"Speech"

'Thought'

#Panda Sign#

Thanks to my prereaders, Frice aka Bree R. and Konsaki. I suggest you go check out some of their work.

"Pop, what are you doing?" Ranma groaned loudly in disgust. Having had to track her father down to a shrine where she had found him bartering badly with an old priest for a cheap looking good luck charm. The black haired girl had little patience for these little side trips, even if Genma had always had a habit of wandering away to waste money. She had changed out of her white gi earlier in the day for a red button up long sleeved shirt and black pants.

"Don't you see the sign, boy? If I get one of these then I'll find my fortune!" Genma laughed boisterously at his completely serious statement. He sat across from the shrine's priest, the two had apparently been haggling for some time if the amount of items spread out for Genma to choose from was any indication.

"Boy?" The old priest asked, his squinty eyes quickly sizing her up. "My, my you share quite the resemblance to my granddaughter."

"Whatever." She hastily crossed her arms over her bust, failing to hide her newly acquired assets, and unwilling to explain Jusenkyo to some old codger. "And why are you wasting our money on this junk when you should be spending it on a cure?" Ranma kicked her father in his side to add to her beratement. Two weeks stuck with these embarrassing curses, one and a half being chased by an insane Amazon girl out for her head, and here he is arguing over glass?

"A cure comes easier with a fortune!" Her father answered greedily eying the various charms.

"If you have a curse, this incense will help dispel it." The elderly priest rummaged through a box behind him to pull out individually wrapped sticks of incense. "Only a hundred yen each."

Ranma regarded the aged man like a bug to be squashed with her foot.

"Are you sure you're not my granddaughter?" The old man asked unperturbed.

"Very." She had been rather upset to find out that she would be turning from a guy into a girl depending on the water temperature. That wasn't something she had ever considered a possibility, having enjoyed being a man for her entire life up to two weeks ago.

"Perhaps something more powerful?" He wilted under her gaze while trying to come up with something better than incense.

"You got ten minutes." She snorted and spun rapidly on her heel to stalk away from the pair back outside. 'I need to find some hot water.' Having been stuck in her curse form for most of the day, she felt it was high time to return to normal.

No one else seemed to be around the old shrine, so she wandered through the few buildings hoping to find a source of hot water. A very large tree was on the grounds with decorative ropes tied around it's massive bulk. Much of the shrine was run down and really could use someone around to take better care of it. Her curiosity was getting the best of her as she explored a closed off room in the main building. 'What's this place?' She slid open the door to a small dark building. "Bone-Eaters Well?" Ranma read the name printed on a placard outside.

Inside was a platform around the first floor with steps in the center leading down to an old well with the top covered by a few boards. "Kind of creepy." She remarked, avoiding a cobweb that would have gotten caught in her black hair. Even the air itself felt still as though it was waiting for something bad to happen.

"Should have some of those fake good luck charms hanging in here." Ranma stood at the top of the steps, feeling like her curiosity had been satisfied.

Taking a step back, she froze, and a chill ran up her spine, Ranma hesitantly looked down and back. Feeling something rubbing against the back of her calf, she found a chubby calico cat was between her and the door way, looking up at her expectantly.

"Mew?" The feline asked in its horrible demon language and moved closer in what was obviously a move to attack.

Screaming in mortal terror, Ranma stumbled back over the top step, and fell back first through the rotted woods covering the well. Bouncing against the dirt wall, she dropped to the bottom three meters down. "Ugh." She groaned and rubbed at the back of her head. Covering her nose to try and block out the musty smell of decay, she gagged as a freshly deceased scent assaulted her.

"Meow?" The horrible monster cat called down to her, peering over the edge at her with cruel vicious eyes shining.

"Boy, what are you doing down there?" Genma asked gruffly, his bandanna clad head appearing in the opening as well.

Ranma ignored her father, kicking against the side of the old well to try and push herself away from the feline until all resistance suddenly vanished, and she found herself falling. Swallowed up by darkness, multiple hands grasped, and pulled at her spinning her wildly. Her eyes caught sight of a giant snake-like ribcage that rapidly regaining muscles and flesh to look like the body of a centipede.

