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

Chapter 9 : The Sepulchre of Stars

     "HOW many?" Ranma said.

     "Dozens," Ryoga said quietly.  "And I don't even think that was all of
them that are capable of coming through.  There could be hundreds by now."

     The two of them were sitting in Ranma's room, having slipped away from
the crowd at the dining room to talk together.  It was eerily remiscent of
months ago.  Ryoga had been the first one Ranma had confided his fears to
after Cologne had spoken to him ominously of some great and terrible
darkness coming.

     Back then, they'd all thought, even Cologne, that she'd been referring
to the gaki stalking the area, the one that had been responsible for the
deaths of three people and for nearly killing Kodachi before they'd hunted
it down.  But now, Ranma had decided she'd been referring to something far
worse, something that had only truly begun now.

     Cologne was dead, slain by the hands of her own son, a son she had
sealed away beneath the earth over two hundred years ago.  Some kind of
ceremony had been performed by him, and according to Happosai, there'd been
a shift in the very nature of the lines of magical energy that ran
throughout the entire country.  Not that Ranma really understood what that
meant.

     But until now, there'd been no real hints of what was going to happen.
He'd almost managed to forget the horrible night four days ago,  when
Cologne had died, when he'd been controlled by the snake-woman called
Hibino Kyofu, when the Tendo house had been attacked by the thing in the
body of Richard Stalford.

     He'd begun to think now that perhaps the attack had only been a
distraction, keeping them from the truly important task of stopping Tensai
from completing the ceremony.

     A task in which they had failed.

     But as the problem was no longer in front of him, he'd done what he
stupidly did with a lot of his problems, which was put them aside.  He'd
been caught up in the happiness of the past few days; he'd asked Akane to
marry him.

     And to his joy, she had accepted.  His mother and Kasumi had planned a
party for Sunday night.

     Even Shampoo and Mousse, who'd lost both their home and Cologne,
seemed to have let much of what had happened slip from their memory.  The
change in them had been incredible to see, and he'd felt quite pleased for
Mousse; it had been about time the poor guy got a break with Shampoo.

     But now Ryoga and Akari had arrived, with their pigs and a strange
young boy in tow, and he was finding himself with a lot of questions he
didn't yet have answers to.

     "Are you sure they were gaki?" Ranma said.

     Ryoga nodded.  "None of us are ever going to forget what those things
look like.  You know that as well as I do."

     "Damn," Ranma said.  "We've got to do something..."

     Ryoga laughed.  "Like what?  Call up the army and warn them there's a
horde of flesh-eating monsters out in the countryside?"

     Ranma sighed.  "You're right.  This is no coincidence, Ryoga."

     "It's got something to do with Cologne's death, right?" Ryoga asked.
"Kasumi didn't go into much detail on the phone.  She was more interested
in your upcoming marriage..."

     "Yeah," Ranma said.  "That's all I've been thinking about.  I can't
believe I was this stupid."

     He pounded a fist into his palm.  "If stuff isn't right in front of
me, though, I just can't deal with it.  I still don't know all of what's
going on..."

     "I think it would help if you talked to Kitzuiri," Ryoga said.  "He's
the... boy who came here with Akari and I."

     "Just who is he, anyway?" Ranma asked.

     "Much more than he seems," Ryoga said with a shake of his head.  "But
I think he's on our side."

     "I think we need all the help we can get," Ranma said ruefully.  "If
this Tensai guy was strong enough to take on Happosai and Cologne in the
same night, and win both times, then he's big trouble."

     "Tensai?" Ryoga asked.  Ranma recalled that Ryoga hadn't been here for
any of the chaos of Tuesday night, and probably was even more confused as
to what was going on then Ranma.

     "Lemme start at the beginning..." Ranma began.

**********

     Akane scratched the piglet behind the ears.  "He's so cute..."

     "She, actually," Akari said.  The piglet grunted happily and nuzzled
Akane's hand.  Around the two girls, the backyard of the Tendo house was
filled with a mass of snuffling porcine shapes.  The cold winter weather of
the previous days had dissolved into unusual warmth; the sun was bright
overhead, and the air crisp and cool, but not so much that you needed a
jacket.

     "I used to have a pet piglet," Akane said.  "I saw one that looked
exactly like him a few days ago... it followed Ranma into the house.  But I
guess it's impossible for it to have been P-chan; he wouldn't stay a piglet
forever."

     "Not for long," Akari said.  She stroked the broad head of
Katsunikishi where he lay on the ground; the huge pig, the proudest of the
Unryu stock, snorted contentedly.  "They grow up so fast."

     "Why'd you bring them all, anyway?" Akane asked.  She was a bit
perplexed to see Akari shudder.

     "Something... really awful happened..." she said slowly.  "I... I've
just been trying to forget about it..."

     "I'm sorry," Akane said worriedly.  "I shouldn't have brought it up."

     She sighed.  "There's been a lot of weird stuff here too.  Really
terrible things."

     "Really?" a high voice said from behind the two girls.  "Tell me all
about it."

     Akane and Akari turned to look at the small, orange-haired boy with
the bright, dark eyes.  He looked as if he were no older than ten.

     "I thought you were inside, Kitzuiri," Akari said.

     "It's boring in there," the little boy complained.  "All those two old
guys do is play their silly game.  They kept on getting mad when I was
telling them what to do.  Then I tried helping in the kitchen, and I kind
of started eating the cookies and they asked me to leave."

     "What about Shampoo and Mousse?" Akane said.  "Aren't they interesting
enough for you?"

     "All they do is talk, talk, talk," Kitzuiri said.  "They kept on
telling me to go away."

     He kicked at the ground disconsolately.  "Silly kids..."

     "Hey, you're younger than anyone else here," Akane said teasingly,
reaching down to pat the boy on the head.  His hair was incredibly thick,
but soft as well, almost like fur.

     "Wanna bet?" the little boy said with a slightly feral grin.

     "Umm, Kitzuiri..." Akari said.  "Are you sure..."

     Akane blinked confusedly.  "Huh?"

     "Oh, it doesn't matter if one person knows," the boy said.  "They're
all going to have to find out soon anyway."

     Neither Akane or Akari noticed the tone of sadness within the boy's
voice, sadness that no child that young should have known.  But Kitzuiri,
in truth, was far older than he looked.

     "What are you two talking about?" Akane said after a moment.

     Kitzuiri didn't say anything, only smiled.

     And then he changed.  It was so quick Akane caught practically no
interval between the change, as his shape flowed and dropped to all fours.
In the place where he had stood, there was now a small red fox.

     Akane shrugged.  "Big deal.  I've seen stuff that makes that look like
a party trick."

     The fox frowned, as much as a fox was able to.  "You should show more
respect for me.  I am a kitsune, after all."

     "Sorry," Akane said.  She bent down and looked the kitsune in the
face.  "So, how'd you end up tagging along with Ryoga and Akari, anyway?"

     "He saved us," Akari said softly.  "From a lot of... what are they
called again?"

     "Gaki," the kitsune said.

     Akane gasped.  "What?"

     "I take it you've had the misfortune of meeting them before," the
kitsune said, swishing his bushy tail on the ground.

     "Yes," Akane said numbly.  "How... how did this all happen..."

     "Well..." the kitsune said with a growling sigh.  "It's so hard to
think of where to begin..."

     "At the beginning," Akane said, crossing her arms.

     "There are many different beginnings to this story," the kitsune said.
His shape flowed again, and he wore the body of a human again.  "And many
different ends."

     He combed his fingers through his hair a few times and smiled.  "Why
don't you tell me of what's gone on here, Akane Tendo, and then I shall
decide where to begin."

     "Alright," Akane said.  "Why don't we sit down by the pond?"

     The kitsune nodded.  "An appropriate place."

     Akane glanced to Akari.  "You want to come with us?"

     "I'll stay with the pigs, thank you very much," the other girl said,
looking a bit pale.  Akane nodded, realizing most people probably weren't
as used to this level of strangeness.

     Although the strangeness and terror of the past few days was becoming
a little much even for her.  She was scared, deep inside.  Every one of
them was; they all knew it wasn't over.

     She glanced at the gold ring on her finger as she walked towards the
pond with Kitzuiri.  She couldn't remember ever feeling so happy as she did
now, but she also couldn't remember ever feeling so worried.

**********

     "Geez..." Ryoga said when Ranma finished.  "I wish I'd been here to
help."

     "I wish you'd been there as well," Ranma said.  "But you're here now,
at least."

     "Yeah," Ryoga said.  "I think we should go talk to Kitzuiri now.  He
told me some things when Akari and I were headed here..."

     "Just who is he, anyway?" Ranma asked.

     "A kitsune," Ryoga said simply.

     Ranma nodded.  "Yeah.  A fox-spirit.  Right."

     "You don't believe me?"

     "I don't know what to believe these days," Ranma said with a sigh.

     "Well, he's a friend," Ryoga said after a moment.  "He saved Akari and
I this morning."

     "Okay," Ranma said, standing up.  "Let's go talk to him."

     "Talk to who?" Kitzuiri asked from where he stood in front of the
still-closed door.

     "To you," Ranma said.  "Level up with me, kid.  Tell me what you told
Ryoga."

     "I'm no kid," Kitzuiri said.

     "Whatever you are," Ranma said.  "You've gotta tell me what you know
about what's going on.  It's really important."

     "In time," Kitzuiri said.

     "Now," Ranma growled.  "I'm sick of being left in the dark about
things by people.  By Shigeki, by Happosai, by you, by anyone.  I want to
know what's going on, and I want to know now."

     "I am waiting," Kitzuiri said, and his voice was no longer that of a
child.  It held an air of wisdom and command that gave even Ranma pause.
"Until the final two are here."

     "Who?" Ranma said.  "What are you talking about?"

     "The ones who are arriving this afternoon," the boy said.  His voice
seemed to be coming from far away.  "The swordsman, and your love's
sister.  The circle is not yet closed."

     "Huh?" Ranma said.  He was feeling confused, and a little dizzy.

     He heard Kitzuiri mutter under his breath in his own voice.  "Sorry
about this."

     Then he was speaking again, in the same commanding voice.  "You don't
need to ask about anything yet.  All will be explained at a later time."

     Ranma blinked.  "Okay," he said after a moment.

     The little boy nodded and smiled childlishly.  "Okay.  I'll see you
two around.  Bye."

     He darted out the door, as Ranma and Ryoga looked at each other.
"What were we talking about again?"

**********

     "Mistress Kodachi, where do we keep the red carpet?" Sasuke called up
the stairs.

     "We don't have one," Kodachi said from where she was carefully pruning
a bonsai tree in a pot on the second floor landing.

     "Requesting permission to go and purchase a red carpet for Master
Kuno's imminent return this afternoon," Sasuke called again.

     "Denied," Kodachi said smoothly, snipping off a few leaves.

     There was a few moments of blessed silence for Kodachi, and then
Sasuke's wheedling voice echoed up the stairs again.

     "I've run out of crepe paper.  Requesting permission to..."

     "Denied."

     Snip.

     "Mistress Kodachi, if I may say so, you seem less than enthusiastic
about my plans to decorate the house for your brother's return!"

     "Denied."

     Snip

     "Mistress Kodachi, I don't think you're listening to me!"

     "Denied."

     Snip.  Snip.

     "Mistress Kodachi..."

     Snip.  Snip.  Snap.

     Kodachi put down the tiny shears and glared at the now ruined bonsai.
Her eyebrow gave a faint twitch, and she started down the stairs.

     "Err... did I do bad?" Sasuke asked innocently from his perch on the
ladder.  He was hanging balloons over the inside frame of the front door.

     "You made me ruin the bonsai," Kodachi said wearily.

     "Err... sorry," Sasuke said.

