Akane watched as Shan-Pu, Mu-Tsu and Ranma left
her side and walked into camp. "I know that something is wrong
with me because no matter how hard I try to remember my family all I’m
getting is a total blank," she thought to herself. Then she shook
her head and tried to picture what her sister looked like. Nothing.
Akane growled quietly as she searched her mind
for any of her most distant memories. But every time she tried to grasp
them, they slipped through her mind to disappear completely. Soon she
couldn't even remember her childhood. As the demon had planned, when
it had cast its spell over her.
Akane stood and began to pace to alleviate her
frustration. After what seemed like an hour to her she heard Ranma calling
her name. Akane totally forgot her form at the moment and ran towards
his voice. When ran into the camp she was going at full speed and tried
to stop before she slammed into Ranma. Due to her weight and the fact
that she still wasn’t used to this body, she couldn’t stop
herself as she franticly tried to backpedal. Akane felt a slight hit
to her chest, and then she came to a sudden stop.
"OWW! AKANE! G..GET OFF!" Ranma yelled
in pain from beneath her. He fought to keep the fear at bay but couldn’t
help feeling slightly panicked. The only things his parents saw sticking
out from beneath the huge panther were Ranma’s arms. When Akane
realized that she was crushing him beneath her body, she quickly backed
off of him.
“Growl,” Akane apologized as she stared
down at Ranma’s twitching form.
“Oh my,” Noduka said as she gazed
at the huge panther. Her son had said that this was Akane. But boy was
she big! Noduka sighed. Composing herself she finally decided to break
the silence since her worthless husband just stood there in shock. “Is
that you Akane?” she asked the panther to see if it really was
her son’s fiancée.
The panther turned its massive head and gazed
directly into her eyes as it hesitantly nodded its head. Then, strange
sounds started to issue forth from its mouth. It didn’t sound like
she was trying to talk. It sounded sort of sad like she was crying.
Noduka looked into her eyes and saw that she
was crying on the inside even if she couldn’t shed any tears. So
Noduka stood up and motioned for Akane to follow her into one of the
tents. “Akane, I think you should get some rest before we’re
bombarded by the new arrivals tomorrow.”
“Oh…I...I…don’t want to
be this waaayyyy!” Akane inwardly wailed as she made small mewing
sounds while unconsciously leaning her head against Noduka’s shoulder.
“There, there Akane. Everything will be
all right you’ll see,” Noduka said as she stroked Akane-cats
head to calm her down. Noduka hoped that her son was right about being
able to find a cure for Akane. It would be a terrible shame to have
to reengage him to one of the other Tendo girls. After all, the other
fiancée’s didn’t count since the agreement between
the two families was made before they were born.
Everyone watched as Noduka and Akane entered
one of the tents before Ranma turned his attention to his father. “Pop?”
he asked his dazed father.
“Yes boy, what is it?” Genma replied
as his eyes followed Akane into the tent. Then he looked over at his
son before he continued in a worried tone of voice. “Ranma, tell
me what happened to make Akane this way.”
Ranma turned his gaze back to the fire and started
to explain the events that lead up until the moment when they had defeated
the demon. Shan-Pu and Mu-Tsu filled in the parts that Ranma left out.
“So that’s what the demon told me when I was fightin it. As
every minute passes, Akane will slowly loose more of herself, her memories
of being human and she will become the c…cat that she is now if
I don’t find a cure for her!” Ranma exclaimed as he slammed
his fist into the ground to express his feeling of the situation.
“Ranma my boy…there is nothing we can do here,” Genma
sighed as he pushed his glasses higher with his index finger then continued.
“Your mother, Shan-Pu, Mu-Tsu and I will be heading back to the
city to see if we can help Dr. Tofu and Ku-Lon find a cure for Akane.
We'll be takeing Ryoga and Ukyo with us, since they probably need medical
attention. We want you to come with us. We’ll have to find a way
to get Akane on the train. We will have to see if she can be cured.
Now I’m not saying that there isn’t any chance of finding
a cure,” Genma stuttered as he saw the stick that his son had picked
up, snap in-between his hands as Ranma was starting to get angry.