"I— I live." A woman's voice reverberated eerily, soft blue motes of light gaining in intensity until Ranma could make out that it was a naked woman with six arms pawing at her. Long flat black hair streamed around the demon woman's form that joined with the immense centipede body. "Such tender young flesh." The demon's long tongue snaked out to try and lick at her.

"Yuck!" She twisted around and planted both feet into the woman's face with a kick that sent her flying away from the monster, and back up towards the well. Stumbling as she suddenly found herself standing instead of jumping, Ranma nearly fell back down to the floor.

"Eww!" Ranma wiped at her clothes in a girlish display of disgust. She didn't even care to stick around and find out where the monster woman had went to, jumping straight up and out into bright sunlight. Landing on the wells edge in a crouch with her hands gripping the much newer wood, she blinked repeatedly at the pleasant grassy meadow she found herself in.

"Eh? Where am I?" The damp stinky hut was gone with not a hint of the surrounding buildings of Tokyo. Taking a deep breath, the air was fresh and clean in a way she had only experienced by being deep out in the wild far from any city. "Old man? Older guy trying to cheat my old man?" She called out.

Pouting, she hopped down to the grass to leave the nasty old well behind. "Now where am I supposed to get hot water?" She whined, making her way to a tall tree like the one she had seen at the shrine. If she was going to start searching, she may as well have a visible landmark to start at.

A flash of crimson caught her eye on the opposite side of the tree trunk and Ranma hurried around to see that there was a teen boy held to the massive flora by thick vines that encircled his body. "Hey, you alright?" She asked, bouncing up to land on a vine that made a convenient perch near him. Reaching out, she slapped his face lightly. 'He's warm but not breathing.' She noted, her eyes tracing the small triangular dog-like ears peeking out of his hair on the top of his head, and resisting the powerful urge to check their authenticity.

The boy had long waist length silver hair and wore an odd outfit made from some strange stiff material that was such a bright shade of red it could almost be pink. A very old arrow was buried into the left side of his chest near his heart. "Magic?" She had come across seals and other binding magic before but nothing like this.

Returning to the ground, she sat down to mull over what to do. Obviously she had been transported somewhere far away from the shrine they had stopped at. She needed to find out where she was so that she could start finding her way back. But what should she do about this poor boy stuck to a tree? He certainly felt like he was alive and there was something familiar about the arrow.

Maybe if she could remove the seal he'd be able to give her some kind of information. "Guess it can't hurt." She returned to her place perched on the thick vine holding the boy's body to the tree and gripped the arrow. A small pulse of some kind of power could be felt the moment she gripped the wood shaft. "Well it might hurt you a little." She remarked glibly and pulled.

Suddenly, she was no longer gripping anything, and took her second backwards tumble for the day to end up laying on the grass at the bottom of the tree. Blinking repeatedly she stared at her hands then at the spot where the arrow had been to find that it had vanished. "Today is getting a little too weird."

Regaining her feet, she inspected the boy from her place on the forest floor, and found that nothing had changed. He still waited against the tree, apparently caught somewhere between life and death. "Well I tried." She clapped her hands together as though she wanted to knock off dirt, and turned to find the blade of a katana touching her neck and several men with bows ready to fire.

"What's up fellas?" She asked slowly with a nervous chuckle and a forced smile.

"Assholes!" Ranma struggled against the thick rope that her arms had been tied behind her back with and and the one that was binding her ankles painfully together. "Put up signs if you didn't want anyone there!" She grunted loudly as she tried to get her arms free.

'Stupid cosplayers.' She had been dragged to the middle of some very old style farm village with everyone dressed in period clothing like it was hundreds of years ago. "I see you acting like you're actually fixing that roof, but I know you're not!" Ranma shouted at a man up on one of the single story, one room homes who looked down at her in confusion.

"Someone gag the rude little harlot." A middle aged woman suggested, covering a young boys ears.

"Do you think she's some kind of demon?" A man asked.

"A disguised kitsune?" A woman added.

"Quick, check to see if she has a tail."

Ranma stared at the gathering crowd with an annoyed expression. That turned into a glare when one came forward with a dirty rag to try and gag her. "Try to put that in my mouth and you lose your hands." She threatened and the man shrunk back to the safety of the other insane villagers.

