The Devil's Symphony
Written by: Jon Hall
and Greg Housley
comments are appreciated!
Chapter 2
Ranma was silent for the rest of the trip, her mind still on the four hundred
years that had passed as if overnight. The boy-now-girl named Duo had gone
back toward the front of the van and was still explaining the situation that
had led to Ranma's freedom from the ice. The girl that Ranma had overheard
as Hilde was still a little on the ranting side but was slowly regaining her
composure. Ranma, however, was far from regaining hers.
Names began to flow through her mind. People that she had known before the
icy grave that consumed her for all those years. Images from a long forgotten
past flooded Ranma, sadness sweeping over her like the icy grave that she
had just escaped from. A silent tear ran down her cheek, but she quickly wiped
it away. Pop wouldn't have put up with me crying, she thought to herself.
He would've thrown me into the pond outside the Tendo's house, telling me
that I was acting like a girl. She grimaced at that thought. She lowered her
head again, her eyes landing on the staff that had been the cause for her
untimely 'death.' Her eyes grew hard as she stared at the crescent blade,
memories once again flooding her mind. "Saffron." The sound of her
voice grew harsh and hate filled her eyes, consuming her for a moment until
she caught sight of her two witnesses seeing her battle aura grow in almost
no time at all. Ranma relaxed and her battle aura disappeared just as quickly,
leaving Duo and Hilde speechless.
She quickly scolded herself. She didn't need to let anybody know anything
about her unless it was absolutely necessary. There was no telling who these
people were or if they were good or bad. They looked harmless enough, Ranma
mused. She glanced back over at the two and gave a small smirk at the sight
of the blank stares directed at her. But her attention fell back to the staff
in her hands. She didn't know why she was still carrying it, but at least
it was in capable hands.
The drive was relatively short, the van lurching to a halt, making the three
passengers slide a foot or so forward in the back. Ranma skidded to a halt
a foot or so from Duo-chan, making them both eye their driver intently. "Sorry.
I'm just more used to piloting mobile suits than conventional vehicles."
Ranma didn't have a clue what she had been talking about but didn't bother
to ask.
Noin got out of the van and came around to the side to open the door for the
passengers. When she opened the door she got a big smile from Duo to greet
her. "Thanks for the bus ride lady, but I want a refund for a not-so-smooth
trip. The last quarter kilometer of the ride was hell. You should really get
a handle on these types of vehicles, you know. You never know when you'll
have to drive one again." Duo held up a finger to indicate her 'preaching'
mode, all but stifling a giggle out of Hilde, who knew this routine by heart.
While she had been preaching, Ranma had slowly gotten out of the van, looking
at her surroundings with little interest.
They had pulled into a small parking lot of what looked like a mini-mall like
she used to see back home. A shudder went down her spine at the thought. Then
her attention came to the sign in front of the building. "Holiday Inn?"
Ranma spoke to herself as she read the sign. "You've got to be kidding."
Noin and the others were already making their way to the front door of the
building, leaving Ranma staring at the sign. She rolled her eyes and walked
after the others.
They all walked through the front doors of the hotel and leisurely approached
the elevator. The front desk welcomed them as the small group came through
the doors. The lobby was very large, with nice flowering shapes along the
carpet that made Ranma feel like she was in an expensive movie. When Ranma
looked to her right, she saw a small restaurant joined to the hotel, many
customers eating meals that didn't even look like an appetizer to her, much
less an expensive meal. The desk itself looked mahogany with many elaborate
octagonal shapes cut across the front. The two towering plants on either side
of the desk gave way to the sight between them.
An older man stood at the desk arguing with the receptionist that was patiently
sitting behind it. From what Ranma could overhear, they were arguing over
the fact that he didn't get a penthouse suite like he had requested. The receptionist
had asked the man if he had called in for a reservation, for the fact that
a reservation was required, with all of the tourists from earth coming to
the colonies, to which the man said that he had not. The man became so enraged
at the fact that he began to criticize the receptionist's physical appearance,
her family, her job, and the possibility of what would happen to the hotel
if he were not satisfied. Then the conversation changed to his payment card,
which it turned out that he didn't have any. Noin walked up to the man and
calmly entered in. "May I ask what's going on here?" The man, looking
more than annoyed, turned to her with a childish expression of conceitedness.
