatdropped. "Well, putting aside your... unorthodox lesson plan, the Chinese Amazons do not view witchcraft as many others do. To us it is a talent, a gift possessed by a small fraction of the tribe who will become our greatest warriors and shamans. It does not separate us from our sister Amazons, and in fact-"

"Hold it!" Ranma said suddenly, reaching out and grabbing Cologne's staff before she could make the leap to the next building, "does this mean that all those times you kicked my ass, you were just using magic?"

The elder Amazon gave him an exasperated look. "Must we discuss this NOW?"

"Tell me! Are you even a martial artist?" Ranma demanded, folding his arms over his chest.

"It's complicated," Cologne said again, shaking her head, "a gifted Amazon goes through the same training as any other warrior. We must become fighters of peerless quality before we're allowed to indulge our gifts for the arcane."

Cologne raised one arm, letting her massive sleeve fall to expose a single withered hand. "I taught you and that idiot that's always gnashing at your heels various techniques, didn't I? They were no parlor tricks." She hesitated as she stared at her tiny, wrinkled fingers. "On the other hand, were it not for magic, I wouldn't be able to use any of them in the state I'm in."

"How's that?"

"Happousai staves off the ravages of age with the sheer strength of his aura, using it to reinforce his bones, protect his flesh, and empower his movements. It's a remarkable trick, and I wish I understood better how he managed it," Cologne admitted reluctantly, "I, on the other hand, make do with an elixir I brew myself to keep my body strong enough to fight. You didn't think I got to be over three hundred years old with good diet and exercise, did you?"

"Okay, fine... So what about Shampoo? Is she a witch too?" Ranma asked, scratching his chin.

"Like I told you, the matter is more complicated than that. It's expected she has the gift, yes, but it will be decades before she's trained and makes her pact."

"Pact? What do you mean by that?" Ranma asked, intrigued.

"Can this wait, son-in-law?" Cologne asked with a groan.

Thwap! As if to underline her point, another crossbow bolt zipped toward her from behind, forcing Ranma to lean over and slap it out of the air.

Cologne immediately hopped away into a full retreat again, and Ranma followed after her, grimacing.

"Fine, can you at least tell me why you suddenly can't dodge anymore?" he demanded, "it's not like you to back down so easily."

Cologne didn't say anything for a short while as they leapt from roof to roof, hoping to leave the Englishman in the dust far behind them.

"It's-"

"Complicated, yeah, I get it. Tell me anyway," Ranma snapped.

Cologne was slightly taken aback by the assertiveness, but was still reluctant to explain herself. None of the things she had just told Ranma were particularly secret, although she had avoided spreading knowledge of her power anyway to avoid any chance of being targeted by vigilantes (an effort that had eventually failed, it would seem). To explain why she was unable to avoid the weapons of the hunter, though, would require indulging information that could very easily be used against her.

"Hey, are you listening to me?" Ranma asked, a vein popping up on his head, "c'mon ghoul, I've already saved your life, you can at least tell me why I had to bother!"

Cologne sighed as she vaulted off a roof and then landed on a fence next to a canal, making short hops along the top of it. "My fighting techniques may come from my martial arts training, but much of my agility does not, son-in-law. I have a spell in place to grant me limited precognition, enabling me to see threats before they actually reach me and check my opponent's position a moment before they reach it."

Ranma's eyes bugged out. "You can see the future?"

"Just enough to make your life difficult," Cologne said with a dry chuckle, "that man is somehow invisible to my divination, though. I can't see his movements ahead of time, nor his weapons. Having to adjust so suddenly to using my mundane defenses is... disorienting."

"So you can't even dodge a crossbow without your magic, huh," Ranma said, shaking his head, "well, whatever. What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to find Shampoo. I may be vulnerable to that man, but she should be more than a match for him."

Ranma snorted. "Guess all that Amazon pride goes right out the window when things get serious, huh?"

"An assassination attempt is different from a duel, son-in-law," the elder said, giving Ranma a scathing look, "I see no reason why I should have to fight for my right to live."

"You're preaching to the choir, lady," Ranma retorted, hopping off the fence, "anyway, I'll see if I can slow him down. If the cat is still with him you're on your own, though."