"Please calm yourselves." An old woman's voice cut through any demands that she be silenced. The few villagers crowding around her parted to reveal a very old woman using a bow far taller than herself as a walking stick. Dressed as a miko, her stern wrinkled face was partially obscured by an eyepatch over her right eye, but the other looked to be working perfectly with how quickly it moved to inspect her.

"You in charge here, old lady?" Ranma asked, relaxing a little.

"My name is Kaede. Answer this, why were you in Inuyasha's forest?" The old miko asked in really formal speech.

"Because I'm lost and you didn't put up signs?" She answered with a shrug.

"Hmm— it's almost like—." Kaede knelt down look Ranma directly in the eyes as though she was trying to recognize something. "My mistake— you couldn't possibly be, not such a rude brute of a girl."

"Hey!" She protested.

"Did she have no supplies upon her?" Kaede ignored Ranma's outburst to ask one of the men who had captured her all because she was trying to be nice.

"None, Kaede-sama."

"Other than my wallet! Which I want back." Ranma interjected.

"I see— perhaps it is hunger that is the source of her agitation. Would you be so kind as to bring her to my home?"

"Of course, Kaede-sama."

"Hey now." Ranma shifted away from the first man to come pick her up. "I can walk fine, just take these ropes off." She added, inching herself away from the second. "And you— ya stupid pervert, if you grab my ass again I'll throw you from the Tokyo Tower." She'd been turning into a girl for all of two weeks and had already been groped more times than in the past two hours than her entire life.

Golden eyes snapped open at the sounds of tree limbs snapping, accompanied by the loud clattering of a giant insect exoskeleton. Inuyasha reached up to feel where the arrow had been piercing his chest to find it gone. Sniffing at the air, humans had been by recently, and the stink of Kikyo's arrow still hung overpoweringly in his nose. Using his claws, he slashed away the vines that covered his body, and leapt away from the tree towards the clumsy bug demon rapidly approaching his former resting spot.

"Keh, what are you making so much noise for?" He cracked his knuckles, wondering where Kikyo was, and why she wasn't dealing with this low-life demon. Inuyasha needed to find where she was so that he could kill her himself.

The centipede woman rose back up to loom over him. "A hanyou brat? If you are after the Shikon no Tama then you should leave now before I devour you."

"Against me, a bitch like you wouldn't stand a chance." He boasted, itching for any further reason to take out his frustrations on the demoness.

"I don't have time to deal with you. Out of my way." She hissed loudly, rushing closely past him at high speed attempting to intimidate him.

'If she's after the jewel that means Kikyo is here.' Smirking, he followed after the demoness, eager to see the one who had sealed him once again.

Ranma nearly choked on the bland soup the old miko had given her. She did gag upon the powerful aftertaste that hit her like a truck. 'Who cooks like this?' She wondered in dismay, quickly powering down the food hoping to avoid tasting it any further.

"Would you like more?" Kaede asked as pleasantly as her slightly monotone voice allowed.

"No— I'm fine." Ranma handed the bowl back to the woman and felt her stomach recoil in horror. 'Pop wouldn't even eat that.'

"You are quite strange, child. Finely stitched foreign clothing, your speech maybe that of a man, and you use words that I am not familiar with." The old woman slurped at her soup like it was an actual edible meal.

"These are finely stitched?" She picked at her admittedly cheap red tunic. "Anyways- do you know how I can get back to a real city? Anywhere in Tokyo would be great. Not that I don't appreciate the— authenticity of your village. But I kind of need to find my old man."

"I have never heard of such a place." Kaede answered, looking nonplussed by Ranma's insinuation that this village was just some portrayal of ancient Japan. Or not understanding what she had said. "Is this Tokyo your province?"

'Everything looks like I'm hundreds of years in the past, that shrine completely vanished around me, and this crazy old lady has never heard of Tokyo.' Ranma felt dizzy as she realized what tied all those things together with a neat little bow. "Is there an Edo?" She asked, referencing the name of the city before it became Tokyo.

