The Dying of the Light

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum 

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

This copy of the story is from my centralized fanfiction archive
at http://www.thekeep.org/~harnums/fanfic.  I can be reached by
e-mail at harnums@thekeep.org

Part 8 : The Circle Shall Close

     Even in the winter, the forest seemed pleasant.  Thought the branches
might be bare and the air cold, the looming trees were always a majestic
sight to any observer.

     The only observer right now was the moon, shining down upon the
forest, narrow-eyed and silver.  Usually, the woods would have been alive
with small creatures of the night, the nocturnal birds and animals that
came out after the sun was down.

     Tonight, those small creatures huddled frightened in nests or burrows.
Something else walked in the woods tonight.  Many things, in fact.  Dozens
of shadowy figures flitted between the trees, seeming insubstantial as the
night breeze as they walked.  They sniffed the air, and where they smelled
the scent of living creatures, they hunted.  They climbed trees to search
out the nests of the birds, they dug under rocks to reach the burrows of
the animals.  And wherever they found something living, the shadows tore it
to shreds and fought over it, and the screams of whatever they had caught
shattered the peace of the other animals, who were too frightened of what
walked this night to even run.

     Several of the shadows came upon a den of foxes, a mated pair with
newborn kits.  The parents fought with all the fury of their small bodies
and sharp teeth, but they were taken down quickly and devoured by the
strongest among the shadows, as the weaker ones scavenged the tiny mewling
children the pair had fought so hard to defend.

     Once all was gone there, they moved on, and the small shadow,
different from the rest, detached itself from hiding in the tree.  It stood
silently for a moment over the ruins of the den, clenching a small fist in
anger and crying a few tears.

     Then it spoke a few words gently, and its form shifted, going from
walking upon two legs to going upon all fours.  It knew where the shadows
were headed; they could not find food enough in the forest to fill their
dusty bellies.  They could not find food enough in all the world, of
course, but they would try always.

     It could smell the scent of animals, many large animals, and close.
And if it could smell them, then so could the shadows.  It knew these
woods; it knew the area around them.

     And it knew where the shadows were headed.

     Loping quickly, it began to follow.

**********

     Ryoga Hibiki blinked awake from a dream he could not remember, and for
a brief moment between waking and sleeping was unsure of where he was.  The
bed was soft, and comfortable, not like the rocky ground he was often used
to sleeping upon.  There were pillows beneath his head, soft and
comfortable pillows.

     As his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, he saw it was large
and well-furnished.  A desk, a chair, a dresser.

     And the bed; a large bed, not too large for just one person, but a
little too large for two.  Unless they were very close together.  There was
soft breathing that was not his, and he remembered that he was not alone.

     He reached down, with gentleness that it did not seem could be
contained within those large, rough hands of his, and brushed a lock of
hair away from Akari's face.  Her head rested on his chest, long hair
spilling across his upper body in a dark cape.  He studied her face, a face
locked within his mind as a thing he adored above all else.

     His hand traced a path around the curves of her face, trying to
memorize it with his fingers as well as with his mind.  He wanted no part
of him to ever forget her, or what had happened last night.

     They'd really been meaning to wait until they were married; it had
never been spoken right out in the open, but no matter how far they had
come, they'd stopped just short of lovemaking by a kind of mutual decision.

     But now things were different; they were engaged, officially engaged,
by his proposal of last Monday.  Akari still had a braided scrap of his
bandanna wound around her finger; he'd wanted to go into town and buy her a
real ring, even though he wasn't sure where he would get the money, but
Akari would have none of it.  She'd said that he couldn't have given her a
better ring.

     *"It's better than any other one because it is a part of you."*

     There'd been an air of something unexplainable between them, ever
since he'd proposed.  Every touch had seemed more electric, each brush of
lips to lips or even fingertip to fingertip sending a shock through his
body.

     And then, last night, Friday night, he'd gotten up from his room to go
into the hall and carefully follow the wall to the bathroom for a drink of
water, and he'd heard crying coming from Akari's room.

     He'd gone inside hesitantly, asked her what was wrong.  She wasn't
really able to explain it herself; it was happiness and sadness at the same
time.  She told him she'd been thinking about her parents, and her
grandfather, and about how none of them could be here to see them married.

     He'd held her, and told her he loved her, and that it would be
alright.  And then he just held her for a while, and said nothing, and
somewhere in there, he never went back to his room that night.

     He glanced over at the digital clock, in the shape of a pig with the
numbers displayed on its side.  It was exactly two-thirty-seven AM on
Saturday morning.

     "The morning after," he said softly, kissing his fingertips and then
lightly brushing them on Akari's cheek.  He studied her body under the
cover of the sheets; the curve of her shoulder, the dip of her waist, the
roundness of her hip.  Her feet were stuck out a little, dangling over the
edge of the bed.

     Her body was warm and soft against him, as it had been last night.
But it was a gentle heat this time, not the fierce burning of before.
Last night had been everything he had imagined, and everything he hadn't.
It had been ice, and it had been fire.  It had been being impossibly close
to her, and impossibly far away.

     He shifted himself slightly, and even in sleep she shifted as well,
keeping her position the same relative to him.

     "Oh, Akari," he whispered as he looked at her.  "I love you so
much..."

     Long lashes fluttered, as her eyes opened.  "I love you too, Ryoga."

     "I'm sorry," he said softly.  "I didn't mean to wake you."

     "You didn't," Akari said.  "I've been awake for a little while
anyway.  What time is it?"

     "Very early," Ryoga said.  "We should get some sleep."

     "We probably should," Akari said, smiling slightly and starting to
shift herself up his body, smooth skin sliding along his.  Ryoga blushed
intensely, and brought his hand up to cup her face, bending down to press
his lips to hers.

     Outside, something screamed, piercing and high and animal.

     The moment was broken like a dropped glass.

     "Oh!" Akari said.  "What was that?"

     "Dunno," Ryoga said.  "Just some animal."

     "It sounded... hurt..." Akari said.

     "It's nothing," Ryoga said soothingly.  "Don't worry."

     The scream came again, and was abruptly cut off.

     "It sounds awfully close to the house," Akari said worriedly.  "What
about the pigs..."

     "I pity any animal or whatever else that tries to mess with those
pigs," Ryoga said with a short laugh.

     Akari shook her head.  "No, no.  We get foxes sometimes that drag off
the newborns."

     "They're all in the barn," Ryoga said.

     "Did you lock it?" Akari said.

     "I think so," Ryoga replied.

     "Are you sure?"

     "No, I'm not sure," Ryoga said.  He shifted his legs out of bed and
stretched.  "I'll go out and check, okay?"

     "Thank you," Akari said.  "I'll come with you."

     "You don't have to..."

     "No, I want to.  They may need to be calmed down, and you're just not
as good with them as I am."

     "Okay," Ryoga said.  He dressed quickly, trying not to watch as Akari
dressed behind him.  They headed downstairs, turning on lights as they
went.  At the closet near the front door, they pulled on coats and boots.

     Ryoga glanced out the window as he tugged on his jacket.  They still
had a small dusting of snow on the ground out here in the country, although
he'd heard on the news that the cities were clear now.  Out past the
boundaries of the farm were the woods, with their tall trees and dense
undergrowth.  He and Akari had often walked in them in the summer and the
fall, looking at the sights they had to offer.

     The trees seemed to loom like shadows, and he was sure he saw dim
shapes moving between them.

     "Akari," he said.  "I think there's some people out there."

     "Strange," Akari said.  "We're quite far out from town.  Why would
people be out here, and this late?"

     "Can't be up to any good," Ryoga said.  He walked over to the wall and
grabbed up his red bamboo umbrella from where it was propped, giving it an
experimental swing.  "I'll go sort them out.  You stay inside."

     Akari shook her head.  "No.  We'll just call the police, Ryoga..."

     "They'll take too long to get here," Ryoga said firmly.  He slung the
umbrella over his shoulder.  "I'll be okay."

     "Well, I want to come out with you," Akari said.

     "I still think you should stay inside," Ryoga said quietly.

     "If you really want me to, I will," Akari said, looking a bit
downcast.  "But I'll be worried about you if you go out there alone."

     "Yeah," Ryoga said with a smile.  "I know.  I'll be worried about you
if you're not with me.  Come on."

     The two of them headed out onto the front porch of the house; Ryoga
glanced back as he closed the door, and his eye caught on a small symbol
carved over the doorframe, looping and whirling and vaguely star-shaped.

     "What's that?" he said, gesturing at it with his umbrella.

     Akari looked at it.  "Grandpa told me his father carved that there
years ago.  It's supposed to be protection against evil spirits.  They're
all over the house and barn; on the doors, on the windows..."

     "Interesting," Ryoga said, not quite sure why'd he never noticed it
before.

     The two of them walked down the steps and stood in the light covering
of snow that crunched under their boots.  The night breeze blew by, cold
and sharp.  The house was bright with light behind them, the barn a dim,
hulking thing far ahead.

     "I thought you said you saw people out here," Akari said nervously.

     "I thought I did," Ryoga said, trying not to show his own nervousness.
He glanced towards the beginning of the forest.  "Hello?  Is anyone there?"
he called.

     There was no answer but the wind.

**********

     The shadows flickered between the trees; the two lives within the
smaller building had left the protection it offered, and were now out, in
the open and vulnerable.

     Swiftly, softly, silently, the shadows began to circle them.

**********

     "Where are they?" Akari said.  "Are you sure you..."

     Ryoga saw the first shadows emerge from the trees.  They were far
away, too far and the night too dark to make out much details beyond human
shape.

     "Hold it!" he called.  "Who are you all?"

     There were lots of them; dozens, streaming from the forest and heading
across the ground towards them.  Now, they were close enough to see that
they were too impossibly thin to be human, to be living things at all.

     "Hungry," a shadow whispered in a dry-paper voice, quickly joined in
chorus by dozens more voices that echoed with dust and age.  Eyes burned
red in the darkness, bright enough to show terrible withered faces, and the
light from the moon showed the rest.  Stretched skin and nothing more over
bony frames.

     Ryoga sucked in a breath; he knew what these things were.

     "What are they?" Akari said, her eyes wide and frightened.

     "Gaki," Ryoga breathed.

     He remembered what one gaki had been able to do to all of Nerima, a
killer so cunning and powerful it had been beyond the reach of the police,
had nearly killed Kodachi, had come within an inch of killing Ukyou.

     He wondered what several dozen could do to him and Akari.

