Chapter Seven

Waking up was not a pleasant sensation. 

Rai groaned, and slowly opened her eyes. The worst part was always the transfer. But she was philosophical about it, because hey, jobs didn’t happen too often, and they paid *very* well. This one more than most, because Jusenkyou cases were the most stable, and therefore the most unstable when/if they finally cracked. That was the whole point of Jusenkyou, after all.

She quickly composed herself. It wouldn’t do to attract attention; even if she didn’t care much about this place, she was on her own. The people here could make it quite difficult for her to complete her mission, and that was the only way out she had. It was a crappy catch – but that was part of the reason why the pay was so good. But if worse came to worse, she could simply retire. It wouldn’t be such a bad life, although hardly what she would consider desireable.

She ran over the information she had been given in her mind. It was a bit discouraging, to look at the mess she had to resolve; luckily most of it was mere complication, her actual job was as simple as always, although it had become a double. In and out. And she was close to the target – better than the last time, when they’d landed her on the wrong continent! It was irking, how they tended to disregard ‘minor’ details like that. It seemed that she was the only one who took this place seriously; but then, she was the only one who had to. It had taken her two missions to understand what few others could.

Earth was as real as anything; you just had to look pretty damn close.

***

Hinako mentally groaned. As if it wasn’t bad enough already, having to share her own body with someone as mentally immature as the Hibiki boy… It wouldn’t be so bad if the other person involved in this mess was anyone /other/ than Saotome. She somehow didn’t think that Ryouga got along well with many people, but there couldn’t be very many others who he got along with quite so badly as Ranma. 

They were currently arguing over whether or not to go to the Nekohanten and ask Cologne for help. Ryouga had conceded that she could probably help them – but that she wouldn’t, because she was probably involved in it. Ranma kept saying that they needed to find out, and that she probably wasn’t behind it.

The argument wouldn’t have been so boring if it hadn’t been repetitive. Neither of them managed to come up with more than perhaps two reasons to support their side, and they were missing such a large chunk of it that Hinako was a bit amazed. The teacher part of her – which was currently about half – was also disappointed, although it wasn’t her student’s side that the information supported. Finally she grew tired of the verbal battle – which would have escalated to a real fight under normal circumstances - and jumped in, which had the effect of making one side of the war incapable of fighting and made the other stop. Finally Ryouga shut up, and let her speak.

“Finally,” she said, no small amount of exasperation reflected in her voice. “All this has been wonderful and entertaining, but did either of you think that we have no way of proving what we think is true to anyone? All that trying to get help will do for us is get us thought insane.”

“I can prove it to Shampoo,” Ranma said confidently. “All I have to do is wake her up, like I did Ryouga.”

“And while you’re off waking up Chinese amazons, did you ever think about who might be running around in your corporeal form? That is, the girl-robot? Ryouga obviously had someone wanting use of a body… are you so sure that you don’t?”

Ranma was taken aback. “I… I figured that we could handle him…”

“Or her,” she corrected, “given the shape of your cursed form. But in that circumstance we would be dependent on my fighting skills, and I am doubtful of my ability to drain the chi from a nonliving being. If it even has chi, instead of some sort of mechanical power core.”

There was a long pause.

“Now why didn’t I think of that?!” Ryouga exclaimed. The effect was rather comical, coming from the same mouth as the line of logic that he was admiring. Ranma actually laughed a little at it. He felt awfully tired.

“I guess you’re right. So, what is your idea?”

“We have to get Ryouga his own body before we do anything.”

“I thought you said that that was impossible, and he wasn’t in danger if we didn’t.”

“Not in danger of dying. But he is in danger nonetheless. I’m surprised he can’t tell already, actually. If we don’t separate soon, we’re going to merge. There just isn’t enough room in this body for both of us.”

“What are you going to do?”

Hinako rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to kill you, stop worrying. There’s plenty of room. You just have to look for it.”

“How?”

Hinako sighed in exasperation. “I can’t explain it like this.”

“Then-” suddenly he cut himself off, and stopped moving entirely.