     "I'd been working on that bonsai since I was ten," Kodachi said with
the same weariness.

     "Don't you have others?" Sasuke asked.

     "Only a dozen more."

     "Isn't that enough?"

     "That one was a favourite."

     "Really?"

     "No."

     "Am I going to be punished?"

     Kodachi sighed.  "No, good servant.  It was more my own fault than
yours; my inner tension makes any attempt at botany an exercise in
futility."

     "Mistress, you're beginning to talk like Master Tatewaki again,"
Sasuke said worriedly.  "Is everything alright?"

     "I'm just stressed, Sasuke," Kodachi said quietly.  "Hikaru has me
worried with all his talk about ancient seals and dead gods."

     "Well, that thing that was in that man's body, the one we fought at
the Tendo house, it seems to have vanished," Sasuke said.  "Isn't it over?"

     "No, Sasuke," Kodachi said.  "It's not over."

     "Is there anything I can do?" Sasuke asked.

     "No.  Go on with your decorating; I'm sure brother will appreciate it.
I'm going to go lie down for a while; wake me when Hikaru arrives, will
you?"

     "Alright," Sasuke said, stepping down from the ladder and picking up a
large, handmade banner with the words "Welcome Home, Master Kuno" written
on it in somewhat crude penmanship.

     "Do you think this would look better outside over the front gate, or
hanging above the stairs to greet him when he steps inside..."

     Sasuke received no answer; Kodachi was already gone.

**********

     Kitzuiri finished talking to Mousse and Shampoo, smiled cheerfully at
them, and wandered back upstairs.  By the time he was at the second floor,
the two Amazons had forgotten entirely that he had even spoken to them, and
were quietly speaking to each other again in their native language.

     "I do not like this, lady," he whispered softly.  "Confusing them like
this.  It is far too much like the behaviour of the elder ones, the
abominations.  They are our children, are they not?  They are to be guided,
not manipulated."

     He paused.  "There was no avoiding that.  They would have died had I
not shown myself then."

     A smile passed across his childish face.  "I knew you would
understand, lady.  You are right; let them have some small peace for a
little while.  The true battle will begin soon."

     "Who are you talking to, my boy?" said an old voice, cracked and dry
like ancient leather.

     The kitsune snapped himself back to awareness, and look at the tiny
old man who barely came up past his knees, even in this child's form.  He
gave his most innocent, childish smile to the only person in the house he
hadn't yet had a chance to talk to.

     "Nobody, honoured one," he said smoothly.  Eyes that saw beyond the
seeming frailty of the old man's form narrowed just slightly; this was the
most powerful one here, under the right circumstances.

     "Of course," the old man said, looking at him intently.  "You are not
all you seem, little one."

     "Nor are you," Kitzuiri said softly in his true voice, locking eyes
with the old man.

     Happosai darted quickly forward and seized him by the arm; it might
have looked like a friendly gesture to an observer, but the kitsune could
feel that there was strength in that tiny hand that could break him like a
twig in an instant.

     "I can feel your aura," Happosai said.  "You are an ally.  But I do
not like having my mind or the minds of those under my protection 
manipulated, no matter how good the cause."

     "I meant only good," the kitsune said.

     "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," Happosai replied.

     "There is a taint to you," the kitsune said nervously, sniffing the
air.  "A darkness.  It almost feels like..."

     His eyes widened.  "No..."

     Happosai nodded.  "Yes.  I've been keeping it in check for the past
while now.  It's difficult, but it is under control."

     The kitsune pulled his arm from Happosai's grip as if it were smoke,
and smiled at the old man.  "You are very strong."

     "No," Happosai said.  "I was very, very weak."

     The kitsune hesitantly reached out a slim child's hand towards the old
man.  "May I..."

     "Go ahead," Happosai said.

     The kitsune touched Happosai's forehead, briefly.  "Oh!" he said
suddenly.  Then a strange, quirked smile appeared on his face.
"Underwear?"

     "Far better that than other things," Happosai said sadly.  "That kept
it in check, if only a little."

     The kitsune nodded.  "It is a terrible thing."

     "I know," Happosai said softly.  "Believe me, I know."

     He looked intently at the kitsune.  "What did you do to all of them?"

     The kitsune looked a bit embarassed.  "Nothing much.  Just tried to
help them stop worrying for a little; it won't come until the circle
closes, and then it'll wear off and they'll remember.  Also... uh..."

     He trailed off.

     "What?" Happosai prompted.  "What did you do?"

     "Well, you know the tall girl, the older one," the kitsune said.

     "Kasumi," Happosai said.

     "I made her find small boys with orange hair very cute," the boy said.
"Want to give them cookies.  Lots of cookies.  And the occasional kiss on
the cheek."

     Happosai clucked disapprovingly.  "Old habits die hard, eh trickster?"

     "Yeah, I guess," the kitsune said.

     Happosai's face went hard and serious.  "Now, what did you mean by the
circle closing?"

     "We've both got some things we could tell each other, I think,"
Kitzuiri said quietly.  "I heard some of the story from Akane, but I think
you're in a better position to inform me."

     "And what will you tell me in return?" Happosai asked, raising one
white eyebrow.

     "I shall tell you," the kitsune said.  "Of the greatest battle ever
waged.  I shall tell you of the war against the abominations."

     "Sounds like a fair trade," Happosai said after a moment.  "My room is
this way."

     So the mighty warrior in the old man's body and the ancient spirit in
the young boy's form went off to talk together.

**********

     Ukyou flipped the okonomiyaki onto the plates that waited on the
counter, then tossed a few more across the intervening space of the room,
where they were caught on plates by Konatsu and delivered to the waiting
tables.

     No one, not even her regular customers, had recognized him the first
day he'd helped her work the dinner hour.  Business this Saturday was
better than it had been in days; apparently rumours had gotten around that
along with its usual cute owner, Ucchan's now had a very handsome waiter.
There were quite a number of teenage girls watching Konatsu intently as he
worked.

     The door slid open and Hikaru Gosunkugi walked in, raising a hand in
greeting as he took a seat at the counter.

     "Hey Hikaru," Ukyou said, turning her head from the grill to smile at
him.

     "Hi Ukyou," he replied, putting his bookbag on his lap and leaning his
elbows on the counter.  "How's it going?"

     "Business is booming today," Ukyou said, as Konatsu came over.

     "We need three specials for table two," he said.  He glanced at
Hikaru.  "Hello."

     "Have you two met?" Ukyou asked.

     "Briefly, last Tuesday," Hikaru said.  "Hikaru Gosunkugi."

     He extended a hand to Konatsu, who took it.  "Konatsu Kenzan."

     Konatsu headed off to work the tables, as Hikaru turned back to Ukyou.

     "What can I get you, hon?" she asked him.

     "Whatever's good," he said.  "I just want a quick bite of lunch before
I head over to Kodachi's.  I promised I'd go with her to meet her brother
at the train station."

     "Yeah, he and Nabiki are getting home today, right?" Ukyou asked.

     Hikaru nodded.  "Yeah.  About three."

     "It's only one now," Ukyou said.  "Aren't you gonna be a little
early?"

     "Sasuke's been driving her up the wall since last night," Hikaru said.
"He keeps on fussing about Tatewaki coming home."

     "Geez, and Ryoga and Akari are gonna be in tomorrow for the party,"
Ukyou said, unaware that they were in fact already here.  "It's like a
reunion."

     "Yeah," Hikaru said with a sigh as Ukyou put a special in front of
him.  He handed over payment and began to dig in.

     "So, how goes the research?" Ukyou asked.

     "Pretty good," Hikaru said.  "I've got some stuff I need to look over,
but I'm pretty sure I'll be on top of whatever's going on soon enough."

     He sighed again.  "I just hope I'm not too late."

     Ukyou nodded.  "Don't worry, hon.  We're all on the same side here."

     She turned to cook a few more okonomiyaki, then gave her attention
back to the thin boy at the counter.

     "Shigeki's back in town," she said after a moment.  "I think things
are coming to a head now, Hikaru."

     "Damn," he said.  "There's still so much I have to look into..."

     "You can only do so much research," Ukyou said.  "Sometimes it's time
for action."

     "I'm not much good at that," Hikaru said softly.

     Ukyou patted him on the shoulder.  "Buck up, sugar.  We all do our
part.  Not all of us can be fighters."

     He nodded.  "It doesn't make me feel any better, even though it's
true."

     The last bite of his okonomiyaki disappeared, and he gently rubbed his
temple with one thin hand.  "I... I worry sometimes.  I wasn't able to do
anything against that thing last Tuesday night..."

     Ukyou shook her head.  "I don't know about that.  It sure seemed to be
working for a while.  Remember how we started to see it as what it really
was?"

     Hikaru frowned.  "I still wish I knew whether it was actually affected
by what I was doing or whether it was just playing with me."

     "Doesn't matter," Ukyou said.  "It's over for now."

     "Yeah," Hikaru said.  "I... I felt something a few minutes after that
thing vanished.  An awful cry that rose inside my head, and then I felt..."

     He waved a hand.  "I don't know quite what it was I felt.  But I know
that the Sleeper, at least to the extent that it was in Stalford's body, is
gone.  Something... something destroyed it."

     "What?" Ukyou said.

     "What I said," Hikaru said slowly.  "Something burned it out of the
form it was wearing."

     "Geez," Ukyou said.  "Must have been strong, whoever they were."

     "Yeah," Hikaru muttered.  "Really strong."

     He stood up.  "I've gotta get to Kodachi's.  I'll see you tomorrow at
the party at the Tendo's, if not before."

     "So long," Ukyou said as he stepped out the door.

     She watched him go through the large store window for a moment,
striding with his shoulders hunched forward, the bag swinging at his side,
a purposeful intensity in every motion he made.

     She watched him go until he was out of her sight, and then she turned
back to her cooking.

**********

     "So... that's the only way, then?" Happosai said.

     The kitsune nodded sadly.

     They'd been talking for hours now, the old master and the older
spirit.  They'd been called down for lunch, but had both decided against
it, preferring to carry on the conversation.

     Happosai sighed and took a long inhalation on his pipe.

     "When are you going to tell them all of this?" he asked.  "If you are
going to tell them all of this."

     "Most of it," Kitzuiri said.  "As soon as it's time."

     "When will it be time?" Happosai asked softly.

     "I'll know," Kitzuiri said.  "They'll be no way we'll be able to avoid
not knowing."

     "There's no way to stop it before it happens, is there?" Happosai
said hopefully.

     The kitsune shook his head.  "No.  What is now done can only be undone
in that one way, and not at this time or place."

     "I was afraid of that," Happosai said.

     "They are strong, honoured one," the kitsune said.  "They have all
been drawn together for a reason."

     "I know they're strong," Happosai said.  "Each one of them, be they a
warrior or not, has their own strengths.  And their own weaknesses."

     He blew a long streamer of smoke from his mouth.  "Cologne was strong.
Her son was strong.  And yet they both fell, though in different ways."

     "Is her son truly as strong as you say he is?" Kitzuiri said, drawing
his small legs up to his narrow chin and examing Happosai intently.

     "Stronger," Happosai said.  "By the time he was eighteen, Tensai was
nearly a match for Cologne or... his father.  It was around that time he
began to change.  A few years later, we sealed him away."

     "It's strange," Kitzuiri said.  "True mind control is almost
impossible to achieve.  I find it a little hard to believe he could have
fallen so easily."

     Happosai sighed.  "You'd have to understand Tensai's childhood.  This
was over two hundred years ago.  Even today, the Chinese in Japan aren't
treated well, nor is any foreigner for that matter.  In those days, it was
far more widespread and more obvious.  Being the child of a Chinese mother
and a Japanese father was even worse in some people's eyes.  It didn't help
that he was always on the road with his parents, going from place to place
and training.  Neither of them could see how desperately he wanted to be
accepted by people, to have a place he could call home."