     "Back to the house," Ryoga said.  "Quickly."

     They turned, and began to run, and shadows loomed up around them as if
from nowhere, scratchy voices speaking the same words again and again.

     Hungry.  Food.  Eat.

     They were surrounded on all sides by a circle of withered
monstrosities.  Ryoga levelled his umbrella into a fighting stance.

     Around them, the circle began to draw tighter, agonizingly slowly.

**********

     The shadow on four legs loped out of the woods, and saw the gaki
surrounding the two humans.  One was familiar, from years ago, but one was
not.

     Cursing, the shadow shifted again, to walk upon two legs, and began to
run towards them.

**********

     The gaki were only a dozen feet away now, still advancing slowly.
Ryoga had blown away a few with small ki blasts, focusing his helpless
feeling into pure energy and smashing them down as they advanced.  But
there were dozens of them, probably close to a hundred, and they showed no
concern over those fallen, except for a few who bent down to devour their
own brothers.  There were far too many to hope to break through, even for
someone with his strength and fighting skill.  Akari was weeping with
fear, her face buried in his shoulder as he held her protectively with one
arm and pointed his umbrella at the rest of them.

     "Come on," he growled to the assembled horde.  "Which of you wants to
be first to get a crushed skull?"

     He could feel the rage and despair building in him, and he let it flow
freely, to give him strength, to give him power.  A full shishi hokodan
might have scattered these things, but it would have washed across
everything, damaging all of them.

     And that included Akari.

     "I love you, Akari," he whispered.  If it came down to last resort, he
would do it anyway.  It was a risk he would have to take.  Better than to
be torn apart for food by these monstrosities.

     One of the things stepped forward, breaking from the massed horde, and
choked out words in a voice like the dust of centuries.

     "Open doorsss..." it hissed.  "To barnn... food inside..."

     "Will you let us go?" Ryoga said, knowing already what the answer
would be but asking anyway.

     "No," the gaki said.  "Never let foood go..."

     "Then forget it," he said, holding Akari tightly.

     "We'll eat you slow..." the speaker said.  "Slowwwww, slowwww,
sloww-"

     The thing's head was obliterated by a blast of yellow light that burst
from between Ryoga's clenched fist.  "Who wants to be next?" he said,
snarling viciously at the creatures.

     The gaki howled, and rushed them.

     Ryoga began to focus all his despair and rage, imagining it arcing
high into the air and falling down upon them all like cleansing fire.  He'd
try to shield Akari with his body as best he could.

     There was a sound like beautiful birdsong lifted in a battlecry, and a
great beating of enormous wings.

     Ryoga's rage drained away, and he saw the gaki stumble to a stop only
a few feet from them.  The song washed over him and Akari, and he felt his
fear vanish.

     From the sky, from out of nowhere, came the sources of that birdsong.
Taloned hands on arms covered in feathers of every colour imaginable lifted
huge weapons, great swords and axes, long spears and polearms, and swooped
about above their heads.  Great wings strove against the air to lift the
weight of armoured avian bodies, as dark eyes glittered with intelligence
in beaked faces.

     "TENGU!" one of the gaki shrieked, horrible fear in the tone.  And
then they were running, breaking as one whole great mass across the empty
fields and back towards the safety of the woods, harried at every step by
the avian host that pursued them into the woods and beyond Akari and
Ryoga's sight, soaring above their heads and singing their battle songs,
never quite hitting any of those they chased with their huge weapons.

     "They're beautiful," Akari whispered through her tears.  "So
beautiful..."

     "Yeah," Ryoga said.

     "Yup, they're beautiful," a high voice said from nearby.  "Too bad
they're not real.  We could really use some of them right now."

     Ryoga glanced to the source of the voice, still holding Akari.  The
source of the voice was apparently a small boy of about ten, with a sharp,
leanly handsome face and a shockingly orange head of hair that was tangled
and uncombed as a bush.  He wore clothing that was far too big on him, a
white shirt and red pants.

     "Who're you?" Ryoga said.

     "Why, I'm Kitzuiri, of course," the boy said with a smile.  "And I'd
suggest you and Akari come with me and get out of this place.  Those
illusions won't hold them for long; we're just lucky those ones have been
locked away so long they've lost most of their human intelligence.  If you
had one of the greater gaki among them, one of the leaders..."

     "I think I've met one of those," Ryoga said miserably.

     "Pleasant fellows, aren't they?" the boy said with a short laugh.
"Now, you and Akari had best come with me."

     "How do you know my name?" Akari said, looking at the small boy with a
mix of confusion and fear.

     "Don't tell me you've forgotten me," the boy said, sounding hurt.
"Kitzuiri?"

     "I get it," Akari said with a short, hysterical laugh.  "I'm having a
nightmare.  There's all kinds of horrible dead things around, and now my
old imaginary friend from childhood is back!"

     "Akari," Ryoga said.  "Please.  Be brave."

     She shook her head.  "At least you're here, Ryoga... In this
nightmare."

     "This isn't a nightmare," the boy said.  "You wake up from nightmares.
Well, usually.  This is reality."

     "Darn," Akari said with a slightly hysterical giggle.  "I was hoping I
could wake up next to Ryoga in bed again, but that doesn't look like it's
going to..."

     She began to cry again, and Ryoga held her.

     "Just who or what are you?" Ryoga said, looking at the small boy
suspiciously.

     "Explanations later," Kitzuiri said with a shake of his head.  "We've
got to get out of here."

     "We'll go inside the house," Ryoga said.  "There's protective signs on
the house."

     "They're minor," Kitzuiri said.  "They'll hold out until they throw
one of their number against it and fry him, and then they'll be gone.  We
need to get out of this area."

     "Just what's going on?" Ryoga said.  "How did all these gaki get
here?"

     "Later," Kitzuiri said firmly.  He stepped forward and placed a hand
on Akari's elbow, having to reach up to do so.  "Akari?"

     She glanced down at him.  "Yes?" she said dully.

     "You need to be strong, Akari," the little boy said.  "Remember when
you were eight, and you fell down that hole and couldn't get out?  Remember
how I stayed with you and helped you be brave then, until your father and
mother found you and got you out?  You need to brave like that again.  I'm
here, and Ryoga's here.  Do you have a car, Akari?"

     "Yes," Akari said.  "But we need to get the pigs out of here as
well..."

     "We may have to leave them," Kitzuiri said.

     Akari shook her head.  "No, no, no..."

     "There's the truck, Akari," Ryoga said gently.  "We can load them on
there and drive out."

     "Okay," Akari said numbly.  "What... what if they come back..."

     "They're scared," Kitzuiri said.  "They won't come back until they
realize the tengu were just illusions.  We've got a little time till then."

     "We'll go bring the truck around," Ryoga said, deciding that whoever
Kitzuiri was, he was their friend.  "Can you go wait by the barn,
Kitzuiri?"

     "Will do," Kitzuiri said.  He dashed off towards the barn, moving with
a speedy, graceful quickness.

     "Akari," Ryoga said softly.  "You need to go to the truck.  You know I
can't find it."

     "Okay," Akari said.  "I'll be okay, Ryoga.  I just got a little scared
for a moment."

     She began to walk, her hand in his, towards the house.  "We'll need
the keys, at least.  I wish I had time to get some things..."

     "We don't," Ryoga said.

     "Where are we going to go?" Akari said in a small voice.

     "To Tokyo," Ryoga said.  "To Nerima.  To the Tendo house.  They'll
help us; I know they will."

     "Alright," Akari said, leaning her head on his shoulder as they
stepped inside the house.  "My purse is upstairs.  The keys are in that."

     They headed quickly up to the bedroom and got Akari's purse, then were
back outside in a few minutes.  Akari looked at the house and shuddered.

     "I hate to think those... things will be walking around inside,"
Akari said.  "Going through our rooms, tearing things up..."

     Kitzuiri appeared, as if from out of nowhere.  "Don't worry.  I'll
take care of it."

     The boy began to sing softly, making motions in front of himself with
his slender, long-fingered hands.  The song was without words; it was given
music by the variance in tone, pitch, and speed.

     As Ryoga and Akari watched, the house began to fade from view.  First
it turned translucent, so that an image of the outside they could see
through remained.  And then it turned completely transparent, and vanished
completely.  In its place was an expanse of snow-covered field like the
rest of the area.

     Kitzuiri leaned forward, panting and looking tired.  Sweat beaded his
forehead.  "Haven't... lost my touch..." he said.  "Been a while since I
worked something that big... that'll last a few days, at least... they may
run into it occassionally, but they'll never get inside...  Too stupid..."

     "That was incredible," Ryoga breathed.  "What... what are you?"

     "I'm a friend," Kitzuiri said, glancing back.  "Do you need to know
anything more about me right now?  Where's that truck, Akari?"

     "Right there," Akari said, pointing through the space the house had
occupied.  "It was parked behind the house."

     Kitzuiri chuckled a bit embarassedly and put a hand behind his head as
he looked at the blank spot.  "Guess I got that as well...  Just a
minute..."

     He sang again, and the truck slowly came into view.  The three of them
carefully made their way around the spot the house had been, and came up to
the large truck that was used to transport the pigs.  It would hopefully be
big enough to hold all of them, even if the spacing would be a bit cramped.

     Ryoga wasn't quite sure what they'd do with a truckful of sumo pigs
once they got them to Nerima, but he was sure they'd come up with something
by then.

**********

     Jotari Otani had wanted to be a policeman since he had been old enough
to understand what it was his father did.  The idea of protection, of
defending the people against those who would deny them their freedoms, had
called to something deep inside him.

     The Otanis had always been policemen, in one form or another.  In the
past, they had been low-class samurai dedicated to defending towns or
cities.  In the Tokugawa era, they'd been doshin, walking the streets with
hooked jitte to disarm drunken samurai or disable street thieves.

     His grandfather and father had worked with the American forces when
the occupation came, and Jotari and his father had watched most of them
leave.

     He'd been a policeman for more than twenty years, and he never tired
of his job.  There was always something to do, little things, big things.
Policework had not been everything he'd expected.  He hadn't imagined the
bureaucracy could be so convoluted, or the paperwork so dense.

     But he held always to the ideals his family had always had.  He
remembered something his grandfather had told him, when he was just barely
into his teens.  He'd been born a few years after the end of the Second
World War, and his transition into manhood had been shaped by both the
gradual modernization of Japan and its recovery from the near-ruin it had
been in.

