Waters Under Earth

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum - harnums@hotmail.com

All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shogakugan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.

Chapter 7 : Revelations in Grey

I am not subscribed to the FFML, so please direct any commentary
to my personal e-mail address.  Comments are welcomed,
appreciated and very helpful to the continued betterment of this
series.  

Homepage at:  http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/9758

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but
The truth in masquerade.
-Lord Byron, "Don Juan"

     The oyabun tapped his fingers in a nervous rhthym on the
glass table-top next to him.  His fingernails clicked on the
surface, seeming a very loud sound in the silence of the waiting
room.

     He was the only one in the waiting room beyond the pretty
but unremarkable secretary behind the large oak desk.  The chair
he sat in was covered in glossy black leather, and had a certain
kind of streamlined, hideous beauty, like a dark-skinned shark.

     He was nervous, and he was not a man used to being nervous.
For over thirty years now he'd been oyabun of Zensha-yumi, the
head of a criminal organization with ties to all parts of the
world, and probably the most powerful yakuza group in Japan.
He'd been careful; he liked to control from behind the scenes.
He didn't let his enemies know who he was.  He didn't meet his
subordinates at his home.  He'd thought he was untouchable.

     Twelve years ago, everything had changed.

     Twelve years ago, he'd met Yoko.

     And now he was oyabun in name only.  He took his orders from
her, or occasionally other women who indicated by certain means
that they represented her.  It was his understanding that the
same was true for the heads of yakuza criminal syndicates all
over Japan.  Those who hadn't been willing to take their orders
from Yoko or her subordinates were all dead now.

     That was not entirely true, actually.  Three of them were
hopelessly and incurably insane.  One was on life support, his
hospital bills payed for by a string of half-a-dozen shell
companies that the oyabun had discovered led back to the company
housed in this building, Sen-Atama, a profitable but little-known
software company of which Yoko was the CEO.  She'd explained to
him once, in one of her rare talkative periods, that they kept
him alive as a reminder; he had no arms or legs or eyes or
tongue.

     Two of them had just disappeared altogether, with no bodies
ever being found.  One had vanished from the back of his car
while his chaffeur was driving in the front behind a smoked-glass
barrier.  He and the bodyguard in the front had heard nothing.
The bodyguard who'd been in the back seat had been dead.  An
autopsy report he'd gotten through connections had indicated all
the man's internal organs had been removed somehow, without a
mark upon the body.

     Business actually proceeded much as it always had; Yoko left
the running of various organizations in the yakuza power
structure up to the individual oyabun and their sub-bosses.  It
was just when she told you to do something, you did it.  You
killed certain people, you watched certain others, you stole
certain things and delivered them, you bought certain buildings
and handed the deeds over to her shell companies.

     The arrangement was very simple.  You did exactly as she
wanted.  In return, you got to live.  

     Many of the oyabun hadn't learned the arrangement right
away.  They had said they were not afraid to die; many of them
had been old men, concerned with their honour, unwilling to
relinquish control and believing the threats to be empty.

     It was when their wives, children and grandchildren started
to die that they'd realized what wasn't threatened was worse than
what was.  Nothing could be done to protect their families, it
seemed. No matter how many guards, how many precautions, somehow,
they got through.  Whoever they truly were.

     One of the oyabun who'd gone insane had been found alive
amidst the carnage of his house.  The remains of his wife, his
two daughters, their husbands and his six grandchildren had been
spread all over different parts of it, along with the bodies of a
half-dozen bodyguards.  The handguns of all the bodyguards had
been empty; bullet holes scored the walls and furniture in the
hundreds.

     Autopsy reports from that had shown that they'd all been
literally torn apart by something incredibly strong.  The oyabun
had been left alive, uninjured, and soaked in blood from head to
toe.  In the twelve years of his institutionalization, he'd only
stopped screaming when he was sedated.  That was most of the
time.

     A simple arrangement.  If you didn't follow it, you ended up
dead.  Or even worse than that, you ended up alive with all you
loved dead.

     The oyabun glanced around the waiting room, and continued to
tap his fingers on the table-top.  There were more black leather
chairs, a black leather sofa.  Potted plants dotted the room in
occasional places, green breaking the monotony of the black.

     On the walls hung nineteenth century ink prints from Kyoto,
the suggestion of bridges and trees and cranes in the subtle
brush-strokes.  They were all extremely valuable.

     The oyabun understood business.  He had not become oyabun
because he was a fool, or because he was weak, or because he was
soft.  He'd killed men, and though he'd never enjoyed it, he'd
understood the necessity of it.  If he was not oyabun, then
someone else was, and it was better him than some men he knew.
Crime was a reality, and it was better it be run like a business
than like a war.

     Yes, he understood business.  He understood killing.  That
was a part of the business his family had been in for nearly
three centuries now.

     He did not truly understand evil.  And that was what Yoko
was, he'd always dimly realized in the core of his being.  There
was something about her that was simply wrong, a feeling he got
whenever he looked at her wrinkled, vein-mapped hands, or at the
dark glasses she always wore, or at the smooth, young features
that contrasted the withered, parchmentlike flesh of her hands.

     He realized he'd never seen her eyes.  He didn't think he
wanted to.  They were the windows to the soul, and he had no
desire to gaze upon Yoko's soul.

     "She will see you now," the secretary said from where she
stood at his left side.  He hadn't even heard her approach.

     "Thank you," the oyabun said, standing up.  He'd turned
sixty last winter, but he was still fit, still handsome after all
the years.  He smiled at the pretty secretary; she did not smile
back, but walked ahead of him to the large oaken doors that led
into the hallway to Yoko's office.  She turned one gold-plated
handle and swung the door wide without even a creak.  The oyabun
stepped by her and took the familiar walk down the hallway, his
Italian leather shoes making a soft whisper across the fine
fibres of a blue carpet.

     He'd always hated the hallway.  The ceiling seemed too high,
the spaces between the walls too narrow.  Everything seemed to
loom, and he always had the impression unseen eyes were watching
him.  It made the twenty feet seem like twenty miles.

     There would not be anyone in the office besides Yoko.  There
never was.  She was one of the few people he'd ever met who had
an utter confidence in their own ability to protect themselves.

     Ten years ago, at a meeting between her and a dozen of the
highest-ranking oyabun in the country, there'd been an attempt on
her life.  Two men had leapt up from concealment as the meeting
had started and opened up on her with automatic pistols at a
distance of less than ten feet.

     They'd missed.  Both of them.  The consensus afterwards had
been that Yoko had been carrying some kind of small but very
powerful gun.

     But he'd been close, and he'd seen she had nothing in her
hand when she raised it and pointed it at the men.  He'd been
close, and he'd seen how there was no way the men could have
missed.  Looking around the conference room later, he'd seen that
there were bullet holes in the floor and ceiling below and above
where Yoko had been sitting, but none in the wall behind her.

     She'd pointed her hand and two men had died, blood exploding
from their mouths, their bodies smashed back against the walls
hard enough to leave an impression in the wood by some impact
that everyone else had always assumed to be a gunshot.  Then
she'd turned in her chair to the pale-faced oyabun three chairs
down, and even with the glasses on all at the table knew she was
looking at him.

     "Hidekazu," she'd said in a disappointed voice, steepling
long, aged fingers under her chin and resting her elbows on the
table.  "That was a very stupid thing you did.  Don't you
remember what happened to your son and his family?"

     "That was to be for my son and his family," Hidekazu had
said, no tremble in his voice though fear was written all over
him.  "Now I must do it myself."

     He'd been very fast.

     Yoko had been faster.  The gun had clattered to the table,
and the handle of a slender throwing knife had somehow just
seemed to emerge from the centre of Hidekazu's forehead, with the
tip of the blade protuding slightly out of the back of his skull.

     She hadn't even stopped the meeting to drag the bodies out.

     And now the oyabun put his hand on the doorknob and swung
open the door to Yoko's office, taking in the familiar sights.
The tall bookshelves, leather-bound volumes neatly organized, the
large window covered with Venetian blinds that to his memory he'd
never seen not covered, the dim light from the overhead bulb,
muted and filtered and leaving the corners of the room in shadow.

     Yoko sat behind a monolithic desk of grey marble that must
have weighed at least a ton.  Papers were neatly stacked on
either side; there was a phone in the middle, and next to it a
compact and extremely expensive computer.  She was typing as he
came in, long fingers clacking softly on the keyboard.  As
always, her dark hair was held back into a bun by a long silver
pin, the point glimmering sharply.