"Who was it who was quick to discard pride?" Cologne mumbled, "but fine. I doubt the hunter could catch me even without your assistance; it's clear he doesn't do much running."

Without further comment the elder Amazon leapt away, continuing her flight in the direction of Shampoo's last delivery.

Atop a nearby flat-topped building, George Byron looked down the scope of his 7.62mm L96 rifle as it rested on a softly humming air conditioning unit, his breathing slow as the cross hairs delicately followed the decrepit magic user bouncing across the distant rooftops.

He'd never liked using the rifle, partly because of the legal restrictions concerning guns in Japan, but mostly because he had much less practice with it than with older weapons. When you practiced firing a crossbow in your back yard, people assumed you were a hobbyist. When you practiced long-range sharp-shooting, people started to wonder what the interior of your vehicle looked like.

'Quick little bugger, aren't you?' he thought as his sights followed the witch's path across the district's homes, keeping careful track of the wind speed and ballistic drop calculations in the back of his mind, 'settle down a moment, crone. Just a moment...'

As if the Chinese witch had been listening to his thoughts, she jumped up to the top of an apartment complex, standing atop her staff as she scanned the streets below.

"Gotcha," George breathed as the cross hairs settled above the stationary woman, adjusting for the necessary variables that could spoil the shot.

"Oi, quit that," Ranma said as he pulled the rifle barrel down.

George was almost startled enough to squeeze the trigger, but resisted the reflex as he jerked his head back and snatched his weapon to his chest.

"You again. What IS your bloody problem?" George growled as he switched on the safety and unloaded the rifle.

"My problem is that you're trying to kill people. I want you to stop that," Ranma said as he watched the witch hunter place the unloaded rifle down next to the AC unit. Usually Ranma would have let his fists do the talking by now, but he was actually kind of impressed, both by the way the foreigner had actually spooked Cologne and by the fact that the hunter hadn't made any move to attack him. Usually the people he was trying to stop were far more indiscriminate than that, and he appreciated such a professional approach.

George got up from his weapon, content that it was safely stowed away such that he could retrieve it later. "Listen to me lad, what does the witch have on ya? With my magesight I can see you're cursed; did she do that to you?"

"That wasn't her fault," Ranma said, shaking his head, "well... At least I don't THINK it was her fault."

Actually, now that he considered it, the Amazons being a secret tribe of witches went an awful long way toward explaining why the entire mountain range they inhabited was lousy with monsters and magic. How did he know that they didn't secretly create Jusenkyou themselves?

'Better not go there,' Ranma decided, 'I might be tempted to let this guy do his job.'

"So you stand with the witch as a matter of principle, then?" George asked, clearly perplexed, "these creatures use humans as their tools. They are schemers and hateful pranksters, who know nothing of human compassion and have no respect for our laws."

"That is all TOTALLY true," Ranma agreed, his thoughts flashing back to all the schemes Cologne had involved him in and other trouble she'd caused, "but the ghoul can be helpful too, and I don't remember her doing anything that she should be killed for. So why don't you show a little human compassion and buzz off?"

"I see then. You will not be swayed," George mumbled, lifting his cap with one hand and scratching his hair with the other, "it's unfortunate. I've never had to harm a human before in pursuit of a witch."

It was only that line that put Ranma on guard far enough to defend himself. Otherwise, the speed at which George flung the nail that was hidden in his hat would have surprised him too much to react.

As it was, Ranma clapped his hands shut on the length of the nail, stopping it just centimeters before it pierced his shoulder. Before he could do much more than look surprised, George struck a palm at the head of the nail, aiming to force it past Ranma's defense.

Ranma twisted his body quickly enough so that the nail barely grazed the top of his shoulder rather than punching through it, and then shifted to the offensive.

"You're fast for a heavy guy," Ranma admitted as he stepped into the Englishman's defenses, testing him with a few darting jabs to the chest and stomach. Every one of them struck home as George struggled to keep up with the pigtailed boy, and he tried in vain to back away to get some space.

Ranma saw the hunter's hand slipping into his coat, and he struck the man's forearm to halt it briefly before he hit it with a snap kick, sending George's hand flailing as the knife he was drawing flew into the air.

