Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and its characters and settings belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon belongs to Takeuchi Naoko, Koudansha, TV Asahi, and Toei Douga, and DIC.

"Calm down, Usagi, it was just a joke," Rei snapped as the group of girls got off the subway train.

Usagi was still meticulously examining each hair with a small pocket mirror. "Leave me alone," Usagi snapped back. "I'm surprised that you would even want to be seen in public with an old hag like me," Usagi said after a few minutes of walking.

"Usagi, Rei is older than you are," Ami pointed out helpfully.

"But I don't have grandchildren!" Rei flared.

"I'm only sixteen and I'm already an old hag!" Usagi cried.

Makoto, being the tallest among them, couldn't help but notice the strange looks they were getting from other pedestrians. "Cut it out, Usagi, you're making a scene," Makoto hissed in her ear.

Usagi managed to stifle her wailing, but she could not stop the small sniffles that continued to plague her. Rei was so mean to her!

Rini walked silently behind the others. Ami said that Endymion was in Nerima and that he was relatively stationary, so at least they didn't have to chase after him, but this slow and easy pace was worse. If they had had to run after him, then at least her mind could be occupied by something else besides her reunion with Endymion. The excitement had quickly worn away, leaving apprehension and fear behind. How was she supposed to treat her son? She couldn't treat him like a little child and tell him what to do, he was older than her, and she was still too much of a child for that anyway. Like a big brother? That could work, but how would Endymion react to an eleven-year-old little girl being his mother? Would he even believe her?

Most likely not; not at first, anyway. She and the other Senshi would probably have to transform to convince him that they were being truthful. After all, who wouldn't believe the famous Sailor Senshi? Luna's angry rebuke drew Rini's attention.

"Usagi, stop this nonsense at once," the cat shouted from inside her duffel bag. "You don't have any gray hairs! Now stop swinging me around and act your age!"

"But Luna," Usagi whined, "how do you know that I don't have any, when you can't even see out of the bag?"

"Owww! Hey, don't take it out on me," Artemis cried out. The bag took on a life of its own as the two cats fought for a minute.

"Sorry, just had to take care of something. Now Usagi, you can't possibly have gray hair because your family never shows any of the detrimental signs of aging. You'll live four or five millennia, and then drop dead looking like a 25 year old," Luna said sounding much more reasonable.

"Oh, well, why didn't you say so?" Usagi enthused. She patted the bag with the cats in it, earning a hiss when she accidentally hit Artemis' head too hard.

"Shouldn't you be studying, Ranma?" Nabiki asked Ranma. She had expected to find him in the dojo, and she hadn't been disappointed. It was kind of unnerving to see Ranma going about his business looking like something that had escaped from the bowels of hell. He turned around to regard her with startling bright silver eyes.

Ranma pulled his chi back in, carrying the black aura and silver eyes with it. "Hey, Nabiki. Is that a new kind of perfume your wearing?" he asked as if he hadn't heard Nabiki's question. His senses were starting to remain enhanced even after dropping the aura.

Nabiki's eyes narrowed as she studied Ranma. No, he wasn't joking. "Why, yes it is, Ranma. Would you like some? I'm sure it would go well with your girl form."

Emphatically, Ranma shook his head. "Why would I be studying?" he asked, finally acknowledging her earlier question.

"Well, finals are in less than two weeks, and I figured that you would want to pass your junior year. If I was mistaken, I'm terribly sorry," answered Nabiki sarcastically.

Ranma shrugged and said, "I'll get around to it eventually. Right now I'm more concerned with learning how to control my new… whatever it is." To demonstrate Ranma held out his arm and loosened his chi slightly, causing only the arm to take on the black aura. "It's not like a normal battle aura. There are some really weird properties to it that I need to learn. I also need to figure out how to hide this thing," Ranma pushed his bangs aside revealing the black crescent, "or Kuno is going to have a field day calling me a foul sorcerer and all that."