     A slow smile lit her young face as she looked up, eyes
hidden behind black-lensed, round-framed glasses.  "Ah.
Welcome."

     "Hello, Yoko," he said, bowing.  He'd referred to her by her
last name once, and been told never to do it again.  She still
referred to him by his last name, though, when she acknowledged
he had a name at all.

     "Don't sit down yet," Yoko said.  "There's someone you need
to meet.  An associate of mine."

     And suddenly there was an impression of a looming presence
on his left side.  He turned, a little too quickly, and looked
into the coldest eyes he'd ever seen.  They were sky-blue, and as
chill as arctic ice.  There was no emotion in them, or in the
man's face.  He was a westerner, with short-cut blond hair and a
face that looked as if it had been carved entirely out of sharp
angles and flat, hard plains.  He was taller than the oyabun by
several inches, and the oyabun was not a short man.  A well-cut
charcoal-grey suit draped snugly around broad shoulders and
powerful arms.

     There was a feel to certain people the oyabun had met, an
aura of violence barely held in check.  The man radiated that
sense of violence like a cologne.  He was a tightly coiled
spring, moments away from release.

     "I am called Ritter," he said.  His Japanese had a mild,
unplacable accent that sounded vaguely European.  His voice was
as flat as his eyes.  

     With all other people like that, they'd had tempers to
match.  And yet the oyabun got the impression that Ritter had
absolute and rigid control over himself, and that exterior of ice
covered only more ice.  That store of violence would come out
exactly when he wanted it to, and at no other time.
     
     He extended a hand, and the oyabun took it.  His grip was
firm, and his fingers were slender and powerful, very long and
fine like a musician's, but with a wiry strength in them.  "I am
a business associate of Yoko's."

     "A pleasure, Mr. Ritter," the oyabun said.  

     "Ritter is very interested in hearing what you have to tell
me," Yoko said from behind her desk, a slight edge to her voice.
The oyabun was very good at reading people.  Never before had he
been able to read Yoko.

     He could now.  She was frightened, and there was nothing
unfamiliar here except Ritter.  

     "The boy is gone," the oyabun said, turning to look at Yoko,
because even her black-glass gaze was better than Ritter's eyes.

     "More detail, please," Yoko said wearily.

     "We have two observers," the oyabun said carefully.  "One of
them lives in the household where he was staying, and was
indebted to us for certain services.  The other is a man who
occasionally does freelance work for us.  Both report that the
boy disappeared from a group of his friends yesterday and has not
been seen since.  I would have to have my go-betweens ask them
for further details, but that is what they report."

     "Are they reliable?" Yoko asked.

     The oyabun nodded.  "Both of them."

     "Ask for more details," Yoko said.  "I will contact you
soon.  You may go now."

     Trying to keep relief from his face, the oyabun bowed to
Yoko, and then to the silent, towering form of Ritter.
"Thank you."

     As he turned to leave, Ritter reached out and caught him by
the shoulder in a grip that felt like some kind of industrial
press.  "Perhaps I will contact you as well.  I am sure we will
become as close and friendly as you and Yoko."

     The oyabun nodded slowly and didn't realize he'd been
holding his breath until Ritter released his shoulder and he let
it out.  "As you wish, Mr. Ritter."

     The big man nodded silently, and the oyabun stepped quickly
out the door, closing it behind him, and resisted the urge to run
all the way out of the building.  What kind of person was Ritter,
the oyabun wondered, if he could frighten a woman who had most of
the entirety of Japan's underworld under her thumb?

     He decided that he really did not want to find out.

**********

     The man called Ritter watched the door close behind the
oyabun, and then turned to look at Yoko where she sat behind the
black marble desk.  His face slowly went from carefully
controlled neutrality to cold rage.

     "Explain this to me again," he said.  "What happened?"

     "Denkoko and Yamiko..."

     "I know.  I want to know why.  They understood the orders,
did they not?"

     "I thought they did."

     A slow sneer blossomed on Ritter's face like a chasm opening
in the earth.  "You need to keep tighter leashes on your dogs,
Yoko."

     "They are my sisters," Yoko said in a controlled voice,
looking at him from behind black lenses.  "Not my dogs.  I am
most senior, and thus I hold a position of honour among us.  No
more than that, Ritter."

     "You lead them in all but name," Ritter said.  "And I hold
you responsible for their actions.  I want to know why you can no
longer sense him."

     "They're broken," Yoko said.  "All the threads I tied to him
were weakened and then broken.  I don't know how.  Even when he
went to China I was able to sense he was alive, at least.  But
now..."

     "And Denkoko and Yamiko, where are they?"

     "Denkoko is gone," Yoko said, licking her lips slightly and
glancing at the desktop.  "Yamiko returned with her body.  We
will consign Denkoko to the dead in the next few days."

     "Yamiko was ever Denkoko's lapdog," Ritter said.  "And
Denkoko was always too impulsive, too quick to disobey.  You
should have killed her years ago."

     "We do not kill among ourselves," Yoko said.  "We are an
unbroken circle, and we do not kill among ourselves."

     Ritter threw back his head and laughed.  "Never say that
there is anything you will not kill, Yoko.  If a hound does not
do as you wish, you beat it.  If it continues to disobey, you
drown it."

     "I am not you, Ritter," Yoko said.  "And my sisters are not
hounds.  Take care how you speak to me.  You are only one man."

     Ritter stepped forward and brought his closed fist down on
the marble desktop, very gently.  There was a cracking sound, and
a spiderweb of dark veins laced the area he'd hit.  "I can kill
you, Yoko," he snarled.  "More easily than I lift my smallest
finger.  I can kill any one of you, and it would be like stepping
on bugs."

     Yoko nodded.  "I know, Ritter.  But another will take my
place.  The circle is eternal.  We are a serpent with a thousand
heads."

     She leaned slightly forward, looking at him across the desk,
and took off her dark glasses, gazing at him for a moment with an
intensity only she was capable of.  When he did not even flinch,
she put them back on.  "I know what it is you desire, Ritter.  I
know it is denied to you.  We should not fight among ourselves,
Ritter.  You are our master's most beloved child, and our
brother.  Siblings should not fight."

     She put the glasses back on.  "Jusenkyou will be ours, old
friend.  Fear not."

     Ritter slowly smiled, very coldly.  "Jusenkyou will be the
master's, and no one else's.  Take care you remember that.  We
are his hands and nothing more."

     "Of course," Yoko said amiably, in an off-hand tone, waving
one hand dismissively at Ritter and turning her eyes back to her
computer screen.

     Ritter never even seemed to move.  There was no interval
between the time he was standing across the desk from her, fist
still resting in the centre of the spread of cracks on the top of
the desk, and the time he had stretched out and grabbed her by
the throat.  Yoko let out a long, surprised squawk and brought up
her hands to grab his wrist.  He hefted her effortlessly out of
the chair, legs kicking and knocking the carved wooden seat over
with a clatter.  He hauled her over the desk, whirled, and
slammed her back against the thick wooden door of the office so
hard it rattled in the frame, holding her up to gaze directly
into her eyes, his hand a vice on her throat.

     "Now you listen and mark my words, old friend," he said very
quietly, the last word filled with mocking sarcasm.  "It has been
too many years since you dealt with me, Yoko.  You forget what
you are compared to what I am.  All you and your sisters together
cannot hope to challenge me.  I go deeper than you all can ever
hope to go."

     He loosened his one-handed grip enough to let her take a
gasping breath, then tightened it again.  Holding her up to his
eye level put her close to a foot off the ground, her feet trying
for purchase where there was none.

     "If you ever speak to me in such a disrespectful manner
again, I'll cut out your entrails and read the future in them
across your desk," Ritter said as if they were discussing the
weather.  There was a terrible, absolute conviction to his words.
"Maybe one of your sisters will take your place, but you will be
dead.  You do not want that, Yoko.  I do not want it either; you
are a smart woman, and useful to our lord.  Part of being smart
is knowing your place.  I know mine; you would do well to learn
yours before it costs you your life."

     "Ritter, please," Yoko said weakly.  "I can't breathe..."

