From: Eric Hallstrom <hallcon@mindspring.com>
Subject: [Ranma][FanFic] Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, Prologue
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.1 (Oct. 27, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
[BGM :
http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/mp3/Farewells.mp3]
Begin at the beginning, continue through the end, then stop.
[Images shift and flow on a darkened field. Nabiki
wears a leather jacket and fedora, there is a
small automatic pistol tucked into her waistband
as she stares keenly into the distance. A small
scar cuts across her lower jaw as she rotates
before a field of emerald green, dissolving into
mist that fades away ....]
Everyone knows _that_.
[Kasumi wears archaic full-plate armor of an alien
and slightly disturbing mode. It is lacquered
black with purple highlights, set off well by the
deep purple background. She carries a long, curved
sword in her left hand, resting its tip on the
ground as she gestures with her right. In the
shadows of the open-faced helm, her face is weary,
and perhaps a little afraid. She turns to the side
as the mist closes in and dissolves ....]
That's because the beginning is where things ... begin, and
the end is where things, er, end. So to speak. The beginning
happens first and the end follows in due time. The past
becomes the future, through the medium of the present.
[Gally, of Gunmm, turns around before a blue
background, dressed in an incongruous chef's
outfit ....]
Right?
[Kodachi, dressed in an expensive business suit,
leans forward at a desk, looking down with an
alert, focused expression at a large scroll,
covered with Chinese characters ....]
I mean, it's obvious. The Arrow of Time, cause and effect
... things like that. Causality, is what I mean here. The
idea that the past _causes_ the present, and the present
_causes_ the future. And if you tell the part of the story
where things happen before you tell the part where you
explain _why_ they happen that way, people get ...confused.
Everybody agrees that's the way it goes.
[A short girl dressed in jeans, boots and a long
leather duster stands facing directly away from
the viewer. Her face cannot be seen, because it is
pressed firmly into the neck of a very serious
looking Ryouga, who is dressed in his normal
outfit and backpack and is hugging her around the
shoulders as he looks directly out of the frame
....]
Sometimes, it even works out that way.
[Against a white background, Akane turns to the
left to face the viewer. She is wearing a white
silk shirt, a black leather vest and black velvet
pants. And mirror-shades. She is carrying an
enormous spiked mace horizontally in her hands and
her features are split in a grin that can only be
described as manic. Her long black hair streams
behind her as she continues turning, and the last
thing that can be seen as the mist closes in are
the silver butterfly hair clips halfway down the
long dark mane ....]
Sometimes, it doesn't.
[Onna-Ranma turns to the right toward the viewer
before a background that is totally black. She is
wearing armor of leather and metal, without a
helmet, and apparently from a number of periods
and styles. It's difficult to say precisely,
because many of the details are blotted out by the
blood which has splashed every part and surface.
As she turns she holds a long, straight sword
crossways across her body, extending out to her
left with both hands on the hilt. As she completes
her turn and faces the viewer head on, it can be
seen that blood is splashed wetly up her left
cheek, but her face is serene and calm. She stands
face on to the viewer for a brief moment, and then
brings the sword around in a horizontal cut across
the field of view, leaving a line of blood red in
its path. She then brings the sword over her head
into a two-handed posture, and brings it down,
leaving another blood red line ....]
Because that's only one way to look at it. And so often, in
this world, what _is_ depends on ... well ... what you're
looking at.
[The color spreads out from the two lines to cover
the whole field of view, then slowly begins
dripping down the screen, leaving an unrelieved
black behind it. As the red tide retreats, it
leaves behind it one shape that retains it carmine
hue: a rearing horse in silhouette ....]
For instance, if you look at things in the right manner,
it's obvious that the future _must_ have existed first. That
is, before there was _anything_ , there had to have been the
potential for things. The future, in other words.
[The roan stallion shifts from rearing to a trot,
chased off the black field by a swirling gust of
barely visible white wind from the left. As it
leaves the dark background it gains definition,
now looking like a real horse as it runs through
verdant fields of high grass, startling gold and
black butterflies, and chased by the wind ....]
Then, the first moment happened, and that was the first time
that there ever was a _present_.
[As the horse trots on, it passes by an immense
mountain in the background. Real and present, yet
seeming as though created in the style of Chinese
landscape portraiture ....]
And then the first moment was over. In, so to speak, the
past. And the second moment was in the present ... and so
on.
[Zooming in on the mountain, it can be seen to be
clothed in forest on its foot-hills, but bare from
two-thirds up until the very top, which is barren
rock ....]
So the future _causes_ the present, and drags the past along
behind.
[Growing from the barren rock at the top of the
mountain, its roots winding down the mountain's
face, to disappear into forested valleys, is an
enormous ash tree ....]
Right?
[Pulling back from the mountain, the roan horse
can be seen running down a hill, towards a small
stream. As he leaps across the stream, the wind
blows a shroud of fog across the whole scene ....]
Don't think about it too hard, it's Zen, and you'll get a
headache.
[As the horse canters out of the mist he passes a
cherry tree, gnarled and twisted by age and winds,
but in full bloom. As the horse shifts into a
gallop, the view locks on the tree, allowing the
horse to gallop off scene, stage right. As the
wind chases the horse off stage, it passes the
tree, and the view is again blotted out, not by
fog, but by floating cherry blossoms ....]
Sometimes, the past _pushes_. And sometimes, the future
_pulls_.
[Traversing away from the flying blossoms, the
view pans down to a clear pool of water, dark and
still. Looking down into it as the background
light dims, reflections of the moon and stars can
be dimly seen for a moment. Then they are obscured
by falling cherry blossoms, which quickly fill the
pool from edge to edge ....]
But the place where we _live_ is the present. The _now_
between the past and the future, between the beginning and
the end, that is all we ever really get.
[Again the white-tinged wind swirls, blowing the
sakura away. The viewpoint sinks into the depths,
until a single bright point of light, shining from
the depths of the pool as the ripples fade, is the
only thing to be seen ....]
Once, there was a person who wanted to be a Hero. And have
Adventures, and find True Love, and Make a Difference, and
other nice things like that.
[The single light expands, forming a perfect
circle, hanging in mid-air. A curving line snakes
across the center of the circle, forming a yin-
yang symbol. Where the central line intersects the
edges of the circle small circular icons form. On
the left Akane's face flashes briefly; on the
right, Ranma's. Then they vanish and the circle
glows brighter for a moment, expanding about
thirty percent in size, as the central line
mutates into a triangle, point upwards ....]
And a Hero's job, of course, is to _act_. To make decisions
and take actions in the Now. And to pay the price that the
Now demands.
[New icons form at the intersections of triangle
and circle. From the top and clockwise these are
block capital letters: a Tau, a Mu and an Alpha.
These mutate into hourglasses: The first with all
the sand in the top, the second with the sand
half-fallen, and the third with the sand all
below. These again vanish, and the circle glows
and expands again, as the triangle changes into a
pentagon, point again upwards ....]
Is it "be careful of getting what you wish for", or "be
careful of wishing for what you get"?
[New icons form, as before: the Chinese ideographs
chun(2), huo(1), chen(2), shui(2), and jin(1);
followed by the kanji for kokuuzou, hi, chi, mizu
and kaze; followed by the Western astrological
symbols for the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and
Venus. These hold a moment and vanish, as the
circle glows and expands again, and the pentagon
becomes an octagon, again on its points ....]
But when your past pushes, and your future pulls, sometimes
your present can become a bit ... complex.
[This time the icons are: the Western symbols for
the planets except for Pluto, in order, with the
Moon taking Earth's place. Followed by the faces
of the Senshi, again except for Pluto. Followed by
more faces: Ranma, Akane, Ukyou, Shampoo, Kasumi,
Nabiki, Kodachi, and Sayuri. Followed by more
faces yet: Gally, OVA Ifurita, Iczer 2, Iczer 1,
Ryouko, Belldandi, Urd and Skuld ....]
And thereby hangs a tale.
[The faces halt for a moment in time, as all the
previous final symbols and lines glow for a brief
moment. Then they change one final time, into
Chinese ideographs. The other lines and figures
vanish, leaving only the ideographs glowing
against the blackness, slowly moving across the
scene to fall into place in a single line. From
left to right: chi(4), ma(3), bai(2), feng(1),
tian(1), shan(1), sheng(4) and shu(4). These are
then replaced by a Romanji title, like so:
Chima Baifeng Tianshan Chun
The viewpoint pulls back, and it can be seen that
this is a reflection in the pool previously seen.
The whitish wind swirls again, driving more Sakura
petals to cover the pool and obscure the glowing
writing. The petals drift for a moment and then
the wind swirls again, shifting their arrangement
and bringing new petals of a deeper, more reddish
hue. These land so as to form new Romanji by their
shapes. These letters say:
Book One
The wind swirls again, again rearranging the
fallen petals. Now they read:
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
The wind swirls one last time, blowing away the
petals, and leaving the pool serene and still, and
entirely dark.]
[Fade to black. End BGM.]
------------------------------------------------------------
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
Rain. Postcard. Kitchen. Bed. Dojo. Bricks. "FIANCE'?!"
Girl. Panda. Fight. CLONG! GROWF! Knock. Ranma.
Seen it before, yes? In your sleep, behind your back, with
your eyes closed, in the rain, right?
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
This story doesn't start like that.
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
_This_ story starts in darkness, late on a warm summer night
without an artificial light for miles. _This_ story starts
in a forest clearing lit by several billion stars and the
thin sliver of a gibbous moon.
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
_This_ story starts with a male figure stripped to the
waist, using a bamboo handled shovel to (*Shnnnck*) loosen
and turn earth that will be (*ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*,
*ssshhpt*) removed and tossed to the side.
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
Figure about a half cubic foot of earth loosened and dug up
per sequence.
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
Figure a hole six feet long, by three feet wide, by five
feet deep.
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
Times eight.
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
For those who have not been following along on their abaci,
that's 1440 *shnnnck*s and 4320 *ssshhpt*s.
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
In just less than eight hours. Including wrapping the
bodies, and filling in the graves.
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
For what were, self-admittedly, bandits and highwaymen.
Desperate criminals who, caught by the authorities, would
assuredly have been hung, and the bodies left to rot.
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
For men who, knowing this, and knowing the digger for a
ronin, and hence both dangerous and broke, had nonetheless
attempted to rob him. For men without honor or martial
skill, who had fallen like weeds before the scythe. For
outlaws who, had they somehow triumphed, would have spent
not an iota of such effort for the traveler.
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
Because honor and respect are paid _by_ the digger, and not
_to_ the dug for? Because even scum and bandits are human,
and are owed some kind of marker?
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
Because the duty owed by a slayer to his own soul demands a
remembrance of the slain, lest they die twice? Or simply
because it was necessary that the service be performed and
no one else is around to do it?
*Shnnnck*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*, *ssshhpt*.
The digger jumps out of the last grave, places the final
body in its final resting place and says a final abbreviated
prayer. Filling the grave takes little time, building the
cairn of stones to mark the burial takes a little longer,
preparing to move again longer still.
And then the figure pauses, and looks down the road by the
forest clearing, and looks behind at the road already
traveled, and looks up to a sky just beginning to lighten in
the east, and becomes briefly still.
It had been less than three days between incidents. Both
faces were becoming targets of local toughs and fast swords.
He had been forced to kill more than 45 times in the past
month.
Or had he? His skill was great after all. He was fast and
strong and capable of techniques that your average thug, or
even ronin, wouldn't dare dream of attempting. Had it simply
become easier to kill than not to? And what did that say of
*his* soul, in the end?
Perhaps it was time to try somewhere else? After all there
_was_ less than a year to go. It really was time to get back
where he belonged. Time to go somewhere you could defeat
someone _without_ killing them.
Time to go back to what was, theoretically, home.
And the traveler reached into his shirt, and pulled out an
amulet of silver, and clay, and glass, and raised it high.
And the rising sun shone down on a clearing in a forest by a
road, on which was now to be seen no traveler, nor
footprints, nor anything else at all.
------------------------------------------------------------
And this is a bar in China where a man is sitting by himself
in a corner, getting stinking drunk. 'Oh Buddha, I'm doomed.
How did I let this happen? Nodoka's going to _kill_ me.
Where _did_ that ungrateful boy get to? Why did I have to
try that _stupid_ training technique? Susano-o protect me,
Nodoka's going to _kill_ me. Who knows what silliness he'll
have picked up without me? I'll never have enough time to
train him out of his bad habits now! Compassionate Amida,
Nodoka's going to _kill_ me.'
'Now now, Genma, get a hold of yourself; you trained him for
seven years and he's surely a man-among-men, and hardship
toughens you up, and he's certainly alive even if you can't
find hide nor hair of him, and he promised on his honor, and
he never breaks a promise, and you'll get to Jhusenkyou
first and get a good look at the ground so you'll have an
advantage in the fight, and he won't be as good as you
anyway cause he didn't have you to keep an eye on him, and
you'll have _weeks_ to fix his bad habits, and... Oh
Ameratasu aid me, Nodoka's going to _kill_ me.'
------------------------------------------------------------
And this is Fukuoka, a port city on Kyushu where a person
who is apparently a somewhat bishonen lad packing a _huge_
spatula is bargaining for a boat ride to China. She'd
tracked Genma to China at last and this time her family's
honor _would_ be cleared, one way or another.
And this is a small village in Qing-Hai where the local
champion is preparing to defend her title. And wondering
where a warrior husband strong enough for her to marry was
going to come from anyway.
------------------------------------------------------------
And this is a bedroom in a dojo in a suburb of Tokyo, where
a certain girl is preparing for bed; after all, there's
school in the morning. School. And boys. Yay.
She'd tried, she really had. She'd tried to find one she
could stand to date. She'd tried to get the usual pack of
fools to _stop_ their foolishness, peacefully and otherwise.
It just hadn't worked.
'Every school day, _every_ school day. For more than a year.
I'm a Junior now, I'm supposed to be past hazing aren't I?
They're supposed to be at least a little mature aren't they?
Or at least tired of getting beaten up all the time?'
Every day, for more than a year. And she hadn't lost, and
she hadn't given up... but neither had they. And she was
tired, so tired.
And Tendo Akane went to bed, hoping for something to break
her out of a losing rut. And went to sleep, although she
didn't want to. After all, there was school in the morning.
------------------------------------------------------------
And this is a small apartment, likewise in Nerima. And in it
a man last seen in a forest clearing is performing a slow
kata. A very old kata, were anyone else in Japan today
capable of recognizing it. A kata not of attack, or evasion,
or defense ... but rather of remembrance. Of a Bargain that
was made, and a Prize that could be gained, and a Price that
must be paid. A very old bargain, that has something to do
with Iron.
And he too is hoping, and waiting for the morning. He hadn't
had to kill anyone yet, but in every other way the last
several months had been a disaster. Oh well, perhaps he
simply wasn't _meant_ for romance? After all, father had
probably provided for a marriage long ago, and while he
didn't like it, he had accepted it for the sake of family
honor. Actually falling in love with someone was probably
tempting fate.
Which brought up an issue, actually; what face was he going
to wear? Flip a coin? Tails. Female. So be it. 'Now get to
bed Ranma, you've got school in the morning.'
------------------------------------------------------------
Shadow Lurker Productions
Is very proud to present
An Eric Hallstrom Production
Of a Takahashi Rumiko Film
Chima Baifeng Tianshan Chun
Book I
Ranma and Akane, A Love Story
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Chapter 1: The first day
Part A: Arrival; Here's Ranma.
'Til next chapter,
Eric Hallstrom, 10/27/99
--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hallcon@mindspring.com
kawaii@kawaiikunee.com
From: Eric Hallstrom <hallcon@mindspring.com>
Subject: [Ranma][FanFic] Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, Chapter One
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.1 (Oct. 27, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
Shadow Lurker Productions
Is very proud to present
An Eric Hallstrom Production
Of a Takahashi Rumiko Film
Chima Baifeng Tianshan Chun
Book I
Ranma and Akane, A Love Story
------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1: The first day
Part A: Arrival; Here's Ranma.
------------------------------------------------------------
This is the story of a boy who was a girl, and a girl, and a
boy, and a girl, and a boy, and a girl, and a girl who acts
like a boy, and a boy who acts like a girl, and a woman, and
a man, and another couple girls, and a cast of thousands.
And a Panda, though not until much later. And butterflies,
lots and lots of butterflies.
It's the story of a school, and another school, and another
school; of a city and a village and all the roads in
between. It's a story of desperate battle and deadly
opponents, and when, later, it attempts to be a story of
monsters and villains who attack these schools and so on, it
will instead become the story of monsters and villains who
turn around and run away -- at least, those of them who get
the chance.
It will have true love, and desperate peril, and romantic
intervals and high adventure and more martial arts action
sequences than you can shake a bokken at. And just a touch
of citrus, for flavor. But before it will be those stories,
it will be the story of a Fight.
------------------------------------------------------------
Some schools are known for academics and some are known for
sports. Furinkan High, in the Nerima ward of Tokyo, was
known for the Fight.
Every school day for more than a year, the boys of the
student body had either lain in wait to "win the right to
date the fair and beauteous tiger Tendo Akane" (i.e. beat
her up) or, if they had done that recently, had attempted to
heal up for the Fight tomorrow.
The girls all thought the whole thing was a ploy by Akane to
keep the attention of the entire male student populace and
had no sympathy for either side. The populace of the
neighborhood thought it was High Theater (not much else
happened in Nerima). Tendo Nabiki thought it had gone much
too far, but could think of no viable way to stop something
that no longer had a real reason except tradition. And Tendo
Akane vanquished her opponents, and ignored the whispers,
and grew ever grimmer as the days went by.
And today will be no different, after all it never is at
Furinkan. All the normal players are in place: here is the
assembled might of Furinkan's male student body, prepared to
do battle in heroic silliness for a prize they no longer
remember; here are the observers waiting for a sight they've
seen before, and grown bored of; and here is Akane herself
grimly preparing to fight for a point of honor she can no
longer care about; all just as it was yesterday and the day
before. And now Akane has broken into a run at her
tormentors, and now the battle is about to be joined. But
now, now something ... different ... has happened.
Now a voice has called out, not even very loudly. A smokey
contralto with a slight edge of roughness, and power enough
to crack the world. A voice that merely by its presence has
controlled the situation. A voice that belongs to a
shortish, athletic girl standing in the gateway to the
school.
She wears loose black velvet pants, three-inch black leather
moccasins, a loose blue silk shirt and a brown leather
airman's jacket. Her flaming scarlet hair flows down her
back in a pigtail tied with an ivory ring in which gems
gleam brightly in the sun. Her neck is wrapped by a flowing
white silk scarf, her hands are in her jacket pockets, her
head is slightly tilted to one side and she has just said
"Would someone like to tell me what the _Hell_ they think
they're doing?"
And nothing will ever be the same again.
------------------------------------------------------------
Takuichi Daikun was not a happy kendoist. He had striven and
won in honorable combat for the privilege of leading today's
charge so that the entire school could see his honorable
struggle with the fair Tendo Akane. (He's the first to get
beaten up today.) It was a great honor to be first, and he
had looked forward to it. But now his moment in the sun had
been _ruined_, upstaged by some ... barbarian _girl_ ... and
his honor had been shadowed. And so it was that he did a
_very_ foolish thing: he got her attention.
"This is an affair of Honor _girl_, who are you to..."
Somehow she had moved across the dozen yards separating them
without his seeing it. Up close he noted that her eyes were
an incredible blue as deep as all the worlds' oceans, that
several slight lines of old scars crossed the sides of her
face, that her gaze was literally _impossible_ to look away
from, and that she had just tapped him on the nose.
"My _name_ is Ranma. I asked you a question."
From far away he heard his voice stammering some sort of
explanation for the morning's action. Now that he thought
about it, it did seem sort of silly.
"Ah. I see. and what was your place in this ... 'honorable
combat'." An even, calm voice, nigh unto serenity.
"I have won the right to first contact today. It is a very
great honor." He hadn't really said that had he? He hadn't
meant to.
"Ah. Well I certainly wouldn't wish to deprive you of
your... 'honor'."
The hands that broke his shoulder blades and dislocated his
arms were certainly gentle he thought, though unstoppable in
their power. The snap kicks that flattened his testicles and
broke both of his lower legs skillfully applied and blinding
in their speed. The twin open hand push that flung him a
dozen yards backwards was so fast and yet so graceful as to
be beyond belief. And was that an energy discharge from the
point of contact? 'Why, it doesn't even hurt' he thought as
he flew backwards through the air. Until five feet before
hitting the wall, whereupon it hurt a _lot_. The loss of
consciousness that followed after hitting the wall was
probably a mercy.
Ranma turned to the remaining assembled male students and
bestowed upon them the calm, angelic smile of someone who is
wondering how far your arm can be pulled from its socket
before the flesh and ligaments separate, and whether beating
you to death with it will require one subsequent blow or
two.
Above, Nabiki stared down in shock. Well _that_ was
different.
"Now I was sitting in a tavern in a country far away a
couple months back," she remarked conversationally, "trying
to get something to eat. And the door opened and in walked
the nastiest trio of villains you ever did lay eyes on. They
were dragging along a youngish girl who really didn't seem
to want to be there, (what with the torn clothing and the
bruises and all) and in ... speaking ... to them it
developed that yeah they had kidnapped her, and yeah they
had done what you think they'd done, and oh yeah just cause
they could, cause no-one could stop em."
She shook her head in dismay. "So I ripped the big one's
heart out, and broke the second's neck and used a chair to
crush the skull of the one who was running away. Because it
was the right thing to do."
Nabiki registered further shock. Well, that _was_ different.
"Now I'm not saying that this case is exactly similar, mind
you, but you do know how badly you've been insulting the
other girls in the school, right?"
Students.Furinkan.male.assembled quivered in terror and
huddled together.
"And while I _myself_ am the most gentle and reasonable of
people, I understand that _other_ people aren't and if
_they_," she waved her hand at the watchers above, "should
decide to hold a _grudge_, well .... Things could become ...
dire."
The word "dire" seemed to resonate with especial doom.
"Continued for a whole _year_? Why I doubt if _any_ amount
of flowers would help. You'd have to escalate straight to
chocolate or even jewelry even to get a chance to plead your
case."
Ranma shook her head sadly at the fate that no doubt awaited
them. "And you still standing there."
Students.Furinkan.male.assembled blanched further and
scrambled en masse for the door to the fire within that
seemed nonetheless much to be preferred to the merciless
gaze without, only to be recalled to heel.
"Oh and by the way gentlemen... if it _should_ happen that
intense currying of favor _does_ grant you the
no-doubt-undeserved opportunity to plead for your miserable
lives... my advice to you would be to grovel, and to grovel
quite abjectly."
Nabiki wondered if you could overload on shock. That had
been _different_. And then looked about her, and heard the
all but audible grinding of the gears in the heads of the
other female onlookers, and saw the slowly growing grins,
and then sprinted for the door. A phone, she had to get to a
phone.
Ranma crossed her arms in front of her chest and shook her
head sadly at the mass of boyish silliness frantically
cramming itself through Furinkan's front doors, and turned
to Akane, who was still standing where she had been about to
knock Daikun into next week and whose mouth was still open
in shock.
"Aheh," she sheepishly tugged on her braid, "sorry about
that. Sometimes I get carried away."
Akane shook herself and closed her mouth. "No, not at all.
You were _wonderful_! I'm Tendo Akane, wanna be friends?"
"Sure!" Ranma's eyes lit. Akane was staggered again by their
power. "If you've been going through that every day for a
_year_ you _need_ a friend and it's always nice to make one
the first day. I'm Bushiko Ranma." She extended her hand,
pinky outstretched and Akane linked hers likewise.
Talking quietly they walked in the door and up the stairs.
"Tendo Akane, huh? 'Scarlet Road to Heaven', how lovely."
Akane felt her cheeks heat. "Um, thanks! Um, Bushiko?"
"It's a nom de guerre," Ranma explained sunnily, "long
story, I'll tell you later."
"The heck with _that_ story; _how_ did you do that _push_?
That was _great_!"
"You think so? It's not that hard: you just..."
And walked happily to class, and smiled merrily upon the
cringing boys therein, and did _not_ gloat. At least, not on
the outside.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Chapter 1: The First Day
Part B: Encampment; Kuno Strikes Out.
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
*Summer Lightning* is copyrighted by Garnet Rogers. The mang-
ling it has been subjected to is my fault. If you haven't
encountered him before go out and buy his CDs, he sings
lots better than I write.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.1 (Oct. 27, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma & Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 1: The First Day
Part B: Encampment; Kuno Strikes Out.
------------------------------------------------------------
It was odd, Akane reflected; she had never met a person to
whom she had so instantly taken. Ranma was almost paralyzing
in the sheer force of her presence, and yet that presence
seemed to drive everyone around her to exceed themselves.
The morning had been ... interesting. She had devoted much
of it to the (admittedly somewhat arcane) study of the
Japanese Red-headed Martial Artist. Nor was this an
unpopular area of scholarly effort that day.
Ranma was, on the whole, a mystery wrapped around an enigma,
bundled in a wrapping of urbanely refined nastiness. She had
cheerfully admitted to having "A Gentleman's education: art,
tactics and poetry," and her performance had seemed to bear
her out.
She was barely adequate in math, for example, and had no
concept of Algebra; yet her grasp of Japanese history was
excellent, punctuated by many anecdotes and asides. Her
English was much better than anyone else in class, including
the teacher, and she could quote a wide range of poetry and
poesy from memory, yet she seemed to have a very eccentric
(to say the least) view of the physical sciences and her
approach to the social sciences verged on outright anarchy.
Class 2-F was scheduled to take up physical education and
music after lunch: Akane was looking forward to seeing Ranma
in action in Phys-ed, and, considering her incredible voice,
in Music too.
But both of these would wait until after lunch and Akane was
looking forward to that as well. Lunch would, after all,
allow her to question Ranma more closely about several
matters: murder, for one, and what she meant by 'nom de
guerre', and what her history had been; many such questions
were bubbling in her head, looking for answers.
Fortunately for Akane's fragile patience, lunch was not long
delayed. The temporarily released students scattered over
the Furinkan grounds, Ranma and Akane claiming a shaded spot
next to the Furinkan wall. No one seemed inclined to join
them, which was just as well, Akane felt, as it afforded
privacy.
"Okay," Akane said brightly, "tell me about Bushiko, and why
it's a nom de guerre. And what you're doing under a nom de
guerre anyway."
"Well... Um. Basically it started when I was five or so.
That was when my Dad decided that I wouldn't get adequate
training in the Art at home, so he took me on a permanent
training trip."
"We traveled a lot," Ranma continued, "and didn't settle in
one place for more than four months or so for the next six
years. Then Dad found this _stupid_ Martial Arts training
manual that was supposed to show how to train for an
'invincible technique'."
"Feh," Ranma brooded for a minute, then resumed. "Anyway,
_after_ the training he discovered that the reason nobody
uses that technique is that, _even if it works_, it makes
you psychotic."
Akane gasped, and Ranma nodded.
"After that, Dad tried to keep 'training' me, but I nearly
killed him three times in the next week. I knew it wasn't
going to get any better either, so I beat him up instead,
and then left him behind. I told him that he'd trained me
for six years and now I was going to go away and train
myself for six years, and at the end of that time I'd fight
him for mastery of the school. If he beat me I'd stay in
training under him for as long as he wanted, but if I beat
him he'd go back to work to raise money until the school got
back on its feet, and then retire."
"That was more than five years ago," Ranma continued, "and
I've got about six months to go."
Akane leaned closer concernedly. "How terrible! It must have
been very hard on you!"
"Less so than you'd think," Ranma replied. "I admit it
wasn't easy, but I'd been doing most of the domestic stuff
anyway: Dad's hopeless at anything that means he'd have to
work. So, the only real problem was fixing the damage he'd
done. It took six months, but I found a temple on Honshu and
locked the technique away and the craziness with it."
"But you're fine now?" Akane said, still concerned.
"Mostly, though I'm still afraid of cats."
"Cats? Why cats?"
"Because ..."
Alas for the state of Akane's curiosity, the conversation
was to be interrupted. And by none other than the usual
suspect for interruptions at Furinkan, that paragon of
honor, that champion of sport, that noble traveler in
hakama, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, Kuno Tatewaki.
------------------------------------------------------------
Tatewaki himself was experiencing a state of mind that was
highly unusual to him: doubt. He had been angered (once he
had taken a moment to consider it) by the fire-haired
barbarian's accusation that any action he had ever
undertaken was less than perfectly honorable, much less...
that word. It couldn't be... that word... could it?
After all he had always allowed his Beauteous Tiger to win,
had he not? (He knew, of course, that no girl, Beauteous
Tiger or no, could resist his masculine might.) So he had
allowed her to work through her shyness, trusting in the day
when she would see the purity of his affections, cast off
her maidenlike reluctance, and allow him to date her.
Now, however, the purity of his motives had been called into
question. Looked at in a certain light it could almost be
said that his honor had been sullied. If he did not redress
the situation, and soon, his fair flower might well
(horrors) _believe_ the libelous, malicious _lies_ proposed
by that... that...
Well, of course, it was not fair to expect too much from the
flame-haired Amazon. She was obviously some variety of
barbarian and new to Furinkan besides: she couldn't be
_expected_ to see the true nobility of his motives.
But that at least was easily remedied. If he simply
displayed the excellence of his martial skills by defeating
her, she would quickly come to understand the rightness of
his cause. No doubt her savage heart would be won over to
its rightful place as well, and then, well, the
possibilities were unbounded. He might even end up with
_two_ maidens to be beaten up by.
------------------------------------------------------------
At this time the narrator of this story would like to
interject an explanation for the lack of thought quotes in
the preceding passages. The reason can be stated simply:
both the Author and the Narrator posses the greatest of
respect for the noble scion of Kuno, and would never dream
of accusing him of thought.
------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately for Tatewaki, however, more than one worry
wrinkled his noble brow as he stood before his locker some
five minutes before Ranma and Akane's conversation was
interrupted. The other worry was simply stated: should he
take along his sword?
There were arguments for and against, of course. Against
such an action must stand the fact that the red-headed
barbarian had not, till now, deserved of him such a drastic
response; likewise that bared steel was after all both
excessive and inappropriate for instruction or for courting
a shy maiden's hand. On the 'for' scale, alternately, lay
the undeniable fact that she had boasted of recently killing
no fewer than three opponents. Gross and disgusting men, no
doubt, lacking in honor and skill, and certainly deserving
of their fates, but....
Fortunately, the noble Kuno mind was more than equal to the
challenge even of so momentous a decision, quickly supplying
an answer both sagacious and honorable: he would take the
sword (in case of need), but keep it concealed (to avoid
unnecessary maidenly fright).
And so it was that the noble and glorious Kuno Tatewaki,
fortified with blade and bokken, and prepared for every
contingency, stood near his beloved and her companion some
five minutes later. Prepared to issue a challenge both
martial and kindly, such as to make clear not only the
rightness of his cause, but also his essential magnificence.
In what should come as no real surprise to anyone who has
read this far, he got it wrong.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma looked up at the annoying fool who was attempting to
overawe her and then tilted her head at Akane, "And this is
who?"
"I, fair maiden, am Kuno Tatewaki, the Blue Thunder of
Furinkan High. You may address me as 'upperclassman Kuno'
when you ask my pardon for your deplorable sin. For, by my
sword's honor the worth of the Blue Thunder is as great as
his wrath, nor ever has he stooped to other than honorable
action, nor..."
"Lad ... _Lad_," Ranma interrupted, "before you go
challenging me to a sword fight, it _might_ be a good idea
to find yourself a sword."
"A sword I possess," Tatewaki replied frostily, "its name is
Asatsuyu ('Morning Dew') and its lineage is ..."
"Ah," Ranma deadpanned, rising smoothly to her feet, "mine
is named Tenchuu no yasashigena ('The Gentle Kiss of
Heaven', 'Heaven's Kiss'). Akane, will you call the dance?"
"But of course, Ranma," Akane replied. She, too, rose to her
feet and took position just outside of a virtual twenty-foot
circle that seemed to have magically appeared around the two
sword bearers. "_Assume_!"
Tatewaki slowly drew his Katana and assumed chudan, reaching
as his training indicated for the dominance, the mental
struggle that begins a match. "I am Kuno Tatewaki, of the
Spinning Shears School of Kendo, champion of Furinkan High."
His voice attempted firmness, yet his thoughts were in
turmoil, 'I did not wish a duel with _steel_, something is
wrong, her eyes, they are so ... blue ...'.
Ranma pulled a sheathed blade of the tachi pattern from
beneath her jacket and held it loosely at her side. "I am
Bushiko Ranma, who may claim no school," her voice was again
pleasant and conversational, "a humble pilgrim on the road."
In contrast to the shaken kendoist her thoughts revolved
around one theme only: 'Remember, _don't kill him_;' and her
calm, passionless regard was a stone on which Tatewaki's
concentration splashed like sea wrack before a storm.
Some seven seconds a stillness passed between the two, while
Akane held her hand on high. And then she let it fall,
"Kumite!"
And then the storm began.
Ranma seemed to blur to most watching eyes, yet to Tatewaki
she was clear as day, though he himself seemed mired in mud.
She crossed the twenty feet between them in a single gliding
step while her sword came to hasso-no-kame just above her
shoulder and its sheath spun about fifteen feet up in the
air like a black-lacquered frisbee. Then she was past him,
and his katana belled as she struck through his defense and
he gasped in surprise as his racing perceptions _saw_ the
point turn aside from his heart and tear through about two
inches of flesh on his upper arm.
He turned half about with the force of the blow and felt the
beginnings of pain before she spun in a perfect hi-low
slash, both of which evaded his fumbling blade to spray
blood from two slashes over his cheeks, and to cut through
his hakama to score both thighs. She took another step
forward and began a pattern of lightning fast light blows,
none of which even came close to being blocked, and all of
which drew blood.
Tatewaki was driven, stumbling, back until he was almost
against the outer wall of the schoolyard. Briefly, he
rallied enough to return his sword to something
approximating a guard position, before Ranma blurred even to
his racing perceptions, seeming to appear on both sides of
him at once. Pain exploded through his body as more than 50
minor cuts struck all over his torso, arms and legs at once.
Then, as he stumbled back, Ranma set herself and snapped
forward once more.
The first strike cut across the top of both hands, knocking
the sword from his grip in a gleaming mid-air circle. The
second, reversed, strike snapped the flying blade in half
before his eyes, driving him all the way back to the wall.
The final, two handed, decapitation strike blazed in
unstoppably, flickering blurrily to kiss the skin on his
neck ... and then _stop_, motionless.
Trembling, Tatewaki looked up into emotionless blue eyes and
the passionless, restrained violence of a tornado. And
suddenly, in what may have been the only genuinely inspired
moment of his life to that point, received a vision. A
vision of Ranma, clad in armor, and wielding the sword
pressed against his throat, slaughtering her way through
what seemed to him to be an entire army. A vision that
showed him, in no uncertain terms, the difference between
fencing on the Dojo floor, and life and death by the sword.
Of the difference between a person who could swing a sword,
and one who could kill with it; and, more importantly, in
this moment choose _not_ to kill with it.
And for the first time in his life, Kuno Tatewaki looked his
own Art in the face, and was ashamed. And buried his head in
his hands, pushing down the blade at his neck, and wept.
And Ranma lowered her blade and said "Aye, now. You've
learned that lesson. And you'll have scars to remind you of
it, as scars tend to do."
And she quirked a smile, highlighting the scars prominent
around her own mouth. And Tatewaki, looking up, essayed a
tentative smile of his own.
She walked over to her scabbard, picked it up, and put
Tenchuu away. Then she picked up the two halves of
Tatewaki's katana, and returning to stand in front of him,
held them out to him to take.
"It's said that the soul of a samurai is his sword, Kuno
Tatewaki. Yours would appear to be broken. Perhaps, before
you call yourself a samurai again, you should spend some
time mending it."
And then she returned to her seat by the wall, and Akane sat
by her. And Kuno Tatewaki turned away, holding the remnants
of his blade, and stumbled off to the infirmary, to patch
his wounds.
------------------------------------------------------------
"It is my firm conviction," Ranma said, "that it is a
gentleman's highest duty to smoke out silliness like that,
and step on it."
"But, Ranma, you're not a gentleman."
"And why not?"
"Because, use the masculine forms how you may, it's obvious
you're _not_ a boy."
"Feh," Ranma waved a dismissing hand, "Details. Mere
details."
Akane leaned close, "Ranma, you've _got_ to teach me how to
do some of that."
"Er, but, don't you have a sensei already?" Ranma nervously
asked.
"Only my Dad, and he hasn't trained me seriously in years."
"Er ... *sigh*, OK, we'll go to your place later and see
what you need to work on."
And they shook hands on the deal as the bell rang to bring
lunch to a close. Which was perhaps unfortunate, as it meant
that the _other_ important question she had meant to ask
slipped her mind completely, until much later.
------------------------------------------------------------
Physical Education, for Ranma, at least, was curtailed due
to the sensei's conviction that, before a place in the class
structure might be assigned to her, her overall level of
accomplishment must be measured. Since the limited resources
of the main gym proved incapable even of causing Ranma
sufficient exertion to change into gym uniform, much less
break a sweat, the sensei excused her of further toil that
day. Then the sensei excused _herself_ to sulk, and to plot
further, more strenuous tests for the morrow.
In the last period of the day, Music for class 2-F brought
the usual sounds of tortured musical instruments resounding
through the room. Akane, Ranma grumbled, had not had an
opportunity to demonstrate her skill. Most of the other
students had, but unfortunately 'qualified' was a rare
description of ability indeed as far as they were concerned.
Then it was Ranma's turn, and she drew her guitar from the
same place she stowed her sword and ran through basic
scales, and chords, and parts of tunes to the music
teacher's instructions. She was, it was noted to few
people's surprise, easily better than anyone else in the
class, save perhaps for Akane.
As the end of the class drew close the teacher asked Ranma
if she was any good at song.
Ranma hefted her guitar and grinned, "What song would you
like."
"You pick," came the response.
Ranma grinned again, and poised her hand above the strings.
"Alright, here's a love song then."
And then Akane heard, for the first time, the song she
would, in later times, come to regard as the song closest to
her understanding of Ranma's true heart.
I was riding west, through Ontake Mountains.
The hills were heavy with new-fallen snow,
And the sun-bright hills were dappled like a pony,
I was riding hard, I had miles to go.
And a magpie flew, 'cross the mountain highway,
It flashed and tumbled, through the golden trees,
And I thought of you, and my heart was lifted,
And floated with that magpie, on the morning breeze.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end only love remains.
Tonight the Harvest Moon hangs over the valley,
I see the hills shine, in its silvery light.
It's the same old Moon, that shines down upon me,
And'll light my way, till I'm by your side.
For where I go, You go with me,
Though the miles keep us apart.
Your kisses on my lips, and your arms around me,
And your gentle hands, always on my heart.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end only love remains.
Well who scattered these diamonds,
Through the vault of Heaven?
Who drew the curve of the magpie's wing?
Who shaped your face, and what made you love me?
Where is the heart of every living thing?
Well, I guess I don't know, and I don't care either.
I know you love me, how could it not be?
And I am yours, now and forever,
'Till my lips fall silent, and my eyes can't see.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end Dear, only love remains.
And as Ranma finished the song and lowered her head, the
school day of Furinkan came to its end.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Chapter 1: The First Day
Part C: Circumvallation; Shopping for Street-gangs.
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
*Lock Keeper* is copyright by Stan Rogers (RIP). The mangling
it has been subjected to is my fault. If you haven't
encountered him before go out and buy his CDs, he sings
lots better than I write, and Stan's estate could use the
cash.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.1 (Oct. 27, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma & Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 1: The First Day
Part C: Circumvallation; Shopping for Street-gangs.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma lowered her head; and the song, and Furinkan's school
day, came to an end. Rising to her feet, she bowed to the
rest of the class, who bowed back. An unbiased observer
would have seen that several of them were suspiciously
misty-eyed, but, fortunately, unbiased observers were thin
on the ground at Furinkan that day. So this enormous breach
of etiquette went unnoticed.
Akane rose too, and behind her the rest of the class.
Flowing out of their classroom, at the very back end of
Furinkan's main building, and down the stairs, they noticed
that they were about to resolve a mystery that had been
plaguing some of them all day. First there would be a noise
as of someone shouting from afar. Then there would be a
rumble, as of many feet rumbling one way and then another.
Finally a distant murmur as of many voices, one to another,
in the manner of a school building when rumor has broken
from its pen, or news runs flashing through the halls.
Annoyingly, though, the disturbance had never approached
class 2-F closely enough for the inhabitants thereof to make
out what was happening. Nor had rumor spread, if rumor it
had been, to the class' distant door. Nor had any class
member obtained an explanation at lunch (unless, perhaps, it
might have been in distant, unobserved corners, under strict
and bloodthirsty oaths of secrecy).
So, to some of the class, the whole matter was still
mysterious, and Akane was frankly ignorant. What Ranma might
have thought of the matter she did not say, though, perhaps,
she may have guessed.
Thus, when, as they approached the front of Furinkan
building, the noises from outside became clearer, it was
Akane who pushed ahead. Ranma, instead, pulled a Samurai's
fan from her jacket sleeve, flipped it open, and, gently
fanning herself, walked forward to join Akane on the
Furinkan front steps, grinning.
As she reached the top of the steps, and looked out on the
yard, that grin became a full fledged chuckle. Spread out
around the Furinkan yard ("Roses, getcher bunch Roses
heaahh!") were a number of mobile vendors ("Caannndy,
Bon-Bons, onna stick!") selling, or rather, _outrageously
gouging_, the various implements of girlfriend pacification
("Joolry, getcher Joolry now-ow, best prices inna city,
Guv'na").
On the way down the steps she passed Nabiki, standing
slightly apart, grinning in glee and using a walkie-talkie
to direct ("Short-term loaanns, only thirty percent interest
over one month, just for you Guv'na, and I'm cuttin' me own
throat") the efforts of her minions. Reaching over as she
passed, she tapped Nabiki on the shoulder and said, "You're
welcome," and then followed Akane through the schoolyard to
the street, still fanning herself gently, and still
chuckling.
As they neared the gate, she drew level with Akane, who
glanced aside at the fan still waving gently in her hand.
"A little old fashioned, isn't that?" Akane asked.
"Oh no, It's entirely practical. Personal protection, you
know."
Another sideways glance. "It's a war fan? Razor edges and
such?"
"Oh no, not at all. The virtue of the warrior, after all,
exists in the warrior's soul. The weapon ..." passing next
to the gate-post she swung the fan through it, apparently
without effect, "is merely the expression of it." Behind
them, as she walked on still gently fanning, the gate-post
divided itself at chest height, fell to the ground, and
shattered into dust.
------------------------------------------------------------
Some blocks away, while passing through a park on the way to
the Akane's house, Ranma finally broke the companionable
silence they had fallen into.
"Would have been nice if some of that apologizing the guys
were doing back there had fallen on the primary offendee."
"Mmm. I don't know" Akane replied, "they might have been
worried that I'd get mad at them for trying."
"Would you have?"
"Don't know, depends on how they did it, I suppose. I think
I've been given more than enough insincere flowers over the
past year, anyway."
Ranma, was just then passing by a hedge of wild roses in the
park, which filled the air with a slightly bitter perfume.
Her fan flashed momentarily in the sun and sliced an eight
inch length of vine from the hedge, which she quickly wove
into a slightly prickly wreath.
"How about sincere flowers?" she mused, turning the roses
over in her hands, and offering them to Akane.
Akane paused and turned to face her, her eyes huge and dark
in her face. "Ranma-san?!?"
Ranma shrugged, and grinned lopsidedly, "I just don't think
that, when _all_ the girls are getting flowers, that any
_particular_ girl should be neglected. People might get to
thinking that she wasn't good enough to get flowers or
something. It _might_ even hurt her feelings. Avoiding hurt
feelings is one of the most important tasks a gentleman can
perform, after all. And I _am_ a gentleman."
"Of course you are" Akane smiled cutely at Ranma, "but I
can't wear flowers unless you wear them too."
"Then crowned with flowers we both shall be!" laughing,
Ranma bowed flamboyantly. Her fan flashed again, and,
crowned with flowers, as she had said, the two friends
walked on, towards Akane's home.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma looked at the sign hung on the building's outside
wall. "The Tendo Dojo, hmm? You hadn't said that your family
owned your own Dojo, Akane-san."
"Dad hasn't done much teaching the past several years,"
Akane replied absently as she entered the house, "Hello, I'm
home!"
Ranma followed her inside and clapped once as she toed off
her slippers. "Excuse me for disturbing you!" she called.
"Oh, my!" came a sweet voice from the kitchen, "We have a
guest!"
Hard on the heels of the voice came the speaker, a tall,
sweet-faced, girl, apparently a few years older than Akane.
Ranma bowed to her politely, and raised an eyebrow at Akane.
"Ranma-san, this is my older sister Kasumi," Akane said,
"Kasumi-oneechan, this is my new friend from school, Bushiko
Ranma."
"Welcome to our home, Bushiko-san," Kasumi chirped, "will
you be staying for dinner?"
"Oh, I couldn't impose, Tendo-san, I'm only here to see
about helping Akane-san to train in the Art."
"In that case I insist you have dinner with us," Kasumi said
firmly, "I couldn't have you training with Akane without
something to eat afterwards. I know how martial artists
are."
"Well, if you insist... I accept, and with thanks," Ranma
bowed again and waved grandly to Akane, "So let's see your
Dojo proper, hmm?"
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane happily led the way to the Dojo, pausing only to
change into her gi, not noticing Ranma's raised eyebrow.
"Here we are!"
Ranma bowed to the spirit of the Dojo and leaned against the
wall. "Alright, start out with your kata; I'll just watch,
for now."
Akane centered herself, took a cleansing breath, and began.
For five minutes, and then ten, she performed her kata to
the best of her ability, not noticing, as she continued,
Ranma's increasingly serious and concerned expression.
Finishing with the hardest and most complex kata she knew,
she returned to the outside world and noticed Ranma's
distracted expression. Quickly becoming depressed, she sank
into seiza and looked down at her hands, "Not good enough,
huh?", she said quietly.
Returning to herself with a start, Ranma considered
momentarily, then replied. "No, the problem is that you're
_too_ good."
She looked down at her hands and briefly chewed her lip, "I
mean to say, yeah, there's some things you could improve in,
like speed, and maybe you're a little clumsy yet, but... the
thing is, most of the stuff I know, that you don't is
serious power stuff, and that's not what you need right
now."
"What do you mean, Ranma-san?", Akane frowned.
Ranma looked down, briefly, then raised her head and
captured Akane's gaze with her own, blue eyes serious and
intense under flaming hair. "Look, Akane, there are two
types of martial artists, okay? There's warriors, like me,
and there's people with sticks like that Kuno lad I thwacked
earlier today.
"And the difference, the _important_ difference between them
is: warriors are in the business of killing people, and
people with sticks are not. The Art of a guy with a stick
... well, it might be about art, or philosophy, or it might
be a sport, or an exercise, or basically it might be a lot
of stuff, but _my_ Art, a warrior's Art, is about killing
people, or, sometimes, _not_ killing people."
"Ranma, I _know_ what...," Akane began.
"NO", Ranma held up a firm hand. "You haven't thought it
through! Take a day, take a month, Hell, take the rest of
your life if that's what you need; once you start down that
road you can't go back. You don't want to go unless you have
to."
Ranma stepped forward and put her hand on Akane's shoulder.
"I'm serious about this Akane-chan, take the time to _be
sure_. I wasn't, I didn't have a clue when I started, cause
my Dad's an idiot, and it _hurt_. It _always_ hurts,
Akane-chan, or else, if it doesn't, it means _you're_ dead
too", she moved her other hand to Akane's other shoulder,
"and I don't want my friend to be hurt like that unless
there's no other, better, choice."
Akane collapsed into Ranma's embrace and sobbed. "Y ... y
... d-do you think I should just ... not ... then?", she
mumbled into the other girl's shoulder.
Ranma stroked the back of her neck and *shhhed*, "No, Akane,
I don't know what your honor needs. I _do_ know that when
you _have_ the power you _have_ to worry about it, not using
power is a use, too."
Back to arms length, "Take this morning, that Takuichi kid,
he's in the hospital now; and you can say he deserved it,
and you can say it could have been worse, and you can say he
was stupid. But when it's totaled up, what it comes down to
is that I maimed him, maybe permanently, and I didn't have
to."
"Mind you", she continued, "six months ago I'd have killed
them all and laughed, but that was in a different place,
under different rules. _Here_, reacting that ... extremely
... was wrong."
"Do you think he _will_ be maimed?", Akane said, worriedly.
"I don't know Akane-chan, Japanese medicine is lots better
than I'm used to, and I've got some tricks of my own to use
if it gets bad, but ... I don't know. And it was a mistake,
and you know that at some point I'm going to have to pay for
it too. It's a weight, Akane-chan, that you can't ever put
down. Don't pick it up unless you've got no choice."
"Okay, Ranma-chan, I ... I'll think about it first," Akane
smiled, weakly.
"Thank you." Ranma hugged her briefly, hard, and then let
go. "And it's not all _that_ bad anyway, even if you decide
to stay sane. There's a lot we can do to help your Art on
general principles, and just polishing you up should make a
lot of difference. 'Kay?"
"Uh-huh," Akane sniffed, she smiled kawaiily, "Thanks. What
should we do first?"
Ranma shrugged, "Change your wardrobe."
"Huh!?"
"You're wearing a gi."
"Yeah ... so?"
"Earlier today, did you feel comfortable fighting in your
school uniform?"
"No-ooo, I mean I had to, er, _if_ I'd had to I could,
but..."
"Exactly! When it's your art, it's got to be a part of your
whole life. When Basho was wandering around, d'you think he
only did poetry under special circumstances? Only when he
had an audience, and a mat, and a formal ink stone, and a
three foot brush, and a dozen perfect sheets, and so on?
When Hokusai made his prints, do you think he was only doing
art on the formal, final print, and not the rest of the
time?
"Hell, no," Ranma continued, "Hokusai was doing art even
when he was partying, (and believe me, Hokusai knew how to
party, too). Basho did poetry all the time; even if they
weren't doing the formal, get-it-down-right part, they were
sketching, or taking notes, or just taking what was going on
around them and putting it into context in their terms.
"They were doing their art all the time. And any art that's
_real_ has to be like that. All the time. And you won't do
your art all the time if you're not in a situation that
you're comfortable doing your art _in_ all the time. Which,
for Martial Arts, includes the clothes you're wearing. So
let's go see your closet."
------------------------------------------------------------
Somewhat dazedly, Akane led the way to her room, where Ranma
was soon standing in front of her closet, sorting through
her clothes, and muttering.
"Uniform ... uniform ... bleah ... dress ... dress ..."
Ranma posed briefly with a sun dress, "mmm, looks good, but
_I_ wouldn't want to try to high kick in it..."
Akane mega-blushed. "Me neither."
"Mmm ..., well, I don't see anything in here really suitable
for combat, do you?"
Akane shook her head, shyly, no.
"Well, there's only one thing to do then," said Ranma, "go
shopping!"
Akane grabbed her arm urgently, "Ranma, I won't have the
money for a shopping trip for..."
Ranma patted Akane's hand gently. "Don't worry about it
Akane-chan, for a good cause, you can always find _some_
kind of donor."
Akane blushed again, "Ranma-chan, I can't ask you to buy
me..."
Ranma winked at her, "Who said anything about me? Come on!"
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane walked side by side deep into the Nerima
Ginza. Deeply engrossed in conversation with Ranma, Akane
failed to notice her steering their perambulations towards
the less savory part of town.
She regained notice of her surroundings with the realization
that several Bad Elements were attempting to loom menacingly
in the background. Ranma winked at her sudden start, and put
a finger shushingly to her lips. "Donors," she whispered,
and continued to chatter.
"Heyhey, chickies, whatchoo doin out tonite, hah? Yew wanna
_real_ man, hah? Haw, haw, looka this Junichi, a _redhead_,
think I'll see if she's a _natural_ redhead, haw!"
"Take the trailers," Ranma stage whispered. Her mouth smiled
at the forerunners of the ten thugs surrounding them, but
her eyes were cold. "Now, gentlemen, you wouldn't risk your
reputations by harassing a pair of unescorted girls, would
you?"
"Hawhaw, and what's gonna stop us chickie, huh?" the first
thug extended a tattooed hand.
"Well, for one thing," Ranma's tone was conversational, "the
element of surprise."
Her foot snapped up in a repeated high kick that landed
fifteen blows to the thug's chin in a fifth of a second,
then pivoted around the raised foot in a ki charged arc that
smashed the two forward flankers into their respective
walls. (Akane spun and launched a straight power kick into
the gut of the thug directly behind her. As he folded, her
hand rose and fell in a well-timed strike to the back of his
neck.)
Ranma shifted position in midair, flashing to her left in a
jump kick into a fourth thug that carried him into the
fifth, her hand blurred briefly as they landed to the blurry
*thud* of many blows to exposed heads and torsos, then
launched herself backward. (Akane continued her motion to
the side, launching herself at the thug there and blasting
through his defenses with a flurry of punches that soon sent
him into unconsciousness.)
Ranma flipped through the air towards the remaining two
thugs on her side, altering course at the last instant to
pass between them, her hands blurring as she passed. She
landed lightly on her feet, preparing to move towards Akane
as her last opponents slumped heavily to the ground. Akane
however, had already bounced off the wall in a long jump
kick that took her fleeing final foe in mid back, smashing
him limply into the other wall of the alley.
"Well," Ranma beamed, "not bad at all."
"What the heck did you get us into that for?" Akane all but
shrieked, "What were you think... What are you _DOING_?"
"Mmm? Looting the bodies, Akane-chan, what does it look
like?"
"You _killed_ them!!??!"
"No, no, no. If I'd _killed_ them, I'd have said I was
looting the _corpses_."
"But ... but ..." Akane could only watch in stupefaction as
Ranma, in less than a minute, stripped the mindless bodies
down to their underwear, stacked their jackets, shoes,
shirts, pants, and paraphernalia in the middle of the alley,
and rifled their wallets, throwing their cards and photos to
the ground and counting their cash.
"Nearly half a million cash!" Ranma gloated, "and better
than 250 thousand in loot too! As I said, not bad at all!"
"Ranma, what...?" Akane stood openmouthed in shock, "How can
you just...?"
"Well, after all, Akane-chan, they did try to accost us. If
we don't apply _some_ kind of penalty, they'll surely slip
further and further into Crime and Degradation, ne? And we
do deserve some sort of compensation for our efforts, right?
Besides: to the victor go the spoils."
"Now, here, take this pile of pants and shirts and come on,
we've got to go fence this stuff, and then go shopping."
"Shopping?" Akane queried weakly.
"We need to get you a new wardrobe, remember?"
------------------------------------------------------------
Later, Ranma turned from Akane's closet and pronounced
herself satisfied. "Hah! Hah! Still got that haggling touch!
Hah!"
Akane turned from the mirror, and tried to see how her long
hair looked against the back of her new leather vest. "Do
you _really_ think this looks good, Ranma-chan?"
Ranma looked at Akane's black velvet pants / white silk
shirt / black leather vest combo and raised an OK sign.
"Trust me, Akane-chan, you look great. And there's nearly
thirty thousand yen left for other stuff you might need
too!"
"Are you _sure_ you won't take any of this money,
Ranma-chan? You did do most of the work."
"Nah!" Ranma waved her hand, "don't need it at the moment.
Besides, we're friends right? One day you'll do something
like that for me. Now let's get going, your sister just
called us to dinner!"
Returning to the dining room, Nabiki frankly stared at
Akane's new look. Introductions to Nabiki and Soun were
made, and one of Kasumi's typically excellent meals was
consumed.
Mealtime conversation was mostly superficial, enlivened only
by Ranma's presentation of a guesting gift (Wrapped bottles
of Sake and a box of exotic spices for Kasumi) at the
beginning of the meal.
Nabiki had been looking at Ranma with what seemed to be a
certain amount of unease throughout the meal, and after Soun
excused himself she appeared to come to a decision.
"Um, Ranma-san, I just wanted to thank you for the
opportunity you provided me this morning. And, um,
Ithinkyoushouldtaketenpercentofthemoneyinthanks," Nabiki
blushed as though she could not believe what she had just
said.
Ranma winked at her "Ten percent, Nabiki-san? That's what?
fifty thousand? There's no need for that; I'm not hurting
for cash."
"But I can't just ... _hey_ how'd _you_ know how much it
should be? I haven't said how much I made yet!"
"You've segregated it in your money belt, Nabiki-san," Ranma
replied, "I checked it earlier."
"You picked my pocket!?", Nabiki gasped.
"Well, only for informational purposes, Nabiki-san. I put
everything back, did I not?"
Nabiki stood it for eleven seconds before frantically
checking her belt.
"Nabiki!" Akane glowered.
Ranma chuckled, and rose from the table, "It's time I went
home, I think; I'll see you tomorrow before school, Akane?
And don't worry about it Nabiki-san: I'd have checked too."
Akane nodded brightly, but Nabiki hmmphed, "You be careful,
Ranma-san, I'll get you back for that."
"I'll be looking forward to the contest," Ranma smiled, "I'm
sure it will be interesting."
"Do you have to go so soon?" Akane wondered.
"I'm afraid so. If you look at the time, it's actually quite
late. You have school in the morning, after all: you need
your rest."
So saying, Ranma turned out the door of the Dojo, and,
whistling, walked down the street to her apartment, under
the moon and the stars.
------------------------------------------------------------
Walking down the street alone, Ranma thought to herself,
'Wow, friendship, I wonder if...'
'NO!' herself replied, 'she's straight, she's a girl, and
she thinks _you're_ a girl. This is the best friendship
you've had since Kitsune or Usagi, _don't mess it up_!
Besides, you've got some kind of arrangement coming from
Dad, right? No More Romance, and that's _final_."
So thinking, Ranma walked on down the darkened street. It is
the privilege of a Martial Artist to ignore the little voice
inside that says 'Sure' after all. Presently she began,
somewhat unconsciously, to sing. A song she had learned from
a Gaijin ship crewman and translated to Japanese:
You say 'Well met again, Lock keeper.
You see me laden even deeper than the time before.
Occidental oils and teas brought down from Singapore.'
As we wait for my lock to cycle, I say,
'My wife has just given me a son!'
'A son', you cry, 'is that all that you've done?'
'Then come with me!', you say,
'To where the Southern Cross rides high
upon your shoulder.
'Oh, come with me', you cry,
'Each day you tend this lock you're one day older,
and your blood
grows
colder.'
But that anchor chain's a fetter
And with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I wouldn't trade your life
For one hour of home.
She wears Bougainvillea blossoms,
You pluck 'em from her hair and toss them in the tide,
Sweep her in your arms, and carry her inside.
And her arms rest on your shoulder,
And her moonlit eyes grow bold and wiser
through the tears,
And I say, 'How could you stand to leave
this for the years?'
But 'Come with me!', you say,
'To where the Southern Cross rides high
upon your shoulder.
'Oh, come with me', you cry,
'Each day you tend this lock you're one day older,
and your blood
grows
colder.'
But that anchor chain's a fetter
And with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I wouldn't trade your life
For one hour of home.
Sure, I'm stuck here on the Seaway,
While you compensate for leeway through the Trades;
And you shoot the stars to see the miles you've made;
And you laugh at hearts you've riven,
But which of these has given us more love and life?
You, your tropic maids, or me, my wife?
And 'Come with me!', you say,
'To where the Southern Cross rides high
upon your shoulder.
'Oh, come with me', you cry,
'Each day you tend this lock you're one day older,
and your blood
grows
colder.'
But that anchor chain's a fetter
And with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I wouldn't trade your whole life
For one hour of home.
And I wouldn't trade your whole life
For one hour of home.
------------------------------------------------------------
Later yet, Akane stood in her bedroom, looking out the
window at nothing in particular. She was thinking about a
Decision, thinking about honor, and duty, and leather vests.
Seeing, in her mind, a kendoist flying backwards to a wall,
and a katana, snapped in two, hanging momentarily in
mid-air. Weighing her honor against pain, and tumbled thugs,
and a crown of roses.
And then she smiled, and returned to her bed, and fell
deeply asleep. A response which is noted as common, in cases
where a great Decision has been made.
------------------------------------------------------------
And across Nerima, silence fell, and quiet reigned. And if,
in some darkened corner, people felt themselves abused, and
whispered, and plotted revenge, Ranma and Akane, at least,
took no notice. And slept the sleep of the just, till
morning came.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Chapter 2: The Second Day.
Part A: Duel of Engines; A Dream of Blood and Wolves.
'Til next chapter,
Eric Hallstrom, 10/27/99
--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hallcon@mindspring.com
kawaii@kawaiikunee.com
From: Eric Hallstrom <hallcon@mindspring.com>
Subject: [Ranma][FanFic] Ranma and Akane: A Love Story. Chapter Two
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.1 (Oct. 28, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma & Akane: A Love Story.
Chapter 2: The Second Day
Part A: Duel of Engines; A dream of blood and wolves.
------------------------------------------------------------
This is Tokyo, Nerima ward in the darkest early morning, the
time when old men die.
Focus in: to a large maison in the newer, outer part of the
ward; where the transients go, and where those who can't
afford a _real_ Nerima address find space to live. It's been
here for 40 years. It's been dying, slowly, for 35.
Focus in: to the eighth floor, on the corner, in the back.
There's no elevator to this floor, (the shaft is boarded
shut, there's no money in elevators) only rickety stairs.
There's no hallway light, but then no one here should be
going in or out when it's dark, anyway (there's no
_stairway_ light either).
Focus in. The apartment has one main room, one bathroom with
a small shower but no furo, one room that combines kitchen
and breakfast nook, and one closet. Most of it was furnished
by the building owner in a style that can be described as
'severely minimal' and the current occupant hasn't added
much.
Take a look at the main room. Perhaps twelve feet on a side,
floored in a dingy parquet linoleum, it holds two pieces of
furniture. Against one wall, underneath the only window,
sits a footlocker. The door in the wall to the left leads to
the kitchen, the door to the right, to the bathroom. In the
corner formed by the back wall and the left is the other
piece of furniture, a futon.
Look a bit longer. To two pieces of furniture, add three
other items of interest. The first, placed just in front of
the leather bound chest, is a sword stand. On its upper
tier, edge upward, as is proper, rests a sword.
A blade about three feet long, of the ancient pattern called
/tachi/, chisel pointed, strait backed, uncurved. Its hilt
is of wood, covered with ray-skin and wound with silken
cords; its tsuba is of plain, unmarked brass. Its scabbard,
resting beneath it on the stand, is of plain, black-
lacquered, common pine.
A more commonplace, workaday weapon would be difficult to
imagine. No flamboyant artwork on _this_ blade, no feeling
of legendary glory waiting to be won. The only feeling an
observer receives from this blade is: 'Gee, that looks
really sharp'.
Look behind it. On the chest, precisely in the center of its
top, and precisely in the center of the moonlight streaming
through the window, is a small bowl made of silver. In it
floats a pool of softly luminescent liquid, reminiscent of
quicksilver, but more fluid.
Look deeper. See the small assemblage suspended slightly
above the surface of the liquid: two pieces of carven ivory
flanking a ring of palest jade. See how the ivory pieces, if
fitted together, would also form a ring, fitted tightly
around the jade core. See the sandalwood cover waiting
patiently to the side of the chest lid; if it was placed
over the bowl it would fit perfectly around its rim, and
cover the whole without disturbing it in any way.
Wait! Look. Did you see? Did you see the bead of soft light
that fell from just above the bowl? Look above the rings
above the bowl, about six inches, do you see? A pale circle
of light hangs almost invisibly in midair, a slight
thickening of the flowing moonlight.
Now watch the two small beads of light at the top of the
circle; see them travel slowly around its circumference to
the bottom. See them gain in brightness, so slowly, ever so
slowly, as they flow. See them gleam as they pass, one by
one, the geometric lines that cross and re-cross the design.
Watch their color change, ever so faintly, as they pass each
of the tracings of ancient Chinese ideograms that form an
inner ring of pale, translucent, radiance. Watch them meet
at the very bottom of the circle, meet and join. Watch the
newly formed bead of luminescent liquid hang breathlessly a
moment, then fall *blip* the six inches to the rings above
the bowl. Watch it seem to pass through the jade ring, then
watch the jade, and then the ivory, glow. Ever so faintly,
ever so briefly. Watch the cycle begin again.
