The Soul In Sleep

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

**********

-Sleep to Wake-

     "Thank you," he whispered softly, leaning down, his hands on her
shoulders.  He kissed her lightly on the forehead, a chaste kiss as if
between siblings.  The ringing began to buzz along the edge of her head,
creeping in and knocking at the inside of her skull.

     He straightened back up and turned from her, and took the hand of the
other girl in his.  The ringing was louder now.

     "Thank you," the girl said to her, smiling with eyes without a smile
in them.

     They turned and began to walk away, and for a split moment she turned
away from them as well, her attention drawn now to something else, but
there was nothing there, and when she turned back they were gone.

     "Wait!" she cried, looking around for them everywhere.  The floor flat
grey rock, the ceiling flat black starless sky, the horizon stretching on
without end, all grey-rock floor and black-sky ceiling.  The ringing was
through every part of her body now, and her body sang in tune.

     "Please!"

     Ringing, so much ringing, as if she were a human tuning fork.

     "Don't leave me!  Don't leave me alone!"

     But no answer but the ringing, no voice but hers amidst the flat
desolation of the landscape.

     Ringing.

     Ringing...

     Ringing?

     Ukyou Kuonji blinked her eyes and looked around her bedroom.  The
sky through her window was grey, the sunlight barely visible through the
clouds that covered the source.  Her alarm buzzed in the background; it
was time to get up.

     She reached over to the bedside table and turned it off.  Pulling off
the covers and stretching her arms over her head with a yawn, she got out
of bed and headed over to the lightswitch, replacing the dim grey
illumination from the window with the glaring of the overhead light.

     From there she went to the closet and selected her outfit for the day.
Black tights, undershirt, wraparound.  A year ago, she would have started
by binding her breasts, but those days were gone.  The bindings had been
the easiest thing to give up; they had hurt more and more as she grew
older.

     Harder to give up had been other things, things you could not take off
as easily.  Living as a man for ten years had given her a certain mindset,
and even now she saw problems sometimes with the way she dressed, the way
she acted, the way she talked.  She'd given up the way of life she'd
thought she would live permanently after Ranma left, resolving to live her
life as the woman she'd been born as.

     Had it been for anything?

     It had been for him.  And now he was lost to her.  Her only reason for
behaving as a woman had been him.  What reason had she to be a woman now?

     Ukyou tossed her clothes on her bed and sat down in her desk chair,
taking a deep breath and counting to ten.  The reason she had to be a woman
was that she was one; she could not live as a man because it was not what
she was.

     It was Sunday.  This was supposed to be a day to rest.  However, today
was the day she worked the most, opening the restaurant for breakfast,
closing it after dinner, and then doing any schoolwork she had to finish
up.  It was early, earlier than she needed to be up to get the restaurant
open in time, but she liked to have a little time to relax in the morning
before the work began.

     Right now, she didn't feel relaxed at all.  It had been a little over
a week since she'd returned from the island where they'd journeyed to foil
the plot of a man who sought to gain the power of a god, and the memories
of that night had been jumbled then and were jumbled now.  But clear,
shining clear amongst all that darkness, was the words Ranma and Akane had
finally spoken.

     She still wasn't quite sure why she'd held Ranma back, as he was
preparing to work with Hikaru Gosunkugi to destroy the spire, and end the
awakening of the thing beneath the ocean.  She couldn't explain to herself
what had made her stop him, and force him and Akane to finally confront
their feelings for each other.

     Perhaps it was because more than anything else, she wanted him to be
happy, and she'd known that if they hadn't survived, if Gosunkugi had not
somehow drawn upon himself to save them all, that he would have never
forgiven himself for not telling her.  He had such strong feelings for
people, Ranma did, but at the same time he was so hesitant to show them.
That was perhaps one of the reasons she'd hung on to hope as long as she
had; perhaps the friendship they'd had was a cover for something more.

     Now, though, she realized that she was probably the only one he'd ever
been truly honest with.  He'd never wanted to be anything more than her
friend, a close friend, but nothing more.  He'd ran from Kodachi and
Shampoo, and he'd fought with Akane, but to her he'd come the closest to
showing his true feelings.  She just hadn't realized it.

     Ukyou sighed and stood up, running her fingers through her long hair.
She hated feeling like this, but she just couldn't shake it.  Every night,
the same kind of dream, Ranma and Akane leaving her behind, leaving her
alone, just like Ranma and his father had left her alone over ten years
ago.

     Every night except the ones when she drank.  The sake, for all the
headaches and nausea it brought in the mornings, gave her at least one
night of dreamless, undisturbed sleep.

     And an entire day of feeling like hell.  She hadn't had any since the
night they'd returned, but there were times when she was so desperate to
sleep without dreaming that she'd nearly turned to it.

     But each time, the words Shigeki Kiyokuro had spoken to her had come
back.  "...you can choose to regret the past and reject the future, if you
wish.  It is your choice..."

     The closest she'd come had been last night.  Ranma and Akane had come
over around dinner, and she'd made them okonomiyaki and chatted with them
while she worked, playing the role of host to the hilt, and trying not to
see while seeing how they acted with each other.

     It was when they were still there around closing time that she'd begun
to realize she probably wasn't going to be able to skirt them this time.
She'd avoided being around them too much in school since they returned, but
there didn't seem to be any way out of it now.

     So she'd made one, to her shame once she realized exactly why she'd
done it.  "So, when's the wedding going to be?" she'd asked as the last
customer was leaving, just as Ranma was about to open his mouth to talk to
her.

     "Ucchan, you've... huh?" he'd said, his mouth hanging open.

     "What do you mean, Ukyou?" Akane had said, looking away and blushing
furiously.

     "Well, you two have admitted you love each other now, haven't you?"
she'd said, gradually realizing how tight and strained her voice was
becoming as she spoke.  "And you are engaged, after all."

     Ranma had blushed even worse than Akane.  "Hey, just because our
parents stuck us together..." he'd began.

     It had only gotten worse from there.  When Akane walked out after
slapping Ranma, tears in her eyes, and Ranma had given an apologetic look
to Ukyou and ran after her, she locked the door and sat down behind the
counter, resting her back against it, and cried for nearly half an hour.
Cried because it had been her fault, with her stupid comment about the
wedding, cried because of the look of guilt on Ranma's face, some for her,
but mostly for hurting Akane.

     Cried because it had made her feel so good to see them acting like the
old Ranma and Akane again, fighting, behaving as if the last thing in the
world they wanted to do was marry each other.  Cried because she felt the
stirrings again, the part of her that still insisted she had some kind of
chance, that all hope wasn't lost yet.

     And when she'd run out of tears, she'd got up and pulled out a bottle
from the case under the counter, and sat down at one of the tables with a
cup.

     She'd sat there for a long moment, bottle open, vaguely smelling the
scent of the rice wine drifting into the air, and then she'd picked it up
and got ready to pour.

     Then her eye had caught the door, and it was that night again, and he
was standing in the open door of her restaurant, gaunt and tall, long
fingers of one hand gripping the doorframe as he looked back, the
streetlights outside lighting him from the back.  There had been nothing
that had stuck in her mind more than those eyes, though, perched above that
narrow, long nose.  For a moment in them she'd seen a reflection of her
pain and more, a look of loss and sorrow that no one should have been able
to bear, but that he bore all the same.  His eyes had been far older than
the rest of him for only a few moments, and then the look was gone.