     "Do not ever make the mistake of thinking that I need you,"
Ritter said.  "I walked alone before your birth was a sparkle in
your mother's eye.  I walked alone before your sisterhood was a
dream in the minds of those who came before you.  If I must, I
shall walk alone after you are all come to dust.  I need no one."

     He turned again and threw her into a heap on the floor in
front of her desk, quite gently for all his strength.  She
groaned and tried to stand, but was unable to.

     Ritter made no sound as he crossed the floor of the office
towards her; all she could see of him were his black boots and
the hem of the pants of his expensive charcoal suit.  "Watch
them, Yoko, but do not touch them yet.  If the boy is truly gone,
it is him we must concern ourselves with.  Keep a close eye in
particular on his mother; if there is anyone he would go to, it
would be most likely her.  There is a strange desire in many men
for the womb even after they are torn from it."

     "Yes, Ritter," Yoko said, casting her eyes to the floor,
because even with the glasses on Ritter would have been able to
read the intermingled hatred and fear on her face.  "If there is
anything else I can do, anything that the Circle can..."

     "I will tell you when there are things you can do for me,"
Ritter said coldly.  "I want all the information you have on the
three from China, particularly the younger girl."

     "If I may ask why?" Yoko risked.

     Ritter's voice had a smile in it when he next spoke.  "I
think I will be taking a trip there in the near future."

     She slowly nodded, still not standing.  Ritter's feet and
legs moved silently out of her sight, walking past her to stand
near her desk.

     "The files on your computer, they are backed up, are they
not?" he inquired in a conscientous voice.

     "Of course.  That's the first law of..."

     "There is no such thing as law."

     There was a few seconds silence, and then an enormous crash
that shook the floor and made her ears ring.  There was the sound
of stone breaking and glass shattering.

     "A reminder, Yoko."

     A momentary flicker of black boots and charcoal suit slid
past her vision.  The door opened, then closed, and Ritter was
gone.

     Yoko stood slowly up, face twisting with hatred, long,
elderly fingers shaking, looking out of place amidst the rest of
her youth.  She glanced back at the overturned, shattered
remnants of the marble desk, and remembered vaguely it had taken
eight men, struggling, to bring it in here. 

     The door swung open.  "Honoured mother of the night, are you
alright?  I heard a crash... what in the name of-"

     Yoko slapped the younger woman hard, snapping her head back
and turning her eyes away from staring at the destruction of the
room.  "You are never to refer to me by that title here, Miyoko.
Never.  Here I am Yoko Kontongara."

     "Yes, Miss Kontongara," her secretary said, paying no
attention to the red mark on her face.  "Forgive me.  What
happened?"

     "Did you see anyone go past your desk recently?"

     "A few minutes ago, Mr..."

     Yoko nodded, cutting the woman off with a wave of her hand.
"Get someone in to clean this up.  I have business to attend to."

     She swept by Miyoko, leaving the other woman to deal with
the ruin of her office.  She had more important things to do.

     Much more important things.

**********

     "There now, father.  It's alright."

     Soun looked up at Kasumi from where he lay on his futon, the
blanket pulled up to his chin and a damp cloth on his forehead.
"It's not alright."

     "Well, it will be," Kasumi said soothingly, minutely
adjusting the positioning of her father's blankets.  "You just
rest, father.  You get yourself into such a state over these
things."

     "My future son-in-law vanished?" Soun said.  "You think
that... that's not something to..."

     "You have to be calm about these things, father.  It won't
do anyone any good to panic.  Now I want you to stay in bed and
relax.  It's not good for your blood pressure to get so upset."

     Soun turned his head slightly and gazed at the shut and
covered window.  The cloth slipped slightly down his forehead;
Kasumi clucked like a mother hen and repositioned it.  

     "It was all going so well," he said after a moment.  "Damn
that old woman."

     He winced as Kasumi's adjustment of the cloth made her press
it against the swelling, lumpy bruise on his forehead; it looked
as if it wouldn't go down complete for a week.  He'd received it
after Cologne had hurled him into a wall a day and a half ago.

     "I'm sure things will be alright," Kasumi said, finally
finding a spot for the cloth that seemed to suit whatever
qualities she wanted.  "It's not like he hasn't been gone before.
Remember when he went with Ryoga and Mousse after those three
strange men from China?  A whole mountain came down, and they all
came back okay.  Ranma's very resourceful, father.  You know
that."

     "But I can't help but worry," Soun said.  "Is it day or
night?  I do not know, so sick am I with grief..."

     "It's day, father," Kasumi said gently, tucking the
blankets up around him a little tighter.  "But it's very early.
I want you to stay in bed, because I have to go shopping and I
don't want to worry about you.  If you need anything, call
Nabiki, alright?"

     Soun opened his mouth as if to protest, then slowly nodded.
His eldest daughter smiled and leaned down to kiss him on the
cheek lightly, then stood up and smoothed out her dress.  "Now
I'll be back soon.  You just rest."

     She stepped out the door, flicking out the light as she
went.  Gently, she eased it closed and headed down the hallway to
knock on the door of Nabiki's room.

     "Just a minute," Nabiki's voice said from behind the door
after a moment.  There was the sound of a drawer opening, the
shuffle of papers, and then the drawer sliding closed.  "Come
in."

     Kasumi opened the door and stepped inside.  Nabiki was
sitting at her chair, swivelled away from her desk to face the
door.  She had a pen in one hand, and was lightly chewing one end
of it.  The desk was a pile of open folders, envelopes and
papers.  "Yeah?"

     "I'm going out," Kasumi said.  "Father's lying in bed.  He's
ever so upset about everything that's happening.  While I'm
shopping, I need you to listen for him if he needs anything."

     Nabiki softly snorted.  "I'd forgotten he was still a
toddler."

     "Nabiki!" Kasumi said sharply.  "Father gets very emotional.
You need to..."

     Nabiki nodded curtly.  "Yeah, whatever sis.  I'll listen for
the old man.  You just go get your groceries.  I've got lots of
work to do."

     Kasumi took a step further in.  "School work?  What is all
that?"

     Nabiki moved in the chair slightly to block more of the
desk.  "Hey sis, your nose doesn't belong in here, okay?  Private
stuff."

     Kasumi frowned slightly and stepped out without saying a
word, closing the door behind her so that it shut with a sharp
click.  It was her equivalent of slamming it closed.

     "How rude," she said, flipping her ponytail over her
shoulder and behind her back.  "I guess she must be upset over
what's happened to Ranma."

     Humming softly, she glanced at Nabiki's closed door one last
time and walked down the stairs.  She went into the kitchen
first and pulled off the apron she always wore around the house;
it served as general guard to food, dust and anything else that
might stain her clothing during the day.  That done, she grabbed
her purse from where it rested on the kitchen table and headed to
the front door.

     She pushed off her slippers at the door and got into her
shoes, flat-soled, dark brown and sensible.  She paused for a
moment and checked her reflection in her compact.  Snapping it
closed, she tucked it back into the purse and stepped outside.

     Passing by the lines of shrubbery along the walkway, she
frowned slightly.  She'd never got around to finishing the
maintenance of them, because of what Cologne had done.  That had
annoyed her quite a lot.

     And Ranma's mother being kidnapped.  That wasn't very good
either, she realized.  And now that he'd vanished, that was even
worse.  But the shrubs still really irked her.

     Passing through the shadow of the peak-roofed gate, she
frowned slightly.  She'd have to be sure to work on the shrubs
when she got back from shopping.

     The sky was a cerulean blue overhead, with only a few
strands of white clouds intruding like fingers.  Kasumi walked
down the streets, smiling at everyone she passed, whether it was
people walking the other way or standing outside their houses in
conversation with their neighbours.  They all smiled back; most
of them knew her, and those who didn't could help smiling back at
such a pretty smile as Kasumi's.

     It wasn't far to the market.  She liked to do her shopping
early and avoid the rush, although stopping to chat with people
was always a pleasure.  She pushed through the blue curtain that
Mr. Nishinaka always hung across the door of shop and stepped
inside, inhaling the smells of herbs, spices and vegetables that
permeated the crowded, homey market.

     "Hello, Kasumi," Mr. Nishinaka said from behind the counter,
looking at her over the top of his newspaper.

     "Hello, Mr. Nishinaka," Kasumi said with a smile.  "It's
nice to see you again."

     "We've got some fresh pineapples in, just this morning," the
grocer said.  "And some of that herb tea you like too."