“No Pop. I need to stay here with Akane.
I can’t take Akane into the city because of what the demon said.
If she goes back to Nerima there’s a good chance that she will
forget herself. It’ll be too dangerous to her and the people around
us if she decides to attack them. If we stay here in the mountains,
she can hunt a lot better than I can with the body she has now. Also,
I don’t think you’d want Mr. Tendo to find out what happened
to her without him throwing a fit,” Ranma replied as he lifted
his gaze back to his father’s.
Both of the Amazons nodded their heads in silent
agreement while staring at the tent were Akane was at the moment. They
didn’t want to loose a friend and a sometimes rival. Ranma saw
the gesture and smiled with a slight downturn of his lips that showed
just how worried he really was.
“You’ve got a point there boy. If
Tendo finds out that his daughter got turned into a panther, and is
risking her humanity with every minute she stays that way, he’ll
flood the house. Not to mention that it’ll break his heart,”
Genma said as he rubbed the back of his neck while trying to figure
out a way to avoid telling his friend about Akane.
“What do you mean that it would break his
heart if he found out?” Ranma asked him with a slightly puzzled
expression on his face.
Just as Genma was about to reply to Ranma’s
question, Noduka returned, overhearing Ranma’s question, sat down
on a log and answered for Genma. “Son, Akane is his last child
just before his wife died. She is also the spitting image of her in
many ways. If Soun looses her it would be like loosing his wife all
over again, and I think that he has never really gotten over loosing
his wife since she passed away.”
“Oh,” Ranma murmured as he saw his
mother's serious expression. Then he asked her about what was on his
mind. “Didja know her? Akane’s mother I mean.”
“Yes, I knew her. We were good friends
while she was alive and would often visit each other when we could spare
a couple of hours. I was really saddened when she passed away,”
Noduka replied as she gazed into the firelight as she remembered the
distant past. Then turning her attention back to her son, she said in
a worried tone of voice. “Ranma…Akane is very emotionally
fragile right now, so you must be careful not to upset her. Everything
that has happened to her has been a great shock to her system, she’s
not handling it very well. I took her into the tent so she could have
a few minutes to calm down. She’s asleep now and hopefully she
will stay that way until morning. Your father and I have discussed the
problem and I’m sure that he has told you that we are going back
to Nerima.”
“Yeah. But I can’t come with you and neither can Akane. Like
I told pop. It’s too dangerous to everyone. Especially Akane,”
Ranma replied in a whisper just loud enough for his mother to hear him.
“Oh son,” Noduka said as she sighed and slowly walked over
to sit next to him. “Don’t you worry, we’ll be back before
you know it. Akane will be fine, you’ll see,” Noduka said
as she pulled Ranma closer to hug him. Unfortunately for Ranma, she
grabbed his injured shoulder in a firm grip, which caused him to grunt
in pain.
“Ranma! You’re hurt!” Noduka
exclaimed as she turned him around to examine him for a closer look.
“Aww, Mom it’s only a few bruised
ribs and a dislocated shoulder. I was gonna ask pop to help me put my
shoulder back. And all I have to do for my ribs is to bind them up and
I’ll be ok in a few days,” Ranma replied as he tried to make
light of his injuries.
Unfortunately Noduka didn’t believe any
of it as she pulled off his shirt to inspect the damage. “Stay
right here young man! You're not moving until I fix this!” she
said as she saw the discoloration along his side, then ran back to the
tent for the medical kit.
Genma stood and walked behind Ranma to inspect
his shoulder. It didn’t look to be broken. “Thank kami I worked
with Dr. Tofu when we first got to Nerima, or I’d never have learned
how to fix this,” he said as he quickly grabbed Ranma’s arm
and braced his other hand on the joint. Then he gave it one quick tug
and a push with the other hand, popping the shoulder back into its proper
position just before Noduka came back.
“ITE!” Ranma gasped as the pain washed
over him. "Thanks pop," he said as he slowly rotated his shoulder,
testing for any loss of flexibility. Genma nodded his head and refrained
from commenting as Noduka returned with the medical kit and began wrapping
Ranma's ribs. Then when she pronounced him finished, she quickly began
putting the medical supplies away.