Now turn to the futon. See the masculine figure sprawled in
sleep. So inelegant for one who, awake, is so graceful.
Look closer again. See the scars on face and arms. Trace the
blow that must have fallen to lay that path across larynx
and shoulder.
Contemplate the tracery of past violence across his bare
chest and the portions of his legs that lie beyond his boxer
shorts. Scars like wide, raised, ridges six inches long;
scars like nearly invisible threads, white against the
tanned skin; scars of all dimensions in between.
Marvel, lastly, at the tattoo. A dragon, marked with the
symbols of yang power. Sprawled across chest and stomach,
winding around his left shoulder and across his back to
flirt with his right scapula with its tail. Every scale and
claw perfect, detailed in line, marvelous in color, drawn by
a master's hand. So perfect that the simple act of the man's
normal breathing seems to make it live and breathe alike.
Observe. See its fierce whiskers, its masculine lines. See
the eye closed in sleep, the coiled body peaceful and still.
It is fortunate, no doubt, that it sleeps so peacefully -
were it to awaken, its wrath would surely be terrible. No
doubt. No doubt at all.
Fortunate, then, that the sleep of its bearer is likewise
deep, and peaceful. Fortunate that he is locked, deeply and
thoroughly, in dreams.
Fortunate for the dreamer, and also, perhaps, for the
observer. Look deeper, you can see into the dream itself.
But be cautious, as you do: it is all too easy to become
lost in dreams, all too easy to give them too much credence.
In the end, remember this: however exact the remembrance,
however complete the illusion seems, you, yourselves, are
but also dreaming. Indulging in a metaphor, so to speak, for
a somewhat more ... complex ... reality.
------------------------------------------------------------
Impressions of gentle sunlight first, midmorning in the
middle of spring: perhaps late April, or early May. Look
around to see an open field, uncultivated; spring grass as
tall as your horse's knees, spotted with wildflowers, strewn
with butterflies. A hundred yard away to left and right the
forest rises, dark with many pines, but drifted gold with
their pollen. See the horse beneath you: coat black as
night, mane and tail twin charcoal sprays. Hear the birdsong
like a many-voiced silver cataract, staccato tattoo of
several horses cantering, gentle rustle of the wind.
Usagi rides his roan ten yards to your left, his straw hat
thrown back off his head, his ears streaming back in the
breeze of your passage. Noriyuki-sama sits his bay five
yards behind and between you, his plump, cheerful, panda
face popping up above the head of his warhorse with the
enthusiasm of the twelve-year-old boy he is. Tomoe-san rides
her dappled gelding five yards behind her lord, her cat-ears
pricked forward, face earnest and alert.
Always devoted to her lord's safety, no matter her delight
in the sunlit day, no matter her discomfort in the storming,
bitter night. Odd how her cat's face causes no fear in your
dream, odd how a cat grown man-tall and stood upright is,
somehow, not the kind of cat your subconscious so reviles.
Poetry from Usagi, chuckles from Tomoe and yourself,
delighted laughter from Noriyuki-sama, each close enough to
speak, close enough to laugh, but far enough away that
danger cannot take two at once.
Next the fresh dew-smell, overlying the faint bruised grass,
delicate scent of wildflowers, honest smell of horse, and
leather, sharp tang of steel and lacquer from the light
breastplate hidden beneath your outer shirt. Smells of
spring, overlaid by smells of travel, sadly intermixed with
smells of danger, and of threatening war.
Last the sun's gentle warmth, slanting from above. Caressing
breeze across your face, gentler than the wind of your
passage. Rythmic pounding of hooves, the saddle's steady
rise and fall. Thump of braid to your back, followed by the
click as the ring at its end slaps home. Creak of
saddle-leather, slap of stirrups, *tick* and *clink* of
breastplate, thump of sword.
Just beside your track a wolf cub starts a mouse, pounces,
grips his prey and kills. Pounding hooves disturb his meal,
his jaws drip blood, his eyes glow green, but his pounce is
intercepted by your sandal, he sprawls before your progress.
As the hoof comes down, a viper takes his place. Too late:
crunch under hoof, writhing rope behind. Tomoe's naginata
snaps downward, rises coiled by serpent, snaps to throw the
corpse away.
Suddenly pounding down a steep slope towards a lonely road.
Dark pines grow close on either side, black clouds, bitter
wind, sharp and biting scent of storm. Before you a party of
horsemen turns toward you from their place along the road.
The war mask of the leader makes their identity unmistakable
- Hijiki, and a dozen of his guard.
Closed view from helm, O-yori heavy on your limbs. No
daikyu, so a charge will have to do - Yari straight before
you, parallel with Usagi's charge, behind you, Tomoe's
naginata spins in a blurring circle as she gallops past
Noriyuki to shield him from his enemies.
First contact, and your enemy's throat sprays blood, a brief
side-rein as you break your foe's wall, rip open the side of
another. Iron tang of blood, sewer reek of sudden death,
background flash of lightning as the storm grows, and
threatens now in earnest.
Tomoe's naginata takes the heads of the two guards in her
path; Usagi has collapsed the other corner of their
formation, and converges on Hijiki, two bodies left
sprawling behind him in pools of sudden scarlet. Rein left
and launch your yari at Hijiki, he dodges but the guard
behind him does not.
Tenchuu flashes from its scabbard in an arc that takes it
through two enemies' necks - stronger tang of iron now,
sticky crimson mist sprays face and helm, blood-drops *tac*
*tac* *tac* off armor as you spin and drive towards the
center of the now encarmined battleground.
Usagi has downed his foe, throwing him into another: thunder
of hooves as he follows up the advantage, crimson rivers as
he passes the still struggling tangle. Tomoe overmasters her
last opponent, beating down his guard; scarlet clots the
blade of her naginata as it punches, once, twice, thrice
through his backplate. Three warriors form an arc, centered
where Hijiki waits: unbowed, but now alone.
Move to meet him, Tenchuu held low beside you. Then the wolf
springs, leaping from the trees. It is larger now, and
crueler: already its jaws drip poison spittle and its eyes
blaze hatred and rage. Tenchuu chops it from the air and it
tumbles broken to the ground, but it rises to its feet,
healed anew in an instant, and now it is to your off side.
Armored in steel, your foot kicks free of its stirrup and
meets it in midair. Flailing, it flips over your head,
Tenchuu blurs through its diseased form a score of times at
least. Scattered in many places, no healing will save it
this time.
Yet the delay is costly: Hijiki cuts through your defense, a
stream of fire across your throat and shoulder, falling from
your mount to roll frantically across the ground. Tomoe is
down on one knee, injured, defending Lord Noriyuki from
half-a-dozen foes. Usagi kills his opponent and you rise to
your feet, Tenchuu hissing in the pattern called 'fire
wheel', the three enemies about you falling back slain;
horizontal fans of glistening crimson spray across the
little inn's tables and tatami, coloring bowls of rice and
clay mugs of beer now abandoned and overturned.
You turn toward Hijiki, as Usagi turns to the window in
alarm. A barrage of arrows thunks like hailstones into the
thin, plaster wall, piercing it in places to a depth of
three or four inches, embedding themselves in the beams and
rafters. You turn away from the bodies piled in the center
of the floor as you sniff the air in alarm: smoke! They're
trying to burn you out!
Quickly you string your daikyu, eight arrows in your fist:
the most that you can put in the air at once. A burst of
archery drives the encircling foes on one side of the inn
into cover, cowering. Now, out the window, through their
weakened line, run!
Around the corner now, galloping over treacherous shale,
flakes of rotten stone spraying back from your horses'
hooves. Thunder of hooves, rolling back from a wall of
living mountain to your right - an unpaved track too narrow
for more than single file. Behind, a small army, but they
are at least half-a-mile back and if you can get past the
towering rock ahead they will never catch you.
Rain-slick cobbles *rutch* beneath your flying, sandaled,
feet, thunder crashes, loud as many dragons, ozone and
sulfur, iron and hate. Around the outbuilding now, Tenchuu
naked and rain-flecked in your hand. Straw rain cape
flapping as you bring the wolf and Hijiki to bay before the
tower looming black and monstrous in the storm. The wolf
stands manlike and erect now - robed in black, carrying a
spear.
Your opponents are spread out too far for any gambit to
succeed: dash between them, cutting at Hijiki as you pass,
steel belling harshly against steel. Turn to face him and
feint to his torso, waiting for the flow of ki from behind.
Now, leap reversed over the wolf's head, thirty feet of
backwards somersault. Feel the power flow through ground and
storm, call it to your hand. Now! They are concentrated,
pinned against the tower, their defenses momentarily down.
Now hold the power within and weave a web of intent and iron
control, now release the leash of will close-held and call
the Dragon Wind.
Storm erupts: sand caught by the wind and swept up as a
thousand miniature knives, lightning riding the fist of wind
like a corona of supernal fire. It washes over Hijiki and
the wolf, overwhelms them, and blots them from view and
debris sprays from the tower's base with the power of the
storm.
Rising from the wrack, the wolf's lifeless, skeletal jaws
howl in futile rage in the moment they are given, before the
fire consumes them, before the avalanche of stone from the
falling tower buries them, before you turn and jump for
distant safety, before the tons of gunpowder stored below
Hijiki's fortress destroy themselves, and all around them,
and the titanic explosion reaches out, gaining speed behind
you...
And the mass eruption of butterflies passes you by in a
varicolored, softly scintillating cloud of fragrance and you
ride up the last hill, amid a carpet of wildflowers. Usagi
is beside you, Noriyuki-sama just behind, carrying the
sword, and Tomoe-san brings up the rear. And you all laugh
with joy, and awe, and delight as you top the rise to see
before you the rice fields on the outskirts of the new
capitol. This area is firmly under the Shogun's peace,
patrols will escort you the rest of the way to his palace,
the presentation will be performed without delay, and there
remain before you no obstacles. No obstacles at all.
------------------------------------------------------------
Bushiko Ranma, whose name had once been otherwise, awoke
suddenly, and turned over muzzily on his futon. Looking
across the darkened room, to the pale circle of magic
dripping light into a silver bowl, he shook his head and
sighed. "Man, I haven't dreamed about _him_ in a _long_
time," he yawned. "I've got to stop making myself those
midnight habañero-and-teriyaki beef snacks. That, and hope
that wasn't an omen."
And then he turned over, and went back to sleep. Warriors
learn to prize the commodity because they know that morning
will come soon enough. And there will always be something to
do in that morning. And you'll always need your sleep.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Chapter 2: The Second Day
Part B: Battering Pieces: Akane's Unusual Morning
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
"The Nancy" is copyright by Stan Rogers (RIP), I'm only
borrowing it. "Maids, When You're Young" is an Actual Folk
Song, and is _Not_, I repeat, _Not_ My Fault.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.1 (Oct. 28, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma & Akane: A Love Story.
Chapter 2: The Second Day
Part B: Battering Pieces: Akane's Unusual Morning
------------------------------------------------------------
Observe a long established residential district in Nerima,
just after dawn that day. Birds twitter and sing in melodic
glee at the promises of a new day, matching the mood of
anticipation present in one member of the household living
at the old-fashioned building with the big sign out front
(the big sign that said 'Tendo Dojo', of course).
It should not be said that Akane was normally the type of
girl to indulge in random destruction as a form of stress
relief. She indulged, generally speaking, in _highly
specific_ and _exactly targeted_ destruction as a form of
stress relief. Even considering this fact, however, the
presence of a number of columns of cinder blocks, set at
various intervals around the practice hall's floor, must be
considered slightly unusual.
What was even more unusual, from a theoretical observer's
viewpoint, however, was that Akane was not immediately
preparing to destroy them. Instead, she was practicing a
complex and intricate kata - almost a shadow-dance - around,
between, over and beside them. A kata that seemed to involve
defeating an imaginary set of enemies while at the same time
avoiding attack proximity of the cinder block piles (if the
cinder blocks were inclined to be pugnacious, which they had
presented no sign, so far, of being). Finally, drawing to a
peak, the kata concluded with a flurry of activity that wove
and spun through the piles of concrete, destroying each in
turn.
For a moment after the kata's conclusion, Akane remained
poised in the attitude of her finishing blow, her eyes
intent and focused on something far away. Then she relaxed
and surveyed the destruction, somewhat in the manner of one
who, having just endured more than a year of grinding
discomfort and frustration, has just been released,
metaphorically speaking, from bondage, while - and at the
same time - finding a much-desired friend, a much-admired
mentor, and much-needed help.
Likewise in the manner of one who has, shortly thereafter,
undergone an only-partially-favorable appraisal of her main
life skill, an agonizing reassessment of her chosen career
goals, and the strangest evening of her seventeen years of
life. Not even to mention a total reassessment of her most
basic morality, and a reexamination of her honor. Followed
by a truly momentous decision: the first, depending on how
you look at it, of her adult life.
Which is, of course, exactly what she was. And which is also
why, after having, in a manner of speaking, cleared the air,
she nodded firmly, and dusted her hands and went in,
whistling, to breakfast. It was a new day, after all, and
she was eager, for the first time in a very long time, to
begin it.
------------------------------------------------------------
Tendo Nabiki, of that same address, was also eager for the
day to begin. Not because she had undergone a great and
sweeping change of life, but rather because she too had
received something she had not had in a long time: a
challenge.
She had been scored on. _She_ had been bested. Her actions
anticipated, her _pocket_ _picked_, of all the silly things.
And yet, and yet ... it had been done with, with ...
_style_. And grace. Not in such a way as to damage her
reputation or smear her honor (indeed, she had - the
household had - profited tremendously).
And _then_ this same person, this same barbarian grotesque,
had turned around and not only helped her little sister -
helped her family - tremendously, but had also turned over a
small fortune entirely for Akane's use! And for a new
wardrobe, for the purpose of, of all things, 'helping her
Art'!
How had it happened? She still had no details that she
trusted. _Why_ had she done it? And what would she do next?
And how would she, Nabiki herself, end up relating to this
Bushiko Ranma? For the first time in her life, she realized,
the decision might not be in her hands.
And what of Ranma, herself? What secrets did she hold? Who
was she, really? And how had she gotten that way? Oh, my,
yes, a challenge, in all senses of that word. A challenge
she was eager to take on. A challenge she was eager to
measure herself against, a challenge she was eager to grow
with. For her, too, a stretching of her capabilities was a
thing that had not happened in a very long time.
------------------------------------------------------------
And this is an apartment last seen by moonlight, now
stretching drowsily in the pale illumination of a Tokyo
dawn.
The furnishings have changed slightly: the sword stand is
empty now, the silver bowl is gone. In the place of the
silver bowl, centered in the faint light of dawn now
invading through the window, is a wide platen of burnished,
red gold. Above it, on a stand of braided bronze wire, rests
a pair of rings. Carved from dark, emerald jade, with the
very faintest tracery of interlocking ideograms, they are
made in mirror images, each of the other. Beside and between
them, are a pair of interlocking shells of thinly braided
copper wire, the inner halves linked by golden chains.
Above, the diagram of light has been redrawn. Now shafts of
pale dawn light seem to twist and intertwine, forming a disc
about two feet wide. Within the pattern of the disc,
intertwined with light and shadow in a fashion that would
make M. C. Escher delirious with jealousy, stands a single
ideogram in a Chinese temple shorthand so ancient that even
the memory of the name of the style it is written in has
been lost. Had he so desired, Ranma could have informed an
interested scholar that the ideogram's meaning was
critically interlinked with the style in which it was
written, a style to which it had given its own name: Phoenix
Dragon.
In the corner of the main room behind the now opened
bathroom door, in that portion of the room farthest from
sunlight, now stands a small bamboo tray-table. On it is an
iron stand, bearing a velvet curtain all around that can be
closed to keep the contents from any betraying hint of
sunlight.
Within, shining with a light of its own, is a complex
assembly of leaded glass and silver rod. Alembics bubble
with a pale, luminescent liquid, from them, coils of glass
transport glowing beads of pastel light up to roiling
curcurbits, swirling with the colors of a mad, muted
rainbow, from which straight tubes emerge to close on a
central point, where they empty into a silver funnel. Drops
of liquid, palely silver, roll down the funnel to drip onto
the top of a peachwood rod, carven with writhing dragons
going into and out of caves, down which a silver-lined
spiral path leads the glowing liquid, reduced micron by
micron, to a glass collecting bowl connected to the alembics
in a continuous circular progression.
Now from the open bathroom door comes a cloud of steam,
followed by a topless, towel-wrapped figure, still engaged
in toweling dry her scarlet braid. Striding firmly to the
closet, Ranma drapes the towel over the multicolored,
iridescent, feminine dragon tattoo that winds around her
shoulders and torso: displayed passant regardant, dryly
looking over its own sinuous shoulder to regard whatever
might lie beyond.
Then, dropping the towels from shoulders and hips, Ranma
stands briefly nude (_Down_ Hentais! Down I say! You've seen
as much many times before in the manga!) before donning
boxers and a stretchy chest wrap that serves her as a sports
bra.
Then she places around her neck a small amulet of silver,
one face of which is a cracked mirror and the other an
ancient piece of pottery, marked with a pattern reminiscent
of many ropes. Following this with her usual loose pants,
silk shirt and moccasins, she tops these off with her
leather bomber jacket, picking her scabbarded sword from
where it rests against the wall and placing it, and a wide
variety of other implements inside her jacket, in places
that mostly do not seem capable of holding them.
Lastly she bounds into the kitchen, a brief swipe across the
counter grabs the bento and briefcase thereon. Bounds to the
far corner, twitching the curtain closed. Glides to the
chest, checking the alignment of the rings held above the
brazen bowl.
Watch now as a bead of light splits into two at the top of
the diagram and runs fluidly around the circumference, left
and right. Watch it merge at the bottom. Watch it fairly
leap across space to pass through the rings and splash into
the bowl. Watch the drop spread into a small pool, fizzling
energetically. Watch it bathe the rings from below,
evaporating as it does so. Watch the next drop splash before
it vanishes completely. Watch the pool spread a little
farther, last a little longer. See Ranma examine her
handiwork and smile.
Watch her look up, and through the diagram hanging in
mid-air in the dawn's slowly gathering light. See her eyes
go distant, as though lost in dreams, or fears, or memories.
But dreams fade in daylight, and fears wither away. And
memories don't always bring back that which is looked for.
And Ranma turns, and glides out the door, locking it behind
her. And bounds down the staircase and out the maison's
front door. And, taking to the rooftops, moves quickly in a
straight line towards her rendezvous. It's a new day, after
all, and it wouldn't do to be late. It wouldn't do at all.
------------------------------------------------------------
Yakubi Ryouken felt, in his heart of hearts, that everything
in the world which was wrong with his life was the fault of
his name (with some justification, it can be translated as
"Bad-luck Day Hound"). In fact, he would not even answer to
the hated words unless extremely pressed, preferring,
somewhat ironically, the sobriquet of Daken ("Cur" or
"Mongrel") instead.
Complaining about his names was, in fact, normally one of
the two overriding occupations of his life (the other being
the worship of his Japanese-Nationalistic divine heredity,
and the concomitant despite he felt for anything remotely
foreign).
Pressed against Furinkan's wall, just inside the gate,
however, he was not currently capable of indulging in either
one. This was primarily due to the presence of another
occupation; he was hating the redheaded bitch.
He had woken up, naked amidst the ruins of his gang, very
late the previous night. He had spent the hours since
seeking out the identity of the bitches who had taken him by
surprise, and taken his clothes and cash as well. 'Plus
which', he snarled to himself for the thousandth time, 'I
loved my Tagamotchi-chan, I'd kept him alive for two weeks,
*snff*, and the bitch _sold_ him, sold him like a slave.'
But he had her now, oh yes. She couldn't surprise him _now_,
and he'd picked up a number of fine Japanese-Nationalistic
students the barbarian whore had humiliated the day before,
too. Soon, she'd come through the gate and then ... then
she'd get a surprise of her own! And then he _would_ see if
she was a natural redhead, teach her what a _real_ man was
like! 'Bitch's gotta learn her place!'
And no-one else would interfere, he'd left the cringing
gaijin-otaku pigs too terrified to even move!
------------------------------------------------------------
And this is a normal street (for Nerima), and down it Akane
and Nabiki are walking on their way to school. Progressing,
it should be noted, in the normal, or common, fashion, which
is to say, on the ground. And flanking this common street is
a common rooftop, belonging to a common business; and along
this rooftop Ranma is progressing, in an _un_common fashion,
which is to say, in bouncing leaps, five to ten yards long.
It would not be entirely fair to say that the Tendo sisters
were _surprised_ by Ranma's sudden appearance; they had been
expecting it, and besides, leaping from rooftops was normal
compared to what they had already seen her do. But they
were, undeniably, startled. And startled again by the fact
that she appeared to have been, while blithely leaping from
place to place along the skyline, _singing_.
When we sat down to Tea, hey do me harity
When we sat down to Tea, me being young,
When we sat down to Tea, he started teasing me,
Maids, when you're young, never wed an old man!
Finishing the verse as she settled gracefully to earth,
Ranma swept the other girls a great bow, and fell in beside
them with a warm greeting to Akane, and a merry one to
Nabiki.
"And _what_," Akane queried amusedly, "was that?"
"Song, Boys, For The Teasing Of, One," Ranma smirked.
"You, Bushiko Ranma, are _Evil_!"
"Yes, I know. Ain't it _cool_?!"
And they walked on toward school, and Ranma taught Akane the
words, and Nabiki shook her head in amusement, and sighed.
------------------------------------------------------------
Asano Sayuri shivered in terror, and looked out the window
of the second floor. She couldn't, she was too afraid, but
if she didn't .... The man called Daken was terrifying, so
cruel in appearance, and the threats he had made ....
She wasn't a brave person, she felt, but someone had to warn
Ranma-san! And she could see, just looking around, that
no-one else was going to, they were all afraid of those
slime who had _joined_ the, the _mongrel_.
But that meant that no-one would help _her_, and they'd know
who had called out, and she wasn't a brave person. But ...
_but_, she'd heard Ranma-san sing. And she'd seen Ranma-san
stand up for Akane-san when no-one else would. Ranma-san,
she was sure, would defeat these mongrels if only she was
warned. But what if she didn't, couldn't, what then?
And then she saw, coming down the street in the distance,
three feminine figures; and discovered, suddenly, that she
_was_ a brave person, after all.
------------------------------------------------------------
Walking down the street with Akane, Ranma felt, was one of
the better ways to begin a school day that she had yet
encountered. Akane had proven an apt, if somewhat
embarrassed, student of /Maids, When You're Young/, and the
verbal sparring with Nabiki had kept honors relatively even
in the opening exchanges.
Despite the company and the conversation, however, a martial
artist of Ranma's skill is never entirely inattentive to her
surroundings, and the concentration of hostility, clumsily
gathered ki, and focused attention hiding just behind the
wall ahead of her would have waked her from the dead in any
case.
"Don't change your stance Ranma whispered sotto voce, "and
keep walking forward. I think, Akane, that our friends from
yesterday have grown melancholy in our absence, and have
come to renew acquaintances."
Nabiki controlled her reaction automatically, but
nevertheless stiffened slightly, 'What?'
Akane pasted a wooden smile on her face and gripped Ranma's
arm urgently "Ranma, don't kill them!"
Ranma winked in reply, "Oh, if I had intended to kill them
I'd have done it last night. But since they didn't learn the
earlier lesson we taught them I think something slightly...
stronger ... is in order. Don't you?" Steering them gently
toward the center of the gate she continued, "Nabiki, how
are you at negotiations from the superior position?"
Nabiki frowned, "You're joking, right?"
Ranma grinned again, "Just keep walking, and keep your
cool." As they approached the gate she gathered ki for a
momentary burst of extreme speed, and then...
"_Ranma-sama, look out!!!_" a shout broke from the upper
windows of Furinkan, and Ranma spared half a second for an
exasperated silent curse as Daken turned, furiously, to the
school and marked the person he now fully intended to kill.
Then she spent another quarter second to center herself as
Daken cursed and lunged and the other thugs began to leap
forward. And then she _blurred_.
And Akane and Nabiki walked into the suddenly quiet and
still court-yard of Furinkan; past the statue-like forms of
the various thugs, (arrested suddenly in mid-motion and
still stunned, and also quite naked, their only covering the
brown ribbons neatly tied around their, ah, ... "equipment")
to where Ranma waited in the middle of the yard, next to a
vendor's stand neatly piled with various items of apparel,
smiling merrily and counting through the largish pile of
cash next to the credit cards on the counter-top.
"Why, Ranma Nabiki drawled archly, "there seems to be a
group of naked boys standing about the courtyard."
"400,000 yen Ranma said, handing half the money to a
furiously blushing Akane, "not bad. Yes, Nabiki, I did
notice that, but boys will be boys, you know: anything for
attention."
Daken snarled furiously, and began a lunge towards the
girls. Ranma turned half around, mildly, and across 30 feet
of courtyard Daken met her eyes. Blue as the deepest ocean,
still and quiet as a moon-reflecting pool, hungry and
terrible as the pregnant silence at the eye of a hurricane.
Met them, and saw, reflected in them, himself and his
relationship to them. And dived, suddenly terrified, for a
small clump of bushes abutting the wall and about ten feet
away. Someplace he could hide, someplace he could die,
anyplace at all, as long as he didn't have to see those
eyes, ever, ever again.
And Ranma turned back to Nabiki calmly and said,
"Considering the penalties for indecent exposure, and the
relative status of flashers in the prison population,
though, it's extremely fortunate for them that you had this
stall of emergency clothing ready, isn't it."
"Oh, you know me Nabiki grinned, "I always like to keep
little things like this around, for just such an emergency.
I wonder, though, how they're going to pay for it,
considering their evident lack of ready cash."
Ranma patted her on the shoulder as she passed by, "You're a
capable person Nabiki, I'm sure you'll think of something."
And linking arms with Akane and turning to her, "Ready? One,
Two, Three ..." And their voices rose above the onlookers in
song...
When we went up to bed, hey do me harity
When we went up to bed, me being young,
When we went up to bed, he lay as if 'twer dead,
Maids, when you're young, never wed an old man!
And Nabiki shook her head, sadly, and turned to where the
bushes quivered in terror, and indicated the sirens rising
in the far distance with a wave of her hand. "Well,
gentlemen, what's your feeling about extended negotiations
at this point?"
And Ranma and Akane walked up the stairs to class, singing.
For he's got no Faloorum, Faleerum, Fallorum,
For he's got no Fallorum, Faleerum, Falaay!
He's got no Fallorum, he's lost his Ding-Doorum,
Maids, when you're young, never wed an old man!
------------------------------------------------------------
At lunch, Ranma and Akane sat under a small tree,
conversing. Finishing her lunch, Ranma pulled out her
guitar, and played tunes idly for a while before noticing
the shy approach of one of her new classmates.
"Sayuri-san, isn't it? You acted honorably this morning,
thank you."
Sayuri blushed, and stammered; "I couldn't, that is I, er,
I...."
Ranma smiled, gently, "It took bravery to call out like
that. You must have been very frightened."
Sayuri blushed harder, and looked down at her feet, "I, I
wasn't brave. I _was_ afraid."
Ranma grinned, "That's what bravery is about! Being afraid,
and doing the right thing anyway. What can I do for you?"
"Um, well, I just wondered ... about the song you were
playing? It seemed so ... ferocious?"
"Oh, well Ranma grinned, "that song is from Canada,
originally. I translated it. And yes, it is a tad ferocious.
Would you to hear it?"
"Um, yes."
"I'd like to hear it too, Ranma Akane chimed in. And Ranma
raised her voice and sang.
The clothes men wear do give them airs,
their fellows to compare.
A Colonel's regimentals shine,
and women call them fair.
I am Alexander Macintosh,
a nephew to the Laird.
And I do disdain men who are vain,
the men with powdered hair!
I command the Nancy schooner
from the May on Lake St. Clair,
On the third day of October, boys,
I did set sail from there.
To the garrison at Amherstburg
I quickly would repair,
With Captain Maxwell and his wife,
and kids and powdered hair.
Aboard the Nancy!
In regimentals bright.
Aboard the Nancy!
With all his pomp and bluster there
aboard the Nancy-O!
Below the St Clair rapids I
sent scouts unto the shore
To ask a friendly Wyandott
to say what lay before
"Amherstburg has fallen,
with the same for you in store!
And militia sent to take you there,
fifty horse or more."
Up spoke Captain Maxwell then,
"Surrender, now, I say!
Give them your Nancy schooner,
and make off without delay!
Set me ashore, I do implore,
I will not die this way!"
Says I, "You go, or get below,
for I'll be on my way!"
Aboard the Nancy!
"Surrender, Hell!" I say
Aboard the Nancy!
"It's back to Mackinac I'll fight,
aboard the Nancy-O."
Well up comes Colonel Beaubien, then,
who shouts as he comes near:
"Surrender up your schooner and
I swear you've naught to fear!
We've got your Captain Maxwell, sir,
so spare yourself his tears!"
Says I, "I'll not, but send you shot
to buzz about your ears!"
Well, they fired as we hove anchor, boys
and we got under way,
But scarce a dozen broadsides, boys,
the Nancy did them pay
Before the business sickened them.
They bravely ran away
All sail we made, and reached the Lake
before the close of day.
Aboard the Nancy!
We sent them shot and cheers
Aboard the Nancy!
We watched them running through the trees,
aboard the Nancy-O!
Oh, military gentlemen
they bluster, roar and pray.
Nine sailors and the Nancy, boys,
made fifty run away.
The powder in their hair that day
was powder sent their way
By poor and ragged sailor men,
who swore that they would stay
Aboard the Nancy!
Six pence and found a day
Aboard the Nancy!
No uniforms for men to scorn,
aboard the Nancy-O!
"Heh ... Definitely catchy, Ranma-san Nabiki walked up.
"Which reminds me ..."
"Yeess?"
"Why _brown_ ribbons?"
"Well, after all, Nabiki-san Ranma's eyes glinted mischief,
"You only get a _white_ ribbon if you get an honorable
mention."
After which, the students of Furinkan High were treated to
an unprecedented sight: Tendo Nabiki, leaning against the
wall of the school building, clutching her ribs desperately,
laughing her head off.
------------------------------------------------------------
In the Girl's changing rooms, later, a minor confrontation
was underway. The sensei of Phys-Ed, having decided that
Ranma qualified under the "Advanced" curriculum, had run
head-on into a wall of polite intransigence. Finally, she
battered down the defenses with an appeal to school honor.
If Ranma did not wear the gym uniform, she reasoned, the
other students would be disgraced.
Finally, Ranma had, reluctantly, agreed. Therefore she was
preparing to change into the shorts and t-shirt which
Furinkan girls wore on the field. This had been an object of
some speculation among the girls (and boys, of course) since
it afforded a look at her bodily configuration, and promised
another, better one later.
It wasn't what they had expected. The thin, white lines of
many scars on arms and legs were definitely not what the
girls of class 2-F felt should have been hidden under
Ranma's jacket and pants; much less the broad, raised scar
across her voice-box. The boxers and chest-wrap were
likewise odd, but it was the dragon tattoo peeking out from
under her wrap that drew the most attention.
Finally, as the designated activity for this class was
soccer, came the most dreaded activity in sports: choosing
sides. Needless to say, everyone wanted to be on Ranma's
side, and no-one wanted to be on the other side. Finally, a
sotto voce suggestion from one of the more horrified class
members caused the sides to be chosen as follows: Side A:
Bushiko Ranma; Side B: Everyone Else.
"We ought to set an upper limit of goals," Ranma suggested
sardonically, "declare an instant win at twelve or so. With
one side so outnumbered and all I'm sure that it will be
over quickly, and we wouldn't want anyone to be overly
embarrassed."
The suggestion was passed by acclamation, the teams took the
field, and the whistle blew. And, just as Ranma had
predicted, it was over quickly. The score was Ranma: twelve,
Everyone Else: zero, in just under three minutes. After
that, by acclamation, they did something else, instead.
------------------------------------------------------------
In the showers, after the lambasting, a chuckling Ranma
congratulated Sayuri on a difficult gymnastics move as she
pulled her braid back and looked up into the shower spray.
Unfortunately, the heat of the water caused her skin to
flush, particularly on her torso, where the Dragon seemed to
preen under the heated spray, and beneath the amulet she
still wore on her breast.
The flush had the effect of throwing her scars into sharp
relief, and Ranma paused as she noted Sayuri's horrified
gaze, fixed on her right breast, where the pale line of an
old scar bisected her aureole. Ranma looked down, blushed,
and shook her head, "The problem with my lifestyle over the
past several years is that it has thrown me far too often
into the company of rude strangers with sharp objects."
And she shrugged, and smiled weakly, and went back to her
shower. And Akane, behind her, narrowed her eyes
speculatively and nodded, as though a decision had been
confirmed. And then they all went back to class, looking
forward to music, and the end of the school day beyond.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Chapter 2: The Second Day
Part C: Crumbling Stone: Duets for Wind and Flame.
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
"Summer Lightning" and "After All" belong to Garnet Rogers.
I'm only borrowing them.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.1 (Oct. 28, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma & Akane: A Love Story.
Chapter 2: The Second Day
Part C: Crumbling Stone: Duets for Wind and Flame.
------------------------------------------------------------
I was riding west, through Ontake Mountains.
The hills were heavy with new-fallen snow,
And the sun-bright hills were dappled like a pony,
I was riding hard, I had miles to go.
And a magpie flew, 'cross the mountain highway,
It flashed and tumbled, through the golden trees,
And I thought of you, and my heart was lifted,
And floated with that magpie, on the morning breeze.
Predictably, Akane had made the best match to Ranma's voice.
Which is not to say that the other members of class 2-F
hadn't tried. Sayuri and her friend Yuka has put up a brave
struggle, and, of course, all the boys in 2-F had
desperately attempted to hold enough of a baritone to match
Ranma's contralto. But, in the end, Akane's clear soprano
had been the only one with enough endurance, or range.
It was the sensei of music's private despair that neither
girl was at all interested in representing Furinkan on the
Musical Performance team. He had even attempted to lure
Ranma with reports of "Musical Martial Arts" only to run
headlong into a will of tempered granite.
"I have spent too much of my life, and far too much pain, on
my Art to betray it now Ranma had said, firmly, "it is as
perfect as I can make it and I will not abandon it simply so
someone trained in another, lesser, style can have a 'fair
fight'. If someone wishes to challenge me to Aikido, or
Ninjutsu, or Martial Arts Croquet or Kung-Fu Break-Dancing
or any other such silliness they may do so. And they may use
their Art, and I will use mine, and we will see whose is
superior." Her grin as she delivered this pronouncement had
been truly alarming, and the matter had been dropped.
This had led to Ranma and Akane practicing duets on the same
song that Ranma had began with yesterday.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end only love remains.
It seemed that they should cooperate on the chorus, which
led to the question of how to divide up the verses. So Ranma
had taken the first set alone.
Tonight the Harvest Moon hangs over the valley,
I see the hills shine, in its' silvery light.
It's the same old Moon, that shines down upon me,
And'll light my way, till I'm by your side.
For where I go, You go with me,
Though the miles keep us apart.
Your kisses on my lips, and your arms around me,
And your gentle hands, always on my heart.
Akane's soprano had rung out both more softly and more
sweetly than Ranma on the second set, leading to the
harmonies of their combined voices and Ranma's guitar on the
second chorus.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end only love remains.
And then it was time for the final verses and the problem of
how to apportion them was solved, mutually, by alternating
lines, first the contralto, smoke and ozone on the autumn
wind and the presence -far off and brooding- of the storm;
then the soprano, crackling now with driving energy, bright
and pure, (yet, somehow, not at all sterile) filled with the
changeable changelessness of a bonfire's roar.
Well who scattered these diamonds,
through the vault of Heaven?
(The wind questioned, and the flame responded.)
Who drew the curve of the magpie's wing?
(The bonfire summoned, and the breeze answered.)
Who shaped your face, and what made you love me?
(The rising wind commanded, and the snapping flame obeyed.)
Where is the heart of every living thing?
(The blaze flamed higher, and the wind grew with it, and fed
it, and drove it on before.)
Well, I guess I don't know, and I don't care either.
(Wind roused flame to life ...)
I know you love me, how could it not be?
(... flame drew wind's reply ...)
And I am yours, now and forever,
(... feeding now from each other's power, one to the other,
changing and exchanging the lead, to join again in harmony
at the last ... )
'Til my lips fall silent, and my eyes can't see.
(... and the wind whipped the blaze into a wildfire ...)
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
(... and the fire blew the wind into a storm.)
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end Dear, only love remains.
And in the silence that filled the classroom when the song
had finished, Ranma's slightly husky voice broke the
stillness gently, like a sudden breeze breaks the hush of
dawn, "By the way Akane, shouldn't you have been playing
your instrument too?"
"Um, well ... Akane shook herself and replied, "No. You see
I play the saxophone, and if I play I can't sing ...."
"You play _sax_??" Ranma blink-blinked, then mumbled, "Jazz.
Now where am I gonna get sheet music for Jazz. Mmm, maybe I
could .... Well, that's nice, but it does leave us with one
problem."
"Er, what's that, Ranma? Akane asked warily.
"Where in hell are we going to find a drummer?"
The bell took the opportunity to ring at that point, ending
the class. And also cutting off at least three boys'
attempts to volunteer for the offered position (not that any
of them could actually _play_ the drums, but that wasn't the
point), which was, probably, extremely fortunate for all
involved.
------------------------------------------------------------
Nabiki had excused herself for an unspecified appointment.
Sayuri and Yuka had departed, giggling, to prepare the
former for a date she had contrived with "this dreamy guy"
from class 3-C. Various other people had departed to their
various ways.
Ranma and Akane were, technically speaking, not _alone_,
just _by themselves_. They had therefore, by mutual,
unspoken, consent, departed from the straight path towards
Akane's home and were, instead, strolling idly through one
of Nerima's parks, enjoying the warmth of the day and the
freshness of the spring breeze. This being one of the
Accepted Canonical Locations for Serious Discussions, one of
the aforesaid Serious Discussions was underway.
"Akane-san Ranma gritted, "I _said_ that you should ..."
"I did consider my decision, Ranma-chan Akane replied
calmly. "I decided that I wanted to go ahead."
"_Damn it, girl_!" Ranma roared, "You've got _no_ idea what
you're getting into!"
"Ranma-chan Akane reached out and put a gentle hand on the
faint scar that traced the side of Ranma's face, next to her
mouth, "when you took the blow that dealt that scar, did it
hurt? Did it hurt afterwards?"
"_OF COURSE IT BLOODY HURT!!!_"
"And, the others?" Akane's voice was gentle, "Did they hurt,
too?"
"What the hell kind of question is that?! Of _course_ they
did!"
"And after you healed, did they stop hurting?"
"What are you ... _No!_ They never stop hurting, not
completely! I _ache_ in the winter, sometimes!"
"And you said that your honor didn't allow you to let your
friend suffer likewise unless she _had_ to?"
"_THAT'S WHY I'M TRYING TO TALK YOU OUT OF IT IN THE FIRST
PLACE, YOU, YOU ... BAKA!!!_"
Akane stepped forward to stand just in front of Ranma,
face-to-face and looking closely into her cerulean eyes. "So
what makes you think that _my_ honor will allow me to let
_my_ friend suffer all that pain ... alone?"
And Bushiko Ranma, whose name had once been otherwise,
looked into the great, dark, eyes of her opponent in this
contest of wills, of her would-be student, of her friend;
and found there no challenge, but also no surrender. And
martialed a hundred arguments, and prepared a thousand
objections, and called to mind every precept of logic she
had ever heard. And saw, in the theater of memory, --
treacherous memory, that shows what it will, and not what
_you_ will -- another face. And the expression in the eyes
before her mirrored once, long before, in a mirror. And
bowed her head to another's honor, and bent her neck to
another's necessity; and buried her face in another's
shoulder, and felt another's arms embrace her; and did not
cry, nor did she weep, so great was her control, whatever
she might wish. Only, instead, she spoke, very low and
muffled in another's breast, "Alright. Alright, I'll teach
you. I'll teach you all I can."
And Tendo Akane also did not cry, nor weep, for the moment
was, for her, too great for tears. She only said "And I
promise to learn, all that I can. And never to regret what
you may teach, whatever it may cost me."
And they stood like that for a time, which may have been
long or short, and then released each other's embrace. And
walked onward, more quickly now, to the hall that one called
home.
------------------------------------------------------------
On the mat Ranma bowed to the Dojo's spirit and then turned
to face Akane and crossed her arms. "Okay. We now face the
First Problem of teaching you how to lead a life dedicated
to the fine art of slaughter. Briefly, the problem is one of
attitude. A warrior simply has a different basic attitude
than a person trained for sport or self-defense, and the
necessary attitude is one you don't possess."
Akane assumed an attitude of respectful attention.
"And the number of ways I know of to induce the necessary
attitude reduce to three said Ranma, beginning to pace back
and forth. "First, we could send you to a remote temple for
two or three decades so you could run up and down snowy
mountains, and drink bark tea, and meditate on your navel.
"_But_, we can probably say that this approach will take a
_trifle_ more time than we actually have." Ranma reached the
end of her pacing arc, and raised one finger in the air as
she turned around.
Akane turned her head to face her, still attentive.
"Second, we could send you off to somewhere where life is
cheap, gunpowder is in the air, and death lurks behind every
corner, in the hope that, if you survived, you would pick
something up by osmosis.
"_But_, that approach is probably a little too, umm ...
_uncertain_." Ranma reached the other end of her arc and
held up a second finger.
Akane made a face, and nodded vigorously.
"So what we are left with is choice three Ranma said with
an evil grin, holding up a third finger. "This is the
approach where I beat the living snot out of you on a
regular basis until you learn something."
Akane observed the grin, and gulped.
"And the first part of that process Ranma said, turning to
face Akane, and crossing her arms again, "is to see
precisely what you are capable of _now_. _Assume_."
Akane brushed away a sudden bead of sweat, and assumed the
Tendo Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu Crane In Waiting stance.
Akane waited uneasily. Ranma looked her up and down for
about three seconds, and then she moved.
It seemed, to Akane, like being in the center of a tornado.
Great winds buffeted her from all sides, and her defenses
were useless against the hail of punishing blows descending
from every angle that she didn't, or couldn't block, but not
from the ones she did.
A slide kick sent her sprawling to the ground, followed by
three fast and bruising punches to the small of her back,
but she fought grimly upright and cleared some space with a
sweeping hip kick that only cost her two snap-kicks to the
knee and a crane strike to the thigh. Setting her back
against the Dojo's outside wall, and reminding herself not
to move on that leg, she waited as steadily as she could for
Ranma's next attack.
It came within seconds, a v-step across Akane's range that
turned into a feint to her upper right guard. A 'feint' that
succeeded in bashing her out of position for another series
of feints, each contacting her defenses, each bruising her
arms or legs, each moving her farther and farther off her
defensive center, until her guard was completely down.
In the extremity of her extension, turned half away from the
guarding wall, when she could respond to no more threats,
she watched, with despair, a rising power kick that she knew
she could never stop. Awaiting the end, she noted, as if
from her peripheral vision, a slight movement _behind_ her,
and then the world went black.
She awakened upside down against a wall. She knew that only
moments could have passed, but from the condition of her
abused muscles it might have been hours. She was gently
turned over and set upright, squatting against the wall, and
blearily forced her eyes open - to discover Ranma kneeling
in front of her, wiping her face clean of sweat and blood
with a handkerchief. And grinning merrily, as though she had
just been told the best joke in all the world.
Akane frowned weakly, "I know I'm not in your class,
Ranma-sensei, but I ..."
Ranma's grin transmuted into a gentle smile and she shook
her head. "Not in my class? Heh. Not in my class. *snrk*.
Akane-chan she asked, more gently yet, "do you know why
you're lying here on the ground, feeling run over?"
"Well I missed that last power kick ... Akane responded
uncertainly.
"The power kick was a feint, Akane-chan Ranma returned to
her grin, "the real attack was the thrust-kick from behind.
The thrust-kick that would have stopped before it actually
hit you, like the death-blow I did to Kuno-san. The
thrust-kick that you couldn't even have _seen_, much less
blocked. That thrust-kick."
"Oh Akane said weakly, "So, what happened?"
"You blocked it, of course Ranma's grin was even larger
now.
"I thought you said I _couldn't_ have blocked it Akane
complained, weakly. Something here wasn't making sense.
"You couldn't have Ranma replied cheerfully, "But you did,
anyway. And there's only one way that could have happened."
Akane shook her head, as if to dislodge whatever particle of
inspiration was hiding in it that was keeping the
conversation from making sense. "Wh .. What's that
Ranma-sensei?" she quavered.
Ranma's grin seemed to split her face, "You must have gone
zanshin, Akane-chan. It's the only way you could even have
come close. With all your defenses down. Completely
overextended. And without even _meaning_ to."
"Z .. Zanshin, Ranma-sensei? You mean like, like
Mushashi-sama? The _Book of Five Rings_?"
"Exactly! And, of course, you know what _that_ means?"
"N-no, I mean, I don't ... what?" Akane shook her head
frantically, desperate to find something that made sense.
Zanshin? Her?
"It means you made me completely waste all that angst I went
through, that's what. You're as surely marked with the
Murderer's sign as am I." Ranma traced a circle on her
forehead with a gentle hand. "It means you will probably end
up being better than _me_. It means that I've found my
Perfect Student, the one I can learn from as much as I
teach. And what, what, _what_ in the name of all that is
holy is a nice girl like you doing in a condition like
that?"
Akane's battered mind seized on the only thing she
recognized in all that barrage of words, and came up with
the only appropriate response, smiling weakly, "Umm, Just
lucky, I guess?"
Ranma's silver laughter filled the empty hall. And then she
abandoned any attempt to urge Akane to rise, and cradled her
in her arms, rising smoothly to her feet as Akane feebly
waved her hands in protest.
"And now we'll get you in the furo. You need to soak."
"But, but, that is, I don't, you shouldn't ..."
"Hush, Akane. The Sensei Is Always Right."
"But you, I, it's not ..."
"Hush, Akane-chan."
"Don't need, why, can walk, ..."
"_Hush!_"
"Er, umm, that is... Yes, Ranma-chan meekly.
"And then I'll give you a massage, to keep you from being
too stiff tomorrow."
"Erkk... very meekly indeed.
"And after that we'll get Kasumi-san to make you a _big_
meal, so you can keep your strength up."
"Oh, no a very, very small voice.
"And after _that_, we can do some _real_ training!"
"Help almost inaudible, in fact. Not that it helped.
And Ranma's cheerful laughter blew them into the furo. And
then they did exactly what Ranma had said they would.
------------------------------------------------------------
And much later, long after dark, as Ranma wound her way
alone to her rented flat, and Akane slept the sleep of the
Just -- or, anyway, the Sleep of the Very, Very Tired --,
Ranma looked up into the light-glare that blotted out the
stars above Tokyo, and snorted.
"'Keep your head down, and hope you find a friend', I said.
Hah! Oh, well I can't complain about the quality of her art
at least. Even if it is bloody inconvenient! 'Here Ranma,
have a day, you've found your Perfect Student. Of course,
you've only got six months to teach her in, but...'."
Musingly, "It's loads better than that last school, at
least. Food fights, bleah. Oh, yes, it could _definitely_ be
worse."
And then she began, without raising her voice, to sing. And
continued singing all the way down the road.
The brooding ghosts of this dark night
Are gone from wood and Town.
My spirit revives in the morning breeze,
Though it died when Sun went down.
The river is wide, the stream is strong,
And the grass is green and tall.
And I feign would think that this world of ours,
Is a good world, after all.
The light of passion in dreamy eyes,
The page of truth well read,
The glorious thrill in a heart grown cold,
And a spirit once thought dead.
The song that goes to a comrade's heart,
The tear of pride let fall,
My heart grows brave, and the world, to me,
Is a good world, after all.
Let our enemies go by their own dull paths,
Let theirs be doubt and shame.
The man who's bitter against the world
Has only himself to blame.
Let the darkest side of the past stay dark,
And only good recall,
For I must believe that the world, to me,
Is a good world, after all.
It may be that I saw too plain,
It may be I was blind,
But I'll keep my face to the morning light,
Though the Devil stand behind.
Though the Devil may stand behind my back
Shall I see his shadow fall?
And I'll read, in the light of the Morning Star
Of a good world, after all.
And then, very softly:
Rest, for your arms are weary, Love,
You drove the worst away.
And the ghost of the one that I might have been
Is gone from my heart today.
We'll live our life for the good it brings,
'Till our twilight shadows fall.
Oh, my heart grows brave, and the world, to me,
Is a good world, after all.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Chapter 3: The Third Day
Part A: Point of Contact; The Hunter and the Bear.
'Til next chapter,
Eric Hallstrom, 10/27/99
Yours very respectfully,
Eric Hallstrom, CC, PhD, UBIP,etc.
--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hallcon@mindspring.com
kawaii@kawaiikunee.com
From: Eric Hallstrom <hallcon@mindspring.com>
Subject: [Ranma][FanFic] Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, Chapter Three
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
/The Hunter and the Bear/ was picked up from Alan Cole and
Chris Bunch, and extensively filled out by me. If it
originated with them, they own whatever copyright exists. If
it didn't, they don't. It was originally told by Wee Alex,
Laird Kilgour of Kilgour, who _may_ have Ranma beat in cool,
but who is nowhere near as cute.
Jei-san, on the other hand (look that's his name, okay?) is
the exclusive property of Stan Sakai, who is welcome to him.
I am merely borrowing his likeness, and will return it as
soon as I am done with it. And not before time too, I don't
want it sticking around in my head.
"Summer Lightning" and "Stars in Their Crown" are by Garnet
Rogers, as before.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.2 (Oct. 27, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
She could barely believe her luck.
It had already been a day to cherish forever in memory.
First, she had been brave. Ranma-sempai herself had said so.
Not that she really believed that she had been brave, as
such. She had simply felt that something needed to be done,
and then she had done it. Still, it had gotten her praise
and admiration, and Ranma-sempai had even thanked her for
it, so ....
She had, however, discovered that it was far preferable to
feel that one had been brave than to feel brave in the
current moment. The reason being, being brave _now_ meant
that something deeply unpleasant must, by definition, be
happening; whereas, on the other hand, _having been_ brave
meant that the unpleasant thing must have been faced. And,
of course, overcome. (The narrator would like to note at
this time that the subject is, after all, only seventeen.)
Second, her newfound notoriety had gotten her a date! Which
she was just now returning from. And which had been really
fun, too. Not as good as it could have been, true, but the
cute guy from class 3-C had been able to afford a trip to a
_good_ restaurant - a good _expensive_ restaurant - and had
spent most of the evening paying attention to her. Even if
it had only been so he could ask about Ranma. So, she felt,
the gates had been opened, and it was now possible that she
might achieve the lofty heights of Going Steady. Just as
soon as she found one of the boys at Furinkan who wasn't a
jerk. She was sure there must be _one_.
But third, ahh _third_, now there was the thing. The great
thing. The unalloyedly wonderful thing. For, walking home
from her date, she had passed a park. And her attention had
been drawn to an area just inside a screen of bush, where
she had made A Find. A wonderful find. She, Asano Sayuri,
Furinkan High Class 2-F, had found ... a puppy!
Stop snickering. Right now.
It was weak and half-starved, and very ragged looking, but
she knew that it would grow up fine and strong. It had
weakly snapped at her hand, but she knew that she would soon
win its heart, and that it would be loyal and true. Best of
all, it was in the park unhelped by any but herself, which
meant it must be free for any who could aid and protect it.
And since it was obviously Greatly In Need, her parents
would have, could have, no objection to her keeping it.
Asano Sayuri, at heart, was a great romantic, who frequently
viewed the world through glasses not merely rose-colored,
but actively rose-projecting, and so she smiled and skipped
slightly as she carried home the wolf cub she had found. It
would, she knew, be grand. And, invisible to her view (since
it was turned away from her), a tiny fleck of green light
flickered in one of the wolf cub's eyes, and then went out.
------------------------------------------------------------
And Kuno Kodachi sat quietly and watched her brother with
what passed, for her, as concern. He had been very different
since yesterday, and no previous simple beating had ever
engendered such a result. Also, she noticed, his sword was
now securely locked in its sheath, instead of displayed on
its stand, as was proper.
Perhaps some spell had been cast on her idiotic older
brother. Or perhaps something else odd had occurred. In any
case, she supposed, she would have to check herself.
Furinkan, bah! She had visited before, and in the whole
school there was no person of merit or spirit. No person at
all.
------------------------------------------------------------
And across Nerima a number of phone conversations burned
late into the night. They had been beaten. They had been
disgraced and dishonored. Moreover, some felt, they had
deserved it. First, they had failed to adequately take into
account the proper considerations of a challenge, and
second, they had attempted to attack by surprise. A direct
frontal confrontation, it was agreed, would certainly lead
to a restoration of honor. In one sense or another.
And in a maison apartment on the outskirts of the district
liquified moonlight dripped, over a jade ring, into a silver
pan.
And the night rolled on. And morning came.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma & Akane: A Love Story.
Chapter 3: The Third Day
Part A: Point of Contact: The Hunter and the Bear
------------------------------------------------------------
Bushiko Ranma exited her apartment as the sun rose above her
windowsill. Behind her she left her apartments just as she
had the day before; ahead of her she had a wait of at least
30 minutes before Akane would conceivably leave the Tendo
Dojo for school. A half-hour of which she intended to make
full use.
The basic problem, she reflected, was that she had very
little experience in dealing with the emotion of great
happiness. The only means of easily dealing with _any_ great
emotion she had was to work off the excess energy. Therefore
...
She leapt, touched one toe to the nearest roof and leapt
again. Spun in mid-air, turned a somersault, bounced off a
passing air molecule, tapped a toe on a passing water-tower,
back-flipped 30 yards of warehouse, touched down in a
cartwheel, leapt again. Flickering from foothold to hand-
hold, flashing from tower to wall, dancing across the
Neriman skyline, her only accompaniment the musical chiming
of her own delighted laughter, filling the air behind her
progress like a chorus of golden bells.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma came down on Akane from out of the rising sun. Akane
determined that Ranma's attack wasn't really serious by the
simple fact that she could defend against it. Instead Ranma
neatly bounced off her raised arm, transferring no force but
achieving enough velocity to bounce off a nearby fence in
another attack.
This sequence continued with Akane blocking and Ranma
delivering more and more complex and difficult attacks. Each
coming increasingly closer to breaking past her guard as
Akane's defensive maneuvers drew her farther and farther
away from Nabiki, to the point where her back was almost
against the fence by the side of the road.
Then a sneaky rebound off the fence behind her left her
nowhere to go but up. She snap-jumped to the top of the
fence and was then forced repeatedly back, unable to spare
the attention needed to discover where she was but happy
just to have no more than one direction from which to expect
attacks.
Akane was driven back more than sixty yards along the fence
before Ranma took pity and ceased her attack. Akane stayed
in a defensive stance for another few seconds as Nabiki came
running up with her mouth open.
"Akane! That was great! I didn't think anyone could move
along the top of a fence like that!"
Akane looked down, wavered, and wildly waved her arms in an
attempt to keep her balance, but succeeded only in falling
off the inside of the fence, onto the sidewalk, instead of
the outside, into the stream.
Looking up from her position flat on her rump on the ground,
Akane observed Ranma covering her eyes and shaking her head,
and Nabiki shaking her whole body with barely restrained
mirth.
"And so gracefully done, too," Ranma observed mildly.
"If you'd _told_ me I was on a fence _earlier_...."
"You'd have fallen off earlier, ne? It's often the case that
the body unconscious of its circumstances can do things it
never could by the will of the mind alone, but you don't
often see it that clearly," Ranma replied, still calmly.
"And now, for your next trick, get back on the fence."
"But, but, but ...."
"_Up_!"
Wobbling frantically, Akane attempted to keep her balance on
the fencetop. Then she felt a pair of hands on her
shoulders, steadying her balance. Ranma turned to Nabiki,
"Please excuse us, Nabiki-san, and continue on to school. I
see that I have some training to accomplish, but we'll be
along shortly."
Akane gulped, and commended herself to the protection of the
Kami.
"Now, Akane, first we walk," beginning to do so, "and then
we run."
Accelerating along the top of the fence, Ranma took a corner
and left Nabiki behind, pushing Akane along before her.
Akane observed the sharp-looking top of the fence vanishing
beneath her and quavered, "Wh-what happens if I lose my
balance?"
"You get to do a split onto a sharp surface. This will hurt.
A lot," Ranma replied calmly. "I don't recommend it."
"Oh, fine!" Akane mumbled.
"And now we go faster."
"Help."
------------------------------------------------------------
Returning to the straight track to Furinkan as they neared
the school, Ranma and Akane caught up to Nabiki just before
they reached the outer wall of the courtyard. Akane, Nabiki
noted, was looking somewhat frazzled but bore no evidence of
injury.
Returning to the sidewalk, the two walked alongside Nabiki
as they entered the schoolyard, only to run into a wall of
semi-determined male silliness. Perhaps a dozen Furinkan
students were lined up in the center of the yard, each
bearing some form of combat implement. The leader bowed to
Ranma and began to speak.
Ranma raised an eyebrow and interrupted. "Let me guess. You
lads have decided to go the formal challenge route."
"Err ... yes," the leader said uncertainly.
"Ah. Tell me," Ranma said, "have any of you gentlemen heard
the story of the Hunter and the Bear?"
General negation was expressed.
Ahh. So. (said Ranma) It seems that once there was
a man who was successful in all his business and
in all his life.
And he attributed his success to the fact that he
treated his life and his business struggles as
though they were hunts. And he proved his point by
referring to the trophies that he had accumulated
down the years he had hunted the valiant tiger,
and the noble elephant, and the ferocious cow.
Yet, alas, his life was incomplete, and he
suffered sorely for the lack. For, despite all the
beasts he had hunted and all the trophies he had
taken, in all his life he had never hunted _Bear_.
And so, one year in the summer of his life, when
he had grown weary of the games he played, he
summoned his managers and accountants and bade
them take over all his enterprises and companies
and investments, and to keep them safe and
prosperous until it should again please him to
exhibit his business acumen, and financial skill.
And he gathered to himself, from the reserves of
all his possessions, a great store of treasure,
and he set himself to hunt _Bear_ and to gain
himself a rug. Or, as it might be, a coat.
And he bought a new and most excellent rifle, such
as he was wont to use to take his prey. And he
hired a famous hunting guide to teach him of all
the _Bear's_ habits and customs. And he spent gold
with a free hand to seek out all the information
and rumors that could be found concerning his
victim-to-be. And then he took ship for the
far-away land where, it was said, _Bear_ was to be
found.
On arriving in that place he indulged in another
week of riotous living, such as he had done on
shipboard (and indeed, if the truth were to be
told, all his life): drinking fine wines and
liquors, romancing pretty, admiring, girls, eating
gourmet meals, and boasting to all and sundry of
the glory he was soon to win.
Then he went into seclusion for a week, to listen
to the efforts of the priests he had paid to pray
for his success, and to watch the smoke rising
from the sacrifices of the costly treasures he had
purchased specifically to win the favor of the
gods.
And to drink only the finest of teas, made only
from the purest of water hand carried from the
mountain springs of its birth.
And to eat only the newest and purest of rice,
prepared by the finest of chefs, and topped only
by the choicest of salted bream, and fugu, and
squid from the deepest part of the ocean.
And to spend much time in the hottest saunas,
thinking pure thoughts, while pretty, naked, girls
attended him, striking him on the back with birch
branches to drive all impurities and poisons from
his pores.
And in various other such manners to strengthen
his body, and to focus his mind, and to commend
his success to all the relevant kami, and to call
on the protection and good luck of all of his
personal and family spirits, ghosts, fairies and
tutelary dieties.
And then, one morning, he picked up his weapon,
and had a fine hunting lunch packed, and traveled
forth into the wide world beyond the hunting
lodge. He traveled to a secluded hide, above a
descending slope which overlooked a brushy expanse
of valley, where there were bushes of berries, and
a swift flowing stream filled with fish. And where
there was known to be _Bear_.
And after he had waited for an hour or two,
drinking the nourishing drink with which he was
equipped and nibbling on the many snacks which had
been provided in his bento, along the open space
in the vale below him came that which he had
journeyed so far and through such hardships to
match himself against: a _Bear_.
It was plodding unconcernedly along, eating
berries from the bushes and considering, perhaps,
a main course of fish.
He observed it through the excellent telescopic
sight on his rifle, sniffling a little at the sad
fate that awaited such a magnificent specimen.
Almost, almost, he abandoned his sniper's rest and
descended to meet the great beast, to face it in
hand-to-claw combat from a short distance, say 100
yards or so, to be more sporting.
But no, he hardened himself to pity and thought
that if the beast had desired a sporting chance,
it should have worked to make one, as he had. And
he settled the sights on the broad shoulder
displayed before him, and he nestled the stock
gently into his shoulder, and he stroked the
trigger, and the rifle barked its song of death.
And below him, in the valley, the great _Bear_
shook its head, and stumbled, and fell, very
slowly, to its side, and lay still ... dead.
And he rose from the blind where he had waited,
and observed the trophy below him, and saw in it
all that he had worked for. And descended the
slope before him, to claim it.
Down he went, planning in his mind what he would
do with the trophy so dearly won, and how it would
be displayed. And he reached the bottom of the
ridge, and broke through the brushy screen, and
found there bushes full of berries, and a stream
full of fish, but no _Bear_, nor corpse of _Bear_,
and no sign that ever there had been one.
Frantically now he cast about, searching for any
clue as to where his trophy had gone, or who had
taken it. And he strode forward into the middle of
the vale, running to where he had seen the great
carcass fall, but no carcass, nor sign of such,
nor footprint, nor mark, nor any other trace of
the great beast's presence did he find.
And then something tapped him on the shoulder.
And then he turned around.
And there before him, rising up in majesty and
wrath, with fur stained by the blood of its
victims, with rolling eye and roaring growl, stood
_Bear_. And its terrible claws were long and
crusted with red. And its awful teeth were sharp
and keen. And it towered over him like a cliff
above a shaking mouse.
And then his courage failed him, and he dropped
his rifle, and waited tremblingly to die.
And then he heard a voice, a terrible and growling
voice, the voice of _Bear_! And it said, "Now lad,
if y' wan' tae live, ye'll be droppin yer trousies
and turnin aroun', an' I'll be performin' a
disgustin' sexual act upon yer trembling bod!"
And the man winced, and *yerked* and *yaaghed*,
but the _Bear_ was terrible, and its claws were
sharp, and so....
And so he dropped his trousers, and turned around
... and that's it, that's all.
_But_!
Later, dragging back to the lodge, he resolved
that he should leave his properties and
investments in the hands of his managers and
retire to a monastery, to mortify his flesh, and
apologize to the gods for his pollution.
But first, _first_ he would return to this place
and destroy the _Bear_, and use its skin for a rug
to sit on in the monastery, and to warm his
backside as he begged for alms. And he would spend
all his wealth and treasure, if necessary, to
attain that end. After all, what use would it now
be to him?
And so he returned to his homeland by the fastest
jet which was to be found in all that country, and
he threw all the resources of his great empire
into his one overriding goal.
And he caused to be designed a rifle; a weapon so
advanced that it could have destroyed a squadron
of tanks in one burst. A weapon whose merest
glancing blow would blow a hole three feet wide
through battleship armor. A weapon which was so
accurate that the veriest novice could use it to
blow in half a fly three miles off, and hit both
halves as they fell.
And he trained with it, and hired the world's
greatest marksman, and its most accomplished
tracker, and its foremost animal scientist, all to
explain to him, and to design a plan to bring the
fearful beast to its end. And he gave them all
they required, and built and strove as they said.
And then, again in spring, he again traveled to
that far-away land, and prayed and sacrificed, and
took his weapon, and all his devices and schemes,
and went forth to the ridge above the valley, to
meet his nemesis again.
And he set all his traps and devices in the valley
below, disguising all his scent and sign, that the
beast might not be disturbed in its progress.
And again he took up a position in a hide on the
ridge, and again he waited for the _Bear_.
And again time passed, and again the _Bear_ came
along the stream in the valley below.
And again he sighted his weapon, but no pity or
moment of grace stayed his hand this time!
