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"Autumn and Spring"
by Angus MacSpon
Based on "Ranma 1/2" created by Rumiko Takahashi.
C&C Welcome!
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- 6 -
After a long pause Ranma said, "What?"
Ukyou grinned. "That's all you have to say? Somehow I'd expected a
stronger reaction."
"Find Shampoo? Ucchan, that doesn't make any sense! Joketsuzoku isn't
very far from Jyusenkyo. It's on the maps. How hard can it be --"
"Ran-chan." He fell silent obediently and Ukyou said, "I've been to the
village. Nobody there knows where she is, or what happened to her."
"But --" Ranma paused, frowning. "Well, they must know _something_.
How long has she been gone? Where was she going when she left?"
She shook her head. "That's the mysterious part. Look, let me tell it
to you as I discovered it. That's probably easiest."
Ranma sighed. "Ok, go ahead."
"It started twenty years ago. I told you I'd been trying to analyse the
springs at Jyusenkyo. I wasn't having any luck, and I was about ready
to give up. But it occurred to me that it might help to study someone
who was already cursed -- analyse exactly how the physical changes
happen. I'd tried to study myself, and gotten nowhere. But then I
remembered Shampoo. I thought I might be able to persuade her to help
me."
Ranma snorted. "Fat chance."
Ukyou shrugged. "It was worth a try. Also, well, I thought it might be
nice to see a familiar face again. So I flew to the village, and asked
about her. And ... Ranma, they'd never even heard of her."
"Huh? That's ridiculous! I met her there myself --"
"I know. It didn't make any sense. So I asked around. Did I tell you
I've learned Chinese? I talked to most of the villagers. In the end, I
did find a few people who remembered her. Ran-chan, they were the
oldest people in the village. Nobody else had heard the name at all."
"Huh." Ranma thought about it. "She and Cologne went back there a few
months after Akane and I got married. It sounds like she must have left
again not long after that."
"That's what I thought, at first. So I asked when she'd left again, and
they looked at me as if I were mad. Eventually, though, I got the whole
story. It seems that Shampoo was fighting in some kind of annual
tournament, when a foreign woman showed up, stole the tournament prize,
and defeated her in single combat."
"What? Hang on, that sounds like --"
"That was you, yes. Shampoo gave the foreign woman -- gave you -- the
kiss of death. When you fled the village, she followed you. And ...
that's all they knew. She never came back."
Ranma hesitated. "That's not right," he said after a moment. "She
_did_ go back to the village, after she gave up on killing me. Then she
and Cologne went back to Japan."
Ukyou nodded. "Now that's the other interesting thing," she said. "You
see, none of the villagers had ever heard of Cologne at all."
"They -- what? But they can't have just forgotten _her_!"
"A three hundred year old matriarch? You wouldn't think so, would you?
But unless everyone there was lying to me, that's what they must have
done. Or ... there's a more sinister possibility."
Ranma's voice was grim. "You've been thinking about this for twenty
years. Spell it out for me."
"Shampoo left the village and went to Japan to kill you. You convinced
her not to do it, and she started back home again. A few months later
she reappeared in Japan. She said she'd been home, but the villagers
say she hadn't. She was accompanied by Cologne, whom she said was her
great-grandmother. But the villagers say there was no such person.
"So the question is: Who was Cologne? And where _did_ Shampoo go when
she returned to China, if not back to her village?"
"Cologne may just not have lived in the village," suggested Ranma.
"I managed to check that. The Amazons keep careful records. I was able
to build a family tree. And none of Shampoo's great-grandmothers --
none of her ancestors at all -- were named anything like 'Cologne.'"
"So ... it must have been a false name?"
"Well, maybe. That was my next thought. So I started to check entry
and exit records, passport control, that sort of thing. I found Shampoo
easily enough -- arriving in Japan, leaving, and arriving again. When
she arrived the second time, she was alone. No sign of Cologne."
"Maybe they travelled separately?" said Ranma, a little weakly. "Or --
wait a minute! Shampoo was _mailed_ to Japan the second time. In her
cat-form. I remember when the box arrived."
Ukyou shook her head. "Mailing a live cat from China to Japan? Not
likely. The cat might not survive at all; it certainly wouldn't be
healthy when it arrived. No, Ran-chan, that box was sent from within
Tokyo. It may not have gone through the postal system at all; it may
have been specially delivered."
Ranma thought about it. Come to think of it, he never had seen the box
itself. He wondered what postmarks it had carried. If any. "But why
go to all that trouble?" he wondered aloud.
"Someone was trying to distract you. And if they picked such a bizarre
method to do it, the truth they _didn't_ want you to see must have been
stranger yet, ne?"
Ukyou stood up. "Come with me," she said. "There's something I want
you to see."
She led the way back to her study. There, she tapped at her computer
terminal briefly. "Look here," she said.
The image was an old two-dimensional one. The quality was poor, and the
picture somewhat faded, but the young woman it showed was unquestionably
Shampoo. She looked tired, but at the same time there was such a look
of stubborn pride and determination stamped in her features that for a
moment, Ranma's eyes prickled.
"That's Shampoo when she arrived in Japan for the first time," said
Ukyou. "Hunting you. She didn't bring any luggage with her at all,
oddly enough. I wonder where she got the weapons she used when she
attacked you? Bonbori, right?"