George sucked in a harsh breath and leapt backward from the roof and onto an awning, then hopped off of that and onto a small car's hood before he started to parkour down the street.

"All offense, no defense, typical assassin type," Ranma mumbled to himself as he dashed across the rooftop alongside the retreating Briton, "his style seems pretty conventional, probably military? Not really a challenge."

Still, the witch hunter had managed to surprise him, and he doubted someone who killed witches for a living didn't have more tricks up his sleeve. Also, there was the man's... trump card.

Ranma shuddered, wondering where the Briton had left his talking cat.

Increasing his sprinting speed, Ranma soon ended up ahead of George, and leapt out in front of him, alighting on top of the cab of a pickup truck.

"Yo, slow down already," Ranma said as George landed unsteadily in the bed of the pickup, halting himself, "you're not gonna get away, so you might as well fight me or just give-is that a flamethrower?"

HWOOSH! Ranma dove into the street as a jet of fire swept over the truck, scorching the vehicle's paint across its cab.

Ranma rolled as he hit the ground, then jumped up onto a nearby lamp post. "Seriously? You go from knives to flamethrower?"

George hefted the two-handed flamer with a grim determination as he kept his eyes locked onto the pigtailed boy. It looked to be home-made, with a collection of mismatched pipes and tubes connecting a small jug of fuel mounted under the weapon to a metal bullhorn shell at the end of it.

"The witch must burn, lad!" George shouted, heedless of the fact that there were several civilians around them now to watch the conflict, "turn around and bugger off!"

"Yeah, no," Ranma said, crossing his arms over his chest, "you're not getting past me, so why don't YOU give up?"

"You know nothing of the evils of the witch!" George growled, hopping out of the truck bed with his flamer aimed forward.

"I know lots about the evils of the witch! Hell, after all the evils I've been hit with, I consider myself a freakin' expert!" Ranma shot back, jabbing a thumb at himself, "and I'm telling you to back off anyway!"

"I cannot! I will not let a witch escape destruction again! I will not let more people suffer their corrupt rituals!" George snapped, raising the weapon at the pigtailed boy.

Ranma snorted, unconcerned. "So, what, you're gonna burn me up and then chase down granny? You think you can beat me with that glorified cigarette lighter?"

"No, lad," George said sadly, "I'll probably need Jame's help for that."

"Who's James?" Ranma asked, a heavy feeling settling in his gut as he felt something brush against his leg from behind.

Glancing down at his feet, he saw the black cat from before rubbing its side against his shin, it's mouth curled into a toothy grin as unnaturally crimson eyes stared upward at him.

"Pur," the cat said flatly, without any of the warmth usually attached to such an act.

"UWAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" George and James watched in mild amusement as the teenage martial artist bolted backward, striking the hood of a car and then tumbling over it haphazardly before spilling out onto the street.

"Awwww, what's da matter? Is da big bad human scared of widdle ol' me?" James mocked as he bounded up onto the car hood, smiling down at the pigtailed boy.

Ranma screamed something unintelligible as he scrambled away on his hands and knees, moving directly away from the cat and heedless of the far more dangerous witch hunter in the other direction.

Whomp! George planted a heavy boot on Ranma's back, stopping the boy dead.

Ranma, who was practically hyperventilating by now, stared up pleadingly at the Englishman. At some point the witch hunter had put away the flamethrower, and his now held a combat knife in each hand.

"L-Lemme go you psycho! You attack witches but hang out with freaking demon cats!" Ranma shouted, trying to push himself up despite the man's weight. Under normal circumstances he could have flung the foreigner away without difficulty, but being in such close proximity to a cat had reduced his arms and legs to jelly.

James bristled. "I'm a MAGIC CAT, dumbass! Don't call me a demon! That's racist!"

"I don't care! Just get it away!" Ranma cried, kicking his feet and beating ineffectually on the ground.

"Well I DO care! Do you know what some of us have to go through because jerks like you put demon cats and magic cats in the same category?" James hissed, "don't assume that just because I'm a semi-corporeal shadow beast that I'm abyssal!"

"James, I really don't think this is the time or place for this conversation," George said, pointing a knife down at Ranma's throat, "so I was right. You're an honest-to-God ailuraphobe. Now see here, lad: if you promise to leave me be to go about my work now and in the future, then James here will back off and I'll let you go. And then, of course, the witch will die."