When Noduka completed her tasks for the night
and everyone had a decent meal in their bellies. She hugged Ranma goodnight
and whispered, "Don't worry son, we'll see you in a few days since
your father and I will be leaving now, we won't see you when you get
up tomorrow. Make sure you don't go too far from this campsite alright?"
"Ok mom. But please hurry since Akane doesn't
have allot of time left before she will loose her memory," he said
as he gazed into his mothers eyes with a pleading expression.
"Ranma, remember what the demon said,”
Noduka said as she remembered overhearing what her son and the Amazons
had told Genma. “You will have to admit something that you've been
denying yourself for a long while now. I think what it meant was that
you care deeply for Akane. Now don't deny it. I can see what is going
on with my own two eyes," Noduka said as he started to from an
automatic protest. "Just think about it son. You may have to give
Akane up if you don't. Goodnight," she said quietly as she left
him at the entrance to the tent that he shared with Akane.
Up until now, Ranma had totally forgotten about
how Akane looked, that is until he entered the tent and saw a huge panther
hogging the bedrolls. "Oh man, why does it have to be a c..c...c....cat?"
he asked himself as he tried to make himself inch his way nearer to
Akane without freaking out. "Ranma, that's Akane, not a panther,"
he muttered to himself as he finally managed to crawl into his bedroll.
Quietly he whispered, "Good night Akane," before he slipped
into a deep and restless slumber.
Akane had feigned sleep when Ranma had entered
the tent. She really didn't have anything to say that he could understand
since she couldn't speak at the moment. She felt extremely hurt when
she saw that Ranma was scared of her. So she lay completely still to
ease his fears and let him work his way to her side. "If I don't
make any sudden movements, he wont freak out and go cat on me. Oh Ranma...why...why
does this have to happen now? Just when we're starting to get along?
If you don't find a cure for me soon...," Akane thought in despair,
letting her thoughts trail off, as a tear slowly ran down her furred
cheek.
*****************************************************************
Shan-Pu, Mu-Tsu and the Saotome's stepped off
the train as it came to a stop at their station. Genma held Ukyo firmly
over his shoulder and Mu-Tsu carried Ryoga as they walked through the
streets of Nerima. They headed straight for Dr. Tofu's since it was
closer to the train station than the Neko-hanten and because both Ryoga
and Ukyo needed medical attention.
They walked for a good ten minutes before they
reached the clinic. Noduka walked up to the door and knocked. *Knock,
Knock* Then waited a good ten minutes for the doctor to come down the
stairs. She tried again, only this time she pounded on the door because
doctor Tofu might still be sleeping since it was still the middle of
the night. Then stepped back as she heard some noise coming from within.
“Hello…Doctor?” she called.
******************************************************
Deep in the midst of slumber he didn’t hear the slight knocking
on the front door. Rolling over, the doctor continued to dream about
Kasumi and a date. He dreamed that he had just bought an engagement
ring and she had excepted his proposal, they were just about to kiss
when the pounding on the front door startled him so much that he fell
out of bed.
Doctor Tofu rubbed his eyes to clear the sleep
from them and cocking his head he listened for the noise that had interrupted
his dream. When he didn’t hear it again he decided to investigate
anyway. Standing, he slipped on his house slippers and a robe and proceeded
down the stairs. When he got close enough to the door he could hear
Mrs. Saotome’s voice calling from the other side. “Hello…Doctor?”
“Coming Mrs. Saotome! I’m coming!”
he called as he hurried the rest of the way, turning on the lights and
opening the door. “What seems to be the problem. Has Akane punted
Ranma out of the window again?” he asked her before he noticed
the two Amazon teens and Genma. Then he noticed what Genma and Mu-Tsu
were carrying or rather who, they were carrying. Motioning for them
to enter, he quickly stepped back and assumed his professional mask
so quickly that you would have to try not to blink to see it.
“Put them in the examining room over there,”
he said as he pointed to the room over to his left. He followed two
steps behind them as they entered the room. Quickly he examined them.
Walking towards his medical cabinets, he calmly opened the draws and
collected the supplies that he needed.
“How are they doctor?” Noduka asked
him worriedly.