     The old man bowed his head.  "Cologne and... him just weren't right
for each other.  Oh, they loved each other, in their own way, but they
could never see eye to eye on a lot of things.  They tried their hardest,
but things only grew worse and worse between them as time went on."

     He snuffed out his pipe and continued.  "Think about it... having no
home, no friends.  Travelling with two parents who seemed to spend more
time fighting than looking after you.  Every place you go, people look upon
you with scorn.  The names whispered behind your back, even to your face;
half-breed, bastard, barbarian.  Perhaps if they'd paid more attention,
seen the early signs... but they didn't."

     The kitsune's eyes were sad as he listened to Happosai speak.

     "Think about what it would feel like if you started having dreams,"
Happosai said after a moment.  "Dreams that were so real.  The Sun Goddess
herself talks to you, tells you all the things you want to hear.  You're
not the son of a 'barbarian witch'; you're her son, destined to be the new
Emperor.  People won't scorn you; people will adore you.  These two
parents, who never seem to care much for you in the first place, they've
been lying to you all this time.  All you have to do is this, and
everything will be like you've always wanted..."

     He trailed off, his face downcast.  "You're young, alone, vulnerable.
That gives the thing a hold on you; and every time you do what it asks, it
gets more and more of you.  Maybe after a while, you realize that maybe
there's something wrong, but you press on anyway, because you think it's
the only hope you have."

     "You sure know a lot about him," the kitsune said.

     "Yes," Happosai said after a moment.  "I do."

     "How-"

     Someone knocked on the door.

     "Come in," Happosai said.  The door swung open and Ranma stood there.

     "Hey old man," he said.  "You and the kid have been in here for hours.
We're going down to the train station to meet Nabiki."

     "Who's we?" Happosai asked.

     Ranma shrugged.  "Me and Akane.  Everyone else is gonna stay here and
wait for us to get back."

     He looked at Kitzuiri, as if he were struggling to remember something.
"Uh..."

     He shook his head.  "Never mind.  Anyway, just checking on you guys."

     He turned and left, with one last, confused glance at Kitzuiri.

     As the door closed, Happosai turned and looked flatly at the kitsune.

     "Well, they'd be suspicious if they knew my true nature," the spirit
said, shrugging his childish shoulders.

     "I still do not like the way you do this," Happosai said.

     "You yourself are not the one to criticize me for my actions," the
Kitsune said quietly.  "Your behaviour with the ring was just as much a
manipulation."

     Happosai nodded.  "I suppose," he sighed.  "But it is the only way,
then?"

     "The only way," the kitsune said.  "Are there any left to fulfill it?"

     There was a long silence.  "Yes," Happosai said finally.  "One who is
close at hand.  Her great-grandaughter, Shampoo."

     "Oh," the kitsune said sadly.  "She is so young..."

     "They are all so young," Happosai said.  "But you believe it can be
stopped only by them?"

     "Only by them," Kitzuiri said.

     "They're only starting to become adults," Happosai said.  "Only
starting to leave childhood behind.  Perhaps they can stop it..."

     He bowed his head.  "But what of the consequences?"

     "What of them?" the kitsune said quietly.  "What of the brothers and
sisters I lost in the war against the abominations?  What of those untold
numbers who shall suffer if this goes any further that it must?"

     "I understand," Happosai said.  "Sometimes, sacrifices must be made."

     The kitsune nodded slowly.  He stood up, walked to the window and
looked out at the blue sky and at the bright, shining sun.  "Sometimes."

     He turned and glanced back, and his eyes seemed to see past Happosai
into something else.  "But if a sacrifice is made willingly, rather than
by chance, the ends achieved can often be much greater."

     Happosai said nothing in response, and his eyes couldn't meet that of
the child.

**********

     Ranma and Akane walked at a slow pace on the route towards the train
station, hand in hand.  Ranma could feel the ring against his skin, a thin
band on Akane's finger.

     "Nice day out, isn't it?" Ranma said, looking up at the blue sky.
"Sure beats all the snow."

     "Snow's nice as well," Akane said.  She sighed.  "It's strange.  I was
feeling so nervous about everything this morning; Cologne's death, this
engagement, everything else..."

     "I know what you mean," Ranma said.  "Now Ryoga and Akari show up,
and..."

     He paused.  "I can't think of it.  Why are they here a day early,
anyway?"

     "It's right on the edge of my tongue..." Akane said.

     "And who's the little kid they brought with them, anyway?" Ranma said.

     "Kitzuiri," Akane said.  "I... I think he's related to Akari somehow.
Although I can't..."

     Ranma sighed and shook his head.  "I think we all need to sit down
together and talk about what's happened.  We need to come up with some kind
of plan, something we can do.  I'm starting to hate all this sitting around
and waiting for something to happen."

     "Yeah," Akane said.  "There's... there's some things we definitely all
need to talk about."

     "Huh?" Ranma said, glancing at her.  "You okay?"

     "You remember how Cologne did that ceremony six months ago," she said
after a moment.  "Where she tracked down the gaki?"

     "Yeah," Ranma said.  "The one with the robe."

     Akane nodded.  "Shampoo did the same thing this morning... I was
there.  She... she said a lot of things.  Frightening things."

     She shook her head.  "I don't get it... we were going to talk to
everyone about it after breakfast, but it just kind of slipped our minds I
guess..."

     "You know she's having dreams, right?" Ranma said.

     Akane nodded.  "Mousse told me."

     "It looks like those two are finally gonna get it together, though,"
Ranma said.  "It's good to see.  Mousse really loves her."

     "Yeah," Akane said.

     They were only a block from the train station now, the afternoon
crowds taking advantage of the warm, pleasant weather to shop or just
wander the streets with friends.

     "I hope Kuno's not gonna be all nuts about the engagement," Ranma said
after a moment.

     "Kasumi said Nabiki was going to talk to him," Akane said.  "If anyone
can make him act reasonable, it'll be her."

     "Geez, everyone who's been gone is back," Ranma said.  "Ryoga, Kuno,
Nabiki..."

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

     "Yeah, a bit," Ranma said with a sigh.

     "You worried?" Akane said.

     "A little," Ranma said.  "But not as much as I should be.  It's weird.
I feel like I'm being... too calm about all this."

     "Well, we'll get it all out in the open as soon as we can," Akane
said.  "We'll call everyone.  Ukyou, Hikaru, the Kunos..."

     "Even Shigeki," Ranma said.

     "Yeah," Akane said.  "Even him.  And we'll try to figure out just what
we're going to do."

     "Alright," Ranma said.  "But right now, let's go meet your sister."

     They were at the train station now, stepping through the entrance to
the building.  The time was five minutes to three; across the lobby, they
could see three familiar people.

     "Hey Ranma, Akane," Hikaru said, raising a hand from where he was
standing with Kodachi and Sasuke.  Sasuke was holding one end of a large
banner, and apparently imploring Kodachi to pick up the other end.  She was
ignoring him with a kind of disdain only she could manage.

     "Hey guys," Akane said as they came up.  "You here to meet Kuno?"

     "Yes," Kodachi said, glad of a chance to escape Sasuke's pleading.
"Brother dear should arrive in the next half-hour or so."

     "Huh?" Ranma said.  "The train's supposed to be here at three."

     "We too laboured under that misconception," Kodachi said.  "However,
there was apparently some kind of delay."

     "Mistress Kodachi, please hold the other end... just pick it up and
walk away ten feet or so..." Sasuke said.

     "Whatcha got there?" Ranma said, kneeling down on the ground and
looking at the banner.  "Welcome home, our beloved brother and master,
Tatewaki Kuno?"

     "Yes," Sasuke said.  "To welcome back the master."

     Ranma looked at the small ninja speculatively.  "You're pretty
pathetic, you know that?"

     He saw the little man wilt.  "But..."

     "Don't mind him," Akane said, bopping Ranma on the head.  "I'm sure
Kuno will appreciate it."

     "Ah, Miss Tendo," Sasuke said.  "A pleasure to see you.  My
congratulations on your acceptance of Saotome's proposal, although might I
say that master..."

     "Sasuke," Kodachi said.  "I told you.  Don't bring that up, or I'll
feed you to Midorigame."

     She looked to Ranma and Akane.  "My congratulations as well.  If my
brother gives either of you any trouble, I will deal with him."

     "Uh, thanks Kodachi," Ranma said, standing up from his crouch and
putting a hand behind his head.  "Ya know, I can..."

     "I am best equipped to handle my brother, should the need arise,"
Kodachi said.  Ranma frowned slightly at the cold tone her voice had taken
on.  "Hopefully, the time away has given him adequate chance to realize
that certain things cannot be."

     "Hey, it's okay, Kodachi," Hikaru said, putting a hand on her shoulder
from behind.

     She glanced back at him and smiled.  "I hope so," she said, laying her
hand over his.

     "I guess we'll be waiting around for a while," Ranma said, leaning
back against a pillar.  Akane came and stood next to him, as Sasuke gave a
put-upon sigh and began to roll the banner back up.

     "So we'll wait," Kodachi said.  "It is no trouble."

     So they waited.

**********

     The chamber was vast, an architectural creation built to a scale many
times larger than human.  The ceiling stretched hundreds of feet overhead,
and at the eight corners of the room, a square pillar of black stone as
thick as a small building reached from floor to ceiling.

     In the centre, on a raised platform, the sphere floated a few feet off
the ground.  It was a little larger than a soccer ball, and it was a black
that was so intense it seemed not to be the absence of light so much as a
new kind of black, a black which was not just the absence of light but the
embodiment of darkness.

     None of the details of the chamber could have been made out by human
eyes, of course, as there was no light within the chamber.  There was no
way for light to reach, for light travels in straight lines, while darkness
seeps like water, seeking always the lowest possible level.

     But the eyes that looked upon the chamber were not human.  The hands
and fingers that tangled through the air around the sphere, never quite
touching it, were not human.  The voice that spoke was not human, and it
spoke words that a human voice could never speak.  For though a thing may
look human, there were few beings that walked free in the world today that
were less human than the one who stood upon the dais.

     The lips smiled with one last gesture, one last word.

     It began.

     Out in the depths of space, in the cold, airless void, the
interstellar darkness through which the light of stars travelled began to
be given shape, and life, and movement.

     And hunger.

**********

     Mousse paused in speaking to Shampoo.  She had gone rigid as a board
where she sat on the floor.

     "Shampoo?"

     "The circle is closed," she said, strongly and clearly in accentless
Japanese.  Her voice was different, strong and mature and commanding.  "You
cannot!  You cannot!  The circle is-"

     She shrieked, loud and piercing, and crumpled to the floor as if she'd
been struck.

     "SHAMPOO!"

     He knelt beside her, felt frantically at the fluttering pulse that was
growing weaker by the second.  Her eyes were blank and empty.

     "No..." he whispered, rolling her into her back and frantically trying
to think of what he could do.  Her pulse was nearly gone now.

     "Shampoo..."

     He leaned down, put his lips to hers, breathed air into her, and
nearly wept with relief as she coughed and her pulse came back again,
hammering under his fingers.  Her eyes were clear again.

     "<Outside,>" she gasped.

     "Shampoo, you're..."

     "<Outside...>" she whispered.  "<I have to see... if...>"

     Mousse helped her to her feet and began to walk with her to the back
door.

**********

     "That's the train, mistress!  Quickly, pick up the other end!" Sasuke
said.  "Hurry!"

     Kodachi gritted her teeth and grabbed the other end of the banner as
the train pulled up.  The doors slid open, and she began to look for her
brother.

     She dropped the other end of the banner in shock as he stepped off the
train with Nabiki Tendo.