     And then he'd said those words, in his neutral, unremarkable voice, of
his.  "...you can choose to regret the past and reject the future, if you
wish.  It is your choice..."

     Right before he'd walked off into the night, and left her alone.

     And then the vision was gone, and it was over a week later, and the
door was closed and she was alone.  But the words still lingered.  She'd
left the bottle open on the table, stood up and went to bed sober.  Perhaps
this time the dreams wouldn't come.

     They had, of course.

     They always did.

     She walked out of her bedroom into the small bathroom, in search of a
hot shower.  Unlike so many other things in her life, she found it.

**********

     Batter sizzled on the grill, the few customers sniffing the air
eagerly as Ukyou cooked the first okonomiyaki of the day.  To appreciative
rounds of applause she tossed and juggled the food about, flipping it onto
plates across the room quickly and easily as if she were turning the page
of a book.

     "Two specials."

     Flip.  Flip.

     "One pork."

     Flip.

     Despite the ease with which she handled the cooking, her thoughts were
still in turmoil.  The shower had removed some of the tension in her body,
but the memories of the dream was still with her.

     Still, at least the cooking helped her relax.  It was the one thing
she had always had that couldn't be taken away from her by anyone.  From
the time she'd been able to handle a spatula and a griddle, she'd been
cooking okonomiyaki.  No matter what happened, she would always have
okonomiyaki.

     Flip.  Flip.

     Splat.

     The third okonomiyaki hit the ceiling.  Damn, her balance was off
today.

     "Don't mind that, sugar," she said to the customer it had been
intended for.  "I'll have your new one in a jiffy."

     There was scattered laughter in the room as she pulled her big spatula
off the wall and scraped the ruined okonomiyaki off the ceiling, dropping
it into the garbage bin with a plop.  Her casualness to her customers
belied her real feelings; she'd never screwed up that badly with her
cooking before.  At least it hadn't landed in anyone's face.  She was a
real mess today, no matter how much she tried to hide it.

     More customers entered, and she absorbed herself in her cooking for
the next two hours, until that low point between breakfast and lunch when
the stream of customers diminished.

     The lunch crowds would begin to pick up in another hour or so, mostly
families or teenagers out in groups together.  Until then, though, the
business would be at a rather more sedate pace, and she'd have a little
more time to herself.

     Right now, that was the last thing she wanted.  Ukyou sighed softly
and continued cooking, trying to take her mind off anything having to do
with Ranma.  It didn't work in the slightest.

     She thought of all the times he'd come in, sitting and eating
okonomiyaki after okonomiyaki, talking with her.  It was funny now, but
looking back she realized how many of those times had been after he'd had a
fight with Akane, or his father, or something else had happened to him.
She'd always tried to cheer him up, even if she wasn't feeling too happy
herself.  She'd often thought of the visits as courtship; now, she saw that
they he'd only seen them as something between friends, nothing more.

     It was a silly thing to get so depressed over, she told herself again
and again.  It wasn't as if she didn't have her whole life ahead of her;
she was young, she ran her own business, and there was no reason she
couldn't find someone else.

     But just because you told yourself you could fly over and over again
didn't mean you could.

     She poured more batter, spread on the sauce, put on the toppings,
again and again, as the customer level steadily fell to the lowest point,
and then began to rise again.  Each time she even thought of anything
beyond cooking, she pushed it back down with a vengeance.

     At the peak of the lunch crowd was the best time; then, she was too
busy to think.  As she dished out another half-dozen okonomiyaki to various
points in the room, the door opened.  Ukyou had her back turned then, and
when she looked back it was a familiar but unexpected face that stepped
through the door.

     "Good day to you, Ukyou Kuonji," Tatewaki Kuno said as he approached
the counter.  

     "Hey Kuno," Ukyou said, suprised to see the former upperclassman.  "I
thought you were off at college."

     "I am still at attendance at the august place," Kuno said as he took
his seat.  "But I had matters of business to attend to in the city this
day."

     "Don't think I've ever seen you in here before," Ukyou said.  "Didn't
seem to be your kind of place."

     "Ahh, but I am appreciative of all the culinary delights the world has
to offer, no matter how unrefined they be," Kuno said grandiosely.  Ukyou
gave him a flat, annoyed look.

     "There is nothing unrefined about okonomiyaki," she snapped at him
harshly.

     "I meant no insult," Kuno said, blinking confusedly.  "I am sure it is
a fine establishment you run."

     "Sorry, Kuno," Ukyou said.  She hadn't meant to sound so nasty; he
probably hadn't meant anything by it.  It was hard to understand what he
was saying a lot of the time, given the antiquated way he talked.  "What
can I get you?"

     "Whatever is good," Kuno said.

     "It's all good," Ukyou said.

     "Supriseth me then, fair chef," Kuno said.  "I am sure I shall enjoy
whatever it is you prepare."

     Ukyou suprised herself by smiling slightly.  She'd never liked him
much, but it was good to see a familiar face that didn't belong to Ranma or
Akane.  She began to cook up one of her specials.

     "So, what made you decide to come here?" Ukyou said to Kuno as she
worked.

     "Nabiki Tendo has spoken highly of your establishment in the past,"
Kuno said.  "And I find myself in need of a quick lunch before I hurry to
catch my train.  I would have eaten with my sister, but she had..."

     He paused for a moment, then spoke the words as if they were broken
glass he had to spit out.  "A date."

     "With who?" Ukyou said, turning her head so Kuno couldn't see the
smile.

     "Hikaru Gosunkugi, of all people," Kuno said.  "Of all those
undeserving of her, he must be among the foremost."

     "He's not too bad a guy," Ukyou said, turning and looking at Kuno.
"And if she's happy..."

     "I suppose you are right," Kuno said with a sigh.  "It is good to see
her happy again..."

     "Huh?" Ukyou said.

     "Nothing," Kuno replied dismissively.  Not wanting to pry, Ukyou
changed the subject.

     "So how are things at college, anyway?" she asked.

     "They are fortuitous, I suppose," Kuno said.  "It is far larger than
Furinkan.  I am not even sure if the entire student body is as aware of my
glory as they should be."

     "I'm sure they know all they need to know about you," Ukyou said,
putting the okonomiyaki down in front of him.  He passed over a handful of
yen and took a small bite.  His eyes widened.

     "Truly a heavenly creation," he said.  "Thou art most skilled in thy
art."

     "Flattery will get you nowhere," Ukyou said.  "Excuse me, Kuno.  More
customers."

     When she got back, Kuno was just finishing off the last bite.  He
looked up and gave her a small smile.  It looked somewhat out of place on
him, but pleasant all the same.

     "A delicious meal," he said.  "I see now why Nabiki Tendo recommended
this.  I am sure I shall return to your establishment."

     "Thanks," Ukyou said.  Suprisingly enough, she was feeling a little
better than earlier.  "So how's Nabiki doing, anyway?"

     "She is well, I believe," Kuno said.  "We are both fairly busy
preparing for our winter exams."

     "Yeah, I gotta start thinking about those as well," Ukyou said with a
small shake of her head.  Kuno stood up from the counter and gave her a
small bow.