     "How nice," Kasumi said, grabbing a basket from the pile
near the door and making her way into the mazelike collection of
tall, crowded wooden shelves.

     She extracted her list from her purse and looked it over,
grabbing what she needed from the shelves she passed.  Some
shredded ginger, a few packets of those instant noodles Nabiki
liked, a few onions...

     Mr. Nishinaka's voice rose through the shelves.  "Hello.
How n... nice to see you... I..."

     "Hello, Mr. Nishinaka," another voice said.  "Why are you so
nervous?  Are you sick?"

     Kasumi paled.  The glass bottle of saffron she'd been
holding fell to the floor and shattered.

     "No reason, no reason... I'll be in the storeroom if you
need anything, please feel free to call me..."

     His voice faded away.  A door banged closed.

     Soft, slow footsteps sounded on the floor of the market.

     Kasumi closed her eyes and stood rigid, her body tensed, the
basket gripped in one hand, her purse in the other.

     A strong, slender hand fell upon her shoulder.  "Hello,
K...Kasumi.  What a strange coincidence to meet you here..."

     It was in the voice, the subtle hint of mockery that no one
else ever seemed to hear.  She made a soft, whimpering sound in
her throat.

     "You stopped visiting, Kasumi.  What happened?  I haven't
seen you in a long, long time.  But Akane and Ranma knew who to
call when you got hurt, didn't they?  You got hurt, didn't you,
Kasumi?"

     "Not really," Kasumi whispered quietly.  "She just knocked
me out with a pressure point.  Nothing more."

     "But you could have been hurt."

     The hand moved slightly on her shoulder, warm against her
neck.  "You don't like being hurt, do you Kasumi?"

     She shook her head silently, and wished she could stop
trembling.

     "Why did you stop visiting?  That made me feel very bad,
Kasumi."

     "I'm sorry."

     "I hear Ranma's vanished.  Quite sad."

     She couldn't stop herself.  "How-"

     "You know how people talk."

     The hand moved again, fingers tracing lightly along her
collarbone through the yellow fabric of her dress.  There was
such an impression of strength in them, and she knew now that
they could hurt as well as heal.  "You know I'm always here,
Kasumi."

     "Thank you."

     "Hmm?"

     The hand slid down to brush, just for a moment, against the
upper swell of her breasts.

     "Thank you, I said."

     "Yes, yes, you're welcome."

     The hand withdrew, and the next words were whispered softly,
and his head was so close she could feel the heat of his breath
upon her neck.  "Don't ever forget you're mine, Kasumi."

     And then he was gone, footsteps retreating down the
corridors of shelves.  Kasumi stood there for a long minute,
taking deep breath after deep breath.

     A hand fell upon her shoulder again, and she shrieked.

     "Relax, Kasumi," Mr. Nishinaka said in a surprised voice.
"I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to scare you."

     She glanced back at the elderly grocer.  His eyes were on
the shattered bottle on the floor.

     "I'm sorry," Kasumi said.  "That was my fault.  I'll pay for
it, I'll clean it up..."

     "No, no," the grocer said with a resigned shake of his head.
"It's not your fault he acts that way around you.  Don't worry.
Get on with your shopping; I'll find a dustpan."

     He walked off, muttering under his breath.  "...one bottle
is pretty good considering..."

     Kasumi took another deep breath, and finished her shopping.
She followed her list rigidly, paid for the items with exact
change, and walked out of the store onto the streets.

     Slowly, her smile came back as she walked.  Other people
smiled back at her; it was a nice thing to see a pretty, smiling
girl who looked as if she had no troubles in the world at all.

**********

     Sweat bathed Tatewaki Kuno's chest in a thin sheen as he
moved.  He was stripped to the waist, wearing only a tightly
belted, dark blue hakima.  The pleated trousers swirled about his
legs as he moved in his bare feet across the wooden boards of the
vast underground training hall of the Kuno family.

     There were no windows here, no skylights.  Nothing to let in
the light of sun or moon or stars.  Illumination was provided by
bank after bank of fluorescent lighting tubes in the ceiling.  A
bright light, that left no part of the place in darkness.  It was
impossible to hide from the light down here.  It was everywhere,
glaring like eyes, caressing roughly upon your skin.

     He had a sword in each hand, both almost a mirror image of
the other.  The blades were the same, silver-bright and polished
till they shone, honed edges catching and splitting the light as
they moved.  The handle of the one in his left hand was wrapped
in red leather, the one in his right in black.  The small, round
handguard of the left-hand sword was black edged in silver; the
right-hand was red edged in gold.

     The swords spun in complex patterns, matched figure-eights,
parallel and vertical slashes.  They were actually only a
combination of dozens of very simple movements.  He'd found most
things in the world were; all complexities were only many, many
simplicities at their fundamental level.

     His thoughts turned away for a moment entirely from the
swords, but instinct and training took over and they still spun
as fast as lightning in front of him, blurred circles of steel.

     "All things are simple at heart," he said softly.  "It is in
the minds of mortals that they are made indecipherable."

     He liked the sound of it.  He'd have to write it down later.

     Pivoting slightly to the left, he launched a combination of
two head-height slashes, one after the other, following up with a
thrust at the midsection and a downward cut at shoulder level.
He had things to do today.  Not that he ever didn't.

     Mentally, he ran over his schedule.  He had a lunch meeting
with some businessmen.  They would tell him things, and he would
respond in a way that would make him look like an utter buffoon.
Then they would go off and make the Kuno family more money.  He'd
found it was best to leave well enough alone; the people who
worked for his family's myriad companies did their work well.  He
ensured that, at least.  Any who skimmed from the top, who were
incompetent, or who tried to cheat him got fired.  Not that it
ever looked like he actually did it, of course.

     He smiled.  After all, he was only the foolish son of a man
who'd always been a little unstable, and who had finally gone
insane three years ago.

     "Many masks we wear," he said.  "A different one to all we
know and one even to ourselves."

     He liked that one too.

     A soft beep echoed in the emptiness of the dojo.  He glanced
to his watch, where it lay atop his discarded shirt in one corner
of the training hall, a bokken leaning against the wall next to
it.

     "Three hours," he said, snapping the swords without flourish
back into their scabbards, hard carved wood covered in leather
matching in colour to the handle of each, tooled with gold on red
and silver on black.  The scabbards brushing against his legs, he
walked to where he'd left his shirt and pulled it on, carefully
tucking it into the waistband of his hakima.  That done, he made
his way to the north end of the hall and knelt down near the
plain sink.  He ran the water, a steady stream splashing down
into the basin.

     He rinsed his hands first, carefully scrubbing them against
each other under the cool, clear stream.  When he'd removed the
sweat and grime of his exercise from them, he cupped them
underneath the faucet and lifted them to his mouth, as if to
drink deeply.

     He did not drink, but rinsed his mouth and spat into the
basin of the sink.  Finished with the ritual cleansing, he
splashed a little water over his face to cool himself, and slowly
stood up.

     The underground training hall was not a secret.  There was
an concealed entrance from the grounds above, but also a door
inside the house that led down into the training hall, unhidden,
and with a sign indicating where it led.

     But all things hold secrets.  He stepped up to the plain,
northernmost wall and carefully sought the switch concealed
there.  It looked like nothing more than knot in the wood, and
depressed barely beneath his fingertips.  Three more switches he
touched, each as unnoticeable as the first.

     He waited, counting slowly to sixty in his head, and then
hit the switches in reverse order.

     Softly, slowly, with only a whisper of sound like leaves
scattering across ground, a small portion of the northern wall
slid back, wide enough to admit a single person.

     He stepped through, and the wall slowly slid closed behind
him.  It was dark in here, without natural or artificial light.

     His hands found the small niche in the wall and retrieved a
candle and a book of matches.  He struck the match, let it flare
briefly in the darkness, and touched it to the candle.  It caught
and began to burn with a soft light.  He blew on the match, and
left it sending a small smoky trail into the air for a moment
before he carefully snapped it between his thumb and forefinger
and placed the remnants back in the niche.

     Holding the candle in one hand, he made his way down the
narrow, wood-panelled hallway.  It was only ten or so feet to
where he needed to go, but he always walked them slowly,
preparing himself.

     He'd built the passageway and the room beyond three years
ago, working by himself, in the times he knew his sister would be
absent from the house.