And again he stroked the trigger, and again the
rifle roared. And all the traps, and nets, and
devices activated, blew up or fired at once. And
when the smoke had cleared the bruin lay, not
merely killed, but torn into a thousand pieces,
pierced, burned, strewn about the ground.
And again he raced down the slope, and took his
weapon with him. And he anticipated, as he ran,
how he would dance upon the _Bear's_ carcass when
he reached it, how he would make a common pillow
from the largest scrap of its hide, how he would
piss on the barren place where he would burn the
rest of its rotten, stinking corpse.
And again he reached the bottom of the ridge, and
broke the line of the brush before the valley
floor. And again he found there bushes full of
berries, and a stream full of fish, but again he
found no _Bear_.
And again he searched the little valley, weapon
held low and fierce before him, ready for any
movement.
And again something tapped him on the shoulder.
And again he turned around.
And again before him, rising up in terrible,
monstrous form, with blood-stained fur, and
flashing eye and thunderous growl, stood _Bear_.
And its claws were long and sharp, and dripped
with clotted gore. And its teeth were keen and
clouded with the red tinged saliva that its
twisting neck scattered near and far. And it
towered above him and its dark shadow blinded him.
And again his courage failed him, and again he
dropped his weapon, and prayed for the death he
once had feared.
And again he heard the voice, a terrible voice of
his shame, the voice of _Bear_! And it said, "Now
lad, if it's tae live y' want, ye'll be bendin'
doon, and openin' yer maw, and ye'll be performin'
a disgustin' sexual act upon me!"
And again he wailed, and prayed that the test
might pass, but the _Bear_ was strong, and its
terrible fangs dripped blood- tinged drool. And he
wished for death, but not like that.
And so, finally, he bent down, and ... and that's
all, but later, again returning weeping to the
lodge, he decided.
Corrupt he was, and impure, and damned for a
coward. He would endow monasteries and temples, he
would give all his wealth to charity and good
works, and then he would find some active volcano,
and throw himself in, and remove his pollution
from the circles of the world.
But first, _first_, FIRST!
Without fear, without possibility of failure,
without reprieve.
The. _Bear_. _Must_. _Die!_
And so he again returned to his homeland, and
spent gold like water in his quest.
He acquired the perfect rifle, the highest product
of the world's best gunsmith's art.
He went alone into the wilderness with his weapon
and the collected wisdom of the world in regard to
_Bears_, their habits, and all that related, or
had ever related to them.
And in the wilderness, in practice with the rifle,
and the bear-spear, and in communion with all that
the world knew of _Bear_, he planned and plotted
and grew in skill, until he was, without question,
the very best, most knowledgeable and most
skillful hunter of _Bear_ that there had ever
been.
And then, in fall, when _Bears_ are fat and
somnolent, _again_ he traveled to that land, and
_again_ he prayed and sacrificed.
And _again_ he took his rifle, and added to it his
spear.
And _again_ he went forth to the ridge above the
valley.
And _again_ he took up a position in a blind on
the ridge.
And _again_ he waited. He waited for the _Bear_.
And _again_ time passed, and _again_ the _Bear_
came along the stream in the valley below.
And _again_ he sighted his weapon, and _again_ he
stroked the trigger, and _again_ the rifle sang.
And _again_ the missile flew straight, and struck
its target directly on.
And _again_ the great head shook, and _again_ the
great legs stumbled, and _again_ the great beast
fell.
And _again_ he raced down the slope, and _again_
he took his his rifle, and also he took his spear.
And _again_ he reached the bottom of the ridge,
and _again_ he broke the line of the brush before
the valley floor.
And _again_ he found there bushes full of berries,
and _again_ he found a stream full of fish.
And _again_ he found no _Bear_.
And _again_ he scanned the valley, _again_ he
searched and stared.
And _again_ something tapped him on the shoulder.
And _again_ he turned around.
And _again_ before him, stood the _Bear_, and
_again_ its claws were long and sharp, and _again_
its teeth were keen.
And _again_ its mouth dripped bloody drool, and
_again_ it towered above him and _again_ its dark
shadow blinded him.
And _again_ his courage failed him, and _again_ he
dropped his weapons, and _again_ he prayed for the
death knew he would not find.
And _again_ he heard the voice, the terrible voice
of _Bear_!
And it said, "Now lad, tell th' truth. Ye didnae
come here frae the huntin', did ye?"
Ranma's voice on the last question had become soft and
gentle. And she looked upon the white-faced boys huddling
before her, and bestowed on them a smile. A gentle smile. A
kind and sweet smile. An angelic smile.
And the last remnant of the Fight at Furinkan, pale and
shaking, turned away from the terrible figure they had
sought to challenge. And stumbled weeping up the steps, and
divided themselves among their several classes, where they
sat huddled and still all the rest of the day. And where
no-one spoke of the story, or of the Fight. Not that day,
nor for a long time to come.
And Ranma and Akane, arms linked, and voices rising to the
clear blue sky, walked up the stairs behind them, singing.
When he was fast asleep, hey do me harity
When he was fast asleep, me being young,
When he was fast asleep, I from his side did creep,
Into the arms of a handsome young man!
Now he's got Faloorum, Faleerum, Fallorum,
Now he's got Fallorum, Faleerum, Falaay!
Now he's got Fallorum, he's got a Ding-Doorum,
Maids, when you're young, never wed an old man!
------------------------------------------------------------
She had woken with the new day and prepared for school. Then
she had gone to the room where the puppy had slept, to see
its progress for herself. Now she knew, she had made a
mistake, a dreadful mistake, the previous day. Now, she
knew, she must be brave, and even bravery would do no good
for her. But it still might serve another.
And so she clutched the twisted, claw-like hand that held
her throat with both her own. And so she looked up into the
eyes, burning with a green internal fire, of the seven-foot,
near skeletal, black-robed figure that held her fast. And so
she saw the twisted, part wolf, part fox, part feline, all
terrible face of the being before her, and recognized in it
the remnant of the puppy she had found.
And so she heard it ask, in a horrible, pain-wracked voice,
as twisted as itself, for information about _Ranma_. And so
she was brave, and made no sound. And she heard the
horrified shriek, and saw, through a sudden twilight, her
mother standing in the doorway, aghast. And then the night
came down.
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma & Akane: A Love Story.
Chapter 3: The Third Day
Part B: Storming the Wall: A Game of Wolf and Dragon
------------------------------------------------------------
Koriko Nagao was having what he could unqualifiedly describe
as the worst day of his life. He had been humiliated and
dishonored and disgraced, he thought greyly.
It had been bad enough before, when that horrible barbarian
had terrified all the males of Furinkan on the first day. It
had been unendurable when he had been seduced by his own
rage into joining the attempted attack that had ended so
humiliatingly on the second. Or he had thought it had been
unendurable anyway. Now he knew better what 'unendurable'
meant.
Then they had only laughed at him to his face. Only
snickered at him behind his back. Only looked with disgust
at a stalwart of the Kendo Club. Only tittered at the
distress of a champion of the school. Only sniggered at the
nakedness and humiliation of a descendant of samurai. Only
that, then.
And so he had called together the other stalwarts, the only
remaining bastions of Furinkan tradition. Even their leader
had deserted them, the noble Kuno Tatewaki injured in spirit
and plunged into depression by the beating administered by
That Horrible Girl. They were alone now, but they would
uphold tradition and honor as they saw it.
And so they had analyzed. Dissected available data.
Consulted the authorities. And realized, to their horror and
shame, that they, _they_ _themselves_ had largely been to
blame.
Error had crept in to the ways of Furinkan. They had turned
from the path of honor, and they had rightly suffered for
it. Engaging in mass attacks on a single warrior in a matter
of honor. Attempting an ambush. Hiding like cowards.
Following a mongrel dog to avenge themselves on one who had
merely acted in defense of another.
Finally they had turned to look at themselves and seen what
they had become. Worse, they realized, they had led others
into error, as well. All of the male students of Furinkan
had eventually joined in the Fight For Akane's Heart. All
were now tarred with the same brush, with the same stain, as
they.
They must atone, they realized. They must immediately place
their straying feet back on the path of honor. But how to do
so?
There was only one choice, he had argued. They had begun as
warriors, as samurai in a sense, albeit, he now realized,
badly misguided ones. They must mend their honor the same
way.
Yet simple seppuku would not do, for the old ways were no
longer honored as once they had been. They would not be
seen, many said, as cleansing themselves from stain; but
rather as overly-emotional children, even as misguided
fools.
And what else were they, some wag had remarked, bitterly.
Some, another said, would even believe that they were
running, unwilling to face up to their shame.
No, he had argued persuasively, they must seek a
confrontation instead. They must challenge Ranma-san
directly, one by one; in the broad light of day, and not
hiding behind walls; and only after they recovered from the
destruction she would surely and deservedly work upon them
would their honor be capable of being restored.
'And,' he thought, 'in such a combat, with weapon in hand,
it would surely not be difficult to require Ranma-san to use
lethal force in her own defense.' Thus ending the life he
now felt too dishonored to endure, without drawing down
censure on anyone.
So he had thought, but he had been wrong. They had
challenged, or attempted to challenge, at least, but she had
not responded with blows but rather with words. With a
story; 'A morality tale,' he winced mentally, and with that
story she had not merely defeated them; she had destroyed
them.
He had returned to his classroom dreading the looks of anger
and disgust he knew he would see on the inhabitants thereof.
But instead he had seen something worse. Much worse. He had
looked sideways at their dutiful faces as the Sensei called
the roll, and there he had surprised an emotion more
terrible than anything he had ever seen, even in his darkest
nightmare: the emotion of pity.
Pity and condescension, as though his humiliation was only
to be expected. Worse even than this, _un_concern, as though
his shame was not even worthy of consideration. As though
_he_ was not worthy of consideration. As though he were
nothing.
He had answered the roll without conscious thought, hearing
without observing the information that one of his female
class-members was unexpectedly absent. He had not even dared
to look at Ranma, where she sat midway back in the class; he
did not wish to see what expression she wore. He had excused
himself immediately, pleading a call of nature; they would
surely snicker, but he could not bring himself to care. He
had almost fled the building, and now huddled in dread by
the outer wall, just by the gates.
Huddled there in dread, for he knew he could not evade
classes, and those dreadful, pitying, unconcerned faces
forever. And observed the approach to the school gates of
what seemed, to his in-looking eyes, to be one of Furinkan's
schoolgirls. Perhaps it was Asano-san he mused, dully. He
must pull himself together in front of his classmate. She
had not heard of his humiliation yet; he must put off that
hearing, for a moment at least.
Almost restoring his features to normalcy he turned to face
her and welcome her to school. And heard her ask him a
question, a question which he did not register.
That voice! That pain-wracked, twisted, voice never belonged
to Asano-san! What?
And he observed a fog clear from his sight. And he saw the
towering, black-robed, demonic figure replace his classmate
as if by magic, still clutching her briefcase in one twisted
claw, but bearing a great, cruel bladed Yari in the other.
And he saw the bestial wolf-like figure snarl at him. And
raise its spear as he seemed to freeze, mired in some
clinging substance that weighed down his limbs.
And then the twilight fell, and Koriko Nagao saw through
dimming vision the spear-shaft extending from his chest
retract, its broad head's bright sheen dimmed by scarlet
lifeblood. And realized that he had been granted the escape
from shame that he had sought, before the night claimed him
utterly.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane had been slightly concerned for Sayuri when
it was discovered that she was not in school that day. Yuka,
however, had volunteered the information that she had gotten
home from her date somewhat late last night, and furthermore
that she had found a puppy. So it was decided that she must
simply have overslept, or possibly caught some type of bug,
and would be gently teased about it when she finally dragged
in.
Then the studious peace of Furinkan was broken by a scream.
A piercing, terrible scream. It came from one of the
classrooms on the front side of the first floor , and was
followed by a muffled shout that brought Ranma out of her
startlement, with a shocked oath that split plaster at 30
feet, and out the door in a dead run.
Akane followed after her, dreading whatever had disturbed
her sensei, and reached the bottom of the stairs in time to
see Ranma wave her hand in a complex pattern -- outer
fingers vee-ed and inners curling -- at the wall of one
classroom, which promptly exploded into dust.
Akane gasped and choked on the swirling dust, straining to
see into the opened room. Ranma, however, suffered no such
difficulty, snap- drawing Tenchuu in a classic Iado cut at
the dark-robed bulk that suddenly lunged at her, trailing a
scarlet stream of blood drops from its outstretched spear-
blade.
Ranma pivoted like a matador, sending the lunging demon-wolf
past her with a tortured, wordless howl. Tenchuu blurred as
it passed, striking deep more than a hundred times with a
sound like a deep-tolling bell, and Ranma snarled a name:
"Jei!"
Akane gasped in shock as the hurtling spear-blade bore down
on her, and saved herself from impalement only by a
desperate sideways twist propelled by the impetus of a side
snap-kick, which slammed into the injured side, spraying
blood and fur from the cuts Ranma's attack had left. Akane
saw with a strange, singing clarity as she shoulder-rolled
off the floor; everything seemed to be outlined, thrown into
sharp relief so that her racing mind could clearly
distinguish between what was important, and what was not.
Important, for example, were the injuries to the wolf-
demon's side, healing as she watched, the flesh flowing and
squirming back into proper shape. Also important was the
howling ki aura building up around Ranma and flowing down
her sword, and Akane abandoned reflection and achieved the
state of avoidance.
Ranma held on to the howling, snarling ki-force with a leash
of sheer willpower, quickly enjoining it to build in a
circling tubular onion-like structure, each thin inner layer
of force spinning in counter- rotation to the next, burning
lightning and destructive wind vortices building rapidly to
an uncontainable level from the internal dissonance and
friction of the whole structure.
The task, for her, was strenuous but not especially
challenging; she was much stronger then the last time she
had called the Dragon Wind in earnest, and farther advanced
down the paths of breath and spirit as well. Now, calling on
her full power, Ranma held what she knew was the most
powerful attack she had ever performed until Jei had
stabilized himself enough to be rooted. Until he had placed
himself fully in the path of destruction, yet removed his
ability to dodge it. Then she released its bonds, and called
it to battle by name. "Ryuukaze!"
A corona of blue-white lightning struck inward toward
Ranma's aura, crackling towards her body and hands like a
berserk, inverted Van de Graaff generator. St. Elmo's fire
of red and neon blue played all about her, illuminated the
swirling storm wind that gathered about her hands where they
clenched around Tenchuu's hilt, swept down Tenchuu's blade
and launched itself as a horizontal tornado that sped
irresistibly across the twenty foot space to Jei's back.
A flaming, thundering tide of lightning rode the wind,
outlining its passage with crackling, neon light. At its tip
a vortex of the storm, wind powerful enough to crumble
diamond or shred titanium alloy like wet cardboard, formed a
dragon's head; filled with the heart of the lightning and
drawing the tornado behind it as the head draws the body,
wings and claws following after. As it passed it drew up
debris and shredded floor-tiles into itself, their component
particles joining its destructive force; and on Ranma's
chest, underneath her shirt and wrap, the dragon threw back
her head -- and roared.
Ranma watched with fleeting satisfaction as an unstoppable
tide of pure destruction hit Jei squarely in the back -- and
accomplished precisely nothing. 'Oh, _shit_! He learned to
shield!' She hurled herself across the separating space
between them, shifting her sight to the mode she used to
analyze a structure of magic, and slipped fully munen muso,
into zanshin mind-no-mind.
Jei spun towards his attacker, keeping his attention focused
on her ki-force, and beginning a triumphant snarl.
Ranma sliced past him in a rush, Tenchuu burning through his
stomach and out his back, severing his spine. Ranma spun
around Jei, hand, feet and sword flickering, testing his
defenses and ki in a whirlwind too fast for even Jei's
boosted senses to track, but also too fast to do any lasting
damage, the minor wounds healing even as they were made.
At last, having discovered as much as she could, Ranma
flashed to a position straddling Jei's neck, one foot
bracing against his back as the other leg curled around his
throat. A convulsive twist of Ranma's body broke even Jei's
inhumanly strong neck; and sent her off his shoulders to
bounce off the wall behind him, curling her legs against her
chest and storing power in them.
Then she exploded away from the wall, into his back; her
sword flashed around to sever his head entirely as she built
a tornado-strength shield of wind behind and around her body
and uncurled into Jei's back. The force of her ki-charged
shove shattered every bone in his spine and propelled him
violently across forty yards of open air, through and out of
the classroom he had been destroying originally, and into
Furinkan's yard.
A lash of green energy erupted from his severed neck as he
passed, joining the severed stump of his neck to his
bouncing, discarded head; drawing the latter after it with a
shriek of rage and pain that would have shattered all the
windows on Furinkan's front side, had there been any
undestroyed to that point. Which there weren't.
Impacting the ground violently and being propelled into a
tumbling roll, Jei progressed down the yard with a series of
cracking and ripping noises, landing on his feet and healing
all his wounds with a sustained wet crackle that ended as
his head slammed home atop his neck and knit together again
with a squelch that would probably have been exceedingly
disgusting had anyone been paying attention to it.
Ranma leaped through the destroyed classroom, absently
noting the carnage within, and landed just outside what had
been Furinkan's outer wall. "Jei-san. I see you have gained
in prowess since the last time I killed you."
The storm-loud cackle of mad laughter that erupted from Jei
seemed to provide any answer that might be necessary, but he
continued anyway. "Fool, I cannot be killed! I am the
champion of the Gods, and they have given me new power for
the holy task of destroying you and all your works,
utterly!"
A green ball of fire suddenly filled his hand. "Now, prepare
to die!" he screamed as he threw it at Ranma. She batted it
aside without expression, unmoving as it spattered twenty
feet of Furinkan's front wall with a clinging emerald flame
that corroded stone, glass and wood alike.
Ranma again drew in her power and answered Jei's challenge
with a bolt of lightning. "Gekirin no Ryuu!" The thunderclap
that followed the lightning's ineffectual explosion off
Jei's shield fixed his attention firmly on Ranma herself,
and allowed Akane to shoo several panicking students up the
stairs to (presumed) safety, while she herself ran to the
destroyed classroom to see what help she might give.
Upon jumping the low sill left by the destroyed wall, she
landed in a warm, sticky pool and went to one knee; looking
around in disbelieving horror she found that the answer was:
none. At least a dozen bodies littered the floor and desks
of the violated room. Most were in pieces no larger than
half a torso, but all were clearly dead, and the still,
brooding air hung heavy with the iron tang of fresh blood,
and the sewer stench of released bowels, overlain by the
visceral, sour-sweet smell of human death.
The combination went straight to her hindbrain and forced
her, gagging, to her hands and knees. Her eyes widened in
shock, and she scrambled to her feet, frantically wiping her
hands on her pants as she realized what she had landed _in_.
She gasped and then determinedly looked away from the
carnage around her, out across the field to, and then past,
the looming figure of the seven-foot tall wolf demon, to
where several panicked students, nearly mindless with fear,
huddled against the outside wall of the schoolyard.
Akane lunged out of the destroyed wall section, snatching at
the central pillar of an overturned desk in passing, and ran
across the field, yelling desperately for the students to
run behind her, and away from the demonic spear-wolf. As she
passed directly in line with Jei, she hurled the desk across
the separating distance, smashing him dead on and hurling
him into the wall.
Unfortunately, however, one of the students, who had heard
her call and started to run across to her, was on the wrong
side. Thus, when Jei smashed into the wall, said student was
less than three feet from the impact and, startled and
unable to stop, ran directly into the towering figure as he
clawed his way from the rubble of the wall.
Jei's hand lashed out and closed on the hapless student's
neck even as Ranma and Akane both lunged towards the
tableaux, and the terrible, bloodied spear flashed back for
a death-stroke. Akane, was close enough to arrive in time
and simply shoulder-tackled Jei, breaking his hold on the
student, and driving them both apart and into the wall.
Jei rebounded with a snarl, driving his spear at Akane's
unprotected back as she turned to sent the boy she had
protected to safety on her off side. Then Ranma flashed into
range, sending Tenchuu smashing into the shaft of the spear.
But the shaft rebounded the sword-strike, to her distant
shock, and Jei's instant counter flung Ranma back a dozen
yards, rotating in mid-air and looking for a landing place.
Akane sent her charge toward safety with a massive shove and
began to turn at bay. Too late: the spearhead would pierce
her before she could evade, she saw distantly. Which was why
the black, metallic ribbon that flashed out of nowhere and
tugged the spear-shaft far enough aside to miss and plow
into the wall, instead of Akane, came as a complete shock to
everyone.
------------------------------------------------------------
Kuno Kodachi had hidden in the shadows beside the wall of
Furinkan and observed the events of the morning. She was
especially concerned with finding out who had so injured her
brother, but since he had told her none of the details, she
kept a look-out for anything unusual.
The shortish redhead with the aura of power almost visible
to the naked eye was certainly unusual, she felt.
Furthermore, her brother had not mentioned her even in
passing, as he surely would have under normal circumstances,
and she was in the company of another girl, whom Kodachi
recognized as the "Beauteous Tiger" of her brother's fevered
ranting, Tendo Akane, albeit much altered from the frumpy
girl she had remembered from the last time she had seen her.
This was, she thought, suggestive, and she had been engaged
in attempting to locate the girl within the building when
the screams and explosions had informed her that matters
were becoming very odd and dangerous indeed. She had left
the building by a convenient window and jumped into the
trees, through which she had moved to a position just over
the confrontation by the wall, observing the battle in awe.
Seeing Akane's peril, she saw also an opportunity to
intervene -- and prove her own battle-worth in a theater of
the utmost truth -- and had intercepted the demon's spear
with her ribbon.
Jei's counter pull of the shaft had ripped her from the tree
and several yards further into the schoolyard, but she had
anticipated this, and landed with all the grace of her
gymnastic art, then turned and began to unleash a peroration
that would surely stop the monster in its tracks and lead
directly to its defeat. "Hold, monster! For now ..."
Ranma rebounded in mid-air and turned to the attack as Jei
took the opportunity to dispose of at least one opponent and
struck directly for Akane's heart.
"... you face the wrath ..."
Akane declined to be spitted and counterattacked before Jei
could drive home his spear, catching the spear-shaft just
behind the head with the odd speed she suddenly seemed to
have acquired, and putting a circle kick from the hip into
Jei's mid-section.
"... of the Black Rose ..."
Jei was driven back by the kick, and Ranma altered her
trajectory to track him as he stumbled into range of
Kodachi, and felt that one foe was as good as another.
" ...Ugghkk." Kodachi gasped, as her speech was rudely
interrupted by the butt of Jei's spear driving past her
defense to slam into her midriff, tearing her leotard and
breaking several ribs.
The but was followed by the spearhead, rotating like a fan
blade as Jei drove it in an arc that would have torn through
her heart, while gathering a sickly luminescent fox-fire to
his off hand. Would have, except for Ranma's fall from the
heavens, to cut through Jei's arm, severing it briefly and
reducing the wound to a three inch deep cut across and
through several ribs and deeply into the muscle of her left
arm. The fireball that followed as Jei fell away from
Ranma's strike spattered across Kodachi regardless of
Ranma's swatting, ki-charged hand, and she fell backwards,
crippled, bleeding and aflame.
Some distance away, a young man who had been engaged in the
occupation of shepherding students away from the fight
looked up, and ran to her side with a shriek of rage and
pain, "Sister! No!"
Jei regained his feet with a snarl, but Ranma had seen
enough. She had the measure of his defense now, and it only
remained to accomplish the attack that would destroy him.
She kept him on the defensive with a barrage of mini-
lightning bolts as she closed, followed by a blistering
exchange of fists, feet, spear strokes and sword blows that
maneuvered Jei into the position she wanted.
Tatewaki reached his sister's side just as Ranma put Jei in
the position she wanted him in. "_NOW_ Akane," she roared.
And Akane, seeing her chance, snatched up the central
pillar, now detached, of the desk she had previously used,
and charged into Jei's back, using the pillar as an
improvised club. An attack that was fully successful in all
ways except one: she got the angle to hit him at slightly
wrong.
Jei did not fly in the direction Ranma had wanted, nor did
he go as far, and Ranma altered direction again, on the
ground this time, as Tatewaki reacted to the presence of the
beast that had wounded his sister with the beginnings of the
best attack he could muster, his bokken blurring in the air.
"Dadadadadadadadadada"
Jei, of course, ignored the attack, bringing the shaft of
his spear over his head and down onto Tatewaki, sending the
bokken from his hand and dropping him, stunned, across his
sister's body. Akane followed up her original attack before
he could reverse and use the blade, shoving him forcefully a
couple of feet away, and following up to grab the fallen
bokken as she sprawled across the pile of Kunos.
She turned over desperately, bringing the bokken around to
block the descending spear-point away so that it thudded
into the dirt beside her, and then continuing with the only
attack she could muster from her position flat on her back
on the ground. An attack that she knew was inadequate,
possessing as she did only the mediocre skill gained by her
desultory studies previously and one day of Ranma's
instruction. An attack that was, nonetheless, the only thing
she had.
A kick straight up, with all the force that was in her, past
Jei's defense and into his groin. It lifted him up six
inches, to a roar of shock and hate; forced his hands up,
locked around the spear-shaft for the downward, unstoppable
strike that would skewer her, Tatewaki and Kodachi all
three; and gave Ranma one single, unobserved, unoccupied
second.
------------------------------------------------------------
It was enough.
A roaring wind blew Jei away from the sprawled pile, as
Ranma smashed into him. A hail of sword blows from all
angles taxed his regenerative capabilities and eroded the
defense of his ki-shield. A simultaneous flurry of
ki-charged one-finger strikes pelted him, whirling him
around and around and setting his ki to boiling heat, as
Ranma sent herself into a countering circle, matching his
spin and dropping her ki to freezing before she called the
wind again.
"Hiryuu. Shouten. Haaa!"
The Rising Dragon Ascension Strike flamed inward from a
circle ten yards across and lifted Jei in a roaring cyclone
into the sky. Ranma followed after, riding the wind that was
Jei's enemy, returning Tenchuu to her jacket with a snap and
drawing a phurba of meteoric iron. This she threw straight
upward, through Jei's abdomen, and sent the lightning of the
storm after it, upward from the ground to the dagger's place
at the apex of the cyclone, damaging Jei past the momentary
limits of his regeneration and removing half of his
remaining shield.
Ranma herself rode the lightning-charged storm-wind upward,
speeding past Jei to the top of the funnel-cloud; catching
the dagger as it peaked above Jei's form, momentarily held
in equilibrium between wind and gravity. And then Ranma
called the wind up into a vortex just above the previous
apex of the storm and let Jei fall.
She followed his descent with another throw of the phurba,
again striking through Jei's body, to thud into the ground
far below, again followed by the fury of the storm,
shredding the rest of Jei's shield and wounding him deeply.
Jei snarled hatred and snapped his spear around to guard.
Ranma could not now put another missile past his guard, and
to injure him again she must go down, and thus into his
range. And then Ranma played her trump card, pulling from
Jacket-space a weapon that Jei could only vaguely place.
Some kind of one-hand arquebus, he thought, but surely too
small to ....
The IMI Desert Eagle .50 caliber AE automatic pistol has
been called many things in the world of things that go
boom. Too small has rarely been among them.
A *CHK-Klack* announced that Ranma's invisibly fast hands
had racked the slide. And then the enormous pistol roared,
and the recoil hammered at Ranma's solid grip. And once
again the World's Biggest Handgun proved itself adequate to
the task. Just.
Eight times it spoke and eight bullets flew; each jacketed,
solid core hollow point missile carrying, locked to the iron
spike at the core of its leaden mass, as much of Ranma's ki
as she could shove into it while pulling the trigger.
Each packet of ki was dedicated to the goal of expanding its
bullet explosively just before it entered Jei's body and
then holding the lead and iron in a specific shape during
its passage, regardless of the impedance of flesh or bone.
Each packet achieved its goal exactly, punching eight holes
in the spear-wolf's body; each in the shape of an ideograph
in a scholar's shorthand of ancient China.
Eight ideographs relating a saying about men, and
butterflies, and the difficulty of telling the difference.
Eight ideographs arranged on Jei's torso in a pattern
tracing out another ideograph in that same ancient hand; the
ideograph called 'Final Emptiness'. The whole assemblage of
ideographs forming a spell of dispersal, scattering Jei's
energy, dispersing his shield, and damaging his soul.
Ranma allowed Jei to fall almost to the ground before using
the iron dagger half-buried in the ground below him to
receive the remaining energy of her storm in one titanic
bolt of fury, earthing itself through Jei's fatally wounded
body and knocking the spear sprawling from his hand at last.
She herself landed about ten feet away from, and behind, Jei
-- now standing in a wide crater and frantically reaching
for enough power to regenerate his broken body -- and
snapped Tenchuu from its resting place again, sending power
through it and waking it to furious, burning life.
Then Ranma jumped backwards, past Jei again, Tenchuu
flashing. She carved another ideogram through his entire
body with her sword: two inward curving lines, each
continuing from its bottom up into a crossing loop, forming
a symbol not unlike a "W" with a loop extending above the
middle point. Then continuing in a single motion over the
top of the outer points, closing the curve and leaving only
the central loop above it.
Ranma landed in front of Jei at a distance of no more than
three feet. Jei, incapable of movement and with all his
defenses down, could only watch Ranma's cool emotionless
face as she drew back her sword. And then she struck -
straight through the center of the ideogram she had cut into
his flesh - and also straight through his heart.
Jei exploded into a towering pillar of flame, and Ranma
withdrew her sword and re-sheathed it, waiting. The flame
burned itself out in moments, revealing the various limbs
and pieces of his torso falling to earth, smeared with an
odd, green, burnt looking ichor; and a wide- winged
butterfly of an evil green hue, hanging where the ideogram
had been, sending up a high pitched, wailing keen, and
burning. Ranma swatted it from the air with a ki-sheathed
hand, and ground it underfoot.
Then Ranma returned from zanshin, and called a slow, pulsing
fire to her hand. "Come back from _that_, you pustule on the
backside of divinity," she snarled bitterly, using pulses of
the flame to burn the corpse of the butterfly to ash, and
set the remaining pieces of Jei's corpse afire.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane was just struggling to her feet again as Ranma turned
from the evilly smoking fires. She was aching, burnt,
scratched in several places, bore more bruises, scrapes and
minor cuts than she could bear to think about, and the only
thing she wanted was for Ranma to tell her that it was over.
Ranma pulled her into a brief, hard hug and whispered, "You
did great, Akane-chan!"
Ranma thumped her briefly on the shoulder and let her go,
grinning at her widely for a moment. Then Ranma turned to
the gate of Furinkan, walking over to check on the body
there, and Akane bent down again to help Kodachi and
Tatewaki.
Ranma came to Nagao's body, and knelt down. She could easily
see that he was dead, but she used ki-sight anyway, to make
sure. Then she gently closed his staring eyes, and stood up
looking over at the gate to see what she had noticed from
the corner of her eye. It was a briefcase, which she picked
up, examined, and then quickly brought over to Akane, who
was standing next to the Kunos and talking to Nabiki, who
had summoned medical and police units to the school.
"What's wrong, Ranma?" Akane noted her friend's grim
expression. Ranma held up the case, so Akane could see what
was written there: Asano, S., and an address. Akane's eyes
went wide in horror.
"Do you know where this is, Akane-chan?" And at her nod,
"Then I think, Nabiki, that you should call aid to that
address, too. And I think that Akane and I should go there
now, as well. And I think that we should run."
Akane nodded jerkily and ran toward the gate, waving her
hand toward Sayuri's distant house. "She's over that way,
Ranma. But the fastest way there is...."
She was interrupted by the feeling of arms around her waist,
and jerked into the sky. Landing on the roof in the
appropriate direction Ranma flowed into a smooth run,
leaping gaps in the roof line with focused unconcern. Akane
followed, gulping in trepidation at the gaps she would have
to jump, but making no protest.
Across Nerima they traveled in leaps and bounds, Akane
leading Ranma across the roof-tops in as straight a line as
she could, bypassing the traffic on the crowded streets
below. Shortly, they heard the rising wail of sirens, and
Ranma suddenly snarled an oath. "I can feel it now
unblocked, Akane-chan, I've gotta hurry," she snapped out,
before blurring into a red and black streak.
Akane followed as quickly as she could and reached the roof
line over Sayuri's house to find Ranma picking herself up
from the ground, smoking slightly, and a dozen paramedics
charging the door. "Wait," Ranma roared uselessly, "the
bloody thing's ...." The paramedics hit the door and were
thrown back, injured, by a burst of green fire. "... warded.
Damn!"
Akane jumped down, as Ranma snapped back to her feet and
stalked forward, snarling, "Get _back_ you fools, there's
magic here!"
Ranma jogged up to the door and raised her hand, ki
coalescing around it in an in-drawing vortex. She thrust her
hand forward in the same gesture she had used earlier, outer
fingers vee-ed and inners curling, and burned a circle of
green fire into the air before the doorway.
The door collapsed into dust as the circle of fire exploded
around the house, blowing everyone in a block's radius
except those behind Ranma flat to the ground.
The door vanished, and Ranma strode forward, hand at her
side, ki still gathered. Akane followed after, as did those
paramedics and police still on their feet. The darkness
within shifted like a living thing, snarling and drawing
down, choking. Ranma pulsed ki to her hand, drawing the dark
close about it, and then shifted an internal polarity, and
expressed the ki of the vortex she had generated as
sunlight.
A brilliant flash of light destroyed the darkness, burning
down its resistance and banishing it with a fading wail.
Ranma glided into the house; glancing at the older woman
laying in the doorway with a broad spear mark through her
outer chest she left the body to others and went directly to
the small body laying nearly hidden in another room.
Kneeling down, she checked Sayuri's ki with a sinking heart,
but then snapped her head upward to Akane with burning but
worried eyes. "She's still alive! But she's not breathing,
and she's fading fast! Get help, and I'll try to call her
back."
Akane spun and ran to the other part of the house, to fetch
a medic, and Ranma gathered all the ki she could at short
notice, then struck one hand downward toward Sayuri's chest;
her aura flaming into new life as it went, ki curling about
it ready to call the body beneath her back to life ....
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 3: The Third Day
Part C: Pursuit to Destruction; East Wind, Rain.
------------------------------------------------------------
Kodachi had been taken away in an ambulance, only one of
many that day. Nabiki and Yuka were assisting the doctors
that were dealing with the last of the students injured by
flying debris. Both had done yeoman service to triage the
wounded and traumatized, and in running errands for the
medical effort that had, by now, sucked in every available
doctor or medtech in Nerima ward.
Nabiki had been especially active in calming and restraining
those who had been injured most severely while the medics
tended to them; extracting debris from their injuries, or
hastily bandaging wounds and setting limbs in preparation
for their transportation to local hospitals.
Currently, the two girls were aiding Dr. Tofu by handing him
his supplies and tools while he aligned and set a number of
broken ribs belonging to a sophomore who had been trampled
and kicked into a corner in class 1-D's mad scramble to quit
the ground floor during the attack.
Nabiki looked up from the last patient as that unfortunate
was loaded onto a stretcher for transport. A very bedraggled
looking Akane was dragging into Furinkan's yard, wobbling
along behind Ranma, who herself appeared less than entirely
perky.
The two martial artists came over to where Nabiki was
standing, Ranma greeting her wearily while Akane stopped
walking and leaned against Ranma's shoulder, closing her
eyes.
"Nabiki-san," Ranma opened the conversation in a tired
voice, "I see that you're helping with the wounded. Can you
give me an estimate of the total casualty list, please?"
Nabiki rubbed her eyes with blood-stained hands. "I don't
know the full list yet, Ranma-san. The last I'd heard there
were seventeen confirmed dead. I think the total of
seriously injured is going to stop at 40. Minor injuries
and, err, _mental_ trauma ...." Nabiki turned to where a
clump of pale, shaking students were huddling against the
wall, seeking comfort in numbers, and shrugged.
Ranma nodded wearily. "You can add two more to the seriously
wounded list then. Asano-bodou was stabbed in the chest by
Our Friend, but he seems to have missed the heart, and the
medics said she has a fair chance. Sayuri-chan was
strangled, and while she's still alive she seems to be in a
deep coma, at the moment."
Nabiki glanced sideways at Yuka, who was trembling and
clenching her hands together. Quietly, she asked, "Will she
survive, long term, do you think?"
Ranma rubbed her temples briefly. "There's no good reason
why she wouldn't, I think. The physical trauma doesn't seem
to be too severe. What mental trauma she may be suffering,
and when she'll wake up...." Ranma shrugged in her own turn.
Yuka wailed and buried her face in Nabiki's shoulder. Nabiki
awkwardly attempted to comfort her and Ranma put a hand on
Yuka's shoulder, saying, "Don't give up hope Yuka-chan.
Sayuri-chan is very brave, and the hospital hasn't even
begun to care for her yet. And I'm not out of resources
myself, for that matter. But I think, for now, that it's
better to let the professionals handle things.
"And speaking of _things_, Nabiki, do you know what happened
to Jei's corpse and his spear?"
"I just saw ..." Nabiki mumbled, "Oh yes! A police van came,
gathered it all up and took it away. And I'm just as glad;
even dead that thing gave me a creepy feeling!"
"I don't blame you at all Nabiki-san. I just wanted a closer
look at the spear, but I suppose that I can do that later."
She turned her hand under her gaze and considered the ichor
crusted under the nails. "I'd like to get clean first, at
least. Do you think you're going to need Akane or I around
here any more today?"
"No, Ranma, I don't think so. Go on back to the Dojo and see
if you can get Akane-imouto to go to sleep."
Akane snorted, weakly. "Sleep. Feh. _Bath_."
Ranma grinned, "Indeed. _Bath_. I may even beg one from
Kasumi-san myself."
Nabiki grinned over her shoulder as she ushered Yuka to
where she could sit down, and shook a fist at them. "Use up
all the hot water and you answer to me," she
mock-threatened.
Ranma's grin turned crooked, and she half-turned from her
course to sweep a bow. "We shall faithfully avoid the
invocation of your wrath, Nabiki-san." She urged the wobbly
Akane out the gate, and then was gone.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Tadaima!"
"Oh, my, I hope that's...." Kasumi had been beside herself
with worry. Father had managed to tell her that _something_
bad had happened. From context she had assumed that
something was wrong with Akane or Nabiki, but his tears had
managed to short out both the TV and the radio, and he
simply was not coherent enough to tell her what was wrong.
She dared not leave him alone to seek out the neighbors, and
Tofu-san seemed not to be answering his phone, but if they
were capable of calling out then surely it couldn't be
_that_ bad. Could it?
Hurrying to the front room, she assessed the condition of
Akane-chan and that nice young Ranma-san and rapidly revised
her opinion: it wasn't that bad, it was worse. Only one
comment seemed appropriate. "Oh, my!"
Ranma looked up at Kasumi's entrance, steering Akane gently
toward the furo. "We're both mostly alright, Kasumi-san, but
we badly need a bath. Is the furo hot?"
Kasumi nodded helplessly; they didn't _seem_ alright. Akane
was a complete mess: dirty, scratched, her new clothes in
complete ruination, and was that dark substance half
covering her arms, legs and back _blood_?
Ranma hardly looked better, mainly a matter of fewer areas
messed up, but some of the stains were a loathsome looking
green that made her head hurt just to _consider_ trying to
get out. Nonetheless she nodded affirmatively to Ranma's
question, then, as Ranma moved Akane along toward the bath,
burst out, "Ranma-san, what happened?!"
Ranma turned around briefly and saw Soun hovering at the
entrance to the living room, then sent Akane on toward the
bath and answered. "A monster attacked the school,
Kasumi-san. We killed it, but there were a number of
casualties. The authorities seemed to have the matter in
hand, so I felt that Akane needed to get home immediately,
and take a bath, and probably a nap. With your permission?"
Kasumi nodded and turned back to Father, who had burst out
in fresh tears. "Now, now, Father, you heard Ranma-san; both
the girls are all right and...." She herded him back into
his room to have a lie-down and thought, 'A monster. Oh,
my!'
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma ignored the clothes heaped untidily on the floor, and
quickly stripped. Picking up the water pail and soap, she
spent several minutes firmly scrubbing out the ichor and
gore that encrusted several areas of her arms and legs, then
filled up the pail again and soaped the rest of her body
before dumping the pail of water over her head to rinse off.
Then she walked over to Akane, who was sitting on a stool,
staring at her blood-stained hands and feebly attempting to
scrub the stains off. Ranma took the soap and washcloth from
Akane's unresisting hands and used them to quickly rid her
of her unwanted decorations, then rinsed her off and put her
into the tub to soak, joining her soon thereafter.
Ranma settled back into the steaming water and felt her
muscles relax, but she noted that Akane was not relaxing,
and was, in fact, on the verge of tears. She let Akane have
a minute of silence, then gently asked, "Want to talk about
it?"
Akane sniffed and shook her head, "N-no, Ranchan, I'll be
alright, just ... could you sing for me, something ...."
Ranma suddenly found her vision obscured, a gust of steam
had no doubt chosen to make a wrong turn. "Sure, _Acchan_,
I'll sing something. You just relax, now. Maybe try to go to
sleep."
That pair in the corner,
They're here every Tuesday,
They come when the market
First opens its stalls.
And it's got so that lately
I'll wait just to see them,
Their heads bent together,
As they come down the hall.
And Akane felt herself, very slowly, begin to relax. Felt
the pains of the day roll away. Felt the horror, and the
fear, and, what she felt was worst of all -- the strange,
singing joy -- begin to fade. Felt the aches and bruises and
the tiredness which denied even sleep or rest begin to heal.
And her hair has grown whiter,
His has grown thinner,
And their pace has slowed down
As the years have grown long.
But they keep step together
'Mongst strangers who hurry,
These two old companions,
Walking slowly along.
Washed away, so to speak, by steaming water. Soothed by
safety and kindness, and a place to relax. Eased by an
easing of stress and fear.
They always take the same table
And they open their menus,
And I watch as his hand
Reaches out to touch hers,
And she, with the other,
Reaches under her chair,
And fumbles her glasses
From out of her purse.
Healed and lulled to sleep by a glorious, contralto voice. A
voice that washed over her and swept through her. A voice
that eased her sorrows without trivializing them. A voice
that understood terror and the bloodlust she had found
herself fighting, but that had triumphed over them.
And she reads him the specials,
He does the ordering,
They joke with the waitress,
About watching their weight,
But the waitress says nothing,
She just snaps her gum
And then brings their dessert,
That they'll share from one plate.
She sat back, finally, and relaxed her muscles one by one.
Met her fear and disgust head on, and found them to be less
terrible than she had earlier imagined; and, slowly, began
to master them.
Sometimes I watch them too closely,
They notice me staring
And they smile at me vaguely,
Not really seeing my face.
But they know I'm a stranger,
Not one of their friends
Who have died, or long since
Moved away from this place.
And settled back into a drifting haze, and let a golden
voice sink into her. And gave up her control over her
emotions at last, and gently began to weep.
They keep to themselves,
They're each other's shelter,
Two hearts grown together,
Two parts of a whole.
And I smile at them shyly,
I know I intrude, on this
Pair of old lovers,
And I turn and I go.
And, as she drifted further from consciousness and the cares
of the day, seemed to see before her a vision.
But, you know that I've seen them
As they leave the cafe',
He pulls out her chair,
And he helps her to stand,
And he holds out her coat,
And he hugs it around her
And together they leave,
Holding each other's hand.
A vision of herself, older, gray haired. Resting in another
furo. And placing a hand, scarred but still strong, lovingly
on the back of the head resting on her shoulder. A head in
whose hair, also mostly gray, could still be seen the
occasional strand of flaming, sunset red.
And there's a love beyond words
In their every small gesture,
As the two old companions
Make their way through the town
There's a love beyond name,
beyond years,
beyond measure.
And the days that they share
Are the stars in their crown.
And gently slipped into slumber, and dreamed of something
unseen. Something which she loved with all her heart, and
which brought her great joy. But what it was, when she woke
up, she was unable to recall.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane awoke slowly, to a background of humming and soft,
mumbled curses. She was lying in her bed and clothed in her
nightgown, but it seemed to be daylight. For a moment she
could not remember why she might be asleep so late in the
day, but then memory returned and she realized that it must
be later in the same day; by the angle of the light coming
in the window she could see it was sometime just afternoon.
Akane sat up and perched on the edge of her mattress,
blinking around her with still sleepy eyes. There were, she
noticed, two things about the room that were different from
the way she had left it this morning.
The first was the tray-table by the side of her futon,
loaded with a tray carrying lunch. The second was Ranma,
sitting at her desk, wearing one of her old overalls and a
shirt slightly too small for her -- and, she noticed, no bra
-- and bent over a homework assignment in math, which she
appeared to be making heavy weather of.
Akane absently ate her lunch while she tried to make some
sense of the events of the day. She finished just as Ranma
hissed in frustration, crumpled the scratch sheet of paper
she was working with, and threw it across the room. "Stupid
thing," she pouted, "I don't think it even _has_ a
solution!" Turning around she grinned at Akane, "Awake at
last! Did you enjoy your lunch ... Acchan?"
Akane blinkied, 'Acchan? What ... ohmikami ... the furo!
What'll she think of me?' Her hands flew to her face in
dismay as she blushed a fiery red.
Ranma's grin moderated itself into a gentle smile. "No,
Akane, I'm not mad. In fact, the only other person who has
ever called me that was the very first friend I ever made. I
am more honored than I can say that you have chosen to be
the second."
This did not particularly seem to help Akane's blush, and
she looked down at her folded hands bashfully. "Ar-are you
sure, Ranma?" She looked up at the redhead where she sat at
the desk. "I've never, that is ...."
Ranma rose lithely to her feet, and crossed the room to
where Akane sat, hugging her fiercely. "I'm sure, Acchan. As
long as you promise to stay my friend."
Akane told the sudden tears to go away and hugged her friend
back, trying to place the sudden thumping in her chest. "I
promise, Ranchan. As long as you promise too."
Ranma stepped back and extended a pinky, her grin almost
splitting her face. "I promise."
Akane hooked her pinky through Ranma's and gripped, feeling
a grin taking over her face as well. "I promise too."
Ranma held the pinky grip a moment, and then stepped back,
crossing her arms over her chest. "Which does _not_,
however, get you off of getting beaten on during training."
Akane's grin turned crooked, "Wouldn't want it to." Then,
jerking her head at the desk, "What's got you so happy over
there?"
"Oh, you would remind me. Feh." Ranma blew her cheeks out
and sighed. She walked back to the desk and sat down, Akane
following behind her, and picked up her pencil. "It's a
'Problem of Multiple Variables in Multiple Equations' if you
please. Bah!"
Akane leaned over Ranma's shoulder and looked at the
problem. "This one doesn't seem _that_ hard, Ranchan."
"Hah! So you say, but look at this! These things don't even
have the same terms in them!"
Akane chuckled and took the pencil from Ranma's hand.
"You're trying too hard, Ranchan. See, you take this
equation here -- it reduces to _this_ variable, see? So you
replace the instances of that variable in _this_ equation
and then you ...."
Fainter now, lower in tone "Oh, that's how... Neat, Acchan!
But now how...."
Fainter yet, "You just...."
------------------------------------------------------------
Nabiki had come home soon after noon, and had eaten a
sandwich before even seeking the furo. Now, around two in
the afternoon, she had just come from a _long_ soak in the
hot water, new clothes, and another large meal, and was
beginning to feel human again. She pushed back her plate and
turned to Kasumi, questioning, "Oneechan, where is everybody
else?"
"Father is sleeping in his room, Nabiki-chan, he took the
news very hard. Ranma-san and Akane-chan are training, I
believe." She turned around and caught Nabiki's eyes, "I
didn't get many details, imoutochan, how was it, really?"
Nabiki shuddered violently, "If it hadn't been for Ranma-san
we'd have all been killed, oneechan. And if Akane-chan
hadn't _attacked_ the thing I don't know if even Ranma-san
could have killed it. It just wouldn't _die_, not even when
she cut its head off!" She shuddered again.
Kasumi knelt by her and gathered her into a hug, "Akane-chan
fighting monsters. Who would have thought?"
Nabiki pushed herself back from the hug, "You said they were
training, oneechan? Do you know where they are? I need to
talk to Ranma-san."
Kasumi frowned slightly, "Be careful, Nabiki-chan."
Nabiki shook her head, "I will be, oneechan. I owe her my
life, and so does Akane-chan. But we need to know more about
her. I think she _knew_ or recognized that thing today. What
if there's more of them?"
Kasumi nodded seriously.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma flowed out of the way of Akane's kick and thumped her
on the head, then called a halt. "Break, Acchan, I've got
what I needed, and you're getting sloppy."
She put her back to the dojo wall and placed one foot
against it, crossed her arms, and considered Akane, waiting
for her to regain her breath. "And besides, I think your
sister wants something."
Nabiki moved out from the entrance where she had been
lurking just out of view. "Looking good, Akane-chan, what
were you doing just then?"
Ranma answered, "Just general assessment work Nabiki-san. I
want to make sure that I know where Acchan is _now_, so I
can figure where she needs to go. It's the first time I've
really had a student, and I want to be sure I get it right."
Nabiki raised an eyebrow, and Akane stopped panting long
enough to wheeze out, "You talk to Nabiki-oneechan, Ranchan,
I'm gonna lie down and pant for a while." She walked to the
wall and sat down beside it, then flopped down on her back
and lay panting.
Nabiki raised the other eyebrow, 'Acchan? Ranchan? Geeze,
what went _on_ in that furo, anyway?', but allowed no other
sign to cross her face; instead she sweetly inquired,
"Should we get out of your way and let you take a nap,
Akane-chan?"
Akane turned half over and red-eyed her, "Biiiii-da!"
Ranma smirked, "Was there something you wanted, Nabiki-san,
or is this just one of those sibling rivalry things?"
Nabiki turned back to her, and turned serious at the same
time. "Yes, Ranma-san, there was. It's about that monster
this morning. You acted as though you knew him."
"That would be because I did know him, Nabiki-san." She
pushed her tongue into her cheek for a moment, "Mind you,
the last time I saw him there was nothing left but bones,
which had just been buried under the ruins of a stone tower,
underneath which were several tons of gunpowder. Which went
off immediately thereafter. So I didn't really suspect that
I'd ever see him _again_, but...."
She considered Nabiki's face for a moment, "But I suspect
that what you actually _want_ is the story, ne?"
Nabiki buffed her nails for a moment, "Why, yes Ranma-san, I
believe it is. Unless," she added calmly, "you would prefer
not to tell it?"
"No, no, it's not secret. It is kind of long though. It
might be a good idea to have Kasumi-san make some snacks and
tea. Since I suspect that she might wish to hear it too."
"For some odd reason," Nabiki refrained from smirking, "she
has, in fact, just finished making some."
Ranma arched an eyebrow of her own. "Preplanning. The sure
sign of a conspiracy. Come, Acchan, we are summoned to Tea."
Akane groaned, "What do you mean, 'We', barbarian?"
"I mean _we_, shirker. As in _you_ and _I_. Because _I_ am
summoned by your sister, and _you_ are summoned by me."
Akane groaned again, and rolled over, coming to her knees.
"Ohhhh. My sensei is a bully."
"All sensei are bullies, Acchan." Ranma bopped her on the
head,"It's the notable trait of the type."
And Kasumi came through the door with a tray.
------------------------------------------------------------
The girls were seated in a circle around the tray, sitting
in the middle of the dojo floor. Ranma blew softly on a
teacup to cool it, and crooked a grin through the steam at
the others.
So. The story. I should start at the beginning, I
guess. And the beginning .... (Her eyes focused on
something far away, or perhaps long ago, then
refocused on the girls.) The beginning starts with
my Dad. Oyaji. And the things you need to know
about Oyaji number three.
First, he's a Martial Artist.Second, he is of Low
Moral Character. And third, he's an Idiot.
Nabiki *snrrked* and Akane frowned, glaring at someone
non-present.
(Ranma grinned crookedly.) Because he's a Martial
Artist, he wanted me to be one too. Because he's
an Idiot, he just knew that this noble goal could
not possibly be attempted around my mother. So he
took the opportunity, when I was five, to take me
away on a long training trip, and never bring me
back. And because he is of Low Moral Character we
spent the next six and a half years running from
place to place. Generally, I realize now, to
escape some debt or other, or get away from the
blame for some theft or scam.
Now, when I was eleven or so, Oyaji found, or
bought, or stole, or _something_, this book. These
books, actually -- there were two of them.
The first was a Chinese ... guide to training
grounds, I guess. It had only been translated a
little and most of the text was still in Chinese,
which Oyaji didn't know how to read, but he still
got all excited about 'the marvelous possibilities
to seek out strengthening struggle in the service
of our Art'. (Ranma's voice went very pompous for
a moment, then returned to normal.) Feh.
Anyway, the _other_ book was a manual of 'Rare and
Forbidden Training Methods'. One of these was the
'Neko-ken', a supposed way to train a subject in
an Invincible Martial Arts Special Technique.
(Ranma's mouth twisted momentarily, and she
sighed.)
What you do, the book said, is you take the
trainee, and the younger the better, and you cover
him or her with fish sausage. Then you find
yourself a pit, and put a bunch of starving ca-ca-
... cats into it. And then you take the trainee,
and you throw him, or her, in. In the pit, in case
that wasn't clear.
(Ranma's face was still and far away, Akane's and
Kasumi's were nearly identical masks of horror,
and Nabiki's was as set and still as stone.
Ranma's eyes refocused suddenly, and she
continued.) Then, on the next page of the book, it
says that the _reason_ this technique is 'Rare and
Forbidden' is that; One - it doesn't work, and Two
- only a complete idiot would try it in the first
place.
The trouble is, Oyaji _is_ a complete idiot, and
he didn't _read_ that far. (Ranma's mouth twisted
again, and she sighed.)
Nabiki's face was terrible in its stillness, but her voice
was gentle, "So what _does_ the training do Ranma-san?"
Ranma's voice was equally gentle. "It makes you afraid of
cats, Nabiki-san."
Kasumi buried her face in her hands, and Akane's face began
to twist in anger, as Nabiki's control broke at last. "No! I
never _would_ have guessed that!" she snarled, "So what did
the _genius_ do then?"
Ranma smiled sadly, and quirked an eyebrow.
Why he devoted the full force of his Martial
Intellect to the problem, of course. And quickly
determined the source of the error.
It was quite clear; the author of the book had
_hidden_ the critical detail! Oh, yes! It simply
had to be a question of the _bait_ you used, you
see.
And he set out to resolve the detail in the finest
scientific fashion. Oh, yes! He repeated the
experiment, only using fish cakes, instead.
And then he tried dried bream.
And then he tried salmon.
And then he tried varied sushi.
And then he tried octopus and squid.
And then he tried octopus _by itself_.
And then....
Akane broke, and hurled herself into Ranma's shoulder,
wailing. Kasumi turned her head, sobbing muffledly into her
hands. Ranma gently massaged the back of Akane's neck and
*hssh*d.
Finally, it developed that, if you pursue your
course with unrelenting intensity, you will, in
fact, teach the trainee an Invincible Technique.
The fact that the training will have driven her
psychotic by that point is surely a minor detail
by comparison, ne?
"So, what happened then?" Nabiki asked, soothing Kasumi.
Well, I managed to avoid killing him about three
times in the next week ("Damn!" Nabiki
interjected.) but I knew that I couldn't do it
forever.
The problem, you see, is that the Invincible
Technique works by turning part of your soul into
the soul of a cat. And it's the cat that controls
the technique. A cat that doesn't have a bunch of
stuff it wants to have -- like fur, and a tail --
and does have a bunch of stuff it doesn't want to
have -- like hands, and upright posture -- and
which is trying to contend with being half-human
as well, and which is, therefore, Righteously
Pissed Off.
"So what did *snnf*, what did you do, Ranchan?"
I beat him up, (Ranma shrugged) and told him that
I was leaving. He'd had six and a half years to
train me and see what I'd gotten from it. Then he
wailed and whined until I said I'd come back in
another six and a half years and see which of us
had done a better job.
If I could beat him, he'd acknowledge me as the
head of the school, and go back to work to help
support it until I got it back on its feet. If I
lost I'd go back to training under him at whatever
he wanted.
He said he'd meet me at this training ground in
China he'd just found in the _other_ book he'd
got: a place in Qing-hai province up against the
Byankala range. Said it was named Jhusenkyou. I
promised I'd be there and left. That was five
years and eleven months ago.
Ranma poured herself another cup of tea and blew on it,
gazing at the sisters through the steam until a measure of
calm was restored.
When I left Oyaji I went hunting something that
could help me with controlling the cat. I finally
wound up at a Zen monastery in northern Hokkaido,
where I spent the next six months.
When I left the monastery, I had managed to stuff
the cat down under deep control and the Neko-ken
with it. Although I _am_ still afraid of cats, I
don't go berserk unless I can't get away from
them.
Then I headed into China, and made my way north,
to Jhusenkyou. The idea I had, you see, was that
-- if this place _was_ the wonderful training
ground Oyaji was so fired up about -- then I could
study there. If it wasn't I'd still have gotten an
idea about the lay of the land, maybe enough to
give me an edge in case Oyaji actually managed to
put up a fight.
There isn't much to say about the trip ... well,
actually that's not true. There's a lot to say
about the trip, but that's not the story I'm
telling, so I won't digress into it.
Ranma paused for a moment, and sipped her tea.
The only item of real interest to _this_ story
happened when, one day, I was walking along a road
in Qing-hai itself. I was trying to find out where
the bloody training ground actually _was_, and I
came round the corner of a hill, and nearly walked
into this girl.
She had purple hair, was wielding these
silly-looking mace thingies, I later learned that
they were a local weapon called bonbori, and was
trying to stare down a tiger.
Now, it's an interesting thing to say, but the
'training' Oyaji put me through did seem to have
_one_ good effect; I'm afraid of cats, yes, but
only _house_ cats. Other kinds, like tigers, don't
affect me at all. Plus which, the phobia about
cats seems to have sucked up all the fear I have
in me. On the one hand, that means that when the
nekophobia hits it hits _hard_; but on the other
hand, I don't have much left for anything _else_,
so when I get into situations like that I don't
panic.
Which was a good thing, at the time. Anyway, I
remembered about some animals making themselves
look bigger and louder to frighten off an
attacker, and figured that I didn't have much to
lose. So I jumped up _way_ high and _yelled_ at
the top of my lungs. And it must have worked,
'cause the tiger turned and ran off like his tail
was on fire. (Ranma gave another grin) Anyway,
that was how I met Shan Pu.
Shan turned out to be the champion-apparent of the
village of Joketsuzoku -- which is part of the
ancestral holdings of the Strong-Women-Hero-Tribe,
sometimes called the Chinese Amazons -- and by the
time we got back to her village, she was the
second friend I'd ever made. So I spent some time
in the village, and learned a few tricks, and it
turned out that they _did_ know where Jhusenkyou
was, only they didn't want to tell _me_.
It seemed, they said, that the whole valley of
Jhusenkyou was cursed, and anyone who went there
would probably get cursed too. Well, I reckoned
that I was too smart to fall for an obvious dodge
like _that_, and one night I snuck out of the
village and traveled to the valley where
Jhusenkyou was.
I've always wished (Ranma's eyes were far away
again) I'd listened to Cologne-obaasama; I might
have spared myself a lot of grief.
She'd been right, you see, the valley of
Jhusenkyou _is_ cursed, and if you go there you
probably _will_ end up cursed too. I don't know
what all the curses of Jhusenkyou do, but the one
thing that they _all_ do is the one thing that
really makes them curses: after you go there, you
live in interesting times.
Ranma paused a moment and sipped more tea.
And I don't mean 'nice' interesting either. _Not_
nice interesting is the order of the day, here. If
you stumble, you fall down a hill. And there's a
dung-heap at the bottom, too. And you don't even
get to break your fall, oh no, there's a rock
waiting under it, you can bet.
If anything falls out of the sky, it lands on your
head. If you go through a bush, you find the
thorns, and if it doesn't _have_ thorns there'll
be a bramble growing there, instead. If somebody
shoots an arrow at you and ten other
people,_you're_ the one standing in the way.
Well, I already knew that the Joketsuzoku didn't
have any way to cure the curses, and I was too
embarrassed to go back after I ignored their
warnings anyway, so I wandered back south instead.
I never did find a cure for the curse in China,
but I did finally end up in a place that led to my
eventually finding one elsewhere, and also to my
meeting that noble gentleman we entertained
earlier today, and to a bunch of other stuff as
well.
The reason is this, (she opened her shirt
slightly, and took an amulet of silver from around
her neck, laying it in the center of the circle)
and how and why I got it is a story in itself.
Nabiki picked up the amulet and examined it, showing it to
Akane and Kasumi. It was made of fretted silver, about three
inches across, chased with interlocking dragons and spirits
around the outside. Mounted so as to entirely take up one
face of the amulet was a small, cracked mirror. Mounted on
the other side was a triangular piece of pottery, perhaps
two inches on a side, covered with patterns that looked like
stretched cords or ropes. Nabiki turned it over and about in
her hands as Ranma went on.
The place I ended up was Hong Kong, and in order
to understand the story I'm about to tell you have
to know the one cardinal thing about my character
at the time: I was a barbarian.
Nabiki raised an eyebrow and smirked, "_At the time_,
Ranma-san?"
"Of course, Nabiki-san. Now, I'm only _uncivilized_."
"Ah. I see. Do go on."
Ranma smirked, herself, and did so.
I hadn't been around people much at all, 'cause
Oyaji'd moved around so much, and I was what you
might call 'sheltered' about a lot of things as a
result. So, when, just after I got to the city, I
saw this girl who was wearing about half of
nothing -- and that mostly torn -- all _I_ thought
was, 'isn't that _cold_?'
Nabiki sniggered and both Akane and Kasumi blushed.
And when this guy came out of an alley (Ranma's
grin turned crooked) and pushed her up against a
wall, all I thought was that he shouldn't use that
knife to make a girl cry like that. So I took the
knife away from him and broke his arms in a couple
places and ran him off.
Then I went to see if the girl was alright. Her
name turned out to be Masuda Kee, and she was half
Japanese, a geisha -- well, a hitoyodzuma really -
- and as far as _I_ could see, badly in need of
someone to tell her to come in out of the rain.
Now, at the time, I didn't know the difference
between a geisha, a hitoyodzuma and a fish-seller;
but I did know something about surviving on the
road, and on the streets as well. As it turned out
later, Kee-'moutochan did not, being of that
temperament that fails to concentrate on business
because it gets too caught up in its work.
Nabiki was keeping her face straight with an effort, and
Akane and Kasumi were reddening alarmingly, but Ranma merely
grinned more crookedly yet.
She had offended several of the local street trash
by being insufficiently grateful for their
'protection' and had attracted far too much
attention -- and customers -- for safety. So I
appointed myself as her 'older' sibling, and began
trying to figure out where to go to hook up with
someone who could keep track of business for her,
and put a roof over her head.
In the process I managed to offend someone myself.
This led to my inadvertently eating a plate of
mushrooms that had been drenched in LSD and laced
with about twenty grams of pure opium.
Fortunately I didn't eat the whole thing, but it
was enough to addict me badly, and the trip was
.... (Ranma shuddered briefly)
Kee-chan put me to bed and kept me off my feet
when I was raving, long enough to work through the
trip. And it turned out to be the solution to her
problem, because she rented a room from -- and
explained her problems to -- someone on the shady
side who knew someone who knew someone who knew
someone, who mentioned it to the okaasama of the
Dream of the Jade Pagoda of the Golden Door of
Infinite Bliss.
Nabiki choked briefly, "The Dream of Jade? That's the best
pleasure house in Hong Kong!"
Ranma raised an eyebrow, "Why, yes it is Nabiki-san. And
we're all wondering how it is you came to know that."
Nabiki blushed, but held her chin up. "I keep my ear to the
ground," she said, attempting to retain what was left of her
dignity.
"Of course you do," Ranma said, straight-faced, "that's
perfectly sound business practice."
Nabiki disdained to reply, and Ranma grinned and continued.
Liang-okaasama decided that Lee-chan should go to
work for her, since the best-- or at least most
enthusiastic -- geisha in Hong Kong should
obviously be working for the best pleasure house
in Hong Kong. Or the other way 'round, depending.
So that fixed Lee-imoutochan's problem, and
provided me, after I recovered, with an
opportunity to expand my education a bit.