     "Farewell, Ukyou Kuonji.  I would stay and converse with thee longer,
but I must catch my train."

     "Take care, Kuno," Ukyou said, turning back to the counter as soon as
she saw him step out the door.  It was funny; he seemed a lot more calm
than usual.  College had probably been good for him, because it let him get
away from his obsession with Akane, and Ranma's female body.  Maybe that
was what she needed, to get away for a while, have a chance to be by
herself and think things over.

     She shook her head.  It wasn't like she could afford it anyway, either
the time to get away or the money.  She had to save every bit she could for
her future.  Idly, she wondered for a moment what it might be like to be
like the Kuno's, and not have to worry about money.

     She pushed it down quickly; she couldn't spend her time daydreaming.
She had to focus on reality, right now and in the future.

**********

     Dinnertime brought still more crowds, still more cooking, but
thankfully little thoughts.  As the day had gone on, she'd begun to feel
better and better, and the dreams of the night before had begun to fade in
her memory.

     But they came rushing back when Ranma came into the shop, his face
serious, not followed this time by Akane.  It was nearly closing time, and
he didn't take his seat at the counter, but at an empty booth.  Ukyou
grimaced behind the counter and stepped out to the booth.

     "Hi Ranchan," she said with false cheer.

     "Ucchan," he said, the nickname having none of the friendly air to it
that it usually carried.  "We have to talk.  Just you and me."

     "O... okay..." she said.  "Can I get you..."

     "No."

     Ukyou bustled away.  There were only a few minutes to her scheduled
closing time anyway.  She headed to the front and brought her sign in, then
flipped the card on the door to closed.  Heading back behind the counter,
she watched Ranma nervously as the last of the customers finished up.  He
sat perfectly still, his hands steepled in front of him, staring intently
at the empty seat across from him.  Occasionally he leaned his head down
and rested it in his hands, closing his eyes and appearing deep in thought.

     When the last of the customers had left, Ukyou locked the door and
walked over to the booth, resting one hand on the table as she bent down
slightly and looked at Ranma.

     "You sure you don't want something?" she asked.  "You look as if
you..."

     "I'm fine, Ucchan," Ranma said wearily.  "Sit down.  Please."

     She sat down, twining her hands nervously in front of her.  She knew
what was coming, had known it for a long time, but it didn't make her feel
any better knowing it.

     "What is it?" she asked quietly.

     "I thought I wouldn't have to do this," Ranma said, looking away from
her.  "Ya know, I thought for a while you might want to handle it by
yourself.  But that wasn't fair of me, Ucchan.  I'm sorry."

     Ukyou didn't say anything.  Ranma continued, turning back to look
straight at her.  "I... I never wanted things to happen like this, Ucchan.
What pop did to you and your father just wasn't fair, but there's nothing I
can do to change his actions."

     "I know," Ukyou said, barely more than a whisper.  "I don't blame you
for it, Ranchan."

     "You... you know what I'm getting at, don't you?" Ranma said
hesitantly.

     "Yeah," Ukyou said.  "I guess I've always known, in a way.  Even if I
couldn't admit it to myself."

     "I'm sorry that I never got things clear with you sooner... with
everyone.  Then maybe things wouldn't have got into the mess they did,"
Ranma said.  "Things are starting to get better now, at least.  But I gotta
say it, Ukyou.  I think we both need to hear me say it."

     "Yeah," Ukyou said.  She closed her eyes and bowed her head.

     I will not cry, she thought to herself.  I'll be strong.

     "I love Akane, Ucchan.  I want to marry her."

     I will not cry, she thought again.

     "I'm sorry."

     I will not cry, she repeated.  It did no good.

     She cried, and then he was beside her, his arms wrapped around her,
speaking softly over and over again.  "I'm sorry."

     She sobbed against him, and his strong hands massaged her back and
shoulders gently as he held her.  Finally, she pulled away from him and
wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

     "That felt good," she said, a slight catch in her voice.  "I've had
that inside for a long time."

     "Yeah," Ranma said, hesitantly putting his hand on her shoulder.
"I... I guess it all kinda builds up over time when you don't let it out,
huh?"

     "Have... have you told her?  Really told her that you love her?" Ukyou
said, resting her head against the back of the seat and sniffling.

     "Yeah... a few hours after you finally made us face it," Ranma said.
"I... I know how hard that musta been for you.  Thanks."

     "You're welcome," Ukyou said.  "Have you told her the other part?"

     "Whatcha mean?" Ranma said, and for a moment he was the same clueless
Ranma he always was, and she saw in him none of the seriousness he'd had
before.

     "Have you told her you want to marry her, stupid?" Ukyou said.

     "Well, we're engaged, right?" Ranma said, blinking.

     "And you've spent the past year and a half complaining about it,"
Ukyou said.  "You think she doesn't need to hear from you that you want to
marry her?"

     "I never really thought about it," Ranma replied sheepishly.  "But...
yeah, maybe you're right."

     "Of course I'm right," Ukyou said.  Ranma smiled and looked at her.

     "I came here to try to help you, and you end up giving me advice," he
said.  "Somehow, it doesn't feel right."

     "It's alright," Ukyou said soothingly.  "I... I need some time to get
over this, but I'm gonna be okay.  Don't worry, I'm a tough girl."

     "Yeah... I'm sure you're gonna make somebody really happy someday,"
Ranma said.  "Akane's probably gettin' worried about me.  I gotta go."

     He slid out of the booth, Ukyou quickly following him.  They stood in
the restaurant, facing each other, both seeming unsure of what to do.

     "Well," Ranma said.  "Thank you.  For understanding."

     "Yeah," Ukyou said.

     "If there's anything..."

     "Same goes for you, hon.  I'm your best friend, right?" she said,
smiling.

     "You are," Ranma said.  He hugged her tightly, and she hugged him
back.  "Remember, I'll be here for you.  Akane too, if you need anybody."

     "I know, Ranchan.  I know."

     He left then, walking out of the door and into the darkening night.
Leaving her alone.

     She stared at the door for a moment, as if it might bring him back,
and change the hand she'd been dealt.

     Then she sat down at the booth again, and put her head down on the
table, feeling the cool of the wood against her cheek, the trickle of her
tears begin anew.  Again, she was alone.  Always alone.

     "In the end, everyone leaves you behind," she whispered.  "They go on
to brighter things, and leave you behind in the dark."

**********

     Upon the table of the booth, the sake bottle was tipped over on one
side, only a tiny bit of the former contents remaining in the bottom.  The
cup sat beside it, empty as well.  The restaurant was in darkness, the
tables unwiped, the grill uncleaned in preparation for the next morning.

     Upstairs, Ukyou Kuonji tossed and turned in her bed, occasionally
crying out.  Her long hair was matted against her pillow, her face
tearstained even in sleep.

     This night, the sake had not helped.

     The dreams had come anyway.

**********

-Eyes I Dare Not Meet-

     She ran after them, seeing them just starting over the rise of the
next hill, but by the time she reached the spot they'd been they were
nowhere in sight.

     "Wait!" she shouted.  "Please, wait for me!  Don't leave me behind."

