Chapter 4: Battle

As Ranma's Nova Burst hit Cseri's protection Circle, the Horse Mage was obscured in a half sphere of light. "Is that the best you…" Cseri started to taunt, but Ranma bent down to the ground and placed a finger on a large rock embedded in the dirt.

Ranma shouted "Breaking point!" and the rock broke cleanly in half. The cracking noise drowned out Cseri. Then Ranma placed one hand on each half of the rock and shouted "Breaking Point!" again. This time the field was ripped in half by a crevice that cut under Cseri's Circle and dropped the mage into it, Circle and all. Now Ranma slammed the ground, closing the crevice, but it did not close all the way on the (now) protection Sphere. Ranma hit the ground once more with both fists causing a one meter wave of earth to roll over the clearing, smashing the hidden pit falls and wrecking two other Circles that Cseri had hidden. The devastation was complete – the clearing looked like a freshly turned field. Ranma now sent his thoughts high into the air calling the Wind.

Cseri had switched back to his horse form and was struggling to get out of the crevice before Ranma buried him completely. The Horse screamed in Japanese: "Fight me like an Air Mage!"

"You asked for this!" Ranma called back as the results of his magic hit the clearing; a hurricane force wind exploded through the trees into the clearing. As it went, it snatched up the deadfalls Cseri had placed in the branches and bore down on Cseri. The horse didn't try to absorb Ranma's wind – that wouldn't have stopped the branches tumbling toward him. Instead, Cseri leaped free of the crevice as Ranma's wind stuffed it full again. "I prefer a level playing field, don't you?" Ranma said into the sudden silence. The four onlookers were stunned by the total destruction.

"I will destroy you," Cseri grated. A Chi blast flew from the horse's mouth, but Ranma was already moving. Instead of launching his own, Ranma snapped his fingers and a bubble of vacuum formed around Cseri. The horse panicked for a second as he suffocated, but then he remembered himself and spent energy to smash the bubble.

"You didn't really think I'd come in here with windstorms blazing, did you?" Ranma taunted. "A real Air Mage would just pull my Power from the air and feed it back to me through my teeth. When like fights like, it matters what else they know, doesn't it?"

"Let's see if you know this!" Cseri yelled out.

A lightning bolt flew from Cseri's mouth, throwing Ranma back against a tree. Ranma staggered away from the tree, shook his head, and leaped forward. "Sorry, only a two on the Akane Scale. My wife-to-be throws much harder ones." Cseri threw another lightning bolt, but Ranma was ready for it this time and it flowed away. "She's also taught me how to ground it out," the young man said.

Cseri ran at Ranma full speed, the horse's hooves churning the dirt beneath him. Ranma dodged the horse easily. Cseri turned and made a second attempt to trample Ranma, but the young man danced out of the way and launched a kick at Cseri's rump. The blow staggered the horse and Ranma added insult to injury by reaching out and yanking Cseri's tail. The horse was too off balance to lash out with a rear kick.

Cseri launched two more Chi blasts at Ranma in fast succession, trying to anticipate Ranma's dodge, but Ranma leapt upwards instead of to the side. When he came down, he triggered another Earth wave that Cseri had to leap over. Cseri then threw a Cloaking spell over himself and vanished. Ranma assumed a ready stance and waited. He didn't have to wait long; Cseri's form blurred the air as he tried to strike at the Martial Artist. Ranma easily parried the attack and counter attacked despite Cseri's blurring of his form. However, the blow was a glance strike at best. Once more Cseri vanished. Ranma waited again. A log, about half-a-meter thick, flew out of the forest at Ranma. The young man shattered it and resumed his ready stance without a word. He held the stance in silence as the seconds became minutes. His audience said nothing either, doing their best to be absolute silent.

Suddenly Ranma snapped his fingers and a Chi Blast flew from his hand to strike Cseri's hastily raised shield. "You can't mask your heartbeat," Ranma told the now visible horse. Annoyed, Cseri made a gesture and a second log flew at Ranma, but Ranma just shattered it again. Cseri vanished once more. Ranma now began to spin a small vortex about himself. It wasn't a very strong wind; all it could pick up was dust. But the dust began to fill the clearing. Ranma watched for eddies to form in the cloud. When the dust began to fall out of the air at one particular spot, the pigtailed man nailed Cseri with a Chi blast, knocking the horse off his feet. "We can do this all day," Ranma told the horse. "You can't hide from me."

Cseri managed to climb to his feet. "Very good, Ranma," Cseri huffed as the Martial Artist ran at him. "But how are you at Domination?"