Ranma growled as he clawed at the ground, trying not to look behind him at the small black horror sitting on the hood of a car.

"If you refuse, then, well... even then I'd rather not have to kill you, so I suppose instead I'll cut your legs so that they never heal right. And then I'll get back to killing the witches anyway, but I suppose you could always try to limp in my way if you really wanted to," the Englishman mused, pointing a knife down at the teenager, "your call, lad. I really am sorry that it's come to this."

Despite every instinct calling on him to submit to the foreigner just to get away from the cat, Ranma choked on the words threatening to admit surrender. Was he really going to go down like this, to some foreign chump who just happened to have Ranma's greatest fear tucked away in his wrecked SUV? A man with barely half of his combat skill and experience who assassinated unsuspecting magic-users in his spare time? There had to be something he could do!

'The cat!' Ranma thought, his eyes locking onto James and a cold dread flowing through his entire body, 'maybe... if I were to fall into the Neko-ken...' it was beyond a desperate plan, but at the moment he still considered it a degree more reasonable than surrendering.

"Speak already, you stubborn git!" George snapped, twirling one knife in his hand, "I'm not much for torturing kids, and every second I spend on YOU is one less second I have to take down the crone!"

Ranma said nothing, forcing his eyes to stay locked onto the slitted pupils of the feline staring down at him with contempt. 'GOD! How did they manage to come up with a cat even more cruel and horrible than the regular ones!' he demanded as he started to feel dizzy.

"Fine then," George said grimly, leaning down as his eyes narrowed, "I'll make sure you get to a good-eh?"

The Englishman blinked as a trash can lid sailed by him like a frisbee, curving in a neat arc to bring it straight into James' surprised and horrified face.

Clang! "MEOWCH!" The magical beast went flying from the blow, spiralling through the air at an impressive arc that sent it straight over the fence of a nearby house and dropping it out of sight.

"What in the bloody hell..." George slowly turned to look behind him, noting that several interested onlookers were now clearing out of the area.

The reason why was quite obvious: a single teenage girl standing atop an awning on the other side of the street. She was a foreigner as well, Chinese if her clothes and jewelry were any indication, and had a curvy build that didn't interest him nearly as much as the pair of basketball-sized iron maces that were both clenched in one hand. She also looked supremely annoyed.

"Now what?" George grumbled, tightening his grip on his knives.

"You there. Hat Man. What you think you doing?" Shampoo said irritably, a vein pulsing on her head as she planted her free hand on her hip.

"I'm TRYING to do my bloody JOB!" George complained, pointing a knife at the Amazon, "but you damn kids keep getting in my way! Bugger off!"

"You have something what belong to Shampoo," she deadpanned, pointing to the body under the witch hunter's foot.

"What? The lad? He's in a spot of trouble with me, actually," George grumbled, "why? You here to rescue the little wanker?"

Shampoo snorted as she tried to hold in laughter, her annoyed expression washing away in a tide of amusement. "Rescue? Ranma not need be rescue by Shampoo!"

George couldn't help but snort in amusement himself. "Really? Well you should probably tell him that, because..." he trailed off as he felt a hand grab onto his ankle.

Looking down the witch hunter was extremely disturbed to see that the boy he was stepping on was encompassed by a fiery blue glow, and was no longer quivering in terror like before.

"Ah. Right. Cat's gone," George mumbled, his expression darkening.

"Cat's gone," Ranma repeated.

"Well... bugger me," the Englishman said grimly.

George had been duly impressed before, when Ranma had snapped up his crossbow bolts like they were paper airplanes, and even more so when the boy had totally outclassed him in close combat. Once Ranma got serious, however, things happened too quickly for him to appreciate.

The world spun as he was up-ended, his weight completely inadequate to keep Ranma pinned without the weakening effect of undiluted terror. Multiple strikes impacted his arms and torso as the world spun around him wildly, and then George's back hit the asphalt, sending a painful shock throughout his carefully abused body.