Nabiki couldn't fault him on his logic. If she started looking like a demon every time she used her art, the family would starve. In Ranma's case there would just be more people trying to kill him. "Well, I just came to tell you that dinner is ready."

"Wow, thanks. Free of charge?" Ranma asked. Then he remembered whom he was talking to and quickly bolted, leaving a fuming Nabiki alone in the dojo. He definitely couldn't afford to get on her bad side now, not after getting his money back. Chances were that his father would be at the meal too. He could find out what that crystal was and why it had messed around with his chi.

All the food was laid out on the table when he entered the house. He took his customary seat and waited for everyone else to arrive. Akane came first. She glared at him hatefully while fingering the bandage on her head. The fathers came next. They were walking sideways, the shogi board held between them. As they took glances to make sure they didn't run into anything, the other would rearrange the pieces to his advantage. By the time they were at the table Nabiki, too, had taken her seat. Genma and Soun appeared to be unable to decide what to do. Whoever tried to sit down first would surely lose a number of valuable pieces, but then again Kasumi's wonderful cooking was calling to both men. The problem was solved when Kasumi came in carrying the final dish. She set it down and smoothly lifted the game board from the adults' grasp.

Deprived of the only obstacle between them and the table, Genma and Soun sat down. Kasumi returned after carrying the board by to the parlor and they had a normal, almost quiet and uneventful meal. Ranma even forgot to steal all of his father’s food in order to force him to tell him about the crystal.

Usagi had complained loudly about being famished, so they had stopped at a nearby McDonald's and feasted on some of the world's unhealthiest food. She was still loudly slurping on a massive ice cream cone that was composed of no less than nine different kinds off ice cream when they got off the bus in Nerima.

It was like walking into another world. Most of the buildings showed signs of recent repairs, the roads were a mix of old and new asphalt, and every third building housed the main office of either a construction company or a psychiatrist. Almost everyone they passed on the street had a nervous, wild gleam to their eyes, like they were expecting an armed invasion at any moment.

"This is creepy," Minako said. "I thought all the stories about Nerima were just myths, but… Wow, is that a crater?" she finished, pointing down a small side street. The street and the face of a small grocery store were had a very large chunk of material missing from them.

"I haven't heard of any explosions in the news recently," Ami wondered aloud. "Do you think that the whole ward is really haunted like everyone at schools says?"

Makoto answered, "I doubt it. I hear that there are a lot of really good martial artists here, world-class even. Maybe we could stop by a dojo and see if that's true. I would love to spar with one of the best, just to see how I rank."

"We didn't come all this way to check out dojos, Makoto," Rei said. "We're looking for Rini's son, that's it."

"I wish I could have got in touch with Mamo-chan. Nerima is a dangerous place," Usagi said after inhaling the last of her snack.

"If there's anybody that should be scared, it's the idiots that make this place dangerous. We are the Sailor Senshi, after all, so what do we have to worry about?" Makoto asked no one in particular. She realized just how loud she had said that and hurriedly spun around, making sure that no one had heard that wasn't meant too.

Ami spoke up once again, "What are we going to tell Endymion once we find him?" She led them down another street as she followed the small map displayed on her computer.

"That Rini is his mother, of course," Usagi answered. What else could they say to him?

Rei shook her head. "Meatball head, you're hopeless. We can't just go up to a boy, that's never met us, has no idea who we are, and tell him that Rini is his mother. Did you even think that he might not know that he was adopted?" She assumed that Endymion was adopted. There wasn't much else that could be done for a little baby. "We don't even know what the name he goes by is."

"Yeah, we should just tell him that his mother isn't his real mother. Once we manage to convince him of that, we can move on to the more outrageous facts, like Rini being his mother and Usagi his grandmother," Makoto added.

"Are we going to tell him our secret identities?" Minako asked.

"We'll probably have to in order to convince him that we're telling the truth," Rei said.

"Is that really a good idea? We don't know him as a person yet. He could be untrustworthy." Makoto feared that they were getting their hopes up. Endymion could turn out to be a car thief or a murderer or something.