Ranma's eyes twinkled wickedly and Akane's blush expanded
visibly. Kasumi, on the other hand, had achieved the
determinedly unaffected countenance of one who Is Not
Hearing This.
Nabiki coughed, and squeaked "You mean...?"
Ranma fixed her with a very speaking look, and asked, "What
would _you_ have done? Besides, can you think of a _better_
time or place?"
Nabiki muttered something about "twelve", but did not seem
otherwise inclined to reply to this question. Akane was
bravely fighting off unconsciousness from excessive blood
drain to the face, but surprised herself with a giggle.
Kasumi was still in the land of the selectively deaf, and
therefore Ranma went on unhindered.
That aside, however, and continuing with my story,
it was at the Golden Door that I met Oniichan Kai.
He was a genin for the Black Wave Yakuza, (Nabiki
started) and he used to bring his wife and their
daughter to the Golden Door's restaurant for
dinner.
He sort of adopted me at the time, and I always
looked on him as the big brother I'd never had,
and I was friends with Oneesan Asako too.
Imoutochan Kaiko was my little sister along with
Kee-chan and for a while there I thought that I'd
found a family and wouldn't need to go anywhere
else while I waited to beat up on Oyaji.
I'd made contacts with the local Temples too, and
I'd go to train there, or Kai-oniichan would use
his contacts to get me some lessons with one of
the wandering masters, or he'd train me himself,
or Liang-okaasama would use her contacts or....
Ranma's eyes were fixed in time and space, looking at
something far away. She sighed and a suspicious glimmer
began to gather at the corner of her eye.
I suppose I should have known better.
Liang-okaasama had made the Golden Door a neutral
ground in the Hong Kong underside and the city's
major underworld clans were sort of united around
it. Not so much in coalition, as in a mutual
understanding that violence and unrest was bad for
business.
The Black Wave was one of the three most powerful
Yakuza clans in the city, along with the Silver
Skull and the Golden Sword, and they and the most
powerful of the Triads enforced a sort of peace on
the more ... 'established' parts of the
underworld, as it were.
Needless to say, some of the _less_ established
parts were not too happy about that, and one day
we found out that this guy named Master Po had
organized a war. He had been a master in one of
the older Triads, and was some kind of sorcerer
too, so he had a fairish amount of support just on
his own hook; and then he'd organized most of the
little gangs and rings and such into an army, too.
Alongside that, he'd made an alliance with the
powers of Darkness, and he could command or
bargain with the undead, so he had about 30 or 40
vampires as shock troops.
Ranma put down her teacup and leaned forward, sighing again.
The whole thing was very quiet, but it was also
extremely ugly and for a while there we were hard
pressed. But Kai-oniichan organized the enforcers
of the major organizations into a counter-army,
and the temple monks and priests made a bunch of
peachwood swords and wards and things that the
vampires couldn't handle, and I got the
street-folk organized to use them and some basic
weaponry and we killed all the vamps that didn't
run and we drove the upstarts back to the wall.
Then we were betrayed.
Nabiki spoke up hesitantly, "Ranma-san, I'd heard some
rumors about a big shake-up in one of the major Hong Kong
clans a while back, but no one ever had any details. Could
that have been...?"
Ranma nodded, pricking tears.
Oyabun Mikoji died very suddenly. It might have
been natural, he was about 80, but I've always
suspected that Po got to him somehow. I _know_ he
got to others, 'cause Mikoji-dono's successor
suddenly decided that Master Po had the secret to
'Eternal Life' and the Black Wave and the Fire
Harmony Triad switched sides.
Maybe Master Po was a vampire himself, and he
turned the leaders, I don't know. What I do know
is that suddenly the dead started rising up around
our feet, vampires started coming out of the
walls, and half our soldiers were on the other
side all of a sudden and knew our plans to boot.
Ranma shivered for a moment, eyes again far off.
The only way out that I could see was to take Po
down before he could consolidate, and hope that
the shock dispelled all the zombies and things, or
at least slowed them down. So I organized what I
could get my hands on and we went through the
front of their defenses.
It helped that I'd gotten one of the zombies
restrained, 'cause I showed the thing off to the
Black Wave troops on that section and three
fourths of them changed sides again.
Anyway we broke the defense of Po's sanctum and
went in to get him, but we discovered that he'd
called all his proteges in for a conference, and
they'd brought their guards. So we plowed into
them, and when it was over the only two left
standing were me and Kai-oniichan, who'd been
commanding the guards.
Akane gasped in sympathy, "Ranchan, why didn't he switch
sides too? Didn't you tell him ...?"
Ranma looked at her through gathering tears. "Because he was
a Samurai, Acchan, and wouldn't leave his Lord's side."
Akane nodded, eyes also dimmed by tears, and Ranma
continued.
So I knew Po and the others were just beyond him,
and I knew he wouldn't get out of my way, and I
knew I couldn't beat him. So I turned loose the
cat, and the last thing I remember before I woke
up in the middle of the pile of corpses that had
used to be Master Po and his lieutenants and the
traitors was batting Kai-oniichan out of the way,
and he went through a wall trailing blood.
Akane gathered Ranma to her, and the redhead nestled her
face into her friend's shoulder for a long minute, silently
weeping. When she regained control she sat back and wiped
her eyes, and continued.
We never did recover Oniichan's body, but the
place had been pretty badly damaged in the fight
and the whole thing burned down and exploded right
after that, so that's not too surprising.
Anyway I couldn't stay in the city after that, so
I made what arrangements I could for Asako-oneesan
and Kaiko-imoutochan, and got ready to leave. Then
the Abbot of the Silver Mist Temple took me aside
and told me that the they'd been guarding
something for a couple centuries now, but he felt
I was worthy and he wanted me to have it. (Ranma
gestured at the amulet in the center of the
circle.)
Well, I didn't _feel_ worthy, but the Abbot said
that it could help me find what I needed so I took
it anyway. What it was, was the mirror set into
that amulet there, and the Abbot said it was the,
or maybe _a_, Nanban Mirror, and it was a magic
mirror of travel.
So I put it in my pack, and took some of the money
I had, and came back to Tokyo at last. I was
deeply depressed, still in shock, and had no idea
what I was going to do with my life, or even if I
should bother. I was thirteen years old. So, just
after I got back, I took a trip to see Fuji-san. I
was completely bummed out and seeing the happy
people all around didn't help, and I had this
stupid mirror in my pack and it wasn't doing
anything at all. So I found this little clearing
and took it out and yelled at it. It didn't do
anything, and finally I started crying, and that
was how I found out how it works.
Akane frowned, "You mean...?"
Yep. Tears. (Ranma nodded firmly) Tears or blood.
Drop them onto the mirror and it'll take you away.
_But_. You see that the Mirror's cracked? So
sometimes it takes you where you ask to go.
And _sometimes_ it takes you where you _want_ to
go.
And sometimes it takes you where you _need_ to go.
And sometimes -- if you're unlucky -- it takes you
where you _deserve_ to go.
Nabiki asked "Can anyone use it?" as Akane overrode her
with, "So where did it take you, Ranchan?"
Ranma smirked and answered Nabiki first. "Maybe once,
Nabiki-san, but not any more. I've spilled too much blood on
it, and it'll only work for me until I die."
And as to where it took me.... Well. I knew as
soon as it happened that it had done _something_,
but I didn't know _what_.
So I started looking around, and I noticed that
Fuji-san was smaller. Now I was standing in the
same place and hadn't moved as far as I could
tell, but still I could tell it wasn't the same
place at all. So I started walking around, and I
noticed that whether I'd moved or not some of the
landmarks weren't there, and others were changed,
and there wasn't any sign of people around at all.
Eventually I found an open space in the woods, and
followed that to a stream. I followed the stream
along for a day or so, and finally broke out into
a cleared field.
Now I'd been seeing the right trees and plants for
the area all around me, and Fuji-san was still
there so I knew I must still be in Japan, but I
also knew it wasn't _my_ Japan. So when I walked
around the outer edge of the field and came in
sight of the village the field was a part of and
found that it was all primitive houses and stuff,
and that the people in it were Ainu, I wasn't as
surprised as I might have been otherwise.
Nabiki started and Kasumi gasped, "Ainu! Near Fuji-san?
Kami, how far back did you go?"
From research I did later, Kasumi-san, (Ranma
smiled her crooked smile) I figure about 2500 to
3000 years.
Akane shook her head in shock and Ranma grinned at her.
So I was walking along the edge of the field, not
looking at the ground, and I trod on something and
it dug into my foot. I picked it up, and took it
into the village.
Now the village didn't know what to do with me at
all, and it didn't help that I was pissed off, but
they figured that I must be a spirit or something
and sent for the shaman. The shaman was a smart
old bugger, and we figured out how to talk to each
other a little bit. I asked him what the hell they
thought they were doing to leave things like that
out where they could bite people, and he said that
it wasn't theirs.
They just popped up, he said. They'd been made by
somebody back at the dawn of time, and then they'd
all gotten broke and scattered about when the
world came to an end. Or something like that,
anyway.
So I said that if they gave me a place to sleep
and some food I wouldn't be mad at them. So they
shared what they had, which wasn't much, and it
was good that they did, 'cause that night some
bandit types came out of the forest and I had to
run them off.
I'd had to kill a couple of the bandits, (Ranma
poured herself another cup of tea.) and the next
morning I tried to talk to the shaman again. It
turned out that the village didn't actually have
anything to take except a little food, but the
bandits would take anything they could get.
Later that night I looked at the pottery piece I'd
stepped on -- that's it on the back of the amulet
-- and I noticed something.
The piece had been broken off its pot when
somebody hit it with an axe. If you look you can
see the signs at the top. So I used the mirror to
go back to Tokyo, and went to a museum.
The guy I talked to there said it was a Jomon pot,
and figured that it must be 5000 years old at
least.
And I sat down _that_ night and thought about it
some more. And I realized that some poor guy had
made this pot the best he could, cause he'd needed
it for something. And some other bastard had come
along and broken it, and probably killed the guy
that made it too. And it had waited 2000 years in
the ground so it could come up and bite my foot,
so I would stay in a little village where little
people lived who hardly had enough for their
families to eat. And then another group of
bastards had come out of the forest to break all
_their_ stuff and kill _them_, but I'd stopped
them instead.
And I'd just come from 3000 years ahead of when
those little people lived their lives in that
little village; where I'd been living in a city
with another group of little people trying to get
on with their lives; and yet _another_ set of
bastards had come out of the wilderness and tried
to kill and mess up _them_, just so they could
steal what _they_ had.
And it came to me that, if I went wandering around
living with groups of little people trying to get
on with their lives long enough, probably any set
of them that you cared to name was eventually
going to have some set of bastards or other come
out of the wilderness and try to kill them and
break all their stuff so they could steal whatever
they had. And if I was there, then I could stop
them from doing it. And that was about as good a
road to travel as I was ever going to get.
So I took the mirror and had it mounted in the
amulet, and had the guy put the pot-shard on the
other side, to thank it for the lesson. And then I
asked the mirror to take me to somewhere I could
learn to become a protector, and cut my arm and
bled on it, and off I went.
Akane's eyes were bright and she leaned forward. "So where
did youend up that time, Ranchan?"
Well I ended up on top of a hill, and when I tried
to get my bearings I tripped and rolled down it
and when I reached the bottom of the hill I ended
up at the feet of this tall, handsome,
noble-looking guy with a samurai's swords and
topknot and the clothing of a wandering ronin.
Except he was a rabbit. And that was how I met
Usagi.
"W-wait just a minute, Ranchan. A rabbit?" Akane blinked in
confusion.
Ranma nodded.
Usagi's world is basically Japan in 1620 CE or so,
except most of the people are - what's the word?
-- anthropomorphs! That's it. You know,
human-shaped animals, like in a manga. So there's
Bulls and Bears and Cats and Rabbits and Foxes
.... Daimyo Noriyuki is a _Panda_ of all things,
for instance.
So, to continue, Usagi-dono, that's Miyamoto Usagi
by the way, had been a samurai in the service of
the Daimyo Mifune. Mifune was the enemy of Daimyo
Hijiki, and about five or six years before I'd met
them, in the last part of the battles for the
Shogunate, they'd come to blows.
Lord Mifune would probably have won, but Hijiki is
a plotter, and he plotted well. Two of Mifune's
allies turned traitor, along with one of his
generals and the commander of his bodyguard. Usagi
was away from his side acting as a courier at the
time and he got back too late; Gunichi had run off
and Lord Mifune was mortally injured.
A samurai's loyalty doesn't end just because his
lord is dead, and so Usagi wanders serving his
master's cause as best he can as a ronin.
Akane sniffed and wiped her eyes and Ranma smiled wistfully.
It's all very sweet and touching and honorable,
and Usagi-dono is handsome and noble and kind, so
I was more than willing to follow him around and
train with him.
Nabiki grinned twistedly, "Get lucky?" Akane bopped her on
the head.
No, darn it! (Ranma pouted) There's such a thing
as being _too_ noble. Although I see now that he
was basically already taken anyway. And I did
manage to retain _most_ of my dignity.
But I learned a lot about combat, and honor, and
the sword; and traveling with Usagi is good for
putting polish on young warriors if it's good for
nothing else. I met a number of his friends and
acquaintances, and managed to spend a month or two
with a few of them as well.
After that, I left and used the mirror to go a few
years later in our own Japan for a while and then
jumped back and forth to here and there training
in whatever Art was available wherever I went. But
I would go back to the wanderer's road to check on
my friends from time to time.
Nabiki quirked an eyebrow. "Just to check, hmmm?"
You get better adventures with Usagi and company
around, and they _are_ my friends. Plus, to be
honest, it's enormously liberating to be so free
that the only thing that you have to worry about
is if there's an inn in the direction you woke up
facing, and that only because it's the direction
you're walking now.
At least until the first couple of times you spend
a wet, cold, fireless night 'cause there _wasn't_
one, anyway. And that takes a while.
Kasumi and Nabiki had acquired far-off looks, and Akane
looked slightly wistful. "So what about Jei-san, Ranchan?"
Jei's from Usagi's world of course. He used to be
a samurai or some such. I ran into him several
times and didn't enjoy any of the experiences, but
they weren't like today. As for what he is? (Ranma
bit her lip lightly.)
The first couple of times I met him he seemed
completely human, or wolf, or whatever. Mad as a
monk in a morass, mind you, but human. He's always
claimed to be the champion of the gods and such,
but _which_ god he's never said. If he knows.
Generally he speaks of a 'sacred mission',which
always involves mayhem and slaughter of some type,
and says that when he completes it he will be
lifted up and granted divinity. He has before been
shown to be fast, strong, damn good with a sword,
deadly with a yari, tough, possessed of some kind
of tracking sense if he's hunting you, and very
hard to permanently kill -- he always seems to
come back.
Ranma rubbed her chin for a moment and considered.
The first time I met him, he just started ranting
and attacked me. Since I was with Usagi-dono and
Tomoe-dono -- Noriyuki- sama's chief retainer --
at the time, that was a particularly stupid thing
to do. It wasn't really much of a fight and we
left him by the roadside, dead, as we thought at
the time.
He came back on us and kidnaped the son of the
headmaster of Usagi-dono's old village to get
Usagi-dono to fight him. Usagi-dono did, and sent
him over a cliff with his yari in his side.
The third time that I met him was the only time I
ever managed to get close to Hijiki-yaro in a
fight. Hijiki-yaro's not nearly the fighter that
he is a plotter, and I nearly had him, but Jei-san
came out of nowhere and saved the bastard. I cut
Jei-san's heart in two for it, but I didn't get to
see what happened to him after that, because
Hijiki-yaro took advantage of my distraction and
did this (Ranma indicated her throat, and the scar
she bore there).
Ranma tapped her chin with her index finger for a moment.
The last time that I saw Jei-san before this
morning ... Was about a year ago in my time-line.
I had run into the little bugger unexpectedly, on
the road, and had dueled with him a little. Then
he broke off and started moving. I thought it was
weird and pursued. It worked out that he'd been
sent or moved by his patron or something, because
about twenty miles away or so I ran into Usagi-
dono.
He was with Gennosuke-san and Zato-ino-san and
about thirty or so Neko clan Ninja. They were
preparing to assault this castle, the fortress of
a moderately important lord named Tamakuro, and
Jei had gone for the fortress like he'd been
pulled by a string. Tamakuro-san, according to
Usagi-dono and the leader of the ninja -- a
warrior named Shingen -- had gathered together a
store of about three hundred arquebuses and a
couple tons of ammunition and was preparing to
rebel against the Shogun.
We found out later that Hijiki-yaro was behind it
in some way, but as usual he didn't leave any
evidence you could use.
Anyway we attacked the place and broke through the
wall. Usagi-dono went off hunting for Tomoe-dono,
who was imprisoned there, and Gen and Zato-ino-san
got pinned down holding off about half the
garrison near the main gate. This left it up to
Shingen-san and I to lead the ninja against the
armory.
We did alright for a while, but then Jei-san stuck
his nose in. He smashed into the side of our
assault and killed Shingen-san and a dozen or so
ninja, which threw the rest into confusion, but
then I went after him and chased him up into the
fortress proper.
Usagi-dono had found Tomoe-dono and he and she had
rallied the ninja and mounted another assault on
the armory; but Tamakuro-san had gained enough
time to regroup and bring reinforcements to the
central defense and they were driven back.
In the meantime I had run into Jei-san and a
samurai I knew to be one of Hijiki's chief knives
preparing to lead more of the guards to trap the
rest of our side inside the castle.
I scattered the guards and got involved in a fight
with Jei-san and Akkhoto-san that damn near killed
me, but I maneuvered them into one spot in front
of the central tower and called the dragon wind on
them. _That_ time it worked -- it didn't this
morning -- and Jei went down with the tower
falling on top of him.
About that time I got a very strong impulse to
beat feet and so I did. Which turned out to be a
good thing, 'cause something had struck a spark or
something in the ammunition room and the whole
damn place blew sky high.
Now that was the first time that I knew A) that
Jei had not only been mortally injured but had
actually _died_, and, B) that the body was
destroyed and not lost track of.
Ranma paused for a moment and sipped the last of her tea.
I don't really know how he got out of that, but
his showing up _here_ just confirms what you could
get from the fact that he showed up at all; which
is that he has some _major_ supernatural backing.
That, combined with the abilities, weaknesses and
immunity to damage he showed this morning makes me
think that he may have been turned into a Chiang
Shih. That would mean that someone had done
something to his higher 'hun' soul and then
corrupted his 'po' soul ... or replaced it
altogether, now that I think of it.
He was definitely slower and less skilled than he
should have been, which would fit, 'cause his
'body soul' would be messed up and wouldn't have
all the same skill and 'feel' he'd be used to.
He'd also be damn near impossible to permanently
damage, which definitely fits.
Normally you'd also expect him to be vulnerable to
sunlight, but he obviously wasn't. This is
probably due to the power he was throwing around -
that green fire. It showed all the signs of being
a serious yin ch'i manifestation, and from the way
it acted I'm betting it was the main thing holding
his body together.
"Which would mean what?" Nabiki asked softly.
Ranma's eyes were focused on the problem, rather than the
girls.
Which would mean that he was something closer to a
demon than a Chiang Shih per se, Nabiki-san. He'd
be using the body only as a means to move his
power around and not really be connected to it at
all .... (her eyes narrowed and her voice went
soft).
Not connected ... now that I think about it I
didn't see any sign of his 'hun' soul at all did
I? I cut out the 'po' soul and _it_ was in the
heart instead of the lungs, but I didn't see the
'hun' at all.
Which could mean that he was using the power to
animate the body and the body to contain the power
and the 'po' soul to control it all ... and that
would explain why the body blew up like that when
I took the soul out ... but the 'hun' soul had to
be _somewhere_, and if it wasn't _there_ ... then
he must have been given a way to run the body
'long-distance', as it were ... which would mean
.... that _it_ might _not_ have been affected by
the demise of the rest of his body .... which in
turn would mean ....
"Which would mean that he could come back, wouldn't it,
Ranchan?" asked Akane very quietly.
Ranma frowned worriedly. "Yeah, it would."
Nabiki was also very quiet. "If it does come back, what can
we do, Ranma-san?"
Ranma's gaze was level. "You can hide, Nabiki-san. And if
you can't hide, then you can run." She transferred her gaze
to Akane, who met it levelly. "_You_, I'll work with, since
I don't suppose I can convince you to be sensible and keep
out of it."
"No, Ranchan, you can't. As long as you're fighting it, I
will be too."
A quiet settled over Akane and Ranma, who were sitting with
their gazes locked on each other's eyes. Nabiki and Kasumi
quietly stood up, gathered up the tray and tea things and
left the dojo.
Eventually Ranma leaned forward and ran her thumb in a
circle around Akane's forehead. "Marked with the sign. Just
like me." Standing up, "Come on, Acchan, you haven't done
anywhere near enough training yet."
Akane moaned theatrically as she rose. "Ohhhh. My sensei's a
bully."
"All sensei are bullies, Acchan." Ranma bopped her on the
head,"It's the notable trait of the type. Assume."
"Oh, Kami."
"Kumite."
"Help."
*Hsssh*, *shrk*, *th-thmp* *shrk* *hssh*. *rtch-THUMP*.
"Ite!"
"Slacker."
"Bully."
"Shirker. Assume."
"Baka. Friends?"
"Friends forever, I promise. Kumite."
*Hssh*, *rtch-thp*, *th-thmp**shrk*, *thmp-thmp-SPLT*
"Ite!"
"Which does not, however, get you out of getting beat on."
*rtch-thp*, *shrk-hshh-shrk-rtch*.
"Wouldn't want it any other way."
*th-thmp*, *shrk*, *thmp-thmp-THAP* *whhsh-rtch-THMP!* "HA!"
"Good one."
*THUMP-WHAP-WHAM*
"Ite!"
"Just don't get cocky."
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane was seated in seiza in the middle of the dojo floor,
eyes closed. Ranma knelt behind her with hands poised above
her shoulders. "What am I trying to feel, Ranchan?"
"You aren't trying to feel anything, Acchan; you're just
trying to _feel_. If you try to anticipate _what_ to feel,
you will feel falsely."
"Now you sound like a koan," Akane said, crossly.
"The master came to a yatai which was selling hot dogs.
'What do you want on your hot dog?' he was asked. 'Nothing,'
he replied. Then the hot dog was enlightened." Her hands
descended, slowly, to just outside Akane's theoretical
peripheral vision, had her eyes been open, and around them a
faint glow began to form.
Akane snorted a giggle, then gasped. Suddenly, she was aware
of senses she had never before known she had. All around her
she sensed flows of energy; whirls and spirals and forms of
intangible luminescence coexisted in her sight with the
simple, everyday visions of floor and walls and dojo, and
outside the dojo she could see/sense/hear/smell yet more.
A flaming tidal wave of information and impressions seemed
to pass over her, and she felt herself burn, as though every
limb had been set afire. A wash of energy filled her; she
could tell that it was her own, that in some sense it was
_her_, yet it rebelled against her, fought her tooth and
nail.
She frantically searched for control, sought to reduce the
tide of data to familiar forms and modes. In front of her
she seemed to see a shadow, like a blanket to protect her
from the fire, and she grasped at it desperately. It tore in
her metaphorical hands and yet she somehow knew that it
would heal itself, would cover her eyes and ears, would
shelter them, if only she could open herself to it.
She yearned for the protection the shadow blanket might
offer, but how do you shelter under a blanket that tears if
you touch it? Then she realized: you _ask_ it. And the
shadow rolled over her, warm and enveloping.
For a brief moment she welcomed the respite, and then the
shadow resolved itself into visions. Ghosts long gone and
barely remembered thronged her sight. Some trailed behind
her like beads of light tracing out the necklace of her
past; others swarmed throughout the dojo, carrying out the
many roles of decades of dojo life.
She saw her father's fading doppelgangers going through
kata, her own following and growing taller as they did so;
saw her mother bringing snacks, Kasumi playing about her
feet; saw Nabiki strolling through in many guises, growing
from a toddler into a teenager; saw swiftly vanishing traces
which seemed to show the future, though how she could tell
this she could not say.
The milling horde of ghosts was no better than the waves of
energy, overrunning her senses with too much input to
survive. She tried to cry out, to scream, but she sensed the
weak and desperate energies of the call smashed flat,
drowned by the raging torrent of conflicting energies that
surrounded her and foamed through her; drowned, as she was
drowning; overcome, as she was overcome.
Then the raging sensations weakened, parted, blew aside; she
emerged into the prosaic world of normal sight and sound and
touch like a diver from deep water. Slowly and cautiously
she extracted herself from the sensations that had
overwhelmed her, feeling them held back by a metaphorical
wind generated by Ranma's softly glowing hands.
Finally, she pulled the last of herself free with a sudden
jerk; and wobbled painfully to her feet, staggering to the
wall, where she sank down with a groan, putting her face in
her hands. A soft footstep announced Ranma, who knelt at her
side, putting her hand on Akane's shoulder. Weakly, Akane
held up her head, turning her face to meet Ranma's gentle,
sad smile.
"Second birth, Acchan, and Third. Welcome to the _real_
world."
"It hurt, Ranchan." Weakly and somewhat petulant, like a
child who has been assured that a trip to the dentist
involves candy.
"Being born always does, in one sense or another. Rest
awhile, you've started on a great journey, but you still
have a long way to go."
------------------------------------------------------------
As the light of late afternoon slanted in from the west, and
was obscured by gathering clouds, Nabiki was speaking with
Kasumi and Ranma left Akane in the furo.
Akane had entered into the spirit of the training with
alacrity, and had become somewhat overheated as a result,
thus returning to the bath. Ranma resumed her original
clothing, which she had washed with the assistance of some
mild techniques of shih manipulation and some minor magic,
and returned to the hallway to speak to Kasumi.
"Oh! Ranma-san, is your training with Akane-imoutochan going
well?" Kasumi asked calmly. She worried about the questions
Ranma's story had raised, of course, but she did so quietly.
It would never do to question a guest's truthfulness, but
some kind of satisfaction must be gained. Perhaps Nabiki
could provide confirmation of some kind.
"Very well, Kasumi-san. Exceedingly well, in fact. I retain
the hope that Acchan will quickly rise to overtake my own
skill level." (Nabiki and Kasumi shared a single thought,
'Nani!?') "But I did want to speak with you and Nabiki on a
number of matters. The first of which involves her diet."
"Oh, my! Will she be requiring special foods or drinks?"
Kasumi was vaguely worried about this; Ranma-san had
provided a significant fund towards household expenses, but
if exotic foods were going to be joining the menu ....
"No. In fact, just the reverse. A balanced and varied diet
is best, but she _will_ be eating more than she has been; I
would estimate about twice what was normal before."
"Thank you for the warning, Ranma-san; I will adjust the
amount I make accordingly," Kasumi said gravely.
"Secondly," Ranma continued, "I will be involving Acchan in
some activities that will be either odd-looking or even
somewhat dangerous. I mention this because I am aware that
the two of you have no particular reason to trust my
judgement, nor any good way to acquire one. This is a
problem that I wish to resolve quickly, and I would value
any thoughts you might have on the matter."
Kasumi winced, and Nabiki straightened. "I know," she said,
"that we have to take your word for the conditions of
Akane-chan's training, Ranma-san. I doubt if even Daddy has
the experience to properly evaluate you in that area. The
only thing I am concerned with is that your story is _so_
strange ...."
"That you don't have any way to verify it. I understand,
Nabiki-san." A pause as Ranma chewed her lip. "Tell me,
Kasumi-san, have you begun preparations for dinner yet?"
"Err. No, not really, Ranma-san. We don't usually eat until
later."
"Ah. Well, the problem is solved, then. Acchan will be
coming out of the furo in a little while, and I've no doubt
that she'll be hungry, so we'll simply go shopping. Yes."
Ranma rubbed her chin. "You might want to change into
kimonos, though."
Nabiki and Kasumi blinked at the non-sequitur, 'Shopping?'
but went off and changed anyway. When they returned they
found Ranma with the Mirror in her hand, looking into it
seriously.
"Ahh, good," Ranma muttered, "the way is clear. Nabiki-san,
Kasumi-san, I must be careful or you will over-shine me
entirely."
Kasumi blushed at the compliment, and Nabiki ahhed, "Ahh,
Ranma-san, aren't you going to change too?"
"Oh, no, they're used to me."
"Oh, my," Kasumi said, "where are we going, Ranma-san?"
"Well, I know a number of places," Ranma replied, "but I've
a mood for Tai at the moment, so I thought we'd go to
Okitsu."
"Okitsu?" Nabiki queried, "That's a hundred miles away! Are
you going to take a train just to get fish?"
"Not a train, no," Ranma grinned, "and it's not miles we'll
be traveling now." She raised the Mirror to chest height.
"The past and future are the same,
The present's merely but a game,
A stage where players strut and stare,
Nanban Mirror, take us _there_!"
A breeze blew softly through the suddenly empty hall.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane stretched again, rubbing her hair dry with a towel.
She had stayed in the tub for an indulgently long time,
soaking off the bruises. Nonetheless, she could not remember
a time when she had felt so good, or been so happy.
She whistled happily as she dressed in the new clothes Ranma
had gotten her, and indulged in a brief fantasy of training
with Ranchan forever, getting better and better as the years
passed and occasionally saving _her_ from some unspecified
menace or other. In fact, she felt _so_ good that ... yes,
she felt that she _could_ do it this time. She would go see
if Kasumi was in the kitchen, and then ... she'd cook
Ranchan a meal! And she'd get Kasumi to help, and _this_
time, damn it, it would _work_!
She wandered out of the furo and went toward the kitchen.
Then she heard Kasumi calling "Tadaima!" and wondered where
Oneechan had gone out to.
She went to see and found Kasumi, Nabiki, and Ranma in the
dining room, unloading an array of packages wrapped in rice
paper or in little boxes from which rose a whole raft of
delicious aromas. "Ohh! You went off and got dinner without
me! I wanted to help cook. Wait a second; Oneechan, why are
you and Nabiki-oneechan in kimonos?" Nabiki and Kasumi only
gave her slightly shell-shocked looks as they wobbled
upstairs to change and Akane put her hands on her hips and
turned to her friend. "Ranchan! What'd you do now?"
"Well, after all, Acchan, you can't get good kuri-shioyaki
or kuri-kinton except from Seikenji chestnuts _I_ don't
think. And you certainly can't get fresh salt-steamed Tai
except in Okitsu." Ranma placed the browned, salted
chestnuts next to their boiled cousins in their honey-
sweetened bath of yams as the centerpiece of a rapidly
growing spread of foods in which large plates of filleted
Sea Bream, from which a truly mouth-watering smell was
rising, figured prominently.
Later, around the table, Akane leaned back and patted her
stomach. "I must admit, Ranchan, that you were right. I had
no idea I could eat a whole plate of that Tai, but ...." She
gestured to her empty plate indicatively.
Even Soun had been coaxed from his lair, and had praised the
foods exhaustively. It was, he said, a clear example of the
superiority of the true Japanese spirit; as had been strong
in ancient times. Kasumi and Nabiki just shuddered faintly,
Ranma merely grinned. And ate a great deal of everything in
sight too, of course. But that goes without saying, for
Ranma.
And Kasumi nibbled at another slice of kamo-no-kuwanamaki,
licking the sweet sauce off the broiled duck. And Nabiki
munched another half-dozen boiled chestnuts. And Akane eyed
a plate of uzura-dango, wondering if the sweet quail patties
could actually be made to fit in her stomach. And the clouds
closed in above Nerima, as the sun went down.
------------------------------------------------------------
"What are we out here for, anyway, Ranchan? More clothing?"
Akane leapt to another rooftop. The sky had darkened
completely now, and the moon was hidden behind the ominous
clouds, but streetlights provided adequate illumination.
"No, no. We need to get some training supplies for the dojo
though. And rectify a couple of glaring lapses in the
armory, too. Now, if you were a criminal with a lot of
money, where would you be? And if you say 'In the
government,' Acchan, I'm going to hit you."
"Hmm. Well, there's _something_ happening over there."
"Let's take a look. Oh yes. Oh my yes, Acchan. That's a nice
_big_ one. And in its natural habitat too, you'll notice.
Let's sneak up on it, and see how it's doing, shall we?"
"Oooh, oooh, can we lurk, instead, Ranchan? I've always
wanted to lurk."
"If you want, Acchan, we can even skulk."
"Oooh, goody."
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane vaulted over a leg sweep and kicked its perpetrator in
the face as she went. Ranma's lessons of the day seemed to
flow through her as she moved among the eight thugs she had
chosen as her share, and bodies flew through the air,
describing limp and sad rainbows in their haste to become
one with the walls.
A final slide sideways and twist, getting out of the way of
a clumsy rush and intercepting it in the midriff with a
backwards spin kick and it was done. Ranma's thugs, she
noted, had been unconscious long enough to be half looted,
already. 'Oh, well. Need to get faster, I guess. I wonder if
that's a ki technique, or if it's some of her 'magic'? I
suppose I should ask, at some point.'
As they walked away from the heaps of unconscious bodies,
Ranma remarked, "One million, forty thousand yen; that's
only fifty thousand each. Pffff. Still, I guess you have to
trade quality for quantity sometimes."
"I still don't believe that street trash has so much cash on
it, or such good stuff to fence, Ranchan."
"It's the Ronin's Salvation, Acchan. Jobs may come, and
patrons go, but street thugs shall be with us always; and if
you ask them right, they're always willing to share."
------------------------------------------------------------
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end only love remains.
They had fenced the loot, and spent some time finding the
supplies Ranma wanted. Then they had moved deeper into the
warren of Nerima's Ginza, seeking for weapon sellers. They
had laughed and sung snatches of song; whistled and bought
candy and snacks; ignored the gathering clouds. Then they
had sent the merchandise to the dojo by delivery, and taken
to the air.
Well who scattered these diamonds,
Through the vault of Heaven?
Who drew the curve of the magpie's wing?
The wind questioned, and the flame responded. The bonfire
summoned,and the breeze answered.
Who shaped your face, and what made you love me?
Where is the heart of every living thing?
The rising wind commanded, and the snapping flame obeyed.
The blaze flamed higher, and the wind grew with it, and fed
it, and drove it on before.
Well, I guess I don't know, and I don't care either.
Wind roused flame to life, dancing from rooftop to walltop,
leaping empty air from power line to telephone pole;
caroling across the sky, feet dancing on nothing at all but
air.
I know you love me, how could it not be?
Flame drew wind's reply, flickering along a ridged roof,
alighting a moment on the tip of the roof of a fake pagoda,
before blazing across forty yards of open air to set a
warehouse roof alive and singing.
And I am yours, now and forever,
Feeding now from each other's power. Flinging melody and
harmony one to the other. Changing and exchanging the lead,
to join again in rising triumph at the last ...
'Til my lips fall silent, and my eyes can't see.
And the wind blew the flame into a wildfire...
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
And the wildfire whipped the wind into a storm.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end Dear, only love remains.
------------------------------------------------------------
And later, in the hush after midnight, when both Ranma and
Akane were long asleep, the clouds over Nerima opened, and
the quiet rain began to fall. A still, silver curtain,
walling off the near from the far; softening the silhouettes
of wall and cornice; filling streams and watering parks and
hedges; sending small animals into hiding, and pets into
shelter; cleansing the stains in the yard of Furinkan and
washing the blood away.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 4: Tapestry of Shadows
Part A: Requiem for Solo Voice
Also look for the first RAALS Side Arc: Training Sequence,
which occurs at about this time.
'Til Next,
Eric Hallstrom 10/27/99
--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hallcon@mindspring.com
kawaii@kawaiikunee.com
From: Eric Hallstrom <hallcon@mindspring.com>
Subject: [Ranma][FanFic] Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, Chapter Four
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
"Media Vita" ("In the Midst of Life") and "A Sto'r Mo
Chroi'" ("Darling of my Heart" or "The American Wake") are
Traditional. I'm using them as such. "The Enfolding" is
copyright by Garnet Rogers; "Annie's Song" is John Denver's,
and John Denver's alone. (Of course he's dead, but ...).
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.1 (Oct. 27, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 4: Tapestry of Shadows
Part A: Requiem for Solo Voice
------------------------------------------------------------
The memorials had taken six days to organize. Formalities
like autopsies and such would have been enough difficulty
for any reasonable person; unfortunately, this was Furinkan,
and reasonable people were thin on the ground.
The details had been worked out, finally, by Nabiki -- the
school's 'consensus' had turned to her more or less by
default -- who had drawn Ranma, Akane, and Kasumi deeply
into the planning.
One of the biggest problems had been a simple question of
protocols. The Furinkan district of Nerima was 'blest' not
only with more than ten times the percentage of practicing
or committed Christians than that normal for Japan, but also
a substantial minority of persons for whom Shinto must serve
in death as it had in life. Under normal circumstances, of
course, Shinto is not consulted about the impure and
ritually polluted concerns of death and the dead. But this
_is_ Nerima, and Nerima is a weird place.
The only things that everyone _could_ agree on was that,
one, the students who had studied and played together should
be remembered together, and, two, that the business should
be taken care of as quickly as possible lest the hanging
ill-luck should reduce the chances of those still lying
injured in the area hospitals.
Past that, the factions and sub-factions were locked in a
state of very un-Japanese disunity. Nabiki explained to
Ranma that Nerima was noted for the degree to which its
inhabitants tended to fixate on their pet obsessions. Ranma
noted that fanaticism made accord difficult, and speculated
on methods of conflict resolution.
Eventually, Nabiki simply decreed a compromise. Since Nabiki
was well-known at Furinkan, and since Ranma had been
spending time frowning ferociously, the decree was assented
to with remarkable speed.
Due to the widely disparate nature of the religious
obligations involved, Nabiki had decided that the actual
services for each victim should be held privately.
Furthermore, since actual burial would not, of course, be
possible, that there would be a mass memorial held instead,
during which priests or monks of the various orders would
observe certain basic rites. Fortunately, there was a local
Shinto shrine priestess, one Sakuranbou Sakura, who was used
to weird requests.
There would also be music from the Furinkan Choir, and
memorial displays for each of the deceased would be
proffered for reverence and remembrance. This was to be done
during a procession of grief, which would be held in some
appropriate public place.
At that point Kuno Tatewaki had surprised the whole ward
with an unexpectedly generous offer. Nerima (very unusually
for a Japanese city, not to mention a ward of Tokyo) has a
public cemetery. It is limited in space of course, and
normally requires both a significant fee and a significant
lead time to reserve a plot there. The Kuno family, as it
turned out, possessed a moderate piece of it as an ancestral
holding. Tatewaki ordered a medium-ish piece of this holding
set aside to hold permanent memorial markers for his fallen
schoolmates.
Not even a medium piece of the Kuno holdings at the cemetery
would be enough for the bodies actually to be _buried_
there, of course, but the prospect of having a permanent,
public marker filled the school as a whole with a most
unaccustomed warmth for the once-annoying young man.
Akane was so pleased that she broke down and kissed him on
the cheek on the spot. This reduced him to a gape-mouthed
shock, which induced Ranma to kiss him likewise, which sent
him into instant unconsciousness. Which caused Ranma to
tease Akane for the next several weeks. But you can't have
everything.
Ranma and Akane, although not part of the choir, had
consulted with it to aid in choosing appropriate music.
Since it had been necessary to schedule rites by Shinto,
Buddhist and Christian priests, it had been decided to use a
Christian hymn, but adapt and translate it to a more
Japanese mien. This had been done.
It had also been decided that Akane and Ranma should escort
the bearers of the memorial displays to their resting place,
but not carry any themselves.
Finally, the weather service had been consulted to select a
day free of the sudden constant rain; but Ranma had advised
them that no such day was likely until the whole business
was over, and so the time had been set.
------------------------------------------------------------
"No, Kasumi-san," Ranma said, "I understand your concern.
Indeed, I share it. The only problem is, Jei-san has never
been squeamish about involving other people than his
'targets'. In fact, he has taken hostages to force a
confrontation before. So I do not feel that simply being
elsewhere is sufficient to assure Furinkan or Nerima's
escape from his further attentions. More the reverse,
actually."
"I understand, Ranma-san. Still, I feel that _something_
must be done. It is unharmonious to simply await possible
catastrophe."
"I agree completely, Kasumi-san. I have already begun to
apply myself to the creation of various weapons and wards
against such evil. Also, I have created several of these."
Ranma offered Kasumi a small origami goose. Kasumi accepted
the item and examined it closely, observing the kanji inked
in many colors by a neat, precise hand onto the paper of
which it was composed. To her untutored eye they appeared to
be of a protective or spiritual nature, calling on the Amida
Buddha and a selection of beneficent Shinto deities for aid.
"Is it a ward, Ranma-san? A protective influence?"
"Only in a manner of speaking, Kasumi-san; it is, more
precisely, an alarm. If Jei-san or any equivalent evil
impinges on Nerima again, this charm and the others like it
will give warning; firstly by reacting physically to his
approach, and secondly by transmitting a warning to their
creator, i.e. me. The pattern of warnings I receive should
alert me to the location of the problem, hopefully before it
gains its full strength."
"I shall pray and sacrifice for your success in this matter,
Ranma-san. Please also try to protect my younger sister."
"I shall do so to the limits of my capability and her honor,
Kasumi-san, I assure you."
------------------------------------------------------------
Now a double column of Furinkan students marched up the hill
towards the cemetery , under a steady, moderate rain. The
first seventeen pairs held between them a line of seventeen
fine wooden chests. Each chest held one of the memorial
displays that the school and the victim's families had
hurriedly assembled.
To the left Akane, in black vest, shirt and pants, and
wearing a black trench coat and hat, paralleled the line
with a slow, sad, steady pace. To the right, Ranma,
identically dressed except for her ever-present white silk
scarf and lack of hat, did likewise, her scarlet hair
darkened by the rain, which ran off its end in a steady
stream down the back of her coat. Behind them all,
Furinkan's one decent drummer was beating a slow, mournful
*tap tap tap*, barely audible over the patter of the falling
rain.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Your sister is worried about you. She seems to feel that
you're going to start going out monster hunting and get
yourself hurt."
"Well, I don't have any real interest in _hunting_ monsters,
Ranchan." Akane said mildly. "Just as long as they keep to
themselves and don't come around and try to kill my
classmates or the like."
"But what," Ranma assumed a whimsical tone, "if they come
around and only try to _maim_ your classmates instead?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean. Now hush, you."
"Yes, Acchan. Of course, Acchan. Don't hurt me, Acchan."
"
Unprincipled bully."
"Uncommitted slacker."
"One of these days, I'm going to _get_ you."
"Promises, promises. On another topic, we need to keep track
of the wounded. See how they're doing and if they're healing
well. Particularly Sayuri-chan and that girl who kept you
from getting spitted."
Akane shuddered, "Yeah, I owe her big-time." She chewed her
lower lip meditatively for a few moments, "We ought to talk
to Dr. Tofu, I bet he can get us the info, or at least get
us access."
"Dr. Tofu?"
"He's our family doctor; both GP and chiropractic. I had a
huge crush on him last year."
"But you're over him now and not disappointed at all, ne?"
"Well ... mostly; but everyone knew he was completely gaga
over Kasumi-oneechan anyway, so .... Hey! Wait a minute...
why, you...."
Her only answer was Ranma's silver laughter as the redhead
retreated around the corner faster than Akane could follow.
In laughing pursuit, Akane pounded down the street yelling,
"Come back here, you!"
Rounding another corner she was surprised by a flying sneak
tickle attack that quickly rendered her hors de combat, with
Ranma lounging beside her and smirking, "And the lesson for
today, Acchan, is?"
"Make your combat stance your everyday stance and your
everyday stance your combat stance." To Ranma's raised
eyebrow she sighed, and added, "And my sensei's a bully."
Ranma raised a hand in preparation for another attack,
"Alright! Alright! 'And don't sass the sensei.'"
"Exactly."
------------------------------------------------------------
As the officiating priests (and priestess) finished the
rites there came a hush, filling the cemetery with a silence
that the ever-present rain merely intensified. The combined
student body seemed to hover, as though they wished to put
out a hand and pat their fallen comrades on the shoulder, or
urge them on to class one last time. Then the hush was
broken by the voice of the lead singer of the Choir.
Media vita in morte summus,
Quem quaerimus adjutorum nisite Domine?
Que pro peccatis nostris justeira sceris.
Sanctus,
Sancte fortis,
Sancte misericors Domine,
Amarae morti ne tradas nos.
In te speraverunt patres nostri:
Speraverunt et liberasti eos.
Requiem aeterna dona eis Domine,
Et lux perpetua luceat eis.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Why hello, Akane-chan. I didn't see you at Furinkan, I'm
glad you weren't injured."
"Only a few scrapes and bruises, Tofu-sensei. This is my
sensei in the Art, Bushiko Ranma."
Ranma and Dr. Tofu shook hands. "We had wondered,
Tofu-sensei, if you had any information on the status of the
injured, especially Asano Sayuri-san, and Kuno Tatewaki's
sister."
"Yes, Ranma-san, I have been keeping up a bit; particularly
on the patients I attended. Most are healing nicely, at the
moment, but Kuno- san was very badly hurt; it will take her
several weeks just to recover enough to leave the hospital.
As for Asano-san, the last I heard, she was healing nicely
from the physical trauma, but has shown no signs of coming
out of her coma."
"Do you think we might obtain permission to visit them,
Tofu-sensei?"
"I can't see why not, Ranma-san. They're in Nerima
General...."
------------------------------------------------------------
Then the second singers came in on descant, leading from
basses to sopranos as the second set of verses went by in
rounds. Finally, the third singers chimed in , in Japanese,
as the seconds combined their rounds into a single, blurred
chorus.
Media vita in morte summus,
{[Media vita in morte summus,]}
In the midst of life we are in death,
Quem quaerimus adjutorum nisite Domine?
{[Quem quaerimus, adjutorum nisite Domine?]}
Whom do we seek for aid unless You, Lord?
Que pro peccatis nostris justeira sceris.
{[Que pro peccatis nostris justeira sceris.]}
Who because of our sins are justly angry at us.
------------------------------------------------------------
Kuno Kodachi stirred weakly in her hospital bed, and pressed
her brother's hand. Real life had turned out to not work like
she had thought it did. She wondered how many other things she
had been mistaken on. Then the door opened, and two girls came
into the room. The first, she saw, was the redhead who had
kept the monster from skewering her; the second she knew as
Tendo Akane, and seemed to recall a blurred impression of her
also protecting her and her brother from death.
'Such a great mistake to make,' she thought regretfully, 'it's
embarrassing.'
Ranma walked to the bed and surveyed Kodachi's visible
injuries. Her face was marked by a bandage covering the left
side, beneath which Ranma sensed a burn, which seemed to have
been caused by a mingling of fire, acid and something
poisonous. She nodded in confirmation of her suspicions, 'Yin
shih charged spirit fire. That's going to _hurt_.'
Ranma grinned crookedly at Kodachi and accepted a weak smile
in return, "A piece of advice, lass. _First_ you take them
down; _then_ you rant at them. Timing is important."
Kodachi managed a breathy chuckle, "I shall follow your advice
most closely, Ranma-san. Assuming I ever again get the
chance."
"Oh, I think that between us we can get you up and functioning
again. Akane-san and I both owe you a debt after all. Have
they given you a schedule of rehabilitation exercises, yet?"
"No, Ranma-san, I believe they have yet to complete their
schedule of surgery, and...."
------------------------------------------------------------
Sanctus,
{[Sanctus,]}
Holy one,
Sancte fortis,
{[Sancte fortis,]}
Holy powerful one,
Sancte misericors Domine,
{[Sancte misericors Domine,]}
Holy compassionate Lord,
Amarae morti ne tradas nos.
{[Amarae morti ne tradas nos.]}
Do not hand us over to bitter death.
In te speraverunt patres nostri:
{[In te speraverunt patres nostri:]}
In you our fathers placed their hopes:
Speraverunt et liberasti eos.
{[Speraverunt et liberasti eos.]}
They placed their hopes, and You freed them.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma drew Tatewaki aside from where Akane was visiting with
Kodachi and lowered her voice. "You understand, Tatewaki- san,
that even under the best of circumstances your sister will
have to totally rearrange her life?" Tatewaki nodded,
solemnly. "Akane-san and I will assist her, of course, but the
primary burden will fall on her family."
"We have no family save each other," Tatewaki said grimly, "I
shall ...." Suddenly he looked down at his folded hands and
bit his lip.
"Ranma-san, you enjoined me to mend my soul ere I again called
myself a Samurai." Ranma raised an eyebrow and nodded. "I feel
that ... this challenge to my house requires the services of a
Samurai, and I .... You enjoined me to mend my soul,
Ranma-san, but I do not know how. Will you ...?"
Ranma caught his eyes with her own for several seconds,
looking deep within as though to see the state of his soul for
herself. Then she nodded contemplatively, "Well, I don't
suppose that it's much harder to heal two than to heal one. We
will endeavor, in one way or another."
"Thank you, Ranma-sensei."
------------------------------------------------------------
Requiem aeterna dona eis Domine,
{[Requiem aeterna dona eis Domine,]}
Rest eternal grant them, Lord,
Et lux perpetua luceat eis.
{[Et lux perpetua luceat eis.]}
And perpetual Light shine upon them.
Media vita in morte summus,
{[Media vita in morte summus,]}
In the midst of life we are in death,
Quem quaerimus adjutorum nisite Domine?
{[Quem quaerimus, adjutorum nisite Domine?]}
Whom do we seek for aid unless You, Lord?
------------------------------------------------------------
The hospital room was quiet. Ranma stood by Sayuri's bedside
and placed her hand, palm down, on her forehead. She frowned
meditatively for a moment, then stepped aside and waved for
Akane to try.
Akane assumed the same position and concentrated. She did not
reach a conclusion with anything like the same speed, and
spent several minutes locked in struggle with her perceptions.
Finally she frowned, stepped back, and spoke. "Ranchan, her
body ki feels like it's in good shape, but I can't find her
mind or spirit at all. It's like there's a fog, or a wall, or
something."
Ranma nodded, grimly, "Yeah. I get that too. My guess is that
either she retreated into herself to escape whatever Jei-san
did to her, or that she's being chained."
"Chained, Ranchan?"
"Yah. Jei or Somebody could have, err, locked up her mind's
ki, so to speak. And in that case she won't get better unless
somebody goes and rescues her."
"Somebody."
"Somebody, for instance, who is not you. On account of you are
Not Yet Ready."
"Oh, of course not. I wouldn't even dream of it," Akane
replied in a bland, even voice.
Ranma, preoccupied, missed the signs completely.
------------------------------------------------------------
After the choir had finished, Ranma stepped forward. Akane had
wanted to assist her, but had proven incapable of learning the
song quickly enough -- couched as it was in a mixture of
Gaelic and English -- and so Ranma had diffidently asked if
she might give the dead honor on her own. The request had, of
course, been acceded to, by acclamation. And so Akane stood
solemnly behind her teacher and, along with the rest of the
crowd, was swept away.
A sto'r mo chroi', when you're far away
From the home that you'll soon be leaving,
'Tis many the time, by night and by day,
That your heart will sorely be grieving.
For the stranger's land it is bright and fair,
And rich in treasures golden,
But you'll pine I know for the long, long ago,
And the love that never is olden.
A sto'r mo chroi', in the stranger's land,
There is plenty of wealth for the willing.
Where jewels adorn the great and the grand,
While our faces with hunger are paling.
Yet the road may be toilsome, and hard to tread,
And the lights of their cities may blind you.
Then turn a sto'r, to the eastern shore,
And the ones that you're leaving behind you.
A sto'r mo chroi', when the evening mists,
O'er Mountain and Sea are falling,
Then turn aside from the throng and list'
And maybe you'll hear me calling.
For the sound of a voice that I sorely miss,
For somebody's quick returning,
Ohh! A ru'n, a ru'n, won't you come back soon,
To the love that always is burning?
As she sang, Ranma gathered power to herself; building an aura
of blue and gold light that flared and grew, until at the
climax of her song she seemed as a pillar of living flame.
When she finished her requiem she stood momentarily
motionless, burning like a star against the unceasing gray
rain; and then she flared her aura and sent it out and up,
like a great cry of rage against the dying of the light.
And then the undertakers stepped forward, and lifted their
spades, and the first clods of earth pattered down on the
coffins, the sound muffled by the flowers that still bedecked
their tops. And the mourners turned, and slowly walked away,
Ranma and Akane last. And in the skies above Nerima the rain
began to lighten, and the clouds began to part at last.
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 4: Tapestry Shadows
Part B: Sunday Service
------------------------------------------------------------
It is sunday morning ... _early_ sunday morning ... the sky
still dark, in the darkest hours before the light of the new
day.
Ranma's apartment, like all the others in her building, is
dark; that should not, however, be construed to mean that
Ranma is asleep. Contrariwise, she is wide awake, sitting
seiza in girl form in the middle of her main room, surrounded
by a litter of books, papers, vials, beakers, boxes, racks,
small pieces of metal or wood or wire, and a great quantity of
objects which can only be classified as miscellanea.
No diagram hangs in the air before the window, no mysterious
liquids drip in shadowed corners, no air of arcane secrets
prevails. Nonetheless, magic is being made. Magic of the best
and most useful sort: prosaic magic.
In front of Ranma sits a pile of small pieces of rice paper;
next to them is a set of inkstones, bearing ink of many hues,
and a matching set of pens. To one side is a completed set of
small origami geese, patiently waiting their time. Ranma's
attention, though, is not on the geese; instead, she turns a
small piece of jade over in her hands, staring at it with a
faint air of puzzlement.
It is carved in the likeness of a nightingale, but this has
been the case for centuries, and would not seem to be cause
for puzzlement.
Casually, Ranma reaches her hand to the side and picks a
scroll out of a pile of similar writings. She places the jade
nightingale carefully in front of her and unrolls the scroll,
skimming at first, and then carefully reading one section.
Then she moves on in the scroll, skimming the rest before
returning to several sections to scrutinize them closely,
rolling the scroll back and forth several time to
cross-reference some point or other.
Then she rerolls the scroll and places it back into its place
before rising quickly to her feet, rapidly gathering the
litter from the floor and replacing it in the foot-locker. The
geese she puts aside, laying them on the table in the kitchen.
The jade bird remains sitting enigmaticly where she left it.
Although, to be honest, sitting where you leave it can not
truly be considered enigmatic behavior for a jade figurine;
this is, after all, what they do all the time. Inanimation is
a hard habit to give up.
Ranma finishes her clean-up and returns to sit seiza before
the still immobile figurine. Then she reaches out and takes it
into her hands, resting it in the valley of her cupped palms
as she sinks deeply into trance. And the minutes pass, fleeing
like frightened minnows, as Ranma adjusts her perception,
looking Without, and then Within - Within the jade bird cupped
in her hands, and Within herself as well.
Before her inward turned gaze she sees a tracery of fire,
outlining blocks of softly luminescent patterns; patterns
that, for those with eyes to see them, set out the precise
details of the existence of any given object.
This one, for instance, tells of the details for the jade
figurine in Ranma's hand. See the patterns that mark out its
shape, and color; trace the lines that tell of texture,
chemical composition, mass and density; observe the lack of
any pattern that would indicate life, or growth, or change.
It is not unusual for there to be such a lack; after all, the
figurine isn't alive. And yet ... yet within its structure it
still possesses the energies of life. And yet within its
patterns it follows the living patterns of the bird which is
its model. And yet, somehow, locked in never-living stone,
there still exists a living bird: awaiting life, longing for
freedom, patient as a stone.
Patient, as it has had to be patient, since the day so long
ago when it first was carved. Waiting, as it has had to wait
since the day when first it coalesced from primordial ore and
silicates. Longing, as it had longed since the first human
hand had touched it, since its shape had taken form, since it
had become like life, but not alive.
And Ranma hears the longing in her blood, knows the waiting in
her bones, feels the patience down all the endless years in
nerves and heart and soul.
And reaches out a mental hand, and presses a metaphorical
button, because, sometimes, patience does have its reward.
And a spring wound by a thousand years of longing unwinds.
And in her hand the nightingale shakes its carven feathers
into place, and stretches and spreads its stony wings, and
hurls itself into the waiting air, and raises its voice -- at
last, at last -- in song.
For a moment Ranma follows the jade bird's ecstatic flight
with a proud smile, but then she notes the music the joyful
bird is raising to heaven, a tune slower and simpler than
expected, a tune, she suddenly realizes, that she knows. And
her smile turns wistful, and a golden contralto softly joins a
jade fountain of song.
Deep within this softly moonlit night
we awoke, to find our
Loves' sweet expression
unfolding of its own accord.
A touch in gentle sleepiness,
a fingertip, a pressing lip
The kindness of our bodies,
speaking softly in the dark.
Our love began so tentative;
a smiling eye, a voice soft-spoken
Touching in a way our lives
had never quite been met.
The quiet grave acceptance
of the truth within each other,
The meeting of two people,
man and woman for all time.
So in this night our love unfolds,
your body is akin to mine.
Another half once left behind
in generations long ago.
To finally meet together,
in a silent true immersion.
The natural culmination
of a love we can't define.
And this loving is a drawing close,
a turning in, an opening
Until one perfect moment;
but how can it be expressed?
A receiving, and enfolding
as I cradle you in my arms.
Within my heart, within my soul,
You are my true love.
The nightingale circuits the room and lands on Ranma's
outstretched finger, throat pouring forth a torrent of song.
Ranma listens for a moment, still smiling wistfully, then
chuckles. "It's all very well for _you_ to say. You don't have
to deal with it."
Music. "'Man and woman for all time', _that's_ the problem."
Music. "Because she's straight, you silly bird. And she thinks
I'm a girl."
Music. "Yeah, that _could_ be done, I suppose. But there's one
problem. _I_ want 'man and woman' too, and if you say anything
about Nannichuan I'll ...." Music. "Be her friend. What else
is there?"
Music: a sharp, brief stanza. "Love is ... not a good idea.
Besides, there's Oyaji, remember? If he hasn't found an
engagement for me I'll eat my hat. It'll be enough of a
miracle if she's at all suitable. Hell, it'll be something of
a miracle if she's _human_. Love is too much to hope for."
Music. "Because _it won't work_, damn it. It hurts enough as
it is."
Music: a rich tapestry of interweaving harmonies. "Oh _well_.
In _that_ case, yes, _then_ it would work. Of course, that
won't happen ... but _if_ it did, then yes."
Music: a joyous trill, fading into a sleepy purl. A
stretching, a shake, a nestling down to rest; and a small jade
figurine, a nightingale asleep, is cupped in the hollow of
Ranma's palm.
Patiently waiting for a spring to wind itself again; content
now, in a sense, but still longing for the day when it can
again unwind itself ... and fly ... and sing.
And Bushiko Ranma looks down into the hollow of her hand, and
says, very gently, "Silly bird."
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 4: Tapestry Shadows
Part C: Sonata for Flute
------------------------------------------------------------
Tendo Akane woke very early, just before sunrise. She quickly
dressed, intending to get in some practice before breakfast.
Going out of her room, she first stopped in the kitchen.
"Ohayo, Kasumi-oneechan; I'm going to the dojo to practice;
would you call me when breakfast is ready please?"
"Ohayo gozaimasu, Akane-chan. Ranma-san is already in the
dojo. She asked me to make you this snack, to eat before you
train." Kasumi gave Akane a small plate, holding a pair of
rice balls and a small filet of fish.
*blinkblink* "Ranchan's _here_? _Already_? Augh! I'm late!
She'll think I'm slacking!"
A wind blew through the kitchen as the screen *whooshed* with
Akane's passage, leaving the plate hanging in mid-air. It
*whiished* as Akane reappeared, catching the plate and gulping
down the food in a blur. It *whooshed* again as Akane vanished
through the abused screen leaving the now clean plate hanging
in mid-air; only to *whiish* as she reappeared, catching the
plate before it could fall and placing it gently in the sink
before *whoosh*ing out the screen again; followed by a *thump*
as the screen was sucked off its track and fell over.
A *shhhk* announced Akane's sliding stop, followed by a
black-haired head that slowly inched its way back into the
picture. Akane gave Kasumi a nervous smile before picking the
screen up off the ground and placing it gingerly back into
place. She patted it timidly, then took several cautious,
silent steps away before vanishing dojo-wards again with a
dopplered wail of, "Auugh! I'm Late!"
Kasumi blinked at the screen slowly. It somberly toppled over
with a somehow triumphant *thud* and broke into several
pieces. Kasumi blinked again before lowering her face into her
hands and shaking her head. "Oh ... dear."
------------------------------------------------------------
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end only love remains.
Akane skidded to a halt as she entered the dojo and dropped
her jaw in shock. The formerly empty practice floor was
covered by piles of cinder-blocks in a similar manner to those
she had used to practice with, (was it less than a week ago,
or was it a lifetime?) the first morning After Ranma.
Ranma was stacking them into tall piles and had apparently
been at work on a number of the piles she had already stacked,
because they had been shaped in some manner into vaguely human
form. How she had managed it Akane couldn't imagine, but she
supposed that the trick of shaping cinder-blocks must be a
fairly simple one after some of the things she had seen Ranma
do.
Akane watched as Ranma finished stacking her latest pile and
withdrew her fan from her sleeve. Then Ranma raised her hand
above the top of the concrete pile and snapped the fan open.
That pair in the corner,
They're here every Tuesday
They come when the market
first open its stalls.
And it's got so that lately
I'll wait just to see them
Their heads bent together,
As they come down the hall.
And her hair has grown whiter
His has grown thinner,
And their pace has slowed down
As the years have grown long.
But they keep step together
'Mongst strangers who hurry,
These two old companions,
Walking slowly along.
Ranma's fan flashed around and through the pile of blocks as
she sang, and before Akane's eyes a pile of rectangular blocks
was shaped, flexed, carved and melted into another humanoid
shape.
"Ohayo, Ranchan. How are you doing that?"
"Ohayo, Acchan. Let me finish a couple more so we have half of
them done and I'll show you."
"Let me help stack."
------------------------------------------------------------
"Okay, now here we have a pile of cinder-blocks, right?"
"Umm. Yeah. Looks like that to me, yep." Akane nodded happily,
and looked at Ranma with wide eyes.
"Stop that. Besides, for the purpose of this explanation,
you're wrong. What we have here is a pile of patterns of
energy. A set of shapes defined by ch'i and, in this case,
mostly free of shih."
Akane squinted to slip into othersight, "That's the same thing
though, right, Ranchan?"
"Not quite, no. See, if it was a pile of concrete blocks, then
there'd be no way to do anything with it. Concrete blocks are
concrete blocks, ne? But! If it's a collection of patterns of
ch'i, then I can use _this_," she flourished the fan, "which
is _also_ a pattern of ch'i, to change what the patterns say.
"Now watch. I take the fan, and I feed shih from my ki into
it, see?" Akane nodded. "Now, I use the shih to 'spread' the
ch'i of the blocks. And now that I've got them in shape to be
changed ...." The upper portion of the pile was quickly
reduced to the shape of a crudely fashioned head. "Now you
try."
Akane dubiously took the fan from Ranma, and focused her
othersight on the concrete. Sinking into a trance, she sent
shih rushing into the fan, filling it with crackling tubes of
light. She attempted to insert the fan into the concrete but
met with resistance. Withdrawing the fan, she 'looked' at it,
altering the shape and frequency of the power filling it to
something closer to what she had seen Ranma use and then tried
again.
A few attempts later, the fan began to sink into the concrete,
but stopped less than an inch in, having apparently run into
something. Frowning slightly, Akane flexed her fingers,
preparatory to changing the shih flow one more time. The flex
caused the fan to open slightly. The pile exploded into dust,
knocking her head over heels backward into the wall of the
dojo.
Ranma tapped her chin meditatively, "Well ... it's a start."
------------------------------------------------------------
...*boom* ... *boom* ... *boom* ...
Tendo Nabiki was a heavy sleeper, particularly on Sunday.
Nonetheless, repeated muffled explosions could waken even her.
Blearily she wandered into the kitchen, where Kasumi
intercepted her with a request to inform Ranma and Akane that
breakfast was ready.
Not particularly in a good mood she wandered through the house
to the dojo and opened the door. Strewn about the
once-polished dojo floor her narrowed eyes observed a dozen or
so piles of rubble, and the accountant in her bemoaned the
cost in cinder-blocks that rubble represented. Meanwhile the
sister in her was storing up a grievance, and the observer was
watching with dropped jaw as her sister went after another
pile of blocks in a seeming frenzy with ... a fan??!!
A most puissant fan, she noted; it was carving pieces of
cinder-block off the pile like a ginsu knife slicing tomatoes.
Akane finished carving concrete with what passed for a
flourish, and stepped back from the now human shaped pile with
a gasp of exhaustion and a whirl of triumph.
"Ha!, Ha!, See, Ranchan, I told you I had it this time!"
Ranma tapped her chin in silence and Akane turned to her in
irritation, "Well ... what's wrong with it?"
She was answered by a sound as of flowing sand as the concrete
gave up its bondage to solidity and dissolved into dust, a few
small pieces of somewhat more resilient mien falling through
the pile to *ping* off the floor. Ranma raised an eyebrow in
silence. Akane flushed beet-red and slumped to the floor in a
heap, putting her head in her hands.
"I don't think you've quite got that part quite down yet,
Acchan."
Akane *snff*ed from the floor.
"Still. it _may_ be that you'll do better after a rest, ne?
And I think Nabiki-san is here to announce breakfast." Ranma
raised another eyebrow, at Nabiki this time.
"Umm, yeah. Oneechan says it's ready, yes."
Akane *snff*ed again and Ranma extended a hand to her. Akane
grasped the hand and pulled herself up. She started to walk
after Nabiki, but raised her head to where she could see the
remaining uncarved, stacked cinder- block pile.
Her head snapped up, her jaw firmed, and her shoulders
straightened. She raised the fan and said, "No! I'm on the
verge, I know it. Once more, and _this_ time I'm gonna do it
right!"
Then, suddenly, she grinned, "Hey, Ranchan, watch me pull a
dummy out of a cinder-block!"
"Aw, Acchan," Ranma squirreled, "that trick _never_ works!"
"This time for sure!"
Akane strode purposefully up to the untouched pile and stuck
the fan an inch into the space where the head would be. Then
her shoulders hunched and she gathered herself. The fan
suddenly unfolded, and Akane seemed to go into a frenzy of fan
blows; blurring about the pile, now to the left, now in back,
as she stripped and melted concrete with each strike. After a
minute of frantic effort she stepped back, panting in
exhaustion and glaring at the shaped concrete, daring it to
move in any way.
Ranma stepped forward and flicked the dummy with her finger,
nodding when it failed to immediately disintegrate. "Yep, I
think that's got it." Then she pivoted gracefully, and caught
Akane by the waist as the taller girl fainted with exhaustion,
swinging her up into her arms. She carried Akane to the door
and shrugged at Nabiki, "A little stubborn, maybe."
Nabiki shook her head and walked ahead of Ranma into the
dining room.
------------------------------------------------------------
After breakfast Ranma and Akane returned to the dojo. Ranma
considered the dummies scattered about the room for a moment,
and then turned back to Akane, putting her back to the dojo
wall.
"Well, you've proved that you can do basic ki movement, and
also basic manipulations of other's chi. Now we move on a
little. Using these skills, you can extend your capabilities
in several ways. The first thing we'll talk about is an
extension of what you just did with the fan. It's called ch'i
disruption. When Jei attacked, did you notice what I did to
the wall of the classroom he was in?"
"Yah, Ranchan, I'd been meaning to ask you about it. You sort
of ... waved at the wall? And it fell apart, is what it looked
like."
Ranma held up her right hand, outer fingers veed and inner
fingers curled. "It's called The Butterfly's Kiss. What you do
is send out a shih pulse from your hand. The pulse is set in a
manner that disrupts the ch'i of any inanimate object that it
hits. And once you've disrupted its ch'i of course, it falls
apart."
"What about living things, Ranchan?"
"A good question, Acchan. Living targets are harder to affect.
First, because their ki will tend to resist you messing with
it; and second, because they have souls, which will keep them
mostly intact even if you _do_ manage to mess with it. That
said, however, there are versions of this move that will do
nasty things to people, too.
"Now you hold your hand like this ... and you feed shih from
your ki like _this_ ... and you've got to keep in mind what
the ch'i of the thing you're trying to affect looks like,
'cause you have to send a pulse that disrupts it, like so
...."
------------------------------------------------------------
"Now the next thing we're going to look at is called
shih-sheathing. This is a method of creating a sheath or
shroud of moving or 'fluid' energy from your ki, and having it
exist _separate_ from your ki for some period of time.
"Now you've already done a variant of this with the fan, but
the essence of the technique here is to be able to apply a
sheath not only to yourself or something you're holding, but
to things you've let go of, or even to non-physical things
like a ch'i structure. And also to get the sheath to _last_
once you can't feed shih to it any more, of course."
"You want me to use this set of throwing knives to practice
on, right, Ranchan?"
"To start with, yes."
Akane concentrated on the knives in her hands, turning them
over and over and watching the reflections. Slipping deeply
into trance, she concentrated on the task of covering the
blades with a 'web' of shih that did not immediately
disintegrate when she released it.
After several minutes of effort she had determined that the
most important step was insuring that the outer web was both
self-contiguous and anchored to a stable object and was
attempting to work out a method for doing so. Abruptly, a
warning instinct she hadn't previously known she had went off,
sending her rolling sideways, away from the concrete fist that
*thudd*ed into the dojo floor where she had been standing.
Akane rolled to her feet in automatic reaction and slid
sideways, dodging the blocky attacker's forceful rush and
flicking a knife into its throat. The knife *ping*ed off
concrete and Akane cursed herself for a fool, evading another
cobra-quick attack by the animate statue and jumping for
increased fighting room.
She desperately reached for concentration to empower a better
weapon and felt time slow as a sudden gestalt clicked into
place. All at once she _knew_ the feel of a properly made
sheath, knew the sight and sound and taste of it, and a sheath
of shih set to penetrate solid rock snapped down over two of
her remaining knives.
These then flashed across the rapidly decreasing distance to
her target, thudding into its throat and heart and sinking
deep. Unfortunately, as her attacker was made of concrete
instead of flesh and blood, this accomplished nothing.
Akane threw off two butterfly's kiss strikes set for stone to
no effect before she skidded sideways from a combination
strike that would have pulped her like a rotten grapefruit and
jumped over the return stroke, pushing off from her opponent's
back into a long dive that staggered the towering bulk and won
her twenty feet of space. Coming up from her dive into a
forward roll, she stood and whirled, mind still in overdrive
as she sought a way to deliver a ch'i disruption attack that
would destroy her foe without making the fatal mistake of
coming into its reach.
Her racing thoughts quickly pruned her decision tree to the
only possible solution and began to implement it as her
opponent regained its balance and turned to the attack again.
Akane wove the sheathe around the disruption pulse and
anchored it to the knife, then set the knife to throw. Dodging
forward to close past the range at which her opponent's speed
would allow it to dodge, she threw the knife from just outside
the reach of its arms.
The knife flew straight to its target and sank deep into the
concrete chest, but the desired result did not obtain. 'Shit!
Ranchan _told_ me you couldn't do that to a living target!
What was I thinking?' Akane folded into a forward roll under
the closing arms, her mind still in hyper. 'I need to set the
disruption-ch'i off, but how do I alter ...? I'll have to get
close.'
Akane came out of her roll inside the reach of her opponent's
arms and launched herself immediately into a jump that put her
in a position to be crushed by their rapidly closing grasp;
but also in a position to touch the hilt of the knife, into
which she channeled all the shih she had, funneling it
directly into the disruption-web which drove the animating
shih before it as it expanded.
And then the web collapsed inward into the creature's chest,
exploding it with sufficient force to knock Akane back into
the wall of the dojo, smacking herself on the suddenly
disconnected arms as she went by.
From the side of the dojo, Ranma chuckled, "Well, that's _one_
way to do it ...."
Limping slightly, Akane moved to the crumbled remains of the
practice dummy and retrieved her knives. Giving the redhead a
glare, Akane replied in a dangerously mild voice, "What were
you expecting?"
Smiling, Ranma put a hand on the dummies to either side. As
they rumbled into life, she said, "Look at these two. What do
you See?"
Akane looked at the lumbering figures, and tried to see what
Ranma might be referencing. All she saw was a tracery of shih.
layered and interwoven, providing the energy necessary for the
dummies to move.
Suddenly she saw what her friend meant, and sent a knife
winging into each dummy, hitting, and cutting, the 'knot' of
energies that anchored the shih-web in stability. The loosed
energies fled back into Ranma's ki and the suddenly inanimate
dummies stopped moving.
"Very good, Acchan. Now we'll try that a couple different
ways...."
------------------------------------------------------------
As Kasumi walked toward the dojo she worried, briefly, about
cleaning. The training activities Nabiki had described sounded
very messy to her, and she concerned herself with the question
of just who was going to clean the result. It was important
that the dojo show itself in good condition, after all; it
reflected on the face of the dojo. And hence on her own honor.
Not that she was eager to have to expend _yet more_ time in
keeping up the condition of the Dojo and its constituents,
mind you, but .... Honor was honor, after all. Still, it might
be that there was _some_ help to be had from ... other
sources. Like Nabiki and Akane, for instance. Or even
Ranma-san. It is part of a sensei's duty to insure the proper
condition of the dojo, after all.
Walking in through the door to the dojo proper she stopped
abruptly and gaped. The alteration in the dojo's countenance
had been ... extreme. A half-dozen concrete or stone statues
loomed menacingly around the dojo wall. A wide selection of
dark spots, scorches, dents and holes now decorated the dojo's
walls and floor. And a large pile of dust and debris was
growing in the center of the floor where Akane and Ranma were
sweeping it with brooms.
Well ... Akane was sweeping with a broom; Ranma was ...
shooing the debris along, _and it was moving!_ 'And to think,'
she despaired, 'all these years and _I've_ been doing it the
_hard_ way!'
"Ohayo, Kasumi-san," Ranma chirped, "we're almost finished
here. I'm just giving Acchan a lesson in practical magic."
Ranma crossed her arms and leaned against the dojo wall next
to the door to the house. Akane finished sweeping the floor
and turned to Ranma questioningly.
"Okay, Acchan, now we have two things to do to return the dojo
to good condition. First, we must remove that pile of trash.
Second, we have to fix the walls and floor."
"Umm, yeah." Akane flushed guiltily and looked about at the
damage. "I guess we did kinda trash stuff didn't we?" She
looked at the pile of concrete shards. "I dunno about this
pile, though, Ranchan. I could disrupt it piece by piece, but
there's gotta be thousands of pieces in there."
"No problem. Watch what I do, here. First you treat the pile
as a single thing, with a single meaning. Then you use the
butterfly kiss on that one thing." The pile dissolved into a
looming cloud of fine dust; Ranma waved her other hand at it,
fingers rotating. Kasumi's eyes went wide in shock. "Then you
take the dust cloud and gather it together and run it off."
The cloud was sucked into a small tornado that formed on the
former location of the pile and blew out the outside door into
the yard.
"Now, for the next problem we rely on the fact that the inner
meaning of the dojo is not particularly related to holes in
the walls. That is, the natural state of the dojo is to be in
good condition. What you need to do is find the dojo's 'right
state' and Imbue reality with it."
"Fffff." Akane blew out her cheeks, dropping into seiza in the
center of the floor. "Okay, I _think_ I can do that. Let's
see." She knelt forward onto her knees and put one hand onto
the dojo floor, almost caressing it before stilling herself
completely, almost ceasing even to breathe.
A hum began to resonate throughout the dojo as Akane
concentrated and began to glow herself, faintly. Then the
walls and floor of the dojo began to blur, to seem as if seen
in double-vision, overlaid by an image similar, but not
exactly the same. The hum fell in pitch and rose in volume and
Akane's glow shifted quickly towards the red, brightening as
it did so and giving off heat. Then the walls seemed to snap
into focus as the hum peaked in a sudden squeal of
high-pitched sound. Akane's glow faded and revealed, when the
light level had stabilized, a dojo not merely repaired, but
polished 'til it shone.
Ranma tapped her chin. "Not exactly the way I'd have done it,
but it worked nicely."
Akane wobbled to her feet, and put her hands on her knees as
she gasped for breath. "How'd *gasp* how'd I do, Ranchan?
*Pant* Harder than I thought. *Wheeze*"
Ranma gave her a thumbs up, and turned to Kasumi. "You did
great, Acchan! What's up, Kasumi-san?"
Kasumi heard herself say something about dinner, and furo, and
heard Ranma's reply. Internally, however, she was focused on
one thought only, here was a product of the martial arts that
_she_ could use. Domesticity Martial Arts. Plans and
half-formed wishes volleyed back and forth in her head as she
wandered away.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane leaned back into the heated bath-water and considered
her friend. Ranma had delayed a moment to speak to Nabiki
which gave Akane a chance to watch her undress and wash, a
chance she was making the most of.
From an aesthetic standpoint, she mused silently, Ranma's body
left something to be desired. Oh, her _form_ and _figure_ were
certainly acceptable enough, in an abstract sense; not quite
as 'developed' as hers, but certainly acceptable. But the
overall presentation ... while not ... uncomely ...
nevertheless was distinctly lacking.
Partly, she thought, due to the sheer unconventionality of it.
Conventional standards, after all, definitely emphasized
smoothness. Skin should be soft, or else taut and tanned,
muscles sculpted and well- defined. Body fat should cover and
enhance to sleekness those areas possessing it, and some
areas, particularly those most feminine, _should_ possess it.
Eyes should be large and expressive, and open to the world.
The structure of the face should be smooth and sleek, flowing
in curves strong or heart-shaped as circumstances indicated,
defining that feature regarded as the emblem of the soul. The
whole structure and carriage of the body should harmonize into
the presented image, blending the soul and the body that
carries it into one, unitary whole.
Another part was carriage and attitude. 'So much of how you
perceive a person comes from how they move and are still,' she
thought. A woman may mince, or skip, or even prowl or strut,
but nonetheless she moves in a certain manner. With grace and
style, or at least with an attempt at them. Forever conscious
of how other will see her. A man may move forcefully or
timidly, claiming the limelight or evading it, but always
dealing with the space to be seen _in_. A normal man, a normal
woman, she thought. But not Ranma.
Muscles like steel cable and whipcord. Skin seamed with thin
white scars and tanned into a semblance of well-cured, soft
leather. Face close-laid over strong bones, but without more
than a pittance of body fat, eyes as often half-closed as
open. Attitude most of all.
Ranma, she thought, rather than being concerned with seeing or
being seen, more often exuded a combination of complete
relaxation unconcerned with its surroundings and utter
steel-spring readiness for action that you would ordinarily
have to be a mongoose to pull off. Lastly, and that which was
first noticed, movement; no concern there with being seen, no
concern with space. Ranma simply moved from one space to
another, utterly unconcerned with what might be going on
outside the spaces she was moving _in_.
Idly, Akane wondered if she would end up looking like that,
and how long it would take. Idly, she thought that Ranma
wasn't conventionally pretty, but was certainly beautiful.
Idly, she wondered why she had thought that, but lost the
thought amidst heat-induced relaxation. Then she remembered
another idle thought, and acted on it. "Hey, Ranchan! Tell me
about the other one."
"Which other one, Acchan?" Ranma replied, slipping into the
tub.
"The other one who used to call you Ranchan."
"Huh? Oh! Oh, sure, Ucchan. Ukyou that is. Ko-something Ukyou,
my first friend.
"Ucchan lived in Osaka when I was six; still does, I guess.
His dad owns an Okonomiyaki shop there. He and I always used
to scuffle over food.
"Well ... that's not _quite_ right. What happened was, Ucchan
would make a couple of okonomiyaki, I would 'steal' them, then
I'd give one back and we'd eat lunch."
"Made you lunch every day, hmmm?" Akane teased, "Sounds like
_some_one liked you a lot."
"We were _six_, Acchan." Ranma said wryly, "Don't construct a
great romance from nothing, here."
"You mean to tell me," Akane arched an eyebrow, "that you
never thought about it before? Not even a little? No dreams of
going back to Osaka and, you know, looking him up?"
"First, we were _friends_, Acchan. Not boyfriend and
girlfriend. Second, he's a well-favored guy who stands to
inherit a restaurant of his own; maybe more than one. So he's
already got girls hanging off his arms, drooling. He may be
engaged already, in fact.
"Third, and most prominent, _he_ cooks Okonomiyaki. _I_ kill
people. There is a severe disconnect in job prospects here.
"I mean, what is he supposed to do, sell food at exhibitions
or something? Or does he need, you know, armed guards and
assassins to protect his Okonomiyaki Empire? No, it'd never
work."
"Oh well, it was a thought."
"Ha! You can't get out of getting beat on by interfering in my
love life either, slacker!"
"Hmmmmf. Baka! You would think that." Akane focused her eyes
dreamily on the scarlet braid floating free past Ranma's
shoulder. Another thing different, she thought. Normal
people's hair stayed where it was put, or flowed with the
person's movement. Ranma's braid as often moved _against_ the
motion of her body.
And then there was the ring; made of ivory, carven into the
shape of a pair of dragons biting each other's tails, and set
with glittering gemstones, it was not the type of hair
ornament you would typically see. "Why do you always wear that
hair ring anyway, Ranchan? Don't you even take it off to
bathe?"
Ranma grinned slightly and unfastened the ring from her braid,
placing it on the edge of the tub. 'Yes!' Akane enthused
internally, 'I'll get her to unwind yet!' Then her mind began
to gibber at her.
Ranma's hair was unwinding of its own accord! Spreading out
from its braid into a floating fan even as she watched, (Ranma
unconcernedly sank her head beneath the water momentarily)
tapping and touching the side of the tub, reaching out in all
directions. And _growing_ she noted in amazement, lengthening
visibly as she watched, stretching out to run along the
surface of the water like a million tiny, questing snakes.
Reaching, she noted with distant concern, towards her as well;
it would cover the short distance in less than a minute. "Ah,
ah, ah ... Ranchan? Ah, your hair ... ah ...."
Ranma rose up from the tub momentarily, shaking her head; her
hair whipped about briefly, then was returned to its braided
state by a twist of her neck and blurring hands. She returned
the ring to its place of honor, about a foot up the
now-extended braid, then her hand briefly flashed light and
she sat back down in the tub and handed Akane a neatly braided
foot-long length of her hair.
Ranma grinned crookedly as Akane looked up at her and down at
the braid several times in shock. "Once upon a time, I was in
a position to help out a dragon," she said, reminiscently.
Akane blinked at her. "He had this problem with an infestation
of parasites."
Akane blinked again. "Dragon fleas?"
Ranma raised her right leg above the water of the tub and
regarded it pensively. "Yeah, sorta." The leg was patterned
with scars that looked, to Akane, like something with a bunch
of sharp claws had climbed up it and then dug in and
tap-danced around the calf. "By the time I'd dealt with them I
was pretty chewed up and one of the damn things had eaten off
my hair."
"Your hair, Ranchan? But why ...?"
"Well, Huan Huang Hu Hu Ti Shen Sheng Long-Wang isn't such a
bad guy for a dragon, and he Owed me for the help anyway, so
he fixed up a bowl of soup. I don't know what all it had in
it, but after I drank it, I started healing a lot faster and
my hair ... well, you saw. Now I have to keep this ring on to
keep it from doing that."
"Huan Huang Hu Hu Ti Shen Sheng Long-Wang?!" Ranma nodded.
"Jolly Yellow Fierce Tiger Emperor Spirit Scholar
Dragon-King???!" Ranma shrugged. "Yeeesh. But why does it
work?"
"'Cause its carved from one of his teeth." Akane blink-
blinked. "Like my knives."
"He gave you his _teeth_?"
"Well, the original offer was 'half my horde and my daughter's
hand in marriage' and his daughter already _was_ married and a
dragon without a horde is a truly pathetic thing, so-ooo ...."
"Oh." Akane sank back into the bath-water again. "My sensei,
the weirdo."
"Biiidah!"
------------------------------------------------------------
Tendo Soun was not, contrary to popular opinion, entirely
incoherent.
It was true that his nerves were broken from the stress of his
life and its many tragedies, but he did work towards his
daughters' well-being. He worked all the time, actually,
though it might have been more useful had any of the work
consisted of more than dreams, schemes or tears.
Lately he seemed to have been especially pressed, he felt.
First, there had been the reluctant realization that the
long-held dream he had based most of his hopes on would never
come to fruition. No doubt the vagaries of a martial artist's
life had overwhelmed Saotome; just the thought of Genma and
his son's sad last moments could bring a renewed wail of
grief.
Yes, the realization had been hard, but he must face facts. It
had been more than twelve years and he had no word for the
last eight. No, he had to be realistic for his daughters'
sakes; Genma would never return, and his son ('What had been
his name, now? Lan-something?') would never marry one of
Soun's precious children. He must forget the dead past; he
must go on. But it was hard.
He realized that he, himself, was almost useless now. He had
almost been destroyed by Kyuumu's death; and he still could
find no joy in the martial arts that he had put so much of
himself into. They had not been able to save her; his skills
had failed him in his supreme need, and he had done no more
than teach desultorily since.
It was a sad pass for a master of the Musabetsu Kakutou
Tendo-ryu to come to, but there it was. Still, he was not
_entirely_ dead yet, and the news that his beloved daughter
Akane had nearly been killed fighting a monster, that many of
the students at her school _had_ been killed or injured,
_while he could do nothing to aid them_, had undone him
entirely.
Even days later the thought of what might have happened
brought him almost to collapse; but he knew he must not dwell
on it. He had a more pressing responsibility, one so urgent as
to even overshadow his many fears and griefs. Akane was in
training under another.
In itself, this was no bad thing, Kami knew _he_ could no
longer instruct her properly. But the fate of the school was
at stake! He must assess _for himself_ the skill at the Art of
her new sensei, this Bushiko Ranma. Not that he had any reason
to distrust Ranma-san, no. But he must appraise her skills for
himself; in the end, the responsibility was his, however
inadequate his ability to meet that responsibility might be.
At dinner, therefore, he had raised the question. Most
properly, Ranma-san had immediately agreed, and so now he must
do something he had not done in ten years. He must spar,
all-out, with an opponent that he was uneasily coming to be
aware might well his superior.
He based this assessment partially on the relaxed flow of
Ranma's movements as she evaded his attacks and insinuated
herself past his defenses. It was the hardest sparring he had
done since he and Genma had dealt with that old pervert
Happosai, he had pulled out every trick he knew, and he was
losing. But mainly he based the assessment on the fact that
Ranma, moments after the match had started, had kicked him
gently in the head. From behind. And he hadn't even seen her
_move_.
Akane watched the match intently. This was only the third time
she had had the opportunity to observe Ranma in action without
interference and the first where her sensei had been sparring
rather than actually fighting. Ranma was obviously spending
energy in performing her techniques rather than going for the
win; Akane did not fool herself into thinking otherwise. Yet
sparring also teaches an observer much about a fighter's style
and Akane was almost in a trance as she drank in what the two
in front of her were teaching.
She had erred, she realized. She had assumed that her father's
incapacity was due to inability. The match was disabusing her
of that notion. He was still a great martial artist; rusty
though he might be his moves were fluid and correct, his
attacks precise and powerful, his defenses firm.
Yet, even so, she could see the difference. Precise as Soun's
motions were, each spent a small portion of effort achieving
that precision; Ranma's did not. Powerful as were his attacks,
firm though his defense might be, each took effort to achieve,
attention to complete, focus of mind and body to continue;
Ranma's did not. Ranma simply _was_: grace in motion, calm in
mind, composed in mien, as though she had found satori, not in
the stillness, but rather in the storm.
Deep in her heart and soul, Akane could feel the storm-winds
blowing. Far off she could hear the thunder, far off she could
smell the rain.
At the core of her heart a fire was building, flickering from
candle- flame to campfire, rushing from campfire to bonfire,
roaring in its power as it grew to an inferno that would
consume her whole. An inferno that sought the storm and the
rain it brought; that would run before it, and delight in it,
and grow stronger by it; that would give back to the storm
that would rise up into the rain, and make them greater and
richer in their own turn.
As from afar off and faintly she seemed to see from the corner
of her mind's eye a sword, traced out only by its edge, limned
by fire, defined by sea-wrack, born up on the wind.
Farther yet she could sense the presence of a mighty tree; the
storm-winds ruffled its branches, the rain nourished it, the
sword warded it from harm. And the fire would blaze upon it,
would leap from branch to leaf, would run up and down the
trunk till all was ablaze, yet did not burn, but grew and
thrived and was warded from harm by friendly flames.
And she saw that she had wronged her father yet more; she saw
how he loved the art, how he gloried in its practice even now.
'How much he must have been hurt,' she thought, 'to give it
up.' She resolved to be nicer to him in future, and to
appreciate him more.
Appreciate him, as she appreciated the match before her. And
she stood back and drank it in like pure water in the desert,
that quenches thirst in delight and coolness, and reignites it
again. And her muscles began to twitch minutely as she
committed everything she could to muscle memory, and her eyes
went wide as she desperately strove to see everything she
could.
And within her a voice began to chant, 'That! That, I want
that! That! Just like that! Just like her!'. And Soun strove
to give a good account of himself and Ranma flowed by, calm as
a summer breeze, ferocious as the storm.
At last Soun called a halt and admitted defeat. Ranma smiled
and bowed to him. "Good match, Tendo-san."
Akane and Nabiki nodded, enthused, and Kasumi smiled
distractedly, her mind far away.
"Yes. Yes it was, Ranma-san. Almost like the old days. If only
...." And he sighed, and said no more.
------------------------------------------------------------
The sun was setting in a blaze of fire and light. Ranma sat on
the porch of the dojo and watched it. After a time she drew a
rude-looking bamboo flute from jacket-space and began to play.
Akane stepped to the edge of the house behind her and
listened. "That's a shakuhachi isn't it, Ranchan?" Ranma
nodded and continued playing.
Shortly Nabiki and Kasumi appeared from the interior of the
house, drawn by the music. Then Soun turned from the place
where he had been sitting, watching the TV, to regard the
porch as well. After a few moments more Akane chuckled, "Hey,
I know that one ... that's Bach. The Art of the Fugue. Do I
want to ask how you learned it?"
Ranma shook her head and continued to play, and Akane began to
see a weave of shi passing with the notes of the flute out
into the yard. Then the threads began to draw up butterflies
from their resting grounds in the bushes and trees surrounding
the koi pond. The butterflies began to dance to the flute
notes, turning and fluttering in time to the rhythm of the
song Ranma was playing (she had shifted from the Bach to
another tune - one Akane did not know).
At the climax of the tune Akane saw a thread dip gently into
the pond and bring up a koi, which leaped high into the air as
the last gleam of the setting sun illuminated it in a flaming
shroud of gold.
Kasumi laughed in glee and clapped her hands. Nabiki
surreptitiously wiped away a tear. Ranma turned to Akane and
winked casually. And the sky boiled up into violet and scarlet
glory as the Sun went down.
------------------------------------------------------------
Nerima after sunset is a quiet place, normally. Except for the
Ginza, there is very little activity late at night, and most
of the people who live here at least pretend to keep normal
hours.
From the window of Akane's bedroom the streets seem empty and
still as she watches a red-headed, white-scarfed figure turn a
corner and disappear from sight. Emptier after she is gone,
certainly, she thinks, as most places are.
And she prepares for bed and smiles in affection, she will see
her again in the morning, there is no reason to worry. Already
the thought of _not_ seeing her seems absurd for some reason.
And as she moves quietly from one place to another in pursuit
of the goal of 'ready-to-go-to- sleep' she begins, also
quietly, to sing. A song she remembers from somewhere, that
seems for some reason to remind her of Ranma. Though just why,
she cannot now seem to bring to mind.
You fill up my senses
Like a night in a forest,
Like the mountains in springtime,
Like a walk in the rain,
Like a storm in the desert,
Like a sleepy blue ocean,
You fill up my senses,
Come fill me again.
Come let me love you,
Let me give my life to you,
Let me drown in your laughter,
Let me die in your arms.
Let me lay down beside you,
Let me always be with you,
Come let me love you,
Come love me again.
You fill up my senses
Like a night in a forest,
Like the mountains in springtime,
Like a walk in the rain,
Like a storm in the desert,
Like a sleepy blue ocean,
You fill up my senses,
Come fill me again.
'Now why is it,' she thinks sleepily, 'that Ranma always makes
me think of love songs?' And she rolls drowsily into sleep.
Briefly. Then she sits bolt upright in bed. It couldn't be!
...Could it? No! She wasn't ... she didn't ... well, she just
didn't, that was all.
But it seemed very hard to get to sleep suddenly, and she knew
that she would spend a lot of time tonight laying on her side,
and looking out into the dark.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 5: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Part A: Hateful Life
------------------------------------------------------------
Author's notes:
Ahh. Young Love. Gets ya right *here*, no?
The original funeral scene was too western, so I have added
some explanation of why it turned out that way.
Plus, I might need a good grave-side scene later, and this way
I'll have an excuse. Waste not, want not.
A Sto'r Mo Chroi', also called The American Wake, is the song
that was sung by relatives and friends on the way to the ship
that would take immigrants from Ireland to America. A voyage,
they knew, that claimed many lives. A voyage from which, even
for those who survived, there would be, essentially, no
returning.
Why Ranma sings _that_ song as opposed to another, and where
she learned it, can be seen if you look closely at the next
chapter.
I'm trying to keep an eye on Ranma's progress in spiritual
matters along with Akane's. Also, I like the present tense
form.
I've removed the old talking heads part again, and I will try
to keep them to a minimum thenceforth. The information
formerly imparted therein has been moved to the Side Arc:
Training Sequence.
For some reason, very few fanfics take advantage of the
remarkable wealth of visual spectacle that Ranma provides. I
don't know why that is, but I'm perfectly willing to take
advantage of it.
Yes, I am going to torture both of them mercilessly, but
that's no reason for them not to have fun along the way.
Yes, _that_ Sakura. Yes, the one from Urusei Yatsura.
Yes, that _does_ mean what you probably think it does.
'Til next,
Eric Hallstrom, 10/27/99
--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hallcon@mindspring.com
kawaii@kawaiikunee.com
From: Eric Hallstrom <hallcon@mindspring.com>
Subject: [Ranma][FanFic] Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, Chapter Five
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
"A Sto'r Mo Chroi'" ("Darling of my Heart" or "The American
Wake") is still Traditional. "The Whistling Pig" belongs, as
far as I know, to Robert Frezza. I don't know who wrote
"'Tis Mute ...," I lost the book. Whoever it is, they did a
good job. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is by Simon and
Garfunkle.
Warning: This part is [Dark] and may very well be [Squicky]
as well. Depending on how you look at it, it may also
deserve a [Lemon] or [Lime] tag, too, not to mention [WAFF].
You Have Been Warned.
By popular demand, the majority of this episode should be
read to Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi from Carl Orff's Carmina
Burana.
You can find a MP3 at the site below.
Don't put it on yet. I'll indicate when.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.1 (Oct. 26, 1999)
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 5: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Part A: Hateful Life
------------------------------------------------------------
1. O Fortuna 1. O Fortune
Verse 1
O Fortuna, O Fortune,
velut Luna like the moon
statu variabilis, you are changeable,
semper crescis ever waxing
aut decrescis; and waning;
vita detestabilis hateful life
nunc obdurat first oppresses
et tunc curat and then soothes
ludo mentis aciem, as fancy takes it;
egestatem poverty
potestatem and power
dissolvit ut glaciem. it melts them like ice.
------------------------------------------------------------
A demon was raping her.
For the ... time. Again. What did it matter how many times.
Just again. Only some of the demons who held her captive had
shown an interest, but those who had seemed to find it their
preferred mode of torment.
They had taken away the control of her body, but they had
left her the pain. This one, for instance, was making her
moan and writhe, as though she was secretly enjoying the
abuse. Others had made her plead, or scream, or just cringe.
They had stuck hooks through her wrists, and lashed her with
barbed chains. They had cut her flesh with knives and
branded her with irons. They had shoved a sharpened steel
pole through her anus and out her mouth and roasted her
alive over a flame. They had bound her spirit into her dead
body and carved it for their meat, and she had felt the pain
of every bite and they had told her that it was pleasure,
that she was delicious, that it was an honor to serve.
They had bound hot stones into her knees and elbows and
healed the wounds they made. They had slain her with steel
and with fire and raised her again to life.
They had shown her others in torment. They had laid out
before her all the kingdoms of the world and shown her that
they ruled them all. They had shown her her parents and
friends writhing in the flames, begging her to save them.
They had said that they were mighty. They had said that they
were kings. They had demanded that she yield her soul to
their mastery.
They had made her body agree, but they had made a mistake.
Her body had agreed, had pled, had begged.
But she had not.
They had lied to her body, but her soul was not fooled. And
if they had lied in one thing, then they lied in every
thing.
And so she remained. They could torment her, they could mock
her, but one thing they could not touch. Whatever else they
told her, whatever they showed, whatever they made her body
feel or do, one thing she knew beyond all doubt.
_They lied._
And eventually they must give her a chance. Eventually their
vigilance must slip. Eventually she would get her hands upon
a knife. Or a flame, or a rock, or a chain, or a hook, or a
spoon (They had scooped out her eyes with one, once. Or was
it many times? And did it matter?).
Eventually. And then she would see if they could lie to
themselves as well as they had lied to her. She suspected
that they could not, but she would see, regardless. She had
nothing else to live for, and nothing at all to lose. And in
the end, what could they do? Punish her? Send her, perhaps,
to Hell?
And that was why, as the demon thrust into her, as it's
malformed member tore and ripped and lubricated itself with
blood, as her body was commanded to gasp and moan in
ecstasy, as it plead to be abused further, as it proclaimed
itself a slave, a slut, a whore ... Asano Sayuri was smiling
with her eyes.
------------------------------------------------------------
Verse 2
Sors immanis Fate - monstrous
et inanis, and empty,
rota tu volubilis, you whirling wheel,
status malus, you are malevolent,
vana salus well-being is in vain, and
semper dissolubilis, always fades to nothing,
obumbrata shadowed
et velata and veiled
michi quoque niteris; you plague me too;
nunc per ludum now through the game
dorsum nudum I bring my bare back
fero tui sceleris. to your villainy.
------------------------------------------------------------
On Monday, she worried.
It was inconceivable that she could be ... she wasn't ...
she was just friends ... right? She wasn't ... Kasumi would
be ... she would just frown sadly, and ... and Daddy, he'd
... and Ranchan ... Ranchan had all those boyfriends ...
she'd had sex before, she said ... Ranchan'd hate her ...
it'd be horrible.
And besides, she'd never thought about girls _that_ way
before.
That was on Monday. On Tuesday the gym class did swimming.
She didn't swim well, of course, but she stood on the side
and watched.
And Ranma, of course _did_ go swimming. In a one-piece. That
was quite sufficient, especially with it being wet. She
nearly buckled at the knees. Had she _really_ thought that
Ranma was 'not uncomely' just two days before?
Ranma, she discovered, possessed a sharp-edged, visceral
attractiveness that grabbed you by the throat and
_squeezed_. And besides that, she was _damned_ sexy. She
wanted to ... was _this_ what the boys had felt?
She'd always thought that they were just ... unthinking, but
if this was what it was like ....
On Wednesday, she agonized.
What should she do? A relationship with Ranma was
impossible, of course. Even if Ranma was ... that way, she
could not be seen to be in love with another girl. Her
reputation would never stand it. Neither would her own
reputation, of course, but that was a secondary issue. It
was Ranma who was important.
She would simply have to go on, that was all. Deny
everything, herself most of all. It would be a test of
discipline, but there was no other option.
Nor could she simply break off relations. It would raise
questions. Investigations would be launched; her secret
would come out. That would be just as bad, but worse yet,
_what reason could she give_?
Could she lie to Ranma? Tell her that she would no longer be
her friend? No. That would add hypocrisy and dishonor to all
her other sins. No. She would simply have to hide what she
felt. Conceal her attraction. Ranma must never know; _no
one_ must ever know. Above all other things this: her
current 'attraction' was bad enough. Whatever else she did,
she _must not_ fall in love.
But one thing she could do: she could fight beside her, aid
her, be her friend in all things. It wasn't anything nearly
enough, but it was all she had, so it would have to do.
------------------------------------------------------------
Verse 3
Sors salutis Fate is against me
et virtutis in health
michi nunc contraria and virtue,
est affectus driven on
et defectus and weighted down,
semper in angaria. always enslaved.
Hac in hora So at this hour
sine mora without delay
cordum pulsum tangite; pluck the vibrating strings;
quod per sortem since Fate
sternit fortem, strikes down the strong man,
mecum omnes plangite! everyone weep with me!
------------------------------------------------------------
A demon was torturing her ... no, wait; it was only her
physical therapist.
Sometimes Kuno Kodachi found it difficult to tell the
difference. Still, she persevered. She _would_ return to
form. She would escape the hell of this hospital for the
clean air. Her brother would help, and Ranma-sensei would
too; but they could only _help_. She would have to _do_.
It worried her slightly that the doctors told her that
cosmetic surgery would have to wait. Her body was still
insufficiently healed to safely subject to the stresses of
further injury.
It worried her more that it worried her so little. She had
always been so proud of her looks; what would she look like
now? She had not yet gathered the courage to look in a
mirror to see.
At least Ranma-san had combined with Tofu-sensei to
alleviate the pain of the burns. A procedure that combined
some of the features of acupuncture and moxibustion, she
thought, it had proven most effective.
Still, that did not reduce the time she must spend in this
pestilential "therapy". She preformed the exercise again and
ignored the pain. She was getting out. She was going home.
And what would be, would be.
------------------------------------------------------------
1. Fortune plango vulnera 2. I bemoan the wounds of
Fortune
Verse 1
Fortune plango vulnera I bemoan the wounds of Fortune
stillantibus ocellis, with weeping eyes,
quod sua michi munera for the gifts she made me
subtrahit rebellis. she perversely takes away.
Verum est, quod legitur, It is written in truth,
fronte that she has a
capillata, fine head of hair,
sed plerumque but, when it comes to
sequitur seizing an opportunity,
occasio calvata. she is bald.
------------------------------------------------------------
On Monday, he fretted.
Sayuri-chan's condition was declining, Akane was
insufficiently trained to support him in an intervention,
and he was afraid he was beginning to do something he had
specifically forbidden himself from doing. Or rather, _she_
was beginning to do something _she_ had ... and that was the
problem, of course.
On Tuesday, he agonized.
The gym class had done swim practice that day; and while
Akane had not, for some reason, actually gotten in the pool,
she _had_ put on a swimsuit. That was enough.
He was rarely, if ever aroused by a person's looks, now. An
artifact, he supposed, of what Minnie-May had called his
"versatility"; he tended not to scan people as potential
partners unless he had already unconsciously decided in
their favor. So his sudden arousal meant only one thing; he
was in _deep_ trouble.
On Wednesday, he worried.
He had already resigned himself to nothing more than
friendship, but he suspected that it would be even more
difficult to stay within that category than he had
previously suspected. Just as long as it wasn't love he was
probably safe.
Friendship, even close friendship, he had no fear of.
Comradeship he could handle. She could be as attractive as
she liked without overloading his control. Love would be a
problem. Well, he would simply have to see to it that it did
not go that far.
He had worse problems. Sayuri's condition had not improved.
No medical technique had palliated her decline. Neither
rituals of healing nor exorcisms had made a difference.
He would have to intervene personally. But he had a feeling
about this one; this one was going to be bad. Akane was not
trained well enough to help; taking her along would be far
too dangerous, to her most of all. But a bad intervention
might well lead to his own death.
He feared that Akane was trained too well to escape
extra-natural attention should he fall, but not trained well
enough to defeat it. Nor could Sayuri wait for her further
training; if he were to aid her at all it must be now.
That night he prepared for battle, oiling and maintaining
all his weapons, storing power against future need. Then,
after all was in readiness, he wrote a letter.
Rally Vincent
Gunsmith Cats
Chicago, USA
Dear Rally,
As you can see, the rolling stone has decided to gather
a little moss for a time. I am presently living in
Nerima Ward, and have taken an apartment ....
The reason I'm writing you is that I seem to have
gotten myself into a 'situation' again ....
An old enemy, you wouldn't know him ....
So I feel that I have to go see where Sayuri-san is
being restrained....
The problem is, I have also taken a student. Her name
is Tendo Akane, and she's going to be one of the great
ones if she lives. But she needs more training, and I
might not be able to do it myself. So, what I'm asking
is, if I don't send you a message in a week or so and
tell you I'm fine, I'd like for you to inform the
appropriate people about her ....
Not that I'm planning on dying or anything, but ....
Tell Minnie-May I do _not_!
Love, Ranma.
(p.s. Note that I'm using the feminine here, and tell
the barbarian ekrixiphiliac to use the appropriate
gender! BR)
------------------------------------------------------------
Verse 2
In fortune solio On Fortune's throne
sederam elatus, I used to sit raised up,
prosperitatis vario crowned with prosperity's
flore coronatus; many-colored flowers;
quicquid enim florui though I may have flourished
felix et beatus, happy and blessed,
nunc a summo corrui now I fall from the peak
gloria privatus. deprived of glory.
------------------------------------------------------------
A demon was raping her. Again.
She did not know how long she had been under their torment.
Any estimate she might have made would have been rendered
unreliable by the penchant her captors had evinced for lying
to her senses. How could she construct a reliable estimate
of the time when a moment might seem like an year, or a year
like a moment?
It was sufficient for her to note that the demons had seemed
to be growing increasingly worried. They had not yet been
sufficiently careless as to allow her an opportunity to
escape her bonds yet.
But they would, in time.
And she _had_ time.
All the time in the world.
------------------------------------------------------------
Verse 3
Fortune rota volvitur: The wheel of Fortune turns:
descendo minoratus; I go down, demeaned;
alter in altum tollitur; another is raised up;
nimis exaltatus far too high up
rex sedet in vertice - sits the king at the summit -
caveat ruinam! let him fear ruin!
nam sub axe legimus for under the axis is written
Hecubam reginam. Queen Hecuba.
------------------------------------------------------------
You can turn 'O Fortuna' on now. It's probably best to put
it on repeat.
--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hallcon@mindspring.com
kawaii@kawaiikunee.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 5: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Part B: Driven On and Weighted Down
------------------------------------------------------------
The precincts of Nerima General Hospital are used to the
sights of lab coats and sterile stainless steel.
They have seen other things too; long brass needles and
cones of combustible incense, Shinto rituals, Taoist magic,
and Buddhist prayer. Through them have walked Priest and
Shaman, Doctor and (secret) Divinity. This has not, however,
prepared them for Ranma.
Nabiki looked over the preparations Ranma was making
apprehensively. Just behind her left shoulder she could feel
the overly-calm presence of her younger sister; in front of
her a person she had come to accept, tentatively, as a
friend was apparently going slightly insane.
Or maybe not; maybe, in a world that could contain things
like Jei, marking out a circle on the floor of a hospital
room with Mystic Chinese Symbols was perfectly sensible. Not
that this made her any happier.
Sensible or not, the combined emotional tones of Dr. Tofu,
(monitoring Sayuri's condition) Akane (apparently just
standing there) and Ranma (using some kind of wax to trace
arcane symbols on the floor with exquisite care) were
convincing her that Ranma was about to do something
extremely dangerous and making her extremely nervous.
Ranma finished her artwork and tidied up the remaining
shards of wax. She had created a circle about five feet
across in one corner of the room and had drawn another,
smaller, circle inside it, just large enough, Nabiki
estimated, to sit in. Now she turned to Dr. Tofu, who was
examining Sayuri. "Any change, Tofu-sensei?"
"No, Ranma-san," Dr. Tofu looked up from his work, "she is
still near death." He polished his glasses nervously, "Are
you sure this is the best option, Ranma-san? Death is only a
transition, after all; can you justify the risk of delaying
this one?"
"Tofu-san, I cannot find her soul. You have yourself
observed a dark blot on her ki. Medicine has proved
insufficient; both an exorcism and a ritual of calling have
likewise failed. A natural transition is one thing; this is
something else.
"Nabiki, I am entrusting you and Acchan with the task of
ensuring that my body is not disturbed while I am away. _No
matter what you see_, no matter what happens, do not allow
it to be disturbed for 48 hours or until I come back."
"Ahhh ... How will I know it's you? If you see what I mean?
And what do we do after 48 hours?" Nabiki queried.
"In answer to your first question: that's what the circles
are for. In answer to the second: after 48 hours you may
assume I'm dead and act as seems best to you at the time."
"Oh, great," Nabiki mumbled. Over her shoulder she felt
Akane nod, gravely.
Ranma stepped into the smaller circle, being careful to
avoid mussing either design, and knelt down into seiza. She
took a breath to center herself and closed her eyes.
To Akane's Sight, Ranma's ki patterns solidified and became
much denser, then stood up out of their body and turned to
her with a grave nod. Ranma's body continued a slow and deep
breathing as her ki turned Elsewhere, stepped over a
metaphorical wall, and was gone, trailing behind it the very
faintest thread of power, still touching the body it had
left behind.
"Wonderful," Nabiki blew out her cheeks and turned to Akane,
"now what?"
"Now you do what she told you, Oneechan. You keep anyone
from touching us for 48 hours." Akane stepped past Nabiki
and swiftly coiled a string of prayer-beads into a smaller
circle inside the main circle. Then she stepped inside and
knelt.
"And what are you ... what do you mean _us_?" Nabiki turned
in alarm, and reached out; but Akane had already centered
and closed her eyes, and she snatched back her hand, seeing
Dr. Tofu move toward Akane with alarm. Then she saw Akane's
breathing slow and deepen, and knew she was too late. "If
she gets killed in there," she vowed, "I'm gonna _kill_
her!"
And Tendo Akane stepped up from her body and set the
controls of its life as she had Seen Ranma do. And turned
toward the wall that crossed her vision in a certain
metaphorical direction. It was low and made of fieldstone,
weathered by the endless years; it would be no trouble to
step over.
She did so deliberately, following in her sensei's
footsteps. And walked, though she did not know their names,
down the Street of Tears, past the River of Dust, down into
the Dry Land, where all the stars are strange. Down the road
that leads toward the Houses of the Dead and beyond them to
the docks and piers that reach out into the Starless Sea.
------------------------------------------------------------
She walked down the street and she did not look back. The
great stones that the street was made of were worn smooth
across their breadth by the passage of countless feet, but
there was a dip in the middle of the blocks about a foot
wide where the majority of traffic had passed by in years
without number.
All who travel that street know its name, by instinct if by
nothing else, and its surface is worn not only by footsteps
but by the slow erosion of numberless tears.
Those tears flow off the street into drainage channels,
which flow into gutters, which feed canals, which run from
that street to the west, joining with the river a little to
the side. Into that river they flow and there they vanish,
drying into dust and forever gone in instants,
indistinguishable from all the other dust that flows there,
dust to dust and ash to ash forever.
In that place there is no sun, and neither rain nor wind
ever disturbs the silence. The dry air absorbs sound and
moisture alike and no hint of life ever comes there save for
those who have passed beyond it. The only light comes from
above; for there are no streetlights either, and the houses
and taverns of the city put out no lanterns, nor do they
light torches to find their way.
Instead they see by the light of stars beyond number or
estimation; stars that shine down from the sky in glory
undimmed and undimmable; brilliant in constellations that
have never been named, that change by the hour and never
repeat. Stars so thickly scattered that their colors may be
seen by the human eye. Stars that wash the stone streets and
alleys of the City of the Dead with a light that, brilliant
and colorful as it may be in the sky, leeches all color and
life from the stone and the people there, and washes
everything with grey.
Akane walked down the street in silence and silence
swallowed her footfalls. Over all that grey city she could
hear no sound, only a vast hush that seemed to have existed
since the beginning of time. Silently she traveled, and in
silence she passed the outskirts of the city. Silently she
walked the worn stone of the street past the thin spray of
stone houses with slate roofs that form the city's outposts.
Silently she came to a gate in the obsidian wall that marks
the edge of the city proper and passed through.
Silently she passed, and heard no sound from herself or from
any other thing. Until, from the city's heart, suddenly, a
stone bell began to sound. First the normal dull rumble of
beaten stone, growing in power as though to shake the entire
city, then from beneath the stone-song a new voice woke;
first a rising note, piercingly beautiful, then another,
held in suspension, then a last cry, prolonged and falling
away; as though some sweet and mighty voice was calling,
"Love. Strength. Heeaaveeeen. Ai, ken, teeeeeeennnn. Ai,
ken, teeeeeeennnn."
Up, pause, down. Up, pause, down. And all around her the
stone walls and stone streets of the city responded to the
bells, singing in harmony, "Ai, ken, teeeeeeennnn. Ai, ken,
teeeeeeennnn." And above her, from many places near and far,
more bells answered back; small brass clangor swelled by
silver tintinattus joining golden metallic voices triumphant
over harsh brazen roar of many great carillons undismayed by
mournful iron tolling, and over and above and under all the
mighty song of stone, "Ai, ken, teeeeeeennnn. Ai, ken,
teeeeeeennnn."
Blinded by tears and deafened by glory Akane stumbled to the
side of the street and placed a hand against the wall,
fighting for control. As the bells continued she managed to
regain enough control to continue moving, but kept her
course near to the wall, reaching out to touch it from time
to time.
As the bells rose to a crescendo she began to think that
there could be no finer fate than to stay here in the city
and listen to the bells. Then she stumbled past an alleyway
in her daze and gasped as an arm encircled her neck and
dragged her in.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Stupid girl," Ranma hissed into her ear, "are you _trying_
to get killed?"
The last glorious crescendo faded into silence and Akane
gasped in the pain of its passing. "R-Ranchan! What?"
"What the _hell_ do you think you're _doing_, you baka?"
Ranma shook her like a rag-doll, glaring furiously. "This
place is dangerous enough if you know what you're doing!
Which you don't!"
"St-stop shaking me, Ranchan!" Ranma subsided. "You're going
to need me."
"Whatta you mean _I'm_ gonna need you!? If I need you it'll
be topside looking out for my body, you baka. And who's
looking out for _your_ body anyway?"
"I've got it in the same big circle you made, I saw how you
made the little circle, I got some prayer beads to make it,
Nabiki can watch, Dr. Tofu too, he's a good martial artist,
And I wasn't going to let you go down here alone, you're
going to need me _here_, I know it."
Ranma hissed in frustration. "If time wasn't so short ....
Can you at least follow orders now you're here?" she asked
harshly.
"H-hai, sensei," Akane whispered.
"Then come on. Quietly!"
------------------------------------------------------------
In the exact geometrical center of the city of stone (if
that city can be said to _have_ a center) stands a house. It
exists in the middle of a garden of roses and an orchard of
apple trees, and the roses and the trees and the apples they
bear are black.
It hums with a drowsy heat and buzzes with the activities of
the many hives of bees that feed from the roses and the
apples and that never seem to grow old; and the bees and the
hives and the honey that they give are black too.
It is made of black stone, cut with laser precision by
something that wasn't a laser, and roofed with black slate.
Its doors and window-frames are made of ebony and neatly
painted black, and the panes of glass in the windows are
heavily leaded and seem to have a black tint.
It seems from time to time to be as small as a cottage or as
large as a mansion; and from various views its grounds may
not seem to exist, or may stretch on for light-years into
distant star-shot mountains on whose slopes grow fields of
golden wheat.
Aside from these minor factors there is nothing at all to
indicate whose house it is.
To that black house in the middle of its black gardens and
black orchard came Ranma and Akane. By the side door.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Grrk," said Akane, seeing the house they were making for.
"Who lives _there_?"
"Death." said Ranma calmly. "Be polite."
------------------------------------------------------------
They entered the gardens from a side street and hurried past
the hedge of black-leafed holly that serves that part of the
gardens as a wall.
As she passed the hives of buzzing bees Ranma nodded to them
calmly, as to old acquaintances met going about their
business, and the bees dipped politely in reply. Passing
under an apple tree, Ranma reached up and plucked two apples
from its branches with a muttered word of thanks. "Eat," she
said, handing one of the glossy black fruit to Akane.
"Ahh ... but, I thought that you weren't _supposed_ to eat
anything that you found here," wavered Akane. Ranma, she
noted, had disposed of her apple in six bites, saving only a
large black seed that had rested at the core of the
bone-white flesh of the black-skinned fruit.
"I never said this was a _safe_ expedition," Ranma said
dryly, "eat your fruit."
"Grrrk," said Akane, and did so.
At Ranma's indication she placed the seed that she had
likewise saved at the base of the tree alongside the one
Ranma had placed there and bowed with her friend. Above
their heads the tree's branches waved, though no breeze
blew. "Grrrk," said Akane, and turned away.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a quiet hospital room, two forms sat still and silent.
The only sound was their breaths, which slowed and grew
deeper yet.
------------------------------------------------------------
Reaching the side of the house, Ranma opened the door and
went in, Akane following. They found themselves in an empty
hallway floored in black wood and wallpapered in a fetching
black on which many beautiful and intricate patterns had
been printed in black ink.
Ranma walked swiftly down the hallway and turned into an
open doorway. Akane followed her into a room that was at
once both large and small. Crossing the floor to a figure
shrouded in black and sitting in a chair that was turned
half away from them, Ranma knelt and bent her head.
"Ranma," said the white-skinned, black-haired girl dressed
in a blue cotton T-shirt and biker leathers who turned
around, "it's been so long! Can you stay a bit longer this
time?"
"I'm afraid not, Tel," Ranma rose and briefly pressed her
cheek to the other girl's. "I've got a problem. Have you
processed a girl by the name of Asano Sayuri, of Nerima,
Tokyo, the home islands, Earth, recently?"
The sardonic-visaged young man who was suddenly standing in
the girl's place was dressed in skin-tight black leather,
revealing an impressive figure. "*Aw*," he pouted
devastatingly, "*you _never_ want to stay and play!*
*Boring!*"
The black-suited minor bureaucrat who replaced him had grey
hair and a golden pince-nez. "/Hem/," his dusty voice echoed
as he reached out and took an enormous book from nowhere,
expertly flipping through the pages and ran his long
fore-finger down the one he stopped at. "/No, that client
has not been processed by this office. Nor is her name
entered in the Book of Dust, nor the Book of Blood, nor the
Book of Glory./"
"Damn," Ranma muttered.
"[However]," sang the earthy voice of the tall black-haired
figure dressed in a short chiffon and carrying a boatman's
staff who now stood by the desk, "[while _I_ have not
carried her, I _have_ heard rumors of new activity in one of
the out-flanker castles of the rebellion.]"
"Which one?" Ranma questioned grimly.
"{That belonging to the 'Marquis' Delaniel.}" replied the
glorious choral voice of the immense robed and winged figure
before them. "{Ranma, be careful? Just this once?}"
Ranma quirked one side of her mouth. "But why start now?"
"AS A FAVOR," tolled the leaden tones of the tall,
black-robed skeleton, "FOR ME."
Ranma gazed up into the skeleton's empty eyes for long
moments, meeting its blue-shot gaze. Then she rose on tiptoe
and grasped its head in both hands and kissed it firmly on
the teeth, before she turned away.
As Ranma and Akane left the black house by the side door,
the girl in the blue t-shirt quietly said, "I'll sing for
you."
As they passed the hedge-gate Ranma quietly said, "I know."
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma did not speak as she set a rapid course through the
side streets and alleys of that city, nor did Akane as she
followed. As they jogged, Akane noted that the houses and
the very stones of the streets were rapidly growing
translucent, as though they were fading away.
Behind her she heard the start of the chorus of the bells,
but it quickly faded, and they found themselves on the top
of a tall hill, or ridge. The ground was blasted earth and
barren, crumbly rock, and the heavy hot air smelled faintly
of rot, and of smells that are instinctively known as bad by
all who smell them.
Passing along the top of the ridge, Akane was relatively
pleased to note a broad, well-made road of stone, leading
down the ridge and across the plain below.
"Well," she whispered, as they walked to the side of the
road and skulked forward in the shadow of the tall stones
that marked its borders, "at least we'll have a good road if
we have to come back in a hurry."
"It won't be here on the way back," Ranma said calmly.
"Huh?"
"Facilis decensus Averno," Ranma quoted, "sed revocare
gradum superasque evadere ad auras,/Hoc opus, hic labor
est-"
"Which means?"
"Down is easy. Up is hard."
"I'm _so_ glad I have you to tell me these things."
------------------------------------------------------------
Down the hill they went, flitting from shadow to shadow, and
across the blasted plain below.
They traveled for several hours by Akane's count, though she
did not grow tired. Akane could see no other travelers on
the road or off it, nor did she sight any patrolling force,
either on the plain or in the air above it.
Ranma, however, progressed in fits and starts by some method
of her own; now holding to the deepest shadows, now
sprinting for a dolmen or stone several gaps beyond the next
one; but always, always aware of all around her, scanning
the sky and the ground. Akane followed her step for step,
shadow for shadow, and dash for dash as the long, hot day
wore on.
At last they began to come near castles or fortresses cut
into the irregular basalt mesas that covered the plain. From
these, whenever they approached closely enough, came
alternating faint shrieks of pain and equally faint howls of
glee.
Akane shuddered as they passed these most closely, and
huddled closer to Ranma in the increasingly more infrequent
shadows. At each closest approach, Ranma would spend a few
moments scanning the hellish fort from the deepest cover
available. Finally, she spent more time than usual, and
Akane turned her sight on the castle as well.
Ranma seemed to hesitate in the great boulder's shadow, as
though awaiting a more tangible sign. If so, she received
one. One especially loud shriek of pain rang out over the
darkened earth and stone and Ranma's lips firmed even as
Akane gasped in recognition. "Ranchan, that wasn't like the
other screams. It sounded wrong. It sounded like Sayuri."
"Yah," Ranma said, "I'm afraid so." She tensed on her
haunches, like a great cat preparing to spring and sprinted
for the gate, Akane on her heels. Halfway there a cry of
outraged discovery came from the battlements, followed hard
by a rain of badly aimed missiles.
These seemed like javelins or arrows, but raised spurts of a
hellish flame where they landed; Akane resolved not to get
hit by any. At the end of their sprint Ranma pounded up to
the main gate, flattening herself against its rough timbers,
under the eave and safe from fire. Akane followed, panting.
"At least," Akane huffed, "they haven't heard of murder
holes."
"Be thankful for small favors," Ranma said, dryly, as a
glare of heat and light burst from the plain behind them.
Then she stepped a little away from the gate and put her
hand flat against it. A moment passed as she tensed her
shoulders and then the wall and gate began to rumble in a
deep bass.
From above, shrieks of rage turned to shrieks of fear,
shrieks quickly silenced by a bellow of command from inside
the fort. Ranma pressed the gate harder, and the whole front
wall of the fortress began to tremble. From within came
another bellow of command.
"What are you doing?"
"Someone once said, 'Give me a lever long enough, and a
place to stand, and I will move the world.' A lever's just a
device for concentrating force over time." Ranma tensed her
shoulders further, "Or you can do it with shih instead of a
big stick."
Akane Saw immediately what she meant; Ranma was accumulating
power in the wall, every moment's small pressure adding to
the one before, growing moment by moment to a force that
would rip the gate from its hinges. Akane also Saw that the
wall was resisting, spreading out the power Ranma was
putting into it into the entire front wall of the castle.
Though if it continued to do so the only result would be the
eventual destruction of the wall instead of just the gate.
Lastly, Akane Saw how the trick was managed, a simple
application that caused her to shake her head in wonder that
she had not done it herself automatically. That,
fortunately, was a failing she could rectify. Squaring her
shoulders she placed both hands on the gate and began to
push. Her efficiency was not as high as Ranma's, but her
greater strength made up for the loss and the wall began
visibly to vibrate.
Vibrate like an over-stressed high-tension wire, but only
briefly; from within the walls came a final bellow of
command and then Akane _felt_ the wall stiffen into
immobility as the demonic Marquis within exerted his will
and linked the wall to his aura. The impact of the three
wills colliding nearly drove Akane from the wall in shock,
but only briefly. She showed her teeth in an entirely
unconscious snarl as she redoubled her effort; pouring all
of her will into the struggle she pushed with everything she
had.
The struggle continued for a timeless moment as the wall
motionlessly vibrated from the conflicting energies, and
then three things happened at once.
From within the walls new screams of fear and pain arose,
screams in entirely new voices.
At the gates Akane growled in a pitch worthy of an angry
bear and found reserves of strength she hadn't known she
had.
And Ranma snarled silently and drew back her hand from the
gate, twisting at the torso to wind up before bringing her
hand forward again in a curiously slow manner that conveyed
a sense of unstoppable motion, almost leaving ghost images
of the hand and arm behind it as it came forward and struck
the gate.
------------------------------------------------------------
The Marquis Delaniel, Demon of the Seventh Rank, had a
problem. Not only had he wasted resources on this mare's
chase proposed by the patron of that deluded Jei, resources
for which he would eventually have to account to _his_
patron; but the only prize which had actually been secured
in the whole disgraceful affair had proven surprisingly
recalcitrant. This had not put him in a good mood.
The further development that his own sanctum was under
assault had driven him to the brink of berserker rage. The
fact that his gates, constructed under his own eye, might
fail, that his castle's defenses might actually be breached
was simply insupportable.
He had, therefore, committed his own will and power to the
defense, reinforcing the strength of the wall with his own
life force. The fact that the unendurable scum outside his
wall were overcoming even the merest shadow of his presence
had thrown him into a howling rage and he had immediately
thrown the full weight of his power behind his will. This
meant that he himself was bearing the full brunt of Ranma
and Akane's push, of course, and it was most unfortunate
that his concentration left him incapable of noticing the
fiery cracks which were spreading across the walls in front
of him and, more importantly, across his own body.
The cause of his final, fatal distraction is open to debate.
It might have been simple overstrain from exertion. It might
have been Akane's sudden burst of power. It might have been
Ranma's Thousand Times Blow. It might even have been the
spoon.
------------------------------------------------------------
A demon was torturing her.
Just for a change.
This one seemed to find it amusing to remove her skin in a
spiral pattern. Perhaps it found some obscure aesthetic
pleasure in it. Or, it might have just been bloody minded.
For whichever reason, it seemed obsessed with achieving the
'perfect' pattern, 'healing' her and starting over whenever
it made a mistake. Or, at least, until it made its _real_
mistake.
She heard the cries from the wall dimly, through her body's
screams. They pricked her interest; they might mean that an
opportunity would arrive. Then she noted the presence of the
demonic leader. He had not come within her purview often
during her torment, apparently preferring to use underlings
for any actual work, but his presence here now was an
encouraging sign, and his obvious agitation even more so.
The servitor demon's first mistake was to ignore the cries
from the walls in favor of his own pursuits. Its second
mistake was to fail to immediately acknowledge the presence
of its master, a mistake immediately corrected by a kick to
the backside. The servitor scrambled after its master (its
third mistake) to be greeted by a backhanded slap, and a
snarled command to return the captive to safe-keeping, and
then to man the walls. Since all other forces were
organizing for defense it felt it must perform these tasks
alone (its fourth mistake). But its final mistake was to
leave the prisoner's arm unoccupied for two seconds while
struggling with her feet.
The demon had left her arms free! And, oh look! A spoon!
Wasn't that kind?
Now to see if, when she gutted a demon, they could heal
themselves as well as they could when they lied to her....
Hmmm. Nope, looks like they couldn't.
And this one had left her _two_ knives, _and_ a chain, _and_
a hot iron too! So kind.
Now she could find _lots_ of demons. And, what luck! Lots of
demons coming this way!
Now, what to use? Hmmm. Well, she'd start with ... oh wait,
she was still holding the spoon; that wouldn't do, she'd
already used it. Well, she'd just throw it at ... _that_
one. It was cracked and glowing already, maybe it would
break? Now, let's start with _this_ knife ....
------------------------------------------------------------
The blow was minor, but totally unexpected. It cannot
possibly have hurt the Marquis by itself; but it was not 'by
itself' in any sense. It certainly got his attention. One
second the demon-lord was straining to hold the aura of the
walls with all his might, the next ....
It was not precisely an explosion. Rather, the whole front
wall of the castle, the Marquis' physical body, and the main
gates fragmented into cinder-block sized pieces and rolled
over the hapless demonic servitors like a storm.
Which only goes to show how important it is to keep your
mind on what you are doing. Sayuri, who was behind the demon
she was busily introducing to the concept of mortality, was
completely untouched.
------------------------------------------------------------
The stone-storm rolled over them, and fear followed it.
Behind them their once-prisoner was giggling madly and
carving up their fellows like a housewife carving up a
frying chicken. To either side were still intact and very
solid stone walls. Above them the alarm was already ringing,
but what help would that be to them if they died first? In
front of them were only two females, to keep them from an
exit 50 yards wide.