     He couldn't remember how it had come up, some discussion about
something.  His grandfather, very old by then, sitting in a chair in their
small living room and smoking his pipe, had looked him squarely in the eye,
and had used the words to counter some argument Jotari had been making.  He
couldn't even remember what he'd been arguing for, but he never forgot the
words his grandfather had said.

     "The government often says they're the servants of the people," he'd
said.  "But in truth, the government serves only to master the people.  The
only ones who really exemplify the ideal of serving the people is the
police.  You protect the people, from many different things.  From anything
that would want to oppress them; any policeman who helps to oppress the
people is not a policeman at all."

     The old man had tapped out his pipe; Jotari remembered vividly the
ringing sound it had made in the cut-glass ashtray.  "There's lots of
things in this world, Jotari.  It's not just people you have to watch out
for.  I'm not really sure if I should tell you this story, but..."

     His grandfather had told him anyway; about how in the closing days of
the war, he and Jotari's father had hunted for whoever was making children
disappear in the area.  He didn't go into a lot of detail about what they
found in the house of Kosaku Akamizu, but it had been enough that by the
end Jotari was pale and slightly scared.

     "They tore down the house just a few months ago," his grandfather
said.  "Put a warehouse over it.  In time, probably, they'll forget what
happened there.  And Kosaku Akamizu will sit in that asylum and dream of
the freedom he believes with all his foul heart will be his one day."

     "But it's over, right," Jotari had said.  "You and dad caught him and
put him away so he can never hurt anybody again."

     "Not as he is," his grandfather had said slowly.  "Not as he is.  But
when someone does something as awful as he did, the memory of it never
ends, even though people may think it does.  Something that happened a
hundred years ago, even a thousand years ago, the echoes can resound down
through the ages.  Your father and I saw things in that house, Jotari, that
make me doubt my eyes, but my eyes were sharp in those days.  You have to
be ready to make sacrifices, Jotari, to make sure that people like Kosaku
Akamizu can't become things even worse."

     He'd been full of scared questions, but his grandfather had said no
more, only sent him to bed.  He'd awakened hours later with a screaming
nightmare of a skeletal thing with blazing red eyes, and he'd choked out
the story his grandfather had told him in an ashamed voice to his mother
and father.  He'd heard his father and grandfather talking in loud, angry
voices, and they were mad at each other for days afterwards.

     A year later, his grandfather had died, but Jotari Otani, now Captain
Otani of the Nerima police department, never forgot the words.

     *"You have to be ready to make sacrifices."*

     That was why he'd gone down into the sewers twenty years ago, with the
two other patrolmen who were still on the scene, trailing something that
looked like a man but moved and killed like a demon.  They'd caught
glimpses of it, running ahead, dressed in ragged clothing and a long coat
that hid most of it from view.

     They'd finally cornered it in a dead end, splashing through the muck
and filth, and it had turned on them and laughed, and they'd seen its face,
and twenty years later, Otani was still thankful it had been dark down
there.

     "Come, little brothers," it had called, its voice thick and distorted
by the unhuman shape of its mouth.

     And its brothers had come.  The two men with him had died almost
instantly; he thought he'd be dead as well.  Something was stopping their
radios from working, and they hadn't been able to call for backup.

     Then someone had somehow cleared a path through the horde, and he was
running behind a tall figure through the sewers to an exit, somewhere he
didn't remember.

     *"Thank you.  You saved my life in there... who are you?"*

     *"My name is Shigeki Kiyokuro."*

     *"What are you doing here?"*

     *"I am hunting."*

     *"Hunting?"*

     He'd aged in twenty years.  Shigeki hadn't, but he never asked
questions of his friend.  Sometimes, it was better not to ask questions.
What he knew was that Shigeki was, like him, a defender of the people,
though in a different way.

     He hadn't seen him for years when all the weird stuff had begun
happening in Nerima, coinciding with the arrival of two guests at the Tendo
Dojo.  He'd gone to high school with Soun Tendo, and knew him vaguely
through the volunteer neighbourhood watch programs.  He was a good man.

     Then stranger stuff had begun to happen; it finally came to a head for
him when hundreds of people saw a battle between two giant monsters that
was right out of one of the monster films he'd seen as a child.

     Except the two monsters had apparently been an enormous old man, and
an extremely large panda.  It would have been comical, had not so many
houses been damaged, so many people badly frightened.  But no one had been
hurt.  No one ever, ever got hurt by any of them, any of the strange
teenaged martial artists or the others they attracted.

     He'd finally done the thing he'd never done before; he called the
number Shigeki had given him, the one he'd said could sometimes be used to
contact him.  His friend had arrived a few days later, still looking as
young as he had the day they'd met.  He'd spent a few days doing what Otani
would have referred to as casing; checking out the various people who
seemed to be involved in the rash of weirdness.  He'd finally sat down with
Otani and spoke to him in that utterly unremarkable voice of his.

     *"They mean no harm to this place.  In fact, they shall help to keep
it safe."*

     *"They've destroyed a lot of property."*

     *"That's what insurance is for.  Has anyone been hurt?"*

     *"Well, underwear's been stolen..."*

     *"Believe me, Otani.  Those kids and all their hangers-on are the
lesser of a lot of evils.  Someday, you may have cause to thank them."*

     *"Well, right now they're destroying Nerima."*

     *"Think of them as a long term investment.  I think they may reward
your patience in time."*

     *"Isn't there anything to do?"*

     *"You know that new Chinese restaurant that just opened up?"*

     *"The Nekohanten?"*

     *"That one.  Go and pay a visit to the owner; a social call.  Raise
the topic of just how much destruction is being caused.  Ask her very, very
politely if there's anything she can do."*

     *"What's some old women going to..."*

     *"She's no ordinary old woman."*

     The next day, his friend had been gone again, and he'd gone to talk to
the owner of the Nekohanten.  Cologne had been angry, suspicious at first
that he was planning to shut the restaurant down somehow.  Gradually,
though, she'd realized his only interest was in protecting the area.
Sitting in the roomy kitchen of the restaurant long after it had closed for
the day, drinking tea and talking, he'd finally told her the things he'd
never told anyone else, about that horrible night twenty years ago.  He
told her about what his grandfather had said; about the police being
protectors and servants of the people.  He couldn't explain why he was
telling all these things to the old woman, things he'd never even told his
wife.

     *"You are an interesting man, Captain Otani."*

     *"And you are an interesting woman, Khu... khu..."

     *"Cologne is fine."*

     *"Sorry."*

     *"We have a similiar philosophy, some of us within the tribe.  The
elders may seem to be the rulers, but in truth we are the servants; it is
also our duty to protect.  There are things I have seen that make what you
saw in those sewers seem pleasant."*

     *"You will speak to your great-grandaughter, then?"*

     *"I shall.  Do not worry; we'll all try not to destroy your town,
Captain Otani."*

     *"Jotari is fine."*

     *"Jotari, then."*

     It had been a strange friendship, but it had been a friendship all the
same.  The ancient matriarch of a Chinese warrior tribe, and a police
captain of twentieth century Japan, but they had been similiar enough that
they found a common ground to share.

     And then, when the killings had begun six months ago, and he could not
contact Shigeki no matter how hard he tried, he'd gone to Cologne.

     *"Don't worry.  We shall handle it."*

     *"Thank you, Cologne.  I owe you a debt."*

     *"I'll call you on it."*

     And the killings had stopped.  He'd gone to the scene, to the
warehouse that covered the site Kosaku Akamizu's house had been, and he'd
cleaned up the evidence that might lead to Cologne or to any of the others.
He realized vaguely he was breaking the law, but it didn't seem important
then.

     *"You have to be ready to make sacrifices."*

     Then, Tuesday morning, he'd gotten a call from Cologne, a little after
the sun rose.  They'd met in a small cafe, and she'd called in his debt.

     *"I will be making a long journey soon, Jotari, one from which I may
not return.  Things will be difficult for my great-grandaughter; she is
unused to dealing with this land or its government.  I ask you to help her
in any way you can."*

     *"It will be done."*

     They'd shaken on it, her hand a small dry thing in his, but with a
sense of incredible power behind it.

     That night, the Nekohanten had burned to the ground.  They never found
a body, but he knew in his heart that the journey Cologne had spoken of was
not quite what he'd thought it would be.

     Then sun hadn't risen yet this Saturday, wouldn't rise for hours yet,
but he was awake, in bed next to his wife, his beautiful wife.  He knew
that across the hallway was his son, his son Shoichi, who wanted also to be
a policeman, even though he was only eight.  His daughter Yumiko, who was
fifteen, and wanted to be a policewoman, was in the room next door to his
son's.

     He got up, careful not to disturb his wife, and pulled on a shirt over
his bare chest.  He padded carefully into the hallway, and down the stairs
to the living room.  In the corner was the family altar; he knelt before
it, opened the doors, and looked upon some of the contents.  The pictures
of his father and grandfather, both black and white, taken during the final
days of the war.  They looked haggard, but he saw himself reflected in the
steel of their gazes.  An ancient jitte, which before even his
great-grandfather was born had been lifted against anyone who would harm
the people of Eido, or Tokyo, or whatever else you wanted to call it.  And
other things, other memories.

     He clapped his hands, and prayed.  "Father, grandfather, ancestors,
let me have strength for what is to come."

     He finished his prayers, got up and closed the doors of the shrine.
He smiled, wiping away a few involuntary tears.  His father had died three
years ago.  A heart attack.

     He went into the kitchen to make himself some coffee.  Outside, the
city was in darkness.

     "Cologne, my friend, I wish you were still around," he said softly to
the empty kitchen.  "I could really use your help right now.  We all
could."

     There was no answer; he hadn't expected any.

**********

     Akane woke up, and realized with a start that she was alone in the
room.  She'd become used to the sound of Shampoo breathing softly,
occasionally murmuring something in her sleep.  Thursday night Akane had
tried to wake her up from the throes of some terrible nightmare, and for a
moment had known that Shampoo was not entirely there then.  She wasn't even
able to remember what it was she'd dreamed of when she'd finally come back
to the waking world.

     Akane looked at the bedside clock, and started.  It was only four in
the morning, but she was wide awake.  So was Shampoo, obviously.  The bed
on the floor had been neatly made, and the drawer where the Amazon had
stored what clothing she had remaining was slightly open.

     She slid her feet out of bed and got up, grabbing her housecoat from
where it hung on a hook nailed to her door and pulling it on.  She slid on
her slippers and headed out into the hallway, walking quietly as she could
downstairs, passing by Ranma's room, the one he was sharing with Mousse; by
Happosai's room; by Nabiki's room, awaiting the return of its occupant this
afternoon.