     But there was no response, and the hills that had been green and
decked with flowers before were now barren mounds of rock, and overhead the
colorful birds had become black circling silent ravens.  She ran and ran,
calling again and again, until she finally fell and could not run anymore,
feeling the roughness of the stony ground against her face.  She felt the
ground shake under her, and heard the first sound she had not made herself
in what seemed like hours, as a crevice split beneath her and swallowed her
up.

     Screaming, she fell in slow motion, tumbling down as if she were
without weight.  Falling down into the darkness, with no way to stop her
fall, and no one to help her.

     A hand wrapped around her wrist and caught her unexpectedly.

     "Hold on," a voice familiar but different said.  "I've got you."

     The darkness faded from her vision as she felt the gentle tug of being
pulled up, faded into pure white light that enveloped her vision and spread
throughout her entire body in an instant.

     Ukyou Kuonji awoke, blinking her eyes at the bright sunlight that
filtered in through the window and played across the room.  The bed she lay
in was unfamiliar, too large, too soft.  Someone was holding her hand in
both of theirs.  They were large hands, slim-fingered, gentle.  A voice
spoke softly to her.

     "Hello?" she said questioningly, trying to sit up but finding herself
too tired.

     "You're awake!" the voice said joyfully.  There was the sound of a
chair shifting, as if someone had shoved it back to get out of it, and then
Ranma's face was looking down at her.

     "Ranchan?" she said, confused and somewhat dizzy.

     "Who?" Ranma said, one eyebrow quirking in an expression of confusion.
The dizziness began to fade, and she could see that it wasn't Ranma.  The
facial features were similiar, and the eyes were the same shade of dark
grey, storm clouds, but the face was more slender, finer-boned, and the
hair was a dark shade of brown, not black, falling over one shoulder in a
long ponytail as the young man bent over her.

     "Who are you?  What am I doing here?" Ukyou said, yanking her hand out
from his and scrambling to a sitting position.

     "Ukyou..." he said, reaching out and touching her on the shoulder.
Her hand came up and slapped him in the face, hard.  She immediately
regretted the action when she saw the hurt in his eyes.

     "I'm sorry," she said, beginning to get a little scared.  "But what's
going on?"

     "You... you mean you don't remember me?" he said, touching his fingers
to the red mark on his face.  "I'm Kensaku."

     She gave him a blank look.

     "Your husband?" he prompted, his face beginning to reflect the utter
bewilderment Ukyou currently possesed.  "Don't... don't you remember me at
all?"

     "You... you look like Ranma," Ukyou said.  "But... where am I?"

     "Ranma?" Kensaku said.  "Who's Ranma?"

     "My fiancee, of course."

     "What... what are you talking about.  You've been married to me for
three months now... you can't mean that..."

     Ukyou held up a hand weakly.  "I think we both need to straighten some
things out.  Who do you think I am?"

     "You... you're Ukyou.  My wife.  The woman I love," Kensaku said, the
words coming out slowly from him.

     "Uh-huh," Ukyou said.  "And where are we?"

     "In our house, of course," Kensaku said.

     "Where's that?"

     "In the Valley."

     "What country?"

     "Country?"

     "Is there only the Valley?"

     "For you and I, there need be nothing else," Kensaku said.  "Are...
are you saying you don't remember me?"

     "No," Ukyou said.  "Not at all."

     "Who... who do you think you are?" Kensaku said nervously.

     "My name is Ukyou Kuonji," she said slowly.  That was her name, wasn't
it?  "I'm seventeen years old.  I live in Japan.  I'm not married; I don't
even have a fiancee, not anymore."

     "What is Japan?" Kensaku said, appearing utterly confused.

     "It's where I live," Ukyou said.

     "You live here, in the Valley, with me," Kensaku said insistently.
"If this is a joke, it isn't funny, Ukyou."

     "I... I'm sorry, Kensaku," Ukyou said, bowing her head.  "But I don't
know you at all.  I don't know what this Valley is, I don't know what's
going on."

     "Maybe... maybe you're sick," Kensaku said.  "I wish there were some
way to fetch a doctor..."

     "Isn't there?" Ukyou said.

     "The closest one is beyond the mountains," Kensaku said.  "And it's
too dangerous right now.  Try... try to sleep some more.  Perhaps you'll
remember more when you awake again."

     The words made so much sense; Ukyou laid her head back on the pillow,
and gradually drifted deeper and deeper into sleep.

**********

     She awoke to the smell of herb tea, and the realization that she did
not know who she was.  And then that second part was gone, and she was
Ukyou Kuonji, smelling only herb tea in a room of fading twilight, and
sitting in a chair beside her bed was a handsome man who she did not
recognize for a moment, and then she knew his name was Kensaku, and he was
her husband, but he was not her husband.

     "Do you want some tea?" he said kindly, smiling a bit hesitantly at
her.

     "Yes, thank you," she said.  She propped herself up on the pillows and
accepted the steaming cup he handed her with both hands, suprised at how
right it felt when his fingers brushed hers lightly as he took them off the
cup.  The tea was sweet and flavourful, and seemed to warm her body, which
she had not realized had been so chilled.

     "Do you... do you remember anything?" Kensaku said, his eyes downcast.
He nervously folded his hands in his lap and stared intently at her for a
moment, then looked away.

     "I remember being Ukyou Kuonji," she said, putting down the teacup.
"But I don't remember anything else."

     More awake now than before, she had a chance to study Kensaku in
greater detail.  He did look very much like Ranma, although his build was
more slender, not as muscular, and taller.  He wore a green shirt of rough
material, and dark, billowy pants.

     "What... what was it like being Ukyou Kuonji?" Kensaku said.  "Maybe
you've just lost some recent memories..."

     "It's a long story," Ukyou said, sipping her tea.  Kensaku gazed
intently into her eyes, his eyes blue as cloudless sky.

     "I have time to hear it," Kensaku said.  "Anything that will help you
remember who you really are."

     "If who I really am is who you think I am," Ukyou said.  "I remember
who I really am, Kensaku.  I'm Ukyou Kuonji.  I don't know you and I'm not
married to you.  Hell, maybe this is just another dream; I've been having a
lot of those lately."

     Kensaku reached out and touched the back of her hand.  His fingers
were warm against her chilly skin.  "Does it feel like a dream?"

     "No... I guess it doesn't..." Ukyou said, recoiling slightly back from
his touch.  He looked deeply hurt, and she immediately felt guilty again.

     "I'm sorry," she said.  "You seem like a nice guy, Kensaku, but this
is just too weird.  I went to bed, had an awful dream, and woke up here."

     "I'm sorry as well," Kensaku said.  "I'm being too familiar with you;
I forget that you don't know me.  But I know you'll remember me.  You have
to remember me."

     "So," Ukyou said, leaning forward slightly.  "You want to hear about
Ukyou Kuonji?"

**********

     The light of the lamp cast itself about the room, and the few shadows
seemed to hide from it in the corners.  Kensaku leaned back in the chair
and studied her intently as she finished.

     "Incredible," he said.  "And you remember all of this life as if it
were clear as day, and yet you know nothing of me?"

     Ukyou yawned; she still felt drained, exhausted, even more so after
telling him so much.  "Yeah... But as it is, I'm here, not in Japan."