Clink! Tink! His knives bounced onto the sidewalk a few meters away. It took a few moments for George to recognize this, because he wasn't aware he had let go of them. His entire body seemed to be going numb, and he had just realized by then that he had lost all motor control of his arms and legs.

Ranma sighed as he stood up straight, cracking his back. "Damn, that was a lot more trouble than I thought it would be. Stupid talking evil cats."

"Airen! You okay!" squealed Shampoo, leaping down on the pigtailed boy with her arms spread wide.

"Gugh!" Ranma grunted as he was forcibly embraced, but made no attempt to ward off the Amazon. It was the least he could do for the rescue, he supposed. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for getting rid of the furball, Shampoo."

"Is no problem! Just happy see airen again!" Shampoo purred, "Ranma disappear and mother no tell where you go! But Shampoo know you come back!"

"Yeah, well, here I am," Ranma mumbled as he started to disentangle himself from the Chinese girl, "I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm doing fine in my new school and that it's in another dimension or something so you shouldn't try and track me down while I'm gone."

Shampoo frowned and stepped back. "Why you go school in new dimension? What wrong with this one?"

"Because it's fully of lunatics, for one," Ranma grumbled, giving the downed Briton a light kick in the arm, "whatever. What's the ghoul planning on doing with this guy?"

Shampoo blinked, perplexed. "Great-grandmother? Why she have plan for Hat Man?"

"Didn't she send you over here?" Ranma asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Shampoo not see Great Grandmother since leave for delivery," the teenage Amazon said, tapping her chin, "stop to fend off panty-stealing man, who tell Shampoo that airen come back! Shampoo search for you right away!"

"You don't say," the pigtailed boy mumbled, scratching the back of his head, "well, she was looking for you earlier when I ran into her. You should probably go find out what she wants, it seemed important."

"Aiyah! Great-grandmother have worst timing!" Shampoo pouted, turning away, "you stay here until Shampoo come back, yes?"

"No, that's not happening," Ranma deadpanned, waving to the Amazon, "I'll see you some other time, Shampoo. Thanks again for getting rid of the furball."

Shampoo sighed but took off down the street, leaving Ranma alone with the paralyzed foreigner in the middle of street.


"So, what to do with you," Ranma said as he crossed his arms over his chest, "I'd rather not let the ghoul kill you, or whatever she might do. Isn't there some place I can drop you off where they can deport you?"

"I'm a legal resident and citizen of Japan," George noted.

"Yeah, well, you just tried to kill someone," Ranma pointed out.

"Is that even a crime in this district?"

Ranma was silent for several seconds, considering all the times that someone had tried to murder him with absolutely no legal or social repurcussions.

"You know, I almost wish the people here HAD turned out to be monsters," the pigtailed man grumbled, massaging his forehead, "it would have made sense. A lot of sense. Instead, it turns out they're all people who are just as crazy and dangerous as monsters."

"Not all of 'em. Some of them are witches," George pointed out.

"Witches are people too!" Ranma insisted.

"Bullshite," the witch hunter snapped, "they've pulled the wool over your eyes, lad."

"No they haven't," Ranma said evenly, staring down at the foreigner, "believe me, they haven't managed to hide how much of a pain in the ass they are. Not a bit."

"You keep saying that you understand the evils of the witch, yet you refuse to let them be punished for their wicked ways," George grumbled as he shifted slightly on the ground, "so you realize the danger they cause but you still protect them because you happen to know them personally. You can't have your cake and eat it too."

Ranma blinked. "What else would I do with cake?"

"No. No, it's an expression that means you can't-" the Briton halted as his head rolled to the side, his eyes looking at something beyond Ranma's feet, "oh, James, you're back."

George winced as Ranma promptly ran over him, heedless of the man's helpless body as he dashed down the street in a panic, flailing his arms wildly.

The Englishman waited for a good minute before he started to push himself up, straining his body against the temporary paralysis of Ranma's earlier attacks. James wasn't anywhere near here, of course, as he imagined that the shadow cat would find moving difficult at best after taking such a brutal hit. George would probably have to collect his sidekick personally, along with his rifle. The SUV would probably have been towed by the time he finished, and anyway that would be the most obvious location for the witch to set a trap for him.