It is often said that everyone gets one mistake.
Unfortunately for the remaining demonic servitors, theirs
had already been made. They stampeded for the exit. And
Ranma smiled, and drew her sword.
------------------------------------------------------------
Briefly, Akane managed a spasm of amazement. She _knew_ that
Ranma was red-haired death unleashed, but it simply _was not
possible_ to move that fast and still swing a sword that
precisely. Not that Ranma seemed to care whether it was
possible or not, and Akane charged through a gentle mist of
demonic ichor to reach Sayuri's side.
"Eeewww! Ick! Sayuri! Put that _thing_ down and come on. And
for heaven's sake throw away that poker! You'll put
someone's eye out."
"Oh! Akane-san!" Sayuri casually discarded the iron and
rushed to hug Akane. "You came! Thank you, thank you!"
"Come on you guys," roared Ranma, "they're all dead, but
there's going to be demonic air cavalry on this whole area
like a fungus in about 15 minutes!"
Sayuri put the knife she was holding in her belt (which had
returned along with her skin when she had broken her bonds)
and ran for the gap, picking up the knife she had left in a
demon's throat as she went. Akane followed, pounding towards
the way home, and the whole thing would probably have ended
simply, had not Delaniel made a mistake.
------------------------------------------------------------
Permit, if you would, a brief digression.
Demons lie. The fact is well known. What is less known by
most is the degree to which this is true.
The truth is, there are no demons. There are merely spirits.
Animated, sentient expressions of the meanings of creation.
Some lie to themselves, and say they are different. Special.
Better. Far too important to waste time on being good, on
keeping creation running the way it's supposed to.
After all, it's much more fun to lie. To say that they
control all the forces of death and darkness. To say that
entropy was their invention. To say that free will was their
discovery. To say that they own half of creation outright.
To say that the place of the dead and the place of
correction were both the same place, and both theirs.
Demons lie. The fact is well known.
Delaniel, in particular, was a Marquis. A border Count, that
is to say. A rebel of rank and power. Named, and Listed, and
possessed of a Word, that is - a concept of Evil to protect
and call his own. A Worded demon, moreover, whose Word
subsumed other Worded demons whose servitors had Words of
their own.
A powerful being was Delaniel, the Demon of a concept which
translates from the celestial as [Rude Strangers in Places
where Humans gather to Await Transportation].
( I hear you snickering from here. Such a small
concept, you say. What difference could it make?
What harm could it do?
Indeed, what harm? Rudeness in such crowded
surroundings is only to be expected, after all.
And one person, whom you do not know, makes little
difference. That's why it's much more important to
focus on the _big_ things. The small things never
matter.
What harm does rudeness do? Someone gets a little
farther ahead than they should. Someone makes a
number of people's day a little darker. Someone
erodes the bounds of respect and courtesy between
people a little. Someone tempts other people to do
the same, slightly. Someone gets everyone they
effect a little angry. Little things, no harm.
After all, it's not as though it was a big person
being rude. Big people are never rude, though
sometimes little people _do_ get in their way. But
that just involves their being brushed aside or
run over, not _rudeness_. And big people don't
have other people be rude to them, usually. Or, if
they do, they can just splat the person, no
worries. No, only little people are rude; only
little people have rudeness inflicted on them. So
it really doesn't matter.
( Once, Another had said "Whatsoever ye do to
the least of my people, that also ye do unto
me." Delaniel was at some pains to ridicule
this concept.
)
And if one of the people being inflicted with
rudeness is yourself? Well, A person's gotta get
by, you know? Gotta look out for number one,
right? Have you tried it? You really should, you
know.
I mean, it's not as if it _matters_, if you're
rude to people. Time is valuable. You've only got
so much effort to spend. Got to keep your eye on
the big picture. Got to keep up with the important
stuff. Really, it _is_ old fashioned to try to
defend civility like that. Archaic, even. People
should know better.
Why, the rain forest is being cut down, even as we
speak! The spotted owl is dying out! Spending
effort being polite to strangers in train stations
is just a waste of time! You can't afford to sweat
the small stuff. After all, the small stuff
doesn't matter.
And, when you think of it, how many people,
really, are truly important enough to you to be
polite _to_? Just a few, right? Just a few people,
besides yourself, who really _matter_ to _your_
best interest?
Your Mom and Dad, your close family, your SO, the
kids if you got them, your boss, of course, his
boss, maybe, that cop, naturally, that super-
model/idol singer. Not a lot.
And sometimes the difference between 'some', and
'none', is no difference at all. Which is why
you've got to pay attention to the small stuff.
Sometimes, the small stuff _matters_.
)
The point, of course, is that such a powerful demon as
Delaniel would never concentrate all of his power in one
place. Only a small amount, to provide a body to yell at the
servitors, and the rest dispersed, keeping tabs on his Word.
When Ranma and Akane's combined pressure caused his body to
be destroyed it deprived him of a focus for his
consciousness and power. In an ordinary demon such a loss
would lead to instant cessation, but Delaniel was not an
ordinary demon.
Those beings known as demon-lords normally provide
themselves with special artifacts designed to give them an
anchor in cases of emergency, generally concealing these in
some safe place. Delaniel's was secreted in a blind hollow
in the back wall of his castle.
This presented him with a problem. He could now cut his
losses, wait for the intruders to leave, and then hunt them
down and extract revenge. On the other hand, his castle had
been ruined and some of his servitors had been killed.
A small thing, true, of no real importance. And yet, he was
a demon of position. He had responsibilities. And his
political position would be damaged if it became known that
he had been attacked and not retaliated.
On the _other_ hand, if he took a personal hand and failed
to actually _destroy_ the intruders as they deserved, if
they _escaped_, his position would suffer worse losses yet.
On the gripping hand, the slut his servitors had been
tormenting would certainly have difficulty moving fast
enough to escape, and the other two would probably be
fatally delayed trying to assist her. And they would assist
her, he was sure; heroes are predictable like that.
And there could be no question of the outcome. The false
body holding but a fraction of his true power might be
destabilized, true, but in his true power, and on the
celestial plane, no human could be his equal.
It was a simple question of celestial laws - on this plane
he could only be damaged by raw celestial power, power that
the humans did not have. No human _could_ have sufficient
power, the laws of creation forbade it,
And skill would not suffice to substitute; the web of lies
that define a demon-lord's existence are too strong to
overcome by mortal power.
Only once, he knew, had any mortal, had any _being_,
challenged this fundamental rule. And those ... were gone.
They had won their battle and then ... well, _no one_ liked
the implications.
A mortal that could kill celestial powers? Permanently? No
one wants that kind of weapon around, it might get pointed
at them. The last one had died, oh, _centuries_ ago. There
were none left, none at all. No, there could be no danger.
So that was why Delaniel made his mistake. Because the
difference between zero and one is a small difference, but
sometimes it makes all the difference in the world. That's
why you have to pay attention to the small stuff. It's
always the small stuff that matters.
------------------------------------------------------------
They had gathered in the quiet room to watch and wait.
Yuka was there, of course, clasping her hands so tight they
were white. Sayuri's father and older brother too, holding
her hands, and her mother, still in her wheelchair, waiting
at her bedside.
And Nabiki, in the corner, watching over Ranma and Akane,
and praying.
------------------------------------------------------------
The back wall of the castle crumbled with a roar of
unleashed power. Ranma spared a single moment to roar "RUN!"
at Akane and Sayuri, and then turned to face the form that
now loomed above the ruins. She slid sideways into the
center of the ruined wall, blocking the demon's path toward
Akane and Sayuri, running over the plain behind.
Delaniel rose above the rubble of his hiding place, brushing
shredded stone from the shoulder joints of his wide-spread
wings. His face was cat-eyed and cruel, framed by scraggly
locks of multi-colored hair. He wore a sarariman's suit and
tie, expanded to fit his 20-foot-tall form and wound about
with barbed wire. His cuff-links and tie-tack were made of
the skulls of human babies, his face was cruelly scarred and
twisted and his right hand bore a huge serrated sword.
"First you, and then the other sluts," he growled in a low,
chilling voice, "Die!"
Snarling, he thrust himself forward, with a clap of his
scraggly-feathered wings, swinging his sword back for the
death stroke.
Ranma, already in zanshin, flowed inside his guard and
jumped forward, uncoiling into a thrust to Delaniel's chest.
Her attack sank into his heart with sufficient force to turn
him partly around; and Delaniel's eyes went wide in shock as
Ranma called upon the power of an ancient bargain, sending
it flowing down into the wound and flashing out to all the
dark corners of his body and soul, destroying his web of
sustaining lies with a certain truth that no being, however
powerful, may deny.
Ranma thrust herself sideways in mid-air, rotating Tenchuu
inside the demon-lord's chest cavity before ripping it free
from his rib-cage in a shower of blood. Delaniel's sword
slipped free of his relaxing hand, rotating forward end over
end to hit the ground hilt first, remaining upright
momentarily before falling over with a pathetic *splut*. It
was covered by the demon-lord's falling body, which crashed
to earth and slid forward on its side for several meters
before slowly rotating over onto its back to lie still,
looking upward at the sky with an expression of vast
surprise and a certain hidden peace in its sightless, dead
eyes.
Ranma landed lightly and spun on one foot, returning Tenchuu
to its sheath. Above and behind her a great wail rose to the
sky, hate and fear and rage intermingled, and far behind her
she heard the first responding roars. She sprinted forward,
passing the corpse without further comment, streaking for
her running friends ahead and looking for a place to make a
stand.
------------------------------------------------------------
But it's the small things that make a difference. Take, for
instance, the difference between Bronze and Iron.
Bronze is an alloy of Copper and Tin, Iron is a metal that
must be mixed with carbon to be useful. Bronze is fairly
easy to produce and work, but difficult to get in quantity.
Iron is more difficult to process, but is fairly common. The
metallurgical characteristics of Bronze are similar to those
of early wrought Iron, so you would think that there
wouldn't have been much of a basis to choose between them
early in mankind's history. You would be wrong.
If you were meta-historically inclined, you might remember
the legends of Iron's supposed lethality to demons and
spirits and conclude that this was the deciding factor. You
would still be wrong, in a nice and accurate sense; Iron
isn't any more damaging to demons than anything else.
If you favor economics you might speculate about the
logistical advantages provided to a tribe that didn't have
to depend on Phoenician Tin traders. Or, if you are more
inclined to the military profession you might decide that
the wider availability of arms and armor turned the trick.
But there wasn't much else of strategic interest to trade in
back then, and the conquering Iron Men were mostly
barbarians at the start, and had little arms beyond spears
and bows and axes anyway, and there would have been enough
Bronze for that.
At this point you might throw up your hands, and conclude
that there _was_ no difference, but you would again be
wrong. Because, once upon a time, the difference between
cast Bronze and hammered Iron was a very great difference
indeed.
There is a Bargain that once was made by those who linked
the Iron in their blood to the Iron in their blades. There
is a power available to those who share the blood that made
the Bargain. There is a Price that can be paid to Those
Others Who made that Bargain, and a Prize that that Price
can buy. There are those who were Chosen as champions, to
fight and win a battle in an ancient War, a battle in which
they had no hope of victory, except ....
Except for those who made a Bargain; not always to win the
battle, but never to lose the war; not always to survive the
fight, but always to destroy the foe.
Except for the Iron Men, except for the Invincible Ones,
except for those who came down from the hills in their
thousands; and broke the hold of demons and spirits and
magical warriors and destroyed them or drove them away from
the cities and valleys they had ruled; and turned an Age of
Myths and Legends and Powers into an Age of Men; and ignited
a furnace of hatred and rage that has neither waned nor
grown cold in four thousand years.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma was running.
Running as though all the hosts of Hell were after her.
Oddly enough, they were. Ahead, she could easily see Akane
and Sayuri running too, but there was no point in catching
up to them until she decided where to make her stand.
She could not attempt to make it all the way back to the
wall. For one thing, the demons would catch her first. For
another, they would not stop their pursuit at the wall,
rather, they would follow her anywhere she went; _that_
grudge was old and bitter, and the First of the Fallen would
never pass up an opportunity to destroy an Invincible once
he had marked one down.
So she could not fight to save her life. And even if,
somehow, she managed to evade her pursuers, their rage was
well and truly woken. If they did not find a fight in her,
they would seek one elsewhere. And with Sayuri fully
celestial and unprotected ....
Oh well, it wasn't like she had been expecting to die in bed
anyway, and she would definitely go out with an escort. But
she must somehow save the other girls. Well ... that would
require a certain amount of delay. If she could keep the
demonic host's attention long enough for Akane and Sayuri to
get to the wall and go over, then there would remain no link
to attract the host's wrath. Keeping the host's attention
would be easy enough, but she must also keep _all_ of its
forces in play and not allow any to go after an easier
target. That meant ....
The 'landscape' of the celestial plane is determined as much
by the meanings sought or found there by its inhabitants as
by anything else, so the result when one side wants to find
clear sailing to its prey and the other wants to find a
choke point should be obvious. Particularly considering that
one of the sides is Ranma.
"In yon straight place, a thousand/Might well be stopped by
three ..."
Words once written by a poet. They were written of a bridge,
but Ranma was willing to write them of the great canyon
walls that narrowed to a gap some hundred yards wide and
perhaps five hundred long that loomed before the girls now.
As they passed into the gap she increased her speed and
caught up with the others, pulling Akane to a stop. "Acchan,
you've got to get Sayuri-chan to the wall and put her over."
"Ranchan, you can't stay here! They'll catch you, and ..."
"Acchan," Ranma said gravely, "they're going to keep coming
until they catch me regardless. But if they catch me _here_
they may regret it."
"I can't leave you here, Ranchan!" Akane panted, "They'll
...."
"Acchan, if they catch Sayuri-chan on this side of the wall,
they'll go right through it and out into Nerima, where
they'll kill everyone they can catch, definitely including
Nabiki and probably Kasumi, your Dad, and everyone else in
the whole ward. And Sayuri can't run fast enough to get
away."
"But, Ranchan, you'll _die_!"
"Acchan, swear! On your soul's honor, _get Sayuri over the
wall_!"
"I ... Ranchan," Ranma's eyes bored into Akane's, cleaving
her tongue to the roof of her mouth, "H-hai, hai, Ranchan."
Akane hugged Ranma fiercely and turned away. Ahead of her
she could blurrily see the steep incline leading up away
from the borders of hell, and toward the dusts of Earth
beyond. Fiercely, she attacked the slope, rapidly gaining on
Sayuri, who had continued running.
------------------------------------------------------------
Behind her, Ranma turned around and watched the approaching
demonic armies. After a moment's scrutiny she began to grin,
and then spoke aloud.
'Tis mute, the word we went to hear
on high Dodonna Mountain,
When wind was in the Oakenshaws
and all the caverns tolled,
And mute's the Midland's navel-stone
beside the singing fountain,
And echoes list to silence now
where Gods told lies of old.
I took my question to the cave
that never ceased from speaking,
The Heart of Stone that tells the truth
and tells it twice as plain,
And from the cave of oracles
I heard the priestess shrieking,
That she and I would surely die,
and never live again.
Oh priestess, what you cry is clear,
and sound good sense I think it,
But let the screaming echoes rest,
and froth thy mouth no more,
'Tis true there's better booze than brine,
but he that drowns must drink it,
And Oh my lass, thy news is news
that men have heard before.
She took Tenchuu in its sheath and threw it high in the air,
rotating around and giving off a gleam at its apex, before
falling back down to be snatched from the air by a sideways
snap of her hand. And, softly:
The king with all the East at heel
has come from lands of morning.
Their armies drink the river up,
their shafts benight the air.
And he that stands has died for naught,
and home there's no returning.
The Spartans, on their Sea-wet rock,
sat down and combed their hair.
And she replaced Tenchuu inside her jacket. The sword is a
tool for killing, and order of the day would be maiming and
terror, for a while.
Out of jacket-space she took a kusari-gama and whirled its
chain in a wide circle above her head, laughing. The haft
and handguard of the war-sickle was made of blackened steel,
covered with runes and ideograms, but the blade of the
sickle was a silvery ivory fang many times harder than
simple steel. In partial repayment of a debt a lord of
dragons had given her a fang, and sharpened it for war. The
chain of the weapon was cut of bone that shone white-silver
like the fang, each link barbed on upper and lower surface
and decorated with small ideograms at each corner. At the
end of the chain a larger link flared out into a barbed
arrowhead shape that seemed to resemble the silhouetted head
of some fierce beast.
Spinning the chain around her head, she listened to the howl
of the whirling chain and laughed again. Once, she knew,
there had been tens of thousands. But the battle had been
won and the demons, and the Fae, and the Magic Warriors, and
the ghosts, had retreated from the lands of men.
And with their retreat had gone the need for invincible
warriors, and with the need gone their allies had quietly
withdrawn. No celestial had ever been comfortable with the
Invincible, save, perhaps, Those Who had created them, and
Those Powers played no favorites. So the forces they had
defeated had snarled in the darkness and gone hunting.
It was no more difficult to kill an Invincible than it was
any other human. They could win any fight, but the price was
that they must win _every_ fight, regardless of the cost.
They could destroy any foe, meet any challenge, but they
must destroy _every_ foe, must face _every_ challenge. And
so the traps had been baited, and Invincible Ones had died.
And fewer and fewer new warriors had stepped forward.
Bloodline after bloodline had lost the knowledge of their
heritage, going into cover and forgetting in order to
survive. And where there had been tens of thousands were
only thousands. And then hundreds, and then a few dozen, and
then less than a dozen. And then there had been less than
five.
And now the very last Invincible alive stood in a bottleneck
on the outskirts of Hell, and watched the first racing
demons coming toward her, and cried out in a great voice,
"Come to me, ye hosts of Hell! Come to me, an Invincible is
calling! The storm is waiting for thee, the void yawns
before thee! Come to me, Hell-spawn! Come to me and die!"
And she grinned, wryly, as the first scattering of demons
entered the canyon, and she sent shih raging down the links
of the kusari-gama's chain and loosed upon those
front-runners the wrath of the dragon. And lightning leapt
and capered from rock to stone to wall to earth, scorching
demon flesh at every crossing and blasting great holes in
demonic bodies and souls before it finally gave up its
energies in a torrent of unfocused electricity that earthed
itself through the few remaining alive.
And then came upon her, not a few demons, but dozens. The
first, faint combers of the waves that would crush and rend.
And Ranma leapt to meet them, bannered by lightning and
heralded by thunder, riding on the wings of storm.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane ran, forcing her body to take deep, full breaths,
ignoring the tears streaming from her eyes. No time for
gasping or panting, now, no time for tears; she must call
upon every ounce of courage and skill that she possessed.
Ranma was counting on her to get herself and Sayuri to the
wall between life and ... this place, and Akane would rather
die than delay that arrival by so much as a single moment.
Far rather die.
Now, too late, she must admit the truth. She loved Ranma.
Not 'her friend', not 'sensei', not even 'Ranchan'. But
always and only Ranma, her beloved.
She did not understand how it had come to happen. She had
despaired of its arrival, and now, too late, she despaired
of its departure.
Behind her, her beloved was fighting, battling an impossible
army to cover her retreat.
Within her, her soul wept in anguish; Ranma would die, be
torn apart, and _she_ was running away! Her fault! Her
fault: too slow, too weak, too stupid, useless, unskilled,
no good!
'Ranchan! I'm _sorry_ Ranchan! Oh, Kami I love you! I'm
sorry! I want to be with you, Ranchan, I'm sorry!'
Briefly, tears threatened to blind her sight. Savagely, she
shook them off and upbraided herself. Stupid, useless, weak,
childish: stop! Ranma must hold until she reached the wall,
all she had to do was run.
A minor spirit, a kind of demonic lizard, leapt
from its hiding place to grab her thigh, teeth
sinking deep. Her next stride flung it away, to
smash against a rock further down the path and lie
stunned and dazed in the track. Unseeing and
unfeeling, Akane trod it underfoot.
Head fixed on the slope and the horizon, arms pumping, feet
spraying dust where they pushed back, Akane ran.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a quiet room, a body knelt in a circle in a larger
circle. Hidden by its pants, a bruise was forming on its
thigh. A thin prickle of blood drops sprang up around the
bruise and quickly dried.
------------------------------------------------------------
Arms and legs pumping, Sayuri ran.
Her legs and torso hurt terribly, her lungs screamed for
air, her breath gasped and wheezed in the dry, choking heat,
and dust clogged her mouth; but all these things, she knew,
were lies. Truth was waiting somewhere up ahead of her, a
world that was real.
The knives tucked into her belt were real too, she thought,
but that did not get her to the end of the road any faster.
(She wished that she _could_ use the knives to do
_something_, but only faintly.) Lies all about her and
within her, but the truth was waiting at the end of the
road.
Yearning for the real world, Sayuri ran.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a canyon on the borderlands of Hell, a storm was raging.
Demons choked the space between the walls of the canyon,
packed in so thickly that there was barely room to move or
turn, tripping over the maimed bodies of their fellows at
every step. Bodies that moaned or snarled or weakly struck
out. Through and above and around them Ranma rampaged
unrestrictedly.
Wherever she went she kept up a constant barrage of thrown
knives. The great, slender, wickedly curved fangs flickered
out in vicious arcs to slice through arms or legs or
throats, as many as four or five in one arc, before curving
back to her off hand, pulled by a thread of shih, and being
sent out again.
Snapping arcs of the sickle blade caused havoc wherever she
passed. The chain flicked out in seemingly unrelated arcs,
snapping into victims like a striking snake and curving
barbed links around them, or sinking its carven jaws into
arm or leg. Then a curl of steel would jerk the victim off
its feet and into the air, curving past Ranma where a fang
would gut or cripple it before releasing it to smash into a
group of its hapless fellows. Then the cycle would begin
again.
Wherever she landed a blur of hyper-fast punches and kicks
smashed demons from their feet and sent them falling into
their fellows, tripping them and fouling their coordination.
Wherever no space was left to land, a lightning bolt would
blast a hole. A web of howling energy was sweeping and
sparkling from the walls, sucking up the energy from the
dying demons and arcing in coruscating beams from walls and
pinnacles; sending sprays of boulders and shards from the
walls to cause further havoc in the demonic horde and
smashing everything from the air except Ranma herself.
Beaten by a howling wind and blinded by lightning, packed in
like sardines and jostled like the bumpers in a game of
pachinko, uncoordinated, unfocused, undone and uncontrolled,
the demons were barely capable of resistance. Jostled,
unaimed hellbolts filled the air, and poor aim and reflex
strikes by claw or sword did far more damage to other demons
than to Ranma.
An ordinary host, even the most fanatical, would have at
least attempted retreat. But the pressure of arriving demons
behind was too great and more and yet more were coming,
charging up from the depths of Hell in a nearly infinite
stream. Behind them came oblivion, and even now its awful
shadow darkened the very air and sent sulfurous fumes rising
from the trembling stone. Far back and slow a darkness
loomed, and the hapless demons of the vanguard fought and
scratched and bit and tore, less to destroy the dancing
storm-flame in their midst than to get past her and out of
the way. Even the certainty of destruction Ranma carried
with her was less terrible than the looming shadow.
Moment by moment more demons arrived to choke the storm's
passage. Moment by moment the pressure grew. The difference
between unaimed but enthusiastic counterstrikes and no
counterstrikes at all was infinitesimal, but it was there,
and it, too, grew greater bit by bit as time went by. Small
differences, incremented by smaller ones yet as the minutes
slowly passed. But sometimes it's the small differences that
count.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a quiet room, a body knelt in a circle inside a larger
circle.
Small wounds began to appear on its arms, legs and torso. No
more than a a half inch long each, they gave off a drop or
two of blood and quickly faded to thin scars. The average
increase in size of each successive wound would have
required a micrometer to measure.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane and Sayuri were half-way up the slope when the demons
pounced. Not all the demons in Hell had been _in_ Hell that
day; some had been present in the notional area of reality
Ranma had walled off from the rest of Hell with her canyon.
A small patrol was closer than the other strays and had set
a 'trap'. Unfortunately for them no one had thought to tell
them about Sayuri and her knives. Thus, when a thorny bush
tried to ensnare Sayuri, she had a knife out and hacking
branches inside half a second. Blessing Ranma's instruction
in the simple trick, Akane drew a tai-chi sword from
jacket-space and cut the bush off at the roots. The two
girls continued running ... which is why they weren't where
the demons had anticipated when they sprang their ambush.
A pair of demons suddenly sprang out at Sayuri, landing
slightly away from her in startlement at her changed
position. Both her knives were in hand immediately; here was
something on which she could use them without guilt. They
were _knives_ after all. She was quite a good cook, and was
experienced at using knives. A fact the demons were
appraised of, to their immediate and continuing sorrow.
In the mean-time Akane had been accosted from behind by
three more ambushers who attempted a dog-pile. The attempt
was, from their viewpoint, utterly and fatally unsuccessful.
Evading the clumsy grab, Akane whirled gracefully and
instinctively cut one's throat before removing the others'
heads with a pair of vicious, lightning-fast blows. Within
her soul, a fire was burning, turning ki and flesh and blood
into a perfect instrument of will, an instrument that was
unleashed on the next six demons, who had made the fatal
mistake of being in the second rank.
The last group of servitors had assumed a distant blocking
position, prepared to retrieve any prisoner who might escape
the grasp of those closer in. In the event, it did not save
them; Sayuri ran over the two in her path, slicing flesh and
bone as she passed. The remainder got to appreciate the
purity of will and energy embodied in an inferno named
Akane. Very briefly. The firestorm swept over them and
pounded up the slope on her charge's track.
------------------------------------------------------------
In the canyon, the storm was growing in intensity. The
clogged bodies of the dead, trampled, and maimed were posing
a genuine problem for demonic attempts to move out of the
canyon. Or, indeed, to move into it. One might, at this
point, wonder at demonic motivation. Or, in other words, why
are all these demons running so merrily to their nearly
certain destruction?
The answer can be stated simply: it was nearly certain
destruction.
Whereas, on the other hand, the great lords of Hell,
currently rising from Hell and pushing entire demonic armies
ahead of them as they come, are the sorts of beings for whom
inflicting fates worse than death are a pleasant morning's
diversion. And when a demon calls something a fate worse
than death, you may be sure that it knows whereof it speaks.
All Ranma could do was kill them, and that death was
embraced nearly eagerly, given the alternatives.
Ranma noted little of this, though. By now her facial
expression had locked itself into a gentle smile over an
almost inhuman serenity. Though, had she not been so deep in
zanshin, it is likely that she would instead have been
wearing a grin wide enough to crack her face. Nor was the
serenity only skin deep. Her wide, peaceful eyes, while not
focusing on anything in particular, were gathering
information on the totality of the battle she was fighting
that would have made a J-STARS chief sensor-tech turn green
with envy. Her other senses, especially her chi-sense, were
equally active, and she seemed, from her own person-view, to
be hovering slightly above the battle even as she was
entirely immersed in it.
Internally, her feelings were mixed. It was true that she
was enjoying the fight, enjoying it immensely. It was a
unquestionably righteous fight too, fought against true evil
for a truly good cause. On the other hand, she knew how it
would end. She did not fear death, no, but neither did she
welcome it. Particularly not _now_; she had too much to do,
and was leaving too much unfinished. 'Death,' she thought
wryly, 'might be lighter than a feather, but just now it's
damned inconvenient!'
Unfortunately, inconvenient or not, it was inevitable. She
made an adjustment to her attack patterns that cleared the
canyon entrance and packed the interior a little more.
As long as she held it to the single fight to keep the horde
bottled up, she knew she could hold forever. But she knew
that it could not remain just that fight for long.
Eventually, one of the greater powers would come against
her. Even sufficient order being restored to the current mob
would be quickly fatal. Before that could happen, though,
Akane and Sayuri would reach the wall; and after _that_
nothing mattered.
She made another vaulting leap and again contemplated the
arrangement of the host pressing in to the canyon. When the
end was inevitable, she planned to move out onto the plain
before her and see if she could hunt down a prince or two.
Possibly even see if she could get close to the First
himself. She doubted it was possible, but it was an adequate
closing gesture, and perhaps she could make one or more of
the high nobility of Hell metaphorically mess their pants.
As long as Sayuri and Akane reached the wall.
No, be honest: as long as Akane reached the wall. Not that
she had anything against Sayuri, by any means. She had been
very impressed by the girl's courage, and, under other
circumstances, would have looked forward to calling her a
friend.
But she did not love her, and she did love Akane. It was
really that simple, and she wondered how it had happened.
She had _told_ herself not to fall in love with the other
girl, but apparently herself had not listened. In some
sense, being killed was probably going to save her from an
immense number of problems, but being pleased about the
whole affair was considerably more melodrama than Ranma had
the stomach to attempt.
Not to mention, she was exceedingly pissed off. Partly, she
felt a mild anger that some people couldn't let go a grudge
after four thousand years. Partly, she was mildly irritated
that she wouldn't be able to die in her proper shape. But
mostly, she was utterly enraged that someone was going to
kill her for things she hadn't been able to get in on
herself. This thought caused her to pull down a section of
canyon wall in a mild expression of pique. The wall fell on
thirty or so demons and reduced them to paste.
With another corner of her mind she was keeping an eye on
Akane's progress, admiring the girl's form, and cheering her
fight against the patrol. She was prepared to intervene with
missile fire, though she doubted it would be necessary.
With most of the rest of her mind, she was surveying the
tactical situation, and she sent herself on a bounding
triple somersault across two hundred yards of canyon floor,
reaping arms left and right and finishing with a snap of her
kusari's chain that plucked a demon who by size must have
been at least a Count off its feet and pulled it close to
carve out its heart and lungs before flinging it a hundred
feet into the air. The corpse's fall, she estimated, would
crush at least a dozen lesser demons beneath it. Serene at
heart, the storm raged on.
------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately for Akane and Sayuri, there had been more
demons out than just one patrol. More unfortunately, the
second batch was smarter.
Pounding down into the last shallow valley before the long
steep run to the top, Sayuri was suddenly hit in the leg by
a burst of hellfire. Shrieking in shock she fell and rolled
down the hill, only to be jumped on by a trio of demonic
troopers. Akane dodged the three missiles that came her way
and plowed into a squad of about twelve demons, killing
three at first shock, but then being forced into a defensive
posture by the remainder.
Sayuri soon proved to those demons trying to restrain her
that they would better have aimed for her arms. A flurry of
knife blows reduced all three of her would-be captors to
steaming corpses in moments, and she ignored the damage to
her leg and the knife blows to her side she had received in
return for the lies they undoubtably were and staggered
onward.
Past the two back-ups the ambushers had placed ahead of the
girls she ran, killing them in passing, and again set
herself to the slope beyond. Akane had gasped out the
importance of what they were doing as they ran, and she
would no more fail Ranma-san than Akane would. If only it
weren't so hard to see....
Akane ran toward one demon, then curved into a forward roll
between two others, sword flashing. She snapped upright,
spinning to her left with her sword out, cutting into the
rib-cage of the demon who was charging her from that side.
Then her sword jammed in the ribs momentarily, slowing her
enough for five more demons to jump her at once. Akane went
down, striking out to her right side, as a demon grabbed her
around the legs and another pair wrapped her around the
chest. The fourth tried to grab her throat even as the fifth
spasmed and died, and the last two demons in the squad took
aim with hellbolts from a little away.
Akane smashed her feet up, driving the demon holding them
into the one grabbing her throat, dazing both and throwing
them away. The fourth demon looked up from his brief daze to
see the two squad missilemen falling with holes blown out
the fronts of their foreheads and decided to tackle the
other one instead. The other dazedly got to its feet as
Akane rolled over and over with her assailants.
Furiously, she struck out at one demon, smashing the blade
through its stomach, only to cut into its skull on the back-
swing. From its sudden corpse was released a sewer reek of
death and things unnamed and probably best left unnameable,
and Akane ripped the blade free from its sticking place as
she rolled over above her other foe and struck downward with
the hilt again and again, breaking bones and tearing skin
before crushing the thing's throat and bashing in its skull.
Coming back to her knees, Akane saw the fourth demon running
after Sayuri and grunted with effort as she threw the sword
straight and flat into its back, just above the hips.
Wailing, it fell to its knees, grabbing at its back where
the sword pierced it. Shuddering, it folded over, weakly
scrabbling in the dust and drooling ichor from the mouth and
nostrils.
Akane rose onto one knee in preparation for rising to her
feet, but stopped and twisted desperately on her knees as a
shadow loomed over her.
Before her, on the top of the low rise, stood the last
demon, snarling and holding out doubled, clenched hands
around which had built up a blaze of hellish, green fire.
Akane began to throw herself forward in a knowingly futile
attempt to duck, but then stopped as a large hole was
suddenly blown in the demon's forehead from behind. Its eyes
opened wide in shock and as it died it lost control of the
hellfire, which blew its hands and lower arms off in a
shower of gore and fire as the rest of its body dropped
slowly to its knees before falling over on its back.
Akane got to her feet and rushed up the rise, reaching the
top in time to see Ranma turn back towards her foes far
away, putting something back into her jacket. 'Oh, Ranchan!
Even from there you're still looking out for me. Oh,
Ranchan, I love you.'
Dashing away another treacherous tear, Akane turned back to
the slope ahead of her, looking over her shoulder briefly at
the sound of wings. Far away, but gaining, she could see
another group of about twelve flying demons. She had, she
estimated, just enough time to reach the top of the wall.
With a last look over her shoulder at the canyon below,
Akane set herself to run.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a quiet room far away, and yet very close, the still form
laying on a hospital bed began to breathe deeply and
unevenly, turning weakly from side to side and gasping, as
though struggling for breath.
In a corner of the room, one of the bodies kneeling inside a
pattern on the floor suddenly grew a set of long scratches
on its arms and a shadow about its neck, as though some
cruel claw had gripped there. The shadow faded quickly but
the scratches were slow to close.
On the back of the other body kneeling there a long, shallow
wound opened and waited some seconds before beginning to
close, slowly.
Watching from outside the circle, Nabiki began to chew on
one fingernail.
------------------------------------------------------------
Sayuri knew that the pains in her chest and the growing
weakness in her limbs was a lie, but somehow she could not
see through the growing grayness to see what the truth might
be. Suddenly she felt a set of gentle but immensely strong
arms close about her and lift her off the ground to be
cradled against someone's chest. Groggily, she shook her
head enough to observe Akane holding her to her chest as she
ran, face grim and fixed as she stared at some distant goal.
Good old Akane-san! She'd get her there, she was sure! Now,
if only she could remember where they were going, and why
... if only it wasn't so hard to think ....
------------------------------------------------------------
In a hospital bed, a slight form began breathing much more
shallowly, chest barely moving. At bedside, Dr. Tofu checked
a monitoring instrument and frowned worriedly.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane ran up the slope with Sayuri in her arms. Only a few
hundred yards to go now. Behind her the sound of wings was
growing swiftly closer, but there was nothing _ahead_ of her
to stop her, and those behind could not close the distance
fast enough to prevent her from discharging her task.
Close growing, thorny scrub lifted runners to trip her and
the equally thorny branches of a number of middling high
scrub bushes attempted to bar her path, but she powered
through them without slowing, unheeding of the deep
scratches and thorn-stabs they left behind. Blind to
everything but her goal she reached within herself for her
deepest reserves and drank deeply from the fountain of fire
within.
A distant corner of her consciousness registered a mighty
roar of power from far behind her. Spurning the ground
beneath her racing feet, Akane ran up the slope to home.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma bounced of the canyon wall and killed a demon with a
backhand sickle blow, concentrating the ch'i it released as
it died into a free-standing 'cold' point.
"Hiryuu!"
With an enormous leap over the whole floor of the canyon she
established another on the corpse of a pair of lesser
soldiers.
"_Shoten!_"
Flipping into the center of the circle of 'cold' ch'i points
she had just finished forming, she landed in the midst of a
cluster of about a dozen demonic officers, accepting a pair
of minor slashes in return for setting their dieing ch'i
ablaze.
"HAAAA!"
'Pulling' a line of shih around the circle of 'cold' points,
she completed the attack sequence, and called the cyclone to
war.
Blades of solid shih flamed inward from the wall of the
canyon at a dozen points. Each struck one of the 'cold' ch'i
points dead on, sweeping it up and spinning inward in a
spiral pattern to their common center. There they met the
'hot' ch'i point, imploded it, and sank into a hyper-dense
ball, roiling with counter-polarized ch'i and shih for a
single second.
Then the ball exploded, sending a swirling mass of
intermingled ch'i and shih spinning outward to the walls of
the canyon, picking up ferocious wind currents along the
way. The ring of energy rebounded off the canyon walls,
returning inward, setting up counter-currents of high-speed
wind.
Perhaps twenty feet inward from the walls the outer ring met
the second ring that the swirling vortex of energy at the
center had given off.
Met and combined, combined and split, split and redefined
themselves.
A column of energy eighty yards wide, covered and shielded
by multi-hundred-mile-per-hour winds erupted from the floor
of the canyon, its rear edge less than twenty yards from the
canyon's rear gate. It picked up and shredded every demon in
its boundaries, leaving only a thin scattering of luckier
demons behind it toward the rear mouth of the canyon.
As it rose to the sky Ranma rose with it, riding the vacuum
of the eye toward its apex and turning to look behind her,
toward the wall, and Akane.
Less than a hundred yards away, now, she judged. Enemy
forces closing, but, she briefly tracked their _rate_ of
closure, too slowly. Nothing ahead to bar the way she noted,
giving the area between Akane and the wall a brief but deep
scan with her chi-sight.
Excellent. Mission accomplished.
Her goal was achieved, and her fight won. That meant it was
time to shift to a new fight, and she considered the hosts
of Hell cowering far below her as she rose to the top of her
storm.
A last fight, and, she judged, a good one. Penultimately,
she briefly considered the overall situation. There were
regrets, yes, but only minor ones.
In the end, all people die, and to die in the service of one
she loved seemed, to Ranma, as the best category of ending
any one of her destiny could make. She considered the love
for which she was giving her life, and found it right and
proper.
And in the still and tranquil silence of the eye of the
cyclone, there was peace upon the heart of the storm.
As she neared the final apex of her rise, she carefully
replaced all the weapons she had used in their individual
resting places. It was not her way to show disrespect for
any tool she used when it might be avoided, and the need for
these tools had, temporarily, passed.
No more need to maim and terrorize. No more need to hold
their attention. The time for distraction had ended. The
time for killing had arrived.
As she reached the apex of her rise and began her fall,
Ranma drew her sword.
And smiled.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 5: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Part C: Under The Axis
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane almost made it.
Less than fifty feet from the wall, one of her demonic
pursuers proved to have an exceedingly rare talent, and
shifted the ground beneath her feet. The resulting stumble
cost her almost no ground; but small differences can lead to
big ones.
A demonic hand grabbed her flying hair less than ten feet
from the wall. Twisting her torso half back towards her
pursuers, Akane exploded in one last effort, lofting
Sayuri's unconscious body in a flat, fast arc across the
last ten feet, and over the low stone wall. As it crossed
the wall it rippled in mid-air, and disappeared, and Akane
went down under the impact of a dozen winged demons, a few
more pulling up at the last instant.
------------------------------------------------------------
In the hospital bed, Sayuri gave a sudden gasp and sat
half-way up and out of bed. The people attending her rushed
to meet her as her eyes opened, and her father and brother
quickly moved to support her as she met her mother's eyes.
Blinking a few times, she seemed briefly to focus as she
crossed gazes with a tearfully smiling Yuka and even gave a
weak smile herself. But then her eyes fell closed and she
slumped back into her father and brother's arms as a dead
weight, as Dr. Tofu desperately reached for emergency
materials, and the connecting monitors began to ring alarms,
all their readouts showing the same flat line.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane threw herself into a forward roll, bringing one demon
over the top of her body and grinding it beneath her as she
came out of the roll and jumped up. The demon who had
grabbed her hair had, perforce, let go, and Akane left her
feet in a whirling jump-kick that smashed into another
demon's head, breaking its neck and throwing Akane herself a
little sideways, into a relatively clear area and away from
the intersecting hellbolts that would otherwise have fried
her.
Snap-drawing her throwing knives, Akane shih-sheathed and
threw them in a single motion, two knives flying from each
hand to suddenly veer apart in mid-air, each knife
flickering on slightly differing trajectories to settle
neatly into its own particular demonic throat. Following
through on her throw, Akane drew a large, ugly mace from
jacket-space, and charged the remaining demons.
The one most immediately in her path jumped up, flaring its
wings in dismay, rising about ten feet off the ground. Akane
also left the ground, soaring in a rising jump kick that
smashed the demon from the air, sending it down to the
ground with Akane on top of it, landing on her feet, and
pulling through into a powerful downward blow.
Rebounding from the skull she had just crushed, Akane
converted her recovery into a powerful upwards diagonal
right-to-left, anticipating the demon who attempted to rush
her while she was occupied with the flyer, and impacting its
chest just under the breastbone. The impact shattered the
demon's chest and lungs, lifting it about six feet into the
air and sending it to the side, where its corpse fouled one
of its compatriots.
Meanwhile, the transferred impact had allowed Akane to
regain control of the mace faster, and she used the extra
time to steal a march, stepping into the attack of a pair of
demons ahead of her. Whirling her mace in a vertical circle,
Akane knocked their weapons out of line, nearly jarring
one's axe loose from its wielder's hand. Finishing the
circle with her mace held horizontally, head to the left,
Akane stepped behind the demon to her right, bringing her
torso around in a smashing reverse blow to the back of its
head with the mace's finial spike; then unwinding into a
sideways blow to the demon on her left that slid over its
weaponless guard to pulp its head like a popped
water-balloon.
Returning her mace to a mid-guard, two-hand grip, Akane
turned eighty degrees to her left, to meet the charge of
another demon. Blocking its sword-swing away to her lower
right with the mace, Akane spun her right foot into a leg
sweep that took its footing out from under it. The demon
stumbled, opening its stance onto the perfect form to
receive Akane's returning kick into the groin, stunning it
and dropping it rolling to the ground. Quick-stepping
forward, Akane brought her mace to shoulder guard for the
death-blow ... and made a small mistake.
A small mistake. A minor error. A downward blow a bit too
forceful, a recovery a bit too far, a return not quite to
center. The next attacker, coming from her left again, threw
its long knife.
Small differences compounded: a dodge not quite fast enough,
a shallow cut across the shoulder not quite compensated for,
a block made the tiniest bit too low. The demons reaching
claw-like hand came over her blocking mace and cut into the
side of her face.
Three of its claw-tipped fingers scored bleeding gashes
across the side of her face and nose. The last slid across
the outer top of her cheek, and plunged into her eye,
cutting the eyeball in two and reducing the remains to jelly
before the tip broke off inside the socket and the rest of
the claw skipped across the top of her nose.
Letting out a high, keening shriek, Akane spun away, the
mace arcing from the hand that she clapped to her ruined
eye. Stumbling away, she lost her footing, and sprawled
helpless on the barren ground.
------------------------------------------------------------
A body kneels in a circular design in a no-longer quiet
room. Wounds have opened on its cheek and nose, and an
oozing mass of clotting blood is leaking from beneath the
lid of its closed left eye.
------------------------------------------------------------
In the end, it was her father's training that saved her.
Once, long ago at the very beginning of her real training in
the Art, he had spent an entire day on a single drill. It
taught, he said, that a warrior must not lose focus or
control simply because his or her opponent has landed a
blow. The warrior who wins her fights and survives, he said,
is the warrior who understands that pain is merely
information, and who can acknowledge that information and go
on.
For one entire day he had made her go through basic kata and
hit her as she reached the crucial point in each. Again and
again he had repeated the drill, until she had been able to
complete any kata she could do, even if she was hit
painfully hard at the exact wrong time.
A kindly man, Soun Tendo, and devoted to his daughter. A
kindly man who had been hard for one day, for just long
enough to teach that daughter a lesson in the hard rules of
survival. A kindly man who had, thereafter, stayed drunk for
an entire week, and had never attempted to teach that lesson
again.
One lesson, delivered long ago by a kindly, doting parent.
One lesson, polished into instinct by years of personal
practice. Akane had always prided herself on being 'tough'.
On being able to take a blow and still fight. 'Go ahead and
hit me,' she had once told a sparring partner, 'I don't
break.' In that moment, instinct and bone-deep training
fought for her life, and searched for any chance at all.
Rolling over as she fell, Akane's right hand scrabbled for
purchase on the ground. Sliding across the dirt, it fell
upon, and closed on, the hilt of a weapon.
Rolling over onto her back and coming to one knee, she
brought the ... blade? ... up to block away a demonic
sword-blow so forcefully as to throw the demon who had
perpetrated it into another to its side, then came erect
with a massive, diagonal bottom-right-to-top-left slash that
cut through the first demon's midsection and its
compatriot's chest, exiting from the top of its right
shoulder in a spray of bone and ichor.
Setting her feet firmly beneath her, Akane reversed the long
sword's blade and swept it back to her right, cutting off
both demons' heads in passing. Rage and hatred blocked the
pain, and her face was set in a snarling mask as she
compensated for the missing half of her peripheral vision,
turning her head in little sweeps left and right. Finding no
flankers, she returned the sword to middle guard and lunged
at her remaining foes.
The combat was brief. Two demons were before her
side-by-side, with another three in a cluster beyond them
and to their left. Akane went between the first two with an
attack Ranma had drilled her on, soukongou, twin
thunderbolts.
The long, intricately guarded hilt of the sword was perfect
for controlled two-hand use, she found, and the grey,
double-edged, chisel-point blade seemed positively eager,
leaping to the attack and lopping off demonic heads as
though they were but heads of grain.
Beyond the two were three more; one leapt forward, one
followed cautiously, one hung back. Akane met the first's
attack with a sideways skip and a crossing blow that cut its
throat before a turning kick smashed it into the third,
knocking it from its feet. She stepped forward into the
second's way, cutting through its guard and its body with an
equal lack of ceremony. Recovering from the blow, she slid
over to where the third demon sprawled, reversed her grip on
the sword, and thrust downwards, once.
Turning to look down the slope she had just climbed, Akane
was startled to notice that the distance had changed. What
had been a run of long minutes going up was perhaps a
thousand yards or so going down. She supposed that was part
of what Ranma had meant.
Ranma.
Reluctantly, she turned her single gaze to the canyon mouth.
She could not see all the way into the canyon, having
apparently moved a little to the side, but she noticed a
thin scattering of demons spraying out from the canyon
mouth. Ranma herself she could not see, but she _could_ see
demons clustering thickly just inside the mouth of the
canyon, walling off the exit. Further inside, a storm was
raging, lightning exploding off the walls and the rocks that
lined the canyon's rim.
'She isn't going to be able to break free,' she said to
herself, 'they're already behind her.'
'No,' she replied quietly, 'she's not. And I think she knew
that when she sent us up here.'
Akane remained standing quietly, looking down on the plain
below for long minutes, and the pain in her ruined eye was
matched by the pain in her heart.
'She told us to get out of here,' she finally ventured.
'No,' she replied, 'she told us to get _Sayuri_ out. We've
done that.'
'Look at it this way,' she argued, 'What could we do if we
were with her, except die?'
'Look at it this way,' she answered, 'What can we do
_without_ her, except die?'
Tears slowly began to drip from her right eye, perhaps
matching the slow drip of blood from the left.
'She wanted us to get out,' she said slowly, 'to survive.'
Her hand came up unconsciously, gently touching the scars on
her left cheek, slowly exploring their extent.
'_I_ don't want us to get out, or survive, unless she
survives too.'
Her probing fingers encountered her eye socket. 'And
besides, some bastard down there owes us an eye.'
'So we go down there and die?' she asked.
'So we go down there,' she replied, 'and die.'
Akane withdrew her sword from its resting place with a
*squelch* and took her first step down the slope.
Two steps later she was jogging.
Three steps after that, and then she ran.
The outriders were the first to notice her. Spreading out
from the main battle, most were, by definition, looking for
something safer to do than challenging an Invincible. A
wounded girl running toward them looked tailor made. They
formed a battle line and sent out a net of skirmishers, in
case she should get away. Yelling their battle cries, they
raised arms against her.
As well might the iron ingots cry out against the blast
furnace. As well might the stalks of wheat take up the sword
against the scythe.
Reaching the entrance to the canyon, she was momentarily
distracted by a small squad of demonic soldiers making a
suicide attack from just outside the canyon to her right. As
the last demon died Akane saw, beyond it, a small secondary
canyon leading off into the badlands in a new direction.
Spinning on her heel, she ran swiftly into the mouth of the
canyon proper, cutting down another small party of demons.
Just inside the canyon mouth she ran into the main horde,
beyond them she could catch glimpses of lightning fast
destruction.
Cursing, Akane plowed into the back of the demonic army,
desperately swiveling her head from side to side to scan the
whole field of her foes.
------------------------------------------------------------
In a room both near and far away another battle was taking
place.
Dr. Tofu instituted emergency resuscitation procedures as
another doctor, hastily summoned, ran in the door. The
crackle of electrical paddles and the humm-hiss of
artificial respiration units sounded over the numbed prayers
of Sayuri's father and brother and Yuka's weeping, muffled
by Sayuri's mother's chest.
In the circle in the corner, two bodies grew and healed
collections of wounds. Gashes and scars covering exposed
arms and occasionally tracing across still faces.
Battle wounds, Nabiki knew. The minor and major injuries
sustained by people who are fighting for life, or things
more precious yet. Clenching her hands into white-knuckled
balls she silently urged them on.
------------------------------------------------------------
Turn ... block left, strike up ... v-step over blow ...
pear-splitter ... helicopter ... circle block to low thrust
feint to v-strike inverted.
Don't bother with _their_ actions; they aren't important.
Victory is achieved by the correct control of flow and
timing. Act in such a manner as to force their errors, then
take advantage.
Twin-thunderbolt ... break-the-fortress ... spin around
push, and _kick_ ... slash-feint to lunge ... parry to
riposte, turn left and _strike_.
Don't listen to your doubts or fears, listen to her voice.
Beloved voice, '"When they outnumber you, you have to get in
amongst 'em, Acchan. Remember that they may be bigger than
you and they may be better than you, but you don't _ever_
have to let them be _meaner_ than you. So _use that
advantage_! And don't get killed. It'd make me get all
depressed."'
Low-to-high-to-high-to-low diagonal cross ... jump and _cut_
... feint left and roll right and slash _up_ and then whirl
to block and _heave_.
A demon went flying into a group of its fellows and then
Akane heard the roar. Before her the demonic army lifted up
into the air as Ranma called the Hiryuu Shoten Ha again. And
there she was, riding the cyclone up into the sky.
If Akane had had a rope, she could have thrown it to her and
yanked her away to where she could run. Akane had no rope to
throw, but she threw one anyway.
"_Ranchaaan!_ _CATCH!_"
To say that Ranma was startled would be to considerably
underestimate the case. She had been concentrating on her
quest to find a worthwhile, accessible target to the
exclusion of all else, and had not seen Akane's charge. As
she caught the rope and began to swing she also began to
rage.
Catching up the power of her storm, she collected it and let
the winds die. Sending a small amount of power down the
rope, she fixed a point midway down in space and swung to a
landing near Akane. As she neared she began to snarl, but
then caught sight of Akane's face and fell silent as her
heart sent up a wail of grief. "Acchan, wha...."
"SHADDAP! RUN! THAT WAY!"
Suiting deed to word, Akane pounded for the rear mouth of
the canyon. Re-sheathing her sword, Ranma followed. Behind
then a roar went up, and the demonic armies lunged for the
canyon mouth in pursuit.
As she reached the rear of the canyon, Ranma stopped and
whirled.
Concentrating all the power she had remaining from the storm
that had raged in that canyon, she made a small change to
its substance, and released it into the canyon walls.
Already sensitized by repeated battle strikes and magic
releases, the walls responded. The upper six meters of their
surface turned to energy and roared out onto the frontal
plain, focused by the remaining walls.
The canonical sound-effect for this type of action is:
*Krakata-THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*
Ranma and Akane fled into the side canyon, quickly finding
that it forked and re-forked, spreading out into a web of
pathways. Ranma led, changing pathways randomly as she ran.
"So," she panted, "what's the plan?"
"Fuck if I know," Akane responded, "I hoped _you'd_ have
one."
"Oh great! We're gonna die!"
On the plain in front of the canyon a shining figure rose to
its feet, smoking. Slowly, it looked around itself, and
sprang into the air and rose, shining like a star. As it
rose, it let off a roar of hate and rage that can only be
described as cataclysmic.
Over her shoulder as she ran, Ranma glimpsed the shining
figure. "Oh great! We really _are_ gonna die!"
The First of the Fallen looked down from his height at the
canyon-maze where his enemies hid. More or less at random,
he destroyed part of it. It wasn't the right part, but the
demons who had been flying down it got to die forever in
excruciating agony anyway.
Ranma ran frantically, Akane on her heels. She ducked around
a corner and fled down a side passage, picking a new
direction at random at its end.
'We're _dead_!', she said to herself, 'We can't hold off the
First. We can't get _to_ him, and there isn't _anywhere_ he
can't go after us!'
Two passages later, she replied, quietly, 'Yes there is.'
A dash down a rocky corridor, '_Oh_ no. We gotta save
Acchan's life here. We can't go _there_! Fuck, that'll kill
her too!'
Turn left, down the canyon floor, left again. 'Death _there_
may be retrievable. Death at the first's hands is not. This
is a fight to save Akane. _That_ is how we win. Do it,
Invincible!'
Skidding to an instant halt, balanced on her back foot,
Ranma formed her fingers into the call position for the
Butterfly's Kiss. Done one way, this technique will reduce
rock to powder. Done another, it will rend a human being
asunder. As Ranma did it now, the floor of the canyon for a
hundred yards in front of the two girls broke apart into
small square surfaces which vanished like a bad CGA effect,
leaving a gaping hole down into a black infinity.
Slamming to a halt on the very edge of disaster, Akane
sheathed her sword in automatic reflex, waving her arms for
balance.
Behind her, Ranma exploded off her back foot, gathering
Akane into her arms and jumping out with a mighty leap. Out
over the rift, and then down, into the dark.
------------------------------------------------------------
Paddles snapped and contacts closed. Sayuri's body jerked in
reaction, and then moved, slightly, on its own. Monitors
jerked off flatline and began to *beep*. And the watchers
around the bed slumped slightly in relief.
------------------------------------------------------------
And in the sky over a blasted plain, a shining figure howled
in a frustrated rage forty centuries old.
And in a castle in the Scottish highlands, the redhead fell
down, shocked. The short-haired brunette shivered, uneasily,
and the long-haired one looked up from what she was doing to
trade worried glances with the blue-skinned man with the odd
face and the blonde girl with the tail.
The tall blonde man near the hearth looked clueless, of
course, but _that_ was normal, so nobody noticed.
And in the choking darkness of the depths of the Pacific
Ocean something awoke and stirred. Tasting Wrong, it turned
its head toward the distant invisible light.
And in a shrine in the mountains of central Japan, a man
came upright from a position of meditation.
And in a gun shop in Chicago, two young woman shivered
briefly, as though feeling a chill breeze.
And in a business office in Hong Kong, a middle-aged woman
echoed them.
And in a clean, well-lit room in the sewers under New York
City, another meditator came awake.
And in a small town in America, a man turned to his scrying
crystal.
And in a city made of stone, the chorus of bells fell
silent.
And in many other places, many people shivered, or turned to
search out an enemy, or used senses magical or mundane to
track down a sudden feeling of Bad.
------------------------------------------------------------
In circles within another circle two bodies sat silently.
And exhaled, with a long, quavering hiss. And did not
breathe again.
Outside the circle, Tendo Nabiki put her face into her hands
and began, silently, to cry.
------------------------------------------------------------
You can turn off 'O Fortuna' now, if you like.
------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
\ /
:
Down.
It
was dark.
And silent.
There was no light,
no sound.
Not even the rush
of wind.
Not even the flashes you get
behind closed eyelids.
Just darkness,
and silence.
And she
was all alone.
And she
f
e
l
l
d
o
w
n
.
Darkness.
It was dark,
and she
was falling
all alone.
All alone.
There was
nothing she could see,
nothing she could touch.
She moved her hands,
waved them about,
but there was nothing.
She patted herself,
to make sure
that _she_ was there,
and she was.
So that was something.
She felt her face.
(Her eye! Her eye was gone!)
(It had been gone)
(before)
(before it was dark)
(when she stood at the wall)
(and turned away)
(press on.)
She patted her chest
and shoulders,
she moved down her body,
and touched ...
what?
Arms?
Why were there arms?
Were they _her_ arms?
But
they couldn't
be _her_ arms,
because she couldn't feel herself feel them.
So whose?
Then she remembered.
Ranma!
Ranma was with her!
They must be Ranma's arms.
Ranma was with her!
She wasn't alone!
She clasped her hands over the arms
where they crossed,
and held them.
They were
Ranma's arms,
she was
with Ranma,
falling down,
into the dark.
They fell,
and civilizations
fell with them,
and were reborn
from dust,
and grew again,
and flourished,
and faded,
and fell once more.
And worlds
passed by,
and gave birth to life
and grew old
and died.
And suns
grew old,
and died,
and new suns
were born;
and Galaxies
were born,
grew up,
grew old,
crashed together,
and died,
and were reborn
in fire.
And Universes ended
and new universes began,
and time went by,
and the Wheel turned round,
and she was with Ranma,
and Ranma was with her,
and it
was
dark,
and they
fell
down
.
------------------------------------------------------------
Hold on!
You must hold on.
If your grip fails, you end, and she ends, and you fail. If
_her_ grip fails, the same. Will her strength, will her to
hold. No way of telling, no way of knowing. Until it's too
late to help.
And it is dark and silent and there is no way to tell if
your grip will hold and no way to tell if _she_ even _is_
holding and if either fails both fail but this is a fight
and you cannot lose a fight and you are Invincible but there
is a cost there is always a cost and the cost may be more
than you can pay and it is not enough to hold out you must
also survive to guide _her_ out and if you spend all your
power now and leave none but you must win you must spend the
power to win you must and if you have not the power then you
must find more and will _her_ power she must have power and
it must be enough ... and you must hold.
And love must find a way.
And if it does, or if it does not ... hold on.
------------------------------------------------------------
There is a place that is not a place.
In that place there is an Ocean, that is not an Ocean.
And the water of that Ocean (that is not water) rolls
forever flat and still, beneath a starless, moonless,
sunless sky. (Though some say it is a desert, and that the
sand is black, and harsh, and does not gleam. (Though there
is no light in that place _to_ gleam.))
When you go there (and you will) you will find nothing,
except that which you bring.
No guides bring boats there, no one will ferry you across.
You must go yourself, using only what you have, and it will
take you however long it takes. And it will cost you
whatever it may cost.
And all these things, of course, are metaphor, for a
somewhat more complex reality.
Into that place, Ranma brought Akane, and Akane brought
Ranma. Into a place where there is nothing, except that
which is brought, they brought each other, falling from an
infinite velvet sky.
And the night-black water (that is not water) of that ocean
(that is not an ocean) swallowed them. Without a splash.
Without a ripple. Without a sound. And in that place of
silence, silence reigned.
Briefly.
Until the sky began to fill with light. With a sprinkling of
burning dust. And with a widening scatter of illuminated
diamonds. And with luminescent shards of emerald, and
amethyst, and ruby, and topaz, and pearl.
As though someone had taken the combined gem collections of
the world's museums, and smashed them with a sledge-hammer,
and set the shards afire, and scattered them across the
endless velvet sky.
For in that place you will find nothing, except that which
you bring with you. And Bushiko Ranma, whose name had once
been otherwise and would be otherwise again, surfaced from
the nighted depths of that ocean that is not an ocean, and
brought Akane up with her.
And lay on her back in the velvet water that is not water,
and held her beloved to her breast while she coughed and
sputtered.
And smiled upwards, tiredly, into the sky.
And the sky was _alight_ with stars.
------------------------------------------------------------
*Cough*, *hkk*, *cough*. A small voice, "Ranchan?"
"Yeah?"
"Are we dead?"
"Kind of. It depends."
A small time went by. Finally, Ranma shook herself slightly
and turned over in the water, still holding Akane above the
surface. "I _wondered_ why you didn't get in the pool the
other day."
"I've never been able to swim," Akane confessed ashamedly.
"Well, fortunately, you won't have to." Ranma stretched out
and began swimming, for a few strokes.
"Huh?"
Ranma's hand touched wood. "Look up for a minute, dummy."
Akane heaved herself upright in the water, turned to bring
her good eye into arc, and gaped in shock at the white wood
of the hull of the sailboat bobbing gently in the water
before her.
Ranma suddenly boosted her toward the gunwale and she
grabbed it and scrambled over,
'Don't look at her for a minute, dummy, you don't need the
distraction of seeing her all wet in that silk shirt. And
this might not be a good place to confess to being in love
with her. And _don't_ think about where she just put her
hand!' into the bow of the twenty foot long lateen-rig.
"Ranchan! Where'd _this_ thing come from?"
Ranma reached up and grabbed, then heaved herself over the
side, 'Don't look at her, dummy, you don't need the
distraction of seeing her all wet in that silk shirt. And
you need to get moving if you're going to get her back in
time. And _don't_ think about where you just put your hand!'
into the stern.
"Huh. Funny, it's gotten a little bigger."
Ranma kept her head down and rummaged around the mast.
"Ahh."
She released a rope and brought the main spar into line,
quickly raising and setting the sail.
"Hey Acchan. Thanks."
"Huh? For what, Ranchan?"
"For coming after me. For coming _back_ after me. ... I
guess you were right. I _did_ need you."
Akane blushed, and stared intently at the deck. "Ahh, any
time Ranchan. Any time."
Akane suddenly felt a breeze begin to blow, raising a slight
swell, and causing the little ship to gather way.
"Now, Miss Tendo, if you will be so good as to summon and
maintain a light, so we can see where we are going, I will
try to get us to shore, where we can see about not having to
_stay_ dead."
Akane blinkied for a few moments, then scrambled to her
feet. "Sure, Ranchan!" She held out her hands, concentrated,
and summoned Fire; creating a fiercely burning beacon that
sent out a cone of light to pierce the gloom before them.
Before the wind, the little ship sped across the darkened
ocean, bow-wave peeling back to either side and wake
spreading out behind them, far off into the eternal night.
They flew towards an unseen destination for an unmeasurable
time, and Akane held the beacon steady before them, feeling
an unexplainable exaltation, as though some factor in the
sea or the boat or the wind was calling to her in wild
delight.
All things must end, however, and finally Akane saw a dark
line at the limits of her beacon's reach. A line that
rapidly drew nearer, revealing itself as a dark, sandy beach
stretching across the ocean as far as she could see.
Exultantly she shouted, "Ranchan, Ranchan, Land!"
Heedful of her words, Ranma dismissed the wind and quickly
lowered the sail. Running up the slope of one final swell,
the graceful ship remained poised at apex for a brief moment
before slipping over, and sliding down the long, shallow
slope to run itself into the beach with a long, slithering
hiss.
Jumping down from the little ship's bow, Akane got out of
the way of its rush, and stood waiting as Ranma walked to
the bow, likewise jumped down, and tugged her jacket
straight.
Adjusting her scarf to her satisfaction, Ranma caught
Akane's eye and winked. Then she started up the beach,
walking strongly and swiftly. Akane followed, wordlessly.
About a hundred yards up the beach, the sand gave way to
rocks of varying sizes. Akane also noted the beginnings of a
gradual slope, and began to dimly perceive a darker wall
looming ahead. Ranma set out over the rockpiles toward this
distant object, warning Akane in a low voice to be careful
of her footing. Akane was well aware of the problem,
gingerly stepping over and around stones and shifting piles
of gravel, keeping her good eye sweeping back and forth,
searching out the best path.
Traveling on a few dozen yards, Akane looked up to discover
that they had come to the base of a towering ridge, looming
up into the darkness, barely outlined by the light from the
gleaming stars. Ranma, she noticed, was not going up the
slope, but rather searching along its base. Akane followed
her along, gingerly testing her way across the treacherous
scree.
At last, Ranma gave a muffled exclamation of triumph. "Ha!
Found it! I _swear_ the bloody thing moves! Come on, Acchan.
Come over here."
Akane picked her way up a small sub-slope and around a large
boulder, to discover a stone nook set about ten feet into
the wall of a sheer cliff. It was enclosed on four sides out
of five, and was open to the sky over less than a third its
roof. The boulders and rock-faces that surrounded it were
coated with mossy accumulations that must have been
centuries old, and she noted a great tap-root crawling over
the top of one wall and over a square lip of ancient, worked
stone, down into the pool of water that filled most of the
interior of the hollow.
Ranma knelt on a convenient rock at the edge of the pool and
dipped cupped hands into it, bringing up palmfuls of water
and drinking them down several times. Ranma then bent over
and dipped her head into the water, ducking under to her
neck and shaking her head back and forth.
At Ranma's indicative motion, Akane also knelt and drank.
The water was cool and pure, quenching her thirst on first
contact and then returning it again so that the second drink
was even more welcome than the first, and the third more
welcome than the second. After five drinks, she stopped
being thirsty, sitting back with a long sigh and feeling the
internal fires soothed and quenched by the healing water,
only to reignite again, stronger, purer, and higher than
before.
Motioning Akane to tilt her head back, Ranma dipped another
palmful of water and poured it onto Akane's face, pulling
out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood and serum. The
water was cool and refreshing on her face, and Akane felt
the pain begin to ease. More importantly, she quickly lost
the immediate awareness of injury, and for the first time
since her maiming she could truly concentrate on her
surroundings.
Seeing the relief in her face, Ranma grinned at her. "Good
stuff, huh?"
"Uh-huh. That's _much_ better, yeah. Thanks, Ranchan. Umm,
Ranchan?"
"Yeah?"
"Now what?"
"Now we go up the cliff. About a hundred yards of climbing,
and then we should hit a ravine and be able to walk."
"How much time do we have?"
"It's not so much time as intent, Acchan. As long as we
don't slow down, get side-tracked or turn back, we'll be
fine."
"Well, let's get going then." As they rose to their feet,
Akane had a thought. Lagging behind for a moment, she drew
the sword she had found and dipped it in the pool, drawing
it out and wiping it off with a cloth before returning it to
its sheath. At Ranma's questioning look she shrugged, "Can't
hurt ...."
** She was climbing **
search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip
** up a wall. **
move search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach
** It was dark **
grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan find
** and quiet, **
reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan
** and she **
find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search
** must spend more time, **
scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move
** too much time, **
search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip
** to find a way **
move search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach
** that she could go. **
grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan find
** Her arms hurt, **
reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan
** and she must move them, **
find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search
** her legs trembled, **
scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move
** but they must stay firm. **
search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip
** It was hard, **
move search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach
** and she was tired, **
grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan find
** and afraid. **
reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan
** But there was moss **
find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search
** for her to feel, **
scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move
** jeweled starlight above **
search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip
** to light her way, **
move search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach
** and the dark **
grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan find
** was far behind her, **
reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search scan
** like broken prison bars; **
find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move search
** and she was with Ranma, **
scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip move
** and Ranma was with her, **
search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach grip
** and they climbed up **
move search scan find reach grip move search scan find reach
** to find the stars. **
The climb was fairly brutal for Akane, her missing eye no
longer hurting, but still hampering her field of view and
depth perception. Finding hand-holds was harder; routes must
be scrutinized more closely. Plus, a climb up a sheer rock
face coated with moss in deep darkness is almost guaranteed
to be an event long worth remembering. But, in the end, they
reached the deeply cut, steep ravine, and began to climb the
long slope.
Now the going was somewhat easier, but also, paradoxically,
harder. Akane needed to expend less physical and mental
effort to move and to find her way. But this left her more
time for brooding.
Brooding was not, typically, the sort of thing that Akane
did. She had always been one to resolve a situation in as
little time as possible. Typically abruptly, in a manner
that involved violence. This extended feeling of malaise was
not something that she was well prepared to deal with.
It was basicly, she decided, All Her Fault. If she hadn't
come tagging along behind Ranma and jogging her arm, she
would certainly have handled it better. She was just ... no
good, really. It was harsh, but there it was. She loved
Ranma dearly, but she knew that she did not deserve her. She
never would deserve her. She'd just keep getting in to
trouble and Ranma would come get her out and one day ....
All Her Fault. She should just ... she should ....
Walking in her own cloud of gloom, Ranma was drearly certain
that she had forfeited any friendship Akane might ever offer
her. She'd gotten her _eye_ cut out, for Kami-sama's sake!
It was just impossible, she had no right ....
Akane sighed mournfully, and Ranma immediately jerked her
attention back to the 'real' world. Akane was definitely
drooping, she noted. That would not do. Travel here in the
celestial borderlands was as much a matter of will as of
physical effort; despair could be fatal, in a literal sense.
She would have to cheer the other girl up, immediately. But
what could she do that wouldn't seem fake? Then she realized
that she was being silly. Cases like this were what music
was _made_ for, after all. Adjusting her stride to tap out
the beat, Ranma raised her voice in song.
When you're weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes,
I will dry them all.
I'll take your part,
Oh, when times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water,
I will lay me down
It came as a complete shock to Akane, and broke her out of
her funk immediately. Nonetheless, surprise held her
voiceless for the first verse, a warm glow of love rising
from her diaphragm to fill her whole body. On the second
verse, she joined in.
When you're down and out,
when you're on the street
When evening falls so hard,
I will comfort you
I'm on your side,
Oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water,
I will lay me down
Oddly, Ranma found, she was feeling better too. And, to her,
it wasn't just a song. It was a promise. Though she did not
know it, Akane was thinking almost the exact same thing. The
final verse rolled out sweetly, pushing back the night.
Sail on, Silver girl, sail on by
Your time has come to shine,
all your dreams are on their way
See how they shine,
Oh, when you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
And like a bridge over troubled water,
I will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled water,
I will ease your mind.
Ranma laughed delightedly. "Sorry, Acchan, I was letting the
gloom get to me too, I think. The problem with this walk is
keeping yourself from getting depressed."
"Yeah, Ranchan, I was feeling down, too. I think it's the
scenery, it's too dark. Is there a song we could concentrate
on for a while?"
"Mmmm. Sounds like a job for a marching song, really. Do you
know 'The Whistling Pig'?"
"No, never heard of it. How does it go?"
"Like this:"
Well, we're having a war,
and we'd like for you to come,
so the Pig began to whistle,
and to pound upon the drum,
We'll give you a gun,
and we'll furnish you a hat!
And the Pig began to whistle,
when they told the Piggies that.
Akane began to whistle too, stepping off in time to the
beat, matching Ranma's pace. Ranma continued the song,
recounting the many adventures and misadventures of the
Whistling Pig, and Akane came in on the choruses, soon
finding and holding the melody line.
As she sang, she began to hear flashes of song, prefiguring
things Ranma put in the verses later, and eventually she
began taking the occasional verse herself, efforts that
Ranma praised as very authentic.
The Pig put on his webbing,
and he shined his bayonet.
Some people started shooting,
so he shot them, with regret,
He couldn't run an office
and he couldn't be a clerk,
cause a Pig that likes to whistle
likes to whistle while he works.
Oh, we're having a war, ....
As she continued on, walking to the beat with a rhythmic
tramp, it almost seemed to Akane as though she and Ranma
were not alone. It almost seemed as though they walked in
the center of a great host of people, soldiers, who marched
or trudged or tramped along, variously equipped and
conditioned, but undefeated and able, and they, too, were
singing.
Wars are sometimes over,
and they garnisheed his pay.
They took his hat and webbing,
and they took his gun away.
They told him they were thankful,
and they split him north to south,
and they fried him with a whistle
and an apple in his mouth.
Oh, we're having a war, ....
The ghostly host began to fade from Akane's sight, until
only a last, dedicated band remained. Before her, she saw a
wide river, crossed by no bridge. To the side across the
river, she spied the obsidian walls of the city of stone.
The ghosts began to stamp their feet at the end of each
line, making a hollow *boom* like the sounding of a great
drum, far away. Akane fell silent and the soldiers followed
suit, and Ranma raised her voice again, in what Akane
recognized somehow must be the verse that closed the song.
One day there won't be fighting (*boom*)
and we'll put our guns away. (*boom*)
Men will love each other, (*boom*)
and we'll all join hands to pray. (*boom*)
Peace will come forever, (*boom*)
people won't get shot and die, (*boom*)
and on that day, the Pigs will
spread their wings, _and learn to fly!_
Oh, we're having a war,
and we'd like for you to come,
so the Pig began to whistle,
and to pound upon the drum,
We'll give you a gun,
and we'll furnish you a hat!
And the Pig began to whistle,
when they told the Piggies that.
They came to the bank of the river, and Akane saw that the
river was filled with dust. Ranma gave the ghostly soldiers
a casual salute, which they returned before fading away.
Ranma then waded out into the river to her knees, and turned
back to Akane and held out her hand.
Akane waded into he river likewise, and took it. Ranma set
out across, holding her hand tightly, and was quickly up to
her neck. Akane held her breath as her head slipped under
the surface of the flowing dust, but it did not seem to get
into her nose or mouth, or hinder her breathing.
She _did_ notice that there were occasional thin streams of
water mixed in with the dust, and an accidental encounter
with one revealed to her that they were salty. Though it did
not choke her, the dust did stick to her skin, and the
streams of tears only turned some of it to mud where it
clung. Emerging from the river on the other side both Ranma
and Akane were covered by a caking of dust and mud so that
they were entirely white.
Turning up the worn stone street towards the wall, Akane
noticed that the dust was falling off with each step, and
that the mud was drying up and flaking away. By the time
they were sixty yards from the river the only traces it had
left were a few grey smudges on their faces. Akane felt very
tired, and was engaged in wishing it were over when the
bells began to sound.
Just as before, the low rumble of stone was picked up and
echoed before breaking free in heartrending glory. Just as
before the stone song was enhanced by the music of countless
bells. Just as before she was overcome by the beauty of the
music, and she began to turn back to hear it more closely
when Ranma grabbed her hand, pulling her along.
They were almost at the wall when a new factor was added.
Above the glory of the bells, high and clear and impossibly
sweet, rose a voice. Somehow, Akane recognized it as the
voice of the young girl with the blue T-shirt she had met in
Death's house, and it sang to her and Ranma now in verses
she heard once before.
Ranma had sung them at the funeral, power and beauty both,
and she was glad for Ranma's hand, else she should have
certainly run back to the city to comfort its mournful
longing.
A sto'r mo chroi', when you're far away
From the home that you'll soon be leaving,
'Tis many the time, by night and by day,
That your heart will sorely be grieving.
For the stranger's land it is bright and fair,
And rich in treasures golden,
But you'll pine I know for the long, long ago,
And the love that never is olden.
They reached the wall. As before, it was low and weathered.
It could be no trouble to get across, even for a cripple.
And yet, somehow, Akane was reluctant.
Somehow, she knew, the wall was as much a guardian as a
barrier. Somehow, it would extract a toll. Mutely, she
turned back to Ranma in an appeal for another way, but
Ranma's eyes, gentle but stern, offered no compromise. As
the song closed a verse, Akane took a deep breath, and
stepped across. To Ranma's sight, she rippled, and was gone.
A sto'r mo chroi', in the stranger's land,
There is plenty of wealth for the willing.
Where jewels adorn the great and the grand,
While our faces with hunger are paling.
Yet the road may be toilsome, and hard to tread,
And the lights of their cities may blind you.
Then turn a sto'r, to the eastern shore,
And the ones that you're leaving behind you.
Quietly Ranma stood, looking at the wall herself for a
moment of silent appraisal, before turning to look back down
into the city. Her features softened, but then hardened
again, and she raised her right hand and held it high for a
moment.
As the song began its final verse, her hand gave off a flash
of white light, momentarily throwing the wall and the ground
before it into high relief. As the flash faded, Ranma turned
around, and stepped across.
A sto'r mo chroi', when the evening mists,
O'er Mountain and Sea are falling,
Then turn aside from the throng and list'
And maybe you'll hear me calling.
For the sound of a voice that I sorely miss,
For somebody's quick returning,
Ohh! A ru'n, a ru'n, won't you come back soon,
To the love that always is burning?
As Ranma crossed the wall, she too vanished. From the city
of stone, the song grew mournful, and as it finished the
chorus of bells also ended, and then the silence, and the
tears, returned.
------------------------------------------------------------
Nabiki was no longer weeping. Tears would serve no further
purpose, and she still had a duty to perform. Ranma had
asked of her a service, and she had agreed. She did not see
that the service held any further value, but she would
perform it faithfully nonetheless. Precise fulfillment of
contractual terms reflected on her honor, and Nabiki was a
stickler for things like that.
Mourning silently, she knelt in formal seiza, watching over
the dead bodies of her sister and her friend. She would
watch for 48 hours, and nothing would disturb them for that
time.
Let the doctors know what price had been paid, and who had
paid it.
48 hours, and then she must take charge of the arrangements.
They must have another funeral. She quailed internally at
the very thought, but it fell to her to achieve.
One thing, though, she would at least be spared. She would
watch over the bodies and therefore, therefore _someone
else_ would make the phone call. Someone else would have to
tell Kasumi and Daddy. It was a form of cowardice, she knew,
but with all of her soul she was thankful. That task, above
all others, was one she could not face.
'Oh, Akane!' she mourned,'Why did you go and do something
that stupid?'
Though it was a rhetorical question, she knew. Akane had
followed her friend. No! Say it, Nabiki! Akane had been in
love with Ranma, and Ranma had been in love with Akane.
Akane had followed her lover, and had died with her. At
least they had died in battle, if she was any judge, and she
also judged that they had died together. Whatever else, she
_knew_ they were together now.
She supposed that she ought to be angry at Akane for falling
in love with someone like Ranma, but she could not be. Her
sister had never shown a trace of lesbianism before; she
_would_ have noticed. And she had been so ... so _grey_
before, and _she_ had not been able to help, and then Ranma
came, and Akane was so happy after.
She could not begrudge that happiness; and if it had cost
her sister her life, well, no-one had forced her to go
beside Ranma. Perhaps she had felt the risk of dying beside
her beloved was less than that of living without her. In a
detached way, Nabiki could understand that.
Tracing the lines of their faces with her eyes, and
following the new scars, Nabiki made a silent pledge. Ranma
and Akane had not died through mischance. Someone had taken
her sister and her friend from her. She did not know who,
but she would. And then Someone was going to pay. Pay
dearly, and pay interest.
Tendo Nabiki became emotional over few things, but _no-one_
injured her family and walked away undamaged. It was a
matter of honor, it was a matter of pride, and it was
especially a matter of being very, _very_ angry.
Dr. Tofu straightened from his ministrations and sighed in
relief.
Already she was recovering. Recovering at a very great rate,
too. She would, he felt, be recovered sufficiently to leave
the hospital in a day or three. Turning to her father, he
relayed this news, softening the man's profuse thanks
embarrassedly.
It was not his victory, but two others', and he turned to
check on them. Even from across the room, he knew, and his
heart froze within him. Still, he moved over to be certain.
Nabiki felt the presence of Dr. Tofu behind her.
"48 hours."
There was little humanity in her voice, only a vast and
implacable purpose.
He began to say something, but then reconsidered. "48
hours," he agreed. "Would you like me to call your house?"
Nabiki turned a grateful face toward him, and smiled weakly.
"Thank you, Tofu-sensei. I ...."
In a city made of stone, a chorus of bells fell silent,
though neither Nabiki or Tofu could hear them. In her
circle, Akane gasped in air and arched her back, falling to
her side and writhing out of the circle, keening in agony.
They whirled back around and gaped at the sight of Ranma,
head back and body locked, mouth gaping open in a long,
silent scream.
Akane inadvertently recalled their attention with a
strangled whimper. Nabiki lunged to her sister's side, but
Ranma got there first anyway. Cradling Akane's head in her
arms, Ranma held her upright. Akane gasped, "Hurts,
Ranchan."
"Shh, Acchan, I know. It'll get better soon."
Nabiki took a towelette from Dr. Tofu and used it to clean
off the wounds on Akane's cheek, dreading what she knew she
must see when Akane opened her eyes.
Akane, feeling the gentle motion, gathered her energy and
looked to see who was cleaning her, blurrily she saw ...
"N-neechan? That you? Ranchan?" Seeing Nabiki's stunned
stare, she continued, "Neechan? Is it ... my eye? I know it
must look awful ...."
"Oh, I don't know," Ranma smiled slowly, "_I_ think it makes
you look ... rakish, really." Akane frowned at her, vaguely,
and Ranma pulled out a mirror and held it before her face.
Akane frowned at it; it wouldn't come into focus. It was all
blurry, but it was odd. It seemed as though it was blurry in
_both_ eyes, which made no sense at all.
Then it did focus, and she gasped. There was her right eye,
large and dark brown like it had always been. But where
there should have been a mate to its left, or else a bloody
ruin, was instead a deep black well, shot through with
swirling flecks of red and gold. Akane tried to deal with
the concept, but quickly gave up the idea as much too
complicated. She was more tired and bore more minor injuries
than she had ever had in her life, and all she wanted to do
was go home.
Ranma wobbled unsteadily to her feet and pulled Akane up
after her. After checking with Dr. Tofu that Sayuri was all
right, she got Akane moving and headed out the door to the
Dojo, leaving Nabiki to deal with anything that came up.
Nabiki, unwilling to be put off lunged after them and held
them up, saying, "Hold on, you two. You don't leave until
you tell me what the _hell_ just happened!"
Ranma and Akane looked at each other for a moment, then
turned back to Nabiki. "Nothing special, Oneechan." "No big
deal, really." In unison, "Just routine." Chucking tiredly,
they staggered out, brushing past Dr. Tofu, who made a move
to stop them, but then shrugged, and let them go.
Nabiki looked after the departing duo exasperatedly. Then
she slowly smiled. Internally, she cancelled her pledge of
vengeance and made a note to buy a great deal of incense and
prayer candles. She didn't know just which god she now owed
a debt to, but she should probably do some scatter-shot
sacrificing anyway; it was a small price to pay for a
miracle.
Mentally, she made a list.
First, she had to see about a few temples.
Then she was going to go home and check that Akane was
really all right.
Then she was going to tear a long, bleeding strip off her
for scaring her like that.
Whistling in relief, she headed out the door herself.
------------------------------------------------------------
Somehow, she had kept awake long enough to get home.
Staggering in the door of her room, she took off her jacket
and hung it up. Then her legs failed her, and she just
managed to sit down on the bed. Ranchan wanted her to do
something, and she nodded vaguely, and she was _so_ tired,
she'd do it in a minute, she'd get right up and ... and
she'd ... she'd get up from where she was laying down and
she'd ....
A small snore came from Akane where she lay on her side on
her bed, fast asleep. Ranma frowned and came over to the
bed, shaking her shoulder lightly. This accomplished
nothing, and Ranma sat down heavily to try to think what to
do. Absently, she stroked Akane's hair gently. She would
leave Acchan to her sleep, she decided, and go back to her
apartment. She'd get right up and do it now. Yup. She'd get
... right ... up ... and ....
------------------------------------------------------------
Nabiki arrived home with a mission. She was going to kill
her little sister on grounds of familial imperilment (viz:
risking her, Nabiki's neck when she would have had to
explain things to Dad).
Skipping up the steps she listened at Akane's door, but
heard nothing. Quietly, she opened the door to confirm that
Akane was not present, and gaped at the sight within.
On the bed lay Akane and Ranma, arms and legs intertwined,
Akane's face pressed into Ranma's shoulder, raven hair
entwining with sunset scarlet, deeply asleep.
Nabiki smiled wistfully, and quietly closed the door.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 6: Immediate Consequences
Part A: The Night Before The Morning After
Authors Notes:
Tear-jerking bastich, ain't I?
Heh.
No, it gets to me, too, and I _wrote_ the thing.
You may notice that I spend a lot more time on describing
Akane's fight and what maneuvers she is using, while letting
Ranma by with visual descriptions and a higher level of
vagueness. This is entirely intentional.
You may also notice that I tend to choose Ranma's actions by
their visual appeal, silly as that may seem in a text based
fanfiction. Again, this is intentional.
A lot of the whole fic is visually based, because I seem to
have the habit of formatting and developing the scenes that
way. Also, Ranma is serving as a plot-device and story-
forwarder at this point, so I felt that visual imagery was
more appropriate.
Yes, Ranma does have a death wish. It's not a terribly
strong one, mind. And he himself would deny it vehemenently,
but it _is_ there. Again, this is a side-effect of Ranma no
longer being truly heroic, and will probably fix itself as
he regains his proper form.
Or, again, I could just be playing with your minds. You
never know.
But, whatever Ranma may _think_, he has been strongly marked
by the Samurai / Ronin death fetish (if that's what I want
to call it). The sense that a 'heroic' death for duty or
honor's sake is desirable or romantic. As I say, if you
asked him, she'd deny it, but ....
Moving on, I consider the Hiryuu Shoten Ha to be the most
visually distinctive and impressive of Ranma's attacks,
which is why I use it here.
I've wanted to use "krakata-thoooooo......oooom" as a sound
effect for a long time now, and I refuse to apologize for
it.
Yes that _is_ the First of the Fallen as in Satan, Old
Scratch, Lucifer, the Adversary, etc. Yes, he's extremely
bad-ass.
For more on Invincibles, see the RAALS Essays on the web
site.
For that matter, world and meta-world information in general
is there, and there's a lot to reference in this chapter.
The fall into the dark was pure stylistic showoff on my
part, but I'm not apologizing for _it_, either.
The Starless Sea is an escape route because it's the one
place in all creation where Lies are Not Allowed, and where
the First _cannot_ therefore suddenly turn up. Or _any_
demon, for that matter. On the other hand, it's usually very
much a one-way trip. Nor can most people climb the Cliff of
Black Stone, even if they could _find_ it, which they
couldn't.
The pool of water at the base of the cliff is a very
Important Well. The root that feeds into it is a very
Important Root. And a nasty computer pun. I'm not saying any
more right now.
Ranma and Akane would not normally be able to throw their
weight around to that extent; but due to their twin-world
existence during the fight, they are in much the same
position as a demon would be confronting humans on earth.
That is, they're cheating extensively.
This also explains the rapid healing of their wounds during
the fight, and also at least partly what happened to Akane's
eye. _That_ wound is also very symbolic, if you hadn't
already guessed that.
The sword will be dealt with in the next chapter.
The Iron-Men pseudo-history is complete garbage, in case
that wasn't obvious, but I think it's evocative garbage.
It's also _All Mine_, but I'm willing to share ...
Just for the record, major world influences to this point
include:
Slayers
Godzilla
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (manga version)
Gunsmith Cats
Usagi Yojimbo
Neil Gaiman
Terry Pratchett
Ah! Megamisama
Iczer One
El Hazzard
Tenchi Muyo
Hellblazer!
In Nomine
Ninja High School
Gold Digger
Gunmm (aka Battle Angel Alita)
and my own deranged imagination.
Oh, and Ranma, too.
'Til Then,
Eric Hallstrom 10/26/99
--
www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/index.html
www.kawaiikunee.com
hallcon@mindspring.com
kawaii@kawaiikunee.com
From: Eric Hallstrom <hallcon@mindspring.com>
Subject: [Ranma][FanFic] Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, Chapter Six (Corrected)
Disclaimer: The playground is by Rumiko Takahashi, I'm only
swinging on the monkey bars. Remember to leave the grounds
cleaner than you found them and please don't feed the
Trolls.
"Summer Lightning" and "Thanksgiving Eve" are copyrighted by
Garnet Rogers; if you haven't encountered him before go out
and buy his CDs, he sings lots better than I write.
"The Haughs of Cromdale" is a Traditional song from
Scotland. My version is off an album by the Corries.
Isileth and Aldric Talvalin, and everything to do with them
belong to Peter Morwood. They come from his series, the
Books of Days (The Horse Lord, The Dragon Lord, The Demon
Lord, and The Warlord's Domain.); now, sadly, no longer in
print.
Gally, Hugo, Ido and Co. are characters from the manga/anime
series "Hyper Future Vision Gunmm", which belongs to Yukito
Kishiro.
This story is archived at http://www.kawaiikunee.com/slp/
Release 1.0 (Apr. 22, 2000)
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 6: Immediate Consequences
Part A: The Night Before the Morning After
------------------------------------------------------------
There are certain ways that things are supposed to go.
Take, for instance, the case of waking up in someone else's
bed. This is _supposed_ to involve long drowsy dalliances
and breakfast in situ, served by dedicated servants. Or, on
the other hand, romantic melodrama may easily be obtained by
hasty dressing and tearful, secretive goodbyes.
Unless, of course, the other whose bed you are waking up in
is an Other whom no-one, including the other, may be allowed
to suspect _is_ the Other; in which case things are supposed
to occur so as to maximize embarrassment for all involved.
(Yes, that _was_ a complex sentence. Read it through a
couple times, it means what it says.)
Fortunately for Ranma, the sensation of Akane breathing into
her ear woke her alone and unobserved.
This precipitated what should have been the type of
convulsive jerk that knocks over the bed, wakes the
bed-mate, calls the attention of the house, and otherwise
results in complete higgelty-piggelty.
Alas for the devotees of the Right and Proper Order of
Things, however, Ranma's well-honed reflexes and hard-wired
skills were in full working order; and she removed herself
from complete (if, sadly, clothed) entanglement in Akane's
embrace to a position standing upright in the middle of the
room without much more than a mild heart attack.
This should not, however, be construed as meaning that the
forces of Dramatic Righteousness were entirely cheated of
their due.
The human body is a complex collection of muscles, bone,
nerves, joints, ligaments, and other such items. Ranma's
collection chose that moment to send her a wide array of
bitterly-complaining messages, relaying their utter
dissatisfaction with their current conditions and accusing
her of criminal incompetence at the top. She also noted the
pounding pain of a massive migraine headache, foretelling an
impressive hangover; caused, she knew, by metabolic by-
products and ki imbalances attendant upon the rather ...
unique ... stresses to which she and Akane had been
subjected earlier that day.
Action was clearly called for, and she exerted her trained
will and knowledge of Magic and martial lore, pushing back
the pain and stiffness and adjusting a wide range of inner
balances. Attempted to move. And whimpered, very faintly.
Then she consulted a hard-won store of homeopathic medical
lore and immediately prescribed herself a long soak in a hot
bath and some serious reconstructive meditation.
Which would require walking all the way out the hall and
down the stairs, not to mention _another_ hall at the bottom
of the stairs. Truly it is said that the life of a Martial
Artist is fraught with peril.
It would be a good idea to wake Akane, however. Particularly
since, unless she was seriously mistaken, Akane's lingering
effects of the day's adventures would be even more extreme
than her own.
Ranma felt a renewed pang of grief shoot through her as she
took in Akane's profile, following the new lines of scars
that spread out in a web around her left eye, easily visible
as she lay on her right side.
She forced herself to lock the sensation deeply inside; even
if revealing the extent of her sorrow were not far too
dangerous to the careful masquerade she must now live, it
was horribly disrespectful to Akane. She had, after all,
followed along of her own free will, and must be regarded as
a warrior capable of knowing her own honor and what it
demanded.
Honorable action required what it required, and cost what it
cost. Had she, herself, not born up under wounds as great?
To rail against the necessary costs of one's actions was to
cheapen them; and to cheapen Akane was a thing which she
could never do.
In the end Akane's slumber proved more than a match for
Ranma's somewhat lessened resources, and Ranma finally
decided simply to let her sleep. Summoning her ferocious
will and inexhaustible endurance, she strode out the door
and down the stairs towards the furo and a long, hot soak
with all the grace and power of an octogenarian tortoise.
------------------------------------------------------------
The furo, generally speaking, was an institution and object
of which Tendo Nabiki thoroughly approved. It was not merely
sanitary and relaxing, she felt, but good for the mind and
will as well.
A long soak relaxed the body, which gave the mind time and
space in which to think unhindered. Most of all, it provided
a protected space. It was so often necessary to impose
control on one's self, on one's expressions and actions. Any
opportunity to create a time or space in which that control
could be relaxed, however briefly, was to be treasured.
Moreover, it was an easily secured space as well, especially
a private furo, like the one in the Tendo bath. Even a
public furo was far more private than it would appear at
first glance, since custom imposed a veil of indifference
over the lack of physical privacy that actually provided far
more actual privacy than most would believe. As long as one
was discreet, at least.
But a _private_ furo .... Not only did it share in the
custom-imposed privacy of the public furo, but it had
_physical_ privacy, too.
Also, if one suspected that one's privacy had been imposed
on, one could take any actions necessary to regain it,
_without_ alerting anyone to the presence of something out
of the ordinary to be protected in the first place.
All in all, Nabiki was very fond of finding a good furo and
settling in for a long soak whenever she was feeling out of
sorts. That afternoon she soaked for as long as she could
stand. She was thinking. Thinking as hard and strategically
as she had in a long time.
It could be managed, she felt. Mind, her sister was still an
idiot. But it _could_ be managed. There was no real hope
that the news would not get out, but if she managed the
grapevine just so .... She supposed that was 'spin', or
whatever the current set of idiots currently running the
Western Media were calling it at the moment.
But any Japanese (really, any truly _civilized_ person, she
reflected) knew instinctively that it was the consensus of
community opinion that mattered. All she had to do was swing
that consensus a little. A task in which she should have a
considerable advantage.
This consensus directly affected Ranma, after all. Not only
had she, herself, _demonstrated_ an advanced grasp of public
consensus management; but even more, a denigratory consensus
might well cause her to become ... annoyed. Since she
strongly suspected that no sane person in Furinkan would
actually wish to see that happen ....
So, all she _should_ have to do was drop a few subtle hints.
And make sure that no random _in_-sane person upset the
boat. Not difficult, if she was any judge, as long as she
kept things vague enough that people could agree without
having to confront what they were agreeing with directly.
The last thing she thought before relaxing fully into the
lassitude brought by the delicious warmth of the water was
that she was glad that she lived in a society where allusion
made arranging things like that no more difficult than
necessary. She didn't really feel up to doing anything
difficult right now anyway.
------------------------------------------------------------
After finishing her bath, she was inclined to talk over a
few things with Kasumi, just to make sure that they were
both on the same page as regards her dear little sister's
idiocy and its probable cause. A small disturbance alerted
her to an approaching spectacle however, and she silently
took refuge in the Tendo Family room to await it.
The spectacle in question did not disappoint. Ranma,
jacket-less, de-scarfed and carrying her shirt in her hand,
limped vaguely down the hallway, around the corner and into
the furo.
Nabiki forbade herself to make any noise. She had heard from
her rumor sources that Ranma was scarred beneath her usual
enveloping clothes, but she had not expected ... and _some_
of those scars were not old, fine, white lines but rather
angry, red welts.
Nabiki felt her eyes fill, briefly, with tears. She would
have to remember this sight, she thought, whenever she
doubted her sister's lover. Ranma might be overly heroic and
possessed of something resembling a death-wish, but there
could be no doubt that she knew the cost of the actions she
took. Which was very much for the better, actually; if
someone _had_ to act like a Samurai, it was much easier to
respect them knowing that they always kept one eye on the
cost.
Shaking her head she turned from the closing door and went
to talk to Kasumi.
------------------------------------------------------------
She woke up.
This, she decided, was her first mistake.
She was not immediately sure what had awakened her, but she
_was_ immediately sure that she wished it hadn't bothered.
Her hair hurt.
That was not even considering the mad kamikaze air molecules
that were attempting to flay her skin off.
Now that she whimpered it, how _had_ those tribes of mad,
jack-hammer wielding dwarves gotten inside her skull,
anyway? And what had she done to piss them off so badly?
Couldn't they have written her a ... a letter or something?
She'd have apologized, really.
Also, she really had to talk to someone about putting dead
rats in her mouth. It just wasn't civilized, and whoever had
done it ought to have known better.
She tried to summon up a sense of righteous outrage, but all
she could manage was a dull throb, and it immediately got
lost in all the other aches and pains.
Attempting to discern where, exactly, she was, she opened
her eyes.
Mistake number two, instantly taken advantage of by the
roving hordes of nomadic biker photons, which used the
opening in her defenses to invade down her optic nerves in a
howling wave and set her brain on fire.
Attempting to quench the flames, she curled into a foetal
ball and threw her arms around her head.
Mistake number three.
It was really fascinating, she thought distantly, that a
sufficient amount of suffering could not only _induce_
unconsciousness, but could then immediately _negate_ it.
Well, she had obviously screwed up _somewhere_, big-time.
Now the question was: where was Ranchan when you really
needed her?
Ranma. Didn't she have a vague memory of Ranma saying
something?
Something ... about ... about ... getting up? ... and going
... to the furo. Or she'd stiffen up....
Ah.... So that was it.
Well, she could see that the rest of the day promised to be
unpleasant.
Yep.
But she had a plan to outwit it.
Just as soon as she took her bath and got a little control
back, she was going to die. Yep. That'd show it. You bet.
Now all she had to do was get to the furo.
Which involved ... taking off her clothes ... and going ...
all the way ... down the stairs. Oh dear.
Shortly, a shambling figure tackled the complex challenge of
walking down a flight of stairs without toppling over. Its
progress was not eased by an apparent difficulty with the
dim hallway light, which was causing it to move in a series
of flinches.
Exerting supreme self-control, it avoided a lunging attempt
to descend the stairs in a single moment, outracing light
itself. Which was a good thing, really, because the photons
hanging around were sufficiently annoyed as it was, and the
figure was in enough trouble.
Stumbling down the last stair risers and shuffling painfully
around two corners and down the hall, the figure had nearly
attained its hoped-for sanctuary when fate cruelly
intervened.
A firm, decisive footstep was heard, and Tendo Soun entered
the hallway from the garden outside and came face-to-face
with his daughter.
And, for a brief moment, nothing happened.
Then Akane feebly attempted to placate the looming disaster
by waving her hands at her father, and whimpering. Alas, in
vain; slowly started but rapidly rising came the ultimate
horror (at least to anyone with a killing hangover), a full,
all-out, Tendo Soun Wail.
(#2516: My daughter went to Hell and lost her eye,
now she'll never get a husband and I'll be alone
in my old age, aiieeee!)
The noise went through Akane's already shot nerves like a
buzzsaw and she collapsed to the floor in a foetal ball.
Naked and dripping from the tub, Ranma was at her side two
seconds later. Kneeling at Akane's side, Ranma gently coaxed
her out of her curled up misery; in the process leveling a
glare at Soun that sent him backwards in a dead faint.
Nabiki, drawn by the *thud* of Akane impacting the floor,
managed a gasp before Ranma cut her off. "Nabiki-san, please
ask Kasumi-san to get Acchan a glass of whichever hangover
cure she usually makes for your father." Smoothly, Ranma
picked Akane up and took her into the furo. Nabiki gaped
briefly at the closing door before running back to fetch
Kasumi.
------------------------------------------------------------
Timidly, Kasumi knocked on the door to the bath. "Ranma-san,
may I come in?"
"Please do."
Kasumi carried the large glass into the furo, and, like her
sister, restrained a gasp. It was bad enough to see such
extensive scars on Ranma-san, reminding her of the cost
demanded of those who walk Bushido, but to see such scars in
turn on the smooth flesh of her younger sister; that was
almost more than she could stand.
Akane was huddled against the edge of the tub, with her face
turned down and her eyes shut as Ranma gently probed her
acupuncture and shiatsu spots from behind. At Kasumi's
approach, Ranma leaned back in the tub, and Akane turned
around, looking up at Kasumi in thankfulness and reaching
out for the glass she was carrying.
Seeing the new web of faint scars around her sister's eye
and the changed nature of the orb itself caused Kasumi to
fall to her knees, extending the glass with shaking hand.
Akane almost snatched the glass away from her, and drained
it with a single, long pull before putting it to the side
and coming up partially out of the tub to gather Kasumi into
her arms and hug her fiercely.
"Kasumi! Kasumi-oneechan, it's all right. It _looks_ awful
but the eye still works just fine."
Ranma raised an eyebrow and dryly said, "I say again, it
looks _rakish_. Not awful, _rakish_."
Kasumi made a mighty effort and came back on balance. "I
don't want to contradict you, Ranma-san, but I'm afraid it
does look awful. Just a little."
Akane released her hug and turned back toward Ranma,
sticking out her tongue, "See? I _told_ you so!"
Ranma settled back in the tub and spread her arms along the
rim, "Acchan, look this way. Now raise your left eyebrow.
No, a little higher. Yeah, like that. Now show Kasumi-san."
A short pause. "See? Rakish."
Akane sighed and stood up, saying, "Please excuse me,
'Neechan, I have to kill -" as she reached her full height
she paused, her eyes going wide in shock as an alarming
cracking sound made itself known. "... er, that is. I have
to get right back in the tub here and have Ranchan do some
more shiatsu on me. Yeah, that's it."
Ranma sighed, "Doesn't listen. Over-exerts. Rushes in where
angels fear to tread. Domineering. And now she wants
shiatsu, too. Oh dear. What a pity. Never mind." Winking at
Kasumi's mildly alarmed look, Ranma slid forward in the tub
to kneel behind Akane.
Akane looked up, alarmed, "Ranchan! I need ... ooooh!" As
Ranma's hand reached the first shiatsu spot, Akane's eyes
slitted in relief, the left flashing a solid gold.
Kasumi smiled slightly and silently slipped out.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Ranma-san! I will not permit you to run off without dinner.
It is getting late and you _must_ be tired, you should eat
with us and sleep in the guest room tonight."
Ranma blinked, backing away from Kasumi and frantically
waving her hands, "Ahhh ... of course, Kasumi-san, whatever
you say. I'll just go into the Dojo and, ahh, maintain my
equipment, yes?" Grabbing a confused and yukata-clad Akane
by the shoulder, Ranma hastily retreated from the main house
to the Dojo.
"Geeze! Your sister is _scary_ when she's like that!" Ranma
peeked cautiously around the edge of the Dojo door. "Anyway,
I'm serious, Acchan, you need to go get your stuff and get
it back in order right now, before you forget and then don't
have it next time."
Akane nodded muzzily and wandered out of the Dojo and back
upstairs. Ranma busied herself with seeing to the good
condition of her weapons, but was interrupted when Akane
timidly reappeared, holding a sword in an ill-fitting
scabbard away from her body with obvious reluctance.
"Ranchan?"
Ranma looked up and raised an eyebrow.
"This," Akane continued, "is _not_ my sword. And I don't
have _any_ of the other stuff and I've never seen this sword
before ... I don't even know what _kind_ of sword it is
...."
Ranma stood up and gingerly took the sword away, laying it
flat on the portable table she was using to hold her
cleaning gear. "Taiken. It's a taiken."
She withdrew the sword from its scabbard and turned it over
and around in her hands. It was slightly longer than a
katana, straight bladed and double-edged, but still
chisel-pointed. It was made of a dull, gray steel, better
polished in the middle of the blade, which sank into a
blood-groove accented by the yakiba-mon, the wavy pattern
that indicates the different steel composition used in the
edge of a blade.
It was elaborately hilted in black, non-reflective steel, a
two-handed, wire-wrapped grip rising from a heavy thorn
pommel to a wide crossbar that flared out into hilt-loops to
protect its wielder's fingers as they might be looped over
the hilt. The side-bars of the hilt flared out into an
almost-basket that provided a fair amount of protection to
the upper hand of a wielder, and even a casual inspection
woke amazement at the magnificent balance and liveliness of
the cold, gray steel. "It's a _good_ taiken."
Ranma withdrew a small tool from jacket-space and placed the
blade on the table, beginning to disassemble its hilt.
"These are usually tang-marked ... like ... so ...." her
voice faded off into a long whistle.
Akane drew closer and leaned forward to see, but could not
read the strange, curling letters. Ranma held the blade up
to the light and read something off the tang in a language
that Akane likewise did not know.
Indicating this with a slant of her eyebrow, Akane caused
Ranma to flush briefly and then translate aloud into
Japanese, "'Forged was I, of iron heaven born. Ulean made
me. I am Isileth.'"
"How, ah... how did you manage to pick this up, anyway,
Acchan? I saw you waving it around when you, ah, came to get
me, but ..." Ranma slowly and coolly put the hilt back
together.
Akane stammered something inane about how she had needed a
sword and it had just been lying there and she'd just put
her hand on it, and....
Ranma shook her head sadly. "Outnumbered. Injured. Back to
the wall. And you 'just happen' to put your hand onto
Isileth Widow-maker. Give it up, girl. You are _so_ doomed."
Then, suddenly, she grinned, "But at least being around you
won't be _boring_. I hate _boring_," she winked.
Akane grinned weakly and blushed. Then she indicated the
sword still lying on the table. "Ummm ... you seem to know
it ... her? What's the story?"
"Well ... about a dozen or so universes _that_ way there is
a land called Alba, which has a number of similarities to
Tokugawa era Japan. For samurai say 'kailin-eir', for katana
say 'taiken'.
"I had heard a rumor that the kailin in Alba practiced an
Art called Taiken-ulleth, which involved a form of 'perfect
swordsmanship', and that there was one living master left.
"So about a year or so back I used the amulet to go look,
but I never found him, or her, whichever. But, while I was
there, I did pick up a fair bit of kailinin lore, one bit of
which was the story of the 'most perfect sword', Isileth.
"Supposedly made from 'star-metal' from a fallen meteorite.
Said in legend to have been refolded three hundred times,
quenched in blood and polished by fire and water. Rumored to
be too tough to bend, too strong to break and with an edge
that was sharpened once and hasn't dulled since. Claimed to
have been used by heroes and villains for two thousand years
or more."
Ranma took a piece of rice-paper and traced out the outline
of Isileth's blade, and then took up the ill-fitting
scabbard and began preparations to modify it to properly
receive its new resident. "What she was doing on a slope
just outside of Hell I've no idea. Here," she handed the
sword-hilt to Akane, "do a kata or two and get to know her.
Perhaps she'll tell you." Akane took the sword silently and
stood, momentarily at a loss.
After a minute or so she shook her head dazedly and turned
back to the center of the Dojo, moving with a slight wince
for abused muscles and joints and focusing inward, preparing
a pain-blocking mantra to aid her concentration. Then she
pressed the sword's blade to her forehead in salute and sank
into the slight trance she used to invoke Other-sight.
Instead of focusing it on anything, she deliberately _de_-
focused it and began a basic sword kata, extending a welcome
to any insights the blade might offer.
From behind her as she danced her kata she heard Ranma begin
to sing lowly and distractedly as she worked on the
scabbard. And as the song continued, low and dark and
couched in some dialect of English that she could barely
even determine _was_ English, her de-focused Sight began to
gather sounds and images. Images of blood.
As I came in by Auchindoun,
a little wee bit frae the toun,
When to the Highlan's I was bound,
to view the haughs of Cromdale.
Right hand highest on the hilt (a voice whispered, "One hand
only girl, until you apply force to the cut, keep your other
hand free. And put a finger over the hilt, it increases
control, and the hilt-loops will guard it."), arm rising for
jodan-no-kame morote uchi kiri otashi kudashi, the most
basic of strikes, the two-handed vertical downward blow to
cleave head and chest together ("The pearsplitter ..." the
voice whispered).
I met a man in tartan trews,
I speir'd at him what was the news;
Quo' he the Highlan' army rues,
that e'er we came to Cromdale.
And her mind sank into a receptive blankness and she stopped
the cut at the level of the lower chest and transmuted its
force into a bouncing return to guard, left hand dropping
away and right hand blurring in withdrawal to hasso hidari
gamae, left foot leading as she cocked the sword by the side
of her head in preparation for ...
We were in bed, sir, every man,
when the English host upon us came,
A bloody battle then began
upon the haughs of Cromdale.
... for jodan-no-yoho giri kudashi, the high horizontal cut,
right to left as the body uncoils and the left hand comes
around to grip the hilt and put the whole force of that
uncoiling behind the decapitation stroke ("... to the cross,
inverted ..." the whisper said), and ...
The English horse they were so rude,
they bath'd their hooves in Highlan' blood,
But our brave clans, they boldly stood
upon the haughs of Cromdale.
... and the left hand let go again as the body whirled
around into right-advance guard and the right sank the blade
into chudan-no-kame, middle guard, and the blade sank into
darkness until only a gleaming tracery of blue-silver fire
marked its edge and her body faded away and ...
But, alas! We could no longer stay,
and o'er the hills we came away,
And sore we do lament the day,
that e'er we came to Cromdale.
... and the blade angled left and thrust up and forward,
left hand flickering forward to propel the body of the blade
in a thrusting cut to the back and side of the neck of the
dark, faceless figure that attacked from that side and,
still faceless, faded as it fell and left only the great
spray of blood from its severed carotid and jugular, bright
red and wet as it fanned out from the massive slash and her
left hand fell away again and ...
Then the great Montrose did say,
Highlan' men show me the way,
For I will o'er the hills this day,
to view the haughs of Cromdale.
... and her right hand brought the blade down a foot and
began the mirror-image thrust-and-slash to the right and her
left hand floated up (so fast) and she thrust right and past
the target and her body twisted back as her left hand pushed
forward and her right drew back and ...
They were at dinner, every man,
when great Montrose upon them came,
A second battle then began,
upon the haughs of Cromdale.
... and the back edge of the blade cut through the target's
throat in the strike Ranma had taught her earlier in the
week ('This move was designed for a two-edged blade,' she
thought) and the fan of blood arced out wide and scarlet as
she completed soukongou (and the whisper said, "...
twin-thunderbolts ...") and the blood-sprays blew past and
behind her view and the fallen bodies faded like mist
beneath the hot sun and ...
The Grant, Mackenzie and MacKay,
soon as Montrose they did espy,
O then, they fought most valiantly!
upon the haughs of Cromdale.
... and she faced an opponent across ten feet of open ground
and the circle of watchers were tense as the Marshall
dropped the wand to begin the duel and she advanced chudan
and feinted outside and knocked his sword off-line *scrape*
along the top of the opponent's blade, shock of heavy
resistance as she cut through the neck and ...
The MacDonalds they returned again,
the Camerons did their standard join,
MacIntosh play'd a bloody game,
upon the haughs of Cromdale.
... and her horse kicked into a gallop as she put up the
great bow and the sword was in her hand and she extended it
forward, wrist cocked as the point turned a little down,
making a small lance as they galloped toward the enemy in
his array and a heavy, wet shock ran up her arm as the blade
went home and she galloped across the field cutting down her
foes and ...
The MacGregors fought like lions bold,
MacPhersons, none could them control,
MacLaughlins fought, like loyal souls,
upon the haughs of Cromdale.
... and they faded into mist, gray and fading except for the
bright scarlet of the spouting, running, dripping blood and
the blood sprayed back and forth but none of it clung to her
or to the blade but it seemed to bounce off a figure hanging
in front of her in the heavy air and she ran through the
dark stone halls striking target (only targets, gray, fading
and gone) left and right and the flowing blood outlined and
then filled in another opponent ...
MacLeans, MacDougals, and MacNeils,
so boldly as they took the field,
And make their enemies to yield,
upon the haughs of Cromdale.
... another opponent; tall and massive, armored in an alien
style in full plate-and-chain, like and yet unlike a samurai
in its blood-red armor and taiken like her own and she
fought with it back and forth across a hearth a field a
forest clearing and she brought the blade around kasumi kiri
age, arms crossed, right hand sliding out low to join the
left hand and come up hard and diagonally to the left across
the body, and her opponent opened out along the line of the
cut and there was nothing inside but blood and ...
The Gordons boldly did advance,
the Frasers fought with sword and lance,
The Grahams they made the heads to dance,
upon the haughs of Cromdale.
... and it sprayed out and covered her but there was no
smell of blood, no remembered iron tang but only a stale,
sweet, sad hint of roses and the blood hanging in the air
turned black and fell like rain, and she met and destroyed
another gray warrior and another and another but their blood
did not spout bright wet scarlet but black and heavy and it
fell back upon them and they twisted and where a man had
stood a black rose now hung in midair and the air was full,
overpowered by the smell and something small and bright and
blue fell out of the sky and the gem hung before her,
glowing and ...
The loyal Stewarts with Montrose,
so boldly set upon their foes,
And brought them down with Highland blows,
upon the haughs of Cromdale.
... and she swung the sword kiri otashi kudashi again and it
flared with blue fire so intense that it blinded her and the
rose was burned away and where the jewel had been crouched a
figure twisted and huddled over, almost invisible except for
the crippled, twisted claw that was its right hand and her
hands went back for the stroke but then she brought the
blade down and grasped it with both hands and _snapped_ it
and her hands hurt and bled and her stomache hurt and bled
and her chest hurt and bled and it was whole again and the
twisted figure faded and she stepped past it and the blade
flared brighter and higher and she attacked the alien,
horrible form that rose above her, slobbering, and she cut
it across and it divided in half and fell away and she
dropped the blade, casting it aside and the dust covered it
and her eye flared with pain and she fell and twisted as she
rolled in the dust and she grasped the hilt and came upright
and ...
Of twenty thousand Cromwell's men,
five hundred fled to Aberdeen
The rest of them lie on the plain,
upon the haughs of Cromdale.
... and settled into perfect chudan-no-kame as the kata
ended and she saluted the Dojo and flicked the sword around.
And she turned back to Ranma where she knelt near the Dojo
wall and asked, "Does the name Talvalin mean anything to
you?"
"Not a thing," Ranma said cheerfully and handed her the
remade scabbard and she sheathed the sword.
And from the main house Kasumi called, "Ranma-san,
Akane-chan, dinner!"
And they went in to see.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane's room was dark and still in night's embrace. Akane,
however, was not.
Shadowy dreams of loss and pain lurked just beyond the
border of the waking world, and a pit of darkness vast
enough to suck her down forever awaited her least little
lowering of defense. This she knew.
What she did not know was how to fight the encroaching dark.
If she could only find a target, something to hit with her
fist or her sword. If it were only an external threat that
she could face head on. If it were only an obvious weakness,
something even in herself, but something she could come to
grips with.
But what could she do with dreams in the dark?
Lost in her silent, failing struggle, she did not hear the
quiet opening of the door, nor did she note the form that
ghosted across her room until it actually sat upon her bed;
and by then, of course, it was too late. Ranma had already
heard her faint whimper, already seen her toss and turn.
Numbly she turned her head to look at Ranma, and was again
surprised by the serene concern in her friend's sapphire
eyes.
Akane had always lived her life in a continual state of
insecurity; always convinced that the next day, the next
challenge would prove her painfully gathered skills
inadequate, would leave her bereft and lacking in worth. It
was not that she did not appreciate her own skills as a
martial artist; indeed, in some ways those skills were
themselves the source of the problem.
She was good at martial arts, but, she felt, _only_ at
martial arts.
For all of her girlhood, Kasumi had been the perfect female
figure. When their mother had died, she had stepped into the
role of alpha female with barely a hitch.
Nabiki had become skilled in manipulation, using her mind
and her skills at sneakiness to get things accomplished; for
the benefit of the Dojo itself, mostly, it was true. But to
her, for whatever reason or purpose, fell the skills of
manipulation, of social control and social dominance.
Denied primacy in these areas, Akane had specialized in the
Art, taking up the family school that neither of her sisters
had expressed an interest in, and in that pursuit she had
established a primacy of her own.
What she had not established, to herself, was that her
primacy was real. Always, in the back of her mind, came the
thought that her sisters had _allowed_ her that primacy,
because it did not matter. That no-one contested her in it,
because no-one cared. That all that her effort had bought
her was ... nothing.
In the bright light of day she could look around herself and
see her strengths. In the light it looked like she had made
of herself a warrior who could overcome any challenge she
attempted. In the light it looked like the paths she had
turned aside from offered little in the way of real
challenge.
In the light it looked as though _she_ had taken the harder
path, the path of greatest growth, and that the necessary
parts (Oh, not _all_ the parts, no. But you don't need _all_
the parts to get by.) of the others would be ... easy.
Mostly.
In the light.
But here in the night, lying still and quiet in the dark,
... well, things do have a tendency to look differently in
the dark.
And if you were lying on your back looking up at the
ceiling, and if you were somehow to relax the guards you
normally hold that keep you from thinking unpleasant
thoughts like that, then, having thought one unpleasantness,
you might go on to think others.
You might begin to think that the path that you had chosen,
far from being the path of greatest growth, was instead the
path of least result. You might begin to think that you had
traded the ability to make cookies for the ability to nearly
get the woman you have just realized you love killed.
Or, you might begin to question just how much all this
practice you have been doing in your chosen field has
actually bought you. You might begin to compare the things
you had learned on your own to the things that, let's say,
Someone had taught you, and conclude that you had learned
nothing of value yourself at all.
You might begin to think that you were ... lesser, ...
second rate. And you might begin to wonder what use you,
yourself, actually were. A second rater moreover, you might
begin to think, who has had the great idiocy to fall for a
first rater in the same field.
And you might begin to wonder just what use there is in
saying, for example, "Ranma and Akane".
"Ranma and Kasumi", you might think, makes some sense;
"Kasumi" can cook ... and clean ... and ... and be Kasumi.
"Ranma and Nabiki" allows "Nabiki" to be sneaky and make
money, and terrorize people who need to be terrorized.
But if all "Akane" is good for is fighting, and if "Ranma"
already has the fighting part of "Ranma and Akane" covered,
then what use in "Ranma and Akane" is ... "Akane"? And if
"Ranma and Akane" is a thing that you are coming to believe
is the thing that makes being "Akane" worthwhile, but there
is no use in "Ranma and Akane" for "Akane then what use _is_
"Akane"? Or ... _is_ there any use for "Akane" ... at all?
And these are the sorts of thoughts that have a tendency to
cause theoretical thinkers Deep Distress, and, on that
count, to be relegated to the far background and never
allowed out into the conscious portion of the brain.
This defense mechanism can, in itself, cause certain
problems.
For instance, when confronted with the aforesaid "Someone
first rate in the same field", and the occasion to meditate
on silken scarlet hair and sea-deep sapphire eyes, and the
opportunity to ask the question "Is there room in 'Ranma and
Akane' for 'Akane'? Or, indeed, is there any reason to
entertain the concept of 'Ranma and Akane' at all?" then
thoughts like these might cause you to wimp out.
For another instance, even if you _are_ the "Someone, etc."
and even if you _know_ that there is indeed very good reason
to entertain the concept of "Ranma and Akane", and what role
"Akane" should play in it, it does not necessarily follow
that you _also_ know whether there is any reason to consider
the concept of "Akane and Ranma". And in this case similar
thoughts can not only cause you to wimp out, but also to pay
less attention to subtleties of interpersonal conversation
than might otherwise be the case.
To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a
problem.
All of which goes a long way towards explaining why, when
Ranma said, "Problems?" Akane did _not_ say, "Yes! I'm
tired, I'm sick, I hurt and I'm so confused and overwhelmed
that I can't think. I need to bury my face in your hair for
several years to clear my head. Make love to me 'til I pass
out!" but rather (in a much smaller voice), "Can't think.
Too much." And why Ranma did not, quite, hear what she
meant, but only what she said.
And also why, when Ranma knelt on the bed and drew Akane up
into a reverse embrace, so that Akane was sitting in front
of Ranma with Ranma's arms folded beneath her breasts and
the top of her head beneath Ranma's chin, and said, "Maybe I
can teach you a technique to help. Do you trust me?" Akane
just said "Yes," instead of "With my honor, my life and my
soul. And, incidentally, if you wanted to move your hands up
a bit I'd be perfectly happy to trust you with my body,
too." And Ranma, of course, missed that, as well.
Even world class martial artists, gifted with the perception
to track another person's motives and intentions in the heat
of mortal combat have their occasional off days. Which is a
shame, it's true. But it just isn't time for this story to
go lemon yet.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Okay, Acchan," Ranma murmured, "this technique is called
'the Rainbow', because the way you begin requires you to
picture one in your mind. What I am going to ask you to do
is to close your eyes, and then to impress upon yourself a
vision of each of the colors of the rainbow, one by one.
"As you visualize each color, you will attach to it all of
your tensions, unhappiness or pain and imbalance in a
specific area. Then, when you release the visualization of
the color, you will also release all the negative chi that
you have just collected.
"The order and rhythm of the colors will allow you to
completely rid yourself of negative energy and to achieve a
focused and receptive mental state. Then, when you have
passed through all the colors, you will find yourself
standing on a darkened landscape, where you will encounter a
stairway leading down.
"If you choose to descend the stairway, you will then
encounter a well-built, solid door, to which, you will find,
you hold the only key. Behind the door, if you choose to
open it, you will find your Library, or Study, the
metaphorical center of your intellect.
"This technique employs a mixture of focused meditation and
self-hypnosis, and I repeat that you may _choose_ to descend
the stairway, and you may _choose_ to open the door to
impress upon you that it is _your_ door and _your_ stairway,
and that _you_ may and must decide when, and whether, to
proceed in each and every case. I will be here to guard you,
this first time, and I will show you the way, but it is your
will that must impel events. If you decide to reverse the
exercise, all you need do, _at any time_, is open your eyes.
Okay?"
Akane nodded, silently.
"Then begin with the first color of the rainbow," Ranma
said, quietly, "think about red - soft, warm red ..." Ranma
kept her voice in a soothing, lulling murmur, just loud
enough to hear at close range, and began to enter into the
rhythms and pauses of a hieratic chant.
"All there is is red ... red is the color of physical
relaxation ... let the red fill every corner of your body,
let it pick up all the pain and fatigue and tension and then
let it flow away ... red flows away and is followed by
orange ..."
Ranma's low contralto voice flowed over Akane's weary mind
and soothed her deeper and deeper into a trance state,
taking her through the colors of the rainbow, and also
through all the stages of release of care and tension, "...
violet is the color of union with the Tao, the Tao is
everything and nothing, become part of the color and let the
color become part of you ... drift down with the color as it
gets darker and darker ... closer and closer to the dark ...
less and less color ... less and less of everything ...
everything going away until you are alone with yourself and
the Tao ... don't be afraid ... I'll be just out here ...
nothing will get by me to harm you ... tell me when you are
ready to go on."
Akane seemed to drift down, through a slowly fading violet
haze, down to a gentle landing on her feet. All around her
she sensed a darkened, empty plain stretching far away.
Though in looking around she could not see any sign of
Ranma, her presence still nestled close about her, warm and
comforting. "Okay," she said, "now what?"
"Turn around," Ranma replied, "Do you see the stairway?"
"Uh-huh. Should I go down?"
"Whenever you're ready."
Akane slowly walked down the stairway, feeling very secure,
as though she were following an old, familiar pathway to a
well-beloved destination. At the bottom of the stairs, she
came to a small landing, seemingly cut out of the living
rock. It was filled with a source-less illumination, and
could be exited in only two ways: the stairway up, and a
large, forbidding door made of iron-banded oak. The door did
not open to a touch, and the keyhole exuded a definite
impression of impregnability.
"Ranchan? I'm at the bottom, but I can't get the door open."
"Look in your pocket. You're carrying the key."
"I don't remember any key that looked like that ... hey!
You're right Ranchan!" Akane unlocked the door, and opened
it into a place of wonder. "Ranchan! It's a library alright!
Wow! There must be _millions_ of books and things, there's
Mangas all over the place, all my favorites ..." (Ranma
assumed a pained look.) "... the paintings on the walls,
they're beautiful ... Kamis! Look at that desk! Thing's big
enough for planes to land on ... ooohh! Nice, comfy chair
too! Ahhh! This is really nice, Ranchan. Are you sure it's
mine?"
"All yours, Acchan," Ranma chirped. "Let me give you a
present?"
"Ummm, sure. What is it?"
"Look on the desk, it may be under something. It's a small
book, leather binding, thin pages ...."
"I see it! Ranchan! It's really expensive .... are you sure
you can afford to give it to _me_?"
"Trust me.
"Now, if you open the book, you will see that I've written a
word on the first several pages, right? The first page says
'Akane', the second says 'study', the third says 'focus',
the fourth says 'sleep', the fifth says 'dream' and the
sixth says 'return', right? And the rest are blank."
"Yep. So?"
"So if you pick up the book and concentrate on 'Akane' you
will then concentrate on who you are and why. This will let
you more fully integrate new skills and experiences into
your Tao.
"Likewise 'study' will focus your subconscious on making
sense whatever the last things you have just learned are,
'focus' will let you concentrate on one specific thing that
you are thinking of, 'sleep' will let you do just that,
'dream' will give you the ability to direct and explore your
dreams, and 'return' will bring you back.
"You can do more than one thing at once, and if you open
your eyes without concentrating on 'return' part of you will
keep, for instance, studying everything you have been
learning that day; even while you are asleep, or eating
dinner, or whatever."
"Gotcha. Pretty cool."
"Glad you like it. Now concentrate on 'return' ...."
Akane opened her eyes and looked around, blinking. She
noticed that Ranma had somehow moved from behind her,
holding her up, to sitting on the foot of the bed. 'Awwwww.'
"Ohayo, Ranchan, what now?"
"Do me a favor."
"Okay."
"Go back under and hit 'Akane' and 'sleep'. I'll see you in
the morning."
"Spoilsport."
"Slacker."
Akane stretched and yawned, laying back into her covers
before Ranma's folded arms stance as colors whirled around
her. Soon, the beautiful walls of her Library opened around
her. Walking over to her desk she picked up the book Ranma
had given her and thumbed through it.
For a few moments she stopped on the first blank page and
stared at it intensely, then she picked a fine quill pen off
the desk and dipped it in the ink sitting in the small ink-
stone. Poising the pen over the page she used the best
calligraphy she could muster to write the word 'Ranma' on
it.
Holding the book open in her hands, she sank down into the
chair and got comfortable. Then she focused her will on the
pages 'Ranma', 'Akane', 'sleep' and 'dream'. On the last
word she closed the book and put it down on the desk,
letting her arms out wide in an enormous stretch and
cracking all her vertebrae, before settling backwards to go
to sleep.
Outside the library, Ranma looked down fondly on Akane's
sleeping form and ghosted out the door and back to the guest
room.
And had there been anyone around that night who was able to
see the rising ghosts of dreams on the night air, that
someone might have spied the columns of such rising strongly
and fully from two separate rooms of the big old house,
remarked on how similar to each other they were, and been
astonished.
But there wasn't, and so, no-one did.
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 6: Immediate Consequences
Part B: The Morning After the Night Before
------------------------------------------------------------
Akane woke up happy.
This was a moderately rare event for her, but she noticed
that it had been becoming more frequent since the imposition
on her life of a certain red-haired girl. Regardless of the
source of her new-found contentment, however, she would
normally _not_ have expected this morning to be a good one.
Too much fear and pain the day before, too much expected
stress today.
Somehow, though, she had managed to navigate the dark rapids
of the night and emerge in the hush of early dawn rested,
loose-limbed and, somehow, entirely content.
Quickly dressing, she picked Isileth from the stand on her
dresser and slipped the sword into her jacket. Passing
silently out her door and down the hall to the top of the
stairs she stood silently for a moment, listening to the
silence of the house. Just below the normal limits of
audibility she could discern Kasumi's ministrations in the
kitchen and someone singing quietly in the garden.
It's so easy to dream of days gone by,
So hard to think of times to come.
And the grace to accept every moment as a gift
Is a gift that is given to some.
Nabiki woke up discontented.
She had pinned some hopes on the night before, but her
surveillance activities had come up empty. She was _sure_
that Ranma and her sister were lovers, but she had not
achieved her lofty reputation as a manipulator of events by
acting ahead of _certain_ knowledge without need.
The remedy for the lack of which certainty had seemed
simple, too; lovers will tend to cling to one another in
times of stress, and yesterday's activities _should_ have
provided _plenty_ of stress, which _should_ have expressed
themselves nicely last night.
But except for Ranma teaching Akane some sort of meditation
thingy to help her sleep, _nothing had happened_. It was
annoying, was what it was.
Worse yet, from her viewpoint, she had theorized that they
might, perhaps, simply have been too tired the night before;
so she had woken up at an entirely-too-early time in the
morning to continue her surveillance. But not only had Ranma
already been up, but Akane had woken early too, and _again_
they hadn't done anything. Not even a kiss!
Ah well, maybe one of them was more aware than she had
thought. She would simply have to get more subtle. It would
be a good challenge.
Or, she might just strangle the gibbering pair of _early_
morning songsters.
Blearily and grumpily, Nabiki sat down in the dining room
and snarled at merrily cheeping birds and cheery sunrise
alike.
What can you do with your days,
But work and hope?
Let your dreams bind your work to your play.
What can you do with each moment of your life,
But live til you've lived it away?
Live til you've lived it away.