     Shampoo was in the living room, her legs crossed as she sat, reading a
page of the long letter Cologne had left in the box for her.  She'd seen
Shampoo going through the box often in the past few days, but she wasn't
really sure what was in it.

     The box was open on the floor beside the Amazon.  Shampoo hadn't
seemed to notice her yet; Akane coughed to alert her of her presence.

     "Morning, Akane," Shampoo said softly, not looking up from the letter.

     "Good morning, Shampoo," Akane said.  "You're up awfully early."

     "Couldn't sleep," Shampoo said.

     "Me neither," Akane said, sitting down on the floor in front of
Shampoo.  "What are you looking at?"

     "Great-grandmother's letter," Shampoo said.

     "Hmm?" Akane said.

     Shampoo smiled a bit sadly.  "She have lot to say.  Tell Shampoo about
family, about gift, about other things.  She... she know she going to die
when she write this."

     "Oh," Akane said, not sure what else to say.

     "Not all there, though," Shampoo said.  "Shampoo read letter so many
times, but it not all there!  Not tell what dreams mean, what going on."

     She dropped the letter and pounded a fist into her palm.  "And say
nothing, nothing about Tensai!"

     "That's too bad," Akane said.

     "Shampoo no want to believe he great-grandmother's son," she said
softly.  "Only thing is Happosai saying he is."

     "He's not very trustworthy..." Akane said slowly.

     "Shampoo know that," Shampoo snorted.  "But he no seem to be lying."

     She sighed.  "But why great-grandmother not say anything?"

     "Maybe she didn't want you to know," Akane said hesitantly.  "Maybe
she was hoping she could defeat Tensai, even if she died in the fight with
him."

     Shampoo nodded.  "Maybe."

     She put the letter down and smiled at Akane.  "So, Akane, how Ranma?
He doing good as husband yet?"

     "Huh?"

     "You mean you no try him out yet?"

     "What?"

     "Try out husband."

     "WHAT?"

     "Keep voice down, Akane."

     "You are so-"

     "I realistic.  You try him out yet?  Ranma very handsome man."

     "I can't believe you would-"

     "You Japanese so funny about some things."

     "Well, have you tried out Mousse yet?" Akane shot back.

     "Mousse not married to Shampoo," Shampoo said, smiling smugly.

     "Neither are I and Ranma!"

     "You have ring."

     "That's an engagement ring!"

     "Means you going to get married, right?  Same thing.  Why you no try
him out yet?"

     "Gahh..."

     "Shampoo always trying to try Ranma out when he her husband, but he
never want to," Shampoo said, still smiling, but with a little sadness in
it that Akane missed.

     "He was never your husband," Akane said vehemently.

     "He not anymore," Shampoo said.  Akane caught the sadness this time.

     "I'm sorry," she said after a moment.  "I don't mean to..."

     "Is alright.  Ranma is Akane's husband now," Shampoo said.  "So why
you not try him out?"

     "Can we just drop this?" Akane muttered.

     "Okay," Shampoo said cheerfully.  She leaned forward.  "Akane, you
help Shampoo with something?"

     "Alright," Akane said after a moment of hesitation.

     "Come to dojo," Shampoo said, rising up and picking up the box and the
letter.  She put the letter in the box and headed quickly down the hallway
that led to the dojo, Akane following behind.

     "Why are we going to the dojo?" Akane asked.

     "You see," Shampoo said as she walked ahead.

     Arriving in the dojo, the two of them walked to the centre.  Shampoo
put the box down and opened it again, digging through it until she came up
with a folded robe of white cloth.

     To Akane's shock, she put it down on the ground and began to take her
clothes off.  "What are you doing?  What if someone walks in?"

     "They see Shampoo naked," Shampoo said with a shrug that probably
would have made any teenaged boy die of blood loss.  She finished
undressing and stood naked and unashamed.  Akane was blushing intensely and
looking away.

     "Shampoo have clothes on now, silly," Shampoo said.  Akane turned to
see Shampoo wearing the white robe, which clung to her body like water,
somehow obscuring it completely while leaving none of the shape to the
imagination.  It was sewn with blue and red thread, making strange patterns
and symbols upon it.

     "Wasn't that what Cologne was wearing when she had that attack..."

     "Yes.  Astral robe," Shampoo said.  "Great-grandmother tell Shampoo
about it in letter.  Is great treasure."

     "Isn't it dangerous?" Akane said worriedly.

     "Yes," Shampoo said.  "That why you here, Akane."

     She dug through the box again, and came up with four candles, red,
blue, green and yellow, and a small vial of black liquid which she handed
to Akane.  She also gave Akane a pencil and a piece of blank paper.

     "Shampoo going to enter trance," she said quietly to Akane.  "May look
like she dead, but she not.  Anything I say, you need write down.  Only if
I start to seem... disturbed, you give Shampoo this to drink.  Force it
down throat if have to."

     "Okay," Akane said in a small voice.

     Shampoo arranged the candles in a box, and lay down inside on her
back so that they were in the shape of a diamond around her, with the
green candle at her head, the blue one at her feet, the yellow on her left
side and the green on her right.

     "Ready, Akane?" Shampoo said.

     "Ready, Shampoo," Akane said.

     Shampoo made a small, soft breath, and Akane watched as her entire
body relaxed, tension flowing from it.  Akane's eyes widened as the four
candles around Shampoo flared to life, lit from nowhere.

     Shampoo seemed utterly at peace now, drained of everything.  Akane
couldn't even see her breathe.

     She clutched the vial tightly in one hand, the pencil in the other,
and waited.

**********

     The truck drove down the highway, Akari at the wheel and Ryoga in the
passenger seat.  The small, orange-haired form of Kitzuiri was seated
between them in the cab.  Behind them, the sound of the pigs in their
cramped confines overlayed all conversation.

     "So, you were real," Akari said after a moment.  They'd driven in
silence from the farm after loading up the pigs, who were frightened for
the first time Ryoga could ever remember.  Now they were on the highway,
heading towards Tokyo hours away.

     "Yup," Kitzuiri said cheerfully.  "You just stopped seeing me after a
while, Akari."

     "Why?" Akari said.

     "You stopped wanting to, I guess," Kitzuiri said.  "Maybe because you
got older.  But I never forgot about you."

     "How come you don't look any older?" Akari said.

     "Do you want me to?" Kitzuiri said.  "I could."

     "The question I have," Ryoga said.  "Is just what are you?  How come
you can do all those illusions."

     "Well, I'm a kitsune, of course," Kitzuiri said.  "Noblest among all
the spirits of the forest, the great fox-spirits, the messengers of..."

     "Okay," Ryoga said.  "A kitsune."

     "What, you believe in gaki, but you don't believe in kitsunes?" the
little boy said.

     "I believe in you," Ryoga said wearily.  "Geez.  Kitsunes and gaki."

     "And tengu," Kitzuiri said.  "Don't forget the tengu.  Even if they
were illusionary."

     "Do they really exist?" Akari said.  "They were so beautiful..."

     "Yes," Kitzuiri said, and there was a great, wistful sadness in his
child's voice that was mirrored in his dark eyes.  "Once they were numerous
as the stars in the sky, and they soared among the peaks of mountains, so
many wings beating they were like thunderclaps of colour when they flew
together, and their songs were so beautiful that even the gods themselves
paused to listen.  Now, they are but a shadow of their former population,
as all of the spirit races are.

     "What happened to them all?" Akari said.

     "The war," the kitsune said.  "Against the abominations.  Against the
unnatural things and their servants."

     "What?" Ryoga said.  "What war?"

     "A war greater than any other," the kitsune said.

     "There's been a lot of great wars," Ryoga said.  "The two world wars
in the last hundred years, even.  Bigger than that?"

     Kitzuiri laughed, and somewhere along the way the laugh turned into a
series of barking yips, and his young boy's body flowed and changed into a
sleek red fox, eyes dark and shining with amusement and intelligence.

     "You humans," the fox said, yipping with laughter again.  "You are so
funny.  You think of history as something that happened fifty years ago, or
a hundred years ago.  You have no idea of how far back history truly goes."

     "Well, excuse us for being human," Ryoga said.  "Do you?"

     "Of course," the kitsune said.  "I was there.  I and my brothers and
sisters  fought against the abominations.  Our illusions routed whole
armies!"

     "How old are you, anyway?" Akari said softly.

     "Older than you," the kitsune said.  "Older than probably anyone
you've ever met.  The war I speak of took place over ten thousand years
ago.  Perhaps it was even longer; time often seems to flow differently for
spirits."

     Ryoga sucked in a breath.  "You're that old..."

     "I'm young at heart," Kitzuiri said, doing a tiny backflip in the
cramped space that settled his small body into Ryoga's lap.  The fox gazed
up at Ryoga, and smiled with tiny sharp teeth.

     "So what's happening, then," Akari said.  "Why were there all those
gaki roaming around?  Why can I see you again, Kitzuiri?"

     "The great seals are being weakened," Kitzuiri said, and there was no
amusement in his voice this time.  "Soon, they may break through."

     "Who?" Ryoga said.  "More gaki?"

     The kitsune laughed without humour.  "The things I speak of are far,
far worse than gaki.  They make gaki and onis and kappas cringe in fear;
they are the abominations.  The unnatural things."

     His dark, animal eyes were shining with intensity as he spoke the next
words.  "They are... unclean.  They are the impure ones."

     Akari shuddered slightly.  "Please... this is frightening me..."

     "It frightens me as well," the kitsune said.  "It frightens me because
I can still remember what they were like, even as I try to forget."

     The fox looked to Ryoga.  "You are strong, Ryoga.  Are your friends as
strong as you, your friends in Nerima?"

     "Yeah," Ryoga said.  "Well, almost."

     "That is good," the kitsune said, yawning widely.  "Wake me up when we
get there, would you?"

     "You haven't finished telling us about the war-"

     The kitsune let out a loud snore, and curled up in Ryoga's lap.  "Hey,
wake up, you lazy..."

     The kitsune snored louder.

     "Let him sleep, Ryoga," Akari said.  "He's probably tired after doing
all those illusions."

     "So, what was he to you?" Ryoga said, for some reason feeling a bit
jealous.

     "He was my friend when I was little," Akari said quietly.  "I used to
go and play with him in the woods.  I always thought he was imaginary, even
though I didn't when I was a little girl.  I guess I was wrong."