"We can trust Endymion! I know we can!" Rini shouted. What right did they have to talk about her little boy like that?

"I'm sure we can Rini. From what my computer has picked up on of Endymion's energy pattern, he is very powerful. I believe someone of his abilities would have come to the attention of the authorities long ago if he was a troublemaker."

They walked in silence after that until Ami said, "He should be near the end of this block. Is everyone ready?"

They all answered yes, including the two cats they were carrying with them.

Kasumi had just dried the last dish from supper when someone rang the doorbell. Who could be visiting? It surely wasn't any of Ranma's fiancées or friends; they were always much more direct, always saving her the trouble of greeting them by jumping over the wall into the backyard or making their own entrances. She dried her hands and took her apron off before answering the door.

"Yes, may I help you?" she asked as she opened the door. Oh dear. There were five young women, all very beautiful, and a cute little girl with wonderful pink hair. She so hoped that they weren't more fiancées of Ranma's. He had so much trouble with the ones he already had.

"We were looking for a young man that may live here. He'd be seventeen years old, with black hair, and possibly have a small black crescent shaped tattoo on his forehead," said a girl that looked so much like Akane that Kasumi didn't believe she could have told them apart if not for the slight difference in their hairstyles and eye color.

"You must mean Ranma. He's in the dojo practicing now, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind having visitors. If you would follow me?" Kasumi motioned for them to enter and led them through the house and towards the dojo. "If I may ask, what are your intentions towards Ranma?"

"It's a personal matter," the nice girl with long black hair said.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Near the entrance to the dojo, Kasumi said, "Ranma may be using a new technique that he learned recently, so don't be alarmed by his appearance. He's perfectly human, I assure you."

They all exchanged guarded looks. What was that last comment supposed to mean? The polite woman that had greeted them at the door opened the door of a traditional Japanese dojo. It became woefully clear what she had meant as they followed her into the training hall.

Near the center of the dojo, a humanoid mass of blackness was darting around three wooden dummies that looked like they had seen better days and were set up in a triangular pattern. Every time it passed one of the dummies, a small piece of the training equipment was torn away by a blurring band of shadow.

"Ranma, you have visitors."

Ranma stopped moving and faced them. Now that he wasn't an indistinguishable blur, they saw the shining silver eyes and sharply defined physique of shadow. Every single one of them had to fight the urge to pull out her henshin rod and transform— even Rini, who knew that she was possibly facing her son.

Ranma saw the girls all gawking at him and nearly choked. No way! There, were five of them, and a little girl. Please don't let them be fiancées. Please! Seeing that he was frightening them, Ranma released his chi and tried to smile reassuringly.

Rini and the others gasped as the blackness that surrounded Ranma seemed to be drawn within him. When it was gone, there stood a young man whose lack of a shirt revealed his wonderfully muscled chest and abdomen. He smiled a small smile at them. The black crescent over his brow was unmistakable

"I'll you all talk now," Kasumi said. She left the dojo and determined that she needed to find Nabiki. She wasn't going to tell her sister about Ranma's guests, she was instead going try to keep her curious sister occupied so that Ranma could have some privacy.

"Um… hi, I'm Ranma," he greeted them. "Before we even start, none of you are engaged to me, are you?" Better to go ahead and get this part out of the way.

"Engaged?!" everyone but Rini and Ami bellowed.

Ranma saw their reaction and knew immediately that this wasn't one of those situations. "Oh… sorry, it's just that Pop has engaged me to so many girls that I'm sorta cautious now."

Rini couldn't believe her ears. Endymion— correction, Ranma— had just said that the man who had raised him had engaged him to more than one girl. That horrible man! When she got her hands on him… Ooooo, she was going to do something very not nice!

"You have more than one fiancée?" Minako, the closet romantic, asked. The thought of talking to Ranma's father and maybe making arrangements for herself flitted through her mind for an instant, but common sense and the knowledge that Ranma was Rini's daughter stifled her desire. Damn, he was sexy!

