Of Curses and Odd Hair Colors

Ryouga felt lost. She was used to being lost – well, had been used to it at least. She’d started to get used to actually knowing where she was – and that made this all the worse. Now that she knew the Kaisufuu was so near… it might as well not be. The forest just seemed to go on forever. Ranma’s even taking those two on by himself, so I can look for it. I hope he’s alright. She shook her head. I do *not* have a crush on him. I’m a guy, damnit, and I’m *not* gay! But her memory of holding his hand and the mixed emotions that came with it were just confusing. She punched a tree. Not using the Bakusai Tenketsu, just sheer physical strength. It hurt her fist.

She stared at the red mark on her knuckles. Another reminder of her weakness. I’ll never defeat Herb. It was a crushing thought. But a true one. All practicing, all revenge, all anger aside – she didn’t have a chance. The only chance was the Kaisufuu, and Ranma. The Kaisufuu. If Mint and Lime were looking for it, than they haven’t found it yet. It was a small consolation, but true, and she snatched onto the hope it offered. Anything was better than thinking about her confusing feelings and the prospect of loss. Herb’s the only obstacle left, but she seems to be resting, so I don’t actually have to fight her to get the kettle – assuming I can find it. But I have no clues to where it is, except that it’s somewhere up here… but it’s a powerful artifact. Something like that wouldn’t be just buried in the dirt, it would be somewhere distinctive. And since it works with water, it might be near water… that would make sense. But where’s water? It’s the top of a mountain… and inland. Not a lake. Maybe a spring? That would make sense.

She looked around, but with all the trees she couldn’t see more than ten feet in any direction. After a moment of futilely thinking ways to find water, she smacked her forehead. Finding the tallest tree nearby, she began to climb. As it turned out, the tree she picked was actually a short one, but after some hopping from tree to tree she found the tallest on in the local region, and a good view of the area.

It was breathtaking. The trees formed a soft green carpet all around her, broken occasionally by rock formations like fingers pointing up to the sky, but the best part, the one that held her rapt for nearly a minute before she shook herself out of it, was the nearby cliff, the actual pinnacle of the mountain. It was a brown mottled cone, jagged with caves and dangerous-looking ledges, rising hundreds of feet above even where Ryouga was, at the top of the tallest tree she could see. Smaller cones circled it… but one was different. A cloud of mist and water obscured the lowest one, which looked distinctly different, rounder, than it’s neighbors. Ryouga immediately forgot about the aesthetics and jumped down, running in the direction of what looked like a waterfall.

***

Meanwhile, Ranma had his hands full. Mint and Lime looked like kids, and perhaps one at a time they would be an easy fight for him, but their specialty was obviously fighting together, and they were very good at it. Mint seemed to have an unlimited supply of throwing knives, and every time Ranma would dodge one and go after the wolf-boy, Lime would take his advantage and force Ranma to dodge that, which started the entire cycle over again, since Mint would interfere either with another knife or a swing with the giant scimitar that looked sharp enough to take down one of the giant trees without slowing down. But this was a rare challenge for Ranma – he was more used to his enemies bickering – and he determined to fight them normally. Besides, there wasn’t really enough room to use any of his special moves without creating a disturbance noisy enough to reach Herb’s ears – and he didn’t want to involve the dragon as well as the tiger and wolf.

Ranma took note when Mint stopped using the throwing knives. He’s out of throwing weapons – an opening! He jumped up to a low-hanging tree branch, one that Lime could reach but the shorter Mint could not. Sure enough, Lime jumped up and swung a punch at him before even landing on the branch, but Ranma was back on the ground by the point. Mint, surprised, swung with the scimitar but his full power wasn’t behind it, and a kick to the wolf-boy’s stomach knocked him to the ground.

Then Lime landed on his head. Literally. Ranma had just enough time to see spots appear in front of his eyes, then his field of vision was filled with the flat of Mint’s scimitar, and everything went black.