     She looked at the small, sleeping fox in Ryoga's lap.  "Ryoga, I'm
frightened of all this.  I'm worried I may lose you."

     "Don't worry," Ryoga said.  "We'll be okay.  The both of us will be
okay."

     "I love you, Ryoga," she said softly.

     "I love you too, Akari," Ryoga said.

     The truck rolled on into the early morning, the snores of the kitsune
mingling with the grunting of the pigs and the words of Ryoga and Akari
like a strange, discordant symphony.

**********

     She was falling, falling into a great black pit that stretched down
infinitely.

     She fell forever, even if it was only a second.

     There was an abrupt jerk, and she was lying on the floor of the dojo
again, only this time it was different.  Everything seemed dreamy, less
real, as if she could step through the walls, or float through the ceiling
if she wished.

     She stood up, slowly, and looked back down at the motionless girl on
the dojo floor, the candles glowing around her.  The girl had her face, and
her body.

     Shampoo looked at her hand; she seemed solid, seemed real.  Instead of
the robe, though, she was completely naked.

     There was nothing wrong with that; she took no shame in her body.  But
something told her she should be clothed here, in this strange place.  As
soon as she thought of it, she was no longer naked, but wearing the Amazon
battle garb, white shirt and pants, soft but durable slippers, and the
hardened leather breastplate.  She held in one hand a sword, in the other a
bonbori.

     She looked at Akane, who seemed ghostly and half-transparent as she
sat on the floor.  She looked closer, and she saw many things she couldn't
see otherwise.  Worry, concern, a growing sense of companionship.  She
smiled, and knew that if she looked deeper, she could see the innermost
parts, the glow of love, the fury of an angry temper, the soft blue of
quick forgiveness, for quick as she was to get angry, Akane was just as
quick to forgive, just as quick to offer a hand in friendship to one who
had been a rival and nearly an enemy.  She could look closer, and truly see
behind the mad whirl of emotions that was Akane Tendo.

     But great-grandmother's letter had cautioned against that; it was an
invasion of privacy, something against all the ethics of astral travel.
And when you looked deep inside someone, there was a real chance you might
never be able to look back out.

     So Shampoo only smiled, and looked at Akane differently, and saw the
trail she'd left coming to the dojo outlined in reddish silver, leading
back up the hallway and gradually fading.  That reddish silver path
criss-crossed every part of the floor in the dojo, sometimes dim, sometimes
bright.

     Not knowing why, Shampoo reached down and touched one of the dim
parts, where the red glow of the silver was nearly gone.

     *"Mommy..."*

     The child's voice carried a sense of aching loss and sorrow.  Shampoo
felt tears well in her eyes in sympathy at the strength of the sadness.
She took her fingers away and walked to one of the bright parts, where the
red glow was bright and strong.

     *"Ranma, I-"*

     She smiled at the feeling of love, bright and strong.  She looked to
Akane again.  "Akane?"

     Akane didn't hear her, as Shampoo knew she wouldn't.

     But this wasn't why she was here, to follow the path of Akane Tendo.
She sought something else.

     "Where is the answer?" she said, speaking not Japanese or Chinese.  "I
must find it."

     As soon as she spoke, everything blurred and wavered like a mirage,
and she was somewhere else.

     All about was darkness, but for her.  She stood in the centre, dressed
in her battle garb, holding a sword in one hand, a bonbori in the other.
Somewhere in the darkness, something lurked, an invisible foe that she
could not see.

     This scene ached with familiarity now.

     "Come out," she cried, in a language she realized now was no language
that could be spoken in the world she no longer walked in.  It was pure and
sweet, the language of the soul.

     "Face me," she called.  "Why do you hide yourself?"

     And there was answer from the darkness.  "You will count yourself
lucky that you have not yet glimpsed upon me."

     If Shampoo's speech was music, this speech was human screams.  If her
voice was love, this voice was hate.  If her words were of light, then
these words were of darkness.

     And she was no longer alone.  They were there, behind her, in front of
her and to her sides.

     A man noble of face but cloaked in shadow, whose hands dripped with
blood.

     A huge cobra with human eyes, and black burns across her entire body.

     A thing of flesh, screaming and wreathed with continual fire.

     And more, still more.  A skeletal figure with tight-stretched skin,
white hair and eyes like an abyss.  A stout man, a caucasian, with glasses
and a terribly look to his chubby face, as if something gaunt and hungry as
the gaki lurked below his double chin and round, boyish face

     They spoke, and their voice was one.

     "You shall die.  Your friends will die.  We will tear you apart, we
will burn you with our fire, we shall shatter your bodies upon the stones,
we shall drag you under the depths where no light can reach."

     She could not move.

     "We shall twist you until you chase death, but death shall flee from
you."

     "SILENCE!"

     The voice was hers, and someone else's.  And the many-faced voice was
silent.

     "I am a child of the Amazon tribe," Shampoo said.  "I am the one who
dreams.  I am the heir of Cologne."

     She sucked in a deep breath.  "Who are you and what do you in this
world?"

     "Some questions have many answers," a soft, musical voice said.

     Shampoo turned slowly, and looked to see a small woman, slender and
beautiful, dressed in a robe embroidered with flowers, with long dark hair
pulled back by a hairband upon which a bright lily shone with a white glow.

     The woman held a staff, a gnarled and twisted thing of ancient wood
that contrasted her youthful beauty.  She smiled at Shampoo.  "Hello,
Shampoo.  I've missed you."

     "Great-grandmother," Shampoo said with disbelieving joy.  The five
who ringed her seemed very far away and indistinct now.

     "Yes, child," Cologne said.

     "Great-grandmother," she whispered, throwing herself into the woman's
arms and weeping like a child.  The arms of the woman enfolded her and held
her, and it was her great-grandmother, it did not become something else, it
did not fade like a dream.

     "Child, child, do not cry," Cologne said gently.

     "But you're dead," Shampoo said.  "You're dead, great-grandmother.
How can you be here?"

     "Nothing ever dies," Cologne said softly.  "Life is but one journey,
and death the first step upon the next road.  I do not fear what waits
beyond."

     "How are you here?" Shampoo said.

     "I linger here, for but a little while," Cologne said, disengaging
from the embrace with Shampoo.  "This place is a crossroads, and soon I
must follow a new road while yours goes on in another direction.  I am
sorry I could not tell you all I wanted to.  There is still so much to
teach; but you must be your own teacher now, child."

     "I can't," Shampoo said.  "I'm not smart like you, great-grandmother."

     "With an attitude like that you won't be," Cologne said.  "But don't
worry.  You'll learn in time."

     "Is... is Tensai your son?" Shampoo asked suddenly.

     Cologne's smile grew sad.  "Yes.  He is my son."

     Shampoo felt her spirits fall.  "How..."

     "Do not blame him," Cologne said.  "Blame the thing that holds him.
Death sweeps away the fog; I have seen the true foe."

     "What thing holds him?" Shampoo said.  "What are all these things?"

     She swept her arms wide, indicating the figures who ringed them,
silentl now and without voice.

     "You must look beyond the individual," Cologne said.  "You must not
look at faces, at masks, but at intent.  Look to the one who pulls the
strings."

     "I don't understand..."

     "Look at them, Shampoo."

     And she looked, truly looked at the five terrible figures, more
intently than she'd looked at Akane in the dojo, which was so close and so
far away.

     She saw how their eyes, if they had eyes, were dull and wooden.  She
saw how whatever movements they made were jerky, mechanical-seeming.

     She saw tangled black threads looped around their arms and legs and
heads, threads that spiralled up into the darkness.  "What..."

     "Look, Shampoo," her great-grandmother prompted.  "Look not at the
puppets, but at the puppetmaster."

     And the darkness above peeled back, slitting open like an angry
crimson eye, and she saw how those threads tangled into one great pillar of
darkness and ascended into that chaotic scarlet whirl.

     Somewhere far away, she heard the beating of impossibly huge wings.

**********

     "The puppetmaster..." Shampoo murmured in her sleep, the first words
she'd spoken.  Akane wrote them down quickly, and gazed intently at
Shampoo.

     "Chaos... void... a cancer, an infection dark and terrible," Shampoo
said in perfect Japanese.  "He is come, and cities burn.  The wheels turn,
the wheels turn, the wheels turn..."

     Her voice faded away, as Akane looked to the vial in her hands, and
then to Shampoo, gulping.

**********

     "I'm afraid, great-grandmother," Shampoo said softly, looking up at
the red slash in the sky, as the sound of wings faded.  "What is that?"

     "Even I know not," Cologne said slowly.  "It is that which took my
son, and that which seeks to take this world."

     "I should not be afraid," Shampoo said.  "I should be brave."

     "Child, even I am afraid of that," Cologne said.  "Do not fear.  You
have so much life ahead of you, so much..."

     "No."

     They turned, as above them the red slash closed and severed the dark
line.  The five figures dropped limply to the ground and faded from view.

     In their place stood one figure, a naked man, slender and youthful and
beautiful and terrible.  He had a face like cruelty made flesh, and his
eyes burned with an intense promise of a hundred pleasures and a million
pains.  Shampoo found her eyes irrestibly drawn to that horribly handsome
face, harder than stone and more pitiless.

     "She has no life ahead of her," the man said.  In his hand he held a
blunt rod of plain iron, dark and unadorned, that skewed the air around him
with twisting darkness.  "She will die here.  I shall rip the soul from her
and rend it forever."

     "Shampoo," Cologne said, stepping in front of her and the man,
breaking Shampoo's line of sight to him.  "Run.  Run and do not look back
no matter what you hear, no matter what tricks he may use.  Do not look
back."

     "Great-grandmother, I cannot leave you," Shampoo said.  "I left you
once-"

     "Child," Cologne said, holding her gnarled staff crosswise in front of
her and looking back.  "I am already gone.  I can hold him here; he no
longer has the power to hurt me.  Run, my dear one, and do not look back or
all is lost.  Never forget that your great-grandmother is proud of you."

     "Great-gran..."

     "RUN!"

     And Shampoo ran.

     Cologne stared at the terrible figure, unafraid and defiant in the
face of his power.  "I know you and name you, dark one, and a name can give
power as well as pain."

     And she spoke a name that hurt for her to speak, and she felt her mind
twist just slightly as she did.  "You are bound, dark one, bound by your
name and by the seals.  I know your strength, and I know your weakness.
You are the betrayer, the father of lies.  You yourself may not directly
cause the death of any living thing; you must work through agents, pawns.
I know you and I fear you not."