     He didn't know what might have happened to him if he hadn't
built it.  He'd needed this place; he suspected everyone needed a
secret place, in their home or in their soul.  Someplace they
could go and be alone by themselves.

     Someplace where you didn't need to wear any mask at all,
even to yourself.  He always felt a peaceful emptiness in here,
in the long walk down the short hallway.  As if he was no one, a
man without name.

     Not Upperclassman Kuno, or Kuno-baby, or Tatewaki Kuno, or
Blue Thunder, or Tatchi, or anyone at all.  Just himself.  No
masks.

     The flame of the candle cast shadows on the walls, waving
silhouettes of himself and the candle, magnified or shrunken by
the second.  Up ahead, the last door appeared.  Simple and plain,
a sliding wooden screen really.  No locks upon it, because he was
past the threshhold now, past the concealment.  No need to hide
anymore.

     No masks.

     He slid the door open and stepped inside.  The room was very
small, square, each wall a little over six feet long.  One held
the door, the southern one, and he slid the door closed behind
him.

     The north was entirely occupied by a long shelf.  In the
centre was the elaborate wooden shrine that made up the
centrepiece of the kamidana.  The spirit shelf held more than
that, though.  Small plants to either side of the shrine, fresh
and green.  Three containers on the right, in front of one of the
potted plants; salt, rice and water, representative of the
elements that sustained life.

     At the front were five candles.  He lit them, one by one,
with the candle he held.  Slowly, slowly, like a mist, the soft
light filled the room, filtering around it gently, pushing back
the darkness.

     He blew out the original candle and put it down on the
floor.  Above and behind the kamidana were rice-fibre ropes, and
rice-paper streamers, soft white, crinkled into shapes like
lightning, hanging from them.

     And on the wall above it hung his mother's picture.  He
always looked to that last, because it was always when he looked
to it that he started to weep.

     He fell to his knees, bowed his head, tears streaming down
his face.  "Forgive me, spirits.  Forgive me, ancestors.
Forgive me, mother.  Another day goes by without vengeance."

     He wept for a long time, tears falling like rain upon the
wooden floor, sparkling in the light of the candles.

     No masks.

     When he was done, he looked up at his mother's picture
again, and did not feel he had any more tears to shed today.

     He stood, turned to the western wall, and seated himself
before the statue of the Buddha, legs crossed, the swords both
carefully held in his lap.  The statue was small and made of
dark grey stone, and on the chubby face was carved an expression
of utmost beneficience and wisdom.  Serenity and calm acceptance
of fate seemed bound up into the very being of it, as the image
of the Enlightened One smiled softly at him.

     "Forgive me, Lord Buddha.  Give me the wisdom to find what I
seek.  Give me the wisdom I need so that I may someday reach
enlightenment, so that when my mortal form passes I need not
again live the cycle of suffering that all life endures."

     He sat for a long time, meditating before the statue,
striving and mulling a hundred different thoughts over and over,
looking for answers.

     No masks.

     Finally, he stood and turned to the western wall.  The
crucifix hung there, with Christ upon it, arms outstretched to
his sides, affixed to the crude cross by nails through the
wrists.  It was simple and wooden, but exquisitely detailed.
The agony on the hanging man's face beneath the crown of thorns
upon his head seemed to tear at the soul, an agony deeper than
that of crown or of the wound of the spear upon his side or of
the nails that held him there.

     "Forgive me, Lord Christ.  Many are my sins.  I pray for
your forgiveness.  I pray for your light to guide my way."

     He prayed for a long time, silently, listing his sins and
asking that they be forgiven.  He understood this part the least,
but he had always done it all the same.  He needed all the
comfort that could be given, wherever it was it originated from.

     No masks.

     And finally, it was done.  He felt light, and cleansed, and
empty of all things that hurt.  He picked up the candle from the
floor, lit it with one of the five upon on the altar, and one by
one, blew those five out.  He slid open the door and stepped out
of his sanctuary.

     He slowly walked down the hallway, savouring the feeling,
ingraining it within his memory, letting it filter down
throughout his being.  Sword scabbards brushed against his hips,
and a small smile touched his face, still streaked with the
tracks of his tears.

     At the end of the hallway, he carefully looked out through a
concealed peephole.  His sister often used the training hall as
well, but they had an arrangement.  He had it in the mornings,
she in the afternoons.  But you could never be too careful.

     The training hall was empty.  He blew out the candle, and
placed it back inside the niche.  His finger found the switch,
and the door slid softly open.

     He stepped out, into the glare of the overhead lights, into
the vast empty space of the training hall.  Slowly, relaxation
slipped from him.  Slowly, he began to fill, simplicity upon
simplicity piling up into the complexity that was Tatewaki Kuno,
that was Upperclassman Kuno and Kuno-baby and Tatchi and Blue
Thunder, that was blustering arrogance and arrogant blustering,
blind stupidity and stupid blindness.

     He went to the sink.  He washed the signs of weeping from
his face, and with that action washed away the last of his peace.

**********

     "We've got over two hundred volunteers combing the mountain,
ma'am," the young policeman said as he poured tea into a cracked
ceramic cup on his crowded desk and passed it across to Nodoka.
"They'll find him, if he's there."

     "Thank you," Nodoka said softly, taking the cup and sipping
slowly from it.  "You've been very kind."

     "It's my job," the policeman said with a shrug.  He was a
skinny, plain-faced man with big hands.  He looked at Nodoka for
a moment, an uncomfortable expression on his face, and then spoke
again.  "Uh... about your husband, now..."

     Nodoka sighed and closed her eyes.  "Yes?"

     "The store owner doesn't want to press any charges.  He just
wants the money he's owed."

     Nodoka shook her head.  "I don't have it."

     The policeman frowned.  "Does your husband make a habit of
skipping out on his bills?"

     "I'm starting to think so," Nodoka said.

     "A money transfer shouldn't be hard," the policeman said.
"I can help you arrange it with the bank, if you like."

     "That would be best, I suppose," Nodoka said, finishing the
last of the tea and rising up out the chair with an almost
inaudible sigh.

     The policeman nodded and opened the door of his office for
her, following her out after she passed by him and shutting it
with a soft click.  "It's not far.  Nothing in this town is that
far from anything else."

     They made their way out of the small police station and onto
the streets of the town.  A few streets criss-crossed each other,
intermingled with houses and stores.  Off in the distance, a
small dirt road led off towards the village at the base of the
mountain, and finally, rising in the north, was the mountain
itself.

     It was small, as mountains went, which meant it was quite
large as anything else went.  Straining her eyes, she tried to
pick out any shapes that might be indicative of the searchers,
but there were none to find.

     She closed her eyes and bowed her head.  "Oh my son..."

     The policeman looked away nervously and scratched his arm.
"Bank's this way, ma'am."

     Nodoka looked up and smiled sadly.  "I'm sorry.  I just
realized I don't know your name."

     "Shinzo, ma'am," the policeman said with a nervous grin.

     "Let's go to the bank, Shinzo."

     "Will do."

     As he'd said, it wasn't far to the bank.  They were very
helpful there.  Everyone had been; news spread quickly in small
towns, and the outright sympathy everyone had been expressing was
almost becoming embarassing.

     There was no lack of money in her accounts, not anymore.
After the insurance settlement from the house being damaged,
there wasn't much more need for frugality.

     Genma had no idea of, course.  This little incident was just
one of the reasons, in her opinion, that the wife always handled
the finances.  He had no idea about the other surprise as well,
and the way things were going she wasn't sure she was going to
tell him.

     The teller clicked a few more commands into her computer,
nodded and smiled, then passed Nodoka an envelope full of cash.
She left the bank with Shinzo and stood out in the centre of the
street again, gazing off at the mountain, dotted with a
checkerboard of forests and patches of bare rock.

     "I'll get my car," Shinzo said, putting one of his broad
hands on her elbow.  "That'll get us to the town quick.  I'm sure
you're anxious to see your husband."

     After a moment, Nodoka realized she should nod.  She did so,
then followed the policeman to his car, unable to shake the
foreboding feeling that hung over her.

     It almost felt as if she were being watched.

**********

     Ranma watched his mother get into the car, pain tearing at
him inside.  It drove past a little over ten feet from where he
stood with Cologne in the alleyway between two buildings.

     Coming down the mountain had been easy; two martial artists
as experienced as he and Cologne had no difficulty avoiding the
searchers.