Ranma proceeded to towel himself off and then answered, "Three right now, four if you look at it a certain way, but there were a couple engagements that I managed to get out of."

Rini was really, really going to hurt that man!

"Okay, now you girls know one of the aspects of my screwed up life, maybe you could tell me what you want," Ranma said. That girl that looked like Akane was unnerving. He kept expecting her to scream something about him being a pervert and attack him with a mallet, but this girl had a totally different aura than his fiancée.

Rei stepped forward and asked, "Did you know that you are adopted?"

Ranma laughed for a couple minutes. If only he could have been so lucky. Hell, he could get out of three of the engagements just by being adopted. After he stopped laughing, Ranma saw that the girl was being serious and scowling at him. "You're not joking, are you? I guess you girls just made a mistake. Sorry, I'm Ranma Saotome of the Saotome School of Anything Goes martial arts, and I'm sure that I'm not adopted."

Usagi made herself known, and impressed her friends once again with how serious she could be when it was necessary, by saying, "Ranma, that crescent on your head is a family birth mark, see?" Her brow furrowed in concentration for a few seconds, then with a flash of golden light, a golden crescent like Ranma's black one revealed itself.

Ranma approached Usagi and examined the golden crescent carefully, making sure not to laugh at her ridiculous hairstyle. It really was there, just like his, except for much shinier. Still, that proved nothing. "That's a nice trick, probably good at parties too, but it would take more than that to convince me that I'm adopted."

Usagi continued, "When you were a baby, your mother left a small black crystal with you when she left. It was shaped like a tear drop and attached to a gold chain."

Usagi's words had the desired effect. Ranma jerked like he had been slapped. How big of a coincidence was that? It hadn't even been a day since he had found the crystal in the first place, and now a bunch of girls, one with a similar mark on her forehead, came looking for him, talking about that crystal. Ranma didn't say anything to the girls as he walked out of the dojo. Genma had A LOT of explaining to do if that girl was telling the truth.

Usagi led her little crew of adolescent— and one pre-adolescent— girls after Ranma. This was what she was made for. Whenever there was major trouble, Usagi took charge of the situation and never let her friends down. This time it was her daughter and grandson that she had to help. She wouldn't fail.

Ranma found his father just where he expected him. Genma was playing checkers with Soun in the parlor and was in the process of prying his way into a new bottle of saki. Ranma gave him no time to move. He walked over to his father calmly, reached down and grabbed him by the throat, and slammed him into the wall. His black aura coursed up his arm and surrounded his hand for a moment. Ranma pulled his hand back, but the black energy remained, holding Genma's struggling form against the wall.

Genma saw all the girls arrayed in the doorway behind his son thought that he was done for. He had hoped that none of the other girls he had engaged Ranma too would show up, but five at once… He might as well have told Nodoka the truth all those years ago. Ranma was going to kill him, but he didn't have a nice sharp katana to do it with. Then Genma caught sight of a golden crescent on one of the girls' forehead, and he knew that death would be a blessing to what he would soon endure. He was pretty sure that there was no escape, but that didn't stop him from trying. His kicking and jerking at the wall was only serving to put more force on his throat, though, and he eventually ceased struggling.

Once the fat bastard had stilled, Ranma said, "Oyaji, if there's ever been one time in your life where your life depends on how honest you are, this is it, understand?"

Genma looked down to his son and croaked out a, "Yes." It would be a lot easier if Ranma would at least let his feet touch the floor, then he could talk halfway decently.

"This girl…" Ranma looked at the girl with the retarded hair.

"Usagi," Usagi answered the unspoken question.

"Usagi says that I'm adopted. I didn't believe her, but then she made that little moon appear on her forehead. It looks a lot like mine, don't you think?" Genma once again answered ‘yes’. "Turns out that it's a birthmark from her family. I still didn't believe her, but then she mentioned a little black crystal that was supposed to have been left with me when I was a baby. The way she describes it, it sounds just like the one I found in your stuff earlier today. That crystal gave me my little moon and screwed my chi up so that it's black and acts all weird. Now, am I adopted?"

