One hour challenge. I was in the mood to do it. This is dark. You have 
been warned. No funny twist at the end, like most of my spamfics, so 
don't take that warning as a joke.

Together
by Mark Doherty<mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au>

Start 20:20

Power! Oh such sweet, energising, glorious, soul-filling, soul-destroying
power! Oh gods... the rush, the adrenaline pumping glory! Power to burn,
power to destroy, power to kill... power to take what was hers. Power...

She smiled, as light discernable only to those trained to see swirled and
coruscated around her in neon waves of ecstaticly charged ki. It was so...
so... _orgasmic_...

It had started, as many things do, with a single seemingly insignificant thing.
Akane Tendo had somehow learnt how to throw ki energy. Not that remarkable,
considering her constant exposure to examples of how to do it, but it caused
ripples. Like the arms race of the nations, others could not stand to sit by
while
one claimed such a weapon.

First up came Shampoo. She had been furious when she learnt that Akane 
could throw a ki charge, the Amazon certainly couldn't, and it stung her 
warrior's pride that someone she saw as obviously inferior could manage 
it. And so she trained, trained with obsessive resolve, trained with Cologne, 
trained for monhs on end, sharpening and refining her martial and spiritual 
abilities until finally, she too could throw a ki attack. Confident in her 
new skills, she returned to Nerima, and, after making sure of her skills 
by defeating Ukyou, she challenged Akane.

She lost. After all, she wasn't the only one who had been training. And 
so she left, to gain yet more training, fury driving her on. But that, 
in itself, did not matter. For now, Ukyou was angry. She had let her 
training slip of late, between running her okonomiyaki-ya, and studying 
hard to get into a business college, she hadn't had the skill to take on 
Shampoo. But now she had the two best motivations possible: anger and fear. 
Anger of being so casually beaten, like some sort of second rater, and fear 
that it may happen again, that this time she might not be spared from death.

Konatsu almost lost Ukyou's store to the debt-collectors while she trained, 
and her school marks definately suffered, but finally, she gained that 
which she felt she needed, an edge. Her ki manipulation wasn't as flashy 
as the other Nerimates, relying as it did on being channeled through her 
weapons, but it was terrifyingly effective, allowing her to take on any 
of the heavy hitters of the neighbourhood. Finally, she was safe again.

Gosunkugi, meanwhile, had sold his soul for power. Unfortunately for 
him, his soul wasn't worth all that much, and he was consumed by his 
new found energy. Before he died, however, he did manage a quite 
spectacular battle with Ranma, Ryouga, Akane and Ukyou. At least he went 
out with a bang, and with the grudging respect of his opponents. It wasn't 
much, but it was all he got.

And so it went. Mousse, Kunou, dozens of others learnt how to wield 
energy, be it ki based or magically based, or even scientifically based. 
Everyone suddenly seemed to have power, and it made it dangerous to fight 
a person if you didn't have a ki technique of your own.

And that all brought it round... to Kodachi. She observed, as she had 
done so often, keeping suspicions down by performing her usual laughing 
and poisoning act. But she sat, and she saw, and she learned through 
observation. She let others do the work, until she learned how to 
wield power too.

Kodachi giggled as the ki flowed through her, revitalising parts of her 
made numb by her constant poison abuse.  Ah... power was bliss.

Some ki attacks were powered by emotion, such as Ryouga's Shishihokodan, 
some were focussed through mantras, some required energy that had to be 
built up through a long life of specialised training, but all the 
techniques had one thing in common.

They all needed something as a focus for the energy. Anger, sadness, 
training, discipline, love, hate, words, gestures, all were techniques 
to focus the power as desired. That was what the martial artists were truly 
looking for when they were looking for ways to throw a ki charge, they 
were looking for the focus that would work for them.

Kodachi had just found hers. With a laugh, and a smile, and insanity in 
her eyes, she leapt from building to building, glowing like a lamp, as 
she headed for the Tendo dojo.

Oh yes, she had found the way to her personal power. Her example had been
her Ranma-sama, a paragon for any martial venture. His power came from his
confidence, and so the solution had been obvious: she had to find what drove
her with such power that she could use it like Ranma did.

At first, she tried laughter. She laughed until her lungs hurt, hoping that 
she could unlock abilities through that, but it didn't work. It came close, 
but her laughter was only a symptom, not a source. After several more tries,
she finally got it right, she realised what she needed to power her.

She needed her madness. Glorying, wonderful insanity powered her ki.
Unpredictable, unmeasurable, uncertain power, all wrapped up into one
little twisted mind. It had been so obvious. And now that she had what she
needed, she was going to use it.

