As for the wings, she had grown used to them, but they stood out too much, as that lady had said. She'd have been found easier with them. But they weren't truly gone. No, that lady had done something with the Jusenkyo magic. Since she couldn't use it the original way, Sally changed it somehow.
"Better than letting it go to waste," she'd said while Ranma was catching his breath from the attempt to be male again.
Sally had taken the power of the useless change between male and female and used it to alter the change from woman to bird. Or at least that's what she had told Ranma So in essence Ranma was something like a tengu now. She could change from human to raven, or something inbetween, if she wanted.
But perhaps the most disturbing, or comforting depending on how she looked at it, piece of information he'd been given was about the neko-ken. On the one hand it was good to know that it had been some spirit that had killed, and not her. And it was good to know that the spirit was usually rather harmless, just very protective of its host. But, it was rather disturbing to learn that you had an extra occupant in your head. A cat-spirit no less...especially if you were now part bird.
Sally had mentioned something about being lucky in that regard. Ranma caught the implications, for once, that something worse could have answered the ritual nekoken training.
The marks for increased strength, speed and toughness were still there. And Ranma had a feeling she'd need those in her life, and need them quite a bit.
And there were the sensitivity tattoos as well. Apparently the extra sensitivity had blown out the normal senses, so if they wanted any sensitivity, they needed the marks.
****
Kodachi likewise considered her situation. Like Ranma, she had opted to keep the enhanced physical abilities and, like them all, still had the extra sensitivity. Pretty much everything else was gone, though.
As for her trouble thinking clearly. Schizophrenia was the culprit, along with some unconnected sections of the brain. Lady Sally had fixed the connections and the schizophrenia almost immediately after removing the tattoo that had done the same job. She could think clearly now, and not be beholden to anyone for the privilege.
Her eidetic memory had been a side effect of that condition. Anything she saw had bypassed short term memory and gone straight to long term, holding it for years. It used to be that occasionaly she would seek some recent memory and instead bring one from ages back, and think it had been yesterday.
Under the tattoo she'd not had that problem, and her excellent memory had been something of boon to her, as far as making her useful went. And now, of course, it worked perfectly. A perfect, unconfused memory. A record of almost everything that had happened to her in her life.
It was something of a curse at the moment.
****
Akane looked out the window and considered again punching a hole in the wall and letting the plane take them all down. She could do it now, the tattoo forcing her to stay alive was gone. But she looked back to the other four girls and Nodoka and shook her head.
Even she wanted to kill herself, she didn't want to kill everybody else to. Or even hurt them, and if she killed herself, it would hurt them. Maybe she'd go off and scream when they got to whereever it was they were going. Like that girl had suggested. It had made her feel better the first time.
The books on magic were with them. And that bother Akane. Neither Nodoka, nor Nabiki wanted to control anybody, but they both felt that knowing about tattoo magic would be highly important in their lives. Perhaps they felt a confrontation with the slavers was inevitable.
Akane agreed with them on that, but the magic gave her nightmares still. She trusted Nabiki and Nodoka, but she feared that magic.
****
Nabiki looked at her wrists, her pale, blank wrists. The only tattoos she had left were the ones they all had, sensitivity and enhancement. She no longer had to have sex.
It was the first time she'd really felt free.
She felt a smile cross her face as she again ran her fingers over her bare wrists.
She had been amazed that the tattoos could be removed, and by a touch of the hand, no less. And she still had Kasumi's old books, perhaps between her and Nodoka, they could learn how to remove tattoos as well.
The book that she would write in later days on the subject of tattoo magic was already forming in her head. Though it would be many years before it fully came to thought, and in that time much could happen to change a timeline.
****
The fifth girl looked about her and didn't know what to think. There were no masters here to tell her what to do. She was expected to make her own choices, and she really didn't know what her own choices were anymore.
She had a excellent body, voluptuous, soft. And the most striking, long green hair. She seemed a couple of years older than the other girls, but sat amongst them like the youngest. Which in a way she was, having less an idea of what and who she was than any one else.
****
Nodoka watched the girls protectively, as they took up two whole rows of seats between the three of them. And soon the plane landed in...
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Sun, 05 Jan 2003 21:09)
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