     The samurai robes he wore, usually so proudly clean, were spattered
with mud.  His face was dirty, and his hair was a tangled mess.  But oddly
enough, he was smiling a smile with more sincerity in it than she'd seen in
him in a long time.

     She vaguely noted that Nabiki was almost as much of a mess, but her
eyes were on her brother as he made his way with the Tendo girl through the
line.

     "Master Kuno... why is he so... messy?" Sasuke said quietly beside
her.  "I was sure I showed him how to correctly use a washing machine
before he left... did I show him how to use a dryer..."

     "Brother!" Kodachi called, matching his smile with her own.  "Over
here!"

     Then he and Nabiki were coming towards the five who waited for them.
Kodachi heard Hikaru saying something behind her, but right now all her
attentions were on her brother.

     "Sister," he said, still smiling as he came up to her.  "How are you?"

     "I am well, brother," Kodachi said.  "Why are you such a mess?"

     "A long story," he said.  "I will tell you..."

     "Welcome back, Nabiki," Akane said from next to Kodachi.

     "Don't hug me sis, not yet.  Well, okay, just a little one... But I'm
such a mess right now, I just wanna go home and have a shower... You are
not gonna believe what Kuno-baby and I met on the way back here..."

     Then they began to hear the panicked screams from outside.

**********

     Ukyou paused at the grill.  The okonomiyaki slipped off her spatula
and sizzled back onto the grill.  The atmosphere inside the shop had
suddenly gone deathly silent.  Outside, she could see people stopping and
looking up at the sky with a kind of fascinated horror.

     "What the hell..." she said, stepping out from behind the grill and
starting to head outside.  Behind her, the smell of burning batter began to
fill the restaurant, but she didn't notice.

**********

     In the kitchen, Kasumi paused in chopping vegetables in preparation
for the very large meal that was going to happen tonight.  "Auntie Saotome,
is everything alright, you're very quiet all of a..."

     She turned and looked to Nodoka.  The older woman was at the window
over the sink, looking outside with an unreadable expression.  Kasumi saw
her fingers gripping the edge of the counter so tightly they were white.

     She realized the kitchen was becoming a lot darker than before.

**********

     "That's impossible!" the scientist shouted at her assistant.  "That's
utterly impossible!  There isn't one scheduled for..."

     "Look at the monitors, doctor," the assistant said, a scared finality
in his tone.  "Look at the damn monitors."

     "Oh god," the scientist said.  "You'd better start calling every
observatory.  We have to see if this is just a malfunction, or a joke,
or..."

**********

     Kasumi and Nodoka walked silently from the kitchen, not speaking at
all.  They walked to the back door, and stood in the yard with Genma and
Soun and Ryoga and Akari and Mousse and Shampoo, and all their eyes turned
up to the sky.

**********

     In Happosai's room, Kitzuiri suddenly stiffened in the midst of
speaking.

     "What?  What is it?" Happosai said.  The spirit said nothing, only
stood up and swiftly ran to the window, looking outside.

     "Oh, dear lady, no," he whispered brokenly.  

**********

     From her apartment balcony, Hinako Ninomiya watched, terror on her
child's face, as night fell in the afternoon.  One hand gripped the railing
so tightly it was starting to hurt, and the other covered her mouth as
tears streamed down her face.

     "What's happening?" she whispered fearfully.  "What's going on?"

     She wanted to run and hide, anywhere.  In the closet, under the bed.
Forget that she was an adult, even if she looked like one.  Act like a
scared child and hide.

     But how could you hide from something like this?

     Two parts of her were at war within her; the child that she appeared
to be screaming in fear, the adult she truly was fearful as well, but
trying to find some rationalization for what had happened.

     But what rationalization could there be?  

     And somehow, she knew it was probably Ranma's fault.  Everything else
usually was.

     "Mr. Saotome..." she said, clenching her fist.  "If this is your
fault, you delinquent, you're gonna be in a lot of trouble..."

     She went to go find her change purse.

**********

     Ranma was at the head of the seven as they ran quickly outside,
hearing the sounds of screaming.  Outside, a man was gesturing at the sky
and moaning terribly.  Around him, everyone else was looking at the sky
with shocked silence on their faces.

     "Why is it so dark all of a sudden?" Akane said beside him.  "It looks
like it's evening or..."

     Ranma looked up at the sky, shielding his eyes with his hand.

     "Oh my god," he said softly.  "Look at the sun..."

     Behind him, he heard Kodachi give a startled gasp, and Kuno cry out
something he didn't hear.  Hikaru's mouth gaped open as all of them turned
their eyes to look at the sky.

     "It's an eclipse," Akane said numbly.

     "No eclipse in the world ever looked like that," Kodachi said.

     Across the face of the sun, darkness crawled in dozens of elongated
fingers like a sapient oil slick.  They shouldn't have been able to look
directly upon the bright star that gave life to their planet, but somehow,
horribly, they were.

     The darkness wrapped itself like ribbons around the sun, and at first
it was weak and translucent, and the light shone through, though dimmed.
But as they watched, the darkness boiled and grew thicker and thicker.  The
shadows cast by buildings grew longer and longer, until finally, as the
last of the light was blotted out and they stood finally in darkness in the
afternoon, a darkness lit only by the glow of lights from stores nearby,
there were no individual shadows to be seen, only one great shadow that had
cast itself across everything.

     Across Nerima and Tokyo, across Japan, across the world, the light
began to die.

**********

     In the chamber, laughter began.  It echoed throughout the vast hall,
magnified by the huge size of the chamber.  It raced through subterranean
caverns, slid through tiny cracks in the ground and boiled up to the
surface and into the darkness.

     In cities across the world, streetlights burned, no matter what the
hour, and the laughter raced through the darkness and made their light seem
nothing.

     And in the chamber, the lips smiled, and the eyes gazed upon the dark
sphere, which had shone briefly, oh so briefly, with a light bright enough
to illuminate all of this vast place.

     "I give to you my message," the voice said.  "Come now, and give me
your response."

     And the eyes also gazed with sickening joy upon another chamber,
gazed from the depths of a once-clear pool that was now only darkness upon
the crumpled, dying form of a woman once beautiful and radiant as the sun.

**********

     "...under martial law, as riots cripple the major cities.  The
government has issued a statement in which they said the following:  'The
government of Japan hopes that its citizens will remain calm in this time
of unexpected crisis.  Scientific teams are working to find the cause of
this unexplained eclipse, and the reason for its length, but you may rest
assured that a quick answer will be found.  We implore our citizens not to
panic, and to obey all laws and regulations.  We recommend remaining in
your homes until this crisis has passed.  To ensure safety, police officers
will be patrolling the streets.  Please co-operate fully with all
government authorities should the need arise..."

     Nabiki clicked the TV off.  "I... I can't watch anymore..." she said
quietly, letting the remote drop from her fingers.  It clattered on the
floor, horribly loud amidst the still silence.

     It had been two hours.  Two hours since the sun went out.  The general
feeling was one of awful numbness, as if none of them were sure just what
to do.

     Ranma, Akane and Nabiki had come back from the train station with the
Kunos, Hikaru and Sasuke.  They'd had to slowly make their way through the
crowds of people in the streets who'd come out to look at the spot where
minutes earlier the sun had hung.

     A short while later, Ukyou and Konatsu had arrived.

     And now, all of them had been sitting and watching the emergency news
broadcasts, not sure what else to do.  Nabiki glanced around at the packed
living room of the Tendo house.  Every chair had been dragged in, and
there were still people sitting on the floor.

     Ranma and Akane were on the couch.  Her sister's head was resting on
Ranma's shoulder, and he had his arm around her tightly, as if afraid to
let go of her.  Kasumi sat beside them, her face ashen, her hands twisting
a dishtowel again and again in silence.

     Soun and Genma were at their shogi board, but neither had made a move
in the whole time.  Nodoka sat near them in a chair, occasionally putting
her face in her hands.  Hinako-sensei was nearby, awed terror on her
child's face; Nabiki hadn't even noticed her arrival until now.

     Happosai and the little boy who Nabiki didn't even know were sitting
apart, talking quietly in hushed voices and not watching the TV.  The boy
had an expression on his face that Nabiki didn't think any child should
have been capable of wearing.

     Ukyou was lying on the floor next to Konatsu, her head resting on one
of the ninja's legs.  There were the tracks of tears on her face, and every
once in a while Konatsu gently rubbed her shoulders without saying
anything.

     Shampoo and Mousse were next to each other on chairs, each gripping
the other's hand tightly.  Shampoo had been crying as well; nearly all of
them had been, actually, at one point or another.  They'd seen so much
footage of burning buildings, as rioting, panicked people ran wild in one
city or another.  The worst of it had been in the United States, and there
had been little unrest in Japan, but a few minutes ago the reports had come
across that the American government had enacted martial law and began
mobilizing troops to contain the worst of the rioting.  

     Kuno was deathly silent, his sword, the sword that had killed the oni
hours ago, sheathed and held across his lap.  Sasuke was sitting beside
him, looking at the floor with fearful intensity and ignoring everything
else.

     Kodachi was sitting with Hikaru, not touching him, only sitting so
close that any movement would have brushed one of them against the other.
But neither one of them moved.

     They'd seen a short film, somehow smuggled out of the country by a
reporter, of an extremist Iranian religious leader extolling that the end
of the world had come, and that it was now time for the war to begin, the
true war that would end all wars.  Troops were massing in the Middle East,
and it had been predicted that in the next few hours Israel would be
virtually under siege by neighbouring countries.  
     
     Ryoga and Akari were sitting on the floor, Akari's arm around Ryoga's
shoulders.  Ryoga's face was like stone as he looked at the now-blank
television screen.

     "What now?" Ryoga said, finally breaking the silence.

     "I don't know," Ranma said, echoing the thoughts of everyone in the
room.

     "I'm scared," Hinako-sensei piped up.  "What... what if someone starts
a war?"

     "She's right," Akane said.  "All it takes in one person to fire off
one weapon, and we'll have World War III."

     There was a long silence as they considered her words, all of them
knowing that she was right.

     It had taken only two hours for the entire world to be plunged into
chaos, as surely as the sun had been plunged into darkness.  Seething
tensions between countries had been thrown to the surface, and as people
had gradually realized that the sun wasn't going to come back up in a few
minutes, panic had begun.

     "This isn't natural," Ukyou said quietly.  "You all saw the footage.
One minute the sun's there, and the next it's being blotted out.  Eclipses
don't happen like that."

     "She right," Shampoo said.  "We all know why this happen."

     "Tensai," Happosai said.  "Somehow this is a result of his doing."

     "Well, how do we undo it?" Ranma said.

     Happosai was silent, looking, oddly enough to the strange little boy
whose presence no one could explain, although the reason for his being
there seemed to be on the tip of everyone's tongue.

     "Not yet," the boy said to Happosai.  "Just a little longer..."

     "Huh?" the rest of the room said.

     Someone knocked on the front door of the house.  Kasumi stood up,
still playing with the dishtowel, and went to answer it.  The silence was
heavy until she returned, leading Shigeki and a small, sad looking man who
only a few of them recognized.

     "Hello, everyone," Shigeki said, his deep-set eyes looking around the
living room at the sea of faces.  He settled for a moment longer on
Kitzuiri than anyone else, and then turned to indicate the man beside him.

     "This is Captain Jotari Otani of the Nerima Police," he said.  "I
believe some of you have met him or heard of him before."

     There were a few nods around the room.

     "I'll be brief," Otani said, looking about the room.  "Shigeki tells
me this is all somehow tied up in the past few days.  He also tells me that
you may be the only ones who can stop what's happening."