Soun had been silently gathering his courage and chose this time to save his friends life. He bounded towards Ranma with surprising speed, the unopened bottle of saki held in his hand like a club. Unfortunately, Ranma's foot was faster. It impacted brutally with Soun's face, creating a meaty SMACK and propelling him mercilessly into the wall. Noiselessly, Soun's inert body slid down the wall and crumpled into a heap of broken man.

Genma still hadn't said anything, so Ranma once again prompted him. "Are you my father?" he asked slowly.

Genma was almost too afraid to breathe, but he finally manage to pull in a shaky bit of air. What could he tell him? The truth? No, never, but what else was there to tell? He couldn't think of any plausible lies that Ranma would believe. He just hung off the wall, trying to breathe.

Ranma's ire was steadily building. Genma's silence was answering his question as well as a written confession, but he wanted to hear the words. More than that though, he wanted to hear an apology. An apology for all the shit he had been put through, all the trouble his father had caused, and most especially, all the damned fiancées that he had stuck him with.

Throughout this encounter, Usagi and the other girls remained silent. Ranma had to find this out for himself. They were all slightly scared of bothering him just then, too, but how could they not be a little bothered by Ranma's display? They had barely even seen him move when the other man had attacked him. The older man had just snapped back when he came in contact with the blur that they assumed was Ranma, and flown into the wall like he was a doll.

Rini was kinda proud of Ranma. He had grown up to be very handsome, just like a prince should be, was an excellent fighter, so he could fight alongside her and her friends, and he really looked like he was going to punish that horrible man who had raised him.

Genma looked helplessly at Ranma, and for the second time, saw his color shifted aura appear. He couldn't bring himself to look into the silver depths of Ranma's burning eyes, but he could feel them pressing down on him, making it even harder to breathe.

"Dammit, answer me!" Ranma roared. The walls rattled with the force of his demand. Ranma was pleased to see a yellow stain spreading from the crotch of Genma's gi down to the bottom of the left leg.

Ranma's demand also drew the attention of the other inhabitants of the house. Together, Kasumi and Nabiki came down the stairs and maneuvered their way into the room. Kasumi saw her father slumped against the wall and rushed over to him. Nabiki remained silent, observing with a keen eye all that happened.

Akane bulled her way through Usagi and her friend and shouted, "Ranma, you pervert!"

Akane's claim followed only milliseconds after Genma's rasping confession, "No, I'm not your father."

Ranma ignored Akane and allowed himself to smile under his aura. It wasn't a happy kind of smile, the kind you get when you find out that you've just won the lottery, or the sad kind of smile for someone you're taking pity on. No, this smile was full of malice. "Kiyaaa!" along with the cry, Ranma relaxed the control over his chi much more than was necessary to maintain the black aura. The results were spectacular. The wall that Genma was pinned to was blown completely away, carrying Genma into the yard with it, and Ranma's midnight enshrouded form changed.

Ranma couldn't see the changes in his aura, but everyone else could. It seemed to almost become blacker, if that were possible, but was in fact drawing in light more rapidly than before, truly wrapping Ranma in shadow for three feet in every direction. Along his back, arms, and legs, the utter blackness of his aura formed numerous spines of varying length, the longest being those on either forearm that resembled wickedly curved swords. Most stunning, and frightening of all, was the wings. They were both beautiful and horrifying, appearing to be much like bat wings. The spaces where tightly stretched membranes of skin would have been were instead filled in with glowing planes of shining silver energy, the same energy that formed the eyes of Ranma's black aura.

Ranma, his body encased in its demonic shell, stepped through the space where the wall had once stood and glided towards his target. Genma lay among the debris of the shattered wall, unmoving and lifeless, except for an occasional groan of pain.

To be continued.

Author's Notes: I'm on a roll. This makes three in less than thirty hours. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys this and you can send C&C to me at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com

Webmaster: Larry F
Last revision: May 21, 2007