Pain shot through Ranma's skull as Cseri's power squeezed his mind. It spread outwards in a shockwave along his limbs and torso so that it felt like he was being electrocuted. Ranma fell on the ground and tried to think around the agony. Cseri's torture pounded him relentlessly. "Not so cocksure now, are you boy?" Cseri's thoughts sounded contemptuously in his mind. "This is how my fights always end. Usually I get to toy with my opponent a little more though. You're not much fun though are you? You won't play my games, so this is the penalty – you suffer now." Ranma writhed on the ground, his limbs otherwise useless. Tofu had to stop Akane from running forward. "So what shall we do with you?" Cseri pondered. "Normally, I break and banish the Air Mage. I'm not sure I can break you without killing you though; you're a little too stubborn." He heard the horse approach.

"Banish?" Ranma gasped out through clenched teeth around the pain. "What…banished?"

"Oh, I don't allow any other Air Mages to live around me. There are no second battles. Once I win, I order the loser to leave Honshu and never return. My Domination ensures they are gone for good," Cseri explained coldly.

"No!" Ranma grated out.

"It's over Ranma," Cseri told him. "Accept your fate. It's banishment or death. You have no other options. This I promise you: I haven't done my worst yet."

Despite the pain, Ranma's defiance built inside of him. He managed to fight the twitching in his limbs down to a tremble. "You're the reason there are no Wind Mages around?" the young man ground out.

"A stallion leaves no challengers, Ranma."

"You…" Ranma hissed as he gathered his determination. "You think, you can just order me to leave Nerima? To leave my family?"

"Oh, you're leaving one way or another, little boy," Cseri said coldly. "It's either you break or I will kill you. You're done."

Ranma leaped up and smashed Cseri with an upper cut to the jaw screaming "YOU BASTARD! HOW DARE YOU!" The follow-up blow nearly crushed Cseri's windpipe. As it was, the horse was thrown back and fell. The animal then rolled away from Ranma and kept rolling. Ranma broke out in a bright blue aura. Cseri tried to establish Domination again, but Ranma's anger and aura defeated him. "How many lives have you wrecked?" Ranma growled as he stalked toward Cseri who was struggling to his feet. "How many families have you torn apart?"

Cseri tried to speak, but couldn't. Words blasted into Ranma's mind. "THEN DIE RANMA!"

Ranma was blasted back by the force of the wind. Desperately he tried to absorb it, but it wasn't a mage wind and it wasn't a normal wind. "Why can't I absorb it?" he thought desperately.

"Ranma! They're Elementals!" Tofu called out.

"Oh crap," Ranma thought. "I need to get away from them." He leap backwards, ricocheted off a tree, and leapt up and away. "NOVA BURST!" he yelled. As luck would have it, the Elementals were lit up by the blast. They appeared as four small spheres floating in the air. While probably not blinded by the blast, they were at least confused. Ranma used their hesitation to run at Cseri. The horse had been looking at Ranma without protection this time and was blinded. Ranma clocked him on the side of the head and Cseri went down once more. Then Ranma's premonition went off and he dodged the Wind attack again. "They're gonna keep up until they smash me against every tree and rock in this forest," he thought. "I need time to think! I hope this works!" Ranma invoked a Cloak. Immediately, the attack stopped.

"Find him! Find him and kill him! Do nothing else until you do!" Cseri roared as he staggered up.

Ranma smiled. He ran over to a knapsack Akane had brought along and found her canteen. He poured the water on him – now herself. Then she ran back at Cseri. Just before she slammed him in the jaw again, she lit up her aura. As he went down again, she said: "Now, where were we? Oh, right. I was kicking your lowlife ass!" With that she launched herself at his side and kicked hard, snapping a rib. Cseri screamed and rolled away again.

"Who's that?" Kazue demanded.

"Still Ranma," Akane told her.

"Oh, I *really* have to hear this story!"

"Kill her!" Cseri yelled at his Elementals (apparently he could see them at least) as he got up again.

"Oh no," Ranma said in a growl as she walked toward Cseri again. "Elementals are not willing servants. They do exactly what they are told. 'Do nothing else until you do!' They're looking for a guy right now, just as you said."

"Who are you?!" Cseri commanded, trying to use Domination again.

Ranma's re-awaken anger (and aura) defeated the Domination once more. "Ranma of Nerima, but you already knew that, jackass," she said as she launched herself into the air. She came down on his back and grabbed a fist full of mane. Cseri began bucking and trying to roll over but Ranma was raining blows down on his head and neck and the broken rib was severely hindering his movements. He threw himself against a tree, but Ranma only scrambled up, bounced off the tree and right back into position again, without ever letting go of the mane. Cseri jumped and bucked all over the clearing with Ranma astride his back; the red-headed woman never flinching or relenting in her beating. Finally, Cseri staggered once, and then dropped to his knees. Ranma gave him one more measured punch, and Cseri collapsed. Ranma leaped clear.