     He was just glad he hadn't seen any of his friends on the
way down the mountain.  That would have made it even harder.

     As if anything could be harder than this.  He watched the
car turn onto the road leading down to the village, carrying his
mother away, and his heart felt a heavy thing like a lump of
lead within his chest.

     "Mother..." he whispered softly, leaning against the wall of
the alleyway and sighing.  He blinked his eyes, forced the tears
back down.

     "Let's go, boy," Cologne said gently from behind him, the
tone at least still sounding like it always had.  Commanding,
imperious, and unused to being disobeyed.

     "Just another minute," Ranma said.  "I'm sorry, I..."

     "I know," Cologne said.  "It's hard."

     Ranma chuckled.  It was not a pleasant sound.  "How could
you know?"

     "I know more than you could ever imagine," Cologne said.

     He turned his head, his joints still aching from all the
injuries he'd taken yesterday, the pain still not entirely gone
even after hours of sleep.  "Hmm?"

     Cologne's old, dark eyes peered out at him from her young
face.  "What do you think I do now, Ranma?  You think I can go
back to the village as soon as I'm done with you?"

     She reached up a slim hand and tucked a few stray bangs
beneath her hairband.  "There are those there who are the allies
of the two we fought yesterday.  I must vanish as surely as you
must."

     Ranma slowly nodded.  "I still don't think it's the same."

     He pushed off from the wall, going from leaning to standing,
and looked at his right hand, slowly closing it into a fist and
standing there for a moment, eyes closed, a slight tremor running 
through his body.

     The sound of a woman's neck breaking.

     "Let's go," he said.  "Let's just get the hell out of here."

     So they went.

**********

     "Don't think I don't know what you're up to."

     Shampoo slowly opened her eyes and looked at Ukyou.  "Where
you come from?"

     Ukyou folded her arms over her chest and leaned back against
a tree, mirroring the position of the other girl.  "Where I come
from?  Hmm?  Spatula girl just want talk to you alone."

     Shampoo gritted her teeth.  "No start this again, Ukyou.  I
not in mood for it.  I beat you last time, I beat you again."

     Ukyou raised one hand and touched her fingers lightly to the
haft of her big spatula where it was strapped across her back.
"Well, I've got this now.  That puts us on about equal footing,
wouldn't you say?"

     Shampoo snorted softly.  "Why you trying to start fight,
Ukyou?"

     "I didn't start anything," Ukyou said.  "You started this
whole thing when your hag of a great-grandmother hatched this
plot to get Ranchan.  I didn't even think you'd sink as low as to
use his mother like that, but..."

     Shampoo turned and started to walk away, beginning to
realize the reason for all the glares Ukyou had been shooting her
since they'd come down the mountain yesterday.

     Without Ranma or her great-grandmother.

     Any other time, she would have risen to the challenge.  Not
now, though.  Now she felt like nothing inside.  Everything that
had happened in the last two days seemed like a dream; a very bad
dream, but a dream all the same.

     There was a certain detachment from the events for her; it
didn't seem to have been her hands holding a knife to her own
heart, or her voice saying words she'd never expected to say.

     She took two steps, and then Ukyou's hand fell on her
shoulder, the one that had been torn open in the fight yesterday.
Ukyou knew that she'd injured it, there was no doubt in her mind
about that.

     She winced and bit back a sound of pain.  "What?"

     "You look at me when I'm talking to you," Ukyou said.  "I
know this is all because of your stupid Amazon laws, Shampoo.
You put everyone in danger because you're so obsessed with having
Ranma for your husband..."

     Shampoo spun, eyes flashing.  "Yes, that right, Ukyou.
Great-grandmother and I arrange for two women to come and try to
kill us so I get Ranma.  How you find out?  You so very smart."

     She saw Ukyou's expression of righteous indignation waver
for a moment, but then it was back.  "I wouldn't put anything
past you if you'd kidnap Ranchan's mother like that."

     The careful hold Shampoo had held on her temper snapped
right then.  Ukyou tended to bring that out in her.

     "I not know why great-grandmother do what she do," Shampoo
said, in a very cold voice.  "I not know she going to kidnap
Ranma mother.  I not know why you trying to start fight with me
either, Ukyou.  I not want to fight you.  We all need work to
find Ranma.  Mousse and Ryoga, they not hate Ranma so much they
not helping.  You hate me so much you not going to help?"

     She smiled, without using her eyes.  "Or maybe you hate him,
because you know now you no can have him.  You want blame
someone, blame yourself.  No blame me for something I not do."

     "SHUT UP!" Ukyou shouted, face collapsing from indignation
to a ruin of concealed grief.  "I don't hate him!  I don't!  I...
I love..."

     Shampoo turned away again, which meant she never saw the
blow coming.  The flat side of the enormous spatula connected
with her head with a ringing crack, and knocked her sprawling to
the ground, dark suns bursting in front of her eyes and muted
explosions ringing in her head like hollow bells.

     "Why?" she heard Ukyou whisper, and there were tears in her
voice.  "Why couldn't you have just stayed in China, married
Mousse or something?  Why'd you have to come here?"

     Shampoo tried to raise herself up, but somewhere amidst the
ringing in her head and the wet dripping down the side of her
face, she'd forgotten just what combination of arms and legs
would do that.  She heard footsteps softly approaching.

     "Why did he leave me behind?" Ukyou's voice said.  A soft
sob broke from her, an aching sound of sadness unseen and pain
long-hidden, truths long denied and hopes forever shattered.
"Why?"

     Again Shampoo tried to get up, but the blow had severely
rattled her.  She tried to raise herself to her hands and knees,
but Ukyou was right beside her now, and her head was still
ringing so badly.  She braced herself for an expected blow.

     The blow never fell.

     "Oh god..." she heard Ukyou say.  "Oh, god, I'm sorry.  I...
I don't know what to..."

     There was the clatter of some large metal object being
dropped to the ground, and then someone pressed their hand to the
side of her head, against the slow flow of blood from the small
laceration the blow had left.  "I'm sorry, Shampoo.  That was...
that was dishonourable.  I hit someone with their back turned.
I..."

     A soft sniffle.  "I hurt so bad.  I know it can't be any
better for you, but... it hurts so much."

     "I be okay," Shampoo whispered softly.  "Joketsuzoku women
have very hard heads."

     "Not as hard as some people's," Ukyou said, something in her
voice dancing on that line between laughter and weeping.  

     Ukyou carefully put her hand on Shampoo's uninjured shoulder
and helped her sit up.  Her head hurt horribly, vision swimming
back and forth from clarity to murkiness.  Ukyou was very pale,
tears still on her face.

     "I'm sorry," she said again.  Behind her, Shampoo could see
the discarded giant spatula.  "That was... I don't know why..."

     "Everything changing," Shampoo said.  "So fast.  It make
everyone change with it, whether they want to or not."

     "I know this isn't your fault," Ukyou said in a soft voice.
"You... I saw you tried to stop them.  Everything's all screwed
up now.  Ranchan's gone, I..."

     She sighed and closed her eyes.  "We'd better start looking
again.  We have to find him."

     "If he still here," Shampoo said quietly.

     Ukyou nodded.  "I just hope he's okay."

     Shampoo slowly stood up.  "So do I."

     "What about your great-"

     "I hope Ranma okay."

     Ukyou frowned, turning to pick up her spatula from the
ground.  She hefted the weapon over her shoulder and turned to
look back at the other girl.  Shampoo was looking at her with a
strangely contemplative expression.

     "What?" Ukyou asked finally.

     Shampoo smiled bitterly.  "You know what you do, right
Ukyou?  You defeat me.  You defeat Joketsuzoku woman in battle."

     Ukyou's mouth dropped open.  "Wha..."

     "Outsider woman who beat Joketsuzoku, must receive kiss of
death," Shampoo said, taking a step forward.  "Must be hunted
down and killed."

     Shampoo's hand came up, and for some reason, Ukyou could do
nothing to stop it.  Slowly it came forward, until it was nearly
touching Ukyou's face, almost brushing against her cheek.  There
was something in Shampoo's face impossible to describe,
impossible to put into words or even thoughts.

     Very gently, as if she feared the other girl might break at
the touch, Shampoo put her fingers against Ukyou's cheek in a
gesture almost like a caress.  She leaned forward; sun caught the
highlights of her hair.  Her breath was warm against Ukyou's
face, a summer breeze, a light zephyr, lighter even than the
touch of her fingers.