Soun awoke unsettled.
This was hardly unusual, of course. Still, he thought, this
was even worse than normal. For all the griefs he normally
felt, for all the power of the terrors and regrets that he
normally struggled with, they were just that: _normal_, the
common structure of his days.
The changes that young Ranma seemed to have brought into his
family and his life might or might not be terrible, but he
felt their abnormality keenly nonetheless. Yet alongside
this additional weight lurked an additional variable,
neither necessarily negative nor positive.
With change comes the possibility of change for the better.
Yet if that possibility is not fulfilled is it not more
terrible than if no such possibility had existed?
At the bottom of every Pandora's Box lurks shining Hope.
Whether that was a good or a bad thing Tendo Soun could not
for the life of him decide.
There are sorrows enough for the whole world's end,
There are no guarantees but the grave.
But this life that we live,
and the times that we spend,
Are treasures too precious to save.
Kasumi had probably awoken with the same serenity which she
always showed the world.
It's always difficult to tell, with Kasumi.
What can you do with your days,
But work and hope?
Let your dreams bind your work to your play.
What can you do with each moment of your life,
But live til you've lived it away?
Live til you've lived it away.
Kodachi and Sayuri woke early, each separately deciding that
they hated hospitals. But we won't get back to them until a
little later.
What can you do with your days,
But work and hope?
Let your dreams bind your work to your play.
What can you do with each moment of your life,
But live til you've lived it away?
Live til you've lived it away.
And a new day in Nerima began, as Kasumi called her (now
slightly enlarged) family to breakfast.
------------------------------------------------------------
The thing that Akane was most aware of as breakfast
continued was hunger; a great, growing void in her stomach
that the breakfast Kasumi had brought to table, double-sized
though it was, barely dented. Ranma, however, had put a
surreptitious hand on her shoulder when she would have asked
Kasumi for more food, holding her to silence.
Once outside the Dojo on the road to Furinkan, Ranma led
Akane and Nabiki to a small side-street off the Nerima
Ginza, wherein they found what Nabiki immediately dubbed
"the perfect hole-in-the-wall dive." It was a very small
restaurant, without even a window onto the street. The door
itself hardly advertised its status as a place of business;
much more resembling a service entrance for some greater
establishment, except for the small sign which held the
single word, "Gally's".
The inside of the restaurant was clean and neat, if small
and dark. It was dominated by the enormous grill that swept
across the back wall and left only a little space into which
a counter with ten stools and half a dozen small tables had
been crammed. There were no customers, and the only
occupant, who was evidently the cook, looked up at them with
an expression of professional cheer that lasted only a few
seconds.
"Hi! Welcome to Gally's. What I fix may for you today ...
_Ranma_?"
"Hiya, Gally-kun, we need eight mega-burgers to go, please."
"Eight ...? Right, eight Megas, to go, coming up."
Gally, if it were she, was a short, elfin girl with straight
black hair that barely reached her shoulders. She possessed
the grace of a martial artist in full measure and was almost
superhumanly fast and deft. Her only unusual features were
the black lines beneath her eyes, but both Akane and Nabiki
received a clear impression of hidden depths, as though
beneath her unmarked arms and perfect skin a whole
collection of scars lurked: unseen, yet not unfelt.
Akane, however, quickly found herself distracted from
questions of deeper reality by her stomach's reaction to the
_enormous_ piles of savory ground beef, bacon and onions
being constructed at lightning speed before her eyes. She
_had_ been to a McDonald's before , of course. She had even
ordered a burger there, so she _was_ aware of the concept
involved. But the idea of 'burger' that she had previously
been aware of did not really seem to have much to do with
the things that were taking shape before her eyes.
"So, Ranma-kun," Gally said over her shoulder, "what doing
were you that touched off an eight-Mega hunger? I mean 'What
were you doing?'"
"Aaaactually ... it's closer to a three-Mega hunger, Gally
-kun. But Acchan here will probably need a little more."
"She's in the same, errr, 'business', Ranma-kun?"
Ranma smiled quietly, "I've taken her as a student."
Gally whipped around and stared at Ranma for a moment,
big-eyed. Ranma flushed slightly and mumbled, "She shows
great promise."
One of the burgers chose that moment to expel some of its
grease onto the grill, hissing and spitting. Gally gave a
small shriek and whipped into a cooking frenzy, getting the
burgers back under control. "Well, I'm glad that it's just
normal ..." she trailed off.
Ranma raised an eyebrow at her back and asked, "Yes?"
"It's just that I ... well, yesterday I suddenly got um...
it was like I suddenly got the idea that you were a lot of
trouble in. Silly, huh? Hugo told me that he had a bad
feeling about mid-morning, too. Said it was like 'A goose
had walked across his grave.' Honestly, know where he comes
up with these things I don't."
Ranma sweat-dropped briefly. "Ahh, yeah. Silly. How _is_
Hugo-kun, anyway? And Ido-sensei?"
"Ohh, Hugo's _just_ fine. He and Ido are both doing things
at Nekomi Tech, you know. Techy stuff." She grinned briefly,
and fairly lit up the room. "It's entirely too geekly for me
to be interested in, but it makes them _so_ happy...."
"Yee-es," Ranma drawled, "I _do_ seem to recall you being
more on the side of, mmmm, _practical implementation_, shall
we say?"
"Be nice, Ranma-kun. So I like moving fast and blowing
things up good. Is that any reason for you to be mean to
me?" Ranma smirked. "Oh! That reminds me," Gally continued,
"Hugo and Ido have joined a motor club at NIT. Would you
come out to the races with us?"
"If nothing, mmm, _serious_ intervenes, sure. When and
where?"
Gally finished the first burger and whipped it in front of a
nearly drooling Akane, who launched into it with vigor.
"I'll get word to you when I know when the next race will be
held."
She put together a smaller burger that she had somehow
hidden amongst the others and wrapped rice paper around it,
handing it to Nabiki. "First hit's free," she winked.
A short time later on the way out the door, loaded down with
a _huge_ fast-food sack, Ranma turned back briefly. "...
soon, Gally-kun. For some reason I think that we're about to
suffer from an enormous addiction to ground beef," and
winked in turn.
------------------------------------------------------------
Nabiki was somewhat amazed at herself, but exceedingly
amazed at her companions.
The burgers were as good as anything Kasumi could have made,
and the relatively smallish one she had eaten was still
larger than anything that she, an experienced consumer of
munchies, would have believed she could have found room for
so soon after breakfast. Yet it was less than a third the
size of the _eight_ that the slight chef had made for Ranma
and her sister.
Nabiki was not sure whether to be more amazed that Ranma had
finished _two_ of them, that her _sister_ had finished two
of them, that Akane had eaten them with such voraciousness,
that Ranma had put _three_ of them back for later in the
school day, or that she was still carrying one of them in
her hand, perhaps to eat on the walk _to_ school.
But what Nabiki was _really_ amazed by was that Akane could
pack away a major Kasumi-style breakfast, follow it with
_two_ piles of meat, cheese, vegetables and bread that must
have tipped the scales at a kilo each, and _still_ have the
energy to jump about like a moderately demented ping-pong
ball while "attacking" Ranma.
At least Ranma was being sensible and remaining serene in
her manner. Though it was a sobering exhibition of just how
good she truly was to note that she was facing down a sword
with a folding fan ... and kicking Akane's butt without so
much as breaking a sweat.
Nabiki stole a moment from admiring the martial arts
exhibition to take another searching look at the fan. Nabiki
harbored suspicions about that fan. Normal fans, after all,
do not deflect sword-blades, nor can they be used as
leverage to flip an opponent fifty feet into the air.
The thing was, though, that it couldn't be a gunsen at all.
It was plainly visible to anyone's sight: a simple, folding
bamboo frame, covered with plain rice paper that had never
even been died or patterned. To Nabiki's eye it seemed to be
a well-used three or four years old, and the only thing on
it was a small calligraphed phrase that appeared to be an
autograph, or similar, running along one edge.
"Umm, Ranma-san?" Akane slid forward along the fence,
Isileth at mid-guard. Ranma looked down towards Nabiki's
upturned face and flicked down beside her as Akane
slide-stepped forward along the fence-top.
"Yes, Nabiki-kun?" Ranma lightly rapped Akane's ankles,
sending her forward another dozen paces as she struggled to
control herself.
"I was just wondering where you'd gotten that fan from?"
Nabiki indicated the fan in question with a gesture as Akane
regained control by jumping up and high into the air.
"Well, I bought it for Sensei, once ..." Ranma gestured
widely with the folded implement.
"Haaaah!" Akane came down in a falling pear-splitter.
*whsssh* Which Ranma dodged, gently guiding the blade past
with the fan before *whrt* flicking her high into the air
again. "Whooaaa!"
"... and when, later, I left his school, so to ..." Ranma
flowed around to Nabiki's outer side with respect to the
street as Akane flipped in mid-air and came back down.
"Not that ..." she began to snarl *hfff* as Ranma guided to
sword-blade past herself again. Akane evaded a fan twist and
lunged, perfectly in control. There was a *klng* as Ranma
blocked the blow close and a rapid-fire *klk-klak-klik* as
they fenced for fractions of a second before *whf* another
blow went past and Akane's ".. eas.." trailed off behind
another *whrt* "... eeeeee!" *THUD*
"... speak, he gave it back. It's just a keepsake, really."
Ranma hid her face behind the fan in a moderately
provocative manner as Akane thumped into a telephone pole
down the street.
"But you're blocking a _sword_ with it! _And_ flipping my
little sister umpty-dozen feet in the air. Why doesn't it
break?" Nabiki asked plaintively as Akane pushed herself
away from the pole.
"You should try not to pay so much attention to the world's
little illusions, Nabiki-kun." Ranma winked.
Akane put Isileth away and threw her arms out in a great,
wrenching yawn as Ranma and Nabiki came level with her.
"Ahhhh! Ranchan, I don't think I'm going to get that one
easily on my own. It ought to be easier; just what are you
doing, anyway?"
The explanation Ranma gave Akane lost Nabiki in martial arts
technicalities almost immediately, and she tuned it out to
concentrate Ranma's comment. 'Try not to pay so much
attention to the little illusions? Huh?'
She was not able to concentrate her attention on the
question for long, however, as she was distracted by a loud
growl next to her. Looking around, she saw that Akane was
paper-white and holding her stomach with both hands.
"Ranchan ...," Akane whispered, in a small, panicked voice,
but Ranma had already unwrapped the burger she had been
holding and put into her hand. Akane looked at it in shock
for a moment before all but falling on it slavering.
Nabiki looked on with concern as her sister ravened her way
through her (effectively) fifth full breakfast of the
morning. She would have been far more distressed, of course,
had Ranma herself not so obviously anticipated it, but still
....
Akane herself was no little worried. "Ranchan, what's
happening to me?"
"You used up a _whole_ bunch of resources yesterday, Acchan.
In fact, I would estimate that you used up about twice what
you had available. So you , we, had to borrow some more, so
to speak. This is just the pay-back. Well, and the interest
too, of course."
"Me and my big ideas," Akane muttered.
"So you'll stay behind, next time?" Ranma asked hopefully.
Akane's glare required no translation. "You _did_ say that
you _did_ need me along, _right_?" she purred.
Ranma sweat-dropped and blushed, grinning weakly, "Errr.
Yeah."
"So there."
------------------------------------------------------------
The room was mostly dark, if you didn't count the TV.
Normally, Sayuri was as capable of vegging out as any
teenager, but that was when she had a choice whether to do
so or not. Of course, she could have turned the lights up
... then she could have spent whole ... seconds cataloging
the flowers and plants.
As of the last time she had done so, fifteen minutes ago,
there had been 35.
Or, she could read. The signs on the wall, for instance.
Why, there must be ... twenty of them. That had been half an
hour ago.
Of course, looked at objectively, it was sufficient of a
miracle that she was alive for the sheer lack of anything to
do to drive her crazy in the first place. She certainly
shouldn't complain that her family had been too distracted
by her miraculous recovery to remember to leave her any
books. Or even homework.
Or, she could review her suspicions about the source of that
'miracle' for the ... twenty-third ... time. Or, she could
get right up and wander about in the _lovely_ hospital,
wearing the _lovely_ hospital gown that was actually _more_
embarrassing than if they'd left her naked.
At least there weren't any IVs left. Although there wouldn't
be anyone out there to talk to except patients she didn't
know and who certainly had worse problems than her and staff
members who certainly wouldn't have time to amuse one
teenage girl.
It was certainly a better policy to wait quietly until
someone came to visit her. If she avoided straining
anything, they might let her go home, she supposed, sometime
next week.
Sayuri leaned back in her bed and watched the television's
flickering glow for a few moments, then slung her feet over
the edge of the bed and found a spare gown. This she put on
over her original gown, but backwards. She topped off with a
towel from the bathroom wrapped around her waist. Then she
opened the door and went out into the corridors.
It was either that, or another dubbed episode of Wheel of
Fortune.
------------------------------------------------------------
Kodachi lay back in her bed with the TV off, and gathered
her strength. Her leg was still very weak, in her
estimation, and her face ached in a pattern that suggested
to her that she might well end up with a permanent scar. Her
eyes were closed in concentration, because she was
attempting something that she had only heard stories about.
She was trying to visualize all of the relevant acupuncture
points for legs and arms and to connect them in a chi
circulation circuit. It didn't help that she had never
actually even felt her chi per se, of course, but it was
something to do to pass the time until her torturer/
therapist showed up.
And keeping her eyes closed to concentrate on her
visualization meant that she didn't have to look at her
room.
Which didn't have anything in it to look at but the flowers
that Ranma-sensei and Akane-san had left.
And she knew what _they_ looked like.
Unfortunately, self-hypnosis had never been among the skills
she had mastered, nor was she particularly skilled in
mediation. Despite her best efforts the necessary distance
from the red dust of earth would not come to her. Thus, the
unexpected opening of her door came as something of a
relief. It _was_ a little odd, since it was outside the
nurse's and therapist's schedules and no-one was likely to
come by to visit _her_ in the middle of a school-day, but
_some-one_ appeared to have done so. She sat up in bed and
raised her lights.
The appearance of a small, long-haired girl in two hospital
gowns and a towel was thus somewhat unexpected.
------------------------------------------------------------
The school-yard before first bell was a hotbed of rumor and
speculation.
The only sure information was that Sayuri had come out of
her coma at last and that Ranma had had something to do with
it. Persistent rumor whispered Akane's name as well; said
that she had died curing Sayuri's illness; said that _Ranma_
had died curing Sayuri's illness; said that Ranma and Akane
had died _together_, and in each other's arms; said that the
"in each other's arms" part was right but that they were
still quite alive, thank you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink,
etc.); denied all of the above for the thought that Sayuri's
"illness" had been induced by The Forces Of Darkness, who
had finally been defeated by Magical Girl Ranma and her
apprentice; and threw around other thoughts, some of which
were very strange and inaccurate indeed. The absence of
Furinkan's normal source of rumors and hearsay, Tendo
Nabiki, did nothing but add fuel to the fire.
Yuka had originally been besieged, but since she had been
otherwise occupied worrying about Sayuri she had little data
to give. This had caused the crowd to fragment and so she
had had to latch on to Daisuke and Hiroshi in order to have
someone to speculate with. Nonetheless, she was the first to
hear the distant voices, silver and gold.
I was riding west, through Ontake Mountains.
The hills were heavy with new-fallen snow,
And the sun-bright hills were dappled like a pony,
I was riding hard, I had miles to go.
And a magpie flew, 'cross the mountain highway,
It flashed and tumbled, through the golden trees,
And I thought of you, and my heart was lifted,
And floated with that magpie, on the morning breeze.
Hiroshi and Daisuke noticed her silence and then, moments
later, the reason for it. Caught up between going to hear
the voices better and gaining height so they could see
better, the Average Pair settled for trying to shush people
instead.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end only love remains.
Across the Furinkan schoolyard ripples of silence spread, as
the spell of leaping flame and swirling wind touched briefly
here and there and then passed on.
Tonight the Harvest Moon hangs over the valley,
I see the hills shine, in its silvery light.
It's the same old Moon, that shines down upon me,
And'll light my way, till I'm by your side.
For where I go, You go with me,
Though the miles keep us apart.
Your kisses on my lips, and your arms around me,
And your gentle hands, always on my heart.
Some heard in the song confirmations of theories. Some did
not.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end only love remains.
Nabiki, walking just behind Ranma and Akane, marveled. She
had always known that her little sister was good at martial
arts, but who would have thought that _this_ was hiding
under there, too.
Well who scattered these diamonds,
through the vault of Heaven?
Who drew the curve of the magpie's wing?
Who shaped your face, and what made you love me?
Where is the heart of every living thing?
Well, I guess I don't know, and I don't care either.
I know you love me, how could it not be?
And I am yours, now and forever,
'Til my lips fall silent, and my eyes can't see.
Somewhere in the back of her mind words like 'Idol' and
'Agent' were flashing, surrounded by scads of beautiful yen
signs, but for the moment even Nabiki was lost in the song.
We are brief Summer lightning,
We are swift as swallows' flight.
We are sparks that spiral upwards,
In the darkness of the night.
We are frost upon the window,
We won't pass this way again,
In the end Dear, only love remains.
Ranma and Akane entered the schoolyard to a wall of stunned
silence.
Akane almost blushed, but Ranma smiled broadly and spread
her arms wide and the walls of Furinkan picked up her
shouted "Good Morning, Furinkan!" and blurred it back into a
roaring cheer.
Yuka hurtled from her position by the doors with a cry of
"Ranma-san, Akane-chan!" Like a hyperactive heat-seeking
missile she hurled herself into Ranma's arms shouting "Thank
you! Thank you for saving Sayuri-chan!" Slipping free from a
slightly staggered Ranma she turned on Akane, and froze with
a cry of shock.
Yuka's wailed "Akane-san! What happened?!" pretty well
silenced the cheering and when Yuka gently grasped Akane's
blushing face by the chin and turned her head everyone could
see the scars - and see, also, the night-black void of the
eye beneath them, lit now by nebulas of flaming red and
swirling gold.
The stunned silence lasted for several seconds as Akane's
blush achieved near nuclear proportions but the blush faded
instantly when Yuka broke the silence ... by bursting into
tears.
Akane swept Yuka into her arms and hugged her hard. "Shh,
Yuka-chan. It's all right. I'm not hurt, it's just a scar,
like; the eye still works."
"But ... *snff* ... I mean, are you sure Akane-san? It looks
like ..."
Akane blushed again, but rallied, "I'm _sure_, believe me.
It looks weird as hell, but everything works just fine."
"But _how_?" Yuka said.
"Oh, well," Ranma said, dryly, "she _is_ a hero, you know."
"But then why don't _you_ have one, Ranma-san?" someone
called.
Ranma ran a possessive hand over her flaming hair and said,
"Each to their own."
A small wave of chuckles was broken by another cry from the
rear ranks: "Three cheers for Ranma and Akane!"
"Banzai!!"
Ranma smirked and covered her mouth with her fan as Akane's
blush went beyond Mega-Nuclear to Don't Point That At My
Planet.
"_Banzai!!_"
Akane resolved to kill the person who had spoken, but
afterwards. Still, no-one had ever cheered _her_ before.
When you came down to it, it was kind of nice.
"BANZAI!!"
And the left eye in her thrown back face flamed, briefly, a
solid gold.
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma and Akane: A Love Story
Chapter 6: Immediate Consequences
Part C: When I Was A Fighting Man, The Kettle-Drums They Beat
------------------------------------------------------------
The trouble with being a hero, Akane decided, is that the
effort required to be one tends to distract you from
whatever else you're doing, but you still have to do it
anyway. Or, at least, you still have to do it if 'it' is
schoolwork.
Also, teachers are remarkably resistant towards accepting 'I
spent most of yesterday in Hell. I didn't have _time_ to do
homework.' as an excuse. (What was _truly_ irritating was
that Ranma _had_ done her homework.)
After your whole school has cheered you as a hero, being
sent into the hall for the buckets can be a terrible
letdown.
But, somehow, it wasn't. She considered her feelings as she
stood in the hall, and tried to pin down just _why_ it
wasn't.
Mostly, she decided, because it really didn't matter. The
school knew. She knew. Ranma knew. Probably even the
teachers knew. It was more a matter of the routine
maintenance of order than anything really serious. It wasn't
like the 'shame' was going to blight her record.
Really, she suddenly realized, it wasn't as if her school
record had any _real_ meaning. Even if she didn't stay with
Ranchan after her high-school days were behind her (she knew
she couldn't, and the thought was more painful than any
other she'd ever had), her life had taken an irrevocable
turn for the weird and the adventurous.
It would not be possible for her to live a normal life as a
normal Japanese girl. Had it ever _been_ possible? Well, she
wasn't sure, any more than she was sure just what it _was_
possible for her to be.
She supposed she'd find out.
------------------------------------------------------------
It was weird.
This girl. Sayuri. She'd just ... wandered in and started
talking.
Weird.
Hadn't even wanted anything from her, hadn't wanted
information. Just kept her company. Sympathized with her.
Wasn't related to her, didn't owe her anything. Didn't even
go to the same school. She'd even had to ask her _name_.
Hadn't connected her to her brother until Kodachi herself
had mentioned it. Sayuri had been surprised.
So, if she didn't want to be seen with Kodachi for social
purposes (in a hospital?), and didn't want access to her
brother, what _did_ she want?
Kodachi was forced to conclude that she wanted to be
friends.
Strange. Very, very strange.
Kodachi had never had .... Well, _of course_ she'd had
friends. She'd had lots of them. But she'd never had ....
She'd never had a friend who was just ... a friend.
She was even ... protective. _Actually_ protective. She'd
gotten _very_ mad that no-one from St. Herebreke had stopped
by, or even sent a card.
She had ... she had ... she'd shared her views on school
with Kodachi. Just talking. She'd _gossiped_. Just like they
were two schoolgirls. Just like Kodachi was a normal girl.
_No-one_ had _ever_ treated Kodachi like she was a normal
girl. Ever.
Well, there was no reason for them to. She was _Kuno
Kodachi_. She was _rich_. She was special.
Wasn't she?
------------------------------------------------------------
Sayuri felt that Kodachi must be very brave. She had stood
up to a dreadful monster (_she_ knew) and she wasn't even
depressed about the scar on her face or anything.
Mind, Sayuri also felt that the scar actually looked good.
For a scar, that is. Sort of piratical. But Kodachi was
going to have an operation to have it removed, soon. Which
was good, because a girl really shouldn't have scars for
very long because people could react badly.
What Sayuri was actually concerned with, of course, was
Kodachi's potential ability to attract a boyfriend. She
would have recommended someone, but she didn't know any
decent ones herself. It was, she felt, already sufficiently
difficult to find a good prospect without having to worry
about turning them off because of a scar.
Sayuri had awoken with memories. She wasn't entirely sure
about the veracity of _all_ of them. But she remembered
enough. Ranma- and Akane-sempai had come to get her. They
had rescued her in some way or another. She would have to
ask Ranma-sempai about exactly what had gone on.
Central to the traditional moral character of Japanese
society are four interlinked concepts: On, Gimu, Giri
and Ninjo. While translations are, by nature, inexact,
a Westerner would probably translate them as
Reciprocity, Piety, Duty and Compassion.
Reciprocity requires acknowledgment and repayment of
debt, including honor debt. Piety exhorts the debtor to
allegiance to the debt-holder's cause, in ongoing
repayment of debts otherwise too great to fully repay.
Duty invokes the balancing of obligations as the
highest function of an honorable life. Compassion
requires empathy with others, and recognizes that all
people are one, beneath the surface differences that
karma imposes.
Ranma-sempai and Akane-sempai had stormed Hell itself to
rescue her, for compassion's sake. Sayuri wasn't sure that
the debt could be repaid, but she was determined to try.
Showing compassion herself seemed to be a good way to start.
Besides, she truly did like the older girl. And there was no
doubt in her mind that Kodachi _needed_ a little compassion,
needed it badly. It was in the eyes, a certain mix of
defensiveness and loneliness. She had seen it before.
Once Yuka had had that look, when she was new to Junior
High. She had offended the dignity of one of the fashionable
cliques, and had been nearly shunned for her trouble. Akane
had noticed it and had dragged Sayuri into a friendship that
had never since faltered. Then later Akane herself had begun
to grow that look, and Sayuri had not at all known what to
do about it.
Greater than all other terrors is helplessness. Three times
in her life Sayuri had felt that great terror, once in
retrospect and twice directly. Once she had been saved by
Akane, once by Ranma, once by both.
But in the course of that last rescue, running up a long
slope, she had discovered that she need no longer be
helpless. She had found a source of power in the bone-
handled hilts of a pair of long knives. (Or perhaps she had
discovered the power earlier, beneath the knife and the
iron. But she did not send her mind back to that place of
lies to see.)
She had left the knives behind, imbedded in sulfurous dust
and ichor-stained flesh. And yet, in some way, she still
seemed to feel them within her hand, warm and sure-gripped,
almost alive in their response to her arm and will.
Knives can be used for many things. Sayuri was a good cook,
and experienced with knives.
It came to her, looking at the darkness in Kodachi's dark
eyes, that no-one who has a knife is truly helpless. It came
to her that there are many kinds of knives. The lurking
darkness was a bitter enemy, but it was an enemy that she
had faced before, and it seemed to her that she might just
have a knife fit to cut it.
Sayuri chatted on, using gossip and patter, talk of the
latest shows and magazines, what idol singer was hot, what
idol singer was cold, and how long they each would stay that
way. What Kodachi did at home, what Sayuri did at home.
Recipes and music and video-games and sweets and boys.
Within fifteen minutes she had giggles. Within an hour they
were chatting away as if they had known each other all their
lives. Just as if they were at a sleep-over. Just as if they
were talking after school. Just as if they were passing
notes in class. Just a normal conversation, between two
normal teen-age girls, who happen to be best friends.
Normality and friendship, to cut the dark away. Strange
knives to make strange cuts, Sayuri thought. But you had to
take your knives where you found them sometimes. After all,
strange or not, a knife was a knife. And Sayuri was good
with knives.
------------------------------------------------------------
By lunchtime, she had a pile of notes that almost covered
her desk. Fortunately, the teacher was understanding.
Unfortunately, there was no way she could possibly reply to
most of them. She didn't even dare read them, in case one of
them asked something she couldn't afford to react to.
Fame and triumph could be quite wearing.
As could other things as well, of course.
There was, in one corner of Furinkan yard, a tree. This had
a low lying, broad, flat limb perhaps four or five feet off
the ground. Underneath the limb there was a sheltered spot
of shade. This collective area had been annexed by Ranma
soon after she arrived at Furinkan, and was already locally
known by the students thereof as Ranma's Branch and Akane's
Spot.
Ranma would stretch out on the limb and idle, while Akane
sat underneath her in the shade and dozed or ate, frequently
listening to Ranma play the flute or lecture on some arcane
bit of cultural trivia or other. Under normal circumstances
Ranma considered lunch a thing which should not be trivially
disturbed. Today, however, was not a normal circumstance.
For some reason best known to herself, Ranma had decreed a
period of weapons drill. This involved several annoyances,
from Akane's point of view. First, it meant that she had to
cram down a great deal of food in a great hurry, which she
considered distasteful. Second, it required her to bounce
around like a superball even to avoid embarrassing herself
against Ranma's skill.
Third, it meant that she had to exercise even greater
control over her movements than would normally be the case
in a sparring match, lest she injure another student.
Fourth, even despite this control, it was positively amazing
how little protection a sword blade, a cupped hand-guard and
a blade-breaker hilt could be against a fan.
Lastly, Ranma regarded sparring time as an excellent forum
for developing her cultural literacy, her store of trivia
and her aptitude for quotation. Generally, by quoting
extensively and extempore from the _Tale of Genji_ or _The
Dream of the Red Chamber_. Translating the latter in
midstream, of course, because Akane was quite incapable of
speaking Chinese. Worse, Ranma meant to develop her ability
to quote passages back, and was unerring in her ability to
remember what Akane was already supposed to have heard (and,
therefor (naturally), know by heart.)
Altogether, it was enough to drive a respectable Tendo to
tears. Or something. And she had discovered that she
_despised_ the _Dream of the Red Chamber_. (Partly because
getting passages thrown at you between the hand-strokes is
_not_ the way to develop an appreciation for literary
complexities or for the subtleties of the prophetic heroic
form as Ranma interpreted it. And partly because, in her
humble opinion, _The Dream Of the Red Chamber_ _sucked
rocks_.)
All in all, she would much have preferred if nothing _else_
had managed to come up. Unfortunately, Ranma's attitude of
sunny certainty that no additional straw that might be piled
atop her would _actually_ be the one straw too many seemed
to be rubbing off on some of the other people around her.
Such, for instance, as Nabiki.
------------------------------------------------------------
|Step forward. Feint. Three arc. Four-corner.|
Spin. Sidestep-leap. Block low-to-high-to-cross-guard. Leap.
"Umm. Ranma-san?" Uncertainty was uncharacteristic for
Nabiki, but she didn't normally try to talk business with
someone who was busy using a fan to chase someone who was
using a sword around Furinkan yard. "Can I talk to you two
about something?" At least Ranma wasn't moving very fast.
|Casual feint. Side-swipe. Jodan. Chudan.|
Land blocking. Slide back. Disengage. Block low-to-high.
"Sure, Nabiki-san. What's on your mind?" Ranma moved Akane
sideways, so that she wouldn't crowd Nabiki. "Acchan, if you
don't attack you're going to lose, you know."
|Slide-strike. Reverse kick. Three-strike. Jodan.|
Parry. Riposte-to-stop block. Disengage, under cover. Duck.
"What's up, Oneechan?" Akane chirped brightly, "And Ranchan,
you know I'm gonna lose anyway. If I keep on the defensive,
you might make a mistake."
|V-step. Sweep-to-Gedan. Slap parry-and-bind. Flip.|
Sweep kick-to-tumble dodge. Jump. Jodan cross. 'ohshit' WHAM
"Waiting for your opponent to make a mistake is very
passive, Acchan." Ranma chided, gently, "You should be
causing mistakes, because a skilled opponent won't make any
otherwise." As Akane spun through the air, Ranma raised an
eyebrow, "See?"
Akane had managed to rotate upright as she flew, but had not
managed to get her legs in line with the wall. A puff of
dust rose from the impact, and she stayed flattened against
the wall about five feet off the ground for a moment before
slowly sliding down. Nabiki winced, a reaction shared by
many of the watching students.
Her eyes wide and unfocussed, Akane shook her head as she
reached the ground. "Theoretically, anyway," she mumbled,
"Where'd that wall come from, anyway?"
Ranma's lip curved upward in a gentle smile. "It's been
there for twenty years or so, I think. They don't usually
move."
"Funny." Akane pushed herself to her feet, sheathing her
sword. "I'm going to put the sword up and start using a
stick. It'd be faster."
Ranma smiled slightly, before turning back to Nabiki.
------------------------------------------------------------
And then there had been the weird thing that Nabiki had
wanted to ask. Akane would never in her wildest dreams have
expected Nabiki to declare that she and Ranma were as good
as idol singers, nor have expected that Nabiki would offer
to have a demo made.
She probably _should_ have expected it, but she hadn't. She
_had_ expected Ranma's reaction. She even agreed with it,
although she was a _little_ sorry that she wouldn't get to
hear their songs on the radio. But being an idol singer
would cut _much_ too far into training time, and other
things.
And besides, if being famous just in Furinkan was this ...
embarrassing, what might being famous on the street be like?
When you thought about it, fame was something of an
impediment to a Martial Artist, really. She should do her
best to avoid it. In the future. You bet.
Still. It _was_ a shame.
------------------------------------------------------------
'Thirty spokes meet at a nave,' Kodachi thought, sadly,
'Because of the hole we may use the wheel.' Sayuri was
dancing around the edges of something.
It showed up in the pauses. Like many things, really. A
matter of things not said, of topics not raised.
She was good at it, and good at detecting it. All she had to
do now was steer the conversation a little and she would
find out what it was. Sayuri was _not_ good at it.
She didn't want to.
It would be ... she had ... Sayuri ...
It had been _so_ much fun, thinking that Sayuri wanted just
to be her friend. She really didn't want to find out what
Sayuri's ulterior motives were. She really didn't. But, she
had to.
She set about doing so. Slowly, gently. Piece by piece. The
spokes define the wheel, but the part you use is at the
center, and around the edge. If you look at the shape of the
wall, you can, if you're good, tell what lies _behind_ the
wall.
Piece by piece, the picture grew, but the picture made no
sense. It was ....
It was almost as though _she_ didn't matter at all, but then
in the next instant it was as though she _did_ matter, but
not because of who she was, but just because ....
It made no sense. If Sayuri wanted Kodachi to do something
_for_ her, she should be interested in what Kodachi _was_;
what her contacts were, who she knew, which circles she
moved in. And she wasn't, didn't care at all. On that point,
if on no other, Kodachi was willing to swear.
Oh, Sayuri would _talk_ about them, but she was more
interested in how Kodachi felt, in what _she_ thought of
them. She didn't seem to have any idea of how they could be
used, or even that they _could_ be used. She seemed,
honestly, to feel as though they were part of a world in
which she would never move, or even wished to.
Now, if Sayuri wanted Kodachi to enhance her standing in her
own social circles, she should be interested in either
getting Kodachi to visit that circle or in getting to visit
_Kodachi's_. And she wasn't, especially.
Kodachi thought that it was _vaguely_ possible that she
could be wrong, ... there was this 'mall hanging' thing that
Sayuri had mentioned, and she was positively _enthusiastic_
about a 'slumber party' ... she _thought_ she knew what
those were, but ... it seemed to _her_ that someone ... well
it was the same problem as before. Sayuri should be looking
for details, names to drop, commitments, something of that
sort.
But, she just wasn't.
The _other_ odd thing was the apprehension. It was fairly
well buried, but there was definitely a thread of ... well,
not _fear_ exactly, but something like it. But it wasn't
directed at her. It seemed almost as though Sayuri was
_worried_. Worried about Kodachi and worried about herself,
at the same time. And Kodachi was willing to say that the
worries had the same _cause_, too.
Now. What could ....
Hmmm.
Well, what had Ranma-sensei said that Sayuri was in the
hospital for, anyway? She was sure that she had heard ....
Oh, yes! Sayuri had been ... unconscious ... because ....
Sayuri, she suddenly remembered, had been unconscious,
almost in a coma, because of something that had happened to
her during the attack by that _creature_. She might have
also been attacked. Ranma-sensei, she remembered, had seemed
almost worried.
Not good. No telling what ... She didn't look _physically_
damaged, but ....
Oh, dear.
Well. She would simply have to find out. If ... something
... _had_ happened, then ....
Well, then _she_, Kuno Kodachi, still the Black Rose, would
have _two_ grievances. Very severe ones.
_And_, she, Kodachi, would also have a friend, or, at least,
a companion in suffering, who she would be responsible for.
Sayuri seemed to think that _she_ could, and should, protect
_Kodachi_. From the terrible threat of being lonely, if from
nothing else. Who knew? Perhaps she was right.
Slowly, again, and carefully, Kodachi began to move the
conversation to her will. But not, this time, to steer a
wheel.
This task would require strength, as much as guile. It was
obvious that Sayuri would not willingly speak of her
troubles; and yet, she was also carrying some great weight.
If she was given reason to place the burden, or part of it,
on another's shoulders, would she not do so?
Kodachi was quite sure that she could carry at least as
large a load as Sayuri did. Whatever she was carrying,
Kodachi could bear it.
Slowly. Cautiously. Carefully. Making words into clay.
Moulding clay into a cup. Piece by piece, turn by turn,
layer by layer. Not to build a wall, not to weave a net, but
merely to shape a space, that Sayuri must eventually fill.
The Clay is merely the vessel; it is the hollow that makes
the cup.
------------------------------------------------------------
Music was being ... interesting.
Maeda-sensei (Music) had been approached by Hachisuka-sensei
(English). The result of which was ....
"Okaaay." Yuka held her head. "Ranma-sempai's going to help
us learn better English by _Karaoke_?!"
Ranma chuckled. "Not _quite_, Yuka-kun. I'm going to teach
you to _sing_ better English. It should help your accents
and word choice."
"Do you even _know_ any popular English songs, Ranchan?"
Akane queried.
"Oi!" Ranma snapped, frostily. "_Certainly_ I do! I'm just
trying to figure out which ones they are!"
"Ah." Akane met Ranma's glance with an expression of pure,
wide eyed innocence.
Ranma red-eyed her. "Biiiiidah!"
"Now," Ranma turned back to her notes, "Ah-hah! Found it.
This one was on the radio when I was in Chicago. I think it
was some movie tune or other. Anyway. Page ... ah ... page
32. See it?"
Various rustlings ensued as people flipped papers and stared
at them.
"Okay," Ranma bent forward, sitting on a chair with her
guitar in her lap, "the chords go like this, and the first
verse is ...
Sometimes the snow comes down in June
Sometimes the sun goes round the moon
I see the passion in your eyes
Sometimes it's all a big surprise
The author will be kind, and spare his readers any attempt
at describing the cacophony which followed.
Ranma winced. Hard. "Ahhhh. Lets ... lets take it one line
at a time, okay?"
Sometimes the snow comes down in June
"No, Yuka-kun; 'snow' not 'srow'....
------------------------------------------------------------
It took ages. And long before it ended, Kodachi knew that
she had been wrong. She wasn't strong enough. No human was
strong enough. Except, just possibly, Sayuri.
She had crafted herself a cup, she thought numbly, and now
it overflowed. She had no-one to blame but herself.
Towards the beginning, she had moved herself, and her
injured leg, next to Sayuri, seeking to offer comfort. That
was towards the beginning.
But it was not long before she realized that she was
desperately trying to build a defense. A wall of dispassion
and distance. Between herself and the quiet voice, quietly
reciting horrors. As though they were distant and
unimportant. As though she did not know (but she _did_ know)
that the horror the voice was laying out was horror that the
voice itself had felt, had tasted, had been. As though the
voice had not been part of the horror.
But it had. She _knew_ it had. And _because_ it had, she was
part of the horror, too.
Long before the story ended, Kodachi was huddled next to
Sayuri. _Seeking_ comfort.
Sayuri seemed pleased to offer it.
Seeking a wall, against the terror of the world. Finding a
rock, to anchor the wall to. Building bricks from words,
rapidly, hastily.
Where there are no walls to offer shelter, a wall may yet be
built. One wall may offer but little shelter, yet where you
may build one wall, you may build another.
And then another yet.
------------------------------------------------------------
She hadn't meant to speak of it. She had told Kodachi too
much. Much too much. The girl was in the _hospital_, darn
it, with her leg all bunged up. What had she been thinking?
She pulled herself together with great force. Someone needed
her help. _Kodachi_ needed her help. You could cling to
that. It was a rock and a pillar, being needed, if you let
it be one.
You could use it, too. You could hold on and let it bear
your weight, and then you could kick rocks out of the side,
and make a staircase. And you could walk up the staircase,
all the way to the top.
------------------------------------------------------------
She didn't remember what she said, or what Sayuri replied,
but somehow Kodachi pulled away. It was a gradual process.
But, bit by bit, she recalled herself to herself, and built
on the foundation that herself provided. When the flood is
sweeping down, you build a wall.
When you've built a wall, you build another, and another,
and another.
When you're surrounded with walls you start building them
higher.
------------------------------------------------------------
Kodachi was withdrawing, and it was all her fault.
Not that she could blame her. If _she_ had had all that ...
nastiness dropped on her, _she'd_ have withdrawn, too. Not
that that made it any better.
But withdrawing was the wrong thing to do, she knew it was.
You had to bide your time, and then you had to go _at_
whatever was wrong, because otherwise it would run over you.
Kodachi had something wrong. Well, aside from the leg, and
the scar, which were obvious. There was something _else_
wrong, too. She didn't know what it was, or how to find out,
but she knew it was there.
And if Kodachi withdrew, if she put up walls around herself,
whatever it was would just _sit_ there and get worse and
_worse_ ....
She was supposed to be Kodachi's _friend_. Some friend.
It was all her fault.
So she would have to fix it.
She didn't know _how_ she would, but she would have to find
a way. She was not going to stand helplessly by. Never stand
by helplessly again.
------------------------------------------------------------
Late at night, a big ole house gets lonely,
I guess every form of refuge has it's price
As the school day at Furinkan ended, some of the departing
student body behaved in unusual ways. Most of them, of
course, promptly scattered for home or their normal after-
school activities, breaking up into pairs and singletons and
small groups. But two large clots of students did _not_
break up, but remained coherent.
He looked at the chart but he looked in vain
Heavy cloud but no rain
One group, all boys, was joined by a small man with a
ferocious white mustache, who rounded them up and marched
them off. The other, about twenty students of mixed gender,
wandered off down the road. A casual observer would have
noticed that they were traveling in the general direction of
Nerima General Hospital.
Cause there was a time when all I did was wish
You'd tell me this was love
A _careful_ observer would have noticed that some of them
were singing. A _very_ careful observer might also have
noticed that, while the voices that were singing tended to
alternate, two were predominate, with at least one of the
two always involved. A furry, golden contralto, and a pure
silver mezzo-soprano. But it would have to have been a
_careful_ observer.
Now I don't know where the moral is,
Or how this song should end
A _casual_ observer could have followed them, and seen that
they _were_ heading for Nerima General, directly. And a
casual observer might have wondered at their good cheer.
Even people who work at Hospitals are seldom cheerful, and
few people walk to one with laughter and song.
'Cause I don't wanna go on with you like that
Don't wanna be a feather in your cap
And that question, as the group spilled into the lobby of
the Hospital in a flurry of (much quieter) good cheer, would
have taxed even a good observer to the utmost. But no-one
was particularly observing the group at the moment, and so,
no such question was asked.
------------------------------------------------------------
Nabiki made the discovery, and was unsettled. This led to
her finding a nurse, and transferring the unsettlement on.
In a less-well run establishment, the resulting chain
reaction could conceivably have provided amusement for some
time, but fortunately Nerima General was well run.
Shaking her head and talking quietly with Dr. Tofu and the
floor physical therapist, Ranma walked towards Kodachi's
room, followed by Akane and the others, bearing gifts of
flowers purchased in the Hospital Gift Shop.
Shifting her flower arrangement to one hand, Ranma knocked
on the indicated door and opened it, to reveal a pale
Sayuri, sitting in a chair, and a very quiet and still
Kodachi, lying on her bed. She ushered Akane, Yuka and
Tatewaki in the door, waving to the others to wait for a
minute and then closing it after herself.
"I've had complaints about you," Ranma said in a semi-
humorous tone.
Sayuri brought her head around with a mutinous light in her
eyes. "Ranma-sempai! I couldn't just _lie_ there!"
"And why not?" Akane came forward past Ranma and put her
flowers down on Kodachi's table. "Hello, Kodachi-kun, we've
brought you and Sayuri-chan some flowers."
"Oh, no! Akane-chan, I already have more flowers than will
...." As Akane came back around the table Sayuri's eyed
widened and her voice rose to a squeak, as she half rose
from her seat. At the same time, Kodachi sucked in her
breath in a gasp, as Akane's left eye swirled with flecks of
red and gold in the flourescent light.
"Well then," Yuka grinned, "if you don't want the flowers,
we'll give them all to Kodachi-san."
"Akane-chan!" Sayuri wailed as Akane perched on the arm of
her chair and hugged her. "Your eye!"
"What about it?" Akane grinned.
"What _about_ it? It ... you ... but ... Yukaaaa!" Sayuri
clutched at her gown.
"It just changed color, Sayuri-chan. There's nothing wrong
with it." Akane's voice was pure sweet realism.
"_Just_ changed color?! Nothing _wrong_ with it?! Yuuukaaaa!
Reason with her!" Sayuri cringed as she gently reached out a
hand to touch Akane's left cheek. There were scars there,
three scars across the cheek, and she _knew_ in the marrow
of her bones what kind of thing had made them. She had seen
them, often enough, on her own flesh.
Akane-chan! Akane-chan had been hurt! For her! By Them!
Kill! She wanted to kill. She wanted to rip and tear and
smash and destroy! Another of her friends was hurt! If she
had possessed a tail, it would have been bottled out in
pure, furious rage.
Her vision was suddenly forced to timeshare. Yuka's face,
chin pugnaciously forward, thrust itself into her vision.
"We are not here to talk about Akane-chan's eye, Sayuri-
chan." Yuka's voice was low and grim. "We're here to look
after someone who almost got _killed_ on us!" Suddenly Yuka
broke down in tears and glomped Sayuri, trembling. "Don't go
and try to die on us again, Sayuri-chan. We've lost too may
friends from Furinkan as it is."
Kodachi lay on her bed, and felt the walls grow higher. She
watched the little gathering by the bed-side and knew that
she should do something. The face of the Kuno family
demanded that she show ninjo and control in this time of
stress for a friend, but all she could do ....
'Friend'? Yes, she admitted to herself, her friend. Almost
her only friend, and she could bear to do no single thing to
aid ....
Ranma edged a hip onto her bed, drawing her pale and quiet
attention. As the small, red-headed girl reached out a
gentle hand to cup over her scarred face, Kodachi watched
her gravely and traced her own faint scars by eye.
Kodachi fancied that she felt a vague flutter of sensation
along the facial scan. Something almost too faint to discern
and quickly fading. As her brother leaned over, equally
gravely, to kiss her on the forehead, Kodachi almost wept,
but could not. Walls, walls of glass, closing her in.
The walls were bad things, but how could she exist without
them? Even the friendship and concern between Sayuri, Yuka
and Akane would be too much for her to bear just now, if she
must confront them head on.
Sayuri shook her head free of the tri-fold hug and looked
concernedly at Akane again. "But, Akane-chan, it _looks_
...."
"Feh," Akane said. "Never you mind. Ranchan says it makes me
look rakish."
"Well," said Ranma, calmly, "it _does_."
"Oh." Sayuri blinked at Ranma, blinked at Akane, blinked at
Ranma again. "If you say so, Sempai."
"I do," Ranma said dryly, sliding off the bed. She took the
step necessary to reach Sayuri and took the other girl
gently by the chin, holding her face level and looking deep
into her eyes. Whatever she may have seen there, it seemed
to satisfy her, as when she let go she nodded calmly. "Yes,
you're a lot better. Looks like you're going to get well."
Sayuri stood up, to gain a small advantage by being taller
than the other girl. "I _am_ well, Sempai," she declared
firmly.
Ranma gazed at her through her eyelashes, crossing her hands
behind her back. "You're sure? No nightmares? No lingering
shadows? Everything just fine?"
"I'm _sure_," Sayuri crossed her arms in front of her and
glared at Ranma stubbornly, "no, no and _yes_, just _fine_."
Ranma smiled a somewhat crooked smile and brought out her
right hand, to hold palm upward and cupped in front of
Sayuri. As she focused on it, it filled with a pearlescent
globe of light, which seemed to be filled with colors, or
perhaps they were shapes.
Whatever they may have been, Sayuri leapt backwards with a
strangled shriek, hands curling into claws (or, perhaps, to
feel the hilt of an invisible knife) and rising to strike.
Kodachi, reacting to the threat signal, tensed to defend,
searching automatically for a weapon, buoyed by a momentary
surge of adrenaline.
Ranma simply held the light globe, bestowing upon Sayuri a
somewhat sardonic gaze. Sayuri looked up and down between
Ranma's face and the light a few times, before coming out of
a defensive stance and dropping her arms to fold her hands
together in front of her, ducking her head.
As she did, the light-globe flickered and vanished, and
Ranma stepped forwards again, reaching out with one finger
to tuck it gently underneath her chin and lift up her head.
"You know, Sayuri-chan, even very brave heroes have to take
time out now and then to be healed."
Sayuri flushed scarlet. "Yes, Sempai."
"You're still very much under the _physical_ effects, you
know," Ranma continued gently. "So you _are_ going to listen
to your physical therapist, right?"
Meekly, Sayuri said, "Yes, Sempai."
"And you're going to listen to Dr. Tofu, too, right?"
Diminuendo, "Yes, Sempai."
"And you're going to listen to _me_, right?"
Mumbled, with cast-down eyes, "Yes, Sempai."
Ranma let go of Sayuri's chin. "Good. In that case, I think
that between us we can get you on your feet and back to
school in no time. No time, in this case, being defined as
about a week." Turning to look at Kodachi, as well, "For
both of you. Also, I would like for you two to stay together
and do your exercises together while you're at the Hospital.
I was going to suggest that you visit Kodachi-kun when we
came over today, Sayuri-chan, but since you seem to have
anticipated me ...."
Sayuri blushed again. "I didn't want to just _sit_ there ...
there wasn't anything to do ... Kodachi-chan doesn't have
anything to do either ...."
Ranma grinned at them, "We brought you some magazines, and
some of the makings of a small party. So if the emotional
hullaballoo is over ...."
Akane grinned at her, Tatewaki and Kodachi nodded gravely
and Yuka and Sayuri blushed. And Ranma opened the door to
the teeming (in a sense) multitude (relatively speaking).
------------------------------------------------------------
Bosabosa Daisuke, Furinkan High School Class 2-F, was glad
to be able to (finally) get in the room, pushing past his
eternal partner Chapatsu Hiroshi in his haste. It wasn't so
much that he was eager to see the other half of his normal
double date and the closest thing he had to a girl friend;
although he was.
Nor was it the opportunity to be in the same small room with
the newly triumphant Tendo Akane, although he thought of her
as an acquaintance and hence, in some small way, shared her
glory; although that would certainly be a good thing. It
wasn't even that the same small room would also contain the
exotic and utterly beyond cool new arbiter of stylishness at
Furinkan, Bushiko Ranma; although the closer you stayed to
her the better.
No, the primary reason for his eagerness was much simpler;
he was carrying a large plant, and it was getting darn
heavy.
It's amazing, sometimes, the small points on which destiny
can turn.
He spent the first several moments inside the room looking
for somewhere to set it. Attempting to sort these first
impressions gave him a few odd data points.
First; the room had, in addition to Sayuri-chan, Yuka-chan,
and Akane, Ranma, and Tatewaki-sempai, another occupant.
Second; this occupant was a _very_ pretty girl, somewhat
pale and grave looking.
Third; Tatewaki-sempai was standing by her, and basic
deduction told him that she must be the room's primary
tenant; Tatewaki's sister, who, he believed, was named
Kodachi.
Fourth; there were lots of places to put flowers, because
there were almost none already here.
These facts drew forth a chain of deductions, thusly;
a.) This was a hospital room.
1.) Belonging to Kuno Kodachi.
2.) Who is a very pretty girl.
3.) Who is, in addition, sick.
4.) In the hospital, in fact.
5.) Because of wounds sustained during Heroism.
A.) Which, he, himself, had witnessed.
b.) There were almost no flowers in this room.
1.) Being a hospital room, belonging to Kodachi, etc.
2.) What flowers there were bore tags.
A.) That said Akane, Ranma or Tatewaki.
Therefore:
c.) Kodachi,
1.) Who was in the hospital.
2.) And a Hero.
3.) And a very pretty girl, too.
d.) Had, Almost No Flowers.
1.) Which was Bad.
2.) And would probably make her Unhappy.
3.) Which was Very Bad.
Moreover:
e.) He, Bosabosa Daisuke, had Flowers.
1.) Rather good ones.
2.) Which could be given to Kodachi.
A.) Who was a very pretty girl.
B.) Etcetera.
3.) Which would make her happy.
4.) Which would be a Good Thing.
f.) Kodachi had _not_, previously attended Furinkan.
1.) She had attended some other school.
A.) Which had not, apparently, sent Flowers.
1.) And was, therefor, Forever to be Damned.
2.) She might not be happy with the situation there.
g.) A good impression of Furinkan High School,
1.) As provided by, say, Bosabosa Daisuke.
2.) And possibly others (Grrr).
3.) As opposed to the Other School.
h.) Might induce her to transfer.
1.) To Furinkan.
2.) Which was co-ed.
3.) Where her brother already attended.
Which:
i.) Would increase the number of pretty girls at Furinkan.
1.) By at least one.
2.) Kodachi.
A.) Who was a very pretty girl.
B.) Etcetera.
j.) Which would be a Very Good Thing.
------------------------------------------------------------
The young man with the unruly hair had given her flowers.
This might, in itself, have been considered normal. Many
young men had given her flowers.
The interesting thing was; he had not, thereafter, asked her
for a date.
This was, in her experience, highly abnormal.
Moreover, many of the other people who had come to see
Sayuri, presumably her schoolmates, had _also_ given her
flowers. And none of them had asked her for a date, either.
Or for anything else. Not even obliquely.
It was almost enough to make her think that they liked her.
That was silly, of course, because they hadn't had any
opportunity to like her, or to know her at all. But still.
There was a small party going on. People had brought chips,
and other snacks. Someone had put a few packs of them on her
bed. For her to eat.
It was a nice party, for a hospital room.
She wished she could take part.
But to do so she would have to lower her walls, and if she
did that ....
She opened a bag of chips, and ate a few.
But there were such a lot of people around. If even a few of
them would break the force of anything ... bad ... that
happened, she could get them back up again.
But why would they do that? They didn't know her at all, and
they didn't seem to want anything from her. Or even know
that there was anything to be had.
She ate a few more chips. They weren't too bad.
Not bad at all, really.
------------------------------------------------------------
She watched Kodachi, furtively. It looked like she might be
opening up a bit. It was a _wonderful_ party. Well, for a
hospital room, anyway.
She steered the conversation a little bit, so that it would
include Kodachi, and watched her participate a little. It
was a hard thing to do, which she hadn't really had to do
before, and she didn't think she was doing it very well, but
nobody seemed to mind, or even notice much.
She stole a few more chips from Hiroshi, and tugged her
gowns tighter; defying their natural tendency to flop open.
------------------------------------------------------------
She ate a few more chips, and then a piece of pocky. They
were good.
Gravely, she considered her new flowers.
It occurred to her that _all_ of the flowers had been
brought by (and bought by) students of Furinkan. Akane-san,
Ranma-sensei and oniichan were students there too, after
all.
None of her schoolmates at St. Herebreke had sent her any
flowers. Not one. None of them had even _visited_.
Looking around, it _was_ a nice party.
It occurred to her that there might well be more important
things to look for in a school than exclusivity. When you
looked at things closely.
It occurred to her that, as of tonight, all of the people
whom she might call her friends attended Furinkan.
It occurred to her that all of the people she knew at St.
Herebreke were either enemies, rivals or flunkies.
It occurred to her that flunkies weren't doing her much good
at the moment.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ranma was closeted closely with Sayuri, Dr. Tofu and
Tatewaki, propping herself on the bed where Kodachi could
hear. They were discussing strategies for therapy and
coordinating the therapies that would happen in the
hospital, with those that Sayuri and Kodachi would have to
go through after they got out.
"Okay, Kodachi-chan," Sayuri said, perkily, "that's the
schedule for the hospital sorted out. Do you think we could
keep working together after we get out. Some of these things
are really boring."
Kodachi smiled, for what felt like the first time in weeks,
"I think so, Sayuri-chan. Tatewaki-oniisan?"
Tatewaki blinked, and looked down. "Yes, Imouto-chan?"
"Please have the family lawyers start the necessary
administrative tasks to have me transferred to Furinkan."
"Yeee-ha!" Sayuri leapt up into the air, clapping her hands.
Her hands, being thus occupied, could not tighten the ties
on her hospital gowns.
These, therefor, in conjunction with the prime directive of
their tribe, untied. Which left nothing at all to hold up
the gowns. Which, subsequently, fell down.
Yuka and Akane immediately whapped Hiroshi and Daisuke on
the back of the head.
"What?!" the Average Pair demanded, in unison.
"Hentai," Akane and Yuka explained, not unkindly, also in
unison.
"We didn't even look!" Daisuke complained.
"Well, you should have," Akane replied.
"We didn't get a _chance_ to look!" Hiroshi said at the same
time. Yuka whapped him again. "Ow!"
Tatewaki and Dr. Tofu simultaneously put their heads into
their hands, in pain.
Ranma calmly stood up and handed Sayuri, who was eeping and
trying to cover herself, her gowns.
And Kodachi dissolved into giggles, helplessly.
Sayuri hugged her and the other students gathered around to
congratulate her on transferring.
It was a beginning.
You may build your walls as high and strong as you may
choose. You may lay your roof and floor. But you have not
built yourself a house, until you've built yourself a door.
------------------------------------------------------------
It was late, and the sky was dark and shot with stars.
As they left the hospital, Ranma and Akane walked closely
together, talking. But eventually they came to the street
that led, down one way, to the Tendo Dojo, and down another,
to Ranma's apartment. Here they paused for a while.
Finally, they parted, one to go one way, one the other. As
they walked, each alone, at nearly the same time, they each
began to sing, quietly.
Sometimes the snow comes down in June
Sometimes the sun goes round the moon
I see the passion in your eyes
Sometimes it's all a big surprise
It was probably coincidence. Certainly they were each, by
that point, far out of the other's hearing. There really was
no way that they could be coordinating with each other. So,
despite the fact that a hypothetical careful observer would
have noted that they were in tune and in time, it must have
been coincidence. There really wasn't any other explanation.
Cause there was a time when all I did was wish
You'd tell me this was love
It's not the way I hoped or how I planned
But somehow it's enough
It could have been something of an omen, I suppose, but it
wasn't.
But now we're standing face-to-face
Isn't this world a crazy place
Just when I thought our chance had passed
You go and save the best for last
The astute reader may have noticed, in this chapter, several
instances of occurrences that would, in a normal Ranmaverse,
have called for Omens of Doom. Thunder from a clear sky,
family altars suddenly breaking, visits from strange monks,
that sort of thing. The astute reader may be wondering why
such Omens haven't shown up.
All of the nights you came to me
When some silly girl had set you free
I wondered how you'd make it through
I wondered what was wrong with you
It's a fair question.
Cause how could you give your love to someone else
And share your dreams with me
Sometimes the very thing you're looking for
Is the one thing you can't see
The answer is fairly simple. These things are taken care of
by kami. Not very big, or important kami, it is true, but
kami nevertheless. Lurking about celestially and waiting for
omen-worthy events and causing an omen when necessary is
simply these kamis' job.
But now we're standing face-to-face
Isn't this world a crazy place
Just when I thought our chance had passed
You go and save the best for last
And, like all jobs, its holders occasionally take some time
off.
Sometimes the very thing you're looking for
Is the one thing you can't see
The holder of the position for Nerima ward, at the present
moment, is a kami named Waruyoi Asabitan. He is presently
living up to his name, drunk out of his mind in a club in
Chiba, karaokeing like there will be no tomorrow.
Sometimes the snow comes down in June
Sometimes the sun goes round the moon
Just when I thought our chance had passed
You go and save the best for last
So, you see, I can state with absolute authority that any
coincidental timing that a hypothetical careful observer
might have noted was, in fact, just that. Coincidental, and
not any sort of omen at all.
You went and saved the best for last, yeah.
What can I say? Some days are just Like That.
You went and saved the best for last, yeah.
------------------------------------------------------------
Next:
Chapter Seven: If You Meet The Buddha On The Road
Part A: Without Troubling of a Star.
------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Notes: Since this chapter is almost entirely
devoted to characterization exercises, it seems to me to be
an appropriate time for me to spend a few words talking
about where I'm coming from on that subject.
Briefly, I'm a manga fan(atic), and I'm using the canon
characterizations (as I see them) for a starting point.
The only exception to this is Ranma him/herself, who I
basically ran through the mill before the story started.
That is, I still started from canon, but Ranma has already
undergone some variance from that by this point.
The other main differences arise from a difference in
primary goals between Takahashi-sensei's story and my own.
Briefly, and IMHO, Ranma Nibbunnoichi as written is the
story of how Saotome Ranma and Tendo Akane, despite many
obstacles and difficulties, do _not_ get married. Whereas,
RAALS is the story of how Tendo Akane becomes a Hero, and
Saotome Ranma becomes a Hero _again_.
Since the demands of the story drive characterization this
invokes some differences from standard, but it's not that
the characters themselves are particularly different, as
that being in different sort of story requires them to act
in different ways than they normally would.
With that said:
Saotome Ranma (nee Bushiko): Ranma is a Hero. It's one of
the two main cornerstones of his personality. The other
cornerstone is his sense of identity. Broadly put, Ranma
_always_ knows _exactly_ who he is and how he's supposed to
act. This self knowledge is so strong that he is,
effectively, unbeatable; it's not that you can't beat him
up, so much as that you can't make him stay down. He _never_
quits, and he _always_ keeps his main goal clearly in mind.
On the other hand, that same sense of identity is also his
biggest weakness. He is quite capable of running right over
good sense and social duties alike when he gets the idea
that something is important; he has very little ability to
turn back from a contest even if he would prefer to; he has
hot-buttons all over him, and they can lead him around if
they are pushed and he will occasionally get the idea that
he should do something or act like something simply because
'a guy would ...' or 'a martial artist would ...'.
My Ranma is several years of experience older than that, and
has mellowed a fair degree. Also, he/she has refined that
sense of identity down to the most important elements. In
particular, for instance, the Jhusenkyou curse, which hits
the canon Ranma as hard as it does because it strikes
directly at the heart of his greatest strength, his sense of
identity ("I'm a _guy_!" and then, suddenly _he's not_.)
In trade, however, she has lost a lot of her moral edge and
her Hero's instincts for doing the _right_ thing at the
_right_ time. That is, the strong sense of identity that
sometimes blinds the canon Ranma to the likely result of his
actions is turned around so that it is blinding this Ranma
to the truth of her _motivations_, instead.
Tendo Akane is also a Hero, although in canon not a very
well developed one. If anything her own sense of herself as
a hero is even stronger than Ranma's, as evidenced, among
other instances, by the Martial Arts Gymnastics storyline.
This strength is somewhat the backwards of Ranma, in that,
while Ranma always knows who he is, but sometimes loses
track of where he's going, Akane always knows where she's
going, but sometimes loses track of who she is. This
frequently blinds her to her own abilities and disabilities
and also causes her to be more impetuous than even _Ranma_
manages.
A lot of this problem in self-realization may stem from a
lack of feedback from outside sources. In another sense,
while canon Ranma is allowed to be who he is, but frequently
encounters people who are unwilling to allow him to do the
things that are right for the person he is to do, canon
Akane has few people trying to prevent her from doing what
she wants, but has great difficulty getting people to take
her identity seriously. (Thus the frequent battle cry: "I'm
a Martial Artist, too!" (Thus, also, her great dismay at the
names Ranma tends to call her: Akane is a girl _and_ a
Martial Artist, but most people don't think of her as a
'proper' martial artist, and here Ranma is calling into
question her status as a 'proper' girl ....)
So a lot of her actions are a quest for respect, self
respect as much as any other, but since she tends to doubt
her _own_ abilities sometimes, too, she's far too likely to
try to proceed directly to the desired results rather than
actually trying to _earn_ them. Thus her problems with
cooking, for example, and also the Super-Soba and Battle
Dogi story arcs, among others.
In RAALS she is unencumbered by the handicap of being a girl
in a shojo (boy's) manga who doesn't wear a bikini or pack a
BFG9000, and will therefor get a much better chance to show
what she can do.
Nabiki and Kasumi are both Girl Archetypes, in one sense or
another. Nabs is Modern Girl, with her pulse on the finger
of the social scene and no patience with the 'old ways'.
She's effective, and she's cute, but she's scary, too: you
can't be sure that she'll stay in check, and she's too scary
to go up against directly. Kasumi is traditional girl,
serene and untroubled, i.e. she's Mom. She's nice, and a
good housewife, but she's scary, too: you never know, she
might _be_ Mom. Or, she might suddenly wash your mouth out
with soap and send you to bed without supper. You can't be
sure.
Tatewaki and Kodachi are brats in the manga, plain and
simple. Tatewaki, also, may well not be terribly bright, but
it's hard to tell, because of how big a brat he is. Likewise
Kodachi manages to counterfeit being crazy pretty well. The
thing about being a brat, however, is that it's an hole that
you can easily pull out of, assuming that you can grow up
fast enough. And if a big enough shock makes you grow up ...
Sayuri is Everygirl, like Yuka, and Hiroshi and Daisuke as
well. Admittedly, when I started RAALS, I had no idea I
needed an Everygirl to be heroic, and had no idea that
Sayuri would turn into one, but ....
Further notes will be provided as characters show up.
'Til next,
Eric Hallstrom, 3/31/2000