"Blimey, this a rough town. Maybe I should stick to the inner-city witches from now on," George said under his breath as he got to his feet, staggering off of the street and finally allowing the free flow of traffic through the road. There had actually been almost a dozen cars patiently waiting for the blockage to clear; such was the frequency of martial arts duels disrupting traffic that the drivers didn't even bother using their horns, treating them with the same resigned sense of patience usually reserved for construction delays and schoolyard crossings.

"Bloody weirdoes..."

"Mizore? Mizore, are you all right?" Tsukune asked as he leaned over the snow fairy, one arm resting on his knee.

The girl was laying flat on the ground, her clothes dusted by ash and her face flush and feverish. She seemed to be breathing steadily, though, so Tsukune had to assume that she wasn't in any immediate danger.

"She's been like that since Gamaroshi went nuclear on us," Chopper grunted as he stepped up behind Tsukune, chewing noisily on some hanabake flesh as he held a dismembered (and partially eaten) leg in one hand, "was way too close to the beam, I guess."

Tsukune grimaced. His strategy had worked, ultimately; Kouma had been freed, Oyakata had been defeated, and the hanabake army had been destroyed, or at least reduced significantly. But that hadn't been his original plan, and he had to wonder about whether it had been wise to even attempt negotiation with Oyakata in the first place.

Was it naieve of him to expect that even a twisted, hateful witch like her could see reason? Did she really need to be stripped of most of her power and forced to stare down the burning gullet of a hellhound before she'd even consider whether she could be wrong?

Was fear and force really the only way to do the right thing?

"I wish Ranma were here," Tsukune lamented for what felt like the hundredth time. The older boy never had any hesitation, never seemed worried that he made the wrong choice, and always seemed to know exactly when it was time to stop talking and start punching. Tsukune didn't think that was always a good thing, necessarily, but he was acutely aware now of how much he depended on Ranma to take on the hard tasks and simplify the hard decisions through expedient force and the occasional tornado.

Tsukune tried gently shaking Mizore by her shoulders, but failed to get even a groan out of the girl as her head lolled to one side.

"Huhn. That lollipop of hers is gone," Tsukune noted, scratching the back of his head. Not that it seemed at all important to the situation, but it was such a regular feature of Mizore's face that it looked strange for her to be without it.

He stood up, and then waved to Chopper. "Can you bring her inside the witches' hut? It's probably cooler in there, and I don't think we should leave her exposed to the sun like this. Yukari's also in there, so maybe she might have an idea about how to help her."

"Gotcha, Boss," said the troll, stuffing the rest of the leg in his mouth before walking up to the snow woman and picking her up. His forearm alone was almost big enough to cradle Mizore on, and Chopper turned away to head toward the hillside dwelling.

Tsukune stayed behind, and the human boy sighed heavily as he looked around at the shredded plant matter, scorched dirt, and scattered ashes that lay across the field.

"They went so far to prevent this place from becoming a trash heap," he muttered, "so far that they nearly turned it into one all on their own. Hmph."

Tsukune snorted, blowing away a snowflake that had been floating down to close to his nose. "Well, it's over now. We can finally get back to our training camp and..."

He trailed off as another few snowflakes fell in front of him, one of them landing on his nose.

"Wait, that's not ash," Tsukune mumbled as he craned his neck to look up at the sky. Dark clouds high above were spreading and bulging outward with unnatural speed, and Tsukune could feel the winds starting to pick up as the volume of the sudden snowfall increased with frightening and suspicious speed.

"A blizzard? What's going on here?"

End Chapter 16

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

Genma hummed a rough tune to himself as he lumbered down the street, the cloth sack still slung over his furry shoulders.

"Are we there yet?"

There were pedestrians on the street, but they paid him no more than the occasional curious stare. A panda carrying a sack that shifted every once in a while was hardly worthy of alarm to the normal citizens of Nerima, so long as the panda wasn't crashing through walls or caving in car hoods.

"Are we there yet?"

Genma stopped and looked up as he reached his destination, which was the Nerima municipal garbage disposal facility. Behind the chain-link fence, a massive incinerator carried burnable trash into the heart of its blazing furnace via a long conveyor belt, and huge smokestacks belched smoke into the air as power generators attached to the back of the facility crackled and buzzed with fresh current.

