Chapter Six

The fragile world that Nabiki had constructed out of the nothingness that was this new world shattered into a million pieces around her. Predecessor…?

The analogies that were her surroundings dissolved, their support gone. Nabiki’s being itself, forced into physical reality by the sheer power of her expectation for it to be such, wavered, became unreal.

The ‘doctor’ drew closer, inspecting her. The place had actually been real, a real office; he had allowed himself to be drawn into a physical form, but now her mind was confused and not concentrating on him anymore so he left it, lacking the support of her will for it and having no real desire himself to keep it. Rai, however, had chosen a physical form of her own free will, and she was much more used to using one. She kept her form and rushed to Nabiki, pushing the doctor away.

“You idiot,” she communicated. Verbalization had no meaning; this was more like the human idea of telepathy. “Don’t touch her like she is right now.”

Rai reached out a hand and touched Nabiki.

The physical contact was more than just that, in this place where mind and spirit and body were one. Rai was touching the surface of her mind at the same moment, and she felt the confusion, the lack of understanding that was overwhelming Nabiki. With the touch, she also realized with a small amount of surprise that the connection between the two of them was still there, weak but strengthened with the physical connection. “That makes it easier…” she murmured, unable to keep her thoughts separate from her speech for a moment.

Rai’s will pushed through that connection for a moment, imparting some of her own stability to Nabiki. Nabiki became solid again. Rai glared around. The room became real again, forced into existence by Rai’s ability. Even Ranma and Ryouga were given physical reality.

Nabiki groaned and opened her eyes. “What happened?” she asked, slightly surprised to find things so real.

Rai smiled and stood. “You fell to pieces.”

Nabiki blinked, getting the impression with the words that they were literal as well as figurative. “Ah… so… what did you mean by predecessor?”

The doctor had not accepted the physical being suggested to him by Rai. In fact, he had most vehemently refused it. Nabiki just ignored that and looked away from him, transforming his communications to something she could recognize as they reached her. It was easier this time, now that she wasn’t supporting the world as well as the words.

The doctor frowned. “I was intrigued, I’ll admit, that a human was able to come to our world. But I thought it made some amount of sense; after all, if we can exist there then the transportation must be two-way. But when you were able to come to consciousness, when the other two are not, I knew something was awry. Now I see that my curiosity was a failing after all. I should not have allowed you to stay here. Your presence is destabilizing the area, with your insistence on the physical. I think you should leave as soon as possible, and I need to leave your presence sooner.” He was gone a moment later.

Rai sighed. Nabiki looked up at her.

“What a complainer.” Nabiki was surprised at the tone of disgust in Rai’s voice. Noticing this, Rai waved her hand. “Oh, don’t worry so much. He’s never been to earth. No one here has, other than me.”

Nabiki shook her head, forcing the topic of her thoughts back to the question. “How am I Kaei? I thought…”

“I know what you knew. But there’s a little more to it than that, something that I didn’t know before. We knew that when someone in my line of work decides – or is forced - to stay on earth, they stay with their host. But we’d never considered what would happen when the host died.” She paused for a moment. “Nabiki, Kaei, my predecessor, chose your mother as her last host. And you as her next one.”

Nabiki blinked. She was suddenly appreciative that Rai had already taken over for supporting the reality of the world, or else the results would’ve been worse than the last time.

Me?” She almost squeaked the word. She took a deep breath. “So I’ve got another one of you people floating around in my head?”

Rai hesitated, then shook her head. “Not… quite. You see, Kaei, when with your mother, was an alien presence in her mind. It happened when she was very young, actually, younger than you are now. But she was still too old. When Kaei realized her mission had failed, she was forced to give control back to the host. She could no keep your mother asleep forever, no could she take her place if she could, not without risking inadvertently releasing the information of our race’s existence to your world. When she did allow your mother to become conscious, she was aware of Kaei, but was separate from her entirely, for her entire life. This is by design of the transfer system; merging would be highly undesirable for a mission. I’m not sure quite how, but it seems that your mother and Kaei came to an agreement and lived together for many years, never telling anyone. They couldn’t tell anyone. But when she became pregnant with you, Nabiki, Kaei came to the realization that your mother would die someday – sooner rather than later in our scale of time - and the idea probably frightened her. Frightened her enough that she left your mother and joined with you at the moment of your birth - became you. You see, the real Nabiki Tendo, the one that existed for nine months in your mother’s womb, was not yet a personality of her own. So Kaei merged with her. However, the baby wasn’t developed as a personality yet. She had mind, spirit, and body – which Kaei’s personality overwhelmed. There was one critical problem, though. In merging with an undeveloped human, she was reduced to the level of the undeveloped personality. The entirety of her memories remained, but locked away. However, on the most primal level, Kaei had replaced the child, and grew up as a human. Grew up as you.”

