Chapter Four: The Fourth Who Arrived

Ryouga was lost when it happened to him. So he also managed to be completely oblivious to his sudden transfer as well, except for subconsciously noticing that he was even more hopelessly misplaced than usual.

“Where the hell am I now?” he muttered to himself when he finally noticed consciously where he was. He restrained himself from yelling the phrase out loud. Some of the fuzziness cleared and he saw a familiar figure – two of them, actually, but who really cared – standing a short distance away.

“Ranma!” he greeted happily. He’d missed his koibito, who had left somewhere a day ago in much the same manner that he usually did. The two figures turned to him in unison, and if he had noticed the differences in their expressions his subconsious belief that a mirror was involved would have been as shattered as the hypothetical mirror when another member of the little group suddenly screamed the name in a totally different tone of voice and tackled the member of the pair he attached blame to.

“Ranma, this is all your fault!” Ryouga swung a fist at his rival’s head, but said rival dodged with an arching jump that positioned him behind his twin.

“Damnit, Ryouga, how’in the hell could I have anything to do with… this…” he trailed off, looking at the second Ryouga with wide eyes.

“Ryouga?”

“Ranma?”

“Ryouga?”

“Ranma, die!”

Ryouga narrowed his eyes at that statement and faced the person who looked remarkably like him but not close enough to confuse him. Why would I ever wear that bandanna? Whoever did this was pretty stupid. “Don’t you dare threaten him, you bastard…”

Ryouga paused, startled enough to be jolted out of his almost reflexive rage at Ranma. “Why?”

“Because he’s…” he looked over at the person under discussion and was thrown off to see two of them standing there. It was obvious that neither was a reflection. “my…” he trailed off. “Ranma,” he started again after a moment’s thought, “since when have there been two of you?”

“Since when have there been two of you?” they retorted in unison.

“Huh?” Ryouga answered intelligently, and looked back to the person he had been so angry at a moment before. “Who are you?”

“Hibiki Ryouga,” the other answered stiffly, inspecting him as well.

“But that’s my name…”

They stared at each other for a moment, then each turned simultaneously to the other pair of clones, then back to each other. And as one, fainted.

Ran-kun and Ranma looked at each other for a moment.

“He yours?”

“Yep.”

“Hn.”

Pause.

“And I’m not sharing.”

“Good, than stay away from mine.”

Pause.

“I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Sure you didn’t, Ranma, sure you didn’t.”

Loooooong pause.

Eventually, the two Ryougas started to stir. Ran-kun kneeled next to the one whose lack of a bandanna marked him as from his world. “Are you alright, Ryo-chan?” he asked softly.

Ryouga put one hand to his head, covering his eyes partially in the process. “I just had the weirdest dream, Ran-koi…”

“It wasn’t a dream,” came Ranma’s voice again, but it wasn’t from where the Ranma Ryouga knew was sitting next to him. He looked up, past Ran-kun, to see… another one. He felt himself getting faint again when his koibito suddenly embraced him, obscuring his vision.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said softly, stroking the confused boy’s hair gently.

Ranma turned his attention away from that uncomfortable scene to where the Ryouga he knew was sitting up and muttering oaths under his breath.

“Aw, get over it,” he chided. “Two a’ me didn’t bug you, how’s this any different?” It took considerable effort to speak so nonchalantly, but he pulled if off well enough.

“Shut up, Ranma,” he growled, shaking his head to clear it. He glanced at the other pair, then back at Ranma. “This is completely…” his eyes widened. “Differ… ent…” his face paled as what he had seen was processed, and he slowly turned back to verify. After a moment of speechlessness, he reverted back to what he knew best – blind anger. “What the hell is going on?!” he screamed to no one in particular.

Everyone was surprised to hear a voice actually answer that question. “I’ll tell you soon enough if you’ll just shut up!” came the answer, in a lilting female voice tinged with annoyance.

They all turned towards the source of the voice. Out of the mist – or maybe just distance – appeared a young, statuesque woman with short pale blue hair cut in a style faintly reminiscent of Nabiki’s. She looked between the four of them with an expression of supreme annoyance. “All the people in all the worlds and I’m stuck with you?” she complained under her breath.

After a short pause, she suddenly clapped her hands once. “Alright, let’s get moving. First of all, you have all been chosen by my beloved, all-knowing boss -” she said the description with a twist to her lips and sarcastic tone – “to save a universe in trouble. I can’t believe she stuck me with two of each of you… but…” She placed her hands on her hips and regarded each of them. Finally she pointed to Ran-kun. “You. Have no fighting ability to speak of, but you’re smart, and that’ll do.” She waved one hand absently. “Kami-sama knows this group needs some brains…” she muttered something else under her breath, but none of the four could make out the words.

Ryouga was a little disconcerted with the gaze that she now turned upon him. “You…” she started, then trailed off. “You aren’t as strong as your counterpart, but no matter. I suggest you train, even though you’re not suitable anymore for the Shishihoukodan, you could probably pull off a Mouko Takabisha… oh, and don’t pick up his bad habits.” She waved a thumb at the bandanna’d Ryouga. “Like irrational hatred of Ranma… sometimes,” she added with a glitter in her brown eyes.

The four just stared at her blankly. Ignoring this, she just concluded with, “Well, I’ll be off then. Bai bai!”

“Hey, wait!” Ranma called out before she had a chance to vanish again.

“Yes? Is there a question? We don’t have eternity, you know.”

Something about the way she said the last sentence made Ranma pause briefly before making his query. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing with us?”

Her face shifted, turning into an expression of discovery. She snapped her fingers. “Oh yeah, I should tell you first, shouldn’t I?”

Four nods.

“Well, sorry, I can’t.”

Four facefaults.

“Could you at least tell us why it’s us?” Ran-kun asked, a hint of desperation audible his voice. From what he understood of Ranma’s life, this was an almost normal sort of thing, but nothing even remotely similar to this had ever happened to him. Well, with the single exception of recent events, anyway.

The woman hesitated, her cheerful expression slipping away. “I… shouldn’t tell anything, but since it’s you who asked… Very well, but please don’t ask any more… the rules don’t deal with this sort of thing very well.” She sighed heavily, closing her eyes. “You are the nexus. You were chosen, you and the three closest to you, physically and emotionally, at the time of choosing.”

The other three looked at Ran-kun, who mulled over the information carefully. “One more question… you don’t have to answer in any detail… Did you grant my wish?”

“We did.”

“Why?”

“You are the nexus,” she repeated simply. “Please… don’t ask me any more. I have to leave that up to your guide, who isn’t bound as I am… I’ll see you again, at the end.” Nodding, she clapped again and shimmered into nothingness, not really vanishing but merely blending into the haze so that none of them could tell whether it was teleportation or just fast movement.

The four just had time to exchange three glances apiece before simultaneously repeating the procedure.

“Nexus?” Ran-kun whispered to himself, wondering, as he reappeared in darkness.

***

Somewhere far away, two voices spoke.

“Why do we have to do this to them? It's cruel...”

“It is necessary. We protect them, they serve us when we call upon them.”

“But they could die so easily, like Ritsukyo.”

“Her failure was unforeseen. But the spirit of the previous nexus is with them. They will succeed.”

The other voice was silent.

***

~Mordain

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