     He folded his hands in front of him.  "As it is, the government is
keeping such a huge lid on these things that lowly police captains such as
myself have nearly as little information as citizens.  However, we've
received notification that within the next few hours, the military will
most likely be mobilized; the government of Tokyo is very much afraid that
we may experience riots, or even attacks by certain groups such as those
responsible for the gas attacks on the subway a few years ago.  Shigeki's
told me some of what is going on; I think that whoever or whatever is
behind all of this wants that.  It wants to create fear, to create tension.
All it's going to take is for one thing to go wrong, and heaven help us,
there'll be hell to pay.  You've all seen the news; this is a problem no
longer confined to your lives, but to the entire world."

     He sighed.  "I could be jailed for a long time for even telling you
all of this, but there's times you have to make sacrifices.  When the
military is mobilized, it's going to be practically an impossibility for
anyone to get out of the city, or even move without being observed.
There's only two or three hours left."

     Shigeki spoke.  "To put it a little more quickly, we have to move and
move now."

     "To do what?" Ranma said.

     "I don't really know," Shigeki said after a moment.

     "I do," the small boy said.  "We must go back to the spot where the
ceremony was performed."

     "What ceremony?" Shigeki asked.  "Tensai's..."

     He trailed off.  "Who are you, anyway?"

     "I am Kitzuiri," the boy said.  "Do you need to know anything else,
hunter?"

     Shigeki's face betrayed nothing beyond mild surprise.  "No."

     He sat down on the floor, motioned for Otani to do the same.  Otani
did so.  All eyes in the room were on Kitzuiri; he quickly climbed on top
of a chair, leaned his arms on the backrest, and began to speak.

     "Before anything else," he said.  "Better undo what I did earlier."

     He snapped his fingers.

     Ranma jumped up and grabbed the boy by the arm.  "What did you do to
us, you little..."

     He realized he was holding the chair and nothing else.

     "Nothing much," the boy said from behind him.  "I just wanted to help
you all relax a little... can you imagine the state you'd be in if you had
to deal with the sun going out on top of all the other stuff?"

     "Yeah.  Like I'm feeling now, only I wouldn't have had the additional
experience of having my mind played with again," Ranma said, turning around
and diving for the boy.  He passed through and landed on top of Kuno.

     "Saotome..." Kuno began.

     "Well, I had to hide what I was as well," the boy said, back on the
chair.  "Even from you, Akari.  I'm sorry..."

     He looked shamefully downcast.  Ranma pulled himself off the indignant
Kuno and glared at the small boy.  "Listen up, whatever you are.  I've had
enough of having my head played with, so you either prove to me you're not
something we should all be worried about right now, or you're gonna be in a
lot of trouble."

     "I am a friend," Kitzuiri said.

     "He is that," Happosai said.  "But that is not all he is.  Time to
show them the truth, Kitzuiri."

     Kitzuiri nodded, and before their eyes his body shifted and flowed
like water, and now a bright-eyed fox the size of a large dog look at them,
still sitting on the chair.  "My full name is Kitzuiri Oshisa no Inari."

     He glanced around, a bit surprised that everyone was taking the sudden
change with a kind of acceptance born of long experience, except Captain
Otani, who was looking wide-eyed at the large fox sitting on the chair and
talking.

     "Why does everyone take these shapechanges so calmly?" the kitsune
said.

     "We're used to them by now.  You just don't need water," Akane said.
"So... why'd you do that to us?"

     "I'm sorry," Kitzuiri said.  "It wasn't fair.  But... you were all so
worried.  And worrying wasn't going to do anything."

     "A kitsune, huh?" Hikaru said, leaning forward and looking intently at
the giant fox.  "So... is it true about the war, the war between the
spirits and the unnatural things?"

     "Of course it's true," Kitzuiri said.  "That's what this is all about,
after all."

     "Just what's going on?" Genma asked.  "I... this is all so confusing.
Is there anything to eat?"

     He was promptly ignored by everyone else.  Kitzuiri looked about the
room at his audience, and smiled, as much as a fox can smile.

     "Hark, now, and listen to my tale," he began poetically.  "A tale of
the foulest of the..."

     "Can you just give them a condensed version?" Happosai said.  "I'd
really prefer not to listen to all the poetry again, nice as it was."

     The kitsune sighed.  "If I must."

     He looked around again.  "Are you all familiar with Shinto creation
story?  Of how Izanagi and Izanami stirred the oceans with the great spear,
and the brine that fell from its tip became the islands of Japan?"

     There were general nods, even from Shampoo and Mousse.  "We spirits
have our own beliefs, of course.  Izanagi and Izanami may not have created 
everything, but they certainly were the first of the gods to walk upon the
earth.  They walked for many years among the people of the land, and gave
birth to many of their children.  Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi, Susanowo, and
others."

     The kitsune's voice was growing more commanding as he spoke.  "But
what they did not realize was that there had been something else before
them.  Something that had been waiting for incalculable ages, for when the
time would be right for them to walk again."

     "The elder ones," Hikaru said softly.

     "They are called that by some," the kitsune said.  "But they have many
other names.  We call them the abominations, the unclean ones."

     "What are they?" Kodachi said.

     "They are like an infection," Kitzuiri said.  "A cancer.  Only they
are to the world like those are to the human body.  They are not even born
of this place; they are from... outside."

     "Outside?" Hikaru asked.

     "There are heavens, hells, astral planes, mortal planes, universes and
galaxies and star systems," the kitsune said, sounding a little unsure of
the terminology he was using near the end.  "And then there is outside, and
all the vast size of those planes and places pales in comparison to the
intervals between.  To the outside.  To the true chaos."

     In front of the kitsune, a sphere of nearly-transparent crystal
appeared from nowhere.  Within it could be seen black space, broken by
whirls of galaxies and bright pinpoints of stars.

     "They lurk outside," the kitsune said.  "And all they want to do is
come in."

     In the space outside the crystal sphere, dark shapes whose forms were
probably best not seen up close hovered.  They began to crash against the
outside of the sphere, shaking it slightly.

     "But everything that is natural hates them and their presence," the
kitsune continued.  "And they cannot come in.  Usually.  Only sometimes,
some of them do manage to come through."

     With a triumphant shriek, horribly realistic, one of the dark shapes
flowed through the side of the crystal sphere.

     "There they drift," the kitsune said.  "Until they find a place they
can make a home."

     The view inside the globe spun by in a dizzying whirl of stars growing
rapidly larger, until they gazed upon a group of planets that they realized
after a moment were the ones of their own solar system.

     Dark shapes, vast even in the massive scale of the scene within the
globe, fell upon one of the planets, which was a pale blue with a white
cloud layer.  It was the earth, but the face of it was entirely different.
The blue of the seas was not the same, and there was only one great
landmass upon it.

     The view zoomed in even more, to show various scenes.  A great
mountain of ice upon which dark, huge shapes moved, plunging from the sky
into the ocean, and where it struck the water steamed cold and froze in an
instant, and the mountain floated upon a great glacier like a tower to the
sky.

     The scene shifted, and they saw something a little like an enormous
worm burrowing into a rocky plain as if it were soft sand, spraying up
chunks of rock the size of buildings.

     Another shift, more images flowing within the globe, and a vast thing
sheathed in a corona of red-orange fire was slamming into a forest like a
falling star, sendings out a firestorm so intense where it hit that all of
the forest that could be seen was reduced instantly to ash.

     "There they wait," the kitsune said.  "Until the time is right.  Until
they can feed, and corrupt, and ruin..."

     He trailed off, then began again.  "They need humans, mortal beings
like you, even though they hate you.  They need you to feed upon.  But
their very existence is an abomination, and they are weak for much of the
time.  But they can become strong, moving through cycles when they dominate
the world, and others when they must rest.  Soon after Izanagi and Izanami
came, they began to wake.  Their children boiled up, from the seas, from
within the earth, and began to wreak havoc upon the cities of the people."

     "Their children?" Ranma said.  "What do you mean, their children?"

     "Foul things like them," the kitsune said, hatred in his voice.
"Things twisted from life, made monstrous.  Things that make oni and gaki
and all the demons of hell itself look like your brother.  They began their
war upon the earth, and so we began our war upon them.  We all fought,
every one of us, against the abominations and their children, and you
humans fought beside us."

     More scenes within the crystal globe, impressions only, quick flashes.
Men screaming and dying against things whose shapes were mercifully
glimpsed only momentarily.  Great winged creatures, beaked and multicolored
and so beautiful it made the heart ache to watch them falling, ripped and
torn and bloodied, as they battled with other winged shapes, dark ones
whose shape flowed like water and flapped sometimes with but one wing or
sometimes with a dozen, so many shapes whirling in the sky that those who
fought on the ground below were kept in continual shadow.  Things the size
of buildings wading through ranks of terrified troops, laughing and
screaming and killing as a human might crush ants.  The ocean seeming to
boil as rank after rank of slick grey creatures walked silently from it,
with other things striding among them, things larger and more terrible.

     "The war lasted ages," Kitzuiri said as the globe faded to darkness
again, and then vanished.  "And it seemed as if it would last forever at
times.  The abominations seemed only to grow stronger and stronger as time
went on.  We sought answers, and finally found them."

     He sighed.  "The reason they'd awoken was us.  Because we had set foot
upon the earth, they were able to walk as well.  Every one of us who came,
be it from the heavens or the hells or wherever else, that was more power
to them.  It was our fault that they were unleashed."

     "What did you do?" Ukyou said.  Everyone was paying rapt attention to
the kitsune now.

     "We did the only thing we could," the kitsune said.  "We worked to
undo our error.  We crafted great seals, and placed them upon the right
places.  Dozens of them, scattered across every part of the world, in the
places they would do the most good.  Finally, the time came when we needed
only to perform the ceremony that would activate them."

     His voice was strong and deep now, his animal eyes bright and
intelligent as he spoke.  "They realized our plan, and moved against us
even as we wove our spells.  We fought them, to keep them away from the
kami who were performing the ceremony.  One by one, I watched as kitsune
and tengu and kappa, and others, so many others, died around me.  The
abominations and their children were everywhere, and the earth was slick
with our blood and theirs."

     His voice was sad, thick with rememberance.  "And then the ceremony
was completed.  The seals flared to life, everywhere, atop mountains, under
the seas, beneath the earth.  They wove a net across the world, a net that
could contain the abominations and their power.  But to do that, we spirits
had to accept the same fate.  We were bound as surely as they were, but we
went to our fate gladly."

     "It's all true," Hikaru said.  "The war, the seals, it's all true..."

     "Of course it's all true," Kitzuiri said.  "All legend has some
foundation in fact."

     There was a long silence in the room.  The kitsune's voice was no
longer sad, or deep, or commanding.  No one seemed sure what to say.

     "Thank you," Ukyou said softly after a moment, echoing all their
thoughts.

     The kitsune nodded.  "I wondered, a lot, if it was worth it.  I look
upon you all, and this world, and I think it probably was.  It has its
problems, but compared to what it would be like otherwise, it is a thing of
beauty."

     "But how come you're here now?" Akari asked.  "How come I could see
you when I was a child?"

     "There's always weak places," the kitsune said.  "Places where the
barriers are thin, or not there at all.  At places like that, you can get
things like spirits, or demons, or ghosts... or abominations."

     "We met some on the way back," Kuno said softly.  "Nabiki and I.  Did
we not, Nabiki?"

     Nabiki nodded.  "Yeah."

     "And you were with us when there were all those gaki this morning,"
Ryoga said.

     "Yes," Kitzuiri said.  "What has happened is someone has twisted the
power of the seals for some end.  Inadvertently, that means that they've
also allowed things to come through."

     He looked at Nabiki and Kuno.  "What exactly was it you met?"

     "Two kappas," Nabiki said crisply.  "And an oni."

     The kitsune sighed with relief.  "Good."

     "It wasn't, actually," Nabiki said a bit testily.