     "Perhaps once that was true," the figure said lightly, although his
eyes burned with volcanic fury at hearing his true name spoken by one who
was not of his kind.  "But if one delivers themself willingly into my
hands, then they are mine.  If she turns back, then she is mine."

     "She will not turn back," Cologne said.  "I shall hold you here."

     "You cannot hold me," the figure replied.  "No thing in the world can
hold me for long."

     "I can hold you long enough," Cologne said.  Her staff flared with
power in her hands.

     The black rod in the figure's hands raked the air with claws of
twisting dark fire and his smile sawed at her with its terrible alien joy.

     "If one delivers themself willingly into my hands," the figure said.
"As you have.  I know you, Cologne of the Nyannichuan.  I know what you
have done.  I was there with you, as I was there with your lover whenever
he touched a woman or-"

     "SILENCE!" Cologne boomed, twisting the memory of the name through her
mind and forcing her will upon the figure, hard as it was.

     "You are mine, Cologne," the figure said after a moment.  "You are all
mine.  All of your pathetic cities, your monuments to your own mortality,
that is mine.  This world is mine."

     "This world is not yours," Cologne said.  "Nothing in all of existence
less deserves a place in it than you."

     "I have power to make myself a place," the thing said, but for the
first time in ages there was less than total assurance in his tone, for
Cologne knew him, just barely, and she knew what he was and what he wanted
to be.  "I shall start by using you to bring your kin back here, so that
she may witness my glory."

     Cologne smiled.  "You think me that foolish, dark one?  I know what
you are, and I did not live three hundred years in opposition to all that
you are by being stupid.  One more name I speak, here in the veil between
the worlds."

     She spoke another name, one that could not be spoken easily as well,
but for a reason entirely different from the one that caused her pain to
speak the name of the figure before her.

     The thing's eyes went colder than the ice of dead planets or the
depths of frozen stars, and it looked at her with so much raw, naked,
inhuman hatred behind those eyes that it hurt her to be looked upon by it.

     "Very well," it hissed.  "Then I shall lure her back here myself.  As
I lured your son."

     "She shall not come," Cologne said, not letting the thing see the pain
that pierced her heart at the mention of her son.  Speaking those two
names had drained her nearly of all she had left, and she could feel she 
was fading from here already.  "She knows what you are."

     "I have pulled down empires with my voice," the thing said slowly.

     "And we have built them again," Cologne replied just as slowly.

     She threw her staff aside.

     "Willingly I give myself," she whispered.  "I fear not what awaits
me."

     And she spoke again, the third time, a rapid stream of syllables that
lashed around the figure before her like a seal, and she threw the last of
her strength here into taking away as much of the dark charm that this one
possesed here as she could.

     And then she was gone.

**********

     *"RUN!"*

     And Shampoo ran.  Behind her, she heard laughter like the cracking of
ancient ice, and felt something so powerful, so hateful, so utterly intent
on her destruction that it was all she could do not to fall to the ground
and huddle in fear.

     "YES, RUN!" a voice shrieked behind her.  There was the sound of
something splintering, and a scream in her great-grandmother's voice.  "RUN
LIKE A COWARDLY CHILD AS I BREAK YOUR GREAT-GRANDMOTHER!"

     *"...no matter what tricks he may use..."*

     There was another crack, another scream in Cologne's voice, and
Shampoo ran on, willing herself to be deaf as tears streamed from her eyes.

     "RUN, AS I STRIP THE FLESH FROM HER BODY AND BURN HER FOREVER WITH MY
FIRE!" the terrible thing shrieked, as if it were right beside her, and she
felt the flames and heard the crackling and smelt the awful smell of
scorched flesh as her great-grandmother's screams ripped through her,
sharper and more terrible than any knife.

     *"I am already gone..."*

     "Shampoo, Shampoo," Cologne's voice pleaded from right behind her.
"Do not leave me.  The pain, child, the pain..."

     *"He no longer has the power to hurt me..."*

     "The pain, Shampoo!  Oh, no..."

     *"Run and do not look back..."*

     There was another crack, weeping, and Shampoo wasn't sure if it was
her weeping or someone else.  "Why, Shampoo!  Why did you leave me to die?"

     *"Your great-grandmother is proud of you..."*

     "YOU LEFT HER ONCE!  LEAVE HER AGAIN, PATHETIC CHILD!  LEAVE HER TO BE
MY PLAYTHING!  YOU MAY ESCAPE ME HERE, BUT YOU CAN NEVER ESCAPE ME FOR
LONG!"

     *"...no matter what you hear..."*

     Each breath burned; her body shook with exhaustion.  She felt as if
she'd been running forever.  The screams had become only background noise
now, the taunting words of the thing that had looked like a man a roar like
an ocean wave.  She felt as if she would fall, and yet she did not.

     Up ahead, so far up ahead it would take her an eternity to run, she
saw a pinpoint of light.

**********

     "I cannot leave, I cannot leave, I cannot leave..." Shampoo said.
Akane wrote it down, looked at Shampoo fearfully.

     "He is come... the messenger... the herald... oh, his eyes..."

     The Amazon was still and calm, but her entire body was soaked with
sweat.  The robe had become nearly translucent now, although the symbols
upon it only seemed to shine brighter and brighter.

     "Oh, please..." Akane said.  "Please wake up soon."

**********

     Shampoo could barely hear the screams anymore, barely hear the
laughter of whatever was behind her.  Her footsteps echoed on black stone
beneath her feet, and off in the distance she thought she could see walls.

     It was as if others ran beside her now, ran towards that rapidly
growing spot of light up ahead, all of them running together.  She couldn't
see faces, or bodies, but she knew now she was not alone.

     The light loomed up ahead, bright and inviting.

     "The light...  Oh, no, not the light..." Shampoo whispered, for she
could hear other footsteps pounding behind her, different ones that seemed
loud as thunder.  She stepped through, as rippling fingers of darkness
began to wind themselves around the light, and the voice of a woman, a
voice Shampoo had never heard, cried out in pain and agony.

**********

     "The light..." Shampoo whispered.  Akane wrote that down, and realized
with surprise that somewhere throughout the past few minutes she'd started
to cry.

     Shampoo's eyes opened, and she groaned loudly.  Around her, the
candles went out with terrible abruptness.

     "Don't you ever, ever do that again," Akane whispered, letting the
pencil and vial drop loosely from her hands and clatter on the wooden floor
of the dojo.  She wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, and
gazed at the other girl with a mixture of relief, anger and exasperation.

     Shampoo sat up slowly, and an expression of terrible, terrible grief
passed across her face.  She said something in Chinese, and then began to
cry.

     "Shampoo, what is it?" Akane said.

     "I leave her," Shampoo sobbed.  "Akane, I leave her again."

     "Who?" Akane said, moving in closer and putting an arm around the
girl's shaking shoulders.

     "Great-grandmother," Shampoo said, burying her face in Akane's
shoulder and weeping as if she would tear herself apart from grief.

     Akane was mystified; she never would have imagined Shampoo capable of
such a breakdown.  She'd always been strong, tough.

     But then again, she'd never had her great-grandmother die when she
thought she could save her either.

     Akane held her, somewhat uncomfortably, and let her cry.  Sometimes
Shampoo spoke in Chinese, sometimes in Japanese, but Akane caught only
snatches of her voice.  Always it was Cologne's name she heard.

     "Shampoo, it's okay," she murmured softly.  "You didn't leave her."

     "But Shampoo did leave her, Akane," Shampoo said.  "Left her with...
that one.  The thing of terrible beauty... great-grandmother tell me to
run.  Shampoo should have stayed, should have fought, like didn't stay
before, but great-grandmother..."

     "Was she really there, Shampoo?" Akane said, frightened by the
conviction in Shampoo's words.

     "Yes," Shampoo said.  "Great-grandmother there.  Great-grandmother
fight him, but Shampoo know she lose.  She say he no can hurt her, but what
if she only saying that?  What if he hurt her forever, like he say he
will?"

     "Who?" Akane said.  "Who's hurting her?"

     "Don't know," Shampoo said.  "He look like man... but he not man... he
terrible beyond anything..."

     "It's alright," Akane said.  "You're safe."

     "But what about great-grandmother?" Shampoo said.  "What if she not
safe?  What if he hurting her now?"

     "That was a decision she made," Akane said.  "She told you to run, and
she chose to face him.  She wasn't afraid to die against Tensai, and she
wasn't afraid of whatever that he was who she faced just now."

     "Shampoo already lose her once," Shampoo said miserably.  "Why she
have to lose her again.  Still so much I had to ask..."

     "Did she tell you anything?" Akane said.

     Shampoo nodded.  "Tensai her son... and she tell me..."

     "She told you?" Akane prompted as Shampoo trailed off.

     "She tell me she proud of me," Shampoo said after a moment, with a
hesitant smile.  "Shampoo... Shampoo so happy to hear that..."

     "Come on," Akane said, standing up and helping Shampoo to her feet.
"Let's go and get some tea or something.  Kasumi should be up by now."

     "How long it been?" Shampoo asked.

     "About two hours," Akane said.

     Shampoo blinked.  "It... it not seem so long.  You stay with me all
that time, Akane?"

     "Yeah," Akane said.  "What else was I supposed to do?"

     "Thank you, Akane," Shampoo said.

     "You're welcome..." Akane said a bit hesitantly.  "Now, get changed
out of that robe.  I don't care how well-behaved he's been recently, if
Happosai sees you in that there's going to be trouble."

     Shampoo laughed, and it felt good to laugh, despite all the horror
she'd just experienced.  It was light, cleansing laughter that Akane
quickly joined.

     "Come on," she said.  "Let's go get that tea."

**********

     Ukyou wiped the last of the tables off with the rag, and tossed it
into the bucket.  She smiled and ran a hand down the length of her
ponytail, tied back at the nape of her neck.  Konatsu was still asleep
upstairs, for once not having woken up at the crack of dawn.

     Out of the blue last night, on the same odd impulse that had made her
kiss him Tuesday night after all the fighting was over, she'd asked him to
go to a movie with her.  Nominally, it was to celebrate the weekend and a
short break from her exams, but in both their minds it had been a date.

     His hand had felt so right in hers as they sat in the darkened
theatre, gradually finding its way there by a kind of mutual acceptance on
both their parts.  There had been a comfortable intimacy between them she
hadn't felt between her and any man ever before.  She wasn't constantly
worried, as she had been with Ranma, that she was going to do something.