She giggled as she landed on the last building before the Dojo. She couldn't
stop giggling. Everything was so funny. The sky, the ground, the birds
flying round, the cities noisy din, the people below, and the lifeblood of 
her brother that she had just recently soaked in... Ohoho YES! My, but 
everything seemed amusing today.

Chortling and guffawing, she leapt and sailed and gloried in flight before 
she landed on the soft earth of the backyard of her beloved. She smiled, 
holding a sticky-red hand over mouth as a proper lady should, when she saw 
that her love had obviously heard her approach, and had come out to meet her.

"Gods." Ranma swore as he looked at her. "What happened to you?"

"Why Ranma-sama." Kodachi said, trying hard to make her voice settle,
interspersing her speech with uncontrollable giggles. "I just had to do
something. Those other harlots might have taken me out if I hadn't done
something to level the playing fields. Oh, I considered poisoning them, I
truly did, but you wouldn't have appreciated that. So I took the warriors
path, and I learnt. If you wait a moment, I'll free you from the Tendo slut,
and we can glory in our destined union."

Ranma narrowed his eyes. "Kodachi." he said, his voice harder then
she had ever heard it. "Whose blood is that?"

Kodachi looked down, seemingly seeing her gore soaked arms and legs
and leotard for the first time. "Oh, that. Brother dear was being such a
bore. So I showed him my new technique. He was quite impressed. He
told me so, right before he died."

Ranma shook his head. "Hell. Kodachi, you... you gotta come with me.
You need help."

"Help?" she quiered, cocking her head. "Help? Alright, Ranma-sama, if
you want..."

Ranma relaxed slightly.

The gymnast took the opening. She dove at the boy, glomping onto him. The 
light surrounding her started to flare. "But let me have one kiss before we 
go?" She offered her red lips to him. She'd always wanted to try blood as a 
lipstick, after all, wasn't blood the best colour for a woman's lips? 
Tonight, she'd finally got the chance to test that theory.

He struggled, a fly in a web, for once actual fear on his face. "No... get
offa me!"

"Ranma?" a new voice intervened.

Kodachi looked up, and hissed through her constant giggling. Akane was
at the porch, looking at her with horror and... disgust? That slut was 
disgusted by her!? Ha! Ha! Hahohohohoho! What a joke!

"Get off him." Akane grated, as she started to glow in a shade far brighter 
than the aura she used when she was angry. Kodachi knew the signs, it was the
Tendo girls ki attack. "Now."

"I could, I could." Kodachi giggled, strain showing on her face as she 
kept Ranma in a position with too little leverage for him to escape. "But 
I've been thinking... why? Why should I? Why should I do anything besides 
what I want? You, the whore from China, the cheap harlot with the brothel 
she calls an okonomiyaki shop, you're all always between me and Ranma-sama. 
I'm sick of it. You'll always be there, taunting me, taunting me in my 
sleep, like you always do. How? How can I be with my Ranma-sama, with 
demons like you around. He and I should be one." Her aura intensified into 
a kaleidoscope of colours.

"The answer was so obvious." Kodachi continued. Her aura started to fluctuate,
but it was still growing brighter.

Ranma looked into her eyes, and saw her intentions. And he let go of any 
worries about hurting her. He tried everything he could to break Kodachi's 
hug, including hitting a couple of nerves that his pinned arms could reach 
that should have had the gymnast coughing up blood, but nothing was fazing 
the girl.

"Our love." Kodachi breathed, letting her lips brush Ranma's. Akane 
abandoned her ki buildup, realising that she'd never hit Kodachi without 
hitting Ranma, and instead she charged forward to physically pull the 
gymnast off.

"Sealed with a kiss." Kodachi breathed, giving Ranma a long kiss,
letting the ki, focussed through her madness, into his body, into the air,
into the ground, into everywhere. Ranma's eyes went wide, as he felt
the burning energy flow into his lungs. And then, there was the bright
white of oblivion.

The ki raged and swirled for a moment, before it reached the right energy
threshold to... explode. Akane was thrown back by the blast, too late to
do anything.

The Tendo girl coughed as she stood painfully. She stared at the blacked 
bodies, fused together by the blast. She sobbed, falling to her knees, as 
she tried to make out where one body started and the other stopped.

In death, at least, Kodachi had got her wish. She and Ranma were one, 
together.

One lesson, at least, had come out of this. In ki techniques, insanity... 
was not a good focus.

End 21:10.

Ranma's characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, but you already
knew that. 

************  
Mark Doherty  -  mdoherty@mailbox.uq.edu.au
My fanfics and the Weekly FFML Synopses Lists are at:
http://www.uq.edu.au/~zzhdoher

"Kawaii must die."