     "No.  It is," the kitsune said.  "Then they've only been damaged to 
the extent that some of the weaker things can get through.  None of the
true abominations yet."

     "That still doesn't explain why the sun's gone out," Mousse said after
a moment.

     "That's the part I don't know about," the kitsune said.  "Somehow, the
thing that's twisted the seals has also done something else, got something
that would give them enough power to put out the sun."

     "But who is it who's done this?" Ranma said.  "All this time, we've
been fighting different things.  Tensai, that snake-creature, that thing
called the Sleeper that was in Stalford's body.  But there's always been
something else behind it all.  Whatever that thing was who took the statue
from us on the island."

     Shampoo broke her silence.  "Shampoo know."

     Akane nodded.  "This morning..."

     Shampoo closed her eyes.  "Yes.  You write down, right Akane?"

     "Yeah," Akane said, pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper from her
pocket.

     "Read what it say," Shampoo said.

     Akane did, haltingly, as if the words frightened her.  "The
puppetmaster.  Chaos.  Void.  A cancer, an infection dark and terrible.
He is come, and cities burn.  The wheels turn, the wheels turn, the wheels
turn.  I cannot leave, I cannot leave, I cannot leave.  He is come; the
messenger, the herald.  Oh, his eyes.  The light."

     "What did you do this morning?" Mousse said, looking at Shampoo a bit
fearfully.

     "I saw him," Shampoo said.  "On astral plane.  Shampoo go there, and
see..."

     She trailed off.  "Great-grandmother..."

     "It's okay, Shampoo," Akane said.  "What... what else?"

     "Saw him," Shampoo said.  "Saw the puppetmaster.  He... he..."

     She made a choked sound.  "He was so beautiful... and so terrible...
so terrible..."

     Mousse put his arm around her, and she fell against him with a sob.

     "Some of them were adept at masquerading as humans," the kitsune said.
"Very adept.  I... I think I know this one you speak of."

     "Who?" Ranma said.

     "The abominations had names," Kitzuiri said.  "But they were names as
terrible as the abominations themselves."

     Ranma nodded.  "I've heard one."


     "Some of the humans who worshipped them called them names that humans
could hear," Kitzuiri said.  "But to call them those names might attract
their attention, and to name something is to give it power.  There were
dozens, for there were dozens of the abominations, the truly powerful ones,
the ones who originally came from outside, not those awful twisted things
that were their children."

     He growled.  "We had titles for them, so we wouldn't have to use any
names for them.  The Sleeper Beneath the Waves, the Walker-Under-Earth, the
Devourer."

     "Yeah," Ranma said.  "We've heard of the first one."

     "There was one," the kitsune said.  "Who we called the Herald, or the
Messenger.  He was among the strongest, but not in the way the others were.
He was strong because while the others were gathering their children and
their worshippers and making war upon everyone else, he walked among the
humans undetected, and learned what he could from them.  How to act human,
what people feared, how you could manipulate and control them.  And
everywhere he walked, chaos followed."

     "Then he's the one," Ranma said.  "He's the one behind this all."

     "It was said that when the seals were enacted, his fate was different
from others.  He was trapped within the body of a human, and for thousands
of years he raged, powerless but knowing of the power he had possesed
before.  Gradually, he began to grow stronger, as he discovered the
limitations of what he could do," Kitzuiri said.

     "Satoshi Okamoto," Ukyou said quietly.  "Something that looks like a
man, but is not."

     "Exactly," Kitzuiri said.  "And now he's made his move.  He's put out
the sun.  He knows that will bring chaos as has never been seen, an action
like that.  But he's doing more than that.  Somehow, he's weakening all the
seals; I can feel it.  He'll break them all, sooner or later, and then the
war will begin again, and it won't end until the world is a smoking
wasteland.  It took thousands of years to recover after the first war, and
a second would only be worse."

     "Geez," Ranma said.  "Heavy stuff."

     "An interesting story," Shigeki said.  He'd been silent up till now,
taking in all of what had been said.  "The question is, how exactly do we
go about stopping all of this?"

     "First of all, we must go back to where Tensai performed the
ceremony," Happosai said.  "Perhaps there we'll find the answer."

     "Alright," Ranma said.  "How are we getting out there, and who's
coming?"

     "I am," Akane said.  "I'm not letting you go without me, Ranma."

     "And I'm along of course," Happosai said.  "What about you, Shigeki?"

     The tall man nodded silently.

     "Konatsu and I'll come, right Konatsu?" Ukyou said.

     "What the heck are you all doing this for, anyway?" Nabiki said.
"You know as well as I do that every one of you who can fight is going to
end up going there anyway, so what's with all this 'who's coming' stuff
anyway?"

     "She speaks the truth," Kuno said.  "Though I find this situation
confusing, I know that my sister and I and our loyal servant shall be in
attendance."

     "We'll fill you in on the way, Kuno," Ranma said.  "Ryoga, Shampoo,
Mousse, you're all in, right?"

     The answers were all affirmative.  Ranma looked around at the rest of
the room.  "Pop?"

     At a look from Nodoka, Genma nodded.  Ranma looked next at
Hinako-sensei, and started slightly.  "When'd you get here?"

     "It was dark," the little girl said.  "I was scared."

     Ranma sighed.  "You in, sensei?"

     "Is Mr. Tendo coming?" Hinako said.  "I know he'll protect me..."

     Ranma looked to Soun.  "Mr. Tendo, I know you're not much of a..."

     "I'm coming," Soun said.  "I still have my skills.  The first time you
all went out like this, I stayed here.  I'm not letting my little girl go
alone into danger one more time by herself, not when she's so close to
getting married and..."

     "Right, we've got Mr. Tendo," Ranma said.  He looked around.
"Anyone else?"

     "I would come," Captain Otani said.  "But I've got to stay here.  I
really should be out on the streets right now with my people."

     He stood up, looked to Shampoo for a moment.  "I'm sorry about your
great-grandmother.  She was a good friend of mine."

     Shampoo blinked, surprised.  "Thank you."

     "I've got to go," Otani said.  "Good luck to you all."

     "I'll see you to the door," Shigeki said.  "I have some things to say
to you.  Perhaps you all might like to make your own farewells now."

     The two men walked off.

     Hikaru spoke up then.  "I'm coming as well."

     "Absolutely not," Kodachi said.  "I will not risk your getting hurt,
Hikaru."

     "It's my own choice," he said.  "I know you all think I'm weak and
useless, but there's got to be..."

     Kodachi stood up, her face tight. "Come with me, Hikaru."

     "What?"

     "Now."

     The two of them walked quickly off, leaving the rest of the room in
silence.

     "Do you really have to go, Ryoga?" Akari said quietly to Ryoga.

     He nodded.  "Of course I do.  You know it and I know it, Akari.  I
can't stay behind while Ranma and everyone else goes off into danger like
this."

     He smiled and kissed her softly on the lips.  "Don't worry.  I'll come
back.  We'll all come back."

     Around them, the others began to make their farewells.

**********

     Shigeki stood in the front yard with Otani.  There was no one on the
streets except a few people who stood in the glare of the streetlights and
gazed up at the black, empty sky as if expecting the sun at any moment to
break through.

     "It's awful, isn't it?" Otani said to his friend.  "Like an ocean of
darkness."

     Shigeki nodded.  "Exactly.  No moon even, because the moon is only
seen when sun reflects from it."

     "How... how could someone do something like that, anyway?" Otani said.
"How could anything possibly be strong enough to put out the sun?"

     "I don't think this thing can do it forever," Shigeki said.  "It hopes
only to cause chaos, war, destruction.  It wants us to be filled with
fear."

     Otani shook his head.  "I find it hard to believe, all these things
I've just been told.  I'd find them even harder, if I hadn't been told them
by a giant talking fox that was apparently there to see it all happen."

     Shigeki laughed dryly.  "After a while, Otani, it becomes more a
matter of what not to believe.  You should get going; this city needs you."

     Otani smiled.  "Yeah.  And needs all of them, as well.  You were
right, old friend."

     "Of course," Shigeki said.  "How are your wife and kids taking this?"

     "Not well," Otani said.  "She was worried about my going out, what
with all the talk of riots.  The kids are scared, of course.  Everyone's
scared; even I'm scared."

     He looked again at the empty sky.  "You think you'll all be able to
stop this, Shigeki?"

     "I hope so," Shigeki said.  "For once, my friend, even I'm confused by
everything that's happening."

     Otani clapped the tall man on the shoulder.  "Take care, Shigeki.
I'll see you when this is all over."

     "Yeah," Shigeki said.  "Take care."

     He held out his hand, and Otani gripped it tightly for a moment, then
let go.  "So long."

     Shigeki watched him go, his small quick shape disappearing into the
darkness of the night.  "Goodbye," he whispered quietly.

     He stood outside the house, as inside he heard vaguely the voices
rising in words of farewell.  They sounded so sure they would be coming
back, so sure that they would see their family and friends and loves again,
that somehow they could make the sun glow again, that in the end,
everything would be alright.

     He was not so sure.  But he knew at least one thing, and that was that
the price to undo what had been done would not be one so simple that it
would leave all of them untouched or unscarred.

**********

     Kodachi pulled Hikaru into the room that was between the rest of the
house and the bathroom.

     "Kodachi, what-"

     He was cut off when she pressed herself against him, pinning him
between her body and the wall, and kissed him intensely on the lips.  He
was a bit confused at first, but gradually he melted into it.

     Finally, Kodachi pulled away and glared at him, mixed affection and
exasperation on her face.  "There?  Does that prove it?"

     "Huh?" Hikaru said, looking a bit dazed.

     "I suppose not," Kodachi said with a sigh.

     She kissed him again, longer.

     "Uh..." Hikaru said when she finished.

     "Look, Hikaru," Kodachi said.  "For a man with your intelligence, you
can be awfully dim about some things."

     "What-"

     "You think I am some flighty creature who will leave you as soon as
someone else comes along?" Kodachi said.  "You think I do not see beyond
the surface?"

     "Ranma-"

     "Dear Ranma was a good man, and I loved him, as much as the person I
was was capable of loving anyone.  You are a good man as well," Kodachi
said.  "And you I love also."

     Hikaru stood stone still with shock for a moment, his mouth gaping
wide.

     "I don't care that you may not be strong physically," she said softly,
bringing a hand up to touch his face.  "And you may believe yourself
without an attractive physical feature, but that is not so.  You are an
attractive man in your own way.  But appearance is only apart; I love the
person inside you, Hikaru.  The person who reached out to me when no one
else had ever really tried."

     "K... Kodachi..." Hikaru said, finally able to draw breath.

     "I've scared you, haven't I?" she said, casting her eyes away.  "I
scared him as well, risked telling him I loved him too soon, drove him away
like I drove..."

     "Shh..." Hikaru said, reaching up and closing his hand over hers.  He
gently brought her hand to his lips and lightly kissed her fingertips.
"What the hell, Kodachi.  I love you too."

     "Don't you see, Hikaru?" Kodachi said.  "You don't need to prove to me
you're brave.  I know you're brave.  You don't need to prove anything to
me; I'm not going to let you risk yourself in something you have no ability
to-"

     "You don't see either," Hikaru said.  "That's exactly it.  I have no
ability to help anymore.  None at all."

     "But you did," Kodachi said.  "You've done so much research, found out
so much..."

     "Yeah," Hikaru said quietly.  "And then those two show up, and nothing
I've done is any good to anyone.  That old man and that spirit knew more
about this from the start than I did after months of research.  I... I had
all these theories about what was going on, about just what had been done,
and..."

     "And they were right," Kodachi said, cutting him off.  "Hikaru, you
are seventeen years old.  That old man is over three hundred from what I
understand, and I don't even want to guess at what the age of that spirit
could be.  It speaks of that war as if it were there."

