Tofu: Master of Darkness
	The darkness of the room was checked only by the faint light of half a
dozen smoking candles. Thick clouds of incense drifted malevolently through
the air from a lit brazier in the center of the candles. Chalk outlines
crept around the candles.
	A wooden door opened and permitted illumination to enter the room briefly.
A tall shrouded figure entered the room. In his hands he bore a small, aged
book. His cloak dragged in the sand in the ring as he walked into the
circle of candles and sat down. A smaller figure followed the first and
began to sit as well. 
	"Wait! Close the door."
	"Alright."
	The short figure closed the door  and sat down by its elder. Shroud began
to leaf through the pages of the book. The other leaned over his shoulder.
	"Flip back one, that looked interesting."
	"This is serious."
	"Well, that looked seriously interesting. I mean that thing with the dummy
and those�"
	"Please get away from the book and let me do my work. Check the candles,
or something."
	The smaller figure picked up two of the candles and stared at them intently. 
	"Put those candles down! You're here to help me with the ritual. If you
don't stop fooling around, I'll have to do it alone."
	"Okay, don't get upset."
	Short replaced the candles in the circle and began to inspect the sand
surrounding the candles, grumbling in the act.
	Shroud motioned the other to step back.
	"Alright, it's time. I want you to hold the book open to this page. You
will read from here to here. Do not turn the page and do not read ahead.
Once you begin, read at a constant pace and do not take your eyes of the
words."
	"Yes, great master."
	"If all goes well, I shall finally contact him tonight."
******************
Part One
	Awakening
******************
	The Nerima ward of Tokyo woke up to a beautiful morning.  Songbirds filled
the air with cheerful strains. The cherry blossoms would soon be in bloom.
Children awoke to prepare for a rigorous day of school, and green, eldritch
smoke drifted from a crater the size of a small, poorly lit abandoned
warehouse that would no longer be taking up valuable space.
	The firemen had rushed to the scene of the explosion three hours before,
but they had been unable to accomplish much. There was little that could be
done anyway. The resulting fire had consumed what little remained of the
building, but there was no damage elsewhere. Two survivors had been pulled
from the wreckage. Both were in critical condition at the Nerima hospital. 
Fire Marshal Suzaku reflected on the strange incident. No cause could be
discerned. The odd smoke indicated that a chemical experiment may have been
involved, but there was simply no evidence, save a few twisted shards of
metal. It was possible that arson had caused the fire and some strongly
combustible substance was caught in it, since there was no trace of any
explosives.
The fire marshal was lost in thought when he stepped on a small object. He
looked where he had placed his foot and found a small red stone. A single
jagged crack tore through the stone's surface. The stone seemed almost
translucent, but opaque at the same time. Suzaku absently slipped it into a
pocket and moved on.
*****
	Ranma Saotome, high school student, age17, and certified freak of nature,
walked down the stairs of the Tendo home. He was ready for his morning
pre-breakfast workout with his father. 
As he passed the kitchen, Nabiki called out to him, "Ranma, come here and
take a look at this."
	"What is it?"
	Nabiki was kneeling by the table; she was clutching a coffee cup in one
hand and pointing to the television with the other.
	Images of a burned out lot filled the screen. 
	"There was an explosion right here in Nerima, Ranma. It was just a block
away from doctor Tofu's place."
	Kasumi turned from her breakfast making to look at the TV as a reporter
came on screen.
	"� word that the two victims of the blast were identified. Both were taken
to the Nerima Hospital in critical condition. One, an elderly Chinese
woman, recovered consciousness briefly and gave her name as  Cologne. The
other has yet to awake, but has been positively identified as Dr. Ono Tofu,
a local chiropractor."
	A crash resounded through the kitchen. 
	Kasumi saw that everyone was looking at her. Slivers of a shattered rice
bowl lay at her feet. Kasumi broke off her stare at the television, which
had now moved on to a story about teaching pandas to play shogi, and bent
down to clean the mess on the floor.
	Ranma watched Kasumi silently sweep the rice and bowl shards up. She then
returned to the breakfast preparation, ignoring the moisture around her eyes.
	Akane stepped into the kitchen and sensed that something was out of the
ordinary. 
	"What's going on?"
	Nabiki glanced at Kasumi and put down her coffee.
	"Why don't we take a little trip to the hospital?"
*****
	The room was all black and white marble. A cross was formed in the ground
by the intersection of four marble posts, two white, two black. Inside the
cross was a double circle with runes carved between the borders. The room
was split in half, the border intersecting the cross diagonally. One side
had a white floor with black markings and the other side black with white
markings. Black candles with white wicks burned around half of the outer
edge of the circle, their counterparts likewise on the other side. In the
center of the circle, the dividing line became a sine curve with opposite
colored dots in the concave parts. Two discs were suspended from above the
center, one white and one black.
	He was standing on the dividing border, just outside the circle.  His
robes were ash grey. He saw a hooded man similarly garbed sat in lotus
position inside the circle. 
	He was forced to avert his eyes and looked towards the walls. It was
impossible to tell whether they were near or distant, but they seemed to
lose some of their solidity. Men in white robes seemed to form from the
white walls and black robes appeared from the ebon walls.
	The grey robe lifted his face to him. His hood slid back enough to view
his face, but he could only make out the man's eyes. As the white and black
robes knelt upon the outer edge of the circle, the mysterious figure's
frigid grey orbs locked upon his eyes. The rest of the man' face was
indistinct, but he knew that he had seen those eyes before. 
	The black and white robes began to chant. Grey suddenly stood and raised his 
arms. He called out in a shattering voice "See as it was!". Cracks appeared
in the marble and grey robe's garment began to draw in light. The robe
became a blinding red with green trim. The cracks grew�
*****
	Tofu opened his eyes. The world was all white and possessed only one 
white figure and one black. He heard a sound that he later realized were
the words "about bloody time". Tofu found that he was lying down and the
black figure  was leaning over him while the white moved around several
feet away. He addressed the black figure. 
	"Where am I? Who are you?"
	"�"
	The white figure was moving towards him. At the same time, the black took
a step back  and became indistinct from its surroundings in his vision .
The white figure resolved itself into a nurse and he realized that he was
in a hospital room, but for a moment he thought that he had seen another
white image.
	"How do you feel? Let me check you over and then I'll go get the doctor."
	"What am I doing here?" Tofu asked, but he suddenly remembered the events
of the past night.
	He found that he was in the most unremarkable hospital room he had ever
seen. The single feature of note about the room was that it was so
unexceptional that it was uncanny. The nearly unadorned white walls, the
suspended television, the adjustable bed, all these were completely normal.
	"Would you like me to do anything for you before I get the doctor?" The
nurse stared at him with the patience of a mother elephant. 
	"Eh?" Tofu blinked and remembered where he was. "Was there a anyone else
brought here with me?"
	"Yes dear, your friend is here too. She's in a room just down the hall.
I'll be back in a minute if you don't need anything."
	She? Tofu thought as the nurse left. Who is "she"? What happened to
Hikaru? Tofu thought as he swiveled his head to check himself in the mirror.
	His face was red and a scar crept from his right cheek to his brow, but he
was otherwise whole. Well, I suppose it could have been worse, he reflected. 
	"It would have been a lot worse if you had been sitting where I was."
	"Gosunkugi-kun?"
	"There's a reason they didn't find me. There wasn't much left to find. I
mean, you got off easy�"
	"Where are you?"
	The reflection in the mirror paled and the eyes became large and sunken
with dark circles around them..
	The mouth moved.
	"Where do you think I am? You blew me up."