Ranma, as would surprise few who knew him, was one of the first to awake, more prepared this time for the nausea and discomfort of the transit he had managed to wall up enough of himself that he was barely unconscious for heartbeats before he was rolling to stand upright amid the green grass that surrounded the point of their arrival and summoning his chi in case it was needed.

Rapidly, efficiently, he looked around, his heart hammering adrenaline filled blood through his veins and his every sense straining as he reflexively searched for any danger that might be about, trusting to instinct to differentiate it from less harmful surrounds. All the time only dimly aware his mind was still dragging somewhere behind and trying to make sense of what it had just experienced while his body operate on effective autopilot.

He found no dangers in the immediate vicinity, his eyes travelling fast over the sprawled forms of his comrades and up to the looming building that they had appeared near. Even as he used his eyes to search it too for hostility his other senses just as automatically took in the chi states of his friends and the ambient Ki around them, stretching his awareness to levels far beyond that which most residents of his home world would have considered possible and evaluating each piece of information for any necessary response.

He existed solely in the moment, a creature of instinct, coiled and ready to combat any foe to so anything that his instincts required of him, perfectly poised, perfectly focused, seeing all and ready for anything.

Slowly however, as his instincts allowed him to relax away form the fight the focus slipped and the details that his fighting heart had dismissed as irrelevant began to filter in, from the grass under his feet to the warm pure air he was breathing once more and from the point of their arrival back to the large domed edifice that it had been aimed at.

The building, as he had expected from a place supposedly home to a pacifist order of healers, practically radiated a feeling of calm, of serenity and safety but his focus did not linger long on that for long. Instead, guided by an impulse he could not yet make sense of, he looked back to his friends once more.

His mind finally caught up with his reflexes his focus actually went to pieces, the memories of the burdens he had temporarily been allowed to forget coming crashing in, a tidal wave washing away all other thoughts into dark oblivion.

They might be where they wanted to be, they might not be under attack, but the woman he had once loved, once thought to make his life with, was still lingering in catatonia, her chi turned in on itself even as she gave every impression of being in a coma, and yet she was narrowly better off than Ryoga, still very much as dead as he had been when that fire had seared the life from him.

After that came the other wounds, like the remembered vision of Konatsu as he had coughed his last with that mystical bolt impaling into his body, dead and left behind on a dockside so very far from anywhere he had known; like the raw remembered horror of knowing himself unable to stop Ohlmin’s plans for the women in his group; like the guilt that still stabbed into his heart when he quietly thanked the fickle fortunes none of Ohlmin’s people had had cause to use cold water to wake him up; like the still gnawing hurt that stabbed into him everytime any of the girls revealed their pain; and the fresher guilt of Ryoga’s loss, a friend who he had never really appreciated the depth of his bond with.

Compared to these the dull ache in a ruined hand and an empty eye-socket were as nothing.

But even as despair threatened an echo of the determination that had driven them to Deighton’s door surged back up, the memory of the why carrying with it that slim promise of hope that some things at least might be fixed.

His eyes travelled back from the gardens behind them and to the tall dark wall in front, over the tall, apparently seamless shape of this ominous edifice. Quietly he closed his eyes and said a wordless prayer to anyone that might be listening that perhaps, just perhaps this place might be all that the rumours had said it would be.

Fresh noises from around behind him stirred his awareness again and in a flash Ranma was headed back to his friends, ditching his spirituality for the practical concerns of making sure that the ones who could be helped were.

For reasons that he was far from ready to admit yet Ranma’s first stop was by the side of Nabiki, kneeling ready to help her should she need it but instead finding himself on the receiving end of an almost divine smile.

Whatever else was going on in Nabki’s head seeing Ranma as the first thing when she woke was definitely not something she had issues with. Indeed her fuzzy mind was already following through on some other thoughts along the lines of thanking him when they were both interrupted by the woman to their side.

Ukyo greeted renewed awareness with an epithet that might have stripped the paint from the walls had they been inside, her Osakan accent seeming to add extra emphasis to the ‘colourful’ curse even as she fought her rebellious body back into obedience.