The man was very tall and well built. He had long blonde hair that came down
to his shoulders and a two-day shadow on his chin from lack of shaving. Ranma
got the feeling that there was something odd about this man. He didn't seem
to belong in this hotel, or rather the hotel didn't seem to belong around
this man.
"Yes," the man said. "I want to order a room for the night,
but this woman," he glared at the receptionist at the acknowledgement,
"doesn't see things my way." Noin cocked an eyebrow. "Well,
if it will help any, I'll pay for the room." She fished in her pocket
for a second and then handed some large bills to the receptionist, who was
just as happy as could be to be getting relief. The man thanked her kindly.
"No one has ever done that for me before. I am indeed indebted to you,
ma'am." He gave a slight bow to acknowledge his thanks. "No harm
done, and it was my pleasure." Noin turned and began to walk toward the
elevator where the other members of her group were waiting for her. The man
watched the elevator door close after them. He silently turned to the receptionist
again. "So that's everything, then?" The receptionist looked up
from her typing. "I still need your identification card for verification,
please?" The man blankly looked at the woman for a second. "I don't
have any."
The sixth floor opened up for Ranma and the other three members of the group
as the elevator door closed silently behind them. Noin turned to Duo-chan.
"Give me that disk and I'll see if I can decipher anything off of it
while you two," she indicated Duo and Ranma, "get a little rest.
We'll meet back in my room in a few hours." Noin and Hilde walked off
down the hall to their right, while Duo turned back to their left. "You
comin, red?" Duo looked back at Ranma to see if she was still in this
plane of reality. She nodded her head slightly and proceeded to follow Duo-can
down the hall. They had gone down most of the hallway when Duo stopped at
a door that read the numbers Six Six Six on the front label. Duo smiled. "It's
always good to know that they keep my room available for when I'm here."
She pulled a keychain out of her trousers and flipped it once in the air,
catching the key on the downfall. She stuck the key in the keyhole and went
in through the door with a seemingly oblivious Ranma in tow.
The room itself was actually pretty cozy, with two twin-sized beds against
the back wall, a television set, or what Ranma guessed as a television set,
sat on a dresser across from the beds. A large mirror sat behind the television,
the glare from the window bright in their eyes. Duo turned to Ranma, picking
up some clothes out of a bag that was beside one of the beds. "I'm gonna
get a shower, red, so you can either take a nap, watch some T.V., or…just…stare
out into space all day." Duo trailed off as she saw that Ranma wasn't
paying attention to her. Ranma had slowly made her way to one of the beds
and laid down on it, covering herself up with as much of the blanket as she
could. She had thought to mention something about the curse to Duo before
she walked off to the bathroom, but decided it didn't matter, considering
she was about to find out anyway.
"How in the hell could this've happened?" Duo stared at her naked
body in the mirror. "At least I'm hot." She mumbled to herself.
She stared at herself for what seemed like an eternity until her reverie was
averted to the steam from the shower. She stretched contently and was forced
to blush catching the display in the mirror. "The God of Death has boobs."
Duo had to try hard not to laugh at her own comment, but grumbled never the
less.
"Oh well, maybe this shower will take my mind off things for a while."
Duo stepped into the hot water and let the water soak over himself, closing
his eyes to the warmth that flooded his body. Suddenly Duo realized it. HIS
body! "WOOOHOOO!!! Duo hugged himself thankfully. "The God of Death
has his piece back!"
Duo quickly washed himself off and got out of the shower. Now fully dressed,
he came back into the bedroom to find Ranma fast asleep in the bed. He took
special note of her appearance while she was asleep, thinking of how cute
she looked. Her pigtail came back up around her face and rested lightly on
her cheek. Her face held the simplest of expressions, the first change that
Duo had seen in the girl's face all day. She seemed at peace for once, the
silent battle that had been taking place behind her pretty blues all but gone
from her face. Duo smiled to himself. Hilde would kill me, Duo thought to
himself as he pulled the covers down on his bed and lay down, putting his
arms behind his head as his eyes slowly closed and he fell asleep.
A few hours later all four people were in Noin's room, standing behind her
as she flipped through computer image after another on her small portable.
"Hmmm. This is strange." Noin flipped through a couple of paragraphs
of text. "It seems you've been in the labs for the past twenty years,
Ranma. They've even taken blood samples from you for DNA analysis." Noin
looked back at the redheaded girl for her confirmation that she had heard.
Noin was surprised to find Ranma's eyes glued to the screen.
"They've been using my blood for their genetics experiments." Ranma
read aloud as Noin turned back toward the screen.
"It seems that our hunches were correct." Noin's eyes darted up
and down as she read. "Some new military faction is genetically creating
these 'super soldiers.' It doesn't state any reasoning behind this but I'm
willing to bet that it's not a good reason. And from the other evidence I've
read. They've been shipping gundanium alloy by the ton to these separate manufacturing
plants. So if they're not making Gundams, then I'm a little white rabbit."
Noin slid away from her computer with a push of her hand and stood up from
her seat.
"Why would they use you for their experiments?" Ranma honestly didn't
know the answer to Noin's question. She slowly sat down on one of the twin
beds in the room and stared at the staff still clutched in her hand.
"I've got a question, too." Duo walked up to Ranma a knelt down
beside her. "How was it that I was able to change back to me?" He
patted his chest, male now, his eyes never leaving Ranma.
"Can you go get me a cup of hot water, please?" Ranma's voice was
low and yet commanding. Duo slowly got up and went to the bathroom to get
some hot water from the sink. When he came back he handed the cup to Ranma,
who stood up to receive it. Ranma took the contents of the cup and upended
it onto her head, her hair turning black as it did, her body changing to her
male form. Ranma's gaze never left the three as he now looked at them, his
body now what he remembered.
"You're now the victim of a two thousand year old legacy, Duo. You're
cursed, just like me. When you get splashed with cold water, you'll turn female.
When you're splashed with hot water, you become male again. That's what the
water was that splashed over you when you thawed me out of the ice, it's called
Jusendo. It's a magical water that filters down into smaller springs that
formed the martial arts training grounds called Jusenkyo. One spring that
I was thrown into was called Nyan-ni-chuan or Spring of Drowned Girl. There
were hundreds of springs in Jusenkyo and each had a curse of its own, but
I think they're all destroyed now. The water that I was frozen in was Jusendo.
When I was thrown into the water, it must've copied my cursed form."
Everyone was silent for a few seconds until Hilde spoke up. "But how
were you frozen in this Jusendo?" Ranma's expression darkened and he
looked down at the staff still clutched in his hand.
"This." He said, holding up the staff. Duo understood immediately,
remembering Ranma's display before their ride to the hotel.
"It has the power to freeze things on contact." Ranma's tone hardened
as he spoke, as if remembering that day in full detail.
There was a silence in the room for a short time. No one wanted to speak,
their thoughts filled with questions to ask the pig-tailed boy who stood in
front of them. The dark shadows in his blue eyes told the three to let the
matter drop for the time being. Instead they went back to the other subject
at hand.
"So why are these people building Gundams? Did you get anything else
off of the disk than what you told us?" Hilde's voice was surprisingly
calm considering what she had just seen just a moment before. She's almost
happy that Ranma's not really a girl, Duo thought to himself as he scratched
his head in confusion.
"I did see something of interest. There was one particular 'super soldier'
that already had a mission assigned to it. There wasn't anything specific
about the soldier except this identification number that all of the experiments
are labeled. But it did state the name of the mission." Three pairs of
ears waited for Noin to finish yawning before she finished.
"It was called OM3." Everyone stood contemplating the meaning of
the abbreviation for a while. No one could think of anything. Ranma had walked
back over to the bed and sat back down, his demeanor returned to normal, or
what everyone else had seen as normal so far. His eyes fell to the staff that
he clutched in his hands, hardening along with his clenched teeth.
“Is there anything else that it mentioned so that’ll give us some
other kind of clue?” Duo went into his serious mode, pacing the floor
much the same way Ranma had a few moments before.
“Only that they had taken DNA samples from Ranma for their experiments,
like a guinea pig, I guess you could say.”
Duo rubbed his chin, trying to figure out what they were missing. Hilde walked
back over to the window, her vigil returned to the streets below. The earlier
tension in the air suspended while everyone sat clueless as to the meaning
of any of the information.
“Hold on. It does say the name of the doctor that was the head of the
research team that Ranma was first exposed to at the labs.” Noin turned
her head back toward all three anxious faces that stared back at her for her
answer.
“Unfortunately that doctor died a few years after due to a chemical fire
in the labs. Ranma’s ice cube was the only thing unscathed in the incident.
His name was Dr. Jitsuto Kitari.” Duo slowly shook his head and sat down
at the table beside Noin, his hands going behind his head as he looked up
at her.
“I hope Wufei’s having more luck than we are.”