     The mood had been broken a little when they'd both tried to lean on
each other's shoulder at the same time, and had clunked their heads
together, but this morning it just seemed funny.  They'd come back to the
restaurant, hand in hand and laughing at each other's jokes with only a
little nervousness.

     On the upstairs landing she'd kissed him, quickly and lightly on the
lips, said goodnight to him, and dashed inside her room.  A few moments
after she closed her door, she'd heard him go to his room.

     Now, she was getting ready to open the restaurant for weekend
business, earlier than usual because she needed to do something to work off
the energy she had.  The sun had barely risen; it was a little after seven,
but she felt wide awake and alert.  There was a strange feeling in the air,
like the scent of a storm.  It crackled under her skin, made every part of
her body sing.

     Someone knocked on the door.  Perplexed, Ukyou walked over and opened
it up.

     "Good morning, Ukyou," Shigeki said, smiling a bit wanly at her.
"How's the arm?"

     "Didn't sneak in this time at least," she said, giving the tall man a
slight smile.  "Come on in.  Konatsu said you were around a few nights
okay, but I didn't see you..."

     "You were unconscious," Shigeki said as he stepped in through the
door.  "How is the arm, anyway?"

     "Pretty good," Ukyou said, moving her left arm a bit hesitantly.  It
ached occasionally, but other than that it was alright.  "Want something to
eat?"

     Shigeki shook his head.  "Not really."

     She looked at his long, narrow face and thin build.  "You really look
like you could use a good meal, hon.  You sure?"

     "I'm not hungry," Shigeki said.  "Thank you anyway."

     "So what's up?" Ukyou said, all business now that formalities were
over.  "You can't be back in the area for a social call."

     "It's coming," Shigeki said.  "I can feel it.  You can as well, can't
you?"

     Ukyou hesitated for a moment, then nodded.  "Yeah.  Like a tingle
through my skin."

     Shigeki nodded, and Ukyou saw him look sad for a moment.  "Exactly."

     "So," Ukyou said.  "What exactly is coming, Shigeki?"

     "Damned if I know," Shigeki said with an impressive shrug.  He brushed
long fingers nervously through his short hair.  "I did some looking into
things, of course, but there wasn't much I could come up with."

     "Right," Ukyou said sarcastically.

     He blinked at her.  "Huh?"

     "Look, Shigeki," Ukyou said.  "We've all trusted you from the start,
and its nearly gotten us killed a few times.  You have to trust us as
well."

     "I do trust you all," Shigeki said.  "Especially you, Ukyou."

     She frowned at him.  "You never told us you knew Cologne or Happosai.
Or that you're over three hundred years old like they are."

     Shigeki muttered something.  "What was that?" Ukyou asked.

     "Nothing, nothing," he said.  He sighed and took a seat at the
counter.  "Look, Ukyou, there's some things it's just better you don't
know..."

     "Bull," Ukyou said, crossing her arms.  "You think it was better we
didn't know that you'd seen the Effigy of the Sleeper before, when you and
Cologne and Happosai and whoever else stopped Tensai?  You think maybe if
you'd levelled with us a little, things might have worked out better?"

     "Don't accuse me before you know all the facts," Shigeki said slowly
and evenly.  "Happosai didn't remember me, did he?"

     "No, he apparently didn't, from what I've heard," Ukyou said.

     "My memory is a little better than his," Shigeki said.  "But it is
patchy.  I forget things, and I am forgotten.  It is part of the duality I
live under."

     "Duality?" Ukyou said.  "What are you talking about?"

     He said nothing, only looked away towards the door as if he wanted to
escape from her questions.

     "Just what are you, Shigeki?" Ukyou said.  "How can you be three
hundred years old, and still look only a little older than me?  How do you
show up whenever you're needed?"

     "I am the hunter," Shigeki said.  "It is my nature."

     He glanced up behind the counter.  "Fixed your spatula, I see."

     "Yeah.  Took me a while.  Don't change the subject, Shigeki.  What
exactly is it you do?"

     "I hunt," Shigeki said.  "I lurk in the shadows to kill those things
that walk within the shadows."

     "Good for you," Ukyou said.  "So you fight these things, like the
gaki, like the Sleeper, like whatever the hell those grey things that
attacked the Tendo's house were?"

     "No," Shigeki said slowly.  "I hunt them."

     "What's the difference?" Ukyou said.

     "A warrior fights because it is his choice," Shigeki said.  "A hunter
hunts because he must."

     "How long, Shigeki?" Ukyou asked.  "How long have you been hunting?"

     "A long time," Shigeki said.  "A long, long time."

     The words carried an aching sense of sorrow in them, tinged with loss
and regret.  "Too long."

     He stood up suddenly.  "I must go."

     "Shigeki!  I'm not finished with this yet," Ukyou said, walking over
and grabbing his arm.  "How long has it been?"

     He slipped from Ukyou's grip, headed quickly out the door, and by the
time Ukyou followed him, he was nowhere in sight.

     "Geez," she said, leaning back against the doorframe.  "What a weirdo.
Wonder just what's up with him, anyway."

     "Who are you talking to, Ukyou?" Konatsu said as he came down the
stairs.

     "Just myself, Konatsu," Ukyou said softly.  "Just myself."

**********

     "Thanks for meeting me this early," Hikaru said as he took a small
bite from his croissant and washed it down with a sip of sweetened coffee.

     "No trouble, darling," Kodachi said.  "It always delights me to be
with you, no matter the hour or the activity.  Besides, Sasuke's in a
frenzy preparing the house for my brother's return, and if I don't stay out
of his way I'll have to tranquilize him to preserve my sanity."

     Hikaru smiled.  The two of them were sitting inside a French-styled
cafe that they'd often gone to before; it was about seven-thirty, give or
take a few minutes, and this early on a weekend there were few customers.

     "I really like this place," Hikaru said as he glanced around.

     "C'est la vie, cheri," Kodachi said.

     Hikaru nearly choked on his coffee laughing.  "Yeah.  I have no idea
what you just said."

     Kodachi giggled.  "Of course not.  It makes me seem mysterious and
alluring."

     "It sure does," Hikaru said.  He reached out and put his hands on
hers, studying her lovely face intently for a moment.  "All joking aside,
Kodachi, I wanted to run a few things by you about just what's happening."

     "Go ahead," Kodachi said.  "I too am concerned by recent events."

     "Really?" Hikaru said.  "That's good.  No one else really seem to be
taking this as seriously as..."

     "I mean, can you believe it?" Kodachi said.  "Poor Ranma, who always
seemed about as capable of making a decision as flying to the moon, finally
asked her to marry him after this long."

     Hikaru sighed.  "Kodachi, I..."

     "I know, I know," Kodachi said.  "What have you come up with?  Just
what was the old woman's son after those objects for, anyway?"

     "Well, I talked to Happosai yesterday," Hikaru said.  "I dropped by in
the morning after my exam.  He's incredible; I wish I could've talked to
him for longer.  There was so much I wanted to ask-"

     "Happosai, Happosai," Kodachi said, tapping a slender finger to her
cheek.  "Small fellow, makes Sasuke look like a basketball player and my
brother's approach to romance look like that of a Buddhist monk?"

     "That's the one," Hikaru said.  "Although from what I understand, he's
really gotten focused recently, ever since Cologne, that's Shampoo's
great-grandmother, died."

     "Ah, yes," Kodachi said.  "I remember him.  He kept on coming into our
changeroom until I installed the mines."

     "Mines?" Hikaru said.

     "Claymore mines," Kodachi said.

     "Oh," Hikaru said in a small voice.

     He shook his head.  "Anyway, there were four objects.  He said they
were two rings, an amulet, and a statue.  The statue was the Effigy of the
Sleeper; that represented water.  One of the rings was earth, the other
wind.  And the amulet was fire."

     "Buddhist cosmology," Kodachi said after a moment.  "Only one missing
is void."

     "Exactly," Hikaru said.  "Void probably doesn't need an object for
whatever spell or ceremony he worked."

     "Just what was he doing, though?" Kodachi asked.

     "Happosai told me when he and the others went out to the hill," Hikaru
said.  "There'd been a shift in the lines of force that influence the
entire nature of magic throughout the country and the world.  That was
probably what Tensai did."

     "But for what purpose?" Kodachi asked.

     "Maybe to set something free," Hikaru said after a moment.  "I think
that's what it was.  He's weakened something, something that was holding
back some things.  I've been looking through the papers since Tuesday
night, and you know how many reported sightings there've been of flying
things too big to be birds, creatures that look like men but are gone a
moment later, stuff like that?"

     "No," Kodachi said after a moment.

     "A lot," Hikaru said.  "I see them on the news on TV, read about them
in every paper, all in different locations.  There were some tourists
climbing a mountain in Hokkaido.  One of them falls, and his rope breaks.
He's falling, and all of a sudden his friends see him slow down and fall
gently to a ledge three hundred feet below.  He didn't have a scratch on
him; he said the wind seemed to go soft underneath him.  He swears he heard
wings flapping next to him."

     "Odd," Kodachi said, narrowing her eyes.

     "That's the good stuff," Hikaru said.  "Ship crews out in the Pacific
are seeing all kinds strange things.  Coloured lights, little whirlpools,
things they think might be people swimming, and when they get close they're
gone.  Every single person on the Hakken vanished, without a trace; there's
been two more disappearances of ships crossing on trade routes that take
them through around same area.  They haven't even found the ships yet."

     He sighed.  "And I can feel it.  I can feel something bad is coming."

     He gritted his teeth.  "I just wish I knew what the hell it was."

     "Any ideas?" Kodachi asked, sipping her coffee delicately.

     "It all goes back to that thing Ranma fought on the Spire," Hikaru
said.  "That thing is the same thing that Happosai and everyone else tried
to drive out of Cologne's son two hundred years ago.  I'd say if anything,
it's been trying to get free for a long time.  I think Tensai's finally let
it."

     "Just what is it?" Kodachi said.

     "One of the elder ones," Hikaru said.  "One of the old things, the
ones who the spirits fought with and sealed away.  Always there, always
waiting, for when the time is right."

     "Like that thing," Kodachi breathed.  "Only free.  Dear heaven..."

     Hikaru shook his head.  "No.  If it was entirely free, we'd know it.
But something's happening, and it all goes back to that thing.  But it's
more powerful now, more able to act.  And somehow, I don't think it's going
to stay bound much longer."