"That I do know. It is a lengthy journey to get to the coast and not one I would suggest a young maiden such as yourself should make without escort." Kaede answered.

'I'm in the past.' Ranma was shocked into immobility by this acknowledgement.

"Your company has been much improved without crude expletives and carrying on like a disgraced ronin." The old miko reached out to take Ranma's chin between her thumb and forefinger searching her face like she expected to find something. "The eyes are wrong, that's it." She finally concluded.

"What's wrong with my eyes?" She asked in offense, not knowing what to think of the old lady with her occasional weird comment about her looks.

"Nothing at all, you just remind me of someone I knew a long time ago." Kaede admitted with the barest hint of sadness entering her voice. "You are welcome to sleep here tonight. Demons have been active in the forest around our village of late and it is dangerous to be out alone."

"I think I need some air." Ranma was up and pushing through the hanging mat doorway before the old miko could say anything else. She came to a stop immediately upon letting the mat fall back into place. The sky was already getting dark and the majority of the people in this village were retiring for the night so no one had noticed the red clad figure with long silver hair crouched on a nearby rooftop glaring at her with golden slightly luminescent eyes.

Taking a step back, she partially pulled back the mat. "Hey old lady— in that forest, do you know who was that guy stuck to the tree?"

"Do you speak of Inuyasha?" Kaede asked, unsure on why she would be asking.

"Was he a bad or good guy?" Ranma probably should have asked that before trying to remove that arrow.

"That is a difficult question to answer." The old woman answered without fully explaining. "Why is it that you ask?"

"No reason I guess— just that he's glaring at me right now." She shrugged. The old woman said nothing as she struggled to quickly raise herself up off the floor.

Far to the right, wood being smashed and a high pitched scream accompanied a fully restored centipede woman to rise up above the various roofs, her vacant face almost immediately turned to find Ranma. The demon woman's face split into a grin that showed her teeth to be fangs far too long to fit in a human mouth. "The jewel!"

"Do you know her too, old lady?" Ranma crossed her arms and replayed her past experiences with demons. Growing up with Genma, she had her fair share of encounters with minor spirits but the scale of these two were a bit beyond her expertise.

"A mononoke!" A man yelled in panic.

"Our spears and arrows aren't hurting it!" Another cried out as a growing group of men tried to attack the demon.

"Mistress Centipede! But how? She was thrown into the Bone Eaters Well decades ago." Kaede gasped in horror.

'I may have woke her up.' She nervously chuckled and looked away evasively. Wasn't like she had to take the blame for this whole mess. "Guess it's up to me. Dealing with spirits and monsters is a martial artists duty." Ignoring Kaede's warning to hide back in the hut, Ranma took off sprinting towards the centipede demon who was bashing her way through the village, slithering side to side like a snake.

Rearing back, Mistress Centipede's mouth opened even wider before diving at her fangs first. Leaping clear of the attack, Ranma completely avoided the demon to to land on a nearby roof. The demon angrily pulled herself from the dirt to instantly find Ranma's position. "Come quickling, give me the jewel!"

"Gotta catch me first!" Ranma stuck out her tongue and bounded away before the stupid demon got the idea to smash another villagers home.

"What are ya doing, Kikyo?" A grating boys voice asked, to her side and Ranma turned long enough to see that it was Inuyasha easily keeping pace. "Playing with small fry?" He taunted.

"Names not Kikyo." She responded, all but ignoring the other teen as she pushed herself to pull the female demon away from the village. Decided that she was far enough, Ranma slid to a stop on the grass, and faced the approaching woman. Only to find that Mistress Centipede had given up running on her hundreds of legs to simply fly above the ground. "Eep!" Falling flat on her back, she let the demon go flying over her at high speed.

"Phew." Sitting up, Ranma closed her eyes and wiped imaginary sweat from her brow. When she opened them she found that a pair of feral golden eyes were only a few centimeters from her face. "Um— can I help you?" She blinked several times and leaned away when Inuyasha audibly sniffed at her like a dog.

"You're not her."

"So don't care right now." Ranma pushed him away to scramble back up.

"Don't know why I thought you were her, she never ran away like a little girl from a bug." The silver haired boy remarked.