     And then, just as slowly, she let her hand drop and
straightened up, the impossible expression vanishing, the bitter
smile returning.  "No one see.  Joketsuzoku laws cause enough
hurt already, I think."

     And with that, she turned and walked away.

**********

     Ryoga frowned as he looked into the western sky.  The sun
seemed to have moved so fast; it was already there, already past
the mid-mark of the day.  In a few hours, it would set.  It
didn't seem like they'd been searching since this morning, but
they had, along with all the volunteers the police in town had
been able to round up.

     They hadn't been able to give them the whole story, of
course.  Supposedly they'd come up into the mountains to camp out
and train together.  Ranma, they'd said, had gone off on his own
yesterday and never come back.

     They seemed to have been believed, at least.  They'd been
put up last night in two rooms at a small inn, and had arisen
early in the morning to start the search again.  Hours and hours
had been spent combing the mountain, fruitlessly calling Ranma's
name.

     Ryoga had the sneaking suspicion they weren't going to find
anything, though.  No one else had seen Ranma's face but him
before those two women had come.  There had been something there
that Ryoga could not quite ever understand, some sense of
finality.  Wherever Ranma was, if he was alive, it wasn't here.

     He was alive, though.  He had to be alive.  Because Ryoga
wasn't sure he could face himself ever again if he wasn't.

     Watch over them, Ranma had said.  His mother and Akane.  The
words had been spoken only to him, only for him to hear.  And he
would.

     "Always," he said softly, as he'd said to Ranma before.
"Always."

     "Find anything?"

     Ryoga turned slowly around and regarded Mousse evenly.
"Nope.  Not a thing."

     The taller boy nodded and took a few steps closer to stand
with Ryoga under the shade of a branching tree.  "Me neither."

     "I don't think we're going to, either," Ryoga said after a
moment.

     Mousse nodded again.  "I don't know what Cologne was up to,
and I don't know who those two women who showed up were, but if
Saotome were still here, he'd have found us by now."

     Ryoga sighed and put his hand against the trunk of the tree,
feeling the rough bark against his callused palm.  "Yeah.  Either
someone has him or he's left on his own, for some reason."

     "The question is," Mousse said, absently taking out a
shuriken and dancing it along his knuckles as he talked.  "If
someone has him, is it Cologne or those two women?"

     Ryoga shook his head ruefully.  "I don't know about you, but
I'm kinda hoping for Cologne."

     Mouse pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his
free hand and smiled slightly.  "I have to say I am as well.
It's better than the alternative."

     Ryoga touched his fingers to the four scabbed-over cuts
across his face, parallel lines left by Yamiko's hands.  He
thought they might leave scars.  "Yeah."

     "I don't think the girls are going to give up after just one
day, though," Mousse said quietly.  "But after that..."

     Ryoga's eyes followed the throwing stars as Mousse flipped
it between his fingers.  It flashed silver in the sunlight.
"After that, what?"

     "I don't really know," Mousse said with a sigh.  "But I'd
say if Cologne has him, against his will, then they'll be on
their way to China."

     Ryoga raised an eyebrow.  "And if those two women have him?"

     "Then my prayers go with him," Mousse said softly.

     "I thought you'd be jumping for joy," Ryoga said before he
could stop himself.  "After all, you've got Shampoo to yourself
now."

     He saw something pass across Mousse's face, a twitch.  The
boy grimaced, and the shuriken fell from his fingers, clattering
off a rock on the ground.

     "Ouch," Mousse said, raising his bleeding fingers to his
mouth and sucking on them.  "Have to be more careful with those
sharp objects."

     "Something happen?" Ryoga said cautiously.  "I was wondering
why you weren't with her."

     Mousse slowly nodded.  "Yeah.  Something happened, I guess."

     "I'm sorry," Ryoga said.

     Mousse smiled, very sadly.  "It's been coming for a long
time.  My blindness goes beyond my eyes at times."

     He looked at Ryoga, eyes magnified behind the thick lenses
of his glasses.  "I'd expect you to be happy, though.  You've
never seemed to like him much more than I do, and now he's not in
your way with..."

     Further words were knocked out of him when Ryoga grabbed him
by the collar in a tight grip with both hands and slammed him
back against the tree.  "Shut up, Mousse!  Just shut up!  You
don't have any idea how I feel, understand?"

     He closed his eyes.  "You don't have any idea."

     Mousse's arms came up.  Silver flashed in the sun.  He
locked eyes with Ryoga and a slow, humourless smile spread across
his face.

     "You don't take your hands off me right now, Ryoga," he
said, very quietly.  "You're going to have a few more marks on
your face."

     Ryoga opened his eyes and gazed up at Mousse, pent-up rage
and frustration blazing behind his eyes.  "Try it."

     "What are you two doing?"

     Ryoga and Mousse looked away from their staring contest at
Akane.  "Uhh..."

     "I guess since Ranma isn't around, you two have to fight
each other, huh?" Akane said slowly.  "Is that it?  Why don't you
put some of that energy into looking for him, alright?"

     Ryoga slowly let Mousse go.  "Really, Akane, we weren't
fighting..."

     "I don't want to hear it," Akane said wearily.  "I don't
care who started it, or what.  Go ahead and rip each other's
throats out.  I really don't care."

     She turned and started to walk quickly away.  Mousse brushed
his collar off and looked at Ryoga with a slow, regretful sigh.

     "I think you'd better go after her," he said quietly.  "You
get along a hell of a lot better with her than I do."

     Ryoga looked at the other boy for a moment, then began to
walk quickly after Akane before she got out of his sight.  He
caught up with her after twenty or so feet, and laid a hesitant
hand on her shoulder.

     "Akane?"

     She turned and stared at him, and it hurt him deep inside to
see her face.  "What?"

     "I'm sorry," he said, feeling himself go tongue-tied, as he
always did around her.  No words came to him, no words with which
he could express himself.  Regret, sadness, love, they all
intertangled themselves within his mind, wove a net that let no
words past.  There was so much to say, and yet it was so hard to
say it.

     "I'm sorry," he said again.  "Really, I'm sorry Akane, I..."

     "Oh, Ryoga," Akane said.  She smiled softly at him.  "It's
alright.  It's not you.  It's me."

     "Huh?"

     "I'm so scared," she whispered, as if shamed to admit it.
"I'm scared for him."

     He hurt inside; he felt as if there was a wound upon him, a
wound that would not heal, something deep inside his soul that
went deeper each time he took a breath, drove itself like a
splinter of glass throughout his very being.

     "He'll be okay," he said.  "Really, Akane.  He'll be okay."

     "But what if he isn't?" Akane said, closing her eyes.  "What
if he isn't, and then..."

     A few tears leaked from beneath her closed eyelids, hung
upon her lashes like dew upon leaves for a fraction of a second,
and then fell upon her cheeks.  "And I never told him how..."

     "How you felt?" Ryoga said, not sure how he managed to say
the words at all.

     "Yeah," Akane sniffed.  "But the worst thing is, I don't
even know how I really feel."

     She put up a hand and brushed at one cheek, as if that could
somehow stop the tears.  "I... he made me so mad.  All the time,
he made me so mad.  But he always..."

     She opened her eyes and looked at him, tears shimmering upon
her face and unshed inside her eyes.  "How can you feel two ways
about someone at the same time that are so totally different?
How can you..."

     "I don't know," Ryoga said thickly.  "But I know you can.  I
know...  You can hate someone so much, and at the same time you
can l-"

     "I don't know what I'd do without you," Akane said suddenly.
"You're always there for me, Ryoga.  You're..."

     As if by their own volition, his hands came up and put
themselves upon her shoulders.  "It'll be okay, Akane," he said
gently.  "Really."

     Slowly, slowly, he drew her against him, embraced her, as
he'd always longed to.  She seemed so small, so fragile.  Her
body was warm against his, her hair fragrant and soft against his
cheek.

     "I promise it'll be okay," he said.

     "Thank you," Akane whispered, her head on his shoulder.

     All life is suffering, thought Ryoga, remembering the words
of another.  And the root of all suffering is desire.  And if 
that thing which I desire brings me suffering, why for it do I so
desire?

     And it was this third which was his own thought, and for it
he had no answer.