As one might expect one of the first things she reached for was her weapon, hard lessons that would possibly never be forgotten now imprinted onto her instincts just as similar ideas had been onto Ranma’s. She however found no weapon and had even less reason to be calm about one’s lack.

Her response was an instinctive terror, a shout that came right from the as yet not completely reformed memories of the last time she had been helpless and spoke right to her muscles, forcing them into motion.

Ranma caught her just before she fell back down again, only the familiarity of his face and the swiftness of his blocking arm saving him from a return trip to unconsciousness courtesy of her instinctive right cross.

And steadily he watched first recognition and then relief pass through her eyes before she sagged for a moment against his hold and let that wordless terror slip away, finally remembering to breathe and finally realising that the people who her mind so feared were neither here nor in any physical state to come here; filling the bellies of carrion creatures as they no-doubt now were.

“Thanks” she whispered, only a little shakily, a half smile coming to her face as rogue thoughts about just how good it did feel to be in Ranma’s arms slipped through the chaotic mess that was her mind.

However, much like Nabiki before her, any further thoughts, scattered as they were, along those lines were interrupted by the awakening of another of their too-small group. In this case it was Gosunki, the one member of the group for whom this Side was not wholly undreamt of.

Warned of the transit Gos had taken steps to protect himself this time, had gone to some significant lengths to set up secretive tell tales that would alert him should their less than completely willing ‘benfactor’ have been up to his old tricks, even going as far as to build a mental construct that would duplicate his own mind, much like a backup disk for a computer might.

However his ambitions had been a little more than his abilities could handle, which is why he, instead of sailing through the transit unharmed, was still trying to piece together which parts of his own mind were real and which parts were sections of the corrupted ‘backup’

None of his friends looking at him would have for a moment believed this process was anything if not painful, the cry that came first from Gos’s suddenly shaking body enough to throw all other thoughts aside and summon them all to him.

Despite all that Nabiki had learned, mostly out a mix of curiosity and obstinacy, last time they were on this side she didn’t for a moment consider herself well versed in the lore that explained the magical mechanics of her current surrounds. Which meant that she had been more or less completely unable to assist Gos in his attempts to ensure they weren’t tampered with again and had left him as their only backup from that direction.

Seeing him twitching in pain was not what any of them would call a good sign.

In fact they were all already trying to come up with backup plans by the time he eventually did stop shaking and shouting, finally returning to some semblance of sentience.

“Is Okay” he offered, somewhat hoarsely to where Ranma was trying to stabilise his chi flows with what was his best attempt at a plan B “Just a little static in the box” he insisted, making absolutely no sense to any of them barring Nabiki who still had to struggle to make the correlation.

“be kaykay soon” he offered, his eyes just about focusing on the person in front of him, even if he did think he was seeing Ukyo rather than the middle Tendo who in fact it was.

Eventually they took his word for it and set to dealing with the other issues that had been awaiting their attention, Nabiki starting with her sister and Ranma with Ryoga’s remains while Ukyo wandered over to the sack full of gear that Nabiki and herself had scrounged up before they had left.

“No change” Nabiki commented ruefully, having received absolutely no response to anything she did about her sister and no joining Ukyo sorting through the gear.

“Likewise” Ranma added, joining them from the other direction. He most of all of them hadn’t really understood when Nabiki had delayed their transit to pick up a choice of things from around Deighton’s house but now he was starting to more or less see why a some of the books might be useful, if he had yet to work out why Deighton would have thought the same when he presumably collected them.

On the other hand he could see the use of things like the packets of Ramen and container of good tea that he had purloined from the mage’s kitchen and was currently debating whether now was a good time to get a brew on and finally slake that craving he had been harbouring for so long with a properly brewed cuppa.

“We should stash some of this before we go in” Nabiki asserted, her own mind working on slightly less immediate levels, “in case the Matriarch doesn’t approve..” she explained, not even beginning to be able to guess what the apparently near divine leader of the sect would think about a textbook on the evolution of armaments or a medical almanac but not really wanting to waste such items if she didn’t approve.

“She’ll know we have them” Gos offered, his voice still a little raspy as he stepped up from where he had been checking through the items he had acquired in much the same way.