     She sighed and put her face in her hands.  "I... I don't even know
what's right.  I believe I'm Ukyou Kuonji, but everything else seems to say
I'm just Ukyou, your wife."

     "You're not just Ukyou," Kensaku said.  "Don't think it's something to
be ashamed of.  You remind me so much of her; the way you talk, the way you
look at the world.  It's as if you're the same person, only with entirely
different pasts."

     "Well, what's her past?" Ukyou said.  "What's your Ukyou's past?"

     "I'll tell you in the morning," Kensaku said.  "Right now, I think we
both need sleep.  I... I know we can find a solution to this, Ukyou.
There's just something we're not looking at in the right way."

     As soon as he talked of sleep, Ukyou realized how tired she actually
was.  She lay down, her last vision Kensaku's eyes, somewhere between blue
and grey, between clear sky and storm sky.

**********

     She awoke to a strange thought:  <This is Kensaku and I's room.>

     Then it was gone, and she had no thoughts at all for a moment, lying
panicked, unsure of identity, of what she was.  Was she Ukyou Kuonji,
okonomiyaki chef, or was she Ukyou, Kensaku's wife?

     Then she knew that she was Ukyou Kuonji.  She was fairly sure she was
Ukyou Kuonji.

     No; she was Ukyou Kuonji.  Shaking off the desire to remain in bed,
she slid her legs out first and touched them to the wooden floor, then rose
up fully out of bed.

     The room was large, but sparsely decorated.  The majority of space was
occupied by the large bed she'd been laying in, a bed she now realized was
meant for two.  A wooden dresser, a small chair by the bed, a bedside
table.  Beyond that, there was only the closet doors built into one wall,
a closed door out of the room, and a small window.

     Gazing out the window, she saw green fields and rolling hills, and
beyond them a dense forest.  The sky was clear and blue, and the sun high
in the sky placed the time at late morning.

     There was nothing alien about the setting; it seemed a pleasant house
in the country.  But what country?  Kensaku had called this place the
Valley; he had not even seemed to understand the concept of country.  Where
was she?

     Ukyou sighed; she could worry about that later.  She was dressed in
the clothes she'd worn to bed in the restaurant, a shirt and her
underclothing, which she'd been sleeping in for more than day now.

     Well, if this was her room then it would surely have some clothes that
fit her, right?

     She was correct; the dresser and closet both seemed to have been
divided equally between the two people who lived in the room, Kensaku and
his wife.  Who apparently had been her.  As she'd expected, the clothing
fit perfectly; it was far more feminine than anything she'd ever owned, but
the green dress she put on was comfortable, loose without being billowy,
and from what she could see, attractive.

     She approached the door that led out into the hallway cautiously, not
knowing what would lie beyond.  Hopefully, there would be answers as to
just what she was doing here.

     The hallway was spacious as well, but like the room, seemed to be
lacking in the comforts of a well-established home.  It was clean and
bright, but there were no pictures on the walls, nothing to break the flat
bare expanses between doors.  There were two more doors up here, one to
other side of the room she'd just exited, and a flight of stairs led down
in front of her.

     She wondered for a moment where Kensaku was; she'd expected he'd be
beside her bed like the first two times she'd awoken here.  But there was
no sign of him, and no sounds from downstairs that might have indicated his
presence.

     She shrugged; perhaps it was better if she had a chance to look
around the house without him hanging over her shoulder.  He seemed as
genuinely bewildered about the situation as she was, but she wasn't going
to trust him easily; the whole situation was just too weird.  She tried too
think of her last memories before awakening here, but they seemed jumbled
in her mind.  They would be, given how much alchohol she'd consumed before
she went to bed.

     The door on the right led into a small, tidy bathroom, the floor tiled
in blue and green.  The small tub was flush against the wall, and a quick
check of the sink indicated that wherever this house was, it had modern
plumbing.  Relieved, she began to run water into the tub as she undressed.

     Later, relaxing in the gradually cooling water, she tried to make
as much sense as she could of what was going on.  She had gone to sleep in
one place, and woken up in another that she did not recognize.  Kensaku had
seemed to know her, but aside from his resemblance to Ranma, a resemblance
so close she'd mistaken him for Ranma when she first awoke, she did not
know him at all.  Yet he claimed to be her husband, even.

     She'd said herself that it might be a dream, but this didn't feel like
any of the dreams she'd been having.  It felt as real as any waking moment
she'd had before, and it had none of the nightmarish qualities that her
most recent dreams had possesed.

     And the bath felt too wonderful to be a dream; Kensaku's touch had
been too firm to be a dream.  No, if this was a dream, it was like no dream
she'd ever heard of.

     "Butterfly," something whispered.  "Butterfly."

     Ukyou bolted upright, covering herself with her arms and looking
around the room.  The voice had been soft, but clear.

     "Butterfly," something said again, but there was no one in the room
but her.

     No; there, upon the wall near the door.  A shadow that no object cast;
a shadow in the rough shape of a man.  She bit back the urge to scream; it
had done nothing hostile so far.

     "Who's there?" she said.  "Who are you?"

     "Butterfly..."

     The voice was so soft she could barely hear it now, and the shadow was
lightening, disappearing from view, and then it was gone.

     Shaking slightly, Ukyou rose up out of the bath and looked around the
room.  There was no one here but her.

     She wrapped a towel around herself, cinched it tightly behind her
back, and sat down on the stool in front of the sink, resting her elbows on
the edge and cupping her chin with one hand as she looked into the mirror.

     "Where am I?" she said quietly.  "What's going on?"

     The final question went unsaid except within her mind.

     Who am I?

**********

     The door on the left opened into a blank room.  There was no
lightswitch, or even a light on the ceiling.  In the light from the
hallway, she could see that the walls were bare and windowless, and there
was no furniture.  She looked around the empty room for a moment, as if she
might see something, but then she shrugged and closed the door.

     She felt clearer-headed now that she'd had a bath and a change of
clothes, but she was left with even more to ponder now.  An empty,
windowless room in an otherwise pleasant house, and a whispering shadow on
the walls.

     She headed down the stairs with a little trepidition, wondering if
something else might await her down there, but there was nothing beyond a
hallway leading off in three directions.  In the same direction she'd
walked down the stairs was a door that most likely led outside, and the
other two branched off towards other parts of the first floor.  She headed
down to the left, and found herself in a large room dominated by a huge
multi-paned window that took up most of the far wall.  The room was filled
with sunlight from the window, and several comfortable chairs were in a
circle around a large round table.

     Yet pleasant as the room was, it was strangely empty of anything
beyond the basics.  There were no magazines or books on the table, no
pictures on the walls.

     Ukyou walked over and sat down in one of the chairs, sinking
comfortably into it.  She faced the window and gazed out, looking at the
green grass, the gentle roll of hills, and the forest beyond.  It was a
lovely landscape, but it was unfamiliar as well.  Had she ever sat like
this before, in this chair, gazing out onto this scene?  She felt vague
stirrings, as if some distant memory were seeking to find its way out, but
nothing came to her.  She sat for a few minutes more, enjoying the view,
and then she rose up out of the chair and turned to leave the room.

     Kensaku was there in front of her, his grey eyes fixed at some point
out the window, not seeming to notice her.  She nearly bumped into him, he
was so close.