**********

     Kasumi was looking out the front window, relaxing with a cup of tea.
Shampoo and Akane had volunteered to make breakfast, and with some
trepidation, Kasumi had agreed.

     Akane had actually improved a lot in the kitchen, but she still had
the occasional accident on her own.  Hopefully, Shampoo would keep her out
of trouble.  The two girls had been behaving strangely, as if they were
very old friends, although Kasumi had noted an underlying tension between
them.  Something had obviously happened between them, although she didn't
quite know what.

     She glanced around the living room; there was thankfully little trace
of the attack that had been made upon the house a few nights earlier.
They'd become adept at patching up doors, windows and walls over the past
year, and they'd all worked hard.  There had been dishes to replace, but
that hadn't taken much.

     She still shuddered when she remembered that night, though.  Never had
there been such an invasion of the home.  She knew it was stupid, but she
took it almost personally, as if she could have done something to stop them
getting in.  Thankfully Shampoo and Mousse had been here, along with that
strange, tall man who was a friend of Ranma and Akane's.  It had been a
truly frightening experience, and she had thought quite a lot about how
lucky they'd been.

     But things were looking up, at least.  Shampoo seemed to have come out
of her depression, Ranma and Akane had finally taken the next big step in
their relationship, and she was feeling a little better about life in
general.

     Kasumi relaxed, and sipped her tea, looking out into the clean day.
She was a bit disappointed all the snow was gone; she would have liked it
to be around longer.  But it was not to be, apparently.

     She shrugged, took another sip of tea, and watched with mild interest
as a large truck, the kind used to transport livestock, pulled up outside
the house.

     The door opened in the cab, and three people piled out.  After a
moment, Kasumi was startled to see she knew two of them.

     A bit puzzled, she got out of her chair and hurried outside to meet
them as they came towards the house.  Ryoga and Akari were familiar, but
the small, orange-haired boy was a stranger.  They were supposed to arrive
tomorrow for the party she and Nodoka had planned to celebrate the
engagement of both them and Ranma and Akane, but they hadn't mentioned
bringing anyone else.

     "Hello, Ryoga and Akari," Kasumi said.  "Who is this?"

     "I'm Kitzuiri," the little boy said with a bow.  "Pleased to meet
you."

     "What a polite boy," Kasumi said with a smile.

     "Hi, Kasumi," Ryoga said.  She realized the two of them were a
contrast to the cheerfulness of the young boy; they looked haggard, tired
and miserable.

     "Oh my," she said.  "What's wrong?  What's happened?"

     "First of all," Ryoga said.  "Do you know of any place we can put a
few dozen pigs?"

**********

     "Shigeki," Jotari Otani said as he opened the door.  "Welcome.  It's
been too long, old friend."

     "Yes," Shigeki said as he stepped inside.  "Too long."

     They bowed to each other.  "Are your wife and children here?" Shigeki
asked.

     Otani shook his head.  "No.  They went out shopping together, the
three of them."

     "Good," Shigeki said.  "We've got lots to talk about."

     "I think we do," Otani said.  "Come.  Let us have tea."

     "Tea would be good," Shigeki said with a sigh.

     "Anything to eat?" Otani asked as he headed towards the kitchen.

     "No thanks," Shigeki said.

     "You know, I don't think I've ever seen you eat?" Otani said.

     "Strange, isn't it?" Shigeki said.

     "I'm used to it with you," Otani said with a smile.  That quickly
faded as he saw the morose expression on his friend's face.  "Is everything
alright?"

     "Just fine," Shigeki said.  "I'm just worried.  I've never seen
anything this bad; everything is restless, even the air."

     "I know what you mean," Otani said as he began to make the tea.  "I
wasn't able to sleep more than a few hours last night."

     He paused and glanced at Shigeki.  "Shigeki... whatever's coming, do
you think that Tokyo is in danger?  I've got enough connections that I can
put police on alert, other things..."

     Shigeki shook his head.  "Not yet.  Not yet.  I can feel something
building, though, like gathering storm clouds.  Something is soon to occur,
something of great consequence."

     "Dang," Otani said.  "You always sound so cool and ominous when you
talk like that."

     Shigeki laughed dryly.  "It's a talent."

     The tall man sighed.  "I just wish Cologne was still around.  She was
always the best among those three."

     "Hmm?"

     "Happosai, Lukkosai, Cologne," Shigeki said.  "Old friends."

     "I knew Cologne," Otani said softly.

     "Yeah," Shigeki said.  "So did I.  Her loss is a great blow."

     "Happosai... name rings a bell..."

     "He's probably responsible for ninety-nine percent of the unsolved
underwear thefts around here," Shigeki said.

     "Oh, yeah, him," Otani said.  "I chased him in a squad car for a good
half-hour once, and he still outran me."

     "What, you were on patrol?" Shigeki said.

     Otani grimaced.  "Actually, I caught him going through my daughter's
dresser."

     Shigeki laughed again.  "That's inappropriate use of government
property, it is."

     "Oh, be quiet," Otani said.  "Or I'll call up a search team and we can
see what toys you have hidden in that van of yours."

     Shigeki shook his head.  "Sorry," he said, still chuckling a bit.

     "I had a talk with that friend of Cologne's great-grandaughter," Otani
said.  "The boy with the glasses.  Mousse."

     "Yes?" Shigeki said.

     "Seems like a good kid," he said.

     "They're all good kids," Shigeki said.  "I just hope they all come out
of this okay."

     "So do I," Otani said, pouring the tea and sitting down at the table
with Shigeki.  "So do I."

     Shigeki sipped the tea.  "Good tea."

     "This was what you were talking about, wasn't it?" Otani asked
seriously.  "When you said they would help to keep it safe?  You knew, even
then, didn't you?"

     Shigeki nodded.  "Somewhat."

     "To think I almost had them all thrown in jail," Otani said.  "Now it
looks as if they just might save all of us from whatever's coming."

     "Yeah," Shigeki said after a moment.  "They just might."

**********

     "So, just who are you anyway?" Ranma asked Kitzuiri as he sat down at
the hugely overcrowded breakfast table.  Half of the people weren't even
sitting at the table, as there wasn't enough room.  They took their seats
on the floor, bowls in their laps.

     "Just good Akane make twice as much rice as she supposed to," Shampoo
said, looking around at the crowd.

     "One cup, two cups, four cups, what's the difference?" Akane muttered.

     "Pass the pickles, please," Soun said from behind the paper.

     Happosai handed them over and looked at Akari.  "Don't think I've seen
you before.  I'd remember such a lovely girl..."

     Ryoga pointed a finger at Happosai.  "Old man, don't you even think
of..."

     "Akane, this meal is very nice," Nodoka said.

     "Shampoo helped as well," Mousse said from where he was sitting
cross-legged on the floor.

     "What, does that mean I can't cook a good meal without someone else's
help?" Akane said, glaring at Mousse.

     "No, no, not at all," Mousse said, raising a hand defensively.

     "Hey," Ranma said to Kitzuiri again.  "Who are you?"

     He looked at Ryoga and Akari.  "And why the heck are you guys here a
day early, anyway?"

     Out in the backyard, something made a tremendously loud grunt.

     "And why'd you bring all the pigs?" he asked.

     "Long story, Ranma," Ryoga said.  "Tell you all after breakfast,
okay?"

     "At least tell me who he is?" Ranma said desperately, pointing to
Kitzuiri.

     "I'm Kitzuiri," the little boy said as if he was informing Ranma of
the cure for all diseases.

     Ranma groaned and stopped himself from banging his head on the table
by sheer force of will.

**********

     Kasumi looked around at the huge mass of people gathered in the dining
room for breakfast, and smiled.  The air was one of companionship, even
though she knew something bad must have happened to Ryoga and Akari.  They
would have had to drive since very early this morning to reach here by this
time, and Akari had said nothing about bringing the pigs.

     They'd find out soon enough, though.  Right now, the important thing
was that they all felt safe.  It was a good feeling.

     The phone rang; Kasumi ran to it and picked it up.

     "Hello," she said.

     "Hey sis," Nabiki said on the other end of the line.  "How're things
over there?"

     "Lively," Kasumi said.  "How are you, Nabiki?  How did your last exam
go?"

     "Just fine, Kasumi," Nabiki said.  "Listen, Kuno and I are gonna
arrive about three, okay?  Shampoo and Mousse still our houseguests?"

     "Yes," Kasumi said, deciding not to mention Akari and Ryoga.  Nabiki
hadn't been too enthusiastic when she heard Shampoo and Mousse were staying
at the house.  "It's so awful, you know, losing their home like that-"

     "Kasumi..."

     "Did you tell Kuno about Akane and Ranma?"

     "Yeah..."

     "How did he take the news?"

     "Better than expected, actually.  Look, sis, I'd love to chat, but
I've gotta pack.  I'll see you this afternoon."

     "Bye-bye, Nabiki," Kasumi said as she hung up the phone.

     She smiled and headed back towards breakfast.  With Nabiki and
Tatewaki back in Nerima, everyone would be here.

     Except Cologne.  The thought of the old woman, and the circumstances
surrounding her death, made Kasumi frown slightly.

     But nevertheless, it would be quite a gathering.

**********

     Eyes other than Kasumi's watched the dining room of the Tendo house
that day, although from much further away.  The waters of the pool did not
ripple in the slightest as it showed the image and the sounds of the scene.

     "Not much longer," the one who watched said, a slight frown creasing
her perfect face.  "The last two will arrive soon, though not before their
own trial.  The battle is about to begin, ancient foe.  You are close to
your goal, but not so close that you cannot be stopped."

     She stroked the waters of the pool, clearing them of the image.
"The circle closes, abomination.  The final warriors gather in the chosen
place, and they shall soon know what they need to know to face you.  Yes,
the circle shall close, and together, they will be strong enough to stop
you."

     She smiled, and gazed into the limitless depths of the pool.

**********

     And somewhere, something gazed back at the one who looked upon the
pool, although she could not see the one who watched.  A mouth curved into
a smile, and eyes shone black with the absence of light.

     "None are strong enough to stop me," a voice said, tinged with
amusement.  "Not now and not ever.  The wheels are nearly turned, and the
new age comes, and with it the messenger, and his message."

     The smile grew grew wider, and the eyes blazed like dark stars, as
fingers stroked the air only a fraction of an inch away from a surface of
rolling darkness even more awful and deep than the fires within those eyes.