"Yes. She always was resourceful," Ranma said softly. Odd, how time
could blur the memory. After his wedding, he'd been glad to finally see
her leave. Now, he was startled to find that he wanted to see her
again. He had never wanted Shampoo as a lover. But he wished he could
have had her as a friend.
"Right. Now, this is when she went back to China." It wasn't a photo
this time, but a short clip of video. "Looks like the security systems
had been upgraded," Ukyou commented. Ranma nodded, studying Shampoo's
face. She looked unhappy.
Ukyou went on, "I've no idea why someone decided to archive all this
video, but it turned out useful. Because --" She tapped at the
keyboard again. "Look at _this_ one."
It was another video clip of Shampoo. "This is the second time she
arrived in Japan?" asked Ranma. Ukyou nodded. "I don't get it," he
said. "It looks pretty much like the other one."
"Except that she's alone, when Cologne should have been with her. But
there's something else. Take another look." Ukyou replayed the clip,
then raised an eyebrow at Ranma. He shook his head, and she played it
through a third time, this time at half-speed.
"I still don't see anything," Ranma confessed. "The picture quality's
not as good as the others, but after sixty years --"
"Oh?" said Ukyou. "What's wrong with the picture quality?"
There was something odd about her voice: nervousness, or excitement, or
anticipation. He shot her a suspicious glance before answering. "Well,
it's blurred," he said. "I mean, look! Right there, where Shampoo --"
He stopped suddenly.
"Yes?" Ukyou prompted him after a few seconds.
"Play it again," he said. There was a sudden cold feeling in his
stomach. A creeping feeling down his spine. Ukyou had been right.
There _was_ something wrong with the clip. Something ... nasty. "Play
it again," he repeated, and for some reason his voice was unsteady.
The clip played again, slowly. This time he could see it clearly. The
wrongness. The distortion. It was barely visible at first: a slight
blurring in the picture. Nothing unusual. To be expected, even, in a
clip that had been stored for years on film before being transferred to
video. But the blurred patch didn't disappear, or flicker, or change in
any way. Instead it moved, at a steady, deliberate pace. Following
Shampoo exactly. As if there were something there that the camera
couldn't quite pick up. Mounted squarely in the centre of her back.
"_Riding_ her," he whispered.
He knew that feeling in the pit of his stomach, now. It was dread.
"What is it?" he asked. "Is it Cologne? Using some kind of magic power
to make herself invisible?"
"I hope so," said Ukyou quietly.
"Yeah." He knew she didn't believe it, though. Neither did he. What
use would an Amazon have for such powers?
The clip was playing in a loop now, over and over. As it began again,
Ranma noticed something else. Something that scared him even more, if
that were possible. At first he had thought that Shampoo was simply
swinging her arms naturally as she walked. But now he saw that one arm
was held slightly away from her body. The fingers were curled gently
closed on empty air.
[What did you think you were holding?] he thought. [Your great-
grandmother's hand? How good was the illusion? Did you see her? Hear
her voice? Feel her touch?] But there had been no Cologne. The one
that had truly been with Shampoo was elsewhere. Clinging to her back.
[Did you know, Shampoo? Did you ever know it was there? Did you wake
sometimes, in the middle of the night, and realise what you'd become? A
mount, for an unseen passenger? Did you try to fight it?]
"I first saw that clip, twenty years ago," Ukyou said softly. "Since
then, I've been looking for Shampoo. Because I think that, wherever she
is ... if she's still alive ... she needs help. Desperately."
"'If she's still alive'? Do you think it's that bad?"
"It may be worse," she said. As he looked at her, shocked anew, she
tapped quickly on the keyboard. "This is what the computer found
today," she told him. "It took twenty years of searching, refining the
parameters, writing special detection routines. What I was looking for
is very subtle. But here it is at last."
The screen lit up and she added, "This is Shampoo, returning to China
for the second time. A few weeks after your wedding."
A clip played. Several people walked past on the screen. Ranma did not
recognise any of them.
"Whatever the ... thing ... is, its technique has improved," Ukyou
commented dryly. "No blurring this time. Or maybe it found it easier
to avoid detection for ... other reasons. But look there, against the
air-conditioning grille. It's a nice, fine, regular mesh, handy for
spotting any distortions. Watch ... now!"
Ranma thought he saw a faint flicker. No more.
"It's so subtle that, even if you noticed it, you wouldn't think
anything of it," said Ukyou. "That's why it took so long to find. But
if I get the computer to track that flicker, and trace its outline ..."
The scene played again. This time, they saw a ghostly outline moving
through the picture, irregular, indistinct. But as it passed the
grille, it suddenly became sharp and well-defined. Shampoo's profile
was very clear, and perfectly recognisable.
"Why is she invisible too, this time?" asked Ranma.
"I don't know. Maybe it was stronger, for some reason. Maybe it had
been ... feeding off her, somehow." Ukyou looked sick at the thought.
Ranma felt queasy himself. "Or maybe it had been doing something else
to her, while she was living in Tokyo. Altering her somehow. Gradually.
Making her ... more like it."
Ranma looked away from the screen. His expression was grim, his voice
steady, as he said, "We have to save her."
- End of Part 6 -
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Angus MacSpon Allen Gainsford
http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon