Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Dark Cries ❯ Chapter 4 ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The force of the blow was not quite enough to knock Ranma-chan out, but was enough to leave her woozie for the few seconds it took her to leave Nerima on an arc that took her close to her mothers home in Juuban. As she was reaching the end of her flight on Akane Air, she noticed that she was going to land in a shallow fountain that had a few people sitting around it. Ranma-chan thought she recognized one of those people but had more immediate concerns, like not crashing into the bottom of the fountain. She stretched out her arms with the intent of slowing her flight, and felt an odd sensation, not unlike stretching a long-unused muscle, and her flight immediately stopped... ten feet above the fountain, and just above the person she now recognized as her mother. After a moment, Ranma-chan realized she was still above her mother, and not falling. She looked around her to figure out why, and noticed something moving behind her out of the corner of her eye, accompanied by an odd pulling of her back muscles. She tried to look behind herself, only to notice that the odd leathery protrusions on her back were... flapping? A moments odd puzzlement was enough for her to stop flapping and drop the last ten feet into the fountain, right behind her mother. She stood up in the fountain to find herself face-to-katana with her own mother.
"Who are you, demon? And what do you want with me?"
"It's me, mom. It's Ranma."
"Nice try, demon. You don't look anything like my son, in either of his forms. Now try again, before I remove your head!"
"Mom, it's really-"
While normally, any attack would trigger an automatic response by Ranma-chan's body, this was her mother. Which is why Ranma-chan's body didn't immediately respond to the threat of her mother's katana as it neared her. Those same reflexes did trigger, but triggered too late to actually save her from any harm. They were enough to save Ranma-chan's life as her arm shot up to take the blow meant for her neck, lodging the katana deep in one of the bones of her forearm.

Ranma-chan’s scream of pain was enough to bring herself back to her senses enough to yank her arm away from the reach of her mother, pulling the still lodged sword away with it. With a sad look at her mother, Ranma-chan took off at full speed, trailing blood and being followed by a crazy katana-lady... and watched by a small set of deep purple eyes. After a moment, the owner of those eyes, a short dark haired schoolgirl, turned to slowly follow the trail of blood, wondering if she would need to call her friends for this one...

After a few minutes of following the trail, the girl came across the lady walking further down the road with a sad look on her face, and with her katana in it’s sheath. As the lady was walking she was slowly, almost mechanically, wrapping it back up in it’s silk wrap. The young girl’s eyes went wide with speculation. ‘What did this mean? Did she… ?’ Her speculation was cut off by a quiet thump heard from a nearby alley. It was just loud enough to attract her attention, but not enough to attract the attention of the lady who was now past her and almost back at the fountain again. The young girl turned towards the sound and saw what looked to be a human hand covered in blood protruding from beside a nearby dumpster, just past the mouth of said alley. She also noticed the slowly expanding pool of blood spreading out beneath the hand…


Foliage. Green foliage. Somehow the green was appropriate, but it did not fit in with the crimson drops that spattered the area. It also did not fit in with the pale color of bloodless flesh from the 3 campers that had met their end here. But what stuck out the most was the 8-foot-tall grey humanoid shape that seemed to dance amongst the corpses…