     "Oh!" she said, stepping back, suprised.  She hadn't even heard him
come in, and he'd done nothing to alert her of his presence.  He looked at
her, and smiled slightly.

     "You always used to sit like that," he said.  "Staring out the
window."

     "I did?" Ukyou said.  Kensaku stiffened for a moment, then nodded.

     "My wife did," he said.  "You did.  Do you remember anything?"

     "I remember lots of things," Ukyou said.  "But nothing about here."

     Kensaku sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened
them again there was pain amidst the sky blue of their gaze.  "Nothing."

     "Some... vague feelings, perhaps.  This house seems familiar, but
nothing else," Ukyou responded tenatively.  "You said you'd tell me about
your Ukyou today?"

     Kensaku nodded.  "Perhaps that would help you remember.  Why don't we
get some lunch, and I'll tell you."

     "Alright," Ukyou said.  "Where's your kitchen?"

     "This way," he said, turning and starting to go.

     "Uh... Kensaku?" she said.  She saw his shoulders stiffen for a
moment.

     "She always called me Ken," he said.  "She only called me Kensaku when
she was angry with me."

     "Ken," Ukyou amended.  "Is there anyone near here?  Neighbours?"

     "Only you and I," Kensaku said, turning.  "Why?"

     She thought for a moment of the shadow on the wall of the bathroom.
"Just asking."

     Kensaku nodded, and then he turned, and led the way down the hallway
towards the kitchen.  After a moment, Ukyou followed him.

**********

     She bit into the sandwich, chewed, tasting the fresh tomato, the
chicken, the sweet spiciness of the mustard.  It was delicious, surely not
the stuff of a dream.

     "We always ate under here," Kensaku said across from her, taking a
bite of his own sandwich.  "We'd pack up the picnic basket like this, and
come out here together."

     "You sound as if you were very happy together," Ukyou said softly.
Kensaku nodded, his gaze looking beyond her.  They were sitting atop one of
the gentle hills some distance from the house, under a tall tree.  About
the same distance as the house, in the opposite direction, the first trees
of the dense forest began.

     "We were," Kensaku said.  He smiled without humour.  "I wish I could
stop speaking in the past tense... I'm sure that somewhere within you lie
the memories."

     "And if they don't?" Ukyou said.  "What if I'm someone entirely
different from her?  What if right now, she's in an unfamiliar place, in a
country called Japan, not knowing what's going on?"

     Kensaku shuddered slightly.  "I don't even want to think of that.
But..."

     He trailed off, looking away.

     "Ken..." Ukyou said gently.  "I still have no idea what's going on,
but if you tell me about the past here, it may help somehow."

     "Would it be so bad?" he said suddenly, as if she hadn't spoken.
"Would you be so unhappy here?  Is it so bad?"

     Ukyou gazed around at the beauty of the setting, at the forest, the
hills, the pleasant house off in the distance.

     The pleasant house with empty rooms, and talking shadows on the walls,
and a strange feeling of emptiness.

     "It's... different.  Are there no neighbours at all?" Ukyou said.
"You mentioned beyond the mountains, but what about beyond the forest?"

     A strange look crossed Kensaku's face.  "You must not go into the
forest.  There are... animals there."

     "It's beautiful," Ukyou said.  "But it's so strange.  The two of you
live here all on your own?"

     "We have each other," Kensaku said guardedly.  "We need no one else.
The garden provides us food."

     "Where did the chicken come from?" Ukyou said.

     "Coop at the back," Kensaku said.

     "Never noticed that myself," Ukyou said.

     "It's right there," Kensaku said, pointing back towards the house.

     And it was; it had always been there.  She could hear the clucking of
the chickens within it, even from here.

     "We have everything we need here," Kensaku said.  "What need is there
to go beyond the mountains?"

     Ukyou looked at him; his speech had grown less and less assured, more
frantic, as she'd spoken.  She began to carefully frame the next question
within her mind, but then something caught her eye.

     Dancing on the trunk of the tree, a shadow with no source, a shadow in
the shape of a man.

     "Butterfly..." it whispered.  She saw Kensaku's eyes go wide.  "he...
dreamed... that he was a butterfly..."

     "Ukyou," Kensaku said, rising up from the ground, fury she'd never
thought she would see on his face, so much like Ranma's.  "Get back towards
the house."

     "No, Ken," Ukyou said, standing up.  The taste of the sandwich was dry
and papery now.

     As if from nowhere, Kensaku produced a knife.  Ukyou's eyes ran over
it, studying each and every detail.  Long, curved blade.  An ivory handle,
and glimpses of leaves and flowers upon it.  He shoved Ukyou behind him
roughly, and stood and faced the shadow upon the tree.

     "There is no one here but her and I!" he cried.  "Get you gone from
here!"

     "...awoke... not... butterfly... or... man..." the shadow whispered,
and even as Kensaku rushed forward and stabbed the tanto blade into the
tree where it had been, it was gone.  He turned and looked at her, and his
eyes were grey, grey as storm, grey as Ranma's when he was a man, and then
they were blue, blue as the sea, blue as Ranma's when he was a woman, and
then they black, black as void, black like no eyes she'd ever seen.

     "It's okay," he said.  "It's gone now.  Just you and I, Ukyou.  We can
be together here forever."

     She looked at the blade of the knife in his hand, and saw that it
dripped with blood, and behind him the tree was twisted and bleeding.  His
speech was dry and whispery now, and his eyes were shifting between those
three hues, grey and blue and black.

     "No," Ukyou said.  "No more tricks.  No more lies.  Only the truth."

     The last word echoed from her like a command, and around her and
Kensaku the ground began to peel back, green and pleasant land becoming
cracked grey stone, flowers wilted and dying upon it.

     And there were no more lies, no more illusions.  Kensaku stood before
her as he truly was, and there was only the truth.

     "Pretty thing," Kensaku said, licking withered tongue across withered
lips as he looked at her with dark eyes made huge within the shrivelled
face.  "Pretty thing, I missed you so."

     The gaki stood before her, body shrivelled and withered, white hair
blowing, teeth made monstrous by lack of flesh, canines sharp and yellow.
His voice was a loud whisper, the scuttling of animals through dry leaves,
the shifting of old bones in a forgotten tomb.

     Looking at him, looking at the thing that had worn a guise that it had
called Kensaku, the night came back to her again, those last horrible
moments, helpess, utterly helpless as it held the knife to her throat and
taunted Ranma and the others.  The scent of blood overlaying eternal age
that had clogged her nostrils and mouth, the dry-whisper voice.

     "We killed you," she whispered.  "Ranma killed you.  We watched you
turn to dust when Mousse poured Cologne's potion on you."

     "You killed my body on that world," the gaki said.  "I shall never
again know the glory of the hunt, of the flesh, of the blood.  You cannot
know how long I drifted through these dream worlds, hungry beyond hunger
yet unable to fill myself..."

     It laughed, a dry paper rattle.  "Until I saw your dreams, saw your
need, and found I had a way to feed again."

     "This is my dream," Ukyou said.  "I want to wake up."

     She concentrated.  Nothing happened.

     "Silly girl," the gaki said, waving a bony finger in grotesque parody
of admonishment.  "This isn't just your dream anymore.  It's mine as well.
We'll have so much fun together, pretty thing.  Forever and ever."

