"Are you sure?" asked the feminine voice. "Even if what you must overcome is yourself?"
"Myself?" Ranma asked. "Like a mirror clone or something?"
"'or something,'" echoed the voice as if from a greater distance.
"Well, Ranma Saotome ain't gonna back down," said Ranma, striding proudly forward now. "The Anything Goes School must accept all challenges."
"Even from yourself?" said a very familiar voice.
Ranma blinked and looked over the room he'd just come to. It was a normal girl's room, kind of like Kasumi's from what he'd seen of it.
His girl half, wearing a dress and a pair of glasses, looked up from a table. "Haven't you realized by now what a load of crock our father has sold us?"
"You're an illusion?" Ranma asked.
"In a sense. In a sense I'm quite real," admitted Ranko. "Do you remember people telling you about that little incident where you hit your head in the koi pond and thought you were a girl?"
"Yeah, Akane teased me about it for awhile. So did my old man and Mister Tendo," said Ranma. "How can you be her?"
"Because this is all mental imagery, Ranma. The maze of corridors, drifting sand, all of it are symbols within your mind. Even your own presence is a symbol. Bastet is real, but you notice she's not physically present." Ranko closed her books. "When our dear loving father taught us all those things that 'real men' didn't bother with. All those pesky little details that 'only girls' were concerned about? Your mind suppressed those and formed me. Then Akane slammed us into that rock and I became the 'girlish you'. Almost a cariacture in some ways."
"I don't completely understand," said Ranma.
"Try this," said the girl-Ranma, reaching into a drawer. "It's a good thing I kept an ear open even while asleep in all those classes. Ah."
Ranma watched as the Ranko brought out a full length mirror out of the little desk drawer. "How'd you do that?"
"This is a mindscape, Ranma," said Ranko. "We can do quite a lot here if we set our mind to it."
Ranma looked into the mirror, noting that it was cracked into five seperate pieces and - "Whoa. That's some special effect. Real freaky."
Ranma could see that the upper left fragment reflected Ranko. The upper right was a tough and muscular looking him. The lower right had a reflection involving fur he didn't want to think about. The lower left seemed to be painted black. The big chunk in the center had a child's face looking out.
"These are the pieces of us, Ranma. Not quite multiple personalities, but not that far off from the concept."
"How?" asked Ranma.
"Nekoken training among other things," replied Ranko. "Now if you'll look over there. The Child - yourself. Me. The Art. The Cat. The Dark. Fragments of self, if you wanted to be poetic."
"Why?" asked Ranma.
"Because, if I understand correctly, the power of the Nekoken requires a fully functional mind to handle it. Not one compartmentalized." Ranko sighed. "It's too much to hope for that I could get to live on my own."
"Ah," said Ranma. "This is weird. I get the feeling I shouldn't be able to get that."
"It's a mindscape," reminded Ranko.
"So what do we do?" Ranma asked Ranko.
Ranko frowned and looked thoughtfully off into the distance. "Well, what has to happen is:"
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(Posted Thu, 11 Dec 2003 11:49)
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