"Little girl?" Ranma snarled, punching the attacking centipede demon squarely in her face with enough force to stop all of her forward momentum. The demons bulk hung in mid strike, too shocked by the strength of her blow to immediately respond. Grabbing a handful of hair, Ranma pulled the humanoid body down to grab in a bear hug. "Take that back!" She shouted, planting her feet, and twisting with all her might to throw the huge form into the stupefied Inuyasha.

"Ah!" Inuyasha cried out in shock as he was bowled over to be crushed into the ground by the demons bulk.

"Well?" Ranma stomped her foot down on the carapace of Mistress Centipede and glared down at the boy in red.

"Wha— wha— what kind of oni are you?!" He stuttered in shock.

"I'm not an oni. Now, are you going to apologize for calling me a girl? Or do I have to beat you some more?" She rudely asked and crossed her arms.

"You hit me with this gross bug over that? You psycho bitch!" The silver haired demon snarled and pushed the centipede off of him.

"Do I have to hit you again?" Ranma got right up in the boys face. "How'd you even get off that tree? Oh that's right, I got rid of that arrow." Not that she would mention that it had mostly been an accident.

She was about to start demanding further apologizes when she heard the rasping of thick exoskeleton rubbing against itself. Knives plunged into her back above her kidneys and Ranma's world exploded in pain. Thrown through Inuyasha and knocking him to the side, she hit the ground and immediately felt a massive weight pin her in place.

"I know it's here!" Mistress Centipedes voice urgently exclaimed from behind her. Ranma writhed on the ground in agony, feeling something rooting around inside her.

"Sankon Tessou!" Inuyasha shouted and the weight pinning Ranma to the ground lessened but at the same time something pulled free. "You dead yet?"

Ranma hissed out a curse as she sat up clutching her back as best she could, feeling warm blood seeping out to coat her hands, and stain her red shirt. Wincing, she took in the dismembered body of Mistress Centipede laying around her. "Why didn't you do that before?" She asked irritably, covered in a layer of gore from the former demon.

"Keh, I was just making sure it couldn't get the Shikon no Tama." Inuyasha snorted and had his arms crossed. "Speaking of which—." The demon boy reached out towards a small sparkling purple sphere that was laying untouched on the grass. A half dozen arrows whizzing past him made the boy jump away and regard a group of villagers with spears and bows.

"Leave it be, Inuyasha." Kaede ordered. "The seal upon you should have lasted forever but it can always be reapplied." The elderly woman nocked an arrow to her bow, her left hand now wrapped in a string of dark prayer beads.

Ranma reached out to take the jewel in her right hand the moment she saw Mistress Centipedes dismembered hands reaching for it. As soon as her fingers wrapped around the sphere, the demon centipedes flesh melted from her bones, a dark hissing cloud of miasma rose up, and was dispersed into the wind almost instantly.

"Hand it over." Inuyasha commanded, audibly cracking his knuckles, and showing off his claws.

"Or what?" Ranma struggled momentarily to get to her feet, feeling light headed from the sudden blood loss.

"And I might not kill—." Inuyasha never finished his threat because she had punched him square in the face. "You bitch!" He growled, stumbling backwards clutching his broken nose.

"This thing came out of me." Ranma chided, deftly parrying the demons retaliatory claw strike to harmlessly slash through the air to the side. Stepping forward while he continued his lunge, she kicked out the back of his knees sending him flying up to land on his back. "So until I figure out why you demons want it, it's going to stay with me." She finished with a superior smirk at the surprised boy.

"Quickly, bring the jewel to me!" Kaede instructed after regaining her wits from seeing Ranma take down the demon.

'As if I trust you anymore than him.'

Inuyasha growled deep in his throat and slashed out wildly at Ranma's legs. Retreating back and dodging side to side to avoid claws that carved up the ground wherever they touched, she was a little surprised by his speed. 'He's holding back.' She angrily noted how he would pull back instead of committing.

"Quit wasting my time!" Ranma avoided another half hearted reach for the jewel in her hand to roundhouse kick him in the head. Putting a lot of power behind the kick, Inuyasha was sent flying nearly ten meters lifelessly in the air before righting himself at the last second to land nimbly on the grass.

A barrage of arrows immediately descended on his position, bouncing harmlessly off his red clothing but making him raise his right arm to cover his face. As soon as the brief flurry ended, Inuyasha stood up, and regarded the villagers coldly. "I was going to let you dumb bastards live but not now."

"Such a bother." Kaede moved as quickly as she could to Ranma's side, her hands together in prayer with the beads wrapped around them. A pale violet light enveloped the beads before they appeared on Inuyasha neck. "Hurry, speak the word of subjugation."

"What?" Ranma deadpanned in confusion.

"You may have the strength of a demon but Inuyasha cannot be defeat with fists alone. Only a powerful spiritual force can do the deed. Now speak a word."

"I don't have a powerful spiritual force." She tried to explain but had to knock the old woman out of the way so that she wasn't cleaved into by Inuyasha slashing through the air she had occupied. "Asshole, we were talking." Ranma's eyes flickered to the three meter long trench the demon had created, feeling dizzy from her loss of blood.

"Subjugate me?" Inuyasha scoffed. "You're just lucky I've been giving you a chance to run away."

"You said you pulled free the arrow, you could not have broken the seal without spiritual power." Kaede continued to explain, as two male villagers rushed to help her up.

Gripping the jewel tighter, Ranma stood her ground, unwilling to let her injury show. "Like i'm scared of a— dog like you, you haven't give me any reason to run yet." She taunted, focusing on the guys ears for a brief insult.

"Be a good girl and give me the jewel, it's worthless for a human anyways." He instructed condescendingly.

Ranma narrowed her eyes. "Talk, talk, talk! Keep it up and I'll go get a newspaper to hit you over the nose because nobody ever taught a stray like you to heel!"

She had only meant it as an insult but when she spoke the word 'heel', Inuyasha vanished from before her eyes with a pained scream. Blinking at the vacated space, she slowly looked down to see the red clad form laying face first in the dirt. "Was that the word?" Ranma asked to break the stunned silence. "Heel?"

Inuyasha cried out again as he was driven even further into the dirt.

"Hey that's cool." A big grin spread over her face. "So that's going to happen every time I see heel?" A third more muffled exclamation of pain accentuated her use of the word. "Sorry, sorry, now I feel a little bad."

Crouched on the roof of a nearby hut, Inuyasha's ears twitched in response to the loud feminine complaints filling the night air. 'Damn that bitch is loud.' He idly tugged at the unremovable chain of prayer beads hanging around his neck. 'How humiliating.' Growling, he was about to go over and give that wench a piece of his mind when she cried out at a pitch that made him cringe.

"Damn it, that hurts!"

"Cease your wriggling." The elderly Kaede chided patiently.

"That strange woman's voice is so loud it'll wake all the spirits clear to the sea." The man whose hut Inuyasha was on irritably remarked from inside.

"We should be thankful that she was here to help. Kaede-sama would have had trouble defeating demons that strong on her own." A woman answered the man.

'Keh, like she had a chance if I was serious.' With a powerful leap, Inuyasha cleared the distance to land directly at the doorway into Kaede's hut. "Alright old woman! Give me the jewel!" He demanded, storming into the dwelling.

Inuyasha paused, finding the girl who looked like Kikyo laying face down on the floor; nude from the waist up. Kaede had her hands smeared with some foul smelling paste that she was rubbing into the wounds made by Mistress Centipede when ripping the Shikon no Tama from the girls flesh.

"Uh— the jewel, where is it?" He tried to recover as a pair of very angry blue eyes turned to glare at him.

"Shut up about the damn jewel already!" She propped herself up enough to kick him in the stomach.

Inuyasha tumbled backwards across the street to come to rest against the hut he had started out on. 'Damn she hits hard for a human.' Undeterred, he charged back into Kaede's home again. "Bitch! Give me the Shikon no Tama!" He demanded, prepared this time for the excessive amount of female skin on display but not for the fist that broke his nose for the second time today.

"Damn it!" He howled at the top of his lungs in frustration, stumbling back out the door.

Author Notes

Whatever! Whatever! I do what I want!