Of course he had a fairly good guess that he hadn’t managed to get his hands on many of the ‘juicier’ items that Deighton presumably had with him or had managed to accumulate but as someone had said when he had suggested taking the time to find such things, they had only had so long before the guy either called their bluff or forced one of them to do something permanent to him.

Neither of which had been a particularly comfortable idea for the young man who was still trying to mesh the idea of a brain-tampering exiled arch mage with the nice old professor who had shared an interest in the occult with a wheelchair bound student of his.

“Once we go in there” he continued, gesturing towards the imposing home of the sect that they had been promised housed the woman in question, “there won’t be any secrets” he explained, quoting another fact he had been promised by people who had claimed to know, one thing that all the mages he had met back in Pathandaway had been less than keen on had been stepping through those doors and thus putting themselves in Her power as they were about to.

But Gos was hoping that was mostly due to their fragile egos and desire to keep secrets from one another rather than any secret knowledges they had chosen not to share about this lady; already his mind was conjuring up a horror film he had watched that was none too dissimilar to this situation, where the heroes had gone to a far away monastery only to find the monks there were in fact vampires in disguise. But he was trying not to voice that fear.

It was after all a little late for second thoughts.

“Fair enough” Nabiki replied, shrugging her shoulders in resignation, and fighting down her own revulsion at the idea of ALL her secrets being known, “saves us worrying is someone’s going to dig it up while we are away” she offered, her words doing little to really cover her discomfort.

Ranma, as it to once again underline how much he had changed from his days in Nerima, apparently did manage to pick up on either her tone or the implications of what Gos was saying and infer what they might mean to the intensely private Nabiki, because he chose that moment to offer her a comforting look, a silent promise that he would be there.

He received a smile and a grateful nod in reply, showing that he wasn’t the only one who had changed, and apparently even the ice queen had learned how to accept help in the manner it was offered some of the time.

“Just as long” Ukyo argued, reaching to start picking up their ‘booty’ “as nobody starts getting all touchy feely” she said, having apparently had a little more than passing familiarity with ‘healers’ on their own side.

“And the first one who asks me about my relationship with my father gets decked” she asserted, her return to surliness actually rather comforting for her friends, if only because it was more like what they had grown used to of late.

“No love-ins and no Freud” Nabiki agreed, with a hint of a smile creeping around her lips, “anything else?” she asked the rest of them, clearly already assuming that she was going to be the one doing the negotiations here.

It was only then that the rest of them started to realise that this might not be as simple as they had thought, where they came from there might be an expectation of benevolence from the monastic and the clerical but they really had no evidence that the same largesse would exist here.

Only now were they beginning to realise that what they were asking might be rather expensive indeed.

“Told you we should have had his Rolex” Ukyo groused, shrugging her pack into place, “Guess she’ll just have to take an IOU” she finished, correctly surmising in much the same way that Gos had that there wasn’t a lot they could do to change things anymore.

Those die were cast.

Together, with Gos quietly once more enjoying the ability to move under his own power and Ranma considerably less happily bearing the burden of Ryoga while Nabiki struggled on with Akane, the group rounded the corner that they had been covered by and stepped out to the front of the building, finally catching a look at the entrance, and indeed the road that led to and from it.

“You can see where the waste begins again” Ranma observed, nodding down the almost deserted road towards where the green ended.

“It’s a circle” Gos supplied, calling on more knowledge he had picked up along the way, “the area the Matriarch protected when the big fight happened” he continued, not choosing to speculate then about who those combatants might have been, that was a matter for another time.

“There’s a town over there” Ukyo insisted, nodding towards where some smoke plumes rose in the distance, presumably closer to the waste’s edge.

“Metryll” Nabiki supplied, remembering it from their maps, “Mostly serves the people coming to the Tabernacle” she added, imagining along with the others a place that would therefore probably cater very nicely to travellers before she again remembered that there were rewards out for some of them in a city none too far from here.

“Ryoga and Akane first” Ranma replied, cutting through those thoughts, “then we’ll worry about tomorrow” he insisted, perhaps proving he hadn’t changed all that much.