     "I'll wake up," Ukyou said.  "I'll wake up and everything will be
fine."

     "A man slept, and dreamed he was a butterfly," the gaki said.  "And
when he awoke, he was not sure if he was a man who had dreamt he was a
butterfly, or a butterfly who dreamt he was a man."

     The words the shadow had spoken.  Butterfly.

     "If a dream is more real than reality," the gaki said.  "Is not the
dream reality, and reality the dream?"

     "I'll wake up," Ukyou said, realizing how much like a petulant child
she was sounding.  "Eventually, I'll wake up."

     "Time within a dream moves as the dreamers wish," the gaki said.  "The
blink of an eye has passed in your world while you spent two days here.  We
have all the time in this world, pretty thing."

     She seemed to find the ability to move then, but she did not move to
fight, but to run, run towards the green woods, still beautiful amongst the
barren rock.

     Behind her, the gaki did not move to follow, but laughed again.
"You'll be back, pretty thing.  You shall not like what is within the
forest."

     But she continued to run, and as the trees loomed up ahead, she heard
the gaki's voice rising in a sing-song chant.

     "Pretty thing, I like you so, I'll never ever let you go..."

**********

-Within the Mind's Eye-

     The trees loomed up around her, and she wove her way through them,
running as quickly as she could, not knowing which way she was going, her
only thought to flee, flee from the thing that had bound itself to her
dream.  Wind seemed to fly past her in a keening whistle, and she heard
occasionally snatched voices that she could not identify.  Her fear was
all-encompassing; the pleasant land had become nightmare in an instant.

     It had all begun to fall into place there, under the tree.  Too many
questions without answers, a house with running water and electricity in
the middle of nowhere, in a beautiful valley, with only her and a man who
claimed to be her husband.  Shadows on the walls, rooms strangely empty,
the emptiness and loneliness and beauty of a dream brought to life.

     But whose dream was it? Was it her dream, or the gaki's?  Some
weakness had allowed him to find his way into her dream, and make it his.

     Ranma.  She'd thought he was Ranma when she'd first awoke in this
dream-world.  Still, after all this, she could not let him go.  It was
through Ranma's image and memory he had come.

     She could run no more; she sagged to the ground, amongst the trees,
and the wind still whistled about her.

     She looked around, and saw that the trees were not trees, but statues
of trees, carved perfectly of green crystal.  The keening wind blew through
the delicately shaped leaves, and where it whistled through the crystal
trees, she heard the voices now.

     "Thank you," Ranma's voice, Akane's voice.  "Thank you."

     Mocking now, sarcastic, taunting.  "Thank you."

     Ecstatic, joyful, sorrowful, hateful.  "Thank you."

     "Thank you."

     "SHUT UP!" she screamed, lashing out at the nearest tree, not caring
that it was with her bare hands.  It shattered, shards slicing into her
hands, and more voices roses as the sound of the shattering echoed and
reverberated amongst the other trees.

     "I love Akane."

     Honest, sincere, apologetic.

     "I love Akane."

     Cruelly, brutally.

     "I don't love you."

     He'd never said it, not in those words.  But it was his voice, his
voice dancing amongst the leaves of branches of the crystal trees, in this
nightmare singing forest.  "I don't love you.  No one loves you."

     "GO AWAY!"

     Another tree shattered, more cuts onto uncaring hands, weeping,
seeking a way out, finding none.

     "I love you, Ukyou."

     Konatsu's voice.  A few days after the failed wedding.

     "He... he wanted to marry her.  He loves her."

     His voice, exactly as it had been that night.  Soft spoken,
submissive, but with strength behind it.  "Why can't you let him go?  I...
I'm here for you.  I want to help you."

     "I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!"

     Her voice.  Harsh, shrieking.  Had she truly sounded like that?

     "YOU ARE NOT A MAN!  DOES A MAN DRESS LIKE THAT?"

     "Please, no," she whispered.  "I don't want to remember this."

     "I... I'm sorry, Ukyou.  You're right.  I am not worthy of you, or of
anyone, until I can be a man.  I'll go."

     "FINE!  GO!"

     The voices whirled about her, repeating the short dialogue over and
over again.  "Please... Konatsu, don't go," she heard herself whisper.
"Don't leave me alone."

     And the voices stopped.  She felt a hand on her shoulder, recoiled for
a moment thinking that the gaki had followed her in here, but then felt the
touch was warm and soft.  She turned her head to look.

     "Hello, Ukyou," Konatsu said, smiling at her.  "Don't worry.  I won't
leave, now that you don't want me to."

     He looked different; his face seemed less soft, less feminine.  She
realized it was because he wore no makeup.  His hair was still long, but
tied at the back, not in the high ponytail he'd had before.  

     "Konatsu," Ukyou said.  "Is that you?"

     "Uh-huh," Konatsu said.  "I heard you calling from far away, but I
could hardly ever get strong enough to come out of the forest."

     "That was you, wasn't it?" Ukyou said slowly.  "The shadow on the
walls."

     "Yeah," Konatsu said.  "I tried to warn you, but it was so hard.  That
thing is in control of most of this dream, now.  As soon as he posseses it
fully, you won't be safe anymore."

     "How are you here?" Ukyou asked.  "How do you know these things?"

     "This isn't my dream at all.  It's yours and his, Kosaku Akamizu's.
I'm like an observer; I can see what's going on, but it's very hard for me
to interfere.  I can barely leave this forest," Konatsu said.

     "What... what are we going to do?" Ukyou asked.

     "We can't do anything," Konatsu said, smiling wanly.  "You can.  You
have to go face him."

     "How... I don't have any weapons, nothing.  He's so strong," Ukyou
said.

     "It's your dream," Konatsu said.  "He's made it his as well, but now
that you know this world is a dream..."

     Ukyou smiled slightly and concentrated.  Her spatula formed in her
hands from nothing, and the green dress which had become little more than
rags disappeared, flowing into her usual outfit, bandoliers filled with
miniature spatulas crossing over her chest.  The cuts she'd gotten in
destroying the crystal trees vanished.

     "Thank you, Konatsu," she said.  "Are you... alright, in the waking
world?"

     Konatsu nodded.  "I'm doing okay.  I'm in a town in Hokkaido right
now, working in a restaurant as a waiter.  I've done a lot of travelling
these past few months."

     "I'm sorry I said what I did, made you leave like that," Ukyou said.
"It was awful."

     "Maybe it was what I needed," Konatsu said.  "You were truly the first
person who'd ever been kind to me, Ukyou, and that was why I loved you so
much.  I wanted to stay with you forever, so I wouldn't have to worry about
myself.  I wanted you to take care of me, because I didn't know how to take
care of myself.  Now, I've learned how.  I'm not quite sure I'm a man yet,
but I'm trying my hardest."

     "I'm sure you're doing fine," Ukyou said.  She sighed and looked
around at the now silent forest.  "I guess I have to go fight him now.  You
can't leave the forest, can you?"

     "No," Konatsu said.  "I'm sorry.  I wish I could help you fight him,
but..."

     "Perhaps it's better this way," Ukyou said.  "This isn't just about
that monster.  He never would have been able to do this if I hadn't clung
to Ranchan like this.  I think I've let him go in life; maybe now I have to
do it in my dreams, and I have to do it alone."