"Are we there yet?"

Genma let out a low growl, then raised a sign with the worded face aimed backward. "Yes, we're here!"

"...... I can't read your signs in the sack, you know," Richard said as the bag shifted again.

Genma flipped the sign around. "Then how did you know I'd raised a sign?"

"... Are we there yet?"

A vein popped up on the cursed panda's head, and he swung the sack over his shoulder and into the ground, striking hard enough to elicit new cracking noises from the warlock's much-abused body.

"So we're here, then?" asked Richard from within the bag, "smack twice more for yes, and toss me into oncoming traffic for no."

Genma was sorely tempted to do as the warlock wished, but decided it was better to just ignore the undead magus and get rid of him as soon as possible. Besides, there was just something... unsettling about participating in a comedy routine where the other actor kept prompting you to severely hurt him.

The cursed panda leapt over the fence, and started making his way through the veritable hills of heaped garbage that surrounded the main facility, waiting to be burnt.

As Genma reached the conveyor belt near the mouth of the incinerator he held up the sack holding Richard, preparing to throw him directly into the flames.

He hesitated however, his eyes darting about. Now that he thought about it, it was strange that there was nobody around running the facility. These were normal operating hours, as far as he was aware, and although Genma knew next to nothing about industrial incinerators, he had to imagine that it wasn't the kind of equipment to be left alone lightly.

As he was looking around, his eye happened to catch sight of a large piece of paper that had been laid on top of the mostly empty conveyor belt, passing him by on its way to fiery oblivion.

His curiosity piqued, he put Richard down and snatched the paper from the belt before it was carried out of arms' reach.

It appeared to be a blueprint of sorts, if blueprints were typically drawn up by elementary school kids based on Saturday morning cartoons. There was a scratchy picture of a panda in one corner before an arrow that pointed to a large banana peel. Another arrow pointed from the peel to a large spring that was stretched out and topped by a circular plate, and then an arrow stretched diagonally to a net. Another arrow went straight down from the net onto a drawing of a conveyor belt, which had an arrow stretched over it pointing to a fire. The entire thing was done in red crayon, and at the bottom was a hard-to-read note that said "Die stupid panda! Die!"

Genma considered the paper for a moment, and then glanced behind him.

A banana peel was laid on the ground next to a utility pole, just a meter or so from a large, circular metal plate that didn't seem completely out of place among the piles of trash and heavy machinery. Looking up, the cursed man could see that there was a large net stretched between two light posts mounted on either side of the conveyor belt.

"Are we there yet?"

The vein on Genma's head pulsed, and he tossed the sack containing the irritating warlock straight onto the plate.

Sproing! the bag was launched through the air and into the middle of the net, which promptly broke free of its moorings and wrapped around the hapless victim of the trap before it dropped down onto the conveyor belt and began the slow crawl toward a fiery end.

"GAH! Damn it all!" A black-robed figure jumped out from behind a pile of trash, gripping a large, ornate scythe with a wooden handle in its skeletal hands. "That would have worked if I had just balled up the paper first! Stupid!"

A sweatdrop rolled down Genma's head as he held up a sign. "Sure it would have." Then he flipped the sign around. "Well, I have to go search the zoos for another decoy panda. Later."

"Wait! Stop!" Death shouted as he started dashing toward the cursed bear, "just let me kill you, already! You have no idea what you're doing to my annual employee revie-" as Death tried to run after the panda, his robe caught on the edge of a piece of wood that was sticking out, causing him to trip and fall over.

Genma shook his head as he walked to the fence and leapt over it again. Really, it was almost insulting how worthless Death was in his attempts to assassinate someone. Not that he WANTED Death to be more effective at hunting him down and dragging him to Hell, but the apparition did such a poor job of it that Genma worried about just how badly the afterlife was being run.

'Oh well. All the more reason to put off finding out,' he thought to himself as he lumbered down the street.


"Aw, man. This sucks," Death grumbled as he used his scythe to push himself off the ground, a dusty sigh coming from within the black, empty pit within his hood, "I've heard of cheating Death, but the jerk doesn't have to humiliate me, too!"

"Jim? Is that you?"