     "I just... I just feel so goddamn useless," Hikaru said, choking out
the words finally.  "I've always felt as if nothing I did would ever
matter, would ever make any kind of difference..."

     "But you did," Kodachi said.  "You made such a difference two months
ago.  Without you, that thing would have woken up.  Imagine how many would
have died if that thing had been unleashed from its binding."

     "Ranma did most of the work..."

     "It all comes back to Ranma, doesn't it?" Kodachi said.  "You feel
you're not as handsome as him, as strong as him, as brave as him, and it
makes you wonder why I have anything to do with you at all?"

     Hikaru said nothing, but the fact that he looked away and could not
meet her eyes said all that it needed to.

     "You have so many other qualities, though," Kodachi said.  "You are
intelligent, you are devoted, and you have proven yourself to be just as
brave as him.  I do not want for more than you, my dear.  I would be a fool
to want more than you, because there is so much of you to have."

     "But how can I watch you go off to face this," Hikaru said quietly,
"Without being at your side?"

     "Because I am a warrior," Kodachi said.  "And you are a warrior as
well, though in a different way.  We are all warriors, Hikaru, each and
every one of us.  Be we warriors in spirit or versed in warrior skills, we
all of us fight to hold back the darkness in our own way."

     She lightly traced a finger across his lips and smiled at him.  "This
is my battle to fight, Hikaru.  I shall fight it for you, my love."

     "Kodachi..." Hikaru breathed, feeling a bit overwhelmed.  "I... I..."

     "Just kiss me again," Kodachi said.

     He did, but pulled away apparently sooner than Kodachi had been
expecting.  "Is everything alright?"

     "Kodachi, a few nights ago when we were fighting that thing outside
the house, and it picked me up... Did you see it say something to me?"

     Kodachi nodded.  "I didn't hear it... I was meaning to ask you, but it
slipped my mind amid everything else that happened."

     "Those things, you know," Hikaru said.  "They can take nearly anything
as a host.  Dead or alive, human or animal, as long as the conditions are
right.  But... they have preferences.  Better alive then dead, for it's far
harder to hide inside a dead thing.  Better human than animal, because it's
easier to channel power.  Better even then if there is some potential for
magic."

     He sighed.  "But better than anything, they want a... broken one."

     "A broken one?"

     "Someone who has lost their gift," Hikaru said after a moment.
"Someone who had the potential to be an extremely powerful sorcerer, but
somehow lost their power."

     "Like you," Kodachi said after a moment.  "But why?"

     "Everything has the potential for magic," Hikaru said.  "Animals,
plants, even things we consider dead like rocks or water.  They can all be
used as vessels for magic, and over time the power builds itself up within
it.  Magic is simply tapping the potential power within yourself, in
whatever form it may be.  Some people perform magic by ritual, others by
different means.  On a fundamental level, there's no difference between the
energy I used to teleport us off that island and what Ranma does when he
uses one of his ki attacks.  It's also a matter of how versatile you are at
shaping and focusing power."

     He absently tapped a finger to his lips.  "Some people have little
ability to either store energy or focus it.  That's the average person, the
one who can only do magic with great difficulty.  Other people have a great
ability to store energy within themselves, but they're only able to focus
it in certain ways.  That's what Ranma does, what you probably do to some
extent.  It makes you stronger and faster than other people, and, with
training, you can focus your energy, your ki, into a physical form and
project it."

     Kodachi was staring intently at him.  It always enthralled her to hear
him talk about things he knew a lot about; when he did, there was none of
the usual subservience or nonconfidence in his manner.  To hear him talk
like this was to see him as he truly was.

     "People who have a wide ability to focus power, but little reserves of
energy, they can do little things, often unconsciously.  Minor telekinesis,
an unusual empathy with people.  They're often the ones people call
psychics.  The ultimate level, though, is someone who has both a great
ability to store energy and a great range in how they can focus it.  They,
they're the ones who become wizards, or sorcerers, or whatever else."

     He sighed.  "That's what I could have been.  Now, it's like Stalford
said when he first met me.  Barely enough power to set a moth aflame."

     "But why would you make such a desirable host for one of those
things?" Kodachi said.

     "Because my mind and form are suited to both storing and manipulating
large amounts of energy in a variety of ways," Hikaru said.  "What happened
was I exceeded my own limits, tried to do too much.  It worked, but it was
like channeling too much power into an electrical device; I blew my
spiritual fuse, essentially," he said, laughing without humour at the end.

     He looked at Kodachi with a sad smile.  "What that thing said to me,
the words none of you heard, was this.  'I can give you what you lost.  I
can give you power.  Only you must let me in.'"

     "You said no, of course," Kodachi said.

     "Yeah," Hikaru said.  "But... just for a moment, I considered it.
Even if just for a moment.  Having... having that power for as short a time
as I did was like being on some kind of wonderful drug, and then having to
go cold turkey.  I... I craved it so badly, and a part of me wanted to say
yes."

     "That's not important," Kodachi said.  "What is important is you
rejected it.  You did not take that path."

     "But..."

     "Shush."

     She kissed him again, longingly, and stared into his eyes.  "All this
talking has been lovely.  But the fact of the matter is, you are staying
behind.  I care too much for you to allow you to risk yourself in something
you cannot handle."

     Hikaru opened his mouth to protest, then closed it.  "You're right.
I'm being an idiot about this."

     He sighed.  "I just... I just want to help so badly."

     "We all do our part," Kodachi said.  "We all do what we can."

     Someone knocked on the door.

     "Occupied," Kodachi snapped.

     "Mistress Kodachi," Sasuke's voice called from outside.  "We are
making ready to leave now."

     "A few more moments," Kodachi said, eyeing Hikaru with a look that
both scared and intrigued him.  "I have something to do."

     "If you are still debating with Master Gosunkugi about his attendance,
may I suggest a compromise?" Sasuke said, his voice muffled by the door but
still audible.  "Perhaps it would satisfy both of you."

     "The matter is-" Kodachi began.  Hikaru put a hand on her arm.

     "Come on in, Sasuke," he said.  "She'll hear what you have to say."

     Sasuke entered, then immediately bowed and placed his forehead on the
floor.  "Forgive my seeming impudence, mistress Kodachi, but-"

     "Sasuke, shut up and tell us what your idea is," Kodachi said.

     "Very well.  If you are all to be ranging about the area, it has been
suggested that there must be a central section, a command base I suppose.
It has been decided that I will serve in that capacity; I anticipated that
a situation like this might arrive when you mentioned this afternoon you
did not believe our battle to be over yet.  Thus, I have prepared
sufficient gear that even if you are split into groups, we will all be able
to remain in contact with each other through the central section.  It would
not be difficult for Gosunkugi to remain with the vehicles and I, and
assist me in this action.  He could remain in contact with you, but be put
in little danger."

     Kodachi blinked.  "Sasuke, just when I think you are a total
incompetent, you manage to do something that almost makes it seem as if you
are only a half-wit."

     "Thank you, mistress," Sasuke said with a little pride in his voice.
"So you are agreeable to my idea?"

     "Yeah," Hikaru said.  "Thank you."

     "Let us go, then," Sasuke said.  "The others are waiting."

     Kodachi left ahead of them, passing by the still-crouching Sasuke.
Hikaru waited till she was gone, then knelt down by Sasuke.

     "You can get up now," he said.  "And... thank you."

     "We all serve in our own way," Sasuke said quietly as he rose.

     The two of them walked out in silence, to join the others, and make
their way towards whatever awaited.

**********

     Kitzuiri paused at the front door of the house as he watched the
others gather outside.  They had transport; the one who some called the
hunter and the small ninja apparently both had vehicles.

     The spirit sighed, and wondered just why his lady had chosen him for
this duty.  He was finding it hard to remain focused; it was temptation not
to play tricks upon them, for that was his nature.  He was not suited to
the role he'd been chosen for.  But few in any world were, often enough.
He could only be what he was, no less and no more.

     "Lady," he said softly, expecting no answer and receiving none.  He
hadn't heard her voice, or felt her presence since two hours ago, when he'd
watched in horror as darkness crawled across the face of the sun.  Never,
in the war against the abominations, had he seen something so awful, and
there had been many awful things to see.

     He'd seen his kin die beside him on the field of battle.  He'd seen
the land grow corrupted by the very presence of the abominations.  He'd
seen how even a thing supposedly immortal could die, how all beauty was in
truth only a temporal thing, even the beauty of the supposedly immortal
spirits or the gods themselves.  He'd realized the inevitable end of all
things long ago, and he no longer feared it.

     But though he'd seen how strong the abominations were, he knew that
not one among them, or even all of them together, would have been strong
enough to cloak the sun.

     He was back in his favoured human form now, that of the small child.
It put people at ease, made them underestimate him.  People never expected
children to be smart, or competent, or wise.  Or dangerous.

     Someone touched his shoulder.  "Kitzuiri?"

     "Hello, Akari," he said without turning, smiling at the voice of the
girl.  It was true; she had grown up to be a beautiful woman.  It was only
to be expected; she'd been a cute little girl as well, albeit a lonely one,
out in the country on that farm.  He'd watched her for weeks, walking by
herself in the forest, before he'd finally shown himself to her.  Like any
lonely child, she hadn't questioned where he'd come from or who he was.
He'd been her friend, and that was enough.

     "Do... do you think everything's going to be alright?" she said.

     He sighed.  "I don't know.  I hope so."

     "Kitzuiri..." Akari said hesitantly.  "Can... can you do something for
me?"

     "Of course," the kitsune said with a soft smile.  "Anything you ask."

     "Ryoga... I know he has to do this.  But... I'm worried I'll lose
him," Akari said quietly.  "He's a very self-sacrificing person, and he's a
little reckless as well.  Would you... would you watch over him for me?"

     "Certainly," Kitzuiri said, turning and giving her his best smile.  "I
guarantee I'll bring him back to you."

     "Thank you," Akari said.  She bent down and hugged him.  "It's funny.
You were always bigger than me when I was a kid, and now I'm grown up and
you're still a child."

     "We kitsune are like that," he said, a bit sad at how much truth was
in the words he spoke.  "We don't allow the sorrows of the world to age us
like humans do.  We live for the joys, for the triumphs."

     "You're very lucky," Akari said.

     "Yes," Kitzuiri said.

     "Hey!  Spirit, you coming or not!" Happosai yelled.  "It's time to
go!"

     He slipped out of Akari's arms, cocked his child's head to the side at
her, and winked.  "So long, Akari.  We'll be back soon, don't you worry."

     He ran to join the others, feeling Akari's eyes upon him as he went,
but feeling even more the weight of the promise he had made.  He hoped he'd
be able to fulfill it.

**********

     Akari walked back inside slowly, joining Nabiki, Kasumi and Nodoka in
the almost empty living room.  The farewells had been long and emotional,
and they all felt drained.

     "So," she said after a moment.  "Is there... anything we can do?"

     "We can do the same thing we always do when they go out to fight like
this," Nodoka said.  "We can wait, and try to relax, and pray that they'll
all come back okay."

     Akari sighed.  "Doesn't sound like much fun."

     "It isn't," Kasumi said.  "Maybe... maybe we should see what's on the
news."

     Nabiki nodded, and turned on the TV after a moment's hesitation.

     "...reports that entire small, isolated towns have been found empty of
all inhabitants, with signs of some huge struggle.  The government is
issuing no statements yet, but sources are pinpointing foreign terrorists
hoping to disrupt the country's national security by causing a panic in
this time of crisis.  A single survivor of one town was found, but was
completely incoherent, babbling briefly about walking skeletons before
lapsing into catatonia..."

     The four women sat down to wait, and watch the TV.  No matter how
terrible the news, it would help them keep their minds off of where their
friends or family or beloveds were.

     And waiting, for now, was all they could do.

**********

     It was a cramped trip out to the hill they'd visited a few days
earlier, as they had only Shigeki's van and the Kuno limo to make the
journey in.  But eventually things were sorted out, and they set out on the
road.

     The streets of Tokyo were jammed with cars and people, and it was a
difficult drive at first.  Some had responded to the sudden disappearance
of the sun's light by remaining frightened in their houses; others had
responded in the opposite way, seeking to spend what they thought might be
their last few hours in pleasure.  The shopping and entertainment districts
of Tokyo thronged with people, crowding the streets as they passed in and
out of restaurants and bars and other establishments.

     Things grew worse by the moment; financial markets everywhere had been
near-collapse when they closed today.  The Middle East was threatening to
erupt into war in an instant, and much of the larger North American cities
were crippled by rioting.

     And over it all hung the spectre of that velvet black sky, absent of
sun or moon or stars.

     The driving became no easier as they reached the outskirts of the
city.  Now, cars drove almost continually into Tokyo, people living in the
countryside instinctively seeking shelter in the major urban centres.

     More distinctive than anything else though were the lights.  In this
pure, moonless darkness, the streetlights seemed brighter, the flashing
lights of the downtown areas more radiant, the car headlights all like
beacons.  Yet they also seemed more artificial, as if the lights themselves
realized that they could never cast enough light to make up for the absence
of that one light, that single great light that gave life to the planet.

     Sitting in the back of Shigeki's van, Akane's hand clutched tightly in
his, Ranma remembered vaguely doing something in science class about the
necessity of the sun.  The teacher had asked them just what would happen if
the sun's light one day stopped.  He'd then proceeded to outline the
answers, methodically and calmly.  Ranma didn't remember what happened in
the interval, only scattered fragments.  No sunlight meant no plants, no
plants meant no plant-eating animals...

     But he always remembered the teacher's final conclusion.

     *"And then our earth would hang, frozen and dead, fit for nothing
living."*

     Nothing living inside this universe, Ranma suspected.  But something
from outside, perhaps, might find a planet-sized ball of ice a useful home.

     By the time they arrived at the hill, the cars had thinned out a bit.
They parked off the side of the road and piled out of the two cramped
vehicles, stretching their arms and legs and complaining loudly about the
conditions.

     The last of the snow had melted from this hill a while ago, and it
could now be seen, bare and dead of any vegetation.  The trees of the area
seemed sickly and stunted, as if there were something wrong with the soil
they grew in.

     Hikaru held up a hand to the air as if testing for rain.  "Geez... can
anyone else feel it?"

     "Feel what?" Ukyou said with a glance at him.

     "Something's waiting," Hikaru said softly, a kind of dulled edge of
horror in his voice.  "It's so..."

     He trailed off as Sasuke spoke up.  "Now, I'm giving one of these to
each of you, and I've only got four of these..."

     He handed out flashlights and four small boxes.  The last items were
familiar to some of them; they were the small tracking computers they'd
used six months ago in their hunt for the gaki.  Red, blue, green and
yellow, they ended up being given to Akane, Mousse, Kodachi and Genma.

     "Now, we're going to range around the area and look for anything, any
clues, signs or whatever else," Happosai said.  "Let's all start at the top
of the hill and branch out from there."

     Kodachi hugged Hikaru tightly.  "And you wait in the van with Sasuke,
dear."

     "Yeah," Hikaru said, stroking her hair as he held her.  "Will do."

     He stood with the small ninja and watched the rest of them go, up
towards the hilltop.  He and Sasuke watched them until they got up onto the
hill, then turned to look at each other.

     "Let's go set up the communications gear," Sasuke said finally with a
mild sigh.

     Up ahead on the hill, the other figures were small and indistinct.

**********

     Miles below where Ranma and the others stood, something impossibly
vast shifted, barely aware of her own existence.  The great bulk moved as
ponderously as the raising of mountains, and each shift crushed dozens of
her children, their screams as they died matched in volume by the birthing
cries of dozens of others.  She reached out with tentacles she formed from
her own fluid bulk and cradled her children closer, sometimes consuming
them back into her great form.  None of them could move beyond their
imprisonment, for the seals were crafted well and held strong after all
these ages.

     The huge, flowing shape stirred slightly, as a gentle, warm finger
stroked her thoughts with its words.  <Greetings, old one.>

     The fog started to clear, burned away by the heat of that caress.
<Greetings, messenger,> she rumbled in a voice as primal and savage as the
other was smooth and sophisticated.

     <How goes your rest?> the smooth voice asked.

     <My children go hungry,> she answered.

     Around her, the howling hordes of half-formed things screeched, trying
to suckle at her sides for the light and life they craved, but that she
herself could never give them.

     <How unfortunate,> the voice clucked without a trace of sympathy.

     <I am patient,> she said.  <The time will come.>

     <Patience is a virtue,> the other one said.  <But sometimes a
stupidity as well.>

     <There is little can be done,> she said, old memories and higher
thoughts awakening in her by the moment.  It had been infinite ages since
she had needed to speak to one of her kin.

     <You wait for wheels to turn, not even thinking that you might turn
them yourself,> the messenger said gloatingly.

     Like the earth within which she was imprisoned, she was slow to anger,
but terrible when she was angered.  <You overstep your bounds to insult me
in such a manner.  Do not forget what I am and what you are.>

     <I know that I am free, if only partially, and you are not,> the voice
said lightly.

     <You have been imprisoned more surely than any of us,> she responded.
<How is the life of a human, messenger?>

     <Fun,> the voice said.  <More fun than you could ever imagine.>

     <I think you forget what we are,> she said.  <I think you forget what
it is like to stride among them and crush them with our might.>

     <I do not forget, old one,> the voice said.  <And you would be
surprised at how much power one human can wield.  One man dying each day at
his brother's hand for ten thousand years is a far better thing than ten
thousand dying at my hand once.  They can have power.>

     <Nothing to mine,> she said.  <Watch how you speak with me, or you may
find when the time comes that you will feed my brood with your very self.>

     <The wheels turn,> the voice said.  <Times change.  The messenger
becomes the master.  Let me show you what I have found.>

     A great white-hot spear of pain shredded through her entire being, as
she felt fully half of her children torn apart and utterly annihilated from
existence.

     <Now, let me show you something else,> the voice hissed, ice-cold in
the pained fires of her mind, burning more horribly than anything.

     Around her, some of the seals were smashed and twisted, forced out of
their normal shape by an impossible power, and with their distortion so too
were changed the forces that bound her.  For the first time in millenia,
she could move.  She shifted herself, flowed and sent her children's eyes
and ears through caverns and tunnels and black stone corridors.

     <See what I wield now?> the voice said.  <Do you know what it is?>

     <Yes,> she said, containing her anger behind a mask of awe.  <I know
it well.>

     <They await welcome,> the voice said.  <Do not disappoint them.  One
of them is mine, and he you shall not touch.  The others... let us see how
many of them can reach me.>

     <Why do you not smash them?> she said.

     <You have no idea how entertaining they can be,> the voice said.  <Let
us play with them for a while.>

     Amusement slowly spread throughout her mind, as slow as the anger, but
just as terrible when it finally arrived at all parts of her.  <Yes.  Let
us play.>

     Light laughter echoed in her mind, and she made ready to welcome their
playmates.

**********

     Happosai knelt and touched the naked ground.  "Still feels strange...
disrupted.  But there's been more changes in the lines of power, more
shifts."

     "The manipulation of the great seals would do that," Kitzuiri said,
kneeling down beside him.  "But... what is so important about this place?
Even if it is a focal point, what is it that..."

     "Well, the hill's covering something else up," Ryoga said as he knelt
down and felt the ground with his fingers gently.

     "What?" the old man and the spirit said at once, turning to look at
him.

     "It's hollow," Ryoga said.  "This upper area is only a foot or two
thick.  It's like a dome.  Haven't any of you seen how unnaturally round
this is?  You don't often get perfectly circular hills."

     Looking around, the rest of the group acknowledged he was right.
"But... why?" Ranma said.  "Why's it like that?"

     "Only one way to find out," Ryoga said.  "Everybody stand back."

     They cleared a circle around Ryoga, who stood near the centre of the
hill.  "BAKUSAI TENKETSU!"

     When the spray of half-frozen dirt and dust cleared, Ryoga knelt down
in the spot and cleared away the rubble.

     "No way..." he said, looking at the slick black stone.  "There's...
there's a building under here..."

     Hesitantly, he touched the smooth stone that had lain beneath the
hill, unseen and untouched, for millenia.

     When his fingers touched the slick black surface, he felt something
like an electric shock pass through his body.

     And then the ground opened up beneath them.  There was a rumbling
sound, and then gaping pits loomed suddenly beneath their feet, as the
hillside ripped unaturally away, and the black stone beneath yawned wide
like the hungry mouths of a great beast.

     They did the only thing you could do when a pit suddenly opens up
beneath you.

     They fell, down into the darkness, as overhead the dark sky loomed.

**********

     "They're gone!" Hikaru breathed, seeing them all suddenly vanish from
the top of the hill.  He stood from kneeling on the floor and ran from the
van up the side of the hill, falling on his knees at the top to pound on
the top, which was now featureless and flat again.  There seemed to be no
way they could have vanished, and yet he'd seen them fall.

     "GIVE THEM BACK!" he screamed, smashing his fists against the hard
ground, uncaring of how the frozen ground tore at his hands.  "Give them
back, damn you..."

     He hung his head.  "Kodachi..."

**********

     "Tensai."

     His mother's voice sounded far away.  He strove to reach out, clawing
his way out from the darkness that enveloped him.

     "Yes mother?" he said finally, opening his eyes but still being
confronted only with darkness.

     "They're here, Tensai."

     "Who's here?"

     "Your enemy.  Among them is the foe you failed to slay before, and one
you slew who refused to stay dead.  And also the one who killed Hibino."

     "Where am I, mother?  It is dark and I cannot see."

     "I give you sight, my son," his mother whispered.  He felt, for a
moment, cool fingers stroke his brow, and then he could see, perfectly and
clearly as if it were day.

     He was in a long, smooth-hewn hallway of dark stone.  He was not quite
sure how he could see; there were no torches or lamps to light the way.
But he could see.  His mother was nowhere in sight, but her voice echoed
inside his head, beautiful and smooth.

     "Go, my son.  I have scattered them.  You need only hunt them down."

     "Is that... right, mother?  The one who was with the old man, he has
done nothing to me, or to you as I know.  And you say there are others?
What quarrel do we have with them?  Should we not try to guide them as you
guided me?  Perhaps they have only been fooled by lies, as I was once."

     His mother spoke after a moment, and he wished he could take back his
words when he heard the mild, reproving anger in her tone.  "The ally of
your enemy is your enemy, Tensai.  Or would you rather disobey me?"

     "Never, mother," he said hurriedly.  "Forgive me."

     "Forgiven, my son," his mother said, all annoyance gone from her tone
now.  "Go, and do my work."

     "Are you not free, mother?  Why can you not scatter them before you?"

     He felt something like a small shock, and then all his doubts and
questions were gone, replaced only by a shame at his impudence and a desire
to obey.

     "Mother?" he said.

     There was no answer.

     Holding his naginata loosely in one hand, Tensai began to walk.  He
knew his duty now.

     And his mother help anyone who stood in his way.

**********

Author's Notes:

Well then... one more chapter to go and we're done.  The final battle has
begun now, and beneath the earth, down where the light can't reach, down
where stone flows like water, they shall find themselves confronting not
only the ancient darkness that has moved against the world, but also the
darkness within themselves...

Goodbye,

-Alan Harnum, January 3rd, 1998