For a few seconds, at least. Ranma was far from out for the count, but Lime and Mint apparently thought he was, and while he played dead for a few moments to let his head clear, they started to talk.

“Should we take him back to Master Herb?” said Lime.

“No, she told us not to disturb her, and you know that you have to give women their rest,” Mint answered, his voice cracking a little on the word ‘women’.

“Should we leave him then?”

“No, I think Master Herb should decide what to do with him.”

“Okay.” Ranma was almost startled into moving when he was suddenly picked up and slung over a shoulder, apparently Lime’s.

They began to move. Mint complained a lot, mostly about losing a lot of throwing knives, the length of their search, and the small radius of the ladle’s search ability – the last of them made Ranma play dead a little while longer. And sure enough, he kept talking. And Ranma kept listening. After only a couple minutes, they seemed to have forgotten about him.

So the ladle can sense the presence of the kettle… that’s interesting. Should I steal it? Or let them find it and take me there… wish I had a way to tell Ryouga…

His thoughts were cut off by Mint’s jubilant shout. He opened his eyes and twisted around to look at what was happening, and Lime didn’t even seem to notice, but he was pelting full speed through the woods making the view confusing. They reached a clearing and Ranma’s eyes widened in shock when at what he finally saw, but after that moment he was frozen, he was afraid he was too late…

***

The Chiisuiton was the last thing on Ryouga’s mind as she looked up at the very strange rock formation that loomed over the waterfall. It’s… a kettle? She wasn’t sure if the rock itself was the kettle or just a sign that the actual artifact was nearby. The waterfall did seem to be pouring out of the rock’s ‘spout’, which was strange enough in and of itself. She started to climb up to the rock. It was steep, but jagged enough to climb easily enough.

Finally she reached the rock itself. It didn’t seem magical at all, just a moss-covered stone that had somehow eroded into a kettle-shape. It wasn’t even a very good likeliness of a kettle from close up, but the shape was too strange to be a coincidence. She started to climb to the top, using the handle as a handhold, when she slipped on the slimy moss and had to scramble so as not to fall the nearly thirty feet down, unto uncompromising stone. Luckily her left hand found a large crack in the stone, and she managed to regain her footing. She paused for a moment before continuing the climb, letting herself catch her breath and her heart stop pounding in her chest. She glanced at the crack she’d caught herself on. It was certainly a large one, covered up mostly by dry, dead moss. She scraped some of the moss out and forgot all about climbing to the top of the kettle-stone. The crack was deeper than it seemed. In fact, it seemed to go all the way to the center of the kettle.

And the rock got warmer deeper underneath the surface. Now she frantically began to scrape away dead moss. Was it possible that the kettle was actually inside the rock? It seemed ridiculous, but likely…

She was so excited by the prospect that she didn’t notice her danger senses flaring until less than a second before a hand wrapped around her throat.

***

Mint, Lime, and their forgotten cargo Ranma arrived just in time to see Herb, perched high on the side of a kettle-shaped rock, lift a surprised and struggling Ryouga up in the air. Herb’s hand was tight around Ryouga’s throat, and the pink-haired girl’s attempts to get free were growing noticeably weaker, and quickly.

The three new arrivals were surprised for about the same length of time, less than a second, but while Mint’s cheer’s drew Herb’s attention to them, Lime’s were cut off before they could begin as Ranma used his chest as a springboard to jump towards the suffocating Ryouga.

“Mouko Takabishi!”

Ranma didn’t see the result of the attack – he landed before it hit and slid nearly ten feet along the ground, rolling to his feet before stopping and looking wildly around for where everyone had gone to. Herb had moved before the attack hit – instead, the full force of the ki-beam had hit the kettle rock, which was quickly falling apart, splashing loudly into the pool of water.

But not everything in the water was a rock. Indeed, one human-shaped lump was floating to the surface. Unfortunately, it wasn’t moving.

***

~Mordain

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