That had taken a long time to say, Rai suddenly realized. It was hard to remember, sometimes, how long it took for human speech to convey a large amount of information. There apparently were other problems, too, she realized, looking at Nabiki’s blank expression.

“I should have broken that up into smaller chunks.” She didn’t quite mean to say it aloud, but it didn’t matter, really.

Nabiki blinked. “Yes,” she agreed, unable to come up with anything else. The she shook her head.

And screamed.

It was louder than any noise that she could make on earth, since rather than being limited by her lung capacity it was limited by nothing other than the capacity of her mind to create the sound – which was, apparently, considerable.

She stopped, composed herself. The look that she leveled at Rai was burning. “So you’re telling me,” she said in what was almost a growl, “That Kaei killed me the moment I was born and took my place?” her expression dared Rai to deny it, or to say yes.

Rai didn’t understand, but tried to explain anyway. “It can’t be considered killing – the personality was undeveloped. The baby had no will of her own. You can’t really say that anything died. The body and the spirit continued – and the mind that existed was so small that when Kaei joined it, it was overwhelmed. I don’t know if it exists anymore, but I don’t see how that makes a difference.”

“She killed! No matter how you couch it, all I’m hearing is that she killed! She killed a baby… because she was frightened of death.” Nabiki punched the table she had been sitting on. It shattered like glass. She blinked in surprise, then decided to ignore it. She shook her head. “I killed. If I’m Kaei… that means I was the one to kill the baby. Then I replaced it. I’m not human at all. I’m a changeling.”

“You’re as human as you think you are. Physically, you’re human. Mentally you’re an… Energist, as you called us. But humans are too complex for it to be as simple as that. You grew up as a human, was raised as a human, consider yourself to be a human. Physically and spiritually you’re a human. You don’t even have the memories of Kaei, because you never unlocked them. Which similarities are more important to you?”

“I!” Nabiki found herself unable to say anything, only shout that word as if trying to find meaning in it. “I… I don’t know.” She sat down, heavily on the floor.

Rai sat next to her. “I don’t quite understand your issues. You are actually a unique hybrid. You can exist in this world, you can exist on Earth. You’re the only person in both dimensions who can do that, and you’re upset? I’m not sure how. You could have a very unique life. You could stay here. We could unlock Kaei’s memories for you, and you’d know everything about our world – and you already know everything about yours. There’s amazing potential in that.”

“Potential?” Nabiki laughed. “I could do this, be that… and I’m upset over being a babykiller. How mundane.”

Rai sighed in exasperation. “You didn’t kill anything. Everything would be a great deal simpler if you would accept this.”

“I killed. I killed. You say I’m Kaei, who killed the baby Nabiki the moment she was born! It doesn’t matter if she was a baby or not. She was alive. You killed her mind. And I’m the result.” She paused. “So who the hell am I?!”

Rai shrugged. “You’re whoever you think you are. You can’t change the past. We could reunite you with Kaei. We could give you her memories back. But you’d still have what you have now. What do you want?”

Nabiki looked down. The floor was solid white and as hard and smooth as tile, but with no cracks. “Why did the table shatter?” she asked suddenly, changing the subject entirely.

Rai looked surprised at the question, but answered it quickly with another question. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to come up with the stress-strain relationship of a substance in a hurry? I didn’t even define what it was made out of, and linear is easier than the complexities that exist on earth.” She blinked, a comparison coming to mind. “It’s similar to your situation. This world is complicated – but then again so is earth. It’s hard to take that into consideration sometimes. From both sides.”

Nabiki nodded. “Somehow, I understand that. And I know why I understand. At least, now I do.”

There was a pause. Finally Rai looked up. “What do you want to do now?”

Nabiki looked startled, as if she hadn’t even considered that. “I want… I want to do something. If this place is my real home, I want to know where I come from. So…” she thought for a moment. “I suppose I want a tour.” She drew herself to her feet and saw the unconscious Ranma and Ryouga as if for the first time. “And I want them to come with me. No reason to keep them like that.”

“How-”

Nabiki snapped her fingers, a gesture that didn’t actually do anything except create a sharp noise. However, a second later Ranma and Ryouga’s eyes opened. They sat up, looking around in confusion.

Ranma was the first to speak. “Where
where am I?”

Ryouga didn’t appear nearly as concerned with that question. “A doctor’s office?” he murmured, looking around.

Rai was startled, to say the least. “How did you do that?”

Nabiki shrugged and held up her hand again. She snapped her fingers. “It’s magic,” she answered cryptically. “Let’s just say I saw the solution when you couldn’t.”

Rai smiled slightly. Looking at Nabiki with new insight, it was easy to believe that this was Kaei… her predecessor.

And friend.

***

~Mordain

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