Death perked up as he heard a muffled voice coming from nearby, and he glanced over at the net-covered sack that was slowly moving toward the crackling flames of the incinerator.

"Wait... is that... Richard?" Death asked, walking over to the conveyor belt. He shoved the bag with the blunt end of his scythe, and the trapped warlock tumbled onto the ground on the other side.

"Jim! It's been centuries! How the Hell are ya, buddy?" Richard asked enthusiastically as the contours of the sack squirmed.

"How the Hell am I, huh? What a fitting way to phrase it," Death spat as he ducked under the belt and stood up on the other side.

"What's wrong, Jim? You sound bummed."

"Yeah. It's my job," Death said, putting his scythe down on the belt behind him before turning toward the entangled bag, "this career just isn't going where I thought it would."

"What do you do now, Jim?" Richard asked, the sack rolling slightly toward Death.

"I'm a shinigami. Death god. A genuine soul-harvesting badass, you know," Death said with a bitter chuckle, "what a joke. Lemme tell you Richard: whether mortal, god, or undead, it's all the same crap. The rules, the responsibilities, the bureaucracy... everything is about the big guy above - or below, in this case - telling you to get off your tailbone and do his dirty work for him."

"I know exactly what you mean," Richard said as he rolled slightly to the other side, "I'm a teacher now, right? Recently I've had these bunch of kids coming up to me at all hours of the day telling me - ME! - that I have to stop killing my students indiscriminately. Can you believe that? A bunch of kids telling their teacher to stop murdering their friends and peers! It's like nobody respects the arcane force to strip a man's flesh from his bones with two sentences anymore! No, now it's all: 'you're a teacher and you have to restrain yourself from dismembering your students to use their remains for teaching materials.' Blegh."

Death shook his hooded head, sitting down atop the wriggling sack with his bony arms crossed over his lap. "It's a different world now, that's for sure. Back in the day we never had mortals skipping out on damnation and needing to be hauled there by hand like a lost puppy. But that's all I spend my time doing now. At first I actually thought it would be nice to break up the monotony of dragging horrified souls to their resting places by hunting down a living person for once, but by ZEUS that Saotome Genma is a pain in the pelvis!"

"Heh, yeah. He sure got me good, didn't he?" Richard chuckled, "but seriously Jim, listen up: you can't judge your career by the scrape you're in now, you know?"

Death cocked his head to the side, staring down at his makeshift stool. "I can't?"

"No. Death is a serious business, and not the sort of thing you can leave to any halfwit with a farmer's tool and a Halloween costume. Look, I know you feel like another cog in the machine, but do you really think that the Lords of the Underworld can just leave hunting down a fugitive soul belonging to a SURPRISINGLY capable panda bear to just anyone?"

Death raised a skeletal finger to where his chin would be underneath his hood. "Well..."

"You got to where you are today through hard work, sweat, tears, and the untimely and likely very painful deaths of thousands of others who stood in your way! You might not be moving forward as fast as you like, but where you're at right now isn't so bad, is it?"

"Well, okay, yeah, that's true, but I just feel like I'll never advance sometimes, you know?" Death said.

"And you didn't feel that way three thousand years ago?" Richard said, squirming under the shinigami's weight, "remember back when you were mortal? Still trapped in that fleshy, repulsive sack of organs and hair awaiting your final descent into oblivion? You sure didn't feel like you were advancing then, did you?"

A dusty snort came from within Death's hood. "Well, shucks Rich, I have to give you that one. Maybe things aren't as bleak as I thought." He hopped to his feet, clenching the bleached bones of his fingers into wiry fists. "I mean, come on! I'm freaking DEATH! The human might always manage to run away in the end, but just why is he running? Because I'm coming for him! Because I'm waiting for him! Because I CANNOT BE STOPPED! I am the end, and there IS no escape! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Death cackled to himself as he thrust his arms into the air, and then settled his invisible gaze back on the squirming sack of warlock. "Thanks, Richard. That really cheered me up. I'm glad I ran into you again."

"And I'm glad you're in a better mood now," Richard said, "because I believe - though I can't be sure, as I'm still in this sack - that you put your scythe on the conveyor belt back when we started speaking, which would mean that it probably fell into the furnace like a minute ago."

"SON OF A BITCH!"