     "Alright," Konatsu said.  "Good luck, Ukyou."

     He held out his hand tenatively; Ukyou took it and gripped it tightly
for a moment, before she turned to go.  Konatsu faded into the shadows
behind one tree, and watched her walk away until he could not see her any
longer.

     "Please come back safe," he murmured softly to himself.

**********

     She strode from the forest in minutes, though she seemed to have spent
hours running through it earlier.  As she passed the edge, she could see
that the tall sharp mountains were still in the distance, foreboding and
desolate, but everything else had changed.

     The landscape was flat and barren, cracked and rocky ground only, with
no plants to break the grey monotony.  The house was still there, but it
was no longer pleasant.  It leaned and canted to one side, paint peeling,
and the gate was made of bones.

     But of Kosaku Akamizu the gaki, there was no sign.

     "COME ON!" Ukyou shouted, raising her spatula overhead.  "It's time to
end this, monster!"

     The gaki faded into view from nothingness a few feet in front of her,
grinning and brandishing his tanto blade.  "Are you sure, pretty thing?  We
could have so much fun together in this dream world... I can look like
this..."

     And he was Ranma.  "Ucchan," he said, his eyes grey then blue then
black.  "I love you."

     On the handle of the spatula, her knuckles were white.

     "Or perhaps this."

     And he was Konatsu, a Konatsu who had left all the trappings of
femininity behind, and she realized perhaps for the first time how truly
handsome he was.  "Ukyou..." he said softly.  

     "Konatsu... Ranchan..." Ukyou whispered.  The thing that wore
Konatsu's form grinned, and its eyes were black and blue and grey.

     "Come, pretty thing," false-Konatsu said.  "Let us be together
forever."

     And then Ukyou sprang forward, and her spatula sliced through the air
where the gaki's neck had been.  She whirled and brought it up, deflecting
the blade with the shaft of her weapon.

     "We could have had such a wonderful time in this dream world..." the
gaki said, wearing no masks now, the wrinkled skin stretching over the
framework of the bones below, eyes burning darkly within hollow sockets.
"I suppose I shall have to find other dreams to walk within, after I devour
this one."

     Weapon parried weapon, as the two danced around the rocky arena,
repeating the dance of months before, upon a barren plain with no
spectators but the harsh sun overhead and the distant mountains.  The tanto
slashed her shoulder; she responded by giving the gaki a shallow but wide
cut across the chest, and grey dust poured from the wound.

     It seemed as if they dueled for hours, and around them the valley
shifted and wavered as one of them gained the upper hand and then lost it.
When Ukyou was winning, flowers pushed from cracks between the rock, and
the light was bright around them.  When Kosaku drove her back, the flowers
withered and died, and all around was deep shadows.

     Back and forth, and back and forth again.  The sun did not move in the
sky; time stood still as they fought, stood still for them and the world.

     Ukyou stumbled back, growing tired, while the gaki seemed to have
limitless reserves of energy.  It all came down to this one second, as the
gaki darted forward, knife raised for her throat, and she brought up her
spatula as quickly as she could.

     And then it was over, and the blade of the spatula was buried in the
gaki's chest, buried so deeply it had nearly cut him in half.  The tanto
dropped from his hand, clattered on the rocky ground.

     "Damn..." the gaki said, grey dust pouring from his lips.  "Damndamn
damndamndamn."

     Ukyou wrenched the spatula out, and the gaki dropped to his knees,
laying bony hands and arms over the gaping bloodless wound, as if he could
contain the tide of grey dust that spilled forth in an endless stream, like
the sands of a smashed hourglass.

     "Pretty thing..." the gaki laughed.  "We could have had such fun...
such fun..."

     She swept her weapon through the air, and then the head was upon the
ground, but it was still speaking.

     "You'll wish..." the head said, jaw moving weakly as grey dust pooled
around the neck.  "You'll wish you'd stayed... I've walked in dreams...
I've seen what's coming... he's coming... cities burning with fire...
the bodies piled atop each other like fruit at the market..."

     The next swing sliced the head neatly in half down the centre, and the
gaki finally shut up.

     Ukyou sat down on the ground, and watched the grey dust pour from the
body, until there was nothing left but grey dust, and then nothing at all.

     After a while, she realized she was not alone.

     "Come on," Konatsu said, smiling at her.  "It's time to cross the
mountains."

     She looked around; the landscape was still flat and barren, but in
places patches of greenery had begun to break through again, and the entire
setting was no longer desolate so much as peaceful.  The forest was gone
now, the house as well.  Only the mountains remained, sharp-peaked and far
in the distance.

     "They're so far away," she said.  "And so high."

     "The closer you get to them, the easier they become to climb,"
Konatsu said.  "We can go together, now."

     And so they did, walking together through the peaceful stillness of
the land.  As they walked, they talked.  Konatsu told her of his journey,
how he had sought to find himself.  In turn, she told him of what had gone
on in his absence, of how she and the others had hunted down the creature
that had stalked the streets months ago, the creature that had returned
within her dreams.  She told him of Shigeki Kiyokuro, of Richard Stalford,
of forgotten islands and ancient things.

     And, most importantly, she told him about Ranma and Akane.

     "I think... I think I'm able to let him go now," she said, as the
mountains loomed ahead.  They did not seem as foreboding now, or as high
and dangerous.  From here, she could see what looked like trails running
through them, and she knew now that there had been many others who had
crossed these mountains before.

     "That's good," Konatsu said.  "Does that mean..."

     "I don't know what it means now," Ukyou said, shaking her head.  "I
really don't."

     "Oh," Konatsu said dejectedly, looking away.

     "But don't give up yet," Ukyou said.  "You're always welcome to drop
by."

     "Thank you," Konatsu said.  "Perhaps... one day, when I'm ready."

     "It might be good to have you around again," Ukyou said.  "And not
just because I'd like to see you again in the waking world."

     She looked back across the flat grey plain.  Somewhere far back was
where the gaki had died, but before he died he had spoken the words that
lingered with her still.  "I think there's something coming, Konatsu.
Something bad.  And we're gonna need all the help we can get."

     "I understand," Konatsu said with a nod.  "We're here now."

     They were near the rocky base of one of the mountains now.  Up close,
the slope was gentle, and a wide trail ran up the side in a curve.  Two
tall pillars of ivory were at the beginning of the trail, smooth and white
against the grey.

     "Let's go," Ukyou said.  "Together."

     And together, the two of them stepped between the pillars, and began
to walk up the first mountain of many.

     The world seemed less distinct now, the mountains the soft grey of
clouds instead of the harsh grey of rock.  Each step seemed to be through
gradually thickening air, and she could feel herself growing tired, but how
could you grow tired within a dream?

     And then she was sinking, sinking deeper and deeper with each step
into the cloudy grey of the mountain, but it wasn't frightening at all,
only warm and pleasant.  She closed her eyes, and let herself sink
completely.

     Ukyou Kuonji blinked her eyes and looked around.  She was in her
bedroom, her familiar bedroom in her restaurant.

     The sun was shining through the window.  It was morning, early
morning.  The dream was over, and it was time to wake up.

     She got out of bed, stretched, and went off to face the day.

                                 THE END