“What were you saying?” Ranma asked when they had gone about thirty seconds without moving appreciably. He waved one hand in front her face. No reaction. “Ryouga? Miss Hinako? Oh well, I hope they can work it out…

***

<It would be so much easier to explain it like this, if you will just listen to me!>

<What does she mean?> there was a palpably embarrassed pause in the shared mind of the two conversing consciousnesses. <Oh.>

<Right. Oh, just so you know, this isn’t a good sign.>

<Why not?>

<It means we’re getting too close together. We’re starting to share thoughts, and that’s not good. We’re two people, not just one, even if we are currently sharing the same body and therefore, the same physical brain. If this goes on much longer, we’ll both essentially die, to become one person with the memories of us both. Do you understand?>

Hinako could feel the cold wave of fear, but she wasn’t sure if it was her own or Ryouga’s.

He finally answered. <Yeah, I understand. That’s… a frightening thought. But you said there was a place somewhere…>

<I can’t be entirely certain that there’s a place. I /think/ that there’s a place, I /feel/ that there’s a place. But I can’t take you there, I can only tell you how I think you can get there.>

Ryouga gulped, or rather, out in the physical world that neither of them were quite aware of anymore, Miss Hinako’s body gulped. <Alright.> 

<Good. First of all, I /do/ have a second body. I think.>

<Your child form?>

<Right. It’s the body that stopped growing when Happosai changed my metabolism and stopped the growth of my chi. But he didn’t stop the potential of that growth, and when I absorb enough chi to make up for what I didn’t produce for myself, I achieve that potential form. Your chi is helping me keep the potential form, and because it’s attached to your consciousness, I can’t… ‘digest’ it, so to say. But my immature form is another body, with another mind, I think… it’s a totally different stage of my life. You need to go back, find the path I took to get to this larger form when I recovered your chi. It happened fairly recently, the path should be fresh.>

<Woah… what?>

<I wasn’t saying that to you.>

<Oh. Sorry.>

<It’s not your fault. I meant to say only a little, but you got the whole thought process and a memory with the bargain. I think we need to hurry.>

<Y… yeah.>

<Good. Well, I suppose you understand now; do you think that you can do what I said?>

<I can try, I suppose. I’ve got a good incentive.>

<True. And I’ll try to help you.> She concentrated; everything became considerably brighter, stronger, to Ryouga’s mental ‘senses’. He didn’t know how he’d managed to get into this state, or why what was in his – no, Miss Hinako’s – mind seemed real; he supposed that she had helped with that. Or maybe it was because it was still her body; once he’d stopped trying to control it there was no place for him to go other than the mind.

<You’re probably right, at that.>

<Oh.> He looked around, with mental eyes, at the soft reprimand. Soon he found a warm piece of thread. It was a piece of thread, a trail of breadcrumbs, a path in the woods. It was hot at one end, cool at the other; fresh-baked at one end, stale at the other; overgrown at one end, clear at the other. Metaphors didn’t work, but he settled on the string because it was least outlandish. He moved towards the hot end, somehow. Actually, he didn’t move along it so much as search for the hottest part of the string. He couldn’t move of course, not literally, not yet. 

The thread grew uncomfortably warm, and weird things started to happen. Strange thoughts popped into his head for no apparent reason, and he stopped, confused. Those were Miss Hinako’s thoughts. <He’s going the wrong way!> came one thought, and he jumped. <Oops!> he apologized furiously and searched for the cold end of the string. Naturally, if the ‘heat’ was caused by her consciousness, he would want to go towards the cool end, where she /wasn’t/. That was important. He followed it.

The thread became cool, then cold. He kept searching for colder temperatures, even more frigid… it became less like following a thread and more like climbing fishline up an iceberg, as he pulled further and further away from where he had been, nothing keeping him going but his will. 

The thread was freezing when it suddenly expanded into a huge sphere. For a moment he was confused, then he realized that this was the unoccupied mind that he was supposed to use. With one final heave and an almost audible *snap*, Ryouga pulled the rest of himself into the empty place and filled it, rushing to take control of the space that had been allocated to him.

***

He opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was something surprisingly trivial, and he managed to be remarkably philosophical about it. “Ranma,” he said, not entirely aware that he was speaking out loud in the physical world, “you’re taller than I remember.”

***

~Mordain

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