**********

     Nabiki shuffled the papers upright, banging them again the
flat top of the desk to straighten them, and then tucked them
into the drawer.  She locked it, and then hung the key on its
chain back around her neck, where it was more often than not.

     She swivelled her desk chair around and looked out the
window.  Dinner had been a few hours ago, an uncomfortable meal
with Kasumi carrying on with a variety of inane chatter between
their father's bouts of depressive doomsaying.  The sun had set,
and the city outside had fallen into darkness broken by the
symmetric randomness of the patterned lights of the buildings.

     The phone rang, and Nabiki started slightly in her chair.
Then she steadied herself, cursing her own nervousness, and
picked it up.

     "Hello?"

     "Nabiki?"

     "Hi Akane.  You find him."

     After a second's silence, Akane made her reply.  "No."

     "Any sign at all?"

     "No."

     Her younger sister's voice was flat and controlled, and
carried a sense of terrible weariness in it.  "No sign.  I just
came down the mountain a few minutes ago.  Auntie Saotome said I
should give you and everyone else a call."

     "So what's the plan now?" Nabiki said.

     "We're staying here another night, and searching some more
tomorrow.  Afer that..."

     The next words sounded very difficult for her sister to say.
"After that, we're gonna come back and try to figure out what to
do next."

     "Hey, listen sis, you were kinda abrupt when I talked to you
last... give me a rundown on what happened, and I might be able
to help you out."

     She said it casually, as if in passing, steadying herself
with a deep breath. "Okay?"

     "Sure," Akane said.  She began to talk, and Nabiki began to
take notes in point-form of anything that sounded important.

     When Akane was finished, her voice was trembling slightly on
the other end of the line.  "That's it, I guess."

     "Okay," Nabiki said.  "Look, sis, it'll be alright.  He's
Ranma.  He'll be okay."

     "I wish everyone would stop saying that," she heard Akane
say, so quietly she almost wasn't sure she heard it correctly.

     "Look, call me tomorrow, okay?  I wanna know how you're
doing," Nabiki said.  "Hang in there, Akane."

     "Thanks, Nabiki.  Bye."

     "Bye."

     The phone clicked down.  Nabiki sat in her chair for a few
long minutes, alternating staring at the newly taken notes with
staring out the window at the dark-fallen city and sky.

     She finally turned her attention to the notes, reading them
over and trying to make connections between them, scrawling down
anything that seemed particularly important.

     Finished, she licked her lips and pressed the eraser end of
her pencil to her chin for a moment in thought.  Then she put the
pencil into the small jar on her desk with a clatter that seemed
loud in the silence of the room, and picked up the phone.

     The number was familiar.  Far too familiar.  Too many times
dialed, too many times.

     "Hello, Nabiki."

     The voice on the other end of the line was deep and soft.
"I'd been wondering when I'd hear from you again.  Your last
report was so... inadequate."

     "My little sister didn't tell me much the first time she
called.  I can't help that."

     "Have you got something a little more substantial this
time?"

     "Yes."

     "Go on."

     She started to read off her list, filling out the quick
notes with memories of what Akane had said.  The voice on the
other end occasionally asked questions, and she answered them as
best she could, though grudgingly.

     "Is that all?" the voice said finally.

     "Yeah."

     "Better than last time, Nabiki."

     "Whatever."

     Hesitantly, she spoke again.  "If he... if he doesn't come
back, am I..."

     The voice laughed, very softly.  "Nabiki dear, once we have
something useful, we don't ever let it go.  You don't just
discard your business assets.  You hold onto them.  You never
know when you'll need them."

     It paused for a second.  "Although perhaps I could help you
out, you know.  You've become a very pretty young lady, Nabiki.
I'm always..."

     "No.  Can I go now?"

     "For now.  Keep my offer in mind though, Nabiki."

     She hung up the phone without saying anything else, and sat
there at her desk, trembling slightly.  She put her hand to her
mouth in a fist and nibbled slightly on one knuckle, a nervous
childhood habit she thought she'd gotten rid of.

     She didn't even realize she was crying until a few minutes
later, the tears falling silent down her face.  And she couldn't
stop trembling, no matter how hard she tried.

     She curled her knees up to her chest, wrapped one arm around
them and hugged her legs tightly to herself.  She was just glad
her door had a lock on it.

     "Come on, Nabiki," she chided herself softly.  "It'll be
okay.  It'll be okay.  It'll be okay..."

     She closed her eyes.  "I won't ever let him touch me.  No
matter what, I won't ever let him touch me."

     She rocked slightly in the chair, hearing it creak amidst
the silence.

     "It'll be okay..."

     A mantra.

     "It'll be okay..."

     A chant, perhaps.  A charm, a ward, a spell of protection.

     "It'll be okay..."

     Words.  Words had power, maybe, if you said them often
enough.

     "It'll be okay..."

     So Nabiki sat in her room, with the door locked, with the
night sky watching her and the city lights like a hundred
thousand eyes at her back, and she said her words long into the
night.

     As always, though, she had little hope that anyone was
listening.

**********

     The man called Ritter stood upon the balcony of his
expensive hotel room, forty floors above the Tokyo streets, with
the night wind blowing through his pale hair.  The city spread
out before him, a chaotic sprawl of flashing lights, and about it
all, in the spaces the light didn't reach, there was the dark.

     Ritter smiled, and his pale blue eyes gazed out across the
west, across the tangle of the city into the countryside, and
beyond that land to the ocean, the Sea of Japan, out across the
Korean peninsula and the Yellow Sea.  He knew where he was gazing
at, even though it was over a thousand miles away, across oceans
and rivers and lakes and mountains.

     He could feel the pull, even this far away.  Far into
central China, in the sparsely populated, mountainous province of
Qinghai, Jusenkyou lay.

     None of them could go there but he.  Despite all that
Jusenkyou was, defiance of all barriers was a part of what he
was.  But Yoko and her sisters, and the pathetic fools who bowed
their heads and worshipped, and had no idea of the depths of
that to which they gave their prayers, none of them could go
there.  He knew they'd tried, just as he knew they had a few
hands there, a few who had slipped through, working within the
loopholes of the ancient protections that shielded the place.

     But they would not shield it from him.  And once his work
was done, they would no longer shield it from anyone.

     He had been hasty last time, far too hasty.  It had taken
him a long time to understand what he had done wrong.  He had
learned finesse, and patience.  Neither had come easily to him,
because when he had first begun his service they had not been
necessary.  

     But times had changed, and he had changed with them.  This
time, he would not move too quickly.  This time, he would do it
right.  He had waited for a long, long time for when the moment
would be right to strike.

     Jusenkyou would fall to the Dark, and he would deliver the
heart of the springs into the hand of his master.  He would burn
the village of the Joketsuzoku to ash, he would lay the palace of
the pathetic remnants who called themselves the Musk to ruin, and
he would bring the halls of Phoenix Mountain down atop her
people's heads.  And at long last, he would finally be granted
that which he most desired.

     "Not long, my lord," he said softly to the listening night.
"Not long at all, after so long a time.  Soon the new times shall
come, and all that has been shall cease to be.  We shall rip out
the roots of the world-tree and tear the sun from the sky.  The
seas shall swell with the blood of the slain and rise upon the
land."

     He leaned forward, resting his arms on the balcony.  He
looked out to the west, and slowly smiled, raising an arm as if
to grasp something, as if he might reach across the hundreds of
miles and hold Jusenkyou in the palm of his hand.

     He hoped his little demonstration today had put Yoko back in
her place.  It would be something of a shame if he had to kill
her.  

     The man called Ritter straightened up, and smiled with
perfect teeth.  Ritter was one name he had in the world right
now, one face.  
     
     The man walked inside his hotel room and closed the door to
the balcony behind him.  He walked into the bathroom and
stretched his arms over his head.

     He looked into the mirror, at his reflection, and
concentrated.  He formed a mental picture of the same face as he
had now, the same body, the same hair, only with green eyes
instead of blue.

     He closed his eyes, and opened them.

     Blue eyes stared back at him from the sharply-chiselled
face.  He shrugged and smiled.  It was true as always; he could
not change his eyes.

     Shrugging, he walked back inside the hotel room and
undressed, crawling into a bed that he did not feel any real need
of anymore.  But he was a creature of habits, and sleep was one
of them.  He closed his eyes, and willed sleep to come.

     Sleep came, and with it glorious dreams of ashes scattered
upon the winds of desolation.