"Done," Rera chimed in Ranma's mind.

"Did you know about the banishment?" Ranma asked.

"No, but this was definitely one of the things you and I had to fix," Rera told him.

"Can you take care of the Elementals?"

"Promise – tend to the living first," Rera responded.

For a second, Ramna was afraid Rera meant that Ranma had killed Cseri, but then he understood. He waved over the four watchers. As they ran over, Ranma spoke to Tofu: "I broke one of his ribs. Can you fix it?" Tofu nodded and knelt down next to the injured horse."

"Don't fix it all the way," Kazue told the doctor. "Just make sure it can't kill him. Let him remember that he's mortal."

"That's a little harsh," Tofu observed.

"He deserves it," Kazue said harshly.

"I'm afraid he does," Ranma said. "He's the reason there are no Wind Mages on the main island. He's been using something called Domination to drive them away. Your friend in Hokkaido was probably one of his victims." Tofu's face became grim. "That's why I was screaming in pain earlier – it's a nasty thing."

Akane hugged Ranma then. "She's really him?" Kazue asked.

Akane nodded. "It's a really long story," the brown eyed woman said.

"We'll have time," Kazue said. "At least once we get back to the ranch."

"I have to free the Elementals first," Ranma said.

"You can do that?" Kazue questioned. At Ranma's nod, Kazue added: "We need to stop at the house then."

Later on that afternoon, Kazue sat with Ranma, Akane, Kasumi, and Tofu in a restaurant in a nearby town. "So you own the ranch then?" Tofu asked Kazue.

"Well, my grandson does," she replied. "I don't have a legal persona anymore. It's getting tougher and tougher to keep up with the ID laws these days. I have a room at the ranch that I keep my possessions in, but for the most part, I'm more comfortable in my birth form."

"If Cseri disapproves of you and you disapprove of him, why does he hang around here then?" Kasumi asked.

"Because he's always done as he pleases and when push comes to shove, I'm all he has. His other children have either died or passed out of knowledge. I suppose being a miser is all well and good, but it is awful lonely."

"A miser?" Akane questioned from where she leaned against Ranma. Ranma (now male) held her tight in his arms.

"A miser," Kazue reiterated. "He collected Power and nothing else. He never used any of it for anything useful – not even growth. No offense Ranma, but someone that old should have been worth a better fight."

"He was good enough," Ranma grumbled. "My skull still rings."

Kazue flashed him a smile. "Perhaps, but he could have been so much more."

"There still time," Tofu noted. "He's not dead yet."

"We'll see," Kazue shrugged. "I expect him to sulk for the next hundred years or so. He's been beaten. Stallions don't take that well. Between that and the loss of his Elementals, I don't think you'll have any more trouble from him. Horses worry about staying alive, we don't bother with revenge."

"I wish there was something we could do about his other challengers, though," Tofu said. "We could use more mages this summer. Like it or not, Cseri was doing Henna's job for her."

"A battle for the Soul of Japan if I understood you right..." Kazue mused. "Well, I'm not really a mage, but is there something I can do to help?"

"Actually, there is," Ranma said. Kazue looked interested. "Across the world, there are these things called Nexuses. There's one in Nerima, and I'm tied into it. A Nexus is a crossroads of Life – all Life. The more I understand it, the better I can protect it."

"All right, but how can I help? I've never heard of a Nexus before," Kazue pointed out.

"Yes, but it's Life I need to understand. I've learned about many different species, usually through an Elder Animal. You've already taught me a lot, but can you please teach me more? You showed me the dark side of being a horse, but you *like* your birth form. Can you show me why? Can you show me the good side?"

Kazue thought about that for a few moments. Then she grinned and said: "I may be able to help you, but there's a price."

"What's that?" Ranma asked.

"Start talking! Let's start with the shape-shifting…"

The next morning before the crack of dawn, Ranma and Akane met Kazue outside the guest house. Kazue was in her birth form sans saddle and bridle. "Climb up both of you!" Kazue commanded with her thoughts. "Come feel what it's like to race the morning sun!" Without a word, the young couple did as they were told and let their teacher carry them away.

Tofu and Kasumi watched them go from their bedroom window. Kasumi gave a big sigh. Tofu gave her a kiss. "Sorry love, but she's all grown up," he said. "It's her destiny to ride the wild horse."

Kasumi sighed again, and then a thought struck her. She promptly grabbed her pillow and began beating her laughing husband soundly.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed the story. Thanks for reading! I'm still working on the last story of the series, "The Solstice". Look for it in a few months. In the meantime, keep reading and writing!