“Yes, are they going to be all right,”
Genma questioned frowning.
“Both of them will need to be watched as
closely as possible for the next few days. Ryoga has a concussion and
a few cracked ribs. Ukyo on the other hand, is seriously depleted of
her ki. Its almost like something sucked it out and left a mark on her
aurora. Did anything strange happen that I don’t know about?”
he asked them as he glanced around the room for confirmation.
Mu-Tsu stepped forward and said, “Yes,
we were in the mountains because we were trying to find Ranma. Well,
we found him. But we were chased by a huge panther. It wasn’t until
a few hours later that Ranma told us that the panther was Akane. He
said that he recognized the pendent around the cats neck. The only problem
was, Akane didn’t recognize us, and it appeared that she was being
controlled by something. Her eyes were red and seemed to glow in the
dark.” Mu-Tsu shuddered as he remembered what he had gone through
in the last seven hours. “Well, Akane let us to a cave that had
apparently been the prison of a Demon-cat. Only the demon had somehow
gotten free.”
Mu-Tsu started to pace around the room before
he paused to take a deep breath then continued. “Anyway, we found
Ukyo on a boulder near the cave. But the demon was there and we had
to fight both Akane and the demon. Fortunately for Shan-Pu, I was carrying
my sleeping powder bombs, otherwise Akane would have killed her. I managed
to get Akane off and wrapped up in my chains before I threw the bomb
and put her to sleep. Then we went to help Ranma fight the Demon cat.
Ranma defeated the demon. We had hoped to free Akane when the demon
was defeated.”
Doctor Tofu sat listening to the story in stunned
silence. Finally as Mu-Tsu paused to draw another breath to continue
the story he quickly interrupted. “So you’re saying that this
demon turned Akane into a panther?”
“Yes,” Genma answered before the Amazon boy could. “We
were extremely surprised when Ranma walked back to camp and told us
what had happened.”
Noduka nodded her head in agreement as she listened
to both Mu-Tsu and her husband. She decided to complete the story because
it seemed that they were forgetting something. “You see doctor,
we need to find a cure for Akane before she looses her memory. That
is one of the reasons we returned. Can you help us?”
Doctor Tofu stood and started to pace around
the room. "I seem to remember a tale I read about in one of my
history books. It was about a demon cat and a small village not too
far from here. If my memory is correct…,” he trailed off as
he hurried over to his bookcase and started to franticly search for
the correct one, discarding the wrong ones over his shoulder while muttering
under his breath. “ No, not that one…not this one either.
Where did I put it? Maybe over here?”
********************************************************
Once Ryoga and Ukyo were safely behind closed doors and the good Dr.
was currently examining him, Shan-Pu picked up the phone and called
her grandmother.
"Moshi, Moshi, Neko-hanten," Ku-Lon
answered.
"Grandmother, you come Dr Tofu's now. Bring
scrolls about demon cat from old stories. Need to find cure fast,"
Shan-Pu said this so quickly that it took Ku-Lon a few minutes to sort
out what her granddaughter had just said.
"Why child, why must I bring the scrolls
to find a cure? A cure for who?" Ku-Lon asked as calmly as possibly
while inside she was extremely worried.
"Akane, great-grandmother. Demon cat take
Akane. Now Akane different, not real self! This not honorable way for
warrior to die," Shan-Pu said brokenly as her emotions got the
better of her. Once a long time ago, before the wedding, Shan-Pu would
have considered Akane an obstacle to be removed. Now she secretly thought
of Akane
as a comrade, if not a friend. And it wasn't right for a fellow warrior
to be turned into a cat and then eventually loose their sense of herself.
She could not let Akane die this way.
"DEMON CAT?" Ku-Lon screeched in surprise
as she remembered the very same tale she had heard of when she was a
child. "This is not good...not good at all. Shan-Pu! I will be
over in a few minutes. You call the Tendo's and inform Soun of the events
that have transpired. Where are Ranma and Akane?" Ku-Lon asked
her as she quickly started looking for the correct scrolls.
"Back in mountains. Ranma say that it not
safe for kitchen destroyer to come to city. Say that she might hurt
someone or that they might hurt her when they see Akane-cat. Ranma also
say not to tell the Tendo's or Akane father flood house!" Shan-Pu
replied.
Ku-Lon listened to her explanation as she opened
her trunk of scrolls. Then she very carefully lifted the compartment
where she kept the most valuable of ancient scrolls and lifted out the
one that she had been searching for. "Ah, I've found it. I will
be there soon," she said before she hung up. Closing the compartment
and then quickly locking the trunk, Ku-Lon grabbed everything that the
scroll specified for the proper spells and incantations, stuffing them
into her travel bag before she locked up the restaurant.
*****************************************************************
Shan-Pu placed the phone down on its receiver, then turning she walked
back into the examining room to see how Mu-Tsu was doing with his explanation
of events to Dr. Tofu. When she entered the room she saw that every
book that the good Doctor had was scattered all around the office. Dr.
Tofu was seated among the chaos, deeply engrossed in an ancient looking
tome. Shan-Pu walked up to Mu-Tsu to ask him about how the doctor had
taken the explanation. "How it go when explain what happen to Akane?
About demon?" She asked glancing at him with a slightly worried
expression.
Mu-Tsu sighed as he pulled his glasses back down over his eyes, then
looking towards where Dr. Tofu was seated he replied, "Honestly,
I've never seen him move so fast before. Its almost like he's heard
of this demon before or at least read about it. He seemed extremely
worried and thought that he might have heard of a cure to what the demon
has done to Akane. He also thought that Ranma had the right idea with
keeping Akane away from the city." He was about to say more when
he heard Dr. Tofu's shout.
"Aha! I've found it!" the doctor exclaimed
just as Ku-Lon entered the doctors office.
The Amazons quickly hurried over to see what
the doctor was talking about. When they got there they saw that the
book he had was opened about a fourth of the way and that a slip of
paper had fallen to the floor. The paper is what Dr. Tofu was currently
reading. "Listen here," Dr. Tofu said excitedly as he continued.
"This paper says that there was once a demon that had been released
over a thousand years ago by a rival clan. It says that the demon had
the power to turn its victims into cats that it could control. It continues
to say that the current lord of the time sent his daughter to battle
the demon. She defeated the demon, but was killed in battle. As to the
victims that were turned into cats...they were never seen or heard from
again."
"I'm not going to beat around the bush
and tell you that we have a chance of saving Akane," Ku-Lon said,
entering the room as the doctor finished reading the paper. "I
will say that time is very short. As the paper explains about the demon's
victims, they were never seen or heard from again because they remained
cats and had totally forgotten that they were human. Most likely some
of them were killed by hunters. The one's that weren't killed by the
hunters eventually died within a week. I have found our most ancient
scroll that tells of such a demon. It was made when the Amazon Nation
was founded well over seven thousand years ago. We still tell the story
over the fire to our young ones," Ku-Lon said as she hopped over
to a nearby chair. Dr. Tofu stood, walked over to the tea tray, poured
the elder a cup of tea as he sensed that this would be a long tale.
Then he sat in a chair, nodding his head for her to continue.
"As the story goes. We fought in the Great
War. It was a war against a demon cat and its minions. The story tells
of how many of our people disappeared and with each disappearance, how
the demon's army grew. We finally figured out that the army that the
demon had gathered, were somehow our warriors, turned into giant cats.
Anyway to make the long story short. We defeated the demon with the
help of the other tribes that still to this day live around us. The
warriors were slowly loosing their memories, starting with the first
one that was taken. We searched frantically for a cure and finally found
one but it was at the cost of over nine hundred of our number."
"How many were you able to save?"
Doctor Tofu asked.
"We were able to save only two," Ku-Lon
sadly replied as she gazed deeply into her cup of tea as if searching
for answers. "That was a long time ago. I remember hearing bout
some fools who had released the demon. Your story sounds like what I
had heard about. Now to hear that the demon had gotten lose from its
prison and had turned Akane into one of its minions..." Ku-Lon
trailed off, then continued in a stronger tone. "We must leave
right away! If we don't get to the mountains by the day after tomorrow,
then